LaGG & Lavochkin Aces of World War 2

[Juha]

Hello, again we are drifting away from the heading of the thread, but.
I'm not a great fan of Christer's books but at least from them one learn what VVS was, what it had and what it did. And there is much info, much on the feelings of participiants and Christer and co tell the story well. Sometimes He and his Russian co-author IMHO exaggerate the results of Soviet actions but even then one at least got the info how the Soviets view the results of their operations. For example I rather strongly disagree with their claim on BCRS Vol 2 p. 106 that the anti-shipping attacks of the Baltic Fleet's Naval Air Arm VVS-KBF "were far more effective than the LW effort to neutralize the Soviet warships..." in 1942 but at least the authors tell us that VVS-KBF had active torpedo a/c regiment flying Il-4s at that time. I just read from Harold Thiele's Luftwaffe Aerial Torpedo Aircraft and Opereations in World War Two on p. 17 that it is belived that the Handley Page Hampdens flown to the Soviet airbase at Vaenga and later turned over to the Soviets formed the nucleus of a modern Soviet airborne torpedo force. The claim is false. The first mass produced torpedo-bomber in Soviet Union had been DB-3T (an earlier version of Il-4) and it had used to equip torpedo units in 1939 -40, IIRC. Soviet union was capable to form a torpedo aircraft arm in herself. So there is clearly still need for good books on Eastern Front air war like BCRS series and probably Thiele's book is also needed to increase our knowledge on the use of torpedoplanes in LW. I haven't read yet enough of it to form an oppinion on it on its main theme.