Response to Glider and Juha.

[Juha]

Hello
A clarification, I read again the info on the IAP losses, it seems that it might well be that 29 GIAP lost 4 Yak-9Ds in aerial combats plus one more was shot down by a “friendly” La-5. The text is not altogether clear on 29 GIAP but it is more likely that this is the right interpretation.

Juha

[Arsenal VG-33]

Originally Posted by glider1

Vulnerability to light AA weapons isn't known, but we do know that the 20mm would penetrate all areas of both aircraft with the exception of a high deflection hit on certain parts of the IL 2. I have admitted that the IL would probably be able to take more hits than the Typhoon but would be more likely to be hit.

It's known for the Il-2 at least. It's unprotected against 20 mm shells but once hitten they do not destoy it the same way as the Typhoon. The armored box aborbing shock, even itself being destroyed, the "post shell crossing destructions" are lighter. First the shell itself is suffering too, often up to destruction for explosive ones, and even the issued speed after the shock on armour is to low to inflict (but not always) at engine and other vital parts of the plane damages that lead it to destruction.
Of course armor percing shells are more dangerous under the armor, but not on the wooden structure of the plane, only making holes without significant issue. In a working monocoque structure, that is a kind of "geodetic one" in better, there is no place bearing more efforts than an other. At the opposite, a hit on the dural frames, spars and other struts of the Typhoon's fuselage, are considerably weeknessing the structure.

Are you saying that you believe that on average the IL2 would take less hits than a Typhoon?

I know that an early Il-2 can withstand mid-statistically 7-9 20 mm hits before being shooted down (800 Kg armor) , much more (maybe ~ 11-13) for the later ones, (up to 1100Kg) and doubled commands.

[glider1]

VG
Thanks for this, its what I expected.

[Arsenal VG-33]

Originally Posted by Six Nifty .50s

German ground attack pilots were able to speak with some authority about this and some did not agree with your opinions about Russian air force tactics. .

German ground attack pilots should rather speak with some autorithy about their own mission.
So browsing a book written by "mister kit", edition atlas, about FW-190 Jabos, we can read there were using close to soviet combat techniques. Flying low at 400 km/h once the target seen, they were making a chandelle or a combat turn, then attacking by shallow dive at 25-30°.

The same as for Il-2, except that it's speed was about 330-360 km/h. No much difference for the AAA.

Don't have much time to describe numerous Il-2 missions profiles, but they have obviously nothing common with Stein's doubtfull beliefs.


I mean just one soviet Il-2 pilot , manual, mission profile, mission briefing, mission debrieffing, post-op. camera pictures are dozen times more informative than dozens and dozens of Steins.

We are in 2011 now. There are some books written obout the subject, for instance Yefim Gordon's (Midland Publishing) one. Some Emelianenko memors (Svastika in the Gunsight) and maybe more i don't know.

Numerous stories and conversations sometimes translated in english related in magazines (at least in europe) and in the net.


For instance browse http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/pilots/pilots.htm there are Il-2 pilots inside, airforce ru and others.

regards

[Six Nifty .50s]

Originally Posted by Arsenal VG-33

German ground attack pilots should rather speak with some autorithy about their own mission.
So browsing a book written by "mister kit", edition atlas, about FW-190 Jabos, we can read there were using close to soviet combat techniques. Flying low at 400 km/h once the target seen, they were making a chandelle or a combat turn, then attacking by shallow dive at 25-30°.

The same as for Il-2, except that it's speed was about 330-360 km/h. No much difference for the AAA.

Don't have much time to describe numerous Il-2 missions profiles, but they have obviously nothing common with Stein's doubtfull beliefs.


I mean just one soviet Il-2 pilot , manual, mission profile, mission briefing, mission debrieffing, post-op. camera pictures are dozen times more informative than dozens and dozens of Steins.

Russian fighter pilots quickly adopted the Luftwaffe Finger-Four combat tactics so that does not surprise me.

Stein was not alone in his beliefs, but I don't think that any German pilot thought of himself as an expert about the entire catalogue of techniques tried by the VVS at various times and places. They could only form opinions based on personal experience and eyewitness accounts from their comrades.

Their own airfields were attacked by Russian aircraft and the victims described it as it happened. They were sometimes able to watch German ground troops while under attack by the Shturmoviks. If I were to read all operational histories of German flying units, I would surely find varied opinions about the Russian air force. But there was a consensus among the pilots of both SG 1 and SG 2 that Russian fighter pilots were not very aggressive and usually did not attack the Focke-Wulf fighter-bombers when they had opportunity to do so.

[Juha]

Hello Nifty
thanks for the quotes from Hurricane and P-47 books.

On Soviet pilots, Finnish fighter pilots tended to rate at least Soviet fighter pilots higher than the pilots of SG 1 and 2, especially after late 43 when the average shooting skills of Soviet pilots improved significantly. Before that their accuracy wasn’t on average very high and they tended to open fire from too far away and tended to fire too long bursts and so tended to waste their ammo.

Juha

[Arsenal VG-33]

Hello Juha

Hello VG

Greetings from Russia, I spent a long weekend around Jänisjärvi NW of St Petersburg.

A nice place, i bet. I hope you have enjoyed your WE!

The Il-2 loss rate I gave was from Gordon’s and Komissarov’s Il-2 and Il-10 book.

They should be more carefull the next time they will “copy & paste” russian sources.

The IAP losses are from Keskinen’s and Stenman’s Suomen Ilmavoimat VI 1944 and their sources are documents from Russian military archives.

I have baught this book some years ago. The chap. V about winter war is from Keskinen and Stenman works.
http://www.aerostories.org/~aerobiblio/article17.html
The I-16 losses inside are not often corresponding to real ones in russian archives, provided later by Oleg Solonin and other russian authors. AFAIK, the “community” is unfortunatly (for us, as for Keskinen and Stenman) frequenting russian archives, vey small and nobody saw them there.

All i can see, they were just making some “arrangements” ( -you call it that way if your’e kind, or “falsifications” if you’re rigourous) with some fragmentary historical facts they had.


Might be, copying some reliable and recent russan publication they could be right this time about your example just by accident, but they are not still not relevant to me.

Whatever Juha, even if you have provided some erronated data, i’m sure that they were taken from your best available sources, and so your “fault” being completly involuntary is fully “excusable”!

Regards

VG

[Juha]

Hello VG
Yes I enjoyed my WE, even if small roads in Russian countryside are hard to lower back and to bullocks without saying anything on the suffering of vehicles.

I‘m not sure what you meant, if you meant that nobody have seen Keskinen and Stenman at the Central Military Archives in Podolsk, that would not be surprising because they have got their info on Soviet side via Geust, Bykov, Dikov, Kiselev and Mikhailov.

Juha

[Juha]

Hello
II./Schl.G 1 summary of ops – 1942 from Pegg’s Hs 129 book
at that time the Hs 129s of the Gruppe seldom carried the 30mm cannon and vast majority of Hs 129 ops were bombing and strafing attacks, ie same type of ops as were those flown by unit’s Hs 123s and Bf 109Es

Hs 129 3.138 sorties
Hs 123 1,532 sorties
Bf 109 1.938 sorties

Bombs dropped 1,386,5 tonnes

Casualties:
Hs 129 20
Hs 123 5
Bf 109 16

Soviet a/c destroyed:
52 shot down
55 destr. on ground

Tank claims and M/T destroyed:
91 tanks
1,081 light M/T
273 other vehicles

Not so big difference in loss rates between Hs 129 and Bf 109E and the loss rate of Hs 123 was only about the ½ of that of Hs 129. No wonder that in 1943 von Richthofen wanted the Hs 123 production restarted.

Juha

[Kurfürst]

Originally Posted by glider1

I happen to think that any airforce would have difficulty knocking down the Wesel bridges for the reasons stated earlier mainly their construction.

And why is that? The problem with the 2nd TAF's fighter bombers were three-fold:

1, Complete lack of armor protection making their operations highly risky
2, Lack of accurate delivery of ordonance to target
3, Lack of the ability to carry suitable ordonance

None of these above problems exists in the case of dive bombing, armored Stukas dropping 1800 kg bombs, for example. FBs could fire up trucks and other soft targets on the roads, but there was a clear gap in ability in the West between shooting up things that couldn't shoot back, and and smashing big targets like marshalling yards and railroad junctions.

It was a very unlucky Typhoon pilot who was lost to an LMG, he was a difficult target and well proctected, the Vengence was vulnerable, big, low and slow.

The Typhoon, Spitfire, or for that matter the P-51, P-47, P-38, Bf 109, Fw 190A (note that the ground attack 190F series were properly armored) can be considered completely unprotected for even small calibre ground fire, let it be infantry SMGs, rifles or MGs.

All the protection afforded was limited to a relatively thin plate behind the pilot's back and head, and an armored glass in front of cocpit. The engine, fuel tank, radiators, the pilot - in short, all vital components - were completely vulnerable to ground fire of any caliber, as there was no armor protection from hits from below, or the sides, and in most of these components, behind. The British had a practice of fitting rather thin plates in front of cannon ammo bays,, but only from the front, and these were hardly good for anything else but fragments and non-AP rounds; their protective cover was also extremely limited.

I did not find a complete armor diagram for the Typhoon, but from British tactical trials of the Tempest, but it is said to be the same as the Tempest - which was again marginally armored, typical for a WW2 fighter:

http://www.hawkertempest.se/TacticalTrials.htm


Armour

Of a similar design and installation as on the Typhoon aircraft, with the exception that the head-piece is a trifle larger in size.
Thickness of headpiece - 9 mm.
Thickness of back pieces 6 mm.
All fuel tanks are self-sealing. Bullit-proof windscreen is of "Dry-cell" type. Front side of outer gun ammunition tanks have a piece of 1/8" armour plate.

The problem for both the Ju87 and the Vengeance is that slow speed makes you a very easy target.

If you mean from interception, it's true - but it's also true for bomb-laden Typhons or any other fighter bombers, they are easy targets for opposing fighters, being both slow and unmanouverable and if they drop their bombs to engage, its a mission kill.

Secondly, there's a reason why ground attack aircraft are slow. Effective, accurate shooting is helped if the weapons platform is stable, and well controllable during the firing pass. Low attacking speed is also a requirement as otherwise the pilot simply does not have sufficient time for aiming and also, to observe his enviroment. This means that it has to have great slow speed control characteristics and stability - which for example both the Stuka and the Stumovik had - and this generally requires generous wing area, which in turn will invariably reduce speed. This is the exactly at opposite requirement as with fighters - the Typhoon was meant to be an interceptor after all - which require high speed above all else. As a consequence, their low speed handling will suffer.

We have discussed in some detail the difference between the well armoured but easier to hit IL 2 and the less well armoured but harder to hit Typhoon and as you know my opinion is that they would balance out.

But, appearantly every air force in the world in convinced that speed does not make up for the lack of armor - a few hits will be always scored. The Soviets had their Sturmoviks, the Germans choose to up armor their Stukas, Hs 129s and Fw 190s for ground attack task, and the trend is still present today - see the massively armored A-10 and Su 25, not to mention armored attack helos.

The simple reason that using unarmored aircraft for lowly tasks like air support against ground units, is that there will be far too many enemy weapons capable of bringing them down. And as aircraft are expensive, both in material and training effort, whereas ground targets are generally cheap, the cost-benefit analysis will soon reveal that attacks against such targets is prohibitively expensive.