The Victories of Luftwaffe Experten (Ost) - New Considerations

[canonne]

So.... How long time (months ? hours ? ...) did last the training for a Russian fighter pilot ? Before and during WWII.
Phil.

[VtwinVince]

I'm sorry, it's pretty hard to take this thread seriously when the opening comments are completely idiotic. The Soviets were never 'lambs to the slaughter' or any such nonsense.

[NickM]

Originally Posted by VtwinVince

I'm sorry, it's pretty hard to take this thread seriously when the opening comments are completely idiotic. The Soviets were never 'lambs to the slaughter' or any such nonsense.

It might be an issue of 'florid prose'; the Soviet Airforce took a beating early on just due to the technical 'gap' and the lack of experience for lots of pilots. Later, when their tech and training time improved and surpassed the LW, there was still the issue of overcoming a sense of inferiority in the newer pilots at least until a bit later in the war. As for the 'Experten's' sense of superiority against the Soviet Airforce, I'm not sure that ever went away, until the Soviets were right on the border.


I remember reading that 'somewhere': was it Loza's books, the rereleased version of Red Phoenix, the Time/Life WW2 series or somewhere else I cannot say.

[Larry deZeng]

Since this thread does deal with VVS pilot training, here are a few sources and comments that might be useful. A tiny sample of the information found in the sources:

Elementary Flying Schools

Pilot cadets were required to have completed at least 9 years of formal education, be members of the Communist Party youth organization (Komsomol), and have completed 25 to 30 hours of Po-2 primary instruction at one of the many aero clubs. This latter requirement, however, was abolished in 1943. Elementary training lasted from 9 to 14 months, after which the graduates were send on to the fighter, bomber, and ground-attack schools. There were at least 114 elementary flying schools in operation during the wartime years, and possibly as many as 162.

Fighter Schools

Fighter pilots were trained at some 60 fighter schools, with the average course of instruction lasting between 12 and 14 months. The principal aircraft used by the schools were the Yak-1, Yak-7 and the Yak-7b.


The sources contain details on just about every one of the hundreds of elementary, fighter, bomber, ground-attack, reconnaissance and specialty flight and ground support schools in the VVS and VMF, their location, organization, number and types of aircraft, number of students and cadre/instructors, commanders, etc. The information was gathered from captured documents and thousands and thousands of interrogations of Soviet airmen taken at the front and at Abt. Ic/Genst.d.Lw. Auswertestelle Ost.

Sources:
(1) NARA WashDC: RG 242/T-321 roll 92, Folder OKL 130: “SU Fliegertruppe: Fliegerschulen, Ersatz- und Lehrverbände.” Dezember 1943. Fremde Luftwaffen Ost/Lw. Führungsstab Ic, in: T-321/roll 92 – frames 403-459.
(2) NARA WashDC: RG 242/T-321 roll 91 “Ausbildungswesen” (VVS), 2.44.
(3) NARA WashDC: RG 242/T-321 roll 91 “Ausbildung d.Jagdflieger" (VVS), Folder OKL 108, 10.44.
(4) NARA WashDC: RG 242/T-321 roll 95 Folder OKL 2340 "Ausbildungsanweisung d.Sowjet Jagfwaffe", 15.11.44.
Also see:
Timin, Mikhail. Air Battles Over the Baltic 1941: The Air War on 22 June 1941 – The Battle for Stalin’s Baltic Region. Warwick (U.K.): Helion & Co., Ltd., 2018. ISBN 978-1-911512-56-1. Hb. Dj. 400p. c.200 photos. 37p. Of color aircraft profiles (3 or 4 per page). 9 color maps. 12 tables. 4 appendices. Index. [This outstanding study has 50+ pages on Soviet fighter pilot training during 1940-41.]

L.

[canonne]

Excellent !!! Thank you very much indeed.

[Broncazonk]

The question at hand is, given the circumstances of the Eastern Front, why didn't the Luftwaffe produce Experten with incredible *and verifiably valid* victory totals?

And beyond the hurt feelings and the nationalistic pride, I think the question is a valid one. After all, E. R. Hooten, Generaloberst Erhard Rauss, and Phillips Payson O'Brien are not making those historical facts up.

To answer this question, I have re-read Helmut Lipfert's, "The War Diary of Hauptman Helmut Lipfert - JG 52 on the Eastern Front - 1943-1945," and while it provides much clarity, it raises more questions than it answers.

~ Part 1 ~

At 26, Helmut Lipfert entered combat fairly late, both in age and date, December 18, 1942. He ended the war with 687 combat missions and 203 victories. And most importantly, Lipfert is considered to be an honest claimer.

* The most relevant passage that bears on the central question appears on page 114-115 of his book. On May 29, 1944, Lipfert was flying his 496th combat mission with 117 confirmed victories and, [...] "We soon learned that there were Russians in this combat zone who could fly as well as we." He was engaged by four (4) aggressive Airacobras in a 4 vs. 2 dogfight that he couldn't handle. "...several Airacobras jumped us from above and gave us such a scare that it was not until the flight home that I really recovered my senses."

* On the third sortie of that day (498th combat mission) Lipfert writes, "But once again we didn't even reach the front. All I saw was Airacobras above. Once again they forced us to flee. [...] I was furious when I landed. ** Never before had the Russians simply not allowed me to get into attack position." **

* Lipfert was just shy of 500 combat missions on the Eastern Front before he finally encountered Russian pilots who would not let him motor up to 50-100 meters behind them and shoot them down.

On page 62, Lipfert writes, "The claim that the Russians were poor flyers is false. I can only repeat that the beginners among the German fighter pilots were just as awkward in the air as the Russian beginners."

The awkwardness of German beginners is amply demonstrated on page 11-12 of the book. Lipfert went to the Eastern Front as the leader of a detachment ferrying new Bf 109 G-2s to Russia. None of the new pilots had ever flown a 109 G-2 before. They took off on the last few days of November, 1942. "Already it was evident that our training as fighter pilots had been too short and that we were not qualified. As proof of this, only three (3) pilots from my detachment reached the front by the turn of the year 1943. Ten (10) further pilots reached their units by March 1943 after making emergency landings. Four (4) of those who took off never reached their destinations."

End Part 1.

Bronc

[Broncazonk]

~ Part II ~

Apparently, the Luftwaffe never developed navigational aids or instrumentation for use on the Russian Front. Over and over and over again, Lipfert writes that Russian railroad tracks were the only reliable navigational aids on their maps and if railroad tracks were not visible: they were mostly lost.

On his second combat mission, December 19, 1942, Lipfert's, Yellow 2, developed engine trouble and he made a wheels up, forced landing close to the railroad tracks he was following to get home.

On his 17th or 18th combat mission, Lipfert scored his first victory: a LaGG-5 ** who innocently flew up and tried to get into formation with him. **

On his 28th mission, Lipfert was flying with Oberleutnant Denk, (76-victories, Knight's Cross.) Denk is killed strafing a Russian airfield; Lipfert escapes by following railroad tracks to the southeast, but crashes into a house after running out of gas and not getting so much as a scratch.

Months later, (no date) Lipfert crashed a new Bf-109 when he forgot to lower his landing gear.

September 12th, 1943, Lipfert lands a piston-seized, burning Bf-109 at Poltava.

Between December 18, 1942 and September 10, 1943 his unit lost five (5) pilots who had between 30-76 victories. Only Denk's demise was a known cause.

Lipfert writes again and again about being lost in the air and landing at the wrong airfields in the September to October 1943 timeframe.

On page 61, Lipfert talks about trying to shoot down Russian weather reconnaissance aircraft (which he never did.) He would send his wingman up to circle and watch, the Russian would do the same, and then the two would go at it--in a duel. Never once was Lipfert successful, "Each man tried every conceivable trick to get the other in front of his guns, but always without success. Russians who allowed themselves to get involved in such experiments were experts and handled their machines magnificently."

End Part II

Bronc

[Broncazonk]

~ Summary of Part I and II ~

For the first 113-pages of the book, in every aerial combat that Lipfert describes, (sans the Russian weather reconnaissance aircraft,) with very few exceptions, once Lipfert got on the tail of a Russian aircraft, the other Russian aircraft in the formation fled the scene and disappeared. On the rare occasions where all the Russian aircraft did not flee the scene, Lipfert was able to shoot down a second aircraft.

Therefore, honest claiming Luftwaffe Experten would have found it very difficult to score 3, 4, 5, 6 victories against Russian beginners in a single mission. And Generaloberst Erhard Rauss was mostly correct. [The Russians] almost never did recover from the shock effect of the German fighters.

Once again, on May 29, 1944, Lipfert was flying his 496th combat mission with 117 confirmed victories before he learned that there were Russians in his combat zone who could fly as well as he could. On that day, he was engaged by four (4) aggressive Airacobras in a 4 vs. 2 dogfight that did not flee, that could fly well, and he could not handle. "Several Airacobras jumped us from above and gave us such a scare that it was not until the flight home that I really recovered my senses." On the third sortie of that day (498th combat mission) Lipfert writes, "But once again we didn't even reach the front. All I saw was Airacobras above. Once again they forced us to flee. [...] I was furious when I landed. Never before had the Russians simply not allowed me to get into attack position."

And, during all this time, if Lipfert wasn't flying directly over a set of railroad tracks, he was mostly lost. He had to be--and was--exceedingly careful in the air.

Also--and this is a key point--on almost every single mission there were only two (2) German aircraft in the engagement. There couldn't be a "turkey shoot" on any given day.

Furthermore, The Bf-109 G was not an ideal fighter aircraft, to say the least. Lipfert writes that they were hard to see out of, they didn't stay in the air for long and they were hard to take-off and difficult to land.

Bronc

[Broncazonk]

~ Part III ~

Second most relevant passage:

Page 113: "On May 24, 1944, I climbed into a Messerschmitt again for the first time since the Crimea tragedy. At first I was only allowed to make five practice flights. ** Four (4) days later an order reached the Gruppe, according to which a Staffel was to be detached to the Reich Defense. We knew all too well that it was a virtual death sentence for anyone who had to move to the Reich. But none of us thought of refusing. 6 Staffel had the most pilots and it seemed likely that it would be chosen for this reason alone. [4 Staffel gets chosen.] I must admit that the news took a load off my heart. Naturally I would have flown against the heavy bombers and Mustangs and would probably would have shot some down. But the outcome of this affair was predictable. Everyone who flew in the Reich was "burned" sooner or later. The same thing could happen any day against the Russians, but here there was a much better chance of getting home again in one piece."

At the time, on the Eastern Front, Russian fighter aircraft outnumbered Luftwaffe fighter aircraft by 8 to 1, at least, and the true number might have been 10 to 1.

Kommodore Kurt Buhligen's (JG 2, 112 victories all in the West, 24 heavy bombers) famous quote is very applicable here. "All the pilots who came to me from the Eastern Front fell on the Western Front."

Bronc

[Broncazonk]

I just finished reading Lipfert's book again.

~ Part IV ~

Important Takeaways

1) The poor (and shockingly unreliable) armament Bf/Me 109 G2-14 was a major factor in all of this. Lipfert thought firing at a Russian aircraft from 250 meters was something only a rank amateur would do. Meanwhile, the guns on the P-47 and P-51 were sighted in at 300-yards, no? At 200-meters, Lipfert thought the armament of his aircraft "was ineffective." Lipfert held his fire until his weapons were effective: 100-meters or less.

2) The 20mm cannon on his 109 was unreliable from his first mission to his last and so was the 30mm when he got one of those. And both his machines guns were less reliable than either cannon. ** He writes in amazement every time all his weapons were working at the same time. **

** Lipfert would have scored between 250-275 confirmed victories if his weapons had been reliable, and as late as March 17, 1945 he writes, "air combat with Il-2s and LaGG-5s, 1 Lagg damaged--only one machine gun would work."

3) Bf/Me 109 aircraft repaired in Russia, sometimes in the field, and often in depots were unreliable, dangerous and sometimes deathtraps. Once when returning from leave, Lipfert was given two (2) different 109s to fly back to his unit. Both nearly killed him and ended up taking a train and then a truck back to his base.

4) Every morning the ground crews and support staff would watch each Staffel take off with great interest. Apparently, there was a 'Dead Pool' on each of the pilots, the bet being who would die that morning trying to take off. Same thing with landings. Lipfert writes, "Our new airfield was called Belobek. [...] If I as an experienced flyer felt a certain trepidation before every landing, how must have the beginners among us have felt. Often we stood in front of the tent and watched the landings. About every third one resulted in a crash [...]

Lipfert writes about drawing straws with Barkhorn and five other Knight's Cross holders over who would take off first on a wet, soggy airfield. Lipfert loses the draw and crashes into a truck while trying to take off.

5) The Bf/Me 109 had nothing but a compass to navigate with and it was hard to see out of so dead reckoning navigation was difficult. While in Russia, as Lipfert tells it, he was lost, or mostly lost in the air *about every other mission.* On one mission he landed at two different airbases before he found his.

Once, when his Staffel was transferred to Poland to rest and refit, he wasn't given a map or even a compass heading to fly there. Instead, he was told, "just fly NNW and sooner or later you're bound to find Poland."

6) The red (low fuel warning) light was on A LOT. And when it went on, it was often at a really, really inconvenient time.

The Bf/Me 109 was definitely a major hindrance to a Luftwaffe victory in the East--and West.

Bronc