Luftwaffe reports on downed Lavochkins

[Franek Grabowski]

John
There was a question about difference between La-5FN and La-7 and I answered it as best as I could. This, together with details of Lend-Lease aircraft, is a widely available info, eg. in MBI monographs or Red Stars series.

Igor
There are reports noting either Me 109F or G, but otherwise your comment is spot on.

[Evgeny Velichko]

Differences:

LaGG-3 (german identificate this as LaGG-3 or just LaGG)


La-5 - La-5F (german identificate La-5 as LaGG-5 or LaGG-9)


La-5F - La-5FN (german identificate this as La-5)


La-5FN - La-7 (german identificate this as La-5 or very rare as La-7)


As You can see, there is lack of visual differences between La5FN and La-7, and it was very easy to misidentificate.

About colour marking of spinnercowl - AFAIK, there are following colours in Polk (equal german Gruppe) - as it was in 9 GvIAP:
1 Eskadrilya (Staffel) - red
2 Eskadrilya (Staffel) - blue
3 Eskadrilya (Staffel) - Yellow

At least red cowl markings of La-7 were used in following regiments:
2 GvIAP,9 GvIAP, 32 GvIAP, 41 GvIAP, 63 GvIAP, 111 GvIAP, 176 GvIAP.

A little OT: 2 Franek Grabowski:

...thus allowing pilot to concentrate on combat, Soviet aircraft still required a lot of manual adjusting. Eg. young pilots often set their radiators fully open just to avoid overheating...

You are NOT right. I can proove it, if You want.
According veterans memories, it was not serious problem to control manually all sistems in dogfight for them even when they were very young and unexpirienced pilots because it was so well trained IN EVERY pilot school, that in dogfight could swich all controls "automatically", without loosing concentration.

MAY be You are thinking that La-5 & La-7 was a "bad" fighter... But german pilots, who was shot down by La's, disagree with You And dont forget that top scored Allied ace was pilot of La-5, La-5FN and La-7 - I.N.Kogedub.

[Jens]

IIRC there were at least 40 changes between La-5FN and La-7. But i think it's right to say that in Germany this would be a letter behind the type designation.

Bad quality of parts shouldn't get to the assumption, the soviet planes hadn't good aerodynamics. In german reports about captived planes is stated, that british and soviet planes had in general worse quality in production, but this cannot be said about aerodynamic parts. Such differences were one of the reasons for the higher production figures of the allied industries. (Source: Budraß)

[Evgeny Velichko]

2 Jens: are You talking about captured La-5F, wich was tested by Germans?

In russian forum there was a thread about THIS La-5F... It was very long serviced aircraft, with 2 !!! belly landings... And damaged engine...

[kalender1973]

Originally Posted by Eugen Gross

At least red cowl markings of La-7 were used in following regiments:
2 GvIAP,9 GvIAP, 32 GvIAP, 41 GvIAP, 63 GvIAP, 111 GvIAP, 176 GvIAP.

According the veteran memo, in 41 GIAP only the 3rd squadron has a red cowl, the other squadron has another colour(Alekseev from 41 GIAP)

2Gabor. Unfortenately I has not any details about the planes of 17 Air Army.

[Franek Grabowski]

Evgeniy

Originally Posted by Eugen Gross

About colour marking of spinnercowl - AFAIK, there are following colours in Polk (equal german Gruppe) - as it was in 9 GvIAP:
1 Eskadrilya (Staffel) - red
2 Eskadrilya (Staffel) - blue
3 Eskadrilya (Staffel) - Yellow

You should note that there was no particular order of colours and this varied between units.

You are NOT right. I can proove it, if You want.
According veterans memories, it was not serious problem to control manually all sistems in dogfight for them even when they were very young and unexpirienced pilots because it was so well trained IN EVERY pilot school, that in dogfight could swich all controls "automatically", without loosing concentration.

But you just prove my point! It is evident from your post that the performance are strictly dependant on pilot's abilities.
Otherwise, according to the veterans they often preliminary set everything before entering the combat just to avoid distraction. As I understand, average flight time of a Soviet pilot was in the area of 200-300 hrs before entering the combat. I am wondering, that if Westerners trained pilots for about 600 hrs, and then still introduced automatic devices, does it not mean they were worth of it?

MAY be You are thinking that La-5 & La-7 was a "bad" fighter... But german pilots, who was shot down by La's, disagree with You

Following this logic, you will find a number of pilots convinced of I-15's superiority.

And dont forget that top scored Allied ace was pilot of La-5, La-5FN and La-7 - I.N.Kogedub.

And Rechkalov had 60+3 flying Airacobras. What is the conclusion? I do not mention the fact, that those victories cannot be compared to the ones of eg. Gabreski and Johnson due to different verification system.

In russian forum there was a thread about THIS La-5F... It was very long serviced aircraft, with 2 !!! belly landings... And damaged engine...

Actually I have seen various hypothesis but not the proof the aircraft was worn out or damaged. Most of the Russian researchers are confused with the case and one of the versions I have heard is that possibly Lerche did not adjust all the systems properly. An argument supporting the thesis was the fact, Soviet test pilots did similar mistakes.

Jens
When the report had been filed? I believe all the Allied reports post-1943 underline the fact of decreasing quality of the German production. Nonetheless it must be noted aerodynamics is just only one factor.