Soviet losses on 5 VII 1943

[Mirek Wawrzynski]

During the Kursk's battle Soviet had send big air formation to attack German airfileds on 5 VII 1943. This attack was smashed in air by LW fighters, which had claimed about 120 victories.

I wonder about exact LW and Soviet VVS losses on 5 VII 43 during these air battles?

Regards,
mw

[Evgeny Velichko]

You need to look at "Raskolotoye Nebo" by Oleg Rastrenin, there are actual losses of Il-2 units.

[Mirek Wawrzynski]

Thank you for your note, I wonder if this book is available on the web. In Russia there are many printed books of WW II. A very small part of them I have at home. Just I do not have this book, :-(
Regards,
mw

[Arsenal VG-33]

Originally Posted by Mirek Wawrzynski

Thank you for your note, I wonder if this book is available on the web. In Russia there are many printed books of WW II. A very small part of them I have at home. Just I do not have this book, :-(

Regards,
mw

An old version on 23 AG.ru about Il2

Somewere in the web you've got Khazanov and Gorbatch works; j'm sure but i don't remember the @.

In french http://www.aerostories.org/~aerobiblio/rubrique20.html in two volumes.


Regards

[John Beaman]

Originally Posted by Mirek Wawrzynski

During the Kursk's battle Soviet had send big air formation to attack German airfileds on 5 VII 1943. This attack was smashed in air by LW fighters, which had claimed about 120 victories.

I wonder about exact LW and Soviet VVS losses on 5 VII 43 during these air battles?

Regards,
mw

ROUGHLY, about 25 109s and about 8 190s seem directly lost and damaged in air combat in the area. These are approximate.

[robert]

Hi,

e.g. 163 IAP lost five Jak-9/Jak-7B in 40-minute air combat with Fw 190s.
347 IAP lost 4 four Jak-9 and one further damaged around 08.00 a.m. while attacking a group of He 111 and Ju 87. In a second mission the Regiment Commander was lost to Fw 190 fighters. And so on and on...

Robert

[yogybär]

Mirek, I wrote a small article on this long ago:
http://www.yogysoft.de/Belgorod.htm

There is also a link to a more detailed (german) article by a friend of mine.

[Jan Gazda]

Indeed, the Soviets took terrible beating on the first day of Zitadelle. The Soviet air raids against the German airfields in Kharkov area cost the Soviets at least 33 Il-2s and three fighters which is in accordance with some 40 claims from German fighters. Overall the fighting on the first day took incredible toll on Soviets with their losses amounting to some 250 aircraft. 2 VA lost 78 a/c (36 fighters, 27 Il-2s and 15 bombers), 16 VA lost 100 a/c (83 fighters, 16 Il-2s and one Boston) and 17 VA lost 70 Il-2s and some fighters. Apart from Rastrenin's book mentioned above some good detail can be found in Kursk: The Air Battle by Bergström and in Aviacia v Bitve nad Orlovsko-Kurskoj Dugoj by Khazanov and Gorbatch (also mentioned above and on-line can be found here : http://militera.lib.ru/h/hazanov_gorbach/index.html )

Jan

[kolya1]

Here is what I have (losses to all causes) :

- On the northern face :

Khazanov's work published (in French translation) in July 2008 in the "Batailles Aériennes" periodical shows 83 losses for 2 VA and 50 for 17 VA on the 05/07/1943.

Gorbach's 2007 book mentionned 76 losses for 17 VA (an extremely high loss rate for 446 day sorties, much higher than the loss rates of the other VA, or its own losses in the following days).

The Luftwaffe lost at least 31 airplanes destroyed and 8 more with more than 40% damage, 19 more were damaged.

- On the northern face, all sources agree in giving 98 losses for 16 VA

The Luftwaffe lost at least 24 airplanes destroyed, 2 damaged more than 40%, and 12 more damaged.

- Which gives us a total of at least 231 Soviet losses for at least 55-65 German ones (depending whether you include or not heavily damaged planes as "lost"). During the whole battle (up to 23/07 in the South, up to 11/07 in the North), the ratio of Soviet/German losses in airplanes should be around 2,5-3,5 to 1.


Note that the Soviet figures are global figures given by the authors, while German ones are an addition of individual losses by myself, therefore some German losses may be unnoted in my figures, and, as shown above, Russian sources don't all agree about 17 VA losses...

But I hope that may help you.

[Mirek Wawrzynski]

Great thanks for this information. Now is more clear, then was before!
One again, great thanks for all, :-)
mw