Better Soviet Air Force in WW2

[AdA]

Ok, but how many and under what conditions?
I was talking about the possibility of a large scale program, like the one for comonwelth pilots, that would expose the soviets to the general living conditions in the USA.
Anyway, if you can post a few references for training programs for soviet pilots in the USA, I will certainly look them up.
I'll have to admit that when I talked about the USA I wasn't thinking about Alaska, where the possibilities for "Capitalist living" in 1941 would probably be quite limited.

 

[steamboy]

Wasn't the Soviet's main problem basically a lack of training? They didn't get many air hours pre-war and those that did were pretty much killed off in 41. This meant there was next to no experience pools to help pass on what works and what does not work to replacement pilots. To fix this you'd need more training pre-war and somehow for the VVS to not get slaughtered in 41 in the opening weeks of Barbarossa.

 

[tomo pauk]

Yes, better training was recomended several times here. Soviets operational doctrine and training were also very problematic until too long.

Another suggestion: having the Soviet airfields defended by at least two batteries of AA guns (my 1st pick is the 37mm) each might be beneficial in 1941, with obvious knock-on effects. Make sure that gunners are well trained in recongintion of A/C types, and that are informed about the Soviet flights so the fratricide is as limited as possible.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

I thought that I had read in Air Forces of the World by William Green and John Fricker that the Soviet Air Forces had 8,800 aircraft on the Eastern Front at the beginning of 1944 against 2,000 first-line Luftwaffe aircraft, but skimming through it now I can't find it in the sections on the Soviet Union or West Germany.

However, it does say that in June 1941 the VVS alone possessed between 12,000 and 15,000 aircraft of which some 10,000 were deployed in airfields in Western Russia, but their quality was poor, a fact which, combined with the element of surprise, enabled the numerically inferior Lufwaffe forces to establish immediate air ascendancy. They also say that the Soviet Air Forces ended the war with a first-line strength of some 17,500 aircraft.

 

[James Ricker]

Soviets had a strategic bombing force, ADD, but it's results were mostly desultory. Strategic bombing was a luxury and since both UK and US had good strategic bombing forces already it did not make sense to invest much in it.

A few raids on Polosti and Eastern European rail hubs would have altered things on the stragic scale slowing down the Germans.
The luffwaffa would have to remove units from the front to defend Eastern European assets.Luffwaffa casualties would increase with a better Soviet air force the luffwaffa was hard pressed to keep up with pilot attrition, in the end they couldn't. The end will arrive earlier than in OTL.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

I thought that I had read in Air Forces of the World by William Green and John Fricker that the Soviet Air Forces had 8,800 aircraft on the Eastern Front at the beginning of 1944 against 2,000 first-line Luftwaffe aircraft, but skimming through it now I can't find it in the sections on the Soviet Union or West Germany.

However, it does say that in June 1941 the VVS alone possessed between 12,000 and 15,000 aircraft of which some 10,000 were deployed in airfields in Western Russia, but their quality was poor, a fact which, combined with the element of surprise, enabled the numerically inferior Lufwaffe forces to establish immediate air ascendancy. They also say that the Soviet Air Forces ended the war with a first-line strength of some 17,500 aircraft.

When improving the Axis air forces comes up as a topic, the gainsayers pipe in and say it's not possible due to lack of financial and material resources and even if they could they did not have the fuel for a larger air force.

Although the Russians had more natural resources than Germany improving the quality of their air forces while maintaining the quantity probably means less resources would have been available for industrialisation.

Therefore before 1941 should they have gone for a smaller, but higher quality air force? With a VVS possessing "only" between 6,000 and 7,500 aircraft, of which some 5,000 were deployed in airfields in Western Russia (but better quality aircraft flown by better trained aircrew with better trained ground crew to maintain them) they would still have numerical superiority over the Luftwaffe and its allies.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Did the USSR send an equivalent to the Condor Legion to Spain? If they did were the correct lessons learned? If they didn't would sending such a force ITTL have helped the Soviets in 1941 had they learned the correct lessons and applied them?

 

[DrakonFin]

The problem was the state of the Soviet electronics industry and that they were just starting radar research when invaded. They were behind the Japanese in radar research.

In 1937 the Great Purge led to the stopping of practically all Soviet radar development that had been done in Leningrad under the aegis of the Scientific Research Institute #9, led by Abram Ioffe. The purges stopped development here for a year, and many key people were imprisoned.

One Soviet radar pioneer affected was the Finnish-born Aksel Berg. In 1937 he was arrested for "espionage" and spent 900 days in prisons and prison camps before Stalin got interested in radar in 1940 and rehabilitated him, putting him in charge of radar development pretty much straight out of the gulag. Another example of early radar designers whose' work was stopped was Pavel Oshchepkov who also worked in Leningrad between 1933 and 1937 and was similarly imprisoned in 1937. Oshchepkov would be released only in 1946.

If we can avoid the disruption of the research organization's work and Berg's and Oshchepkov's imprisonment (among others) and instead have the Leningrad organization keep working with reasonable resources in 1937-40, that alone would probably mean that the USSR goes to WWII with significantly better radar systems than IOTL, making many OTL systems possible a full year earlier.

So, it is yet another case of Stalin imprisoning and purging some of the USSR's best and brightest before the war and thus sabotaging the nation's ability to repel the invader come 1941.

 

[AdA]

If we want to evaluate the training issue, we should compare the how the soviet units flying lend lease P40 did against how allied units flying P40 did.
If the soviets actually did better against the German units than the allied did against JG27, discounting the fact that eastern front JG were probably more concerned with the overal air battle than the score obsessed JG27, that would mean that soviet proficiency was on par with allied forces in North Africa in 1942, meaning that the main issue was not training but aircraft quality.
Even the best RAF fighter units couldn't face the LW in balanced terms from early 1941 to mid 1942 when the Spitfire MK IX become their main fighter, so the soviets might just have had to deal wirh the LW at a time it was having its most dominant season.
For a while, the Bf109F and the FW 190A were the best fighters in the world, and the VVS was fighting them either with P40s or P40 equivalents at best.
The only VVS fighter that could handle the Germans on near equal terms (and only at low altitudes) was the P39 and soviet P39 units did quite well.
If you follow F1, all the experts say Alonso still is one of the best drivers on the sport, but he can't win races without the best car. The VVS could be in an Alonso situation.

 

[KACKO]

Did the USSR send an equivalent to the Condor Legion to Spain? If they did were the correct lessons learned? If they didn't would sending such a force ITTL have helped the Soviets in 1941 had they learned the correct lessons and applied them?

Soviets had huge number of pilots in Spain as well as in China. Of course, volunteers only. However lessons were not implemented. Few of these guys actually reached pretty high positions and were later purged. Many survived.

 

[Pangur]

IF the USSR had made a point if buying were possible foreign aircraft in small numbers and both tested them and took them to pieces would that have helped any bit?

 

[KACKO]

A few raids on Polosti and Eastern European rail hubs would have altered things on the stragic scale slowing down the Germans.
The luffwaffa would have to remove units from the front to defend Eastern European assets.Luffwaffa casualties would increase with a better Soviet air force the luffwaffa was hard pressed to keep up with pilot attrition, in the end they couldn't. The end will arrive earlier than in OTL.

Soviets did ride or try to ride Ploesti, Berlin as well as some railways hubs (I believe Warsaw too) but night bombing wasn't very successful I guess.

For example one bombing ride probably brought Hungary into war. but it is still not cleared what really happened. June 26th 1941 Kosice (at the time Hungarian Kassa) was bombed.
Theories are Soviets were trying to bomb Slovak Presov 930 km distance) and made navigation error - Slovakia already declared war on them, Romanians or Germans attacked Kassa in false flag operation to push Hungary into war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Kassa

 

[KACKO]

IF the USSR had made a point if buying were possible foreign aircraft in small numbers and both tested them and took them to pieces would that have helped any bit?

I believe when they could they did exactly that for years. I read somewhere after R-M pact 1939 they got examples from Germany, including Bf 110, 109 and Ju-88 and others.

 

[Pangur]

I believe when they could they did exactly that for years. I read somewhere after R-M pact 1939 they got examples from Germany, including Bf 110, 109 and Ju-88 and others.

did they learn much from them?

 

[KACKO]

Ok, but how many and under what conditions?
I was talking about the possibility of a large scale program, like the one for comonwelth pilots, that would expose the soviets to the general living conditions in the USA.
Anyway, if you can post a few references for training programs for soviet pilots in the USA, I will certainly look them up.
I'll have to admit that when I talked about the USA I wasn't thinking about Alaska, where the possibilities for "Capitalist living" in 1941 would probably be quite limited.

Well I agree with you that the wouldn't want to much exposure to western style of life. On other side, we have to realize that Soviet merchant marine had ships going west anyway.
Number of pilots probably wasn't large. Here is short article on Alaska
https://www.nps.gov/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/146laddfield/146facts2.htm

And here one o pilot who flew P-39 from Bell's New York state factory.
http://lend-lease.airforce.ru/english/articles/baranovsky/baranovsky.htm

 

[KACKO]

did they learn much from them?

Something at least. Not much time to put it in practice though. Soviets were also buying licenses for engines as well as airplanes. Their Lisunov Li-2 was licensed DC-3.

 

[Pangur]

Something at least. Not much time to put it in practice though. Soviets were also buying licenses for engines as well as airplanes. Their Lisunov Li-2 was licensed DC-3.

Thanks, I knew about the Li-2/DC-3

 

[Deleted member 1487]

In 1937 the Great Purge led to the stopping of practically all Soviet radar development that had been done in Leningrad under the aegis of the Scientific Research Institute #9, led by Abram Ioffe. The purges stopped development here for a year, and many key people were imprisoned.

One Soviet radar pioneer affected was the Finnish-born Aksel Berg. In 1937 he was arrested for "espionage" and spent 900 days in prisons and prison camps before Stalin got interested in radar in 1940 and rehabilitated him, putting him in charge of radar development pretty much straight out of the gulag. Another example of early radar designers whose' work was stopped was Pavel Oshchepkov who also worked in Leningrad between 1933 and 1937 and was similarly imprisoned in 1937. Oshchepkov would be released only in 1946.

If we can avoid the disruption of the research organization's work and Berg's and Oshchepkov's imprisonment (among others) and instead have the Leningrad organization keep working with reasonable resources in 1937-40, that alone would probably mean that the USSR goes to WWII with significantly better radar systems than IOTL, making many OTL systems possible a full year earlier.

So, it is yet another case of Stalin imprisoning and purging some of the USSR's best and brightest before the war and thus sabotaging the nation's ability to repel the invader come 1941.

OTL Soviet systems were pretty sub-par as it was and they only improved once they stole a British outdated gun laying radar in 1942. Their 1941 domestic systems were the equivalent of the 1936 systems Britain and Germany had. In wartime they'd also be very hampered by the loss of so much of the electronics industry in the invasion, so even with better domestic radar, they'd still be unable to really tap it.

 

[marathag]

So, it is yet another case of Stalin imprisoning and purging some of the USSR's best and brightest before the war and thus sabotaging the nation's ability to repel the invader come 1941.

That was part of a larger Purge that Uncle Joe was doing to the Air Force, and only started to be wound down after the Nazis attacked

 

[KACKO]

OTL Soviet systems were pretty sub-par as it was and they only improved once they stole a British outdated gun laying radar in 1942. Their 1941 domestic systems were the equivalent of the 1936 systems Britain and Germany had. In wartime they'd also be very hampered by the loss of so much of the electronics industry in the invasion, so even with better domestic radar, they'd still be unable to really tap it.

Do you have numbers about electronic manufacturing facilities lost? I found few continuing production (Leningraf for example) or built from evacuated- Eletrosignal Novosibirsk, Barnaulskij radiozavod, Gosudarstvenyj Sajuznyj Berdskyj Radiozavod evacuated from Kharkov to Berdsk, Sarapulskyj radizavod, Elektrochiribov Omsk - radio parts etc.