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The Soviet and German fighters of WWII
Engineers from the N. Ye. Zhukovskiy Air Force Academy, who performed a special assignment from the Red Army Air Forces Staff on the Kalinin Front, made a significant contribution to the collection and examination of the captured equipment. The team of specialists that Brigade Engineer V. A. Semenov led selected the most interesting German innovations and defined that they could be employed under our conditions. Special attention was paid to measures the Germans took to operate aircraft in winter. It turned out that electrical heaters, devices for local heating of engine parts, and heating lamps were similar to those employed by our Air Forces. The engineers noticed new versions of the Erlikon aircraft cannon, MG 81 turret machine guns, small bombs with rapid-fire fuses, and delayed action bombs, which the enemy began using in winter. As was the previous case, German fighters aroused the greatest interest. Military Engineer 1st Rank A N. Frolov, Chief of the Soviet Air Forces Scientific Research Institute Fighter Department, carefully analyzed and evaluated all available information on the Bf 109F He compared the Messerschmitt with new types of Soviet fighters beginning to be widely employed in August-September 1941. In a report signed 14 February 1942, the statement was made that the YaK-1 was most suitable for employment against the Bf 109F, although its speed and rate of climb were "worse at low altitudes than those of the Messerschmitt. The Yakovlev aircraft lacked reliable self-sealing fuel tanks, radios (they were found in only 10 percent of the aircraft), and their rollout was considered intolerably long. The Soviet LaGG-3 faced even more difficulties battling the Bf 109F since it compared unfavorably in the main flying qualities; it was better only where armament was concerned. Besides that, the Lavochkin-Gorbunov-Gudkov fighter remained hard to handle, especially when transitioning from one maneuver to another. As for the MiG-1, it had leading-edge flaps that improved flight safety at minimum control speeds and was good at altitudes of 5000 meters and more. But, combat occurred very rarely at such altitudes and it lost to the lighter Messerschmitt near the ground. The weight of a MiG-3 salvo proved inadequate to hit and destroy enemy aircraft, especially bombers. In his conclusions, Frolov wrote: "The enemy outperforms all types of our new fighters in the main flight performance categories to an altitude of 2000 meters... The takeoff and landing qualities of our machines are not satisfactory (the LaGG-3 is especially bad). The ground roll is long and the tendency to pull to the right makes takeoffs in formation difficult and takeoffs from limited field areas require special attention. The high landing speed and long rollout also require exceptional attention and sufficient experience for an accurate landing approach...." In mid-1943, the main focus of Red Army Air Forces Scientific Research Institute efforts was more joint comparative tests of Soviet and German aircraft. Thus, in August, the newest Yak-9D and La-5FN were tried out in simulated aerial combat against the Bf 109G-2 and Fw 190A-4. Flight and combat capabilities (the maneuverability of the fighters, in particular) were especially stressed. Seven pilots, moving from cockpit to cockpit, engaged in simulated combat, first in the horizontal and then in the vertical planes. Increasing speed from 450 km/h to maximum speed defined the advantages in acceleration, and aerial combat began with head-on attacks. Characteristics of Soviet and German Fighters Based on Air Forces Scientific Research Institute Materials |
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