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Included here are some pics of an Eduard FW-190A5, in Ost camo, and a Zvezda
LA-5N. I've said what can be said to defend these meager efforts on respective
posts in the Air Forum. If you’re in a hurry or are up to something productive,
you can skip the verbiage below and check the pics. For those with an interest
in the Eastern Front , I'd like to give a kind of perspective of the
extraordinary change that took place in the air war there during the summer of
1943. I should note that these two aircraft of these types could have met in
August of 1943. (The FW appeared in late 42 and was produced until June 1943:
the LA-5N began delivery in March 1943.)
Until the battles of Kursk-Orel in the summer of 1943 it’s hard to argue
that the Soviet tax payers got their moneys worth from the Red Air Force. It
had suffered badly from the disarray of the purges and Stalin’s desire to start
rearmament too quickly. Soviet aviation did have skilled engineers and Stalin
was fascinated with aircraft. (There were design labs in the Gulag: that was
Stalin.) So in 1941 you had a mixture of obsolescent aircraft and prototypes
with serious teething problems. Tactics were unimaginative. Radar and
communications third rate. No wonder the Luftwaffe had a field day until late
1941. The best the VVS could do was try to fight the LW over Russian lines. In
this line they had some success in making life hot for German bombers, recon
planes and transports. (The vital LW transport fleet was pounded in both the
winters of 41-42 and 42-43 when the Germans tried to airlift supplies to armies
– a desperate operation.) A lot of engineers left the Gulag during 1941 and by
early 1943 they were beginning to turn quirky prototypes into very good
aircraft. The first good Yaks and LA s came into service in the spring of that
year to join the redoubtable IL-2.
There is always an advantage in starting late. In the Soviet case, tactical
realities cleared up the kind of doctrine squabbles that characterized other
air forces. They were there to protect the Red Army and, if possible, attack
German ground forces. This removed the issue of bomber interception or escort.
(The Germans periodically launched massed terror bombardments of Russian cities
– Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad all probably lost more civilians than did
London. They did not, however, carry out a sustained strategic bombing
campaign. The MIG fighters were designed for high altitude work and
consequently had little to do during the war. The postwar period was more
productive.) This fact greatly simplified design, production and maintenance.
Designers concentrated on creating small, simple, nimble aircraft that
performed well at under 15,000 feet and required little range. The weight saved
could be used to provide adequate armor and good armament.
With the Luftwaffe under pressure in late 1942 Berlin began to deploy
FW-190s to join the BF-109s already operating in the East. On paper both German
craft were superior to Soviet counterparts. And when Soviet radar was crude (or
not there at all) and communication crude the LW had crucial force multipliers
that had largely disappeared by 1943. The LW was best able to exploit their
technical edge when they were on the attack. Typically this meant that fighters
would escort Henschels, Stukas or twin engined bombers. They could keep their
altitude advantage and pick off Soviet fighters as they attacked the bombers.
And because the Soviets operated so crudely, attacks were usually small and
uncoordinated. So the LW had altitude they could turn to speed: the decision of
when to attack and often numerical superiority at the point of combat. This was
a good place for German fighter pilots. They strafed ground positions but as
long as Henschels and Stukas were around, they weren’t expected to do heavy
lifting in ground support. The only problem – and it was serious – was that if
a fighter went down over Soviet lines, the pilot was a loss whether killed or
not. But things worked well and LW aces became numerous. There was a fly in the
ointment that came back to bite the LW in the face however. Today we think of
fighters or the spare Stuka when we think of the Luftwaffe. During the early
stages of the war, the LW’s main role was tactical bombardment so bomber
construction had priority over fighters until 1943 when 8th Air
Force got Speer’s attention. The bombers got the best of the aircrew and the
best ground crew. (Odd that except for the JU-88 all the German bombers were
duds.) So considering the size of the LW, the German fighter arm was very small
through 1942. This helped explain why so many high scoring aces developed in
the LW. Early in the war their opponents were inferior, as the numbers began to
change that meant the better LW pilots were living in a “target rich
environment.”
When the Red Army burst through German lines in early August 1943 the
chickens all came home to the Nazi roost. The LW had lost badly during Citadel
and weakened it proved incapable of slowing the Red advance in a meaningful
way. This of course changed the role of fighters on both sides. Now it was the
Russians that were escorting attack planes and with growing strength. In the
fall of 1943 a tactical nightmare developed for the LW. Soviet IL-2s and other
bombers almost overnight began to make life very hard for German ground forces.
The Feldherr’s spearhead was shrinking but it still contained hundreds of
thousands of vehicles. If the increasingly large Red “Air Armies” attacked
German line infantry there were thousands of horses. And thousands of artillery
positions. Dozens of airfields. And scores of one of the Ils’ favorite targets
– German tank parks. From the point of view of a Soviet IL2 pilot this was an
amazingly target rich environment. And starting in mid-1943 they had escorts
with them that, if anything, were superior at the low levels at which the IL2
operated than their German enemies. There were no safe jobs in anyone’s air
force. I think it safe to say, however, that Soviet forces did not weep at
steep casualty figures. So when the numbers of LA5s and Yaks began to swell,
Soviet fighters were expected to join in the dangerous fun of ground attack.
(The German Army had excellent anti-aircraft: it was one of the key components
of Blitzkreig. German fighters were not pinned to protecting ground forces –
German flak was given that job within reason.) The Euros liked canon on
aircraft. It was a mixed bag when it came to strafing. The American .50 caliber
MGs spit rounds out in prodigious quantities and were perfect at attacking any
“soft target.” (Entire squads could die in a few seconds if caught in the
open.) The 20mm canon, however, could make tinker toys out of any soft skinned
vehicle and had a real shot at doing damage to a AFV, especially the growing
numbers of Stugs.
So here’s the deal. The Wehrmacht is getting pounded. Their flak is killing
Red planes, but not enough of them. They demand protection. The Soviet
attackers are perfectly willing to let German planes keep altitude advantage
and try to “cherry pick” the spare Soviet plane because that will leave the
door open to attack German ground forces. But if German fighters come down and
stay down long enough to defeat a Soviet attack mission, that meant they would
have to fight Russian fighters on their turf. And that meant losses. And losses
were bad because the Germans were already outnumbered.
It was a tough world that got worse. In late 1943 the Germans created a new
Air Force (Reichsflotte) for the defense of Germany. The allies were in Italy.
This meant that many of the already limited number of German fighters in Russia
were being sent West. In addition, because the VVS was growing in capability,
the Germans began to realize something already clear to the US: the day of the
light attack bomber was over. In its stead would be a proper medium bomber like
a B-26 or a fighter bomber. (A fully armed P-47 carried as much ordnance as a
HE-111 during the Battle of Britain. And there were thousands of them.) Hence
there were screams from the Feldherr to attack Russian forces with tactical
air. With Stukas and Heinkels becoming dogmeat (unless conditions were just
right) that meant that German fighters were pressed into the Jabo role. By 1944
the most important tactical aircraft was the FW-190, especially the F variant.
The upshot of all of this was that more and more IL2s were getting through.
And this was one of the prime reasons that the German Army increasingly lost
the ability to stabilize the front. If you need to defend ground with
numerically inferior forces, flexibility and mobility are crucial. It was
exactly these factors being assaulted by Russian air power after 1943. The Red
Air Force was never had the numbers of planes required to dominate their
enormous theater the way the allies ruled the skies over their battlefields.
But if you found a Guards Army it would have an Air Army with it. Together they
killed Germans. They also added greatly to what Clausewitz so brilliantly
called “friction.” It was a downward spiral for the Germans with no possible
solution. And if they had their uber-aces, the LW also had shocking loss rates
in both East and West. And as their strength waned, their fuel began to dry up
and the junior birdmen had less air time than new Russian pilots much less
American.
The FW-190A5 and the LA-5N were both small aircraft. But they played for
high stakes. And the Russians won. Fortune favored the big battalions no doubt.
But after mid-1943 the Red Air Force was very good. No error.
Eric
