Best Russian Fighter Plane???

I agree whit Friedrich H rusians are in planes number one! I am enthusiastic when i see pictures like this or this Sorry becouse this is not a ww2 thing

 

Of course the Russians were making rocket fighters as well..Interesting!



In 1939-1940 the USSR accelerated design work on rocket-powered short-range fighter aircraft. The three most prominent works in this direction were the Tikhonravov "302", Polikarpov's "Malyutka", and Bereznyak-Isayev BI. All three designs were powered by very similar duel-fuel (kerosene - nitric acid) developing between 1100 and 1200 kgf of sustained thrust. It is known that all three rocket fighter designs underwent test flights in 1942-1943, but only the BI project have seen further development.

http://www.aeronautics.ru/nws001/bi/history.htm

 

Kai :

Great pic of that Russian test bed.....nice !

By the way Ivan K never shot down a Fw 190Dora as none were present in the area except for 15./JG 3 which were far to the west and did not lose any to combat action.

E

 

Thanx for the correction, Erich! Those Dora´s must be the icing on the cake by the propaganda then, I think..Would not surprise anyone!

 

Unless Ivan K shot down 1 D-9 near Stettin on March 15, 1945 ? That is the only one I know of in the ost front but there were probably others shot down by the horrendous Soviet flak defences.
There were enough A-8's flown so I suppose this is what he mistook the D's for. Again a very chaotic time and my interviews with German vets from this time frame conclude as well that they could not tell a Lagg from a Mig or a Jak on amny an occassion.

E

Stab of JG 3 and a staffel/stab of JG 51 had the Dora. Also talk of II./JG 300 having them on hand and maybe 1/3 in JG 11 too. JG 2 was fully equipped but I think it served on the West front in April-May of 45. As well as good parts of JG 26.

E

 

Ive flown that rocket plane before. It isnt worth crap! It is not very manueverable at all anf has almost no armament. Besides, it never saw combat.

CvM

 

CvM :

You have have you ? ! what was the a/c top ceiling altitude ? What was it's top speed at mideium to low latitudes. manuverabilty ? good in a climb or dive ? Oh so many questions to ask ......

Back to tpic I think although it was US made the P-39 should be right up there with that deadly nose cannon, performing fighter and groundt attack roles. Also the twin engine B-25 Mitchell, again US borne but in the right pilo's hands was hard to bring down in aerial combat. A quick little bugger for sure. Interviewed Paul Zorner, night fighter ace of NJG 100 and his unit had real problems trying to intercept this bird in 44-45 at night.

E

 

Very interesting discussion, gentlemen!

But I think that you have missed some very important points in here.

-The Soviet pilots had a very poor training, just like the tank crews. Even with the best machines in the world and big numbers they had a heck of a fight...
-The Soviet aircraft designs were very, very simple, as well as their tanks. They are impossible to compare with British, American or German aeroplanes which were much more technologically advanced.
-About the numbers, it is true. At the time of Berlin's offensive, just in the fronts of Zhúkov, Rokossovsky and Koniev there were 9.000+ aeroplanes available!

 

F :

We are not discounting the fact about pilot training. But which a/c was better in the Soviet arsenal ? That is the topic question. There have been several mentioned but nothing I think concrete. With a nation being hammered by a strong foe the Soviets had to come up with something to try and block the many 109's/Fw's that were striking right and left in the air and bringing way too many Soviet fighters and bombers to the ground. don't think they really did come up with a positive solution except to attack in sheer masse

E

 

Can someone answer this for me .... (?) Did any of the Soviet a/c-bombers have a belly turret or a space for a gunner to fire out of the bottom of the a/c ? I know this is a bit off topic but.....

E

 

In addition to these 62 victories, Kozhedub was forced to shoot down two US P-51 Mustang fighters towards the end of the war. The two fighters pounced his lone La-7, since it looks rather similar to a Fw-190. After repeatedly dodging the attackers and attempting to display the red stars on his aircraft to no avail, Kozhedub proceeded to shoot down both in short order. Of course, these victories are not counted.

 

Actually, the Soviets started gaining local air superiority already in 1942, notably in the Kuban area and over Stalingrad. Although the situation certainly see-sawed back and forth over time and across the vast areas of the eastern front, the opening stages of the Battle of Kursk usually marks the end of Luftwaffe ability to seriously influence the outcome of any battle. Around this time theater-wide air superiority passed into Soviet hands and remained there until the end of the war. Again, the Luftwaffe had the ability to locally and tactically overpower the Red Air Force for brief periods, but the initiative and superiority stayed with the Soviets for the duration.

Air supremacy is a whole other ballgame of course. Neither side really had supremacy for a very long period of time, not like the western allies managed from mid-1944 and onwards anyway.

 

Yes, here is the Pe-2, a pic where you can just about make out the lower gunner on closest aircraft. Not a turret though.



And here's something else, not quite what you were looking for, but cool nonetheless. I give you the PPSh 88 machinegun array of the Tu-2 light bomber:

 

Erich,

Here´s a quite a bunch of Russian bombers but none with belly turret or a gunner to fire out of the bottom, I think.

http://wio.boom.ru/tacftr/bombers.htm

----------

Pilot Victories
Major Ivan N. Khozedub 62
Colonel Alexander I. Pokryshkin 59
Captain Dimitri B. Blinka 56
Captain Nikolai Gulayer 56
Captain Grigori A. Rechkalov 53
Captain Sirill A. Yevstigneyer 52
Lieutenant Arsenii V. Vorozheikin 52
Captain Alexander F. Klubov 48
Lieutenant Vasili N. Kubarev 46
Captain Nikolai M. Skomorokhov 46
Captain Pavel N. Kamozhin 46
Lieutenant Alexander I. Koldunov 46
Sergei D. Lugansky 43
Lieutenant Vladimir Bobrov 43
Major Vitaliy I. Popkov 40
Captain Kistilev 40
Captain Lapanskii 40

 

Yes,as a matter of fact i have. Well, a simulation anyway. I am one the best sim pilots in the country, probably best in my age group. That plane, the B-1 i think, (im in computer class right now). It can climb away from a 109 somewhat. But its armament itsnt even capable of taking out an HE-111 except from an insanely close range.

CvM

 

Carl,

Ever tried the Tikhonravov 302 ?? It looks quite modern to me, actually.



I think it should have four 20 mm cannons on it!
And powered by a rocket engine in the tail and two ramjets with rectangular variable exhausts beneath the wings ( is that a good or a bad combination...??)

http://www.ctrl-c.liu.se/misc/ram/302p

 

vielen Dank guys for the interesting pics. Those mg's in the bomb bay look mean and nasty !
The loose formation of Pe's looks scary too but I have cine films of attacking 109's onto the rear of Soviet bombers and there is no apparent formation kept.

E

 

Yakovlev Yak-9K...Just to inform this existed...

"In the winter of 1943/4 the Yakovlev design bureau decided to greatly improve the aircraft's fire power by installing the 45 mm HS-45 cannon, with the intention of creating the ultimate Yak-9. The cannon featured barrel brake and had ammunition of shells. Furthermore the aircraft was fitted with a bullet-proof windscreen and AFT armored glass. But the VK-105PF engine was not powerful enough for a take off weight of 3028 kg. Compared to the earlier Yak-9s, the new fighter's speed was 27-40 km/h lower. The rate of climb dropped too. A total of 53 Yak-9Ks was produced in April-June 1944. Soviet pilots enjoyed flying the new aircraft but the
Yak-9K was only used during the final period of the war in the hands of skilled pilots, who had previously flown theYak-9T."

 

Okay, we can do this. Here's a bit of basic data to highlight that Soviet aircraft weren't crap, as we have seen stated several times in this topic. Threw in a couple of Luftwaffe birds for comparison.

Name: Yak-9D
Year: 1943
Speed (sea/3.7km): 535/591 kmph
Climb to 5km: 6.1 minutes
Turn time: 20 seconds
Range: 905 km
Armament: 1x20mm, 1x12.7mm

Name: La-5FN
Year: 1943
Speed (sea/6km): 583/634 kmph
Climb to 5km: 5.2 minutes
Turn time: 18.5 seconds
Range: 765 km
Armament: 2x20mm

Name: Bf-109G-6
Year: 1943
Speed (sea/7km): 505/640 kmph
Climb to 3km: 3 minutes
Turn time(1km): seconds
Range: 545 km
Armament: 1x20mm, 2x13mm

Name: Fw-190A5
Year: 1943
Speed (sea/6km): 530/625 kmph
Climb to 5km: 6.8 minutes
Turn time(1km): 23.5 seconds
Range: km
Armament: 4x20mm, 2x13mm

Name: Yak-9U
Year: 1944
Speed (sea/5km): 575/672 kmph
Climb to 5km: 5 minutes
Turn time: 19 seconds
Range: 1070 km
Armament: 1x20mm, 2x12.7mm

Name: Yak-3
Year: 1944
Speed (sea/4km): 567/646 kmph
Climb to 5km: 4.5 minutes
Turn time: 17 seconds
Range: 648 km
Armament: 1x20mm, 2x12.7mm

Name: La-7
Year: 1944
Speed (sea/6km): 592/658 kmph
Climb to 5km: 4.5 minutes
Turn time: 20 seconds
Range: 700 km
Armament: 2x20mm

Name: Bf-109K-4
Year: 1944
Speed (sea/7km): 580/710 kmph
Climb to 3km: 2.5 minutes
Turn time(1km): 22 seconds
Range: 560 km
Armament: 1x30mm, 2x13mm

Name: Fw-190A8
Year: 1944
Speed (sea/6km): 530/645 kmph
Climb to 5km: 6.8 minutes
Turn time(1km): 23.5 seconds
Range: km
Armament: 4x20mm, 2x13mm

 

Ask, and ye shall receive.

Soviet aces tended to be sent on "lone-wolf" missions towards the end of the war, with planes ranging across German territory two by two while searching for suitable victims. I'm sure there are plenty of stories about these aces not just fighting successfully 1 on 1, but also beating large odds. In that vein, here is a nice story of Soviets being outnumbered 40 to 2 by Ivan Kohzedub, and ending up on top.

"On the evening of April 17, we went on a lone-wolf operation over the suburbs of Berlin. All of a sudden we saw a group of 40 Fw-190s with bomb loads, flying at an altitude of 3,500 meters in our direction. We climbed to the left and flew behind them under the cover of clouds. The odds were obviously not in our favor, but we still decided to attack since the enemy aircraft were heading for our troops. At maximum speed, we approached the tail of the formation, out of the sun. I opened fire almost point-blank at the wingman of the last pair of aircraft. The first Fw-190 fell into the suburbs of the city. Several planes turned to the west, while others continued their flight.

We decided to drive a wedge into the combat formation and break it up. Making a steep dive, we swept past enemy planes. As often happened in such cases, the Nazis thought that there were a lot of us. Confused, they started jettisoning bombs. Then they formed a defensive circle--each fighter covering the tail of the one in front of him--and began to attack us. Titorenko skillfully downed the plane that followed me. At that point, we saw our fighters and we turned for home. But suddenly, we saw yet another Fw-190 with a bomb. Apparently, the pilot had received a warning, for he made a quick dive and jettisoned his bomb over the suburbs of Berlin. But I still reached him on the recovery from his dive. The plane literally burst in the air. We made a good landing but our fuel tanks were completely empty. After that battle, I brought my personal score of downed Nazi planes to a total of 62."

[ 20. November 2002, 05:21 AM: Message edited by: Heartland ]