WWII Russian airplane quality

[Bulldog]

Hello All,

   Geez, I don't even know where to post this question.  Okay, were Russian airplanes in WWII good?  And by good I mean did they offer a real competition against German WWII airplanes?  Being an ignorant American regarding this subject, perhaps you folks could guide me in the right direction?     This post isn't meant to knock either Air Force, it's just I don't know anything about the WWII Russian Air Forces.  Thanks for your help!

[starkadder]

I suppose it depends on what purpose and at what point of the war. I'm not going to bother much with tech specs. You can find them anywhere.

The YAK-9 was a corker of a plane. Entered service at the end of '42 over Stalingrad and was rightly feared. Variants were too many to list but included a tank-buster (37mm centreline cannon - like the P-39). The Russians used it almost all alltitudesd according to variant type.

The YAK-3 was a tidy little piece as well. Despite the service number it came in after the YAK-9 (July '43). Cheap, cheerful and very nimble. Probably a tad under-armed but had a good kill-ratio.

La5 and La7 came from a flying pig (the LaGG3) but earned a tough reputation. Twin 20mm cannons and a rocket rack option made them something to worry about.

The Ilyushin (IL-2) the Sturmovik was a beast (entered 1939). Designed specifically for low-level ground attack it was an armoured rhino and very hard to take down. The crew was protected in a bathtub shaped armoured shell. Later marques had a rear gunner. From memory it was the most produced Soviet plane during the war.

The Ilyushin DB-3 was the the Dakota DC-3 equivalent only with guns. A jack of all trades and often forgotten. Very handy plane (but not for a dogfight!)

I'll leave the Polikarpovs and other biplanes alone but if anyone wants to add something, they're more than welcome. Wiki them up, it's easy.

Overall, The Soviets' determination to swing stuff into service was incredible. Their design ethic was to fix on a workable design, improve it and produce a limited range but in huge quantities. Combined with Lend-Lease equipment like Hurricanes and P39s and so on they were a very dangerous air force.

[starkadder]

True enough, Bezzo. I was writing purely from memory.

The early stuff was innovative, true enough, but I think the stagnation was more to do with the massive re-engineering they had to do (rebuilding the industrial base from scratch).

Interesting topic.

[Luthaaren Von Tegale]

While the hardware is a factor don't forget that pilot quality/training etc has a lot to do with results in air combat - just look at the results that the Finns had in both the Winter war and the Continuation War. Finnish Fokker DXXI and Buffalos consistently out-performed more modern Russian and Lend-Lease aircraft.
If you swap aircraft for Barbarrossa I get the feeling that you'd get the same result.

vT

[Doomhippie]

Again this not scentifically proven fact or anything. As far as I remember from reading books the overall quality was similar to the German models  (with the exceptions of the I-15 and I-16).

[archangel1]

...try most produced plane of all time...

Um, not quite.  Try most produced combat aircraft.  The Russians actually built more Po-2 biplanes than Sturmoviks.  And the Cessna 172 beats them both and it's still in production, with over 43,000 built as of 2009.

[starkadder]

I've flown in a Cessna 172 (along with several million other people).

I jumped out of quite a few of them back in the day when I was "Action Man" 32 adjustable poses, parachute, scuba, abseiling pack extra.

On the subject of Soviet purges, I would be one of the few people on earth to have gone to a fancy dress party as Mikhail Tukachevsky. Oooooh yar, did I impress the ladies that night. I'm still recovering from the rejection.