freyir wrote:
1. The soviet pilots was poorly trained:
Actually many of the Soviet pilots who took part in the winter war had hundreds of ours in the air, in different kinds of trainers, some where even vets from Khalkhin Gol, and the Spanish civil War.
Not so many. After transition in 1938 from squadrons to shelfs, in parts of the Air Forces many pilots let out in 1938/39 have appeared. Veterans with fighting experience was a little, basically on command posts. If to speak about fighters it is a lot of pilots with fighting experience arrived only in February from the Far East. But by this time fighting experience has appeared and at pilots of Air Forces LVO that has allowed to reduce losses and to achieve the certain successes in struggle against the Finnish Air Forces.
freyir wrote:
2. The soviet losses was unproportional
The soviet VVS did loose less planes in the Vinter war than the USAAF in the spring of 1943 by the first bombing campaigns of Germany, and that by more sorties, and with an air force crippled of some of their officers.
Not so successful comparison. It was more logical to compare to actions Luftwaffe in Poland.
freyir wrote:3. The Soviet fighter pilots where a bad shot
That might be true, but the Soviets VVS had quite early at Khakhin gol adopted an philosophy of heavy armaments, where a single hit from one of their 20mm Shvak cannons could bring down a plane, contrary to the light machine gun amored Finnish fighters, that required extreme and continuous precision to bring down and enemy plane.
On premilitary maneuvers, as a rule, the Soviet pilots showed rather quite good parameters on shooting. But maneuvers one - and war is little bit another. Quality of shooting was influenced with many factors, for example, bad stability I-16. However I would not began to overestimate shooting preparation of the Soviet pilots. At Finnish it was, unequivocally, above. The planes armed with guns in Winter war was a little.
Harri wrote:
I would separate two things here: intentional twisting of victory / loss statistics and the honest reporting of pilots. Pilots seldom had possibilities to influence on statistics but higher officers and HQs had. The so called "official historians" have also made lots of harm.
Yes, it so. But nevertheless I shall be repeated, that the number of "postscripts" as a whole was not great. It if to take Winter war.
Harri wrote:During the Winter War most shot down Soviet planes were landed on Finnish soil so most of the cases could be checked. Those cases that happened on the Soviet soil are a problem.
IMHO, it is one of the main reasons, why at the Finnish pilots rather small percent overclaims.
Harri wrote: I think the bombers flying without rear gunners is a myth freyir wrote in his other thread?
100% myth.
Harri wrote: freyir wrote: Fighter to Fighter engagements was actually rare, though the most well documented, and at the end of the day the air war ended in a draw when it came to pure fighter to fighter engagements, at least when we look at the numbers.
Fighter to fighter engagements were not rare but because Soviet had better planes Finns could not achieve better results although Finnish tactical methods and pilot training were better. On the other hand Finnish fighter tactics was directed agains bombers, not fighters. In these circumstances it was the only good choice because Finnish fighters were interceptors.
The total superiority of the Soviet planes above Finnish is not a myth, but also not absolutely the truth. The basic fighter in Winter war - I-16 type 5 on skis. Hardly it can be counted better, than D.XXI. For example:
Structure of fighters of 59 air brigades and 68 IAP as of January, 30, 1940.
fighters\7 IAP\25 IAP\68 IAP\Total
И-16 тип 5 \9\28\44\81
И-16 тип 10\4\17\1\22
И-16 тип 17\19\-\-\19
И-16 тип 18\13\-\1\14
И-16 тип 27\-\7\-\7
И-153\21\-\9\30
И-15бис\4\4\15\23
Total\70\65\61\196
Harri wrote: This is true. Soviet pilots practised so called (in which every planes in a small formation shot straight ahead) and used non-aimed weapons in their planes. Hence the Soviet results were rather poor compared to their great numbers. Finns were very well aware of the Soviet tactics.
It does not correspond to the validity. The emphasis in shooting preparation was done on individual training. Moreover, such shooting was considered as the roughest mistake. And it was not exact "Soviet tactics". Any “formation shooting” (as against "bombings on the leader" at bombers) in the Soviet charters was not. These are costs of not so qualitative preparation of young pilots.
The Soviet side marked cases when the Finnish fighters opened fire from distances of 1-1,5 kilometers, but it does not mean, that the Finnish pilots specially learned so to do or they on a regular basis practised such way of conducting fight.