Soviet Air Forces claims and losses

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Soviet Air Forces claims and losses

#1

Post by Juha Tompuri » 29 Jun 2009, 07:39

Continued from here: http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 4#p1346412
/Juha

Håkan Gustavsson wrote:Two observations:

1) Overclaiming is roughly the same among all fighter pilots in all countries. The bigger battle/number of aircraft involved, the bigger overclaiming.

2) The unique thing about the FAF is the low number of aircraft, which makes losses very easy to trace. This, I think, has made it easy previously to state that the Soviets/Russians have been heavily overclaiming, i.e. that their claims is not to be trusted. Keskinen/Stenman's resent research in their Suomen Ilmavoimat series shows large overclaiming among the Finnish pilots as well in the cases were Russian/Soviet records are available.
During Winter War, depending on sources, Finnish AF claimed to have shot down ca. 200 Soviet planes
ca. 40 fighters
ca. 10 recon planes/light bombers (R-5)
ca. 150 bombers
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 9&t=151577
At the same thread Slon mentions the Finnish overclaims being ca 3-1.5 fold, depending on plane types.



The development of Soviet claims/overclaims:
Harri wrote:Finnish Air Force II 1928 - 1940, page 164:
BRIEF ANALYSIS
[...]

...The Soviet air forces flew on the Finnish front 100.970 sorties; claimed 427 aerial victories and lost 261 aircraft according to Soviet era records. The claims have been adjusted in modern research to 388 aircraft: 188 by fighters, 146 by bombers, 54 by the Baltic Fleet air forces.
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 7&start=45
AFAIK the figure 362 is "only" the claim of the Army AF. Navy planes claimed an extra 65 planes. 362 + 65 = 427 planes claimed to have been shot down (strafing ? bombing?) From the Finnish sources I have, I have made an unofficial counting of the fates of the lost planes:
-44 planes were lost because of enemy action (+ 3 probables, which disappeared and might have been brought down by enemy +2 planes that collided mid-air)
Of them:
-35 were brought down by enemy fighters
-2 by enemy bombers
-5 by enemy AAA
-2 were destroyed at ground

So...there is a gap between the Soviet claim of 427 shot down planes and Finnish statistics of 37 planes lost at air combats.
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... t=45&hilit

Some difference.


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Re: Soviet Air Forces claims and losses

#2

Post by bf109 emil » 29 Jun 2009, 08:55

Juha...
I can agree with this as the limited number of Finnish planes would surely be able to have known what the actual losses where...is their an historical record of perhaps fighter units so this can be broken down???
...Unsure even where to start as to whether the Soviet air force had kept meticulous documents as to sorties flown and planes failing to return...is there somewhere which might show number of planes transferred to units in the winter war, which might help explain losses and replacements taking there place...

---This is an interesting topic or change from other clashes in WW2 which seemed to garner the lime light and press and hearing of these more isolated battles in terms of media representation is something both new and refreshing...

Thank You
Jim Snowden (bf109 emil)


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Re: Soviet Air Forces claims and losses

#3

Post by Juha Tompuri » 30 Jun 2009, 22:58

bf109 emil wrote:Juha...
I can agree with this as the limited number of Finnish planes would surely be able to have known what the actual losses where...is their an historical record of perhaps fighter units so this can be broken down???
Harri has made a list of the Finnish Winter War losses...I noticed few possible mistakes, but pretty good in general:
http://www.geocities.com/finnmilpge/fmp ... 39_41.html
bf109 emil wrote:---This is an interesting topic or change from other clashes in WW2 which seemed to garner the lime light and press and hearing of these more isolated battles in terms of media representation is something both new and refreshing...

Thank You
Jim Snowden (bf109 emil)
Thank You,
"Information not shared is lost ", as the Forum motto goes

Regards, Juha

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Re: Soviet Air Forces claims and losses

#4

Post by bf109 emil » 01 Jul 2009, 08:16

I like the description showing how or the result of how a plane was lost and the causes...thank you for adding this URL

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Re: Soviet Air Forces claims and losses

#5

Post by Slon-76 » 01 Jul 2009, 18:54

Juha Tompuri wrote: http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... t=45&hilit

Some difference.
Well absolutely small... :)
If it is serious, I do not see here a basis for discussion. Losses of the Finnish Air Forces are perfectly known, even those three "disappeared" planes already "were found". The general requirements of the Soviet side are known. Any problem here is not present also the answer is obvious.
Yes, the Soviet Air Forces have very strongly overestimated real number of the shot down planes. I already spoke about the reasons - actual absence of system of acknowledgement of applications of pilots. To me as separate cases of purposeful falsifications of results of a fighting start are known, but it is the big rarity.
The Finnish pilots fighted basically above the territory and had system of acknowledgement of the declared victories. And nevertheless, all the same their successes appeared немногоо are overestimated.
In the USSR then such practice actually was not. All of us see result - 390 overclaims.
By the way to tell, for the airunits struggled to the north of Ladoga (49 IAP, AG Tkachenko, 145 IAP), than % overclaims is essentially lower. It quite comparable with similar at the Finnish Air Forces.

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Re: Soviet Air Forces claims and losses

#6

Post by freyir » 03 Jul 2009, 22:25

The interesting here is not always numbers, but the way the some losses has been presented by post war historians. In the Winter war, the favor was obvious in the hand of the defenders, who in the beginning of the air war, met large unescorted soviet bomber formations.(sometimes flying without rear gunners)

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.

Trough my studies of the Winter war, I have also notices these air war myth's

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.

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.

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.

Nevertheless, did the VVS show significant weaknesses, especially in their tactical approach in the beginning of the Air War, just as the RAF did at the beginning of the BOB. This was excellently exploited by the FAF, who also fought with a more fierce attitude, that compensated for the less sophisticated material available to Finns in the winter war.

NB: I think the debate here is mostly serious, and has been a pleasure to follow, but your sponsor is a bit of a turn off

http://www.northerngoodies.com/

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Re: Soviet Air Forces claims and losses

#7

Post by bf109 emil » 04 Jul 2009, 07:56

Freyir wrote
The Soviet fighter pilots where a bad shot
I found this bit of info and could explain why Soviet pilots where deemed to be bad shots...It compares them to German pilots or equipment, something the Soviet planes lacked in 1940 was a proper gunsight
The Germans also possessed one important technical advantage, a modern reflector gunsight. The fighters of all major Western air forces were equipped with such gunsights, but they were not uniformly fitted in Soviet fighters. It was not until about the time that the Soviet Union began receiving British and American lend-lease aircraft, principally British Hurricanes and American P-39 and P-40 fighters, equipped with modern gunsights that they were able to begin equipping all of their own fighters with modern fire-control technology. Previously some Russian fighters had been supplied to the squadrons with only simple gunsights, or none at all!

Accurate deflection shooting with crude sighting equipment was nearly impossible. Only the greatest "natural" shooters were able to correctly determine the lead necessary to score kills under these conditions.
something the Finnish engineers added to the Buffalo's where the Finnish Väisälä T.h.m.40 gunsight, which IMHO helped weigh the odds in FAF pilots success against Soviet planes lacking these additions

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Re: Soviet Air Forces claims and losses

#8

Post by Harri » 04 Jul 2009, 17:30

freyir wrote:The interesting here is not always numbers, but the way the some losses has been presented by post war historians. In the Winter war, the favor was obvious in the hand of the defenders, who in the beginning of the air war, met large unescorted soviet bomber formations.(sometimes flying without rear gunners)
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.

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.

I think the bombers flying without rear gunners is a myth freyir wrote in his other thread?
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.
freyir wrote:Trough my studies of the Winter war, I have also notices these air war myth's
We would like to see these studies to shoot down these "myths".
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.
It is clear that during the Winter War the average Soviet pilots were more experienced than during the Continuation War when Soviet Air Forces had been expanded. During the Winter War Soviet pilots were not expecially poorly trained and that has never been mentioned in Finnish literature. But Soviet pilots were not as educated as Finnish pilots.
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.
I don't know what Soviet losses and USAAF's losses has to do with each others?
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.
This is true. Soviet pilots practised so called formation shooting (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.
freyir wrote:Nevertheless, did the VVS show significant weaknesses, especially in their tactical approach in the beginning of the Air War, just as the RAF did at the beginning of the BOB. This was excellently exploited by the FAF, who also fought with a more fierce attitude, that compensated for the less sophisticated material available to Finns in the winter war.
Like told earlier Finns had a tactical and training advantages during the whole Winter War and the early part of the Continuation War.

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Re: Soviet Air Forces claims and losses

#9

Post by bf109 emil » 05 Jul 2009, 02:17

freyir wrote'
large unescorted soviet bomber formations.(sometimes flying without rear gunners)
IMHO numerous forces tried to fly in the beginning unescorted bombers...even after a few years the USAAF attempted this and received losses higher then expected even with the tight box and defense of the B-17/24...But i have never read where bombers would fly a sortie over hostile territory and neglect have a rear gunner if this was a feature of the aircraft flown and had provisions for one to be used... I hope this is a "MYTH" as if deemed true, any thoughts of a formidable opponent or brave aviationist in my opinion now gets titled as stupidity and deemed as cannon fodder by the neglect of the Soviet Military Machine

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Re: Soviet Air Forces claims and losses

#10

Post by Art » 05 Jul 2009, 14:16

freyir wrote: 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.
In fact the level of losses (in terms of losses per combat sortie) of VVS RKKA in the war of 1939-40 and the same level for US Air Forces in the ETO in 1942 were very different. The first one was abnormally low and the second - abnormally high (especially for heavy bombers), by normall I mean the average sorties/losses ratio in 1941-45. I can post more detailed info, if someone is interested. Of course, the opposition they met in air differed very much.

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Re: Soviet Air Forces claims and losses

#11

Post by Slon-76 » 05 Jul 2009, 15:58

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.

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Re: Soviet Air Forces claims and losses

#12

Post by Harri » 05 Jul 2009, 17:01

Slon-76 wrote:
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.
I can tell for sure that Finnish pilots didn't start shooting from that distance (about the maximum effective range of the 7.62 / 7.7 mm weapons). All Finnish fighter pilots were well trained to open fire at the very close distance of only 50 to 150 metres away from the target to maximise the results and to save ammunition. Also their weapons were aimed to about that distance (usually 150 metres). Not even any novice pilots could not do such a mistake. So I strongly doubt the firing distances of one kilometre or more. I think if such information appears in Soviet reports it is either a mistake, misuderstanding, testing of weapons or an intentional twisting of the truth.

If some Finnish pilot had opened fire so early as mentioned above he would soon noticed to have been moved to a reconnaissance unit or back to training. Shooting skills were in the number 1 priority in pilot training. Many older pilots were moved to other duties before the Winter War because their shooting skills were not good enough and new more aggressive pilots replaced them (that same happened also during the Continuation War). Finns simply had no planes, ammo and pilots to be wasted.

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Re: Soviet Air Forces claims and losses

#13

Post by Juha Tompuri » 05 Jul 2009, 23:37

Slon-76 wrote:
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.
Toivo Uuttu mentions some of the examples at his report:
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... rt=0&hilit

And some more here:
The Soviet fighter formation tactics was based on the three airplanes` tight vic formation. There was also a goal for the formation to shoot simultaneously with the leader. The aim obviously was to have a wide fire pattern, but in practical fighter combat the method was without any possibilities for a success.
http://www.sci.fi/~fta/fintac-3.htm

Slon-76 wrote: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.
Do you have detailled info about the ultra-long shooting distances?
Here one case about extremely long distance (500-700m)
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 5#p1327232

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Re: Soviet Air Forces claims and losses

#14

Post by freyir » 05 Jul 2009, 23:38

Thanks to everyone for your answers,

First I think I read about the Soviets flying without rear gunners at iremember.ru, I know eye widness reports does not exactly count as Scientific research, but fine for an anonymous discussion in a forum like this.

Soviet fighters did posses revits allready in the SCW, the I-16 10 and above was delivered with revit, just watch some SCW photoes of the I-16's.

In contrary was many P-40 delivered to the Soviets with ring sight.

And I have never said that many vets took part in the Vinter War, but some did, and that is well documented.

Would be nice to see more Russians joining this discussion ;), but maybe to much to ask for, after all this is a "AXIS" forum , just a look at the sponsors banner here gives me the creeps.

That the Soviet equipment was inferior's to that of the west is another AXIS myth. According to the Finnish ace Juutaleinen was the I-16 equal to the Hurricane, not the type 5 I guess, but type 18 and above, equipped with the Svetsov 65 engine, and a 2 stage supercharger, few western aircraft had that in 1939.

But the major drawback of the I-16 was the handling, it was differ cult to fly and required many ours in the air before entering combat.

But of course, the Hurricane flown by the soviets could not acces maximum speed, because of the low octane fuel used by the soviets(not low quality but low Octane)

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Re: Soviet Air Forces claims and losses

#15

Post by Slon-76 » 06 Jul 2009, 00:31

Juha Tompuri wrote: Toivo Uuttu mentions some of the examples at his report:
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... rt=0&hilit
I do not assert, that such was not. I am not ready to be responsible for each Soviet pilot. I speak, that it was not " Soviet tactics ".
Juha Tompuri wrote: And some more here:
The Soviet fighter formation tactics was based on the three airplanes` tight vic formation. There was also a goal for the formation to shoot simultaneously with the leader. The aim obviously was to have a wide fire pattern, but in practical fighter combat the method was without any possibilities for a success.
http://www.sci.fi/~fta/fintac-3.htm
Does not remind tactics of " napoleonic wars "? It is not serious. I at all do not want to discuss it.
I shall simply be repeated: similar tactical "innovations" in the Soviet charters was not.
Juha Tompuri wrote:
Slon-76 wrote: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.
Do you have detailled info about the ultra-long shooting distances?
Here one case about extremely long distance (500-700m)
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 5#p1327232
Oh, Juha! Concerning reliability of the Soviet reports we with you argued not once already. But in the given case what for to them to tell lies?
Certainly I know these cases. And certainly from words of the Soviet pilots. I did not participate in events. :)
For example, 26.02.40. At leaving from Immola group SB with эскортом I-16 68 IAP about 18 hours has been attacked by a part of the Finnish fighters which of 1,5-2 kilometers have opened fire from a distance.
There are still descriptions of such cases on the part of crews of bombers.
I do not doubt, that such shooting has been strictly forbidden in the Finnish Air Forces, but I do not think, that the Finnish pilots were "termnators", when not afraid for the life and not allowing mistakes.


Regards

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