Soviet Strategic Bombing in WW2
ma...@interlog.com
It seems that we only hear about the Anglo-American strategic bombing of
German Europe. Now I know the Russians had some big long-range bombers
prior to the war, but you never hear about any strategic operations from
their end. Apparantly they did some Doolittle type raids on Berlin early
in the war, but I've never heard of any systematic long-range bombing
campaigns of German cities and industry. Did they leave that to the
Western allies? Did they have any modern 4-engined bombers during the war?
Were they too busy with the land war? Was strategic bombing a luxury that
wasn't worth it when faced with the deep German occupation of Soviet land?
Any insight would be appreciated.
BuschlHist
My understanding is that the Berlin raids were so loss heavy that the
Soviets gave up on the idea. Also the Germans pushed so far inland that
the airfields kept being pushed back out of range. I believe the Putnam
books about Soviet aircraft have some of the information about this. They
certainly cover the bombers.
David Lentz
During World War Two, strategic bombing was a novel idea. It was an
expense and unproven idea. German and the Soviet Union may have
prefered more proven methods of warfare.
Speaking from a biased perspective, I doubt that Germany had the
material resources to mount a strategic bombing offensive. and the
Soviets did not have the human resources needed to for such an
offensive.
au...@imap2.asu.edu
: It seems that we only hear about the Anglo-American strategic bombing of
: German Europe. Now I know the Russians had some big long-range bombers
: prior to the war, but you never hear about any strategic operations from
: their end. Apparantly they did some Doolittle type raids on Berlin early
: in the war, but I've never heard of any systematic long-range bombing
: campaigns of German cities and industry.
The Soviets didn't do much "strategic" bombing. At the start of
the war they had a sizeable AF, including some bomber type aircraft.
Early on, however, they suffered very heavy losses. The Berlin raids are
a good example. This is understandable in retrospect, when the USAF
tried 'precision' daylight bombing it got pasted as well, and more or
less then switched to 'area' night time bombing.
:Did they leave that to the
: Western allies?
Pretty much. Another thing to keep in mind is geography. For a
large portion of WWII England was much closer to the main German
industrial targets than the Russian front was, and when the US/UK got
bases in Italy it just made the trip all the shorter to a lot of target
areas.
:Did they have any modern 4-engined bombers during the war?
I think they had some at the start, but they suffered heavy
losses and the war progressed military technology so fast that by the end
of the conflict they would have been outdated. People more knowledgeable
about specific inventory and specs will probably post on this.
: Were they too busy with the land war? Was strategic bombing a luxury that
: wasn't worth it when faced with the deep German occupation of Soviet land?
I would say both are true. The key thing to keep in mind about
the allied strategic bombing offensive, I would say, is that it was
horrendously *expensive* for the people doing it.
It took the industrial might of the United States (primarily) to
manufacture the literally thousands of planes that were used against the
Axis powers, and aircraft were hard to make. The Soviets, with a good
portion of their industrial capability overrun and in a fight for their
very lives, were understandably concentrating on manufacturing equipment
that would be more directly applicable to the front line fight---like
tanks and artillery and trucks etc. etc.
Strategic bombing in a large sense *was* a luxury, one that only
the US could afford. The number of man-hours of 'quality' work needed to
make a bomber, in addition to its typically heavy usage of such "scarce"
materials as aluminum and various alloys, in addition to the number of
'quality' man hours needed to maintain and fly the thing----it added up
to a cost most nations (even the USSR) really couldn't afford.
regards,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Steven J Forsberg at au...@imap2.asu.edu Wizard 87-01
Yama
ma...@interlog.com wrote:
>
> It seems that we only hear about the Anglo-American strategic bombing of
> German Europe. Now I know the Russians had some big long-range bombers
> prior to the war, but you never hear about any strategic operations from
> their end. Apparantly they did some Doolittle type raids on Berlin early
> in the war, but I've never heard of any systematic long-range bombing
> Western allies? Did they have any modern 4-engined bombers during the war?
Actually Stalin was very interested about strategic bombing, but he
realized USSR better spent it's resources to other areas. Pe-8 (or TB-7,
as it was also called) was very impressive plane in paper, equal or
better to anything else in the world at '41, but only some 70-80 were
built, so I guess it possibly had some technical problems.
> Were they too busy with the land war? Was strategic bombing a luxury that
> wasn't worth it when faced with the deep German occupation of Soviet land?
Probably. At least some 'campaigns' were flown against some Finnish
cities, especially at 43/44 if I remember correctly, but for little
effect, they didn't have suitable planes for it.
Jukka Raustia
Yama (tj...@raita.oulu.fi) wrote:
: > Were they too busy with the land war? Was strategic bombing a luxury that
: > wasn't worth it when faced with the deep German occupation of Soviet land?
: Probably. At least some 'campaigns' were flown against some Finnish
: cities, especially at 43/44 if I remember correctly, but for little
: effect, they didn't have suitable planes for it.
There were three heavy attacks against Helsinki (the Finnish
capital city, about 300 000 inhabitants back then) by Marshal Golovko's
ADD (Strategic Air Command). First of these attack occurred 1900-0400
6.-7.2. 1944, and it was made against largely unprepared city by about
200 planes (including Li-2's SB's, DB's etc. medium bombers). 112
were killed, mainly because they didn't care for air raid warnings.
(the city had been in relative peace for years).
Second attack was correctly predicted in advance by Finnish
Radio Intelligence and was literally met by wall of fire. The city
was defended only by 12 heavy AAA battalions, but Finnish fire
control methods were very advanced. 25 were killed in an attack
by over 300 planes. 10 bombers were downed.
Third attack was during 26.-27.2. 1944 when the city was
defended by 77 heavy AA-guns + 21 40mm bofors guns and 36
searchlights. There were also some "Wurzburgs" and two "Freays"
Russians had over 500 bombers, but they were deceived
by blacking out the city itself and litting large bonfires east
of the city. 95 % of the Russian bombs missed the city.
Only 21 were killed, 35 injured and 60 buildings destroyed.
There's an anecdote about a Russian AF general who
visited the city after the war, was shocked by the light
damages and ripped the medal "For destroying Helsinki"
from his uniform...
The city of Tallinn was also heavily bombed during the
winter of 1943-1944 but I don't know anything about those raids.
--
Jukka Raustia, su...@kastelli.edu.ouka.fi, Sailing, Scouting, Telemark
Michael Williamson
au...@imap2.asu.edu wrote:
>
> This is understandable in retrospect, when the USAF
> tried 'precision' daylight bombing it got pasted as well, and more or
> less then switched to 'area' night time bombing.
>
That would be the British. The USAAF never switched to night bombing in
Europe as policy. Daylight raids continued with increasing tempo up to the
end of the war.
Mike Williamson
au...@imap2.asu.edu
: >
: > This is understandable in retrospect, when the USAF
: > tried 'precision' daylight bombing it got pasted as well, and more or
: > less then switched to 'area' night time bombing.
: >
: That would be the British. The USAAF never switched to night bombing in
: Europe as policy. Daylight raids continued with increasing tempo up to the
: end of the war.
My sloppiness (what else is new :-)). It was the USAAF naturally,
and not the time-traveling USAF. And I lumped us in with our erstwhile
British allies, while we didn't do it "as policy".
regards,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Steven j Forsberg at au...@imap2.asu.edu Wizard 87-01
Alexei Doubinski
ma...@interlog.com wrote:
>It seems that we only hear about the Anglo-American strategic bombing of
>German Europe. Now I know the Russians had some big long-range bombers
>prior to the war, but you never hear about any strategic operations from
>their end. Apparantly they did some Doolittle type raids on Berlin early
>in the war, but I've never heard of any systematic long-range bombing
>campaigns of German cities and industry. Did they leave that to the
>Western allies? Did they have any modern 4-engined bombers during the war?
>Were they too busy with the land war? Was strategic bombing a luxury that
>wasn't worth it when faced with the deep German occupation of Soviet land?
>Any insight would be appreciated.
Stalin was very impressed with German dive-bombers performance and
ordered to switch efforts to light attack planes. There were several
tenders which ultimately produced Il-2, Su-2, R-10 and several less
known aircraft. On the other hand, strategic bombing concept was put
on shelf. In early 1930 USSR was a leader in strategic bombers with
its TB-1 and TB-3 bombers, but those planes were obsolete in 1941.
However they were used in first desperate days and did suffered a big
loses. Later they all were transfered to transport duty (but this
didn't take them to safety as they flew across the lines to deliever
supplyes to partizans and were used for paratroopers' operations).
The only Soviet modern strategic bomber at the time was TB-7 (later
re-designated as Pe-8), which actually was even not 4-engined but
5-engined: the fifth engine feed supercharges to increase the
altitude. But only around 50 were produced, and they did not get a
neccessary attention from the top brass. TB-7 was perished by a "small
attack plane" concept.
From the realistic point of view, with a limited resources and major
ground war on hand strategic bombing was unacceptable waste of
resources. Both UK and USA could afford it because they never were
engaged in the ground warfare of the Eastern Front scale. In BOB UK
had to defend itself against bombers only, not panzer divisions, and
even so pre-war over-attention to bombers with fighters taking a back
seat almost doomed them. Heavy canon is a great thing to kill enemy
from the distance, but if he jumps on your back with knife, you'll
prefer to have a gun.
As for Berlin raids, they were more moral boosters than military
actions. With the WWII's technology strategic bombing had to be
performed with a big quantity of bombers which Soviet VVS never had.
Besides, only a portion of available TB-7 were operational at any
given time, so those raids were mostly performed by Il-4, which were
rather a medium bombers so their bombload was no more than 1.5 tonn
because they had to take additional fuel.
Ruy Horta
David Lentz <dle...@pop.frontiernet.net> wrote:
>During World War Two, strategic bombing was a novel idea. It was an
>expense and unproven idea. German and the Soviet Union may have
>prefered more proven methods of warfare.
>
>Speaking from a biased perspective, I doubt that Germany had the
>material resources to mount a strategic bombing offensive. and the
>Soviets did not have the human resources needed to for such an
>offensive.
If the Soviets had one thing during WW2, it must have been PLENTY of
human recources. Main thing is that both the Soviets and the Germans
fought a purely tactical war, which both had prepared for in the first
place.
The Brits on themselves can hardly claim to have had more recources
then Greater German Reich. Only after '42 did they built a significant
strategic bomber force.
Ruy Horta
e-mail: rho...@xs4all.nl
webpage: http://www.xs4all.nl/~rhorta
"How good bad reasons and bad music sound
when we march against an enemy."
Kjetil Aakra
David Lentz wrote:
> Speaking from a biased perspective, I doubt that Germany had the
> material resources to mount a strategic bombing offensive. and the
> Soviets did not have the human resources needed to for such an
> offensive.
I think that this is an oversimplification! Both the Luftwaffe and the
Red Air Force concentrated their efforts on tactical operations rather
than strategic.
I seriously doubt that the Luftwaffe would be unable to mount strategic
operations against Britain, but since that would have to be done at the
expense of tactical operations elsewhere I guess they decided against
it. In that way resources may have been thought of as a limiting factor,
but only because of priorities. In fact, their only strategic bomber
(the He 177) was used as a tactical bomber in the east (with great
losses). The Germans has several good bomber projects (the He 177 with
separate engines, the Ju 290 developements, Me 264 and a few others),
but all fell victim to the fighter-emergency programm.
And the comment about Russia having too little human resources for a
sustained strategic bomber offensive is in my view not correct. Their
single most important resource was the incredible number of humans and I
personally beleive that this was the reason the Germans lost the war
against the Russiand....they were outnumbered!
So, in essence, both Germany and Russia could have mounted strategic
offensives, but they chose not to because of other prioritites. So the
apparent lack of planes and personell is not indicative of failure to
build such planes or train the men to operate them.
Kjetil
au...@imap2.asu.edu
: And the comment about Russia having too little human resources for a
: sustained strategic bomber offensive is in my view not correct. Their
: single most important resource was the incredible number of humans and I
: personally beleive that this was the reason the Germans lost the war
: against the Russiand....they were outnumbered!
I seem to recall that by wars end the United States had
considerably more people in uniform than did the USSR, which somewhat
belies the common attitude that the Soviets had a "huge" army and we had
a smaller but more 'capable' or 'professional' one. [ Shades of the
recent "Human Waves..." thread on sci.military.moderated ]. The US,
however, naturally had a far greater tail to tooth ratio as befits an
army that has more gear than most other nation would know what to do
with. Tales of Soviet (and other) 'human wave' tactics and throwing away
lives---is often very inflated and/or misrepresented, in large part due
to the fact that we didn't like them much ;-).
As to not having the people, that argument can certainly be
made. The manpower drain of the Allied Strategic Bombing campaign was
huge. Not only that but (with all due respect to WWII ground vets) the
Army Air Forces often got to skim the cream of the crop manpower
wise--especially wrt those having technical training. When the allie
threw a 1,000+ plane raid there were enough people "in the air" alone to
supply a the junior officer/NCO backbone for an army (or with Soviet
organization, perhaps two armies). This doesn't even count all those folks
back at the airbases.
Until well into the war, the loss of such a pool of manpower
would apparently have had a very big and bad impact on the ability of the
Soviets to hold things together and finally turn things around. If the US
and UK had been forced to try and fight along a thousands of miles long
front against the brunt of the German forces it is doubtful that we would
have ever built up a huge bomber force. Recall that from US entry into
the war until "heavy" fighting on the continent (d-day) there was about a
2.5 year lapse. During the time we were building aircraft, the Soviets
were burying the men who might otherwise have made crews.
regards,
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Steven J Forsberg at au...@imap2.asu.edu Wizard 87-01
David Lentz
The Soviets had vast, seemingly endless, number of soldiers. Hoewver I
don't think the Soviet had the airmen they would have needed to mount a
strategic bombing offennsive. You put a plane load of Soviets in plane
with enough fuel to reach a neutral country, and you will never see
either the plane or the crew again.
David
birdie
Yes it was a luxury that they were better off not pursueing. In the early
war, they had their hands full just surviveing. They were correct in
using their assets to remove the invading forces from their soil as quickly
as possible. They already had good designs for fighters & ground attack
planes. These had just started being produced when the war started. They
had to move all their factories east at the same time they were fighting
for their life. The Western Allies were in a better situation to persue
this at that time and why spend your assets on a job covered by someone
else. The Russian idea of air power was to support the ground forces at
any cost. They lost a lot of people but did an incredible job.
ma...@interlog.com wrote in article
<matk-04049...@ip203-18.cc.interlog.com>...
Ken Duffey
Alexei Doubinski wrote:
>
> ma...@interlog.com wrote:
>
> >It seems that we only hear about the Anglo-American strategic bombing of
> >German Europe. Now I know the Russians had some big long-range bombers
> >prior to the war, but you never hear about any strategic operations from
> >their end. Apparantly they did some Doolittle type raids on Berlin early
> >in the war, but I've never heard of any systematic long-range bombing
> >campaigns of German cities and industry. Did they leave that to the
> >Western allies? Did they have any modern 4-engined bombers during the war?
> >Were they too busy with the land war? Was strategic bombing a luxury that
> >wasn't worth it when faced with the deep German occupation of Soviet land?
>
> >Any insight would be appreciated.
>
The following is taken from a long article in a Russian magazine about
'Red Stars over Berlin'
"On Thursday 7/8 August 1941 15 DB-3M & T Naval bombers attacked Berlin.
They were based on the island of Saaremaa (Oesel) in Estonia about 900km
from Berlin.
The 1st five a/c carried 4 x ZAB-250 (250kg) incendiary bombs or 1 x
FAB-500(HE) or 4 x ZAB-50 bombs, the remaining a/c carried either 3 x
FAB-350 or 6 x ZAB-100 bombs each.
On the 8/9 August 13 DB-3M & T bombers of 1 MTAP attacked Berlin.
On 10 August the Naval DB-3's on Saaremaa were re-inforced by 14 DB-3F's
of 200 BAP.
On 11/12 August 18 TB-7 (Pe-8) four-engined bombers set out to attack
Berlin from Pushkino near Leningrad. Only 12 got through to drop their
bombs.
On 13 August 1941 the Germans attacked Saaremaa and the island was was
evacuated on 6 September.
According to reliable sources, in autumn 1941 Soviet bombers attempted
to raid northern Germany on 11 occasions - 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 16, 19, 21
& 30 August and 1 & 4 September actually reaching Berlin only 4 times -
on 8,9 & 11 August & 4 Sepember, at the cost of 4 confirmed twin-engined
bombers shot down within the city boundaries."
So the Soviets lost their forward base from which to attack Berlin with
twin-engined DB-3's and the longer-range Pe-8 was having development
troubles with its diesel engines. By the time it got decent radial
engines (earmarked for La-5/7 fighters) the war had moved on.
Ken Duffey
Wilhelm Wirén
David Lentz wrote:
>
> During World War Two, strategic bombing was a novel idea. It was an
> expense and unproven idea. German and the Soviet Union may have
> prefered more proven methods of warfare.
>
Lack of aluminium was indeed one fact that caused the Germans to cancel
their pre-war plans to manufacture the Langstreckengrossbomber AKA
Ural-bomber though four-engined Ju 89 and Do 19 prototypes were made
before WWII.
> and the
> Soviets did not have the human resources needed to for such an
> offensive.
>
> ma...@interlog.com wrote:
> >
> > It seems that we only hear about the Anglo-American strategic bombing of
> > German Europe. Now I know the Russians had some big long-range bombers
> > prior to the war, but you never hear about any strategic operations from
> > their end. Apparantly they did some Doolittle type raids on Berlin early
> > in the war, but I've never heard of any systematic long-range bombing
> > campaigns of German cities and industry. Did they leave that to the
> > Western allies? Did they have any modern 4-engined bombers during the war?
> > Were they too busy with the land war? Was strategic bombing a luxury that
> > wasn't worth it when faced with the deep German occupation of Soviet land?
> >
> > Any insight would be appreciated.
The Soviets did try the terror bombing variation of strategic missions
in WWII but the planes used were mainly tactical machines. In the
Russo-Finnish Winter War of 1939-40 several Finnish cities were bombed.
Initially the Russian Secretary of State, Molotov insisted they were
just dropping food to the starving Finnish masses which lead to the
Soviet incendiary cluster bomb containers being nicknamed "Molotov's
bread baskets".
The Berlin raids in August-September 1941 were reportedly in retaliation
of German bombing raids on Moscow. The first three raids were made by
the DB-3s of Naval Aviation though they were later joined by Il-4s and
Pe-8s (=TB-7) of the Soviet long-range aviation (dal'naya aviatsiya).
Naval aviation made ten attacks on Berlin before they had to evacuate
their bases in Estonia. Five naval pilots including the pilot leader
Col. Preobrazhensky who participated in every attack and five DA pilots
were awarded the Golden Star, token of a Hero of the Soviet Union. In
addition to Berlin, reserve targets e.g. Stettin, Königsberg, Memel,
Danzig, Swinemuende and Libau were bombed during the 1941 raids.
On March 5 1942 the long-range air force ADD was formed as an
independent arm. In August-September ADD performed attacks against
Königsberg, Memel, Tilsit, Bukarest, Budapest etc. and even occasionally
Berlin. ADD was mainly equipped with twins, the most important type was
Il-4. They were also supplied with Lend-Lease B-25 Mitchells, which were
well-liked. Some Jermoalajev Jer-2s and several converted Li-2s
(licence-built DC-3) were also used. ADD transport regiments used C-47s
and Li-2s.
During March 1944 ADD flew about 2120 sorties against Helsinki dropping
10.681 bombs of which only 711 hit the city causing 120 fatalities, a
comparative failure. OTOH on the night of 9/10 March ADD bombed the
Estonian capital Tallinn with about 300 planes. The German-occupied city
had weak air defences and the raid caused heavy casualties. 53% of all
houses were damaged and almost 1,300 people killed. The raid ended in a
Finnish success though. When the Soviet bombers were returning to the
Leningrad area 21 Finnish bombers from LeR 4 regiment joined their
formations and bombed the ADD bases at Levashovo, Kasimovo, Gorskaya and
Yukki when the ADD planes were making their litteralily final approach.
Dozens of planes, several runways, fuel and ammunition depots were
destroyed without Finnish losses.
ADD raids on Budapest in the Autumn of 1944 were not succesful and on
Dec. 6 1944 ADD ceased to be an independent arm as it was reorganized as
the 18th Air Army. Of a total of 220,000 ADD missions only 13,000 were
strategic. The rest were tactical support, transportation and supply
missions. There were several causes for the Soviet failures in Strategic
bombing. The Soviets didn't produce significant quantities of modern
heavy bombers, their bomb-sights were inferior to the American models
and most of the crews and aircraft were initially lacking in
blind-flying capabilities.
Most of the info above is from the book "Red Stars" by Geust, Keskinen &
Stenman.
Wilhelm Wirén
Ken Duffey
> > ma...@interlog.com wrote:
> >
> > >It seems that we only hear about the Anglo-American strategic bombing of
> > >German Europe. Now I know the Russians had some big long-range bombers
> > >prior to the war, but you never hear about any strategic operations from
> > >their end. Apparantly they did some Doolittle type raids on Berlin early
> > >in the war, but I've never heard of any systematic long-range bombing
> > >campaigns of German cities and industry. Did they leave that to the
> > >Western allies? Did they have any modern 4-engined bombers during the war?
> > >Were they too busy with the land war? Was strategic bombing a luxury that
> > >wasn't worth it when faced with the deep German occupation of Soviet land?
> >
> > >Any insight would be appreciated.
> >
Did you know that the Soviets operated two Avro Lancaster bombers - as
well as at least one each of a B-17G and B-24H ??
The Lancasters were from 617 and 9 Sqn and had been based in the
Murmansk area to make a raid on the Tirpitz. This was before she was
moved to Tromso fjord which was within range of UK.
I haven't got the exact details to hand - (the mags are at home), but
from memory, a number of Lancs crash landed in the marshes in the
Murmansk area. After the raid, the RAF moved back to UK and the Soviets
repaired the best two.
They put new plexiglass noses on and plated over the mid-upper and rear
turrets.
With Soviet stars painted over the RAF roundels they were used on
leaflet dropping raids and maritime reconnaissance where their long
range was useful.
I wrote an modelling article on converting the Airfix Lanc into one with
red stars for the UK mag 'Scale Models International' if anyone is
interested.
The above, plus captions about the B-17G and B-24H, were found in the
Russian magazine 'Mir Aviatsya'
There are also stories about a Soviet-operated DH Mosquito, but details
of this are a bit sketchy.
Ken Duffey
Dan Ford
It is often written that a twin-engined Tupelov SB bomber with a Russian
crew bombed Formosa (Taiwan) in 1937 or 1938. I've never seen any
confirmation of this on the Japanese side.
The feat was included in a Nationalist Chinese account of the war, with
no mention of the crew's nationality.
- Dan
Ken Duffey
That is a scurrilous slur on the millions of Russians who fought and
died for their country during the Great Patriotic War.
You are confusing the Russian population with the people from the
'occupied' countries after WWII - East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia
etc.
The average Russian is just as patriotic and willing to die for the
'motherland' as the citizens of any other country.
Ken Duffey
David Lentz
Ken Duffey
I am sure that Russians are as patroitic to there country as any other
nationality. Hovever in World War Two, Russian citizens weren't
fighting for Russian, they were fighting for the Soviet Union. The
Soviet Union was an artifical creation and Joseph Stalin oould never
convert the nationalism of the various Soviets states to Soviet
nationalism. Stalin wus preoccupied with creating the Soviet Man, the
citisen with Soviet instead of ethnic identity. Stalin failed. The
Soviet man never existed, except as Stalin's dream.
If Adolf Hitler had half a brain, he could have made himself more
popular in the occupied Soviet Union that Stalin. Remember in the
'Thirties Stalin had purged about a third of his own population. I rate
Stalin as the biggest murderer in World history. Howevr as bad as
Stalin was, Hitler managed to be even worse.
Air warfare is not won so much by machines as by airmen. You brief the
airman, he, alone of with his crew, get s into his plane, braves the
elemenst, the enemy and attempts theough individual belief in what is
doing to complete his mission. You can not order an airman to be
brave, You can force an airman to believe in what he is doing. How
well an airmnn fights depends on this motivation, and democracies
produce more motivated airman that do totalitarian regimes.
David
Wilhelm Wirén
Ken Duffey wrote:
>
> Did you know that the Soviets operated two Avro Lancaster bombers - as
> well as at least one each of a B-17G and B-24H ??
>
The Lancs were not the only British bombers the Soviets used: they
received some Short Stirling heavies plus 14 Armstrong-Whitworth
Albemarles and 25 Handley-Page Hampdens.
> There are also stories about a Soviet-operated DH Mosquito, but details
> of this are a bit sketchy.
>
There's a picture of the Russky Mosquito in "Red Stars" by Geust,
Keskinen &
Stenman. According to the book the Soviets had only one plane of that
type.
Wilhelm Wirén
Roger Wallsgrove
>Air warfare is not won so much by machines as by airmen. You brief the
>airman, he, alone of with his crew, get s into his plane, braves the
>elemenst, the enemy and attempts theough individual belief in what is
>doing to complete his mission. You can not order an airman to be
>brave, You can force an airman to believe in what he is doing. How
>well an airmnn fights depends on this motivation, and democracies
>produce more motivated airman that do totalitarian regimes.
>
Evidence please, for that last opinionated statement? Are you sure that
German, Japanese, Italian and Russian airmen were less motivated than
their Allied counterparts? If so, please explain Kamikaze and Taran
attacks, both employed by airmen from totalitarian regimes and not used,
to my knowledge, by Allied airmen; and the great skill and determination
of so many Luftwaffe, JNAF, JAAF (and other) pilots and crews
Soviet troops (be they Russian, Georgian, Ukrainian or whatever) were
fighting to protect their homes and families from annihilation. What
Stalin thought or said was probably irrelevant - survival came first,
and that's always a pretty good motivator!
Your comments have nothing useful to add to this interesting thread.
There was little or no Soviet strategic bombing because at some command
level they decided it was not important enough for the resources
required (in my view, an intelligent and sensible decision - unlike some
of their others!). Had they wished to sacrifice airmen (and women) to
that end, they could have done so, and the pilots and crews would have
flown and died just as their unfortunate RAF and USAAF counterparts did.
No less bravely, no less motivation.
Roger Wallsgrove
Kjetil Aakra
Wilhelm Wirén wrote:
> > There are also stories about a Soviet-operated DH Mosquito, but details
> > of this are a bit sketchy.
> >
>
> There's a picture of the Russky Mosquito in "Red Stars" by Geust,
> Keskinen &
> Stenman. According to the book the Soviets had only one plane of that
> type.
Regarding russian Mosquitos. There is a photo of one (prior to delivery)
in a Norwegian book by Cato Guhnfeldt. I might be wrong but the serial
was DK 296 or something and it was an B Mk. IV used by 105 Sqd. in the
bombing of the Gestapo headquarters in Oslo on 25. september 1942. I
believe it was transferred to the Russians in 1944 and as ususal nothing
is know of its subsequent fate.
Now, if the Mosquito referred to above in the Geust et al. book is the
same Mosquito I would be very interested in hearing more about it.
Kjetil
Tom Iamele
>
>I am sure that Russians are as patroitic to there country as any other
>nationality. Hovever in World War Two, Russian citizens weren't
>fighting for Russian, they were fighting for the Soviet Union. The
>Soviet Union was an artifical creation and Joseph Stalin oould never
>convert the nationalism of the various Soviets states to Soviet
>nationalism. Stalin wus preoccupied with creating the Soviet Man, the
>citisen with Soviet instead of ethnic identity. Stalin failed. The
>Soviet man never existed, except as Stalin's dream.
This statement is not historicaly accurate. Stalin began moving
away from the cult of personality business even before signing the
Soviet-German Non agression pact. The soviet Propaganda machine
began to prepare the people for the what the leadership saw as an
inevitble war. The best example of this is Eisenstein's film
masterpiece "Alexander Nevsky" which plays on RUSSIAN nationalism,not
soviet ideology.
Stalin and the leadership were willing to use russian nationalism to
achieve their goal.. Survival of both the nation and the party.Hence
the Great Patriotic War. was born. Most Soviet Soldiers, Even the
ones from non russian republics (Stalin was a georgian after all)
faught to defend "Mother Russia" or the "Rodina", not the communist
party.
>If Adolf Hitler had half a brain, he could have made himself more
>popular in the occupied Soviet Union that Stalin. Remember in the
>'Thirties Stalin had purged about a third of his own population. I rate
>Stalin as the biggest murderer in World history. Howevr as bad as
>Stalin was, Hitler managed to be even worse.
This is accurate. Generaly, the Soviet People, especialy in the
Ukraine and Beylorussia, welcomed the Germans. It didn't take long
for the SS and Gestapo Special Action Units to start their work and
turn the populations against the invaders.
>
>Air warfare is not won so much by machines as by airmen. You brief the
>airman, he, alone of with his crew, get s into his plane, braves the
>elemenst, the enemy and attempts theough individual belief in what is
>doing to complete his mission. You can not order an airman to be
>brave, You can force an airman to believe in what he is doing. How
>well an airmnn fights depends on this motivation, and democracies
>produce more motivated airman that do totalitarian regimes.
>
Too simple. Air warfare, like all warfare, is one in the relm of
logistics. This includes both human and material resources.
Human resources encompus both training and replacement capabilities.
Material resources are supplies, ordanence,and replacement aircraft.
A balance of both is needed to effectivly engage in any kind of
combat. Deficiency in either area means defeat.
The japanese had little trouble building All the aircraft That they
needed., But could not produce compatet pilots at a reasonable rate..
this lead to battles like the Marianas "turkey shoot" where hundreds
of Japanese planes and pilots were blown out of the sky.
In contrast, the germans never fully mobilized their production
capability (per A. Speers Memoirs) They had some of the Best Trained
Pilots on the planet, but They nearly always operated at numerical
disadvantage. Especialy on the russian front..
As for Totalitarian pilots not being motivated... then how come ther
were Luftwaffe aces with 300+ kills., or ask the f-86 pilots if the
Soviets they went up against in mig alley in ''50-'52 were'nt
motivated.
Tom
These opinions are mine and not those of Kelley Drye & Warren
>
David Lentz
Tom Iamele wrote:
> >I am sure that Russians are as patroitic to there country as any other
> >nationality. Hovever in World War Two, Russian citizens weren't
> >fighting for Russian, they were fighting for the Soviet Union. The
> >Soviet Union was an artifical creation and Joseph Stalin oould never
> >convert the nationalism of the various Soviets states to Soviet
> >nationalism. Stalin wus preoccupied with creating the Soviet Man, the
> >citisen with Soviet instead of ethnic identity. Stalin failed. The
> >Soviet man never existed, except as Stalin's dream.
>
> This statement is not historicaly accurate. Stalin began moving
> away from the cult of personality business even before signing the
> Soviet-German Non agression pact. The soviet Propaganda machine
> began to prepare the people for the what the leadership saw as an
> inevitble war. The best example of this is Eisenstein's film
> masterpiece "Alexander Nevsky" which plays on RUSSIAN nationalism,not
> soviet ideology.
> Stalin and the leadership were willing to use russian nationalism to
> achieve their goal.. Survival of both the nation and the party.Hence
> the Great Patriotic War. was born. Most Soviet Soldiers, Even the
> ones from non russian republics (Stalin was a georgian after all)
> faught to defend "Mother Russia" or the "Rodina", not the communist
> party.
I had the pleasure of attending a talk by a Soviet Army veteran from
World War Two. By his description Josepeh Stalin did oot appeal to
Russian Nationalism, which he had been trying to extingish, until the
German were at the gates of Moscow. The German pushed the Soviets back
to Moscow. Stalin appealled to Russian Nationalism, and the Russian
Soldiers drove Hitler back all the way to Berlin. Then once the peace
was won, Stalin again reverted to Soviet Nationalism.
David
Wilhelm Wirén
The same plane is in the Red Stars' photo. I don't know the plane's
history but it was handed over to the Soviet Union on 20th April 1944.
In the photo the RAF s/n DK296 is visible but the RAF bullseyes have
been roughly painted over and replaced with red stars over the old
national emblems. There is also a star in the middle of the horizontal
tail.
Surprisingly Russia apparently only received this single Mosquito. OTOH
the country didn't exactly lack indigenous bloodsuckers.
Wilhelm Wirén
James Wilkins
Somewhere I've seen a German account of a Soviet bombing raid on a German city.
--
James Wilkins
The Mitre Corp.
Bedford, MA
Kjetil Aakra
Wilhelm Wirén wrote:
> The same plane is in the Red Stars' photo. I don't know the plane's
> history but it was handed over to the Soviet Union on 20th April 1944.
> In the photo the RAF s/n DK296 is visible but the RAF bullseyes have
> been roughly painted over and replaced with red stars over the old
> national emblems. There is also a star in the middle of the horizontal
> tail.
It's story is rather simple. It flew only with 105 Sqd. before being
transfered to the russians. The photo is apparently taken before
delivery (the stars have black borders, didn't the Russians mostly use
white?) and it would be very interesting to know what happended to DK
296 and what operational use it saw (if any).
Kjetil