Air war on the Eastern Front: good overview sources?
Rich Rostrom
I think I would like to learn something about the
air war on the Eastern Front. It's not a subject
that gets much play, even from Eastern Front
specialists - the ground battles are the usual
focus, especially the tanks.
What I'd like to get, if possible, is a narrative
which gives, for various times through the war,
the approximate strengths of the Soviet AF and
Axis AFs opposing it
the development and counter-development of
aircraft on each side (including production
numbers and allocations)
what the forces on each side were trying to do,
including what ground targets they sought out,
and how each side fought for air superiority,
in general and in specific key areas of operation
their relative successes (including actual losses
to enemy air, enemy AA, and accident - I hate
narratives without metrics)
why they succeeded or failed.
I'm _not_ interested in anecdotal histories
about Finnish aces, or the Night Witches,
or the Normandie-Niemen Squadron, or
Hans Rudel. I want the big picture, if possible,
Does anyone know of a book or books that
would fit this requirement?
Don Phillipson
news:cea259e2-3e31-4e63...@p8g2000yqb.googlegroups.com...
> I think I would like to learn something about the
> air war on the Eastern Front. . . .
> I'm _not_ interested in anecdotal histories
> about Finnish aces, or the Night Witches,
> or the Normandie-Niemen Squadron, or
> Hans Rudel. I want the big picture, if possible,
Cajus Bekker's The Luftwaffe War Diaries (transl
1966) are probably the best place to start. As I
remember it he deals more with the western front
and the air defence of the Reich than with the
eastern front, but he lists sources: and authors
in the last 50 years must have reacted to his
conclusions and perhaps plugged gaps.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)
Louis C
> I'm looking for a book recommendation.
Essentially, it looks like you're looking for the equivalent of "When
Titans Clashed" for the air war: a narrative incorporating the latest
research, coverage of both sides, discussion of doctrine and
production, plus lots of tables with the data. The short answer is I
don't know of any such work. Here's what I do know about:
>From the German perspective, there is Muller's "The German Air War in
Russia". Hayward's "Stopped at Stalingrad" provides a very readable
and generally well-regarded analysis of German operations in the
southern half of the front between mid-1942 and early 1943.
>From the Soviet perspective, Hardesty's "Red Phoenix" is pretty good,
but again it's mostly an organisational history rather than the sort
of two-faced narrative that you're looking for.
The "Black Cross Red Star" books are more focused on an operational
narrative, I haven't read all of them but they struck me as being
pretty good, though not quite what you're looking for. They're
certainly no hero-worship like the books you wrote you didn't want to
be recommended, though.
I look forward to other recommendations from members of this group
LC
IndSyd
> Rich Rostrom wrote:
> > I'm looking for a book recommendation.
No one book is going to provide an approach leave alone answers to
your questions.
You have no alternative but to read several books because the post WW2
atmosphere Cold War took care of any objective analyses. The
recommendations of von Hardety, Muller, Black Cross Red Star etc. are
good but must be supplemented by other reading as well. So you have to
read at several levels:
1 In order to understand aviation policy strategy & operations you
have to see what were the national policy drivers - Alexander Wert
huge - Russia at War - (London Times correspomndent spent war years in
USSR & spoke Russian
2 Read newer books like P-39 aces
3 Gunther Rall's My Logbook
I can name several more if you like
SolomonW
> Does anyone know of a book or books that
> would fit this requirement?
The problem I tend to notice is in this conflict Germans tend to be more
interested in their aces with their scores rather then the strategic
battles.
Conversely Russian books are plentiful and cheap but few are available in
English. When they are they tend to be expensive. English readers have a
reputation for having more money then Russian ones.
In my view, the best books on this subject are by Christer Bergstrom. I
find him extremely good.
Here are some lists of books available to English readers.
http://books.stonebooks.com/cgi-bin/foxweb.exe/base/subjects?1000276
http://books.stonebooks.com/cgi-bin/foxweb.exe/base/subjects?1001457