By David M. Glantz, Jonathan M. House
Translation: Zhao Wei Zhao Guoxing
When war broke out, the advantages and disadvantages of the Soviet and German air forces were very similar to those of their ground forces. Like its own Army, the Luftwaffe, despite losing some of its battle-hardened pilots and air crews in the Battle of Britain, had a huge advantage in air combat experience. The 2,770 aircraft used to support Operation Barbarossa accounted for 65 percent of the luftwaffe's front-line aircraft. To avoid revealing intent, many aircraft remained on the Western Front to continue airstrikes against Britain until a few weeks before the offensive was launched.
Messerschmidt's Bf-109f fighter was brilliantly designed, but other (type) German-made aircraft would soon become obsolete – notably the famous Ju-87 Stuka dive bomber, which was slow (about 314 km/h) and could only survive in environments where the enemy air force was not functioning. In the beginning, the Germans used air raids to fully seize air supremacy, allowing the Stuka to attack boldly, but this situation could not last forever. The main German bombers, the Do-Neil Do-17 and Junkers Ju-88, had already exposed their range and bomb capacity deficiencies in the Battle of Britain, while the Ju-52 transport aircraft, despite its reliability and versatility, had great limitations in range and load.
This rare color photograph shows the armament layout of the Bf 109F-1, with the 20 mm cannon passing through the engine's central axis and two 7.92 mm machine guns above the nose after the engine removed, a layout that allows the fuselage to concentrate firepower on the axis and make it easy to aim.
German industry failed to fully replenish the losses of the Army in the Battle of Britain, in fact there were 200 fewer German bombers in 1941 than in the spring of the previous year, and similarly, the Cretan airborne operation in May 1941 also took a heavy toll on German paratroopers and transport planes – 146 Ju-52s were shot down and 150 were badly damaged. As a result, combined with the fact that they could only take off and land at temporary front-line field airfields, it was difficult for German pilots to effectively control air supremacy or carry out air attacks in the vast russian part of Europe. In addition, the Luftwaffe was essentially a tactical force, suitable only for supporting short-term ground offensives and not for long-lasting campaigns in the great depth of air.
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army Air Force (Военно-Воздушные Силы РКА, abbreviated "Air Force" in Russian as ВВС) had many problems similar to the Red Army, and the direct threat to the Luftwaffe was quite limited. Although it is the world's largest air force, with 10,743 aircraft (9,099 available in total), of which 10,266 are combat aircraft (8,696 in total), most of them are obsolete cargo, have exceeded their useful life, and have frequent failures. The Big QX dealt the same blow to aircraft manufacturing and design teams as air force commanders did, and the Soviet Union's leading position in aviation was no longer possible. At least one designer was shot for "engaging in sabotage" for crashing a testing machine, and many engineers were thrown into prison at the design office to continue working.
Despite limitations, some of the new Soviet aircraft (such as the high-speed MiG-1, MiG-3 fighter, and the high-performance Il-2) were no less than The Germans. The aircraft did not enter service until the spring of 1941, and many of the units were a mixture of old and new models. Due to the rapid expansion of the Air Force and the QX for trained leading cadres, pilots, managers, and mechanics, about 25 percent of aviation corps actually exist only on paper. In an environment where a plane crash would result in the commander being arrested for "engaging in sabotage," Air Force leaders were very cautious about training pilots to adapt to new aircraft types and conduct night flights.
In the first three months of 1941, pilots of the Special Military District on the Baltic Sea coast had an average of only 15.5 flight hours of training experience, and those in Kiev even had only 4 hours. By June 22, only 932 of the 2,800 pilots had completed rearmament training. Many members of the ground force and pilots were unfamiliar with the new aircraft, and even mistakenly fired at their own aircraft after the outbreak of war.
The Red Air Force also had a number of other problems, many of which arose during the major expansion, such as a severe shortage of ordnance and spare parts. Given the advance of the Soviet border, a large number of new air bases needed to be built, but many of them were not equipped with good supplies and protection facilities. The best-built airfields tend to be at the westernmost point, so they are often the first to fall into enemy hands. Many aviation corps have also not conducted exercises to evacuate aircraft, transfer fields, or organize fighters to act in concert with escorted bombers.
The Soviet Air Force was also split up and assigned to different command structures. Some aviation divisions are used to support specific army groups or fronts, others are directly under the General Staff, and some are responsible for air defense of regional territories. In the initial chaos, communications and chain-of-command disruptions, this system of unauditary command made it difficult to organize air forces for counterattacks in key areas, not to mention the fact that Soviet aircraft in 1941 were rarely equipped with radios.
The Red Air Force's leadership problems led to the prevalence of rigid tactics in Spain in the 1930s and in 1941 at the beginning of the war. Soviet bombers almost stubbornly insisted on attacking from an altitude of 2400 meters, which was too high for precision bombing, but too low for the German fighters who killed them. A few Soviet fighter pilots repeatedly rammed German aircraft and showed great courage, but their tactics were too conservative to effectively compete with opponents who were accustomed to fighting.
This article is excerpted from "The Collision of Giants: A New History of the Soviet-German War"
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