"1945 Soviets vs Allied: Who Would Have Won? " Topic

The Allied of course…

YouTube link

Amicalement
Armand

Interesting little video … but it totally ignores the fact that the US had a special bomb which would have destroyed the Soviet Union. And back then, we were the only ones who had it.

Tell us more about this special bomb…

B29's and B17's would have flattened anything the German's forgot . How many A bombs did the USA have after Nagasaki , I don't think it was very many .

One for Moscow…..

Lets start with Patton unleashing 30 divisions. There is a framework in there for a decent alt-history sci-fi series but not to be taken seriously.

Hmmm … All the Allies and maybe rearm the Germans vs the USSR in '45 ? Well the USSR still had a lot of troops, tanks, etc. and many of those were pretty good quality. And probably sooner than later the US would have had to use another A-bomb, though. On Moscow, probably …

The USSR caused @ 70% of the German's and their allies' losses there on the Eastern Front. Regardless the USSR Tanks and FA were not only quality in most cases but along with everything else. They had numbers. And if the US, UK, etc., had some trouble with Panzer Vs, VIs, etc. Just think how it would be with T34/85s, SU100s, JS IIIs, etc. And again the USSR tank production numbers far exceeded what the Germans made. And rivaled what the US & UK did …

And that is only one category. The USSR had a lot of Infantry as well …

So again, I'd think before long the US would have to nuc Moscow …

Were the western allies still sending tons of stuff to the USSR in 1945? I would think that if that suddenly ended it would affect the fighting capability of the Soviet armies in a hurry.

The Allies supplies were still going through Antwerp. Replacements were very, very low, Britain was breaking up one division a month and the Soviets were emptying Gulags and arming them with trucks filled wit PPSH's. Everybody wanted to go home or stay and rebuild. The US Air Force and groups of veteran intact divisions would be the only allied forces available. The Russians would have some intact tank/Mechanised armies, the rest improvised Shock Armies all with a very tenuous single supply line. I figure a 3 month war at most.

Strategic bombing without nuclear weapons would have destroyed Russia's production capabilities outright. No more Petroleum, lubricants, spare parts.

The west has air superiority from day one and does not look back.

The Russians would have won the ground combat at the beginning, but allied air power would have started crushing supply lines pretty quick. Great tanks without fuel are still useless.

In the long run though, everyone would have lost because it would result in massive loss of life.

Russians did not have numbers any more in 45. Taking older guys, and factory workers to fill the losses. Don't believe Sven Hassel.
On top of that, the mass of formerly lukewarm pro German ex soviets pow would have fought enthousiatically on the allied side, now comprising some Germans, no doubt ( practical if in hiding non official) French (despite fierce internat strife from Kommintern commanded communist unions and ex resistants) and bits of everyone in freed Europe including fanatical Poles (not sure the ones on Soviet side then be so enthousiastic) cz etc. a renewed Austria be a convenient non German pool to use former German veterans.
Too much for old Soviets, including some bits of trouble in Siberia no doubt. And imagine Mao be the last of their concern to get help, also another what if.

Despite that the Josef was certainly not mad enough to go for that, and did, might be switched off by his staff.

Churchill asked the British General Staff in April '45 to look into the possibility of attacking the Soviets in July 1945. This was Operation Unthinkable. They evaluated this idea and came back to Churchill and told him they could guarantee naval superiority, but as for the rest, forget about it. The idea was shelved.

What would winning against the Soviet Union look like, if it was possible? A negotiated peace or unconditional surrender? Would the Americans and Brits and their associates have had to occupy the Soviet Union? Would this have been feasible? Would the Russians have launched a partisan war against the occupiers? Would the war weary American and British people have accepted this war and its consequences and costs?

As for western air superiority: has air superiority in Afghanistan brought the Americans victory? Did it bring the Americans victory in Vietnam? The Soviets had a considerable air force at the end of WW2. The top Allied ace was a Russian. They probably would have inflicted some serious hurt on the USAAF and RAF, even if they eventually went down to defeat.

As for western air superiority: has air superiority in Afghanistan brought the Americans victory? Did it bring the Americans victory in Vietnam? The Soviets had a considerable air force at the end of WW2. The top Allied ace was a Russian. They probably would have inflicted some serious hurt on the USAAF and RAF, even if they eventually went down to defeat.

Apples and oranges, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq have nothing in common with the war in Europe. The terrain and politics and restrictions put on the use of airpower are very limiting. Whereas in WWII there were little political restrictions on it's use. And the terrain in Poland where the majority of the bombing would probably happen is pretty open with a small number of critical choke transportation points.

As to top ace that means little the top one hundred+ aces were German yet their air force was destroyed in the air by the Allies. The US rotated their combat experienced pilots home to train new pilots thus producing a much better balanced overall force rather that a few elite pilot with high kill numbers and then a bunch of lesser pilot who end up being meat on the table. The one clash that I have read between US and Soviet fighters the US pilots saw the Soviets off mins several of their numbers.

Actually the air campaign in Vietnam was ultimately was successful. While Rolling Thunder wasn't very successful due to the restrictions on it along with the stopping and restarting of the bombing. But Linebacker and Linebacker II were successful in their goals of stopping the NVA's 1972 offensive and bringing the North to the Paris peace talks and sign the Peace Accords. The fact that the North violated the Accords and invaded again in '75 and the Democratic congress decided not to uphold the US commitment to support the South if attacked by the North is irrelevant

I think the possible directions of any such conflict are many and varied, and there are a lot of nuances in racking and stacking the forces on both sides.

But I would rack and stack like this:

- The Russians get a lot of supplies from the west in 1945. But cutting off those supply lines does not mean that those materials suddenly disappear. Stockpiles of weapons, spares, and consumables are already in place. But if combat goes on for too long, those supplies will not be replaced. From the Russian perspective, it will all be about what can be done in the first few weeks.

- The Russians have a LOT more experience in massive mobile operations than the western Allies. The Soviets faced the Wehrmacht/Waffen SS "A Team" in armored/mechanized warfare, and beat them at their own game. There was exactly ONE "Battle of the Bulge" that is studied and reviewed over and over by the US Army, but little study had been done by the summer of 1945. The Red Army of 1945 had 8 or 10 battles of that size in it's recent history, and had done very deliberate studies of many of those battles, both in terms of defeating German offensives and in preparing and executive offensives of their own. They knew this stuff from theory to practice, from logistics to tactics, from combat tempo to firepower.

Patton was a reasonably good practitioner of mechanized warfare at the Army level, and he had a couple of strong corps or division commanders, but one Patton with about 40% of his subordinates skilled in his game, would have very likely been encircled, cut off, and crushed into mealy worm food by half a dozen Konevs with two dozen Rybalkos and Katukovs. His (Patton's) tendency to boldness combined with a severe underestimation of Soviet operational techniques and skills would have made this scenario ever more likely.

- The US capabilities in aerial warfare, particularly strategic bombing, are miles beyond anything the Soviets have experienced or prepared for. The Soviets managed to gain air superiority only over the Luftwaffe's "B Team". But Soviet frontal aviation is pretty impressive in its own right, and the US and British have not experienced a competent tactical air opponent for 2 years. Front line ground units have largely ignored/abandoned their AA abilities in pursuit of other priorities, and the pilots and squadron leaders that are actually in action with the USAAF and RAF are going to be quite surprised by what aerial combat looks like over the battelzone. I would predict a hotly contested tactical air war for several weeks, with western ground forces dealing with the quite unpleasant results of not having air supremacy over the battlefield at a time when they are also dealing with an enemy that is consistently out-maneuvering them in space and time. Not a happy few weeks.

That said, in time the western allies will absolutely come to dominate the tactical airspace. They have more fighters, more pilots, better pilot training, better logistics. The Russians have better ground attack aircraft, but once their fighters are suppressed, even the toughest Shturmovic will not succeed in the face of numerous capable enemy fighters in the tactical air space.

On the strategic front, I expect it will take even longer than a few weeks. B-17s and B-24s will not be able to reach strategic targets from existing bases. Bringing B-29s to the theater will take months (more for the logistic infrastructure, which is quite extensive, than for the bombers themselves). Even then, with the impressive reach of the B-29, most high-value strategic targets in Russia will be out of reach. So setting up new bases that have an easier reach to targets deep in Russia (maybe in northern India? Or Iraq?) will be important. But this also takes time, again more for the logistics infrastructure than for the actual runways and crew housing.

So in the first weeks most of the western strategic bombing advantage will have to be applied in interdiction campaigns, bombing the transportation networks (and airfields) of eastern Europe. B-17s and B-24s (and the occasional Lancaster or Halifax) will be vulnerable to interception by La-7s, Yak-9s and P-63s. Mustangs will be applied as escorts, taking some of the west's best fighter capability from the tactical air battle. The western bombers will take their tole, although it won't be easy.

It is worth mentioning, in this context, the RAF penchant for night bombing. If and when a reasonable target for night attack by Lancasters and Halifaxs is identified within their range from their bases (both existing, and in time new bases), the Soviets will have no defenses. Well, OK, a few searchlights and AA batteries. Pfft. The Soviets were 10 years away from their first useful night-fighter, and had no radar tracking and control system to put interceptors into position even if they had a competent night fighter. But the problem is that night bombing is not much use for interdiction. Maybe the strategic bombing can start earlier by doing RAF night attacks, setting up British logistics for bombers that are already in-theater, while the USAAF B-29 bases are being set-up.

At some point, if the ground war continues for more than 6 or 8 weeks, the strategic bombing campaign will begin in earnest, and things will get VERY bad for the Soviets pretty quickly. A couple raids on Grozny and Baku will put a real pinch on Russian POL supplies, and these targets will be reachable once new airfields are set up in the eastern Med or southern Asia.

And then there is the whole question of the A-bomb. After Nagasaki the US didn't have any more. But more could be built. Not many, not fast, but it doesn't actually take many to impress. And given that it doesn't take many, it might be possible to do a few A-bomb raids before all the infrastructure is in place for a concerted strategic bombing campaign. It takes a lot less time to set up the logistics for three planes to fly every two weeks, than for 300 planes to fly every two days. At 30-32K ft the B-29 was not immune to interception by Soviet PVO fighters. But cruising at 290mph at that altitude would have made it a VERY hard target to intercept, particularly given that the Soviets didn't have had any comprehensive radar warning and fighter control system, nor any precedent to warn them about how dangerous two or three planes would be. And the Soviets didn't have any information on what they needed to defend … Grozny, Moscow, Chelyabinsk? Takes a LOT of fighters to try to defend so much airspace from every random penetration if you don't have a comprehensive radar warning network.

But it does raise the question about whether the A-bomb count should be a post-Nagasaki count, or a pre-Hiroshima count. What is our scenario for this conflict? Patton wanted to make trouble in May of 1945. That means the western Allies are still fighting Japan. That changes things quite a bit. The war against Japan was not a small side-show by mid-1945. And the US population was not done hating the Japanese, so pulling resources away to be used against the Soviets would have faced a fair bit of controversy.

- This last point raises the whole question of support and populations. Both sides were exhausted in 1945. Ancillary populations would also not have been enthusiastic. Easy to say "How enthusiastic would the Poles fighting on the Soviet side have been?", but I think that alliance forces were even more important to the western allies than the Soviets. Take all the Czech and Polish forces out of the Red Army and you lose a few divisions. Take the French or even Brits out of the western alliance and the US is stuffed. And popular sentiment is FAR more influential on western political leadership than on Soviet political leadership.

The idea of Germans participating on the side of the western allies is a non-starter in my view. This is very much a cold-war perspective pushed on to a non-cold war scenario. The US and British leadership in 1945 was busy destroying German military power. Only real outliers like Patton could imagine putting guns in the hands of Germans. Eisenhower, Marshall, Montgomery, Grigg … everyone else wanted to kill Germans, bury Germans, and see no more of Germans for a generation. But it hardly matters, because most Germans were too busy starving to think about starting in on a new war.

At least that's how I rack 'em and stack 'em. To say, based on all of that, that things would follow one particular course from start to finish is kind of silly. Even if you took all of my inputs as gospel (and not even I would suggest that), you could still follow a path to almost any result you wanted to get to.

Or so I would suggest.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

The US had the initial two A-Bombs ready to go in early August (as history shows), and a schedule that targeted a new city every two weeks for the rest of August and September. Bomb #3 was slated to be dropped August 19th.

Production (and shipment to the Pacific) was such that by October, they would be able to target a new city every week from that point on.

We can probably eliminate any "But would a US president actually order one to be dropped on an enemy target?" debates, because we DID have a president who DID just that.

Regardless of how a shooting war between the Allies and the Soviets would have started in May 1945 … by August 1945 we could just as easily have dropped the Nagasaki bomb somewhere in Russia. Japan would still have surrendered, because having a second bomb go off anywhere was enough proof to them it was not a one-and-done deal. And Russia would have realized with the Hiroshima bomb, that they were next.

Still, an interesting what-if … as long as you ignore the A-Bombs.

The Russians get a lot of supplies from the west in 1945.

Not all that much as soon as the Germans surrendered lend-lease stopped. then there was the problem of getting supplies across Poland. Not only would they have to endure the attack form the air bt also attacks from the ground by Polish partisans.

The Soviets faced the Wehrmacht/Waffen SS "A Team" in armored/mechanized warfare

In the Normandy area besides the infantry divisions the Allies faced,
1st SS PzD
2nd SS PzD
9th SS PzD
10th SS PzD
12th SS PzD
2nd PzD
9th PzD
11th PzD
21st PzD
116th PzD
Lehr PzD
Not exactly the "B" team.

I think people tend to forget that the Germans defenses were a very thin and brittle line of infantry divisions spread over a very very long line backed up by a few mobile units. The infantry's job was to try and hold long enough for the mobile reserve to counter attack. Unfortunately for the Germans the Soviet learned how to beat that particular defense. Mass the artillery opposite a short section of line, bombard it. Then break it with infantry supported by heavy armor. Once the line broke send in their own mobile units. At that point there is little the infantry can do other than to try and hold the flanks of the breakthrough. If the Germans hadn't anticipated correctly where the Soviets were going to attack and mass PDs nearby they had little chance of stopping the Soviet drive. Since the German infantry are basically immobile they tend to get encircled and destroyed or captured.

They were very good at that tactic. However things in the West would be different. For one thing the front would be much shorter and not as thinly held. Nor had they ever faced the West's Artillery (equipped with the proximity fuse) which was much more effective and plentiful than anything they had faced from the Germans.

and the pilots and squadron leaders that are actually in action with the USAAF and RAF are going to be quite surprised by what aerial combat looks like over the battelzone.

I very much disagree with that assessment. Allied pilots were very good and very aggressive. And while the Soviet were able to achieve local dominance over areas of the battlefield for periods of time they never actually achieved air superiority. On to the strategic bombing, Soviet fighters tended to be poor performers at high altitudes where the big guys flew and the P-51 excelled. B-29 would have been pretty much invulnerable at the altitudes they flew at. So the air battle there would not have taken long. 9th Airforce had developed very good air support during the run across France and was good at it. The Soviet had nothing like the tactical AA that the German had used.

And then there is the whole question of the A-bomb. After Nagasaki the US didn't have any more. But more could be built. Not many, not fast, but it doesn't actually take many to impress.

I believe there was a enough fissionable material for a third bomb on hand with additional material for another due by Aug. 19, with enough for three more in Sept. and a further three in Oct.

Forgot this, one thing the Soviets had in their favor was that both US & UK were heavily infiltrated with Soviet spies & sympathizers.

Apples and oranges, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq have nothing in common with the war in Europe.

Actually the air campaign in Vietnam was ultimately was successful.

Agree on both points …

The Soviets faced the Wehrmacht/Waffen SS "A Team" in armored/mechanized warfare

In the Normandy area besides the infantry divisions the Allies faced …

Yes, but how many attacks by multiple panzer armies did the Allies face in ETO?

One.

How many times did the western allies face panzer corps -sized counter-attacks attempting to break through the inner or outer rings of forces that had encircled German corps and army -sized formations? Well, never, because the western allies never managed to encircle any corps or army -sized formations. But even if you remove that bit, how many times did the western allies face panzer corps-sized counter-attacks? I can't think of any. Might be one in there somewhere, but…

So, yes, we can recite a list of divisions. But I will stand by my assertion that the Russians faced the "A" team. About the only time that the Germans put their "A" team to work on the western front was in the Ardennes. One case. That's all the western allies saw of what the German armies were capable of.

… as soon as the Germans surrendered lend-lease stopped.

Deliveries under the "Fourth Protocol" may indeed have ended on 12 May, 1945. But the "Milepost" agreement kept supplies flowing to the Soviets until 2 September, 1945. The first transfers under Project Hula, which saw the transfer of 149 naval vessels to the Soviet Navy, did not occur until after Germany had surrendered, and continued until 4 September, 1945.

Given that information, and the simple truth that Kravchenko's 6th Guards Tank Army managed to field a substantial number of Shermans in their campaign in Manchuria, in August of 1945, I don't think it is reasonable to assert that lend lease shipments suddenly stopped the moment the Germans surrendered, or to follow that supplies obtained under Lend Lease would not have been available for use to the Soviets in any conflict with the west. I think it IS reasonable to assert that supplies would have been shut off, and so as they were consumed, would not have been replaced.

However things in the West would be different. For one thing the front would be much shorter and not as thinly held. Nor had they ever faced the West's Artillery (equipped with the proximity fuse) which was much more effective and plentiful than anything they had faced from the Germans.

Sure, the Soviets had never faced the west's artillery. But so also the west had never faced the Soviet's artillery. The Germans quite feared American and British artillery, but they had already adapted to Soviet artillery. Their defensive lines in the east were set up based on the assumption that the Soviet artillery fire at the start of any offensive would be all-encompassing and fully destructive. The Americans and Brits had no such notion, and would have been rudely surprised when battalion and regimental positions were erased from their maps in the opening minutes of a Soviet offensive. The western allies would have adapted, but only after the initial two or three times that they experienced it.

Again, it makes for a very difficult first couple of weeks. If the Soviets don't obtain decisive results in a very short time, the advantage will tilt to the west.

and the pilots and squadron leaders that are actually in action with the USAAF and RAF are going to be quite surprised by what aerial combat looks like over the battelzone.

I very much disagree with that assessment. Allied pilots were very good and very aggressive. … 9th Airforce had developed very good air support during the run across France and was good at it.

I never suggested that the allied pilots were not good or aggressive.

But they had no recent history of intercepting enemy tac air. We can assert all sorts of wonderfulness in national characteristics, but there IS real data that can be examined and mapped on to the scenarios we describe.

Look at Operation Bodenplatte. How many German planes were intercepted by western tac air? At several airfields that were attacked western fighters managed to scramble and engage during the raids or as the raiders withdrew, but as far as I understand only one western fighter unit, 12 P-47s of USAAF 367th Squadron, managed a successful intercept of the attacking forces before they reached their targets.

Being well trained and aggressive is of limited value if you aren't trained in the task you are called upon to do. The skills that were developed over the western desert and Tunisia had a very short half-life in ETO. By May 1945 the majority of western pilots flying tactical air missions were skilled, but experienced only in ground attack. Their air-to-air training was unused, and the focus of their command staff was on ground-missions.

I'm not suggesting that the Russians would have had it all their way. Only that the higher skills we attribute to western forces would have been mitigated in combat with an adversary who had a very different tactical behavior. Escorted raids of ground-attack planes at 500 ft would have been so alien to the allies that the response would have been ineffective … the first few times.

So also the Soviets would have found themselves in unfamiliar surroundings. I think the attrition would have substantially favored the west. But attrition takes time to have an effect. So over time the advantage shifts to the west, but initially … well … I expect things might have been very tough for those on the receiving end of attention from the Shturmovics and Tupolevs.

On to the strategic bombing, Soviet fighters tended to be poor performers at high altitudes where the big guys flew and the P-51 excelled. B-29 would have been pretty much invulnerable at the altitudes they flew at. So the air battle there would not have taken long.

The B-29 typically cruised at 30-32K feet, to my understanding. Happy to be convinced otherwise.

That altitude does not make them invulnerable. It makes it hard to intercept them, but does not make them invulnerable.

La-7s can work at that altitude, as can the Yak-9U. I can't say I have a full mapping of their performance envelope at altitude, but it was within their effective reach.

The P-63 had substantial reach beyond that altitude, and in fact the P-63A had a higher service ceiling than the P-51D. The Soviets had more than a thousand P-63s in service in May 1945. Not that this number is any great shakes vs. Mustangs, but against B-29s in the early phases of a campaign this would not be a risk to be lightly dismissed. As to keeping them in service once Lend-Lease shuts off, they were observed on Russian airfields during the Korean War, so I think we might assume the Russians could keep them flying for a few months even after the flow of spares was cut off.

Please note I am NOT saying that the P-63 had better flight characteristics at that altitude than the P-51. I don't know. I assume the P-51 had better performance at altitude, as the USAAF passed on the P-63 given the P-51 was already available. As others have noted, the Soviets were not too interested in maximizing performance at high altitudes. But that performance came free with the P-63, as it was part of Bell's efforts (unsuccessful though they were) to design a plane the USAAF would take.

The P-63A, the version that was shipped to the Russians in numbers, had several improvements suggested by the Russians based on their wind-tunnel testing at TsAGI and based on their combat experience with the P-39. To my knowledge none of these changes were specifically harmful to high altitude performance. These changes were not in the version the USAAF tested.

Again, in time it all shifts to the favor of the western allies. And once B-29s are in place in any numbers, or once atomic attacks begin, it shifts even faster. In particular, depending on which scenario we take, the first atomic attack on Moscow could well bring the whole thing to a close, as it might well have decapitated the Soviet state. But flying a round trip to Moscow was not an easy job even for the mighty B-29, and I really have little idea what tactical approach might have been taken to ensure penetration of some 1,500 miles of enemy airspace.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Mark;

While generally I agree with your arguments I really can't agree with Operation Bodenplatte being an indication of Western allies ability to intercept low flying raids. Bodenplatte was unique. It was undertaken under the strictest secrecy. So much so many Luftwaffe aircraft were lost to friendly fire since it was not seen as prudent to alert the German air defenses for fear of tipping off the allies.

The fact the operation was delayed from 16 December to 1 January due to poor weather actually worked to the German favor. At that point in the war the Western allies had pretty much written off the Luftwaffe. It being New Year's Day many allied pilots had celebrated, much too much for some and commander's had basically stood down operations. Despite not scrambling many fighters the German losses, granted some from friendly fire, were pretty severe. Allied losses were made good in a week.

I will concede, at this point in the war, part of the poor showing was due to low pilot skill and poor training as the Luftwaffe rushed pilots through to make up for losses. The Soviet would no doubt be better quality. But lets not forget that any pilots shot down would be over western occupied territory meaning a higher attrition factor for the Soviets.

Given the set up for this scenario as in the original video there would likely not be even one set of circumstances like Bodenplatte since Western air units would not be standing down. As matter of fact they would be on higher alert. Given the numbers of fighters available to the allies one could expect standing patrols.

And while emphasis may have shifted to ground targets given the relative lack of air threats one must remember the Western allied emphasis on returning combat pilots home to train the new pilots. This means the current crop of pilots were either veterans of the raids into Germany or trained by those pilots and their air-to-air training would have been pretty good.

I would suggest the Russians never faced the density of air-to-air threats they would face, certainly not in the last few years of the war in the East, and they may have found their tactics and strategy wanting. I suggest those Shturmovics and Tupolevs may have had it tough on the receiving end of Mustangs, Thunderbolts and Typhoons bouncing them from higher altitudes (sorry, couldnt resist).

Bodenplatte, as I mentioned, was a one of a kind operation and not an indicator of Western allies abilities.

The P-63, while an improvement over the P-39, had its share of problems. It could not recover from a spin for example. It had an unreliable supercharger. It has relatively short range on internal tanks. And it had higher maintenance requirements than either the P-47 or P-51.

But at high altitude (25,000 feet and above) it had several fatal flaws. The AAF tested the P-63 extensively from 21 Sep 44-31 Mar 45. The final report was issued on 6 Aug 45. While the 37mm cannon would make it a good bomber destroyer its other issues ruled it out.

From the report:
"During high altitude runs the engine had a tendency to cut out with changes in power settings"

And this:
"At altitudes of 15,00 feet to 25,000 feet the cockpit heater does not radiate sufficient heat to keep the pilot warm. Above 25,000 feet the heater gives no heat at all."

Already suffering from being inferior to escorting P-51s we have this:
"From the pilots standpoint, the basic feature of the uni-lever control is undesirable since there are two definitive periods when the pilot desires high RPM and low manifold pressure which are impossible to obtain with the uni-lever control. These two times are in dogfights and while landing.

While the P-63 tested may not have incorporated any of the suggested Soviet changes none of those changes, to my knowledge, addressed these issues.

So for escorted B-29s dont think the P-63 is the answer.

As an aside the service ceiling for the P-63 is 40,400. The lowest for the P-51 B-H models is 41,500.

Hitler thought it would be easy too…

TomT

Not saying it would be easy, far from it. Rather pointing out some of the challenges the Russians would have.

Actually, my answer to the topic, would really be "No one, everyone loses".

Marc:

I have never seen the USAAF reporting on the P-63 evaluations. Would be interested in any results you find that you care to describe.

I am somewhat surprised to see the description of power cut-outs at altitude. I wonder if the USAAF testing reveals a flaw in the design, or just a bad unit in their hands.

The Allison engine in the P-63 through P-63B series was the V-1170-93. My understanding of Allison engine nomenclature is that is considered a V-1170-E model. The -E models were designed to be, and considered to be, pretty much the same as the -F models in performance, their differences being in the gearing structure needed for the long and low propeller shafts of the Bell aircraft. (Same gear ratios, same power and supercharger ratios, etc., same HP, just a reduction gear box to drive a propeller shaft that was not in line with the engine). The -F model was used in the P-38 Lightning, which was known for very good high-altitude performance.

This is one reason that the P-63A was rated with a 43,000ft service ceiling. As noted, a higher service ceiling than the P-51D (or H, evidently).

The later P-63C moved up to the V-1170-117. This is still considered an -E series engine due to the reduction gear, but had water-injection for extra HP boost.

Between the P-63A and P-63C more than 2,000 planes were delivered to the Soviets. They were, at least initially, assigned to PVO units (air defense forces, not frontal aviation). This is an indication that the Soviets saw them as bomber interceptors. They were in full service as one of the more important PVO interceptors for several years, as I noted still being observed on Soviet airfields in 1952.

As to the stalling characteristics, this was in fact one of the issues addressed in the changes requested by the Soviets. They pushed Bell to move the CG forward to improve the flat-spin characteristics. It seems these steps were reasonably effective. This is particularly true in the P-63A-9 and later variants, which switched from the M4 37mm cannon to the M9, with it's increased ammo and more forward placement (moving the CG further forward). The -9 was the first variant to see more than 200 units of production, with it and it's successors forming the bulk of P-63s delivered to the Red Airforce.

In any case, given the nasty stall characteristics of several Soviet fighters in the WW2 era, notably including the I-16 to the LaGG-3, I don't doubt that what the Soviets considered to be acceptable might have differed from what the USAAF considered to be acceptable. The same might be said of cockpit heating. I would be surprised to hear of the Red Air Force rejecting ANY plane over cockpit heating … I mean, really? Even at 40,000 ft it was probably warmer in that cockpit than in the pilots' quarters at the airfield.

Of note … the P-51, whether D or H, would not have been able to escort B-29s over their full range. As with Iwo Jima in the Pacific, if escorts to the full range of the B-29 were needed, the fighters would need to operate from airfields several hundred miles closer to the target. Moscow was only marginally in range of B-29s operating from the UK to begin with. P-51s were not going to handle that range, and would need to be based at about Berlin to make it all the way to Moscow with full fuel and tanks and no time-over-target margin. The logistics footprint of the P-51 was notably less than the B-29 so that might have been manageable, but it is an additional factor to consider.

All in all an interesting conversation. I do not claim any particular depth of expertise on aircraft, so I am learning quite a bit as we proceed, and it is always possible I don't have full appreciation of the nuances or implications of the specs.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Mark;

First my apologies. I meant to link to the original report in all its glory. I think we all appreciate source documents and not just extracts:
PDF link

The issue was with spin, not stall. A fine distinction but one nonetheless.

Didnt mean to imply that the P-51 could escort over the full range of the B-29 and if I gave that implication apologize but many targets were within range. Further, lacking the comprehensive air defense system, complete with radars, of say the UK or Germany, would have greatly complicated Russian intercepts.

Once again my sources indicate a service ceiling lower than the one you quote for the A. Would appreciate any documents you have on it to the contrary.

And, finally, had to chuckle on the comment on airplane heating and pilot's quarters. The lack of heating at high altitude would not have caused the Russians to reject the P-63 especially since in their use it was meant to dogfight at low and medium altitudes. But it would impact its use as a high altitude interceptor.

Some points

You don't need to use the full range of the B-29. All you need to do is smash the railyards at Warsaw and may be Krakow to starve the Soviet armies in Germany.

I'm pretty sure the Soviets didn't have radar so that only leaves sound detection. I don't know how efficient Soviet sound detection units were but they sure wouldn't have been as good as radar. That means that timely interception of the bomber formations would have been very difficult even early on with just B-17s and B-24s. Then there would by the British bombers hitting targets at night without the worry of night fighters.

Soviet AAA was anemic at best the heavy stuff was limited to 76mm & 85mm guns and outside of Moscow even worse.

I'm sure the US would have sent fighters ahead of the bombers to engage and disrupt any fighters that might already be airborne waiting for the bombers degrading their effectivness like was done against Germany.

Soviet pilots were not accustomed to dogfighting at high altitudes where the thinner air mean your fighters performance is less effective. They were mainly a mid to low altitude air force.

The P-63 units were with maybe the exception of one regiment were stationed in the far east so wouldn't have been available initially as interceptors.

The Soviets are very low on manpower at the end of the war and now without lend-lease they will need to release men to start producing food right away. Even if they were still receiving food aid there wasn't going to be large stocks of food in warehouses somewhere. It takes time to recover farmland that has been neglected by war especially without mechanization not to mention growing time.

Planting & Harvesting without mechanical aid is very manpower intensive and there just weren't enough women and old men to get it done without lots of help.

On the artillery. The Allies were well aware for the Soviet armies massing of their guns. It takes time to build those concentrations and the Allies were much better at Aerial recon than the Germans so spotting those concentrations would have been more likely.

The Allies were not deficient in artillery themselves and their FDCs were much more effective at organizing and targeting those concentrations. not to mention their flexibility in its use.

Soviet concentrations could be devastating but they didn't wipe out battalions at will and Would have been subjected to the effective and rapid Allied counter-battery fire and air attack. The proximity fused round along with a TOT would have been devastating to the crews.

The Soviet had no experience with Allied artillery their only experience was with German artillery which couldn't hold a candle to that of the Allies.

Germans soldier who had fought on both fronts repeatedly said the artillery of the Allies was more effective than that of the Soviets. At least one German when asked which Allied ground attack aircraft he most feared replied those little spotter planes because when you saw one of them you knew the hell was coming.

You don't need to use the full range of the B-29. All you need to do is smash the railyards at Warsaw and may be Krakow to starve the Soviet armies in Germany.

As a study of the USAAF survey of the strategic bombing campaign and/or the ETO "Transportation Plan" of 1944 will demonstrate, if you smash the railyards at Warsaw and Krakow you will impact the Red Army's supply line for … maybe 3-5 days. RR tracks are quickly replaced. And even a complex marshaling yard can be back in action on a substantial, if not full, scale with only a modest fraction of it's total lineage in service.

Then you'll have to bomb them again. And then you'll have to bomb them again.

Once you have bombed them, and other marshaling yards, several times, the repair rate will slow. Important equipment like RR switching gears will become scarce. Then you will start to see a difference in the flow of supplies.

Your problem is that you don't have any B-29s at all initially, and you only have the capacity to manage a few sorties until you build up your logistics. The log footprint of a B-29 was enormous -- much larger than other USAAF 4-engined bombers. They had higher failure rates (meaning lots of maintenance time) and were substantially more complicated to fix (with remote-controlled gun turrets, pressurized cabins, 3,200hp engines, etc. etc.).

So you won't be likely to use them to bomb marshaling yards in Poland. Because that job requires a LOT of sorties, and B-29s are just about your worst choice for a lots-of-sorties job in ETO.

I'm pretty sure the Soviets didn't have radar so that only leaves sound detection.

The first model of an operational Soviet radar unit, the RUS-1, began deliveries for operational deployment in 1938. (It looks like PYC-1 in the Cyrillic alphabet.)

The RUS-2 deliveries started in 1939. It had a detection range of ~120km, but it's altitude detection limit of ~7km appears to be insufficient for the task we are contemplating. That said, this was a 1939 model.

Both -1 and -2 were mobile (truck-mounted) units. The RUS-2S/P-2 was a stationary installation unit, which saw first production deliveries in 1941. This progressed to the P-2M and P-3 models during the war. I have not managed to find any performance specs on these, even in the (admittedly few) Russian language sources I have examined.

I do not mean to suggest that the Russians had a highly capable widely distributed radar early warning network in place. Not at all. But to suggest they didn't have radar is simply not correct. They had radar in fixed sites, they had mobile radar batteries, and they had radar on their naval vessels during WW2.

That means that timely interception of the bomber formations would have been very difficult even early on with just B-17s and B-24s.

Even without a useful radar warning system, it is worth noting that it is NOT hard to see formations of several hundred multi-engined bombers flying at 20,000 feet. Remember, we are not talking about an approach from over open water, where there isn't anyone to see you. To reach strategic targets in eastern Europe the bombers would have to fly over hundreds of miles of occupied territories. That means more than an hour of warning just by having some number of guys with open eyes and a telephone.

Then there would by the British bombers hitting targets at night without the worry of night fighters.

This is quite true. If there was a worthwhile target for the RAF, they would be largely unstoppable.

The problem would be finding worthwhile targets. Flattening Polish cities and killing tens of thousands of Polish civilians is just not very likely to help the war effort. And the RAF, even with their various bombing aids, had difficulty hitting anything smaller than a city (and frequently the wrong city, at that).

Soviet AAA was anemic at best the heavy stuff was limited to 76mm & 85mm guns and outside of Moscow even worse.

Not sure what you are trying to suggest here. The AA defenses of Moscow were pretty good. While I have not seen a good solid claims-vs-losses reconciled accounting on this question, I have seen sources that indicate more than 2,000 German planes shot down by AA fire in and around Moscow. Whether those numbers are good or off, it is clear that the Luftwaffe didn't find Moscow to be a profitable target. They were able to flatten other Soviet cities, but Moscow remained largely intact, even during the period when it was THE major target for the Wehrmacht's ground campaign.

Soviet pilots were not accustomed to dogfighting at high altitudes where the thinner air mean your fighters performance is less effective. They were mainly a mid to low altitude air force.

One of their air forces, the VVS, was mainly a mid-to low altitude air force. The other Soviet air force, the PVO, was a mid- to high-altitude air force.

In 1941 the MiG-3 of the PVO air divisions out-performed both the Bf-109F and the Spitfire V at altitudes above 20,000 feet. The Russians were quite serious about air defense. The PVO (air defense force) of WW2 doesn't get a lot of press like the VVS (frontal aviation). But it was there, waiting for the bombers to show up.

I am not suggesting the MiG-3 was any great shakes by 1945. In fact it was taken out of service in 1945, but hey, not many planes that were in high volume service in 1941 were still front-line equipment by war's end.

By war's end it was the Yak-9U and the P-63 that dominated PVO squadrons. The Yak-9U was quite a respectable performer up to about 30,000 feet (IIRC it's service ceiling was about 35,000 ft). It would have been marginal at best against B-29s, but would have been quite useful against B-24s and B-17s. And in the Yak-9UT configuration it could mount a 23mm, 37mm or even 45mm cannon in it's nose, which would have made it a useful anti-bomber interceptor if it wasn't flying at the top of it's altitude band.

The P-63 units were with maybe the exception of one regiment were stationed in the far east so wouldn't have been available initially as interceptors.

It is several times easier to move a fighter squadron than a bomber squadron.

That said, from what I have read the first unit to receive P-63s was the 28th IAP (fighter regiment) of the PVO, which was a Moscow defense unit. By May of 1945 some 50 fighter regiments had P-63s, and in August the 17th and 821st fighter regiments, also in the Moscow district, were operating P-63s. At least one more Moscow PVO regiment was equipped with P-63s in the fall of 1945.

I am pretty sure there were also some located in the Baku PVO district.

It is true that there were a lot of units equipped with P-63s in the Far East. This is in part because that's were combat was anticipated in August of 1945. But it is also because that's where they arrived from the US. The great majority of P-63s were flown across Canada, picked up by Soviet pilots in Alaska, and flown to Soviet bases in the eastern regions of the Soviet Union.

BTW the deliveries of P-63s continued, under lend-lease, until the Japanese capitulation. The last new P-63s arrived in Kamchatka on September 29, 1945.

On the artillery. The Allies were well aware for the Soviet armies massing of their guns.

So also the US Army was well aware of the Panther in December of 1943. Except whoever it was that was well aware wasn't working at Aberdeen, at the Armored Board, or on the command staffs of the US 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th or 6th Armored Divisions, or at USAETO.

Yes, some intelligence analyst may have written a report. But to say "the allies were well aware…" WHO was well aware? How many division commanders had had their lines ripped open by Soviet artillery bombardments? Where in the doctrine or training or staff bulletins was there ANY tactical guidance on how positions could or should be constructed to withstand 200 gun/km concentrations of fire?

Soviet concentrations could be devastating but they didn't wipe out battalions at will and Would have been subjected to the effective and rapid Allied counter-battery fire and air attack.

WW2 counter battery typically took two or three days to set-up. Air Force photo recon missions had to fly over the enemy batteries and get good pictures. They had to get back to their base, the films had to be developed, ALL of the pics needed to be evaluated by analysts, ALL of the information that might be of interest to anyone had to be marked, and the pics duplicated, and routed to the respective G2s, someone at Army or Corps level G2 had to decide that the battery location was important enough to pass along to the Arty, and from that point some FDC could put fire on the battery when time and range allowed.

Or, once a battery opened fire, it was possible that a counter-battery control unit would be in position to sound-locate or flash-locate the battery, and a priority call for artillery could put rounds downrange pretty quickly. It would require at least two and preferably three separate locations to locate the battery so that a firm triangulation of the location could be achieved.

The problem with that, was that a Soviet artillery concentration only lasted for an hour or so, and if a counter-battery control unit was in position to get a direction on one of the batteries, they were probably some 30 or 40 batteries within detection range. The same would be true from each detection location, and several of the batteries would be in line from each location. The locations would have no way to discern which batteries the other locations were calling in. Triangulation was almost impossible. And even if it could be done, the target would have been erased from the map before the counter-fire could be effective.

The Germans figured all of that out. They had to. They had their lines ripped open a few times. You don't hear individual landsers describing how bad it was to be under these kinds of concentrations because typically the units that were actually under the concentrations were destroyed completely, if not killed outright by the fire, being over run within the first moments after the fire lifted. So who was there to ask?

The only Germans who witnessed it were on the command staffs. Units just disappeared from the OOB. Gaps appeared in the lines. So they learned to adapt. They put false first line positions. They put multiple lines of entrenched positions, with "main lines" and "reserve lines". And when their intelligence indicated an attack was likely, the pulled the bulk of their forces out of their main line, leaving only out-post strengths in both their outposts and their main line of defenses.

The US and Brits had no such tactical concepts. At least not that I've ever seen record of. In fact the briefing officers seemed rather incredulous when they were told such stories by former German command staff members in the years after the timeframe we are discussing.

None of that is intended to assert that the Soviets would hold all the cards. Far from it. Time would favor the western allies. I would not predict the course of any campaign, as there are too many variables and whatever anyone predicts, we can be quite confident the prediction would be wrong. But the weighting can, I think, be understood. The Soviets had a set of strengths that the west had not faced before. The west had strengths as well, deeper strengths. The longer the conflict went on, the more telling the deeper strengths would be. But the initial Soviet strengths …

… makes for a very difficult first couple of weeks. If the Soviets don't obtain decisive results in a very short time, the advantage will tilt to the west.

At least that's how I see it. Interesting stuff in the conversation. Some new stuff for me. But still nothing to change my general perception of the comparable positions.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

RR tracks are quickly replaced.

Only if the resources are already pre-stocked close by.

Your problem is that you don't have any B-29s at all initially, and you only have the capacity to manage a few sorties until you build up your logistics.

B-17s & B-24s have the range and can begin the operations against the railyards.

The log footprint of a B-29 was enormous -- much larger than other USAAF 4-engined bombers. They had higher failure rates (meaning lots of maintenance time) and were substantially more complicated to fix (with remote-controlled gun turrets, pressurized cabins, 3,200hp engines, etc. etc.).

Logistic needs for the B-29 wasn't that much more than for the other bombers. Mainly longer runways which could fairy quickly fixed.
The only maintenance problem with the B-29 was engine overheating and there were already temp stopgap fixes for that on hand. By the end of the war a design change had been designed and produced.

Even without a useful radar warning system, it is worth noting that it is NOT hard to see formations of several hundred multi-engine bombers flying at 20,000 feet.

Not so easy to see coming at you, better when they are over you and going away and then not so easy unless there are contrails and they aren't always there.

To reach strategic targets in eastern Europe the bombers would have to fly over hundreds of miles of occupied territories. That means more than an hour of warning just by having some number of guys with open eyes and a telephone.

Not a lot of telephones or sympathetic people in occupied Europe. One hour notice would be just about enough time for your planes to scramble and get just enough altitude to see the bombers as they fly by, it takes a lot of time to get to 20,000+ feet. Then there will be the escorting fighters just waiting to pounce.

The problem would be finding worthwhile targets. Flattening Polish cities and killing tens of thousands of Polish civilians is just not very likely to help the war effort. And the RAF, even with their various bombing aids, had difficulty hitting anything smaller than a city (and frequently the wrong city, at that).

They could target Minsk & Kiev railyards, or fighters to bother them and little AAA could lead to better accuracy.

Not sure what you are trying to suggest here. The AA defenses of Moscow were pretty good. While I have not seen a good solid claims-vs-losses reconciled accounting on this question, I have seen sources that indicate more than 2,000 German planes shot down by AA fire in and around Moscow.

Shooting down He-111s and Ju-88 was a lot easier that downing Lancs, B-17s, B-24s, B-29s and mot of the German planes lost were to fighters. not AAA.
Doesn't anyway matter yet as we aren't going to Moscow and the other cities had little to no AAA.

In 1941 the MiG-3 of the PVO air divisions out-performed both the Bf-109F and the Spitfire V at altitudes above 20,000 feet. The Russians were quite serious about air defense.

Not an issue none were left by '45 and even if there were still not that much of an issue. Weak armament, 2 x 7.62 and 1 x 12.7 MGs and an inaccurate gunsight meant that pilots had to get in real close to the target to have a chance of hitting it.

By war's end it was the Yak-9U and the P-63 that dominated PVO squadrons. The Yak-9U was quite a respectable performer up to about 30,000 feet (IIRC it's service ceiling was about 35,000 ft). It would have been marginal at best against B-29s, but would have been quite useful against B-24s and B-17s

If they were lucky enough to be able to intercept them and of course they would have to deal with escorting fighters also. Also the YAK-9U pilots were ordered not to use full power on their engines otherwise they would burn them out in just a couple of missions.

And in the Yak-9UT configuration it could mount a 23mm, 37mm or even 45mm cannon in it's nose, which would have made it a useful anti-bomber interceptor if it wasn't flying at the top of it's altitude band.

Yes cannons are very useful vs. bombers but the problem with them is they don't carry much ammo especially Soviet fighters. 120rds of 20mm and 30 of 37mm isn't that much in aerial combat.

Your problem is that you don't have any B-29s at all initially, and you only have the capacity to manage a few sorties until you build up your logistics.

B-17s & B-24s have the range and can begin the operations against the railyards.

Hmmm. Wondering if somehow my language and composition skills are failing me.

You said:

You don't need to use the full range of the B-29. All you need to do is smash the railyards at Warsaw and may be Krakow to starve the Soviet armies in Germany.

This was the reason for my statement. See how one statement follows the other?

You say: B-29s will be invulnerable.
I say: Soviets have planes that can intercept them.
You say: Mustang escorts will sweep the skies.
I say: It will take time. And Mustangs will not reach the full range of the B-29s.
You say: B-29s don't need to use their full range to reach railyards in Warsaw.
I say: B-29s are a poor choice for railyards in Warsaw. Takes too long to build up your B-29 forces.
You say: Don't need B-29s to bomb the railyards.

Yes, that was my point. B-29s would not be a good choice for bombing the railyards in Warsaw.

But, when you send in B-17s and B-24s, all of that "oh they are invulnerable" (well, no, even the B-29s weren't) is lost. There were LOTS of Soviet fighters that could reach B-17s and B-24s.

Even without a useful radar warning system, it is worth noting that it is NOT hard to see formations of several hundred multi-engine bombers flying at 20,000 feet.

Not so easy to see coming at you, better when they are over you and going away and then not so easy unless there are contrails and they aren't always there.

I am truly baffled by this kind of reply. Was my posting so difficult to understand?

To reach strategic targets in eastern Europe the bombers would have to fly over hundreds of miles of occupied territories. That means more than an hour of warning just by having some number of guys with open eyes and a telephone.

Not a lot of telephones or sympathetic people in occupied Europe. One hour notice would be just about enough time for your planes to scramble and get just enough altitude to see the bombers as they fly by, it takes a lot of time to get to 20,000+ feet. Then there will be the escorting fighters just waiting to pounce.

Not a lot of telephones or sympathetic people in occupied Europe?

WHO IS OCCUPYING EUROPE IN THIS SCENARIO? It is the SOVIET MILITARY who are occupying Europe! Do you not think that the Soviet Military had any telephones or "sympathetic people"????

Let's work out the scenario for you in a bit more detail. I am trying to make the reasoning clear, but evidently I am not being too successful so far. So I'll try to spell it out in one specific case example.

The USAAF sends 350 B-17s and/or B-24s to bomb the railyards. Which railyards do you want? Minsk? Kiev? Either one. Let's say Minsk for the sake of this scenario.

The Soviet forces around Berlin, unless they are all indoors with earplugs and blinders on, notice 350 planes flying overhead. They don't "see them coming", which you say is hard to do. They "see them passing overhead", which you say is easier.

The USAAF bombers still have another 600 miles to fly to their target, which at the cruising speed of the planes they are flying is about 3 hours. And every PVO regiment from Dresden to Moscow to Baku is now on the alert.

By the time the bombers pass Poznan, even a 4th grader can draw the line from reports of your presence (passing overhead) to Minsk. The fighter regiments around Minsk have more than 2 hours of warning. Perhaps as importantly, the fighter regiments around Bialystok have more than 1 hour of warning.

Contrary to your belief that it takes "a lot of time", in fact a LA-7 or Yak-9U requires less than 7 minutes from take-off to climb to 20,000 feet. A P-63A requires a bit more, maybe 8 minutes. In either case, there is no stress in getting to the altitude of the bombers well in advance of their arrival.

As to USAAF escorts, well, they will have to engage fighters in Germany, and all across Poland, before they even enter the airspace over Byelorussia. And USAAF escort fighters have the issue of drop-tanks. The very first time any USAAF fighter squadron is engaged, they drop their tanks. Then they have enough fuel to fight, and to get home. But not enough fuel to get to Minsk, to fight, and to get home. Because they can't go that far without their drop tanks.

This is the reality of flying deep penetration raids over occupied territory. Even a handful of intercepting fighters can force squadrons of escorts to drop their tanks, and then you run out of escorts.

The USAAF had already come to understand this, so they sent waves of escorts when attacking the Germans. And that tactic worked reasonably well, particularly because the Germans didn't have as many fighters as the USAAF did, and because the fighters, and the bombers, approached over water, so they spent a smaller proportion of their total distance over enemy-occupied territory.

But the USAAF looses both of those characteristics when bombing Minsk. And it all gets even a little worse bombing Kiev, because at that distance (about 150 miles further from than Minsk) the bombers are spending even MORE time over occupied territory, and the fighters are getting close to their maximum escort range.

By war's end it was the Yak-9U and the P-63 that dominated PVO squadrons. The Yak-9U was quite a respectable performer up to about 30,000 feet (IIRC it's service ceiling was about 35,000 ft). It would have been marginal at best against B-29s, but would have been quite useful against B-24s and B-17s

If they were lucky enough to be able to intercept them and of course they would have to deal with escorting fighters also. Also the YAK-9U pilots were ordered not to use full power on their engines otherwise they would burn them out in just a couple of missions.

I can hardly understand how or why they would not be able to intercept B-17s and B-24s during the 6 to 8 hours they would be over Soviet held territory. In fact, as the Germans had shown, they might even be able to fly multiple sorties per plane, engaging the bombers both on the inbound and the outbound journeys. That effectively multiplies the number of fighters available to intercept the bombers. The escorts get no such force multiplier.

And if you think the Soviets would shy away from risking their engines to achieve their intercepts, I think you greatly underestimate the PVO (or even the VVS). No, they would not only risk burning out their engines if they had to, they would actually RAM the bombers if that was all that was left to them. It was not an endorsed tactic by 1944/45, as it was no longer thought necessary. But it was not beyond reason to the Soviet way of thinking.

And please note, I am NOT SUGGESTING THAT THEY WOULD RAM THE BOMBERS. REALLY. I'M NOT. It is just an example of why one should not assume that the Soviets would let western bombers reach their targets in order to save wear-and-tear on the engines in their fighters. Because there is a LOT of history to demonstrate why ASSUMING you can predict the INTENTIONS of the Soviet military is a bad idea. You have to focus on their CAPABILITIES. They were capable of intercepting the bombers. They had enough technology, enough planes, enough pilots, enough time.

Yes cannons are very useful vs. bombers but the problem with them is they don't carry much ammo especially Soviet fighters. 120rds of 20mm and 30 of 37mm isn't that much in aerial combat.

Agreed that it is not a lot of ammo. This is a disadvantage in a dogfight. But the purpose of the Yak-9UT is not to dogfight. It is to intercept and shoot down bombers. For that purpose it carries a very powerful punch.

The two Berezin B-20 20mm guns in the Yak-9UT each fired at about 800rpm. That is faster than the 20mm M2 Hispano gun used by American fighters. But it must be de-rated somewhat due to being synchronized to fire through the propeller arc. So in terms of raw firepower, those two Russian cannons have the impact of maybe 3 US 20mm cannons when they get on target. Then you add the Nudelman 37mm gun, which at 400rpm fired at more than 2x the rate of the US M4 37mm gun in the P-39. In total it is throwing about 12 lbs of HE projectiles per one-second burst.

In the end, that little, light Yak-9, if it gets its guns on target, would shred most planes with a single burst. Yes, it looks like a relatively light armament if you only count the guns. But the throw-weight of it's guns, and the explosive power of it's projectiles, is impressive.

Given that B-17s and B-24s tend to fly straight and level, and are reasonably large targets, it's just not that hard to get on-target with 1-second bursts. In fact, given the defensive fire they throw at you, you don't really want to be on target for more than about 1 second.

You don't need more than 4 to 6 bursts to make your plane very useful if you can bring a bomber down with every burst. Even if you are not such a good shot, and only bring one down with every 2 or 3 bursts, that's going to be a pretty useful fighter.

But again, none of that should be read to suggest that I think the Soviets would "win" the air war. Only that it would not be a roll-over as some seem to infer. The advantage would shift progressively more and more to the west, as logistics were put in place for B-29s, new airfields were constructed to better reach the southern portions of the Soviet Union, tactics were adapted to better address the experience gained in fighting the Soviets, and attrition had time to take it's toll. But assuming it would be like fighting the Germans in 1945 but with a less competent opponent with less capable fighters, is a poor assumption set.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)