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malyhin1517 -> RE: GA (9/17/2021 4:43:38 PM)
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ORIGINAL: metaphore
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ORIGINAL: malyhin1517
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ORIGINAL: AlbertN
On T1 I personally feel that Soviets should not intercept at all. But it may go bogus.
It means more planes destroyed on the ground but more pilots saved.
It won't be right! Soviet aviation tried to repel German bombing! Moreover, it was on June 22, 1941 that the first ram of a German aircraft occurred!
Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov (October 8, 1909, Chizhovo village - June 22, 1941, Dubno) - Soviet military pilot, participant in the Polish campaign of the Red Army, Soviet-Finnish and World War II. Senior lieutenant.
By June 1941, he commanded a link of I-16 fighters of the 46th Fighter Aviation Regiment of the 14th Mixed Aviation Division of the Kiev Special Military District. Non-partisan.
On June 22, 1941, on the first day of the Great Patriotic War, in the skies over the Rivne region with his flight, he entered into battle with a group of German Heinkel-111 bombers from the KG55 Grif squadron. Having shot all the ammunition, he destroyed one of the enemy aircraft with a ram. It was one of the first air rams in the history of the Great Patriotic War. After a mid-air collision, it made an emergency landing near the village of Zagortsy. He died of his injuries and wounds in a hospital in the city of Dubno.
By the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of August 2, 1941, Senior Lieutenant Ivanov Ivan Ivanovich was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union posthumously.
I agree that it won't be right.
But how to reflect the appaling state of most Soviet frontline Regiments?
There were shortages everywhere: supplies, support, operational crews, operational aircraft, communications network (alert system), etc.
As far as I know, the main cause of wastage for the VVS, at the begining of Barbarossa was, by far, all those aircraft which were or became quickly not operational, then destroyed by their own crew before their airfield was overun by German ground forces. It was exactly the same in France during the 1940 campaign as the bombing of airfields by the Luftwaffe was at first largely ineffective.
On the first day of the war, June 22, the Luftwaffe lost 69 combat aircraft on the Eastern Front. For 27 days of fighting from June 22 to July 19, 1941, German aviation lost 1284 aircraft of all types, which was more than two months of fighting in the "Battle of England"
In many Soviet books and documents, the losses of the Red Army Air Force for June 22, 1941 are usually estimated at 1200 aircraft, and it is indicated that most of them were destroyed on the ground {169}. At the same time, the factor of surprise is very often emphasized. For example, a former employee of the Air Force headquarters M.N.Kozhevnikov named among the main reasons the fact that the telegram of the NKO, in which the commanders of military districts were warned of the time of a possible attack by Nazi Germany, gave orders to bring the troops to combat readiness and to disperse aviation to field airfields. , was transferred to the border districts only 4 hours before the invasion {170}.
Of course, the surprise factor played a role. Some of the pilots and commanders rested that Sunday morning, others were outside their units. At the same time, among the Soviet pilots, especially those who fought in Spain, many understood that war could not be avoided, and expected an attack [147] by Germany. For all of them, the nature of the air war, which the Luftwaffe imposed on us from the first hours, was unexpected. How did it manifest itself?
First of all, the Germans proved to be very persistent in achieving their goals. So, in the 10th garden, the first blow caught by surprise only the 74th captain of Major BM Vasiliev. The rest of the regiments managed to disperse the material part. The 123rd IAP suffered the main losses during the fifth raid, and the 33rd IAP - during the fourth. In the latter case, the nine Bf109 managed to deceive the vigilance of the VNOS posts, sneaking up at an extremely low altitude, and burned 21 I-16s and 5 I-153s in a 40-minute attack. The regiment has lost its combat capability {171}.
The tactics of the German aviation consisted of alternating attacks on airfields by fighters and bombers in small and medium groups, depending on the Soviet opposition. And since many airfields did not have any air defense systems at all, and others had one or two anti-aircraft machine guns, there were no [148] elementary shelters for the flight and technical personnel, the aircraft were everywhere crowded and not camouflaged, the Luftwaffe acted very effectively and with almost impunity. As already noted, the airfield of the 122nd iap near Lida was subjected to four raids by German bombers (in one case fighter-bombers operated) without any fighter cover {172}. The air victories announced on this day by the regiment's pilots raise serious doubts.
A very significant factor that influenced the sharp decline in the combat effectiveness of the Air Force was the loss of control in most areas in the district (army) air force - aviation formations, units. The situation was especially bad on the Western Front, where the front air force headquarters was practically inactive during the first three (!) Days of the war. Many commanders of air regiments assigned tasks to their subordinates to conduct combat operations without coordination with the higher headquarters {173}.
There was no general plan for the withdrawal of units from the blow. Under these conditions, not all commanders made decisions that were appropriate to the current situation, tried to maneuver their forces on that fateful day. But they also failed, as it turned out that the enemy was well aware of the location of our base and alternate airfields, as well as field sites near the border. Therefore, those units that were able to relocate on June 22 suffered no less than the rest.
We have already noted that at many Soviet airfields (primarily in the Western OVO) at a distance of 12-50 km from the state border there were approximately 100 aircraft [149], which was caused by the retraining of flight personnel for new materiel. Even in those cases when the air regiment had a staff of 62 aircraft, the placement of all this equipment on one site made the basing very tense. Let us add to what has been said that belated and not always sufficient measures to camouflage airfields did not allow us to protect our vehicles placed with lines from air attacks. The lack of reliable means of controlling units at a distance (radio) and the skills to use them did not allow the regiment to be located at several airfields.
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