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Dreamslayer -> "The Russians, when our planes appear, instantly ... open fire." (12/12/2021 10:15:24 PM)
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Part of the article "The Russians, when our planes appear, instantly ... open fire." by Russian aviation historians Roman Larintsev and Aleksandr Zablotskiy, 26 May 2021 on warspot.ru .
Translated by Google (sorry), but it should be interesting.
"First, let us make a few general remarks. From the very first days of the Great Patriotic War, German aviation was forced to operate in conditions of intense rifle and machine-gun fire, which was conducted by the Soviet infantry. This fact did not go unnoticed in the documents of the German command. Here is one example from the documents of the 11th Army, relating to the very beginning of the war, namely on June 24, 1941:
“Despite the losses, the Russian units are holding out well under the assault attacks of our aviation. At the same time, they are trying to counteract it with small arms fire. "
[image]https://warspot-asset.s3.amazonaws.com/articles/pictures/000/095/782/content/1-d6e1c5a9951eba2597f1adc28b5452f5.jpg[/image]
Fragment of the report of the Chief of Staff of Army Group South of July 28, 1941 on the actions of the Luftwaffe
The fact that the Russians not only "held themselves well", but also inflicted serious losses on the Luftwaffe, is evidenced by the following document issued by the chief of staff of the now entire Army Group South on July 28, 1941. Complaining about the weakening of the forces of the 4th air fleet due to the transfer of part of the forces to the Moscow direction or the withdrawal of parts for restoration, the document devotes most of its volume to the topic of interest to us:
“The losses incurred by our aviation so far are primarily due to shelling from the ground (rifle and machine gun fire) during assault strikes. All the crews unanimously declare that the Russians, when our planes appear, immediately leave the vehicles, lie on their backs and open fire from all available fire weapons. If, at the same time, an immediate fall of the car is not recorded, then often they return to their airfields, at best, with 50–70 holes, which leads to their failure for several days. In the worst case, the planes make an emergency landing, where they wait for a long time for an evacuation, which is usually associated with great difficulties - if at all feasible. "
This was followed by instructions on the full implementation of this method of combating ground attack aircraft in the practice of the German infantry. The German commanders also noted the effectiveness of rifle and machine-gun fire later. So, on February 10, 1942, the chief of staff of the III Panzer Corps sent out the following instructions to subordinate units and formations:
“On February 9, 1942, one Rata [I-16 fighter - editor's note] was shot down by 12 rifle shots in the von Kleist army group's zone. On another day, some Ju 87 Junkers returned to the airfield with numerous holes received from Russian infantry fire. These machines were out of order for several days. These episodes clearly show the effectiveness of infantry fire in the fight against aviation and should be used as an example in training personnel. "
The above documents convincingly prove that rifle and machine-gun fire of the infantry was considered by the command of both the ground and air forces of the enemy as a rather serious threat. The extent to which this threat was realized in the course of hostilities can be shown by data on the losses of the Luftwaffe from various types of weapons. Unfortunately, so far no such studies have been carried out or they are not known to the authors. In addition, there are some fundamental difficulties in this issue.
First, a fairly large proportion of the lost Luftwaffe aircraft are classified as “missing”. Secondly, it is rather difficult to understand the definitions of the German loss system. In the well-known documents of the Chief Quartermaster of the Luftwaffe, losses from rifle and machine-gun fire of the infantry can be regarded as losses from "shelling from the ground", "fire of infantry weapons", "machine-gun fire". To completely confuse conscientious historians, insidious German staff officers introduced concepts such as "Feindeinwirkung" and "Feindbeschuss", which can be translated as "enemy impact" and "enemy shelling". Well, what happened to the German plane, if the reason is indicated as "Bei Einsatz" - "during the sortie", probably did not know even in the Luftwaffe authorities."
original - https://warspot.ru/19641-russkie-pri-poyavlenii-nashih-samolyotov-mgnovenno-otkryvayut-ogon
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