“Everything was wrong” - this note by A.I. Pokryshkina on the margins of the official publication "Soviet Air Force in the Great Patriotic War" became a verdict on communist propaganda, which for almost half a century kept talking about the "superiority" of the red-star aviation, which "threw the Nazi vultures from the sky" and won complete air supremacy.

This sensational book, based not on agitation, but on reliable sources - combat documentation, authentic materials for recording losses, uncensored memoirs of front-line soldiers - leaves no stone unturned from Stalinist myths. Having analyzed combat work Soviet and German aviation (fighters, dive-bombers, attack aircraft, bombers), comparing operational art and tactics, the level of qualification of command and personnel, as well as the performance characteristics of combat aircraft of the USSR and the Third Reich, the author comes to disappointing, shocking conclusions and answers the most acute and bitter questions: why did our aviation operate much less efficiently than the German one? Whose fault is it that "Stalin's falcons" often looked almost like "whipping boys"? Why, having an overwhelming numerical superiority over the Luftwaffe, did the Soviet Air Force achieve much less success and suffer incomparably greater losses?

2. HOW MANY FIGHTERS DID GERMANY LOSE IN THE FIGHT AGAINST EACH OTHER?

Let's start with establishing the magnitude of the losses, because this question is somewhat easier to figure out: the data we have on the losses of the Soviet and German fighter aviation in all cases made public by the party that suffered the losses. It hardly needs proof that it possesses an incomparably more complete information about her losses than the enemy who inflicted them on her. In air combat, where the situation changes in a matter of seconds, the pilot has no time to follow the fate of the aircraft hit by his fire; he usually cannot say with certainty whether they fell or still made it to their airfield; he does not know and cannot know how many of those who survived were destroyed during landing or written off as beyond repair, how many of the enemy vehicles that landed on an emergency were destroyed or turned out to be not on their territory, and how many the enemy managed to evacuate and repair. The ground troops, who check the reports of the pilots about the downed ones, cannot know this either: the territory of the enemy (according to at least, in the first hours after the air battle, or even days) is not available to them; as a rule, they also do not have the strength and opportunities for continuous combing of their location. They are not always able to distinguish the remains of their aircraft from the wreckage of the enemy ... And anti-aircraft gunners often do not even see the one whose fire hit the falling or smoking enemy aircraft - their battery or the neighboring one. For this reason alone, the number of destroyed and damaged enemy aircraft in their reports doubles, triples, etc.: the same machine is entered into their account by several units at once ...

True, some researchers (for example, D.B. Khazanov) believe that reliable information about the losses of the enemy can be obtained without referring to the documents of the hostile side - from the testimony of prisoners of war. However - not to mention the fact that it is not always possible to capture prisoners (and even well-informed ones) - one cannot but agree with Yu.V. Rybin that this source is extremely unreliable (if not obviously unreliable). In fact, being at the mercy of the enemy and seeking to alleviate his plight, the prisoner voluntarily or involuntarily begins to “adjust” to the interrogator, to say what the interrogator wants to hear - and he, naturally, wants to hear that the enemy is running out of steam, suffering heavy losses, etc. .P. “Russian pilots are trained and fight well,” said, for example, during interrogation, Ober-sergeant major W. Pfrenger from the II group of the 5th fighter squadron “Eismeer”, shot down on May 17, 1942 near Murmansk. - German pilots are also good, but now there is a large percentage of young people who [so in the text. - A.S.] do not have sufficient training” 32 . “It turns out that in the spring of 1942 our pilots were the best? So why did we have such horrendous losses during this time?” Yu.V. Rybin rightly asks the question 33 . (only in six dogfights between Soviet and German fighters that took place in the Arctic between April 23 and May 17, 1942, Soviet aviators irretrievably lost, according to their reports, 17 machines - while the Luftwaffe, according to German data, lost only two. that “the fighting qualities of our pilots and aircraft, their successes, starting from 1942”, were “exalted in every possible way” by the prisoners... 35 Let us give one more example. Shot down on July 8, 1943 over the southern face of the Kursk Bulge, Lieutenant G. Lyuti from the III group of the 52nd fighter squadron showed that during the first three days of the Battle of Kursk (July 5-7), the units of the squadron participating in it irretrievably lost 35 aircraft. According to the German documents that most took into account the losses of their Air Force - the reports of the service of the quartermaster general of the Luftwaffe - this number was only 22 36.

We cannot exclude the deliberate misinformation of the enemy by captured aviators. Soviet scouts ground forces POWs-disinformers came across then more than once 37 ; Luftwaffe Lieutenant A. Kruger, shot down in January 1943 near Leningrad, turned out to be a clear conscious disinformer, who said that he was serving in the IV group of the 100th Viking bomber squadron, which, together with the II group of the 30th Adler bomber squadron, was based on airfields of the Pskov air hub. The fact is that the first of the groups he named did not leave the French airfield of Chartres in January 43, and the second did not leave the Sicilian airfield of Comiso ...

Here we can be pointed out that during the First World War, German prisoners of war were distinguished precisely by the exceptional truthfulness of their testimony. Unlike the soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian army, he emphasized who served in 1914-1916. in the headquarters of the 3rd Finnish Rifle Brigade and the 40th Army Corps of the General Staff, Colonel B.N. Sergeevsky, the Germans “always gave absolutely accurate and definite testimony. Almost every German, as it were, was proud that he knew everything and could accurately report everything to "Mr. Captain." “A German soldier knows everything that a soldier should know”, “A German soldier cannot lie to an officer” - I heard such phrases many times from captured enemies, and they, without any coercion, told everything they could tell. Throughout the war, having interviewed thousands of prisoners, I met only two who tried to lie, and even then retreated from this tactic at the first shout. However, it is not in vain that they say that it was in 1914 that the 20th century began - not as idealistic and patriarchal as the 19th ... In the years that have passed between the two world wars, the concept of soldier's honor among the German military has undergone changes, the essence of which is visible, for example, from the protocol of interrogation of sergeant major Hartle from the 217th long-range reconnaissance squadron shot down on June 23, 1941 near Slonim: “He refused to give data on the Heinkel-111 aircraft for two reasons: as a devoted soldier of Germany, he does not want to lose his conscience before his homeland. When asked if it was about honor or fear, he replied that only honor did not allow him to reveal military secrets. Secondly, the Heinkel-111 aircraft were transferred to the Soviet Union and therefore do not represent any secret for the Russian command. Therefore, it would be an insult to demand from him the loss of honor without any reason. The German tanker, who was captured in September 1941 near Yelnya and interrogated by the commander of the Reserve Front, G.K. Zhukov, reasoned in exactly the same way. "Why do not you answer?" He is silent, - Zhukov said after the war. - Then he declares: “You are a military man, you must understand that I, as a military man, have already answered everything that I had to answer you: who I am and what part I belong to. And I can't answer any other questions. Because he took an oath. And you have no right to ask me, knowing that I am a military man, and you have no right to demand from me that I violate my duty and lose my honor.

Another thing is that the numbers of combat irretrievable losses of aircraft, published by the parties that suffered these losses, are also not absolutely accurate in our case. Thus, relevant information Soviet side was published on the pages of the statistical collection “Secrecy Classified Removed” released in 1993 by the Russian Ministry of Defense, and the methodology of its compilers raises many doubts and complaints. At least in a number of cases, this technique had nothing to do with science at all: the compilers of the collection have already been accused more than once of falsifying, of underestimating, in order to maintain the prestige of the Russian Armed Forces, the losses suffered by the Red Army in the Great Patriotic War 41 . For our part, we will point out the facts that make it possible to suspect the compilers of underestimating the losses of the Soviet Air Force. According to the collection, in the Crimean operation (April - May 1944), the Soviet side lost 179 aircraft; according to the documents of the war years, studied by M.E. Morozov, only the 8th Air Army of the 4th Ukrainian front then lost 266 cars 42 . But the Air Force of the Black Sea Fleet, and the 4th Air Army, and part of the aviation forces also participated in the Crimean operation long range... In the Petsamo-Kirkenes operation (October 1944), according to the collection, 62 Soviet aircraft were lost, and according to Yu.V. October 29, and Rybin - for October 7 - November 1, but it is impossible to admit that in two or three days after the actual cessation of aircraft fighting, more were lost than in three weeks of intense combat work ...).

However, the figures given in the collection of irretrievable combat losses of Soviet fighters can, apparently, be considered unfalsified. According to the list of losses of combat aircraft of the Red Army Air Force for 1944, compiled during the war (and published by V.I. Alekseenko already in 2000), combat irretrievable losses fighters of this Air Force then amounted to 3571 aircraft 44 . And this is quite consistent with the data of the collection, which gives here a rounded figure of 4100 aircraft 45 (the "shortage" in the statement of about 500 fighters is easily explained by the fact that it does not take into account the losses of the Navy Air Force and air defense fighter aircraft). Thus, there is no question of underestimating losses; the figure of 500 fighters lost in 1944 for combat reasons by the aviation of the fleets and air defense seems to be even overestimated. The discrepancies with the data of M.E. Morozov and Yu.V. Rybin can be explained by the fact that the collection in all cases indicates the amount of irretrievable losses, and the named authors, perhaps, give numbers not destroyed, but downed aircraft - some of which were after a forced landing renovated. It is known, for example, that during air battles over Taman Peninsula in April-October 1943, only 380 (44.7%) of the 851 Soviet aircraft that landed on a forced plane were written off, and the repair brigades of the 4th Air Army of the North Caucasian Front managed to return 471 aircraft to service 46.

But if the suspicions of falsification in our case should most likely be discarded, then the confidence that the figures of losses of Soviet aviation given in the collection “Secrecy Removed” are not underestimated (even without malicious intent and to a very small extent) - such Still no certainty. After all, we do not know what kind of documents were used by the compilers to calculate losses, whether the peculiarities of compiling these documents were taken into account, whether the information from one source was checked against another. Meanwhile, for example, in the reports on military operations compiled by the headquarters of the air regiments for a given period, their losses were sometimes underestimated. So, from the daily reports of the headquarters of the 900th Fighter Aviation Regiment of the 288th Fighter Aviation Division of the 8th Air Army of the South-Eastern Front, it can be seen that, fighting from August 24 to September 3, 1942 in the Stalingrad region, the regiment irretrievably lost for combat reasons 14 their Yak-7b; these machines were either completely destroyed as a result of air combat, or went missing 47 . However, in the final report on the actions of the 900th fighter near Stalingrad, only 8 aircraft appear irretrievably lost during the indicated days - and it was from this figure that the regiment later proceeded when compiling reports on combat work for a particular period ... 48 As far as the compilers of the collection succeeded “The secrecy stamp has been removed” to restore the true picture in all such cases is unknown.

Part of the documents of the Wehrmacht is also characterized by incomplete data on its losses. In particular, diaries of combat operations of air fleets are unreliable in this respect. According to these sources, the 6th Air Fleet for July 5-11, 1943 irretrievably lost 33 aircraft, and the 8th Air Corps of the 4th Air Force for July 4-23 - 111. According to the 6th department of the service of the quartermaster general Luftwaffe (who was in charge of accounting for losses), the indicated losses amounted to 64 and about 170 vehicles, respectively 49 . Accordingly, the weekly reports of the Wehrmacht command (OKW), based on the reports of the headquarters of the air fleets, are also unreliable. According to these latter, from June 22 to December 27, 1941, the Germans irrevocably lost Soviet-German front 2212 aircraft (including those beyond repair due to too much damage) 50 - and according to the service of the Quartermaster General of the Luftwaffe, these losses amounted to 2631 units by August 31 ... 51 For the period December 7-31, 1941, weekly OKW reports give a figure of 180 aircraft irretrievably lost on the Soviet-German front, and according to the data of German historians O. Gröler and K. Becker processed by D.B. Khazanov, it turns out 324 ... 52 As R. Larintsev and A. Zablotsky, who studied this issue, note, individual errors may also be encountered in the materials of the service of the quartermaster general 53 . And indeed, after all, their information is based on reports from units and formations - and these latter, like in the Soviet Air Force, sometimes underestimated their losses. So, according to the documents of the 1st group of the 28th bomber squadron, it turns out that from July 22 to December 31, 1941, 33 aircraft 54 ​​were killed or damaged in its 2nd and 3rd detachments, and according to the report of the 2nd air corps, in which consisted of these detachments then - 41 ... 55

So absolutely exact numbers combat irretrievable losses of Soviet and German aircraft on the Soviet-German front, we can not, in principle. Let us take into account, however, that the figures of their losses published by both sides, if they differ from the actual ones, then in the same direction (decrease) - so that they should still reflect the ratio of the losses of the parties with a sufficient degree of accuracy. In addition, the degree of inaccuracy of the information of such a German source as the documents of the service of the quartermaster general of the Luftwaffe, according to R. Larintsev and A. Zablotsky, is "very small." “Copies from the relevant materials for 1943, which one of the authors managed to get acquainted with,” these researchers point out, “allow us to judge their sufficient completeness ...” 56 . This information is fragmentary only for four months of 1945, when the system of centralized accounting for losses in the agonizing Reich went wrong. It seems that the information about the losses of the Soviet Air Force published in the collection “The Classification Removed” can also be considered quite complete; in any case, the opposite (we are now talking only about aviation losses) has not yet been proven.

Based on the information of these two sources, we will try to establish the approximate value of the irretrievable combat losses of Soviet and German fighter aircraft on the Soviet-German front.

For Soviet aviation, the collection "Secrecy Removed" gives a figure of 20,700 fighters irretrievably lost for combat reasons 57 .

As for the German fighter aviation, such a final figure for it has not yet been published in the Russian-language literature. However, one can try to determine it by calculation, based on the information at our disposal of the service of the quartermaster general of the Luftwaffe:

- on the magnitude of the total (i.e., both combat and non-combat) irretrievable losses of German fighters on all fronts from June 22 to October 31, 1941 (1527 vehicles);

- on the magnitude of the total irretrievable losses of German fighters on the Eastern Front for January - November 1943 (1084 vehicles) and

- on the magnitude of the irretrievable combat losses of German fighters on the Eastern Front in 1944 (839 aircraft) 58 .

Let us first try to determine the magnitude of the total irretrievable losses of German fighters on the Soviet-German front in 1941 and 1943. In the case of the 41st, it is necessary first of all to establish how many Luftwaffe fighters were irretrievably lost from June 22 to October 31 on other fronts. According to German data, the 2nd and 26th Fighter Squadrons, which were then fighting the British over the English Channel, lost 103 aircraft in combat from 14 July to 31 December. Let us assume that these losses were evenly distributed over the months; then we can assume that from June 22 to October 31, the irretrievable combat losses of these formations amounted to about 80 vehicles. Let's assume that the value of non-combat irretrievable losses related to this figure as 47 to 53: approximately such was then (see below) the structure of the total irretrievable losses of the German Air Force. Then it turns out that from June 22 to October 31, the total irretrievable losses of the 2nd and 26th squadrons amounted to about 150 aircraft. Night fighters covering Germany from British raids could lose about 10 aircraft during this period of time: in the first nine and a half months of 1941, their total irretrievable losses amounted to only 28 units 60 . To the share of German fighters who fought in June - October 41st over the North and Norwegian Seas (detachments of the 1st and 77th fighter squadrons) and in North Africa(I group of the 27th squadron, the 7th detachment of the 26th, and in October also the II group of the 27th), let's leave 100 irretrievably lost aircraft: near the coast of Germany and Norway, air battles were then isolated, and in North Africa the Germans opposed by the less powerful combat attitude parts of English fighters than over the English Channel. As a result, out of 1,527 fighters irretrievably lost by the German Air Force from June 22 to October 31, approximately 1,270 fighters should fall on the Soviet-German front. let's assume that about 200 of them were fighters. Then the total irretrievable losses of German fighters on the Soviet-German front in 1941 can be estimated at about 1470 aircraft.

Since 1943, it is much easier: if for 11 months of this year the total irretrievable losses of German fighters in the East turned out to be equal to 1084 aircraft, then we are unlikely to allow big mistake, assuming that for the whole year they amounted to 12/11 of this amount, i.e. about 1180 cars.

Let us now calculate the magnitude of the irretrievable combat losses of German fighters on the Eastern Front in 1941 and 1943. R. Larintsev and A. Zablotsky, based on data published in foreign literature, determine the share of these losses in the total irretrievable losses of the Luftwaffe on all fronts at 53% for 1942 and 55% for 1943 - and accept that in 1941- m it was the same as in the 42nd 62 . On the Eastern Front, with its frosts, mudslides, unpaved airfields, supply difficulties due to off-road and a small number of landmarks in flight over flat, sparsely populated plains, the percentage of non-combat losses should have been higher than in other theaters of military operations, but - for lack of relevant specific figures - let's take the average figures of Larintsev and Zablotsky. Then it turns out that in 1941 the irretrievable combat losses of German fighters on the Soviet-German front amounted to about 780 vehicles, and in 1943 - about 650. By the way, for 1944, the figure of 839 aircraft must be reduced to approximately 800: after all, from fighters lost by the Germans in 1944 in the East, about a few dozen were destroyed not by the Armed Forces of the USSR, but by US aircraft - during its raids on industrial facilities in Romania and Poland.

For 1942 and 1945, the desired value can only be calculated very, very approximately. It is known that the average monthly number of groups of single-engine Luftwaffe fighters on the Soviet-German front (where the overwhelming majority of German fighters were precisely single-engine) in 1943 was approximately 12.4, and in 1942 - approximately 15.5 63 , i.e. 1.25 times more. We venture to suggest that the total irretrievable losses of German fighter aircraft in the East in 1942 were 1.25 times greater than in 1943, i.e. amounted to about 1480 cars. Then the value of its irretrievable combat losses on the Soviet-German front in 1942 can be determined (taking it as 53% of the total) at about 780 aircraft. Losses for the four months of 1945 will be calculated by analogy with 1944. However, let's take them equal not to 33%, but to 40% of losses for 1944. This will to some extent take into account the fact that in 1945 the number of German fighters operating against the Soviet Armed Forces increased. As a result, we determine the approximate number of irretrievable combat losses of German fighters on the Soviet-German front in 1945 at 320 aircraft.

Table 1COMBATIVE LOSSES OF SOVIET 64 AND GERMAN FIGHTERS ON THE SOVIET-GERMAN FRONT IN 1941-1945

However, it would not be entirely correct to compare the figures of losses of one side given in Table 1 with the figures of losses of the other. After all, in addition to the German armed forces, losses Soviet Air Force in the Great Patriotic War, the Armed Forces of Finland, Hungary, Romania, Italy, Slovakia and Croatia also inflicted. Thus, the Finns claim 2787 Soviet aircraft shot down by them 65 , the Romanians - about 1500 66 , the Hungarians - judging by what is known about the activities of their aviators and anti-aircraft gunners - about 1000 67 , the Italians - apparently, 150-200 68, Slovaks - not less than 10 69 . In addition, 638 downed Soviet aircraft are listed on the combat accounts of the Slovak, Croatian and Spanish fighter squadrons, which were organizationally part of the German Air Force and were called, respectively, the 13th (Slovak) detachment of the 52nd fighter squadron, the 15th (Croatian) detachment 52 th fighter squadron and the 15th (Spanish) detachment, first the 27th and then the 51st fighter squadron ... 70 recognized as irretrievably lost at least 322 (apparently, about 350) 71 . Some of them, however, could land on enemy territory due to malfunctions not related to combat damage, or due to loss of orientation in the usual inclement weather for winter, i.e. could actually refer to non-combat losses. Let's accept, therefore, that in the "Winter War" the irretrievable combat losses of the Soviet Air Force were not one and a half, but two times less than the number of vehicles that the Finns declared as shot down. Then, by analogy, we can assume that in 1941-1944. The Finnish Armed Forces managed to destroy about 1,400 Soviet aircraft. As for the rest of Germany's allies, let's assume that they, like the Germans, overestimated the number of aircraft they shot down by about 2.5 times (see Section 3 of this chapter for the rationale for this coefficient) and that the Soviet side managed to return about 25% of those shot down to system (in the Kuban, in the 43rd, this percentage, as we saw, reached 45 - but there almost all the battles took place over the territory occupied Soviet troops, and those who sat down on the forced more often found themselves among their own). With such assumptions, it turns out that the Romanians, Hungarians, Italians, Slovaks, Croats and Spaniards destroyed about 1000 Soviet aircraft, and together with the Finns - about 2400. It is known that fighters accounted for 45% of the irretrievable combat losses of the Soviet Air Force in the Great Patriotic War 72 . Therefore (under the assumptions we made), we can assume that about 1100 Soviet fighters were destroyed not by the Germans, but by their allies, and the Germans accounted for about 19,600.

On the other hand, not all of the German fighters destroyed on the Soviet-German front were victims of the USSR Armed Forces. In addition to the latter, the French Normandie fighter regiment, the Armed Forces of Poland and Czechoslovakia, and from August-September 1944, the armed forces of Romania and Bulgaria, which had sided with the USSR, also fought with German aviation. In particular, the Normandy pilots are responsible for about 100 downed German fighter aircraft 73 . The check carried out by A.N. shoot down 25 German fighters. Polish and Czechoslovak pilots were counted respectively 16 and about 25 German aircraft shot down on the Soviet-German front 75; how many anti-aircraft gunners were credited is unknown, but certainly not less than 100. Let us assume that Polish and Czechoslovak aviators and anti-aircraft gunners - most of whom were trained in the USSR - like the Soviet ones, overestimated their successes by at least 5 times (see about this in section 3 of this chapter); then we can assume that in reality they shot down about 30 German vehicles, of which about 10 could be fighters. Romanians claim 101 downed German and Hungarian aircraft 76 ; in reality, they apparently shot down 2.5 times (see above) less, i.e. about 40, of which about 30 could be German, including about 10 fighters. As for the Bulgarians, the 3-5 German fighters they destroyed in 1944 in Serbia and Macedonia did not belong to the air units of the Eastern Front 77, and in Hungary in 1945 Bulgarian pilots and anti-aircraft gunners hardly shot down more than 5 German fighters. Taking into account the fact that a small part of the downed German aircraft could be recovered, it can be concluded that about 40 German fighters on the Soviet-German front were destroyed by the allies of the USSR; by the Soviet Armed Forces - about 3240.

Thus, in the confrontation between the Armed Forces of the USSR and Germany (without taking into account the actions of their allies on the Soviet-German front), the ratio of combat irretrievable losses of Soviet and German fighters is, according to our calculations, approximately 19,600: 3,240, i.e. approximately 6: 1. Considering the large number of assumptions we made when calculating and the resulting significant error (much exceeding, in particular, the number of German fighters destroyed by us on the Soviet-German front by the allies of the USSR), we will assume for simplicity this ratio equal to 6 : one.

05/23/2018 - last, unlike reposts, topic update
Each new message at least 10 days highlighted in red, but NOT NECESSARY located at the beginning of the topic. The section "SITE NEWS" is being updated REGULARLY, and all its links - ACTIVE
NB: active links to similar topics: "Little Known Facts about Aviation", "Double Standards in Allied Bombing"

The theme consists of sections for each of the major participating countries. At the same time, I cleaned up duplicates, similar information and information that caused frank doubts.

Air Force of Tsarist Russia:
- during the years of WW1, 120-150 captured German and Austrian aircraft were captured. Most - double reconnaissance, fighters and twin-engine aircraft were rare (Note 28 *)
- at the end of 1917 Russian army there were 91 squadrons of 1109 aircraft, of which: available at the fronts - 579 (428 serviceable, 137 faulty, 14 obsolete), 237 loaded for the front and 293 in schools. This number did not include up to 35 aircraft of the Squadron of Air Ships, 150 aircraft of naval aviation, aircraft of rear services, 400 aircraft of air fleets and in reserve. The total number of aircraft was estimated at 2200-2500 military aircraft (Note 28 *)
- in the summer of 1917, there were 71 aircraft (28 out of order) and 530 military personnel in the aviation of the Baltic Fleet, of which 42 officers (Note 90 *)

USSR Air Force:
- in 1937 there were 18 aviation schools in the Red Army, in 1939 - 32, as of 05/01/1941 - already 100 (Note 32 *). According to other sources, if in 1938 (Note 64 *) and 1940 there were 18 aviation schools and schools, then in May 1941 aviators were trained by 3 Air Force academies, 2 higher schools navigators, 88 flight and 16 technical schools (Note 57 *), and in 1945 - 130, which made it possible to train 60 thousand pilots for the Second World War (Note 64 *)
- order No. 080 dated 03.1941: the training period for flight personnel is 9 months in Peaceful time and 6 months in the military, flying hours for cadets on training and combat aircraft - 20 hours for fighters and 24 hours for bombers ( Japanese suicide bomber in 1944 should have had 30 flight hours) (Note 12 *)
- in 1939, the Red Army had 8139 combat aircraft, of which 2225 were fighters (Note 41 *)
- in 1939 the USSR daily produced 28 combat aircraft, in 1940 - 29 (Note 70 *)
- by the beginning of WW2 - 09/01/1939, the USSR had 12677 combat aircraft (Note 31 *)
- on 01/01/1940, there were 12,540 combat aircraft in the western military districts, excluding long-range bomber aircraft. By the end of 1940, these figures were almost doubled to 24,000 combat aircraft. The number of only training aircraft was increased to 6800 (Note 12 *)
- for the summer of 1940, there were 38 air divisions in the Red Army, and by 01/01/1941 they should have become and became 50 (Note 9 *)
- in the period from 01/01/1939 to 06/22/1941, the Red Army received 17745 combat aircraft, of which 3719 were new types, not inferior in terms of basic parameters to the best Luftwaffe vehicles (Note 43 *). According to other sources, at the beginning of the Second World War there were 2739 aircraft latest types Yak-1 (412 produced on 06/22/41 - Note 39 *), MiG-3 (1094 produced on 06/22/41 - Note 63 *), LAGG-3, Pe-2, of which half (of which 913 MiG -1\3, which amounted to 1/4 of all fighters - Note 63 *) was located in the western military districts (Note 11 *). On June 22, 1941, the Air Force received 917 MiG-3s (486 pilots retrained), 142 Yak-1s (156 pilots retrained), 29 LAGGs (90 pilots retrained) (Note 4*)
- on 01/01/1941, the Red Army Air Force had 26,392 aircraft, of which 14,628 combat and 11,438 training aircraft. Moreover, 10565 (8392 combat) were built in 1940 (Note 32 *)
- on 06/22/41, the Red Army and Red Army Air Forces numbered 32 thousand aircraft, of which 20 thousand were combat: 8400 bombers, 11500 fighters and 100 attack aircraft (Note 60 *)
- on the eve of the Second World War, there were 20 thousand aircraft in the European part of the USSR, of which 17 thousand combat aircraft (Note 12 *), at the same time, 7139 combat aircraft were in the units of the Red Army Air Force of the border military districts, separately 1339 long-range bomber aircraft and 1445 Navy aviation aircraft, which in total amounted to 9917 aircraft
- 1540 new Soviet fighters, not much inferior to the "Messerschmitt" Bf-109, were in the western border districts by the beginning of the war. In total, by 06/22/1941, the USSR had 3719 aircraft of new designs (Note 81 *)
- by 07/22/41, there were 29 fighter regiments in the Moscow air defense system, armed with 585 fighters - about the same as the Germans on the entire Eastern Front (Note 19 *)
- in June 1941, in the western military districts there were almost 1500 I-156 aircraft (1300 I-153 fighters + 6 regiments of I-153 attack aircraft), which out of 4226 was 1/3 of the entire combat aviation of the western districts (Note 68 *)
- on 06/22/41, the RKKF Air Force had 859 seaplanes, of which 672 MBR-2 (Note 66 *)
- on 06/22/41, the RKKF Air Force consisted of 3838 aircraft, 2824 of which were combat (Note 70 *). According to other sources, there were more than 2.5 thousand combat aircraft (Note 66*). According to other sources, in total, there were 6700 aircraft in the aviation of the USSR Navy in three fleets (BF, Black Sea Fleet and Northern Fleet) (Note 77 *): BF - 656 combat aircraft, of which 353 fighters (Note 73 *), Black Sea Fleet - 651 (Note 78 *) or 632 combat aircraft: 346 fighter aircraft, bomber - 73; mine-torpedo - 61; reconnaissance - 150 (Note 80 *)
- on 06/22/41, Soviet naval strike aviation: Baltic Fleet - 81 DB-3\3F, 66 SB and 12 AR-2; Northern Fleet- 11 Sat; Black Sea Fleet - 61 DB-3 and 75 SB (Note 62 *)
- in June 1941, there were 108 I-153s in the naval aviation of the Baltic Fleet, 73-76 in the Black Sea Fleet and 18 in the Northern Fleet (Note 68 *)
- on the eve of the Second World War, 1/4 of the naval aviation of the RKKF were seaplanes, so there were 54 cars in the Northern Fleet, 131 in the Baltic Fleet, 167 in the Black Sea Fleet, 216 in the Pacific Fleet (Note 89 *)
- with the beginning of the Second World War, 587 aircraft of the Civil Air Fleet were at the front as air groups special purpose, and then were consolidated into air regiments (Note 92 *)
- at the beginning of the Second World War, 79 air divisions and 5 air brigades were formed, of which 32 air divisions, 119 air regiments and 36 corps squadrons were part of the Western Military District. Long-range bomber aviation in the western direction was represented by 4 air corps and 1 separate air division in the amount of 1546 aircraft. The number of air regiments by June 1941 increased by 80% compared to the beginning of 1939 (Note 11 *)
- The Second World War was met by 5 heavy bomber corps, 3 separate air divisions and one separate regiment of Soviet long-range bomber aviation - about 1000 aircraft, of which 2/3 were lost during the six months of the war. By the summer of 1943, long-range bomber aviation consisted of 8 air corps and numbered more than 1000 aircraft and crews. (Note 2*)
- by the spring-early summer of 1944, the Red Army Air Force ADD consisted of 66 air regiments, united in 22 air divisions and 9 corps, which approximately amounted to 1000 long-range bombers (Note 58 *)
- at the beginning of the Second World War, 1528 long-range bombers DB-3 (Note 44 *) and 818 heavy bombers TB-3 (Note 41 *) were produced
- by the spring of 1942, the USSR reached the pre-war level of aircraft production - at least 1000 combat aircraft per month, from the second half of 1942 reached the production line of 2500 aircraft per month with a total monthly loss of 1000 aircraft. From June 1941 to December 1944, 97 thousand aircraft were produced (Note 9 *)
- as of March 1942, the Red Army Air Force had 19,700 combat aircraft, of which 6,100 were on the fronts and in air defense, 3,400 in rear districts, reserve and march regiments (without schools), 3,500 in the Far East, 6,700 in flight and technical schools Of the new types: 2920 aircraft at the fronts, in reserve and marching regiments, 130 in the Far East, 230 in the rear districts and 320 in flight schools. On this date, there were 4,610 defective machines in the Air Force (Note 96 *)
- 34 thousand aircraft were produced in the USSR in 1943, 40 thousand in 1944, and in total for the Second World War - 125 thousand aircraft (Note 26 *). According to other sources, 115,600 combat aircraft were produced in 1941-45, of which about 20 thousand bombers, 33 thousand attack aircraft and almost 63 thousand fighters (Note 60 *)
- from the second half of 1942, reserve aviation corps were created in the Red Army, so from September to the end of 1942, 9 such corps were created, and later - 23 more, each of which consisted of 2-3 divisions (Note 48 *)
- on 06/22/1942, 85% of all Soviet long-range bomber aviation was 1789 DB-3 aircraft (from the DB-3f modification it was called IL-4), the remaining 15% - SB-3. These aircraft did not fall under the first German air strikes, as they were based relatively far from the border (Note 3 *)
- over the years of production (1936-40) 6831 Soviet SB bombers were built (Note 41 *)
- 79 (93 - Note 115 *) four-engine Pe-8 bombers were produced during the Second World War (Note 104 *) and 462 also four-engine bombers Er-2 (DB-240) were produced during the Second World War (Note 115 *). All of them were used exclusively in the ADD (Note 115 *)
- 10292 I-16 biplanes and its modifications were produced from 1934 to 1942
- a total of 201 (600 - according to Yakovlev) Yak-2 and Yak-4 aircraft were produced (Note 82 *)
- 16 thousand Yak-9s were produced during the war
- 6528 LAGG-3 fighters were produced during the Second World War (a controversial aircraft in many respects)
- 3172 MiG-1 \ 3 were built in total (Note 63 *)
- 36 thousand Il-2 attack aircraft were produced in 1941-45 (Note 41 * and 37 *) Losses of attack aircraft during the Second World War amounted to about 23 thousand.
- 4863 ADD Li-2 night bombers (Soviet military version of the licensed American Douglas DC-3-186 "Dacota") were produced from the beginning of 1942 until the end of the Second World War (Note 115 *). According to other sources, 11 thousand aircraft of this type were produced during this period.
- during the years of the Second World War, 11 thousand Soviet attack pilots died (Note 25 *)
- in 1944, in parts for each Soviet attack pilot, there were two aircraft (Note 17 *)
- the life of an attack aircraft lasted an average of 10-15 sorties, and 25% of the pilots went down on the first flight, while to destroy one German tank at least 10 sorties were required (Note 9 *)
- about 19537 combat aircraft entered the USSR under Lend-Lease, of which 13804 fighters, 4735 bombers, 709 transport aircraft, 207 reconnaissance seaplanes and 82 training aircraft (Note 60 *)
- by the beginning of 1944, the USSR had 11,000 combat aircraft, the Germans - no more than 2,000. During the 4 years of the war, the USSR built 137,271 aircraft (there is also evidence that 97,000 combat aircraft were produced from June 1941 to December 1944) and received 18,865 under Lend-Lease aircraft of all types, of which 638 aircraft were lost during transportation. According to other sources, at the beginning of 1944 there were 6 times more Soviet combat aircraft than all German aircraft (Note 8 *)
- on the "heavenly slug" - U-2vs fought during the Second World War about 50 air regiments (Note 33 *)
- from the monograph "1941 - lessons and conclusions": "... out of 250 thousand sorties carried out by Soviet aviation in the first three months of the war against enemy tank and motorized columns ..." June 1942 was a record month for the Luftwaffe , when it was performed (according to the Soviet VNOS posts) 83,949 sorties of combat aircraft of all types. In other words, "destroyed and destroyed on the ground" Soviet aviation flew in the summer of 1941 with an intensity that the Germans were able to achieve in only one month during the entire war (Note 13*). So, only on August 16, 1941, the forces of the Red Army Air Force (464 combat aircraft, of which 100 YES bombers) made 2860 sorties (Note 115 *)
- during 1942, 6178 (24%) Soviet military pilots died, which is more than 1700 people more than died in 1941 (Note 48 *)
- The average survivability of Soviet pilots during World War II:
fighter pilot - 64 sorties
attack aircraft pilot - 11 sorties
bomber pilot - 48 sorties
torpedo bomber pilot - 3.8 sorties (Note 45 *)
- the number of sorties per combat loss of one aircraft increased from 28 in 1941-42 to 194 in 1945 for fighters, from 13 to 90 for attack aircraft, and from 14 to 133 for bombers (Note 112 *)
- the accident rate in the Red Army Air Force on the eve of the Second World War was huge - on average, 2-3 aircraft crashed per day. This situation was largely preserved during the war. It is no coincidence that during the war combat losses aircraft accounted for over 50% (Note 9 *)
- on the first day of the Second World War, 1200 aircraft were lost (Note 78 *), 800 of them at airfields (Note 78 *, 94 *), and in two days - 2500 (Note 78 *)
- in the first week of the Second World War, the Red Army Air Force lost 4000 aircraft (Note 64 *)
- for 6 months of the Second World War, the USSR lost 20159 aircraft of all types, of which 16620 combat aircraft
- "unaccounted for loss" - 5240 Soviet aircraft remaining at the airfields after they were captured by the Germans in 1941
- the average monthly losses of the Red Army Air Force from 1942 to May 1945 amounted to 1000 aircraft, of which non-combat ones - over 50%, and in 1941 combat losses amounted to 1700 aircraft, and total - 3500 per month (Note 9 *)
- non-combat losses of Soviet military aviation in the Second World War amounted to 60,300 aircraft (56.7%) (Note 32 *)
- in 1944, the losses of Soviet military aviation amounted to 24,800 vehicles, of which 9,700 were combat losses, and 15,100 were non-combat losses (Note 18 *)
- from 19 to 22 thousand Soviet fighters were lost in the Second World War (Note 23 *)
- ADD losses during the years of the Second World War amounted to 3570 aircraft: in 1941 - 1592, in 1942 - 748, in 1943 - 516, in 1944 - 554, in 1945 - 160. More than 2 thousand crew members died (Note 115 *)
- in accordance with the Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 632-230ss of 03/22/1946 "On the rearmament of the Air Force, air defense fighter aircraft and naval aviation with modern domestic-made aircraft": "... withdraw from service in 1946 and write off: foreign fighter aircraft types, including "Aircobra" - 2216 aircraft, "Thunderbolt" - 186 aircraft, "Kingcobra" - 2344 aircraft, "Kittyhawk" - 1986 aircraft, "Spitfire" - 1139 aircraft, "Hurricane" - 421 aircraft Total: 7392 aircraft and 11937 obsolete domestic aircraft (Note 1 *)

German Air Force:
- during the German offensive of 1917, up to 500 Russian aircraft became German trophies (Note 28 *)
- according to the Treaty of Versailles, Germany had to scrap 14 thousand of its aircraft after the end of WW1 (Note 32 *)
- serial production of the first combat aircraft in Nazi Germany began only in 1935-1936 (Note 13 *). So in 1934, the German government adopted a plan to build 4,000 aircraft by 09/30/1935. Among them there was nothing but junk (Note 52 *): Do-11, Do-13 and Ju-52 bombers had very low flight characteristics (Note 52 *)
- 03/01/1935 - official recognition Luftwaffe. There were 2 regiments of Ju-52 and Do-23 (Note 52 *)
- 771 German fighters were produced in 1939 (Note 50 *)
- in 1939, Germany produced 23 combat aircraft daily, in 1940 - 27, and in 1941 - 30 aircraft (Note 32 *)
- 09/01/1939 Germany began WW2 with 4093 aircraft (of which 1502 bombers (Note 31 *), 400 Ju-52 (Note 75 *). According to other sources, the Luftwaffe at the time of the attack on Poland consisted of 4000 combat aircraft: 1,200 Bf-109 fighters, 1,200 He-111 (789 - Note 94 *) and Do-17 medium-range bombers, about 400 Ju-87 attack aircraft and about 1,200 military transport aircraft, liaison aircraft and retired obsolete aircraft , which could come in handy in battles with Polish aircraft (Note 26 *)
- in 1940, 150 aircraft per month were produced in Germany (Note 26 *). By the spring of 1942, the production reached 160 aircraft per month.
- by May 1940, the Luftwaffe had recovered from Polish losses and consisted of 1100 He-111 and Do-17, 400 Ju-87, 850 Bf-109 and Bf-110 (Note 26 *)
- in 1940, the Luftwaffe lost 4,000 aircraft and received 10,800 new ones (Note 26 *)
- in the summer of 1941, the German aviation industry monthly produced over 230 single-engine fighters and 350 twin-engine combat aircraft (bombers and fighters) (Note 57 *)
- at the end of June 1941, the Luftwaffe in the West had only 140 serviceable Bf-109E-F fighters (Note 35 *)
- a little more than 500 Bf-109 had the Luftwaffe in the East to attack the USSR, since the remaining about 1300 aircraft were bombers or attack aircraft (Note 81 *), according to the then Soviet classification, out of 1223 bombers there were 917 horizontal bombers and 306 dive bombers (Note .86*)
- 273 (326 - Note 83 *) Ju-87s acted against the USSR, while 348 Ju-87s attacked Poland (Note 38 *)
- on the eve of the Second World War, Germany had 6852 aircraft, of which 3909 aircraft of all types were allocated to attack the USSR. This number included 313 transport aircraft (of which 238 Ju-52 (Note 37 *) or 210 Ju-52 (Note 74 *) and 326 communications aircraft. Of the remaining 3270 combat aircraft: 965 fighters (almost equally - Bf-109e and BF-109f), 102 fighter-bombers (Bf-110), 952 bombers, 456 attack aircraft and 786 reconnaissance aircraft (Note 32 *), which coincides with the data that on 06/22/41 the Luftwaffe included 3904 aircraft to attack the USSR of all types (3032 combat): 952 bombers, 965 single-engine fighters, 102 twin-engine fighters and 156 "pieces" (Note 26*). Bf-109; 179 Bf-110 as reconnaissance and light bombers, 893 bombers (281 He-111, 510 Ju-88, 102 Do-17), attack aircraft - 340 Ju-87 (according to other sources, 273 Ju-87 - Note 38 *), scouts - 120. Total - 2534 (of which about 2000 combat-ready). According to other sources, on 06/22/41, the Luftwaffe against the USSR: 3904, of which 3032 are combat: 93 2 bombers, 965 single-engine fighters, 102 twin-engine fighters and 156 Ju-87 attack aircraft (Note 26 *). And more data on the same topic: 2549 serviceable Luftwaffe aircraft were concentrated against the USSR on 06/22/41: 757 bombers, 360 dive bombers, 735 fighters and attack aircraft, 64 twin-engine fighters, 633 reconnaissance aircraft, including naval (Note 70 *). And again about the same thing - according to the Barbarossa plan, 2000 combat aircraft were allocated, of which 1160 bombers, 720 fighters and 140 reconnaissance aircraft (Note 84 *). And also no more than 600 aircraft of the German allies (Note 70 *)
- in the first week of the war with the USSR, the losses of the Luftwaffe amounted to 445 aircraft of all types; on 07/05/1941 - more than 800 combat aircraft (Note 85 *); for 4 weeks of battles - 1171 aircraft of all types, for 10 weeks of battles - 2789 aircraft of all types, for 6 months of battles - 3827 combat aircraft only
- in 1941, the Luftwaffe lost 3,000 aircraft in combat (another 2,000 were non-combat losses) and received 12,000 new ones (Note 26 *)
- if at the beginning of 1941 the number of Luftwaffe was 4500 aircraft, then at the end of the year, as a result of losses and their subsequent replenishment, their number did not exceed 5100 (Note 26 *)
- from 435 single-engine fighters in the first half of 1942, production increased to more than 750 in the first half of 1943 and to 850 in the second half of 1943 (Note 26 *)
- in 1943, the Luftwaffe lost 7,400 aircraft in combat (another 6,000 were non-combat losses) and received 25,000 new ones (Note 26 *)
- if at the beginning of 1943 the number of Luftwaffe was 5400 aircraft, then at the end of the year, as a result of losses and their subsequent replenishment, their number did not exceed 6500 (Note 26 *)
- as of May 31, 1944, the number of single-engine Luftwaffe fighters on the Eastern Front: 444 aircraft of the VF "Reich", 138 - in the 4th VF in Ukraine, 66 - in the 6th VF in Belarus (Note 58 *)
- from 22.06. to 27.09.41 2631 German aircraft on the Eastern Front were damaged or lost (Note 74 *)
- in the summer of 1941, the Germans produced over 230 single-engine fighters per month (Note 26 *)
- by 08/16/41, only 135 serviceable Non-111s remained on the Eastern Front (Note 83 *)
- in November 1941, due to losses, the number of Bf-109s on the Eastern Front was reduced by 3 times compared to their number in July 1941, which led to the loss of air supremacy, first in Moscow, and then in other directions (Note 83 * ), and on 12/01/41 the number of Bf-109Bf-110 became deplorable due to huge losses (Note 55 *)
- after the transfer in December 1941 of 250-300 aircraft of the 2nd Air Corps from the Eastern Front for operations in the region of Malta and North Africa, total strength Luftwaffe on the Soviet front was reduced from 2465 aircraft on 12/01/1941 to 1700 aircraft on 12/31/1941. In December of the same 1941, the 10th Air Corps arrived in Sicily from the Eastern Front to strike at Malta instead of the Italians who did not justify their hopes (Note 88 *). In January 1942, the number of German aircraft was further reduced after the transfer of aircraft of the 5th Air Corps to Belgium (Note 29 *) Also: starting from the second half of 1941, several elite units of the Lufftwaffe were transferred from the Eastern Front to the Mediterranean theater of operations (Note 54 *)
- at the end of October 1942, the Luftwaffe had 508 fighters (389 combat-ready) on the Eastern Front (Note 35 *)
- in 1942, Germany produced 8.4 thousand (of which 800 single-engine fighters - Note 26 *) combat aircraft. According to other sources, the Germans produced only up to 160 aircraft per month.
- in total, on 06/01/1943, the Germans on the Eastern Front had 2365 bombers (of which 1224 Ju-88 and 760 He-111) and over 500 Ju-87D attack aircraft (Note 53 *)
- in early November 1943, after the landing of the allies in North Africa, the Luftwaffe grouping in Norway, which acted against the Red Army in the north of the USSR, decreased many times (Note 99 *)
- in February 1943, the Germans for the first time were able to produce 2000 combat aircraft per month, and in March - even 2166 (Note 35 *)
- in 1943, 24 thousand aircraft were produced (Note 26 *), of which 849 fighters were produced on an average monthly basis (Note 49 *)
- in June 1944, the Luftwaffe lost 10 thousand aircraft in Operation Overlord and another 14 thousand in the next six months - at the end of 1944, the Luftwaffe had no more than 6,000 aircraft of all types, and only 1,400 of which were fighters (Note 26 *)
- from January to June 1944, the Germans produced 18 thousand aircraft, 13 thousand of which were fighters (Note 71 *). During 1944, about 40 thousand aircraft were produced, but many of them never took to the skies due to the lack of pilots (Note 26 *)
- 5 months before the end of the war, the German aircraft industry was able to produce only 7500 aircraft (Note 26 *)
- in 1945, the share of fighters from all military aviation produced in Germany was 65.5%, in 1944 - 62.3% (Note 41 *)
- 84320 aircraft of all types were produced by the Germans in 1941-45 (Note 24*): 35 thousand Bf-109 fighters (Note 14* and 37*), 15100 (14676 - Note 40* and 37*), Ju bombers -88 (Note 38*), 7300 He-111 bombers (Note 114*), 1433 Me-262 jets (Note 21*),
- in total, 57 thousand German aircraft of all types were destroyed during the years of WW2
- 1190 seaplanes were produced by the German aviation industry during WW2 (Note 38 *): of which 541 Arado 196a
- 2500 "Storch" ("Stork") liaison aircraft were built in total. According to other sources, 2871 Fi-156 "Storch" were produced, and in the summer of 1941 the Germans seized the factory for the production of its Soviet counterfeit copy OKA-38 "Aist" (Note 37 *)
- a total of 5709 Ju-87 "Stuka" were produced (Note 40 *)
- in 1939-45, 20087 (or almost 20 thousand - Note 69 *) FW-190 fighters were produced, while production reached its peak at the beginning of 1944, when 22 aircraft were produced daily of this type(Note 37* and 38*)
- 230 (Note 104 *) or 262 (Note 107 *) four-engine FW-200C "Condor" were produced before the end of WW2
in 1941, the loss of transport Ju-52s ("aunt Yu") for the first time exceeded their production - more than 500 aircraft were lost, and only 471 were produced (Note 40 *)
- having released 3225 transport Ju-52s since 1939 (1939 - 145, 1940 - 388, 1941 - 502, 1942 - 503, 1943 - 887, 1944 - 379 - Note 76 *) the German aircraft industry was forced to stop its production in 1944 (Note .40*)
- if in 1943 1028 transport aircraft were produced, including 887 Ju52 / 3m, then in 1944 this figure fell to 443, of which 379 were Ju-52 (Note 75 *)
- over the years of MV, 846 (Note 55 *) or 828 (Note 106 *) FW-189 ("Rama" - "Owl") were produced for the Luftwaffe at the factories of Germany, France and the Czech Republic
- a total of 780 scouts - spotters Hs-126 ("crutch") were released (Note 32 *). On 06/22/41, it was these single-engine parasol biplanes that made up the vast majority of the 417 German aircraft of short-range reconnaissance units, which were attached to army and tank corps (Note 34 *)
- 1433 Me-262 and 400 Me-163 - total Luftwaffe jet combat aircraft produced by Germany during WW2
- German failed aircraft adopted by the Wehrmacht: 871 (or 860 - Note 108 *) attack aircraft Hs-129 (1940 release), 6500 Bf-110 (6170 - Note 37 *), 1500 Me-210 and Me- 410 (Note 15*). The Germans retrained the failed Ju-86 fighter into a strategic reconnaissance aircraft (Note 32 *). Do-217 did not become a successful night fighter (364 were produced, 200 of them in 1943) (Note 46 *). Produced in quantities of more than 1000 units (according to other sources, only 200 aircraft were produced, another 370 were at various stages of readiness, and parts and components were produced for another 800 aircraft - Note 38 *) the German He-177 heavy bomber due to numerous accidents often simply burned up in the air (Note 41 *). The Ne-129 attack aircraft turned out to be extremely unsuccessful due to heavy control, weak engine armor, weak stern weapons (Note 47 *)
- during the years of WW2, the Germans launched 198 not entirely successful, heavy six-engine military transport aircraft Me-323 from converted Gigant gliders, which at one time were intended for landing (could carry 200 paratroopers or a certain number of tanks and 88mm anti-aircraft guns) to the territory England (Notes 41* and 38*)
According to other sources, 198 Me-323 "Gigant" of all modifications were produced, another 15 were converted from gliders. Thus, the total number of aircraft built was 213 (Note 74 *)
- for 8 months (08/01/40 - 03/31/41) due to accidents and disasters, the Luftwaffe lost 575 aircraft and 1368 people died (Note 32 *)
- the most active Allied pilots made 250-400 sorties in WW2, while similar figures for German pilots fluctuated between 1000-2000 sorties
- by the beginning of WW2, 25% of German pilots had mastered the skill of blind piloting (Note 32 *)
- in 1941, a German fighter pilot, leaving flight school, had more than 400 hours of total flying time, of which at least 80 hours - on a combat vehicle. After that, in the reserve air group, the graduate added another 200 hours (Note 36 *). According to other sources, each Luftwaffe graduate pilot had to independently fly 450 hours, at the end of the war only 150. Usually, during the first 100 (!) sorties, a novice was only supposed to observe the battle from the side, study the tactics, habits of the enemy and, if possible, evade from the battle (Note 72 *). In 1943, the training time for a German pilot was reduced from 250 to 200 hours, which was half that of the British and Americans. In 1944, preparation time German pilot reduced to 20 hours of piloting training (Note 26*)
- during the Second World War there were 36 German pilots, each of whom shot down more than 150 Soviet aircraft and about 10 Soviet pilots, each of whom shot down 50 or more German aircraft (Note 9 * and 56 *). Another 104 German pilots shot down 100 or more enemy aircraft (Note 56 *)
- the ammunition of the Bf-109F fighter is enough for 50 seconds of continuous firing from machine guns and 11 seconds from the MG-151 cannon (Note 13*)

USAF:
- out of 9584 Aircobra fighters produced before the end of production in 1944, about 5 thousand were delivered to the USSR under Lend-Lease (Note 22 *)
- after WW1, in November 1918, 1172 "flying boats" were in service in the USA (Note 41 *)
- at the beginning of WW2, the USA had 1576 combat aircraft (Note 31 *), of which 489 fighters (Note 70 *)
- during the years of WW2, the US aviation industry produced over 13 thousand "Warhawks", 20 thousand "Wildcat" and "Hellcat", 15 thousand "Thunderbolt" and 12 (or 15 - Note 109 *) thousand "Mustang" (Note .42*)
- 13 (12726 - Note 104 *) thousand B-17 "Flying Fortress" bombers were produced in WW2 (Note 41 *), of which 3219 were shot down in the European theater (Note 59 *)
- 5815 B-25 Mitchell bombers were produced during the war, of which 862 were delivered under Lend-Lease to the USSR (Note 115 *)
- in total, in 1942-44, losses during sorties over Romania amounted to 399 aircraft, incl. 297 four-engine bombers, of which 223 were shot down during raids on Ploiesti. 1706 pilots and crew members died and went missing, 1123 people were captured (Note 27 *)
- by March 1944, the 15th US Air Force (based in England) had about 1500 bombers and 800 fighters (Note 27)

British Air Force:
- 759 (of which 93 monoplanes) aircraft were fighter aircraft of England in 1938 (Note 70 *)
- if in October 1937 England produced 24 "Spitfire" and 13 "Hurrycane" monthly, then in September 1939 already 32 "Spitfire" and 44 "Hurrycane" (Note 79 *)
- at the beginning of WW2, the British Air Force had 1000 fighters, a little more than half of which were modern "Hurrycane" and "Spitfire" (Note 79 *)
- 09/01/1939 England began WW2 with 1992 combat aircraft (Note 31 *)
- the most massive English bomber 2 MB "Wellington" was produced in the amount of 11,461 aircraft (Note 51 *), and Halifax - 6000 vehicles (Note 104 *)
- already in August 1940, England produced 2 times more fighters daily than Germany. Their total number subsequently so much exceeded the number of pilots that it soon made it possible to transfer part of the aircraft for conservation or transfer to other countries under lend-lease (Note 31 *)
- from 1937 until the end of WW2, more than 20 thousand British Spitfire fighters were produced (Note 41 *)
- in total, in 1942-44, losses during sorties over Romania amounted to 44 bombers, while 38 of them were shot down during raids on Ploiesti (Note 27 *)

Air forces of other countries:
- The Hungarian Air Force on 06/26/41 had 363 combat aircraft, including 99 Falko CR-42 biplanes purchased from Italy (Note 88 *)
- The Italian Air Force at the beginning of WW2 Italy had 664 bombers, of which 48 Cant Z.506 seaplanes (Note 97 *), 612 SM-79 bombers, which accounted for 2/3 of all multi-engine aircraft of the Italian Air Force (Note 93 *)
- from 07/10/1940 to 09/08/1943, the Italian Air Force (Regia Aeronautica) lost 6483 aircraft, incl. 3483 fighters, 2273 bombers, torpedo bombers and transport aircraft, as well as 277 reconnaissance aircraft. 12,748 people died, went missing or died of wounds, including 1,806 officers. During the same period, according to official Italian data (more than doubtful - ed. note), 4293 enemy aircraft, of which 2522 were shot down in air battles, and 1771 were destroyed on the ground (Note 65 *)
- The French Air Force on 09/01/1939 had 3335 aircraft (Note 31 *): 1200 fighters (of which 557 MS-406 - Note 91 *), 1300 bombers (of which 222 modern LeO-451 - Note 98 *) , 800 scouts, 110,000 personnel; According to other sources, by 09/03/1939, France had 3,600 aircraft, of which 1,364 were fighters. These included 535 MS.405 and MS.406, 120 MB.151 and MB.152, 169 H.75, two FK.58 and 288 twin-engine R.630 and R.631. To this we can add 410 obsolete fighters D.500, D.501, D.510, Loire-46, Blériot-Spud 510, NiD.622, NiD.629, MS.225. And already on 05/01/1940, its fighter units consisted of 1076 MS.406, 491 MB.151 and MB.152, 206 (about 300 - Note 103 *) H.75, 44 C.714 and 65 D.520. 420 of these aircraft could fight on equal terms with the German Bf-109E (Note 95 *). 40 V-156F bombers for the French naval aviation arrived from the USA (Note 111 *)
- The Japanese Air Force in 1942 had 3.2 thousand combat aircraft; and during the war years, 2426 G4M Mitsubishi twin-engine bombers were produced (Note 105 *)
- The Polish Air Force at the beginning of WW2 consisted of 400 first-line combat aircraft (in combat units), of which 130 R-11 underbone monoplane fighters and 30 R-7 biplane fighters. In total, with the reserve and training units, there were 279 fighters (173 R-11 and 106 R-7). (Note 100 *) or, according to other sources, had 1900 aircraft (Note 8 *). According to German data, the Poles had 1000 combat aircraft (Note 101 *)
- The Bulgarian Air Force in 1940 was 580 aircraft (Note 27 *)
- Romanian Air Force on 06/22/1941: 276 combat aircraft, including 121 fighters, 34 medium and 21 light bombers, 18 seaplanes and 82 reconnaissance aircraft. Another 400 aircraft were in flight schools. It makes no sense to specify the types of aircraft due to moral and physical obsolescence. On the eve of the war, the Germans retrained 1500 Romanian aviation specialists and agreed to supply modern Bf-109U and He-111E to Romania. On the eve of the war, 3 (2 - consisting of 24 aircraft - Note 87 *) squadrons were re-equipped with the new Romanian IAR-80 fighter (Note 7 *). According to other sources, 672 aircraft were the Romanian Air Force on the eve of the attack on the USSR, of which 253 aircraft were allocated to participate in hostilities on the Eastern Front (Note 27 *). Romanian 250 (205 combat-ready) aircraft (including 35 He-111 bombers - Note 94 *), allocated against the USSR, were opposed by about 1900 Soviet aircraft (Note 27 *). On the eve of WW2, 48 SM-79 bombers were purchased in Italy (Note 93 *)
- The Yugoslav Air Force on the eve of WW2 had 45 SM-79 bombers purchased before the war in Italy (Note 93 *)
- Belgian Air Force at the beginning of WW2: 30 Hurrycane monoplane fighters (half bought in England), 97 two-seat Fox Vi biplane fighters and 22 English-built Gladiator-2 biplane fighters, 27 CR-42 biplane fighters Italian-built, 50 "Firefly" biplane fighters - an English Belgian-built project (Note 102 *), as well as 16 British-built Battle bombers (Note 110 *)
- The Finnish Air Force at the beginning of WW2 had 50 Fiat G-50 fighters purchased in Italy
- The Dutch Air Force at the beginning of WW2 had 16 Fokker T.V medium bombers, which were completely destroyed during the fighting

OTHER:
- from the statistics of the production of WW2 four-engine bombers: if the British were able to produce 6000 Halifaxes, the Germans - 230 Condors, the USSR - only 79 Pe-8s, then the USA - 12726 B-17s (Note 104 *)
- the weight of a minute salvo (continuous fire for a minute from all types of weapons) Yak-1 was 105kg, La-5 - 136kg, "Aircobra" - 204kg (Note 22 *)
- Messerschmitt spent 4500 man-hours on the production of one Bf-109, while the assembly of one Italian C.200 already took 21 thousand man-hours, or 4,6 times more (Note 65 *)
- in the "battle for England" the Germans lost 1733 aircraft (Note 30 *). According to other sources, the losses amounted to 1792 aircraft, of which 610 Bf-109 (Note 37 *) and 395 He-111 (Note 94 *). British losses amounted to 1172 aircraft: 403 Spitfires, 631 Hurricanes, 115 Blenheims and 23 Defiants (Note 37*). 10% (61 aircraft) of German Bf-109E losses fell into the English Channel due to lack of fuel (Note 79*)
- by the end of September 1940, 448 Hurricanes were shot down, and in October 1940 - another 240, in the same two months 238 Spitfires were shot down and another 135 damaged (Note 79 *)
- more than 200 P-36 fighters (Note 41 *) and 40 V-156F bombers (Note 111 *) the United States manufactured for France before WW2
- in September 1944, there is a peak in the number of allied bombers in Europe - more than 6 thousand (Note 36 *)
- 250 million aviation cartridges received under Lend-Lease were remelted (Note 9 *)

During the years of the Second World War, the Finns (VVS-Air Defense) claim 2787 (according to other sources, Finnish pilots during 1939-44 won 1809 victories, while losing 215 of their aircraft - Note 61 *), Romanians - about 1500 (about 1500, while losing 972 people killed, 838 were missing and 1167 were injured - Note 27 *), Hungarians - about 1000, Italians - by 150-200 (88 Soviet aircraft were destroyed on the ground and in the air in 18 months of fighting in the USSR according to the official statements of the Italian pilots themselves, 15 of their own were lost. A total of 2557 sorties or 72 sorties were made for each of the destroyed Soviet aircraft (Note 113 *), the Slovaks - for 10 downed Soviet aircraft. Another 638 downed Soviet aircraft are listed on combat accounts of the Slovak, Croatian and Spanish (164 victories and about 3 thousand sorties - Note 27 *) fighter squadrons. German allies shot down no more than 2400 Soviet aircraft (Note 23 *)
- about 3240 German fighters were destroyed on the Soviet-German front, of which 40 were accounted for by the allies of the USSR (Air Force-Air Defense of the Poles, Bulgarians and Romanians since 1944, the French from Normandie-Neman) (Note 23 *)
- on 01/01/1943, 395 German day fighters operated against Soviet 12300 aircraft, on 01/01/1944 - 13400 and 473, respectively (Note 23 *)
- after 1943, from 2/3 to 3/4 of all German aviation counteracted the aviation of the anti-Hitler coalition in Western Europe (Note 23 *) Formed at the end of 1943, 14 Soviet air armies put an end to the dominance of German aviation in the skies of the USSR (Note 9 *) . According to other sources, Soviet aviation achieved air superiority in the summer of 1944, while the Allies achieved local Normandy air superiority in June 1944 (Note 26 *)
- losses of Soviet aviation in the first days of the war: 1142 (800 were destroyed on the ground), of which: Western District - 738, Kyiv - 301, Baltic - 56, Odessa - 47. Losses of the Luftwaffe in 3 days - 244 (of which 51 in first day of the war) (Note 20 *). According to other sources, as a result German attacks 66 front-line airfields and fierce air battles of the Red Army Air Force only by noon on 06/22/41 lost 1,200 aircraft (Note 67 *)
- in 1940, 21447 aircraft engines were produced in the USSR, of which less than 20% was the share of domestic developments. In 1940, the average repair life of Soviet aircraft engines was 100-150 hours, in reality - 50-70 hours, while this figure in France and Germany is 200-400 hours, in the USA - up to 600 hours (Note 16 *)
- at the beginning of the war in the European part of the USSR, the Soviet Air Force had 269 reconnaissance aircraft out of a total of 8000 aircraft against German 219 long-range and 562 short-range reconnaissance aircraft out of a total of 3000 aircraft (Note 10 *)
- the allied air force in the Mediterranean theater after the fall of Tunisia, estimated at 5000 aircraft, was opposed by no more than 1250 "axis" aircraft, of which roughly half were German and half were Italian. Of the German aircraft, only 320 were suitable for action, and among them 130 Messerschmitt fighters of all modifications (Note 8 *)
- Aviation of the Northern Fleet of the USSR in 1944: 456 combat-ready aircraft, of which 80 were flying boats. German aviation in Norway consisted of 205 aircraft in 1944 (Note 6 *)
- the German Air Force in France lost 1401 aircraft, the French lost only fighters - 508 (257 fighter pilots died) (Note 5 *)
- 10/20/42 for the first time, the BW-190 began to operate on the Eastern Front (Note 35 *)
- if in September 1939 the French aviation industry monthly produced about 300 combat aircraft, then by May 1940 it reached the line of 500 aircraft per month (Note 95 *)

NOTES:
(Note 1 *) - M. Maslov "YAK-1: From dawn to dusk" magazine "Wings" 2 \ 2010
(Note 2 *) - V. Reshetnikov. GSS "What was - that was"
(Note 3 *) - V. Kotelnikov "illegitimate" bomber, magazine
(Note 4 *) - "Legends of Aviation" issue No. 2 "Fighter MiG-3" "History of Aviation" 5 \ 2001
(Note 5 *) - A.Stepanov "Pyrrhic victory of the Luftwaffe in the West" magazine "Aviation History" 4 \ 2000
(Note 6 *) - V. Shchedrolosev "Destroyer "Active", magazine "Midel-Shpangout" issue 2 \ 2001
(Note 7 *) - M. Zhirokhov "At the signal" Ardyalul ", Aviation and Time magazine 6 \ 2001
(Note 8 *) - D. Pimlott "Luftwaffe - air Force 3 Reich"
(Note 9 *) - V. Avgustinovich "The battle for speed. The great war of aircraft engines"
(Note 10 *) - A. Medved "Soviet reconnaissance aviation in initial period war" magazine "Aviation" No. 8 (4 \ 2000)
(Note 11 *) - A. Efimov "The role of the Air Force in the Great Patriotic War"
(Note 12 *) - I. Bunich "Thunderstorm" Bloody games of dictators "
(Note 13 *) - M. Solonin "Barrel and hoops or when the war began"
(Note 14 *) - almanac "History of Aviation" No. 64
(Note 15 *) - A. Haruk "Destroyers of the Luftwaffe"
(Note 16 *) - V. Kotelnikov "Motors of the Great War" magazine "Wings of the Motherland" 7 \ 2002
(Note 17 *) - E. Chernikov "IL-2 - pride domestic aviation" magazine "Wings of the Motherland" 5 \ 2002
(Note 18 *) - V. Beshanov "The Blood-Red Army. Whose fault is it?"
(Note 19 *) - M. Solonin "The False History of the Great War"
(Note 20*) - Dossier "Collection 03\2010. Combat badges. USSR Air Force-Germany"
(Note 21 *) - V. Suvorov "Shadow of Victory"
(Note 22 *) - V. Bakursky "Air Cobra" magazine "World of technology for children" 12 \ 2005
(Note 23 *) - A. Smirnov "Falcons washed with blood"
(Note 24 *) - W. Schwabedissen "World War. 1939-1945"
(Note 25 *) - M.Filchenko "Vin comrades with Kozhedub and Marєs" єvim ... "(іnterv" with a veteran of the VVV, Air Force Colonel Marchenko K.P.)
(Note 26 *) - M. Pavelek "Luftwaffe 1933-1945. Basic facts and figures about the Goering Air Force"
(Note 27 *) - M.Zefirov "Aces of WW2. Allies of the Luftwaffe: Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania"
(Note 28 *) - V. Shavrov "History of aircraft designs in the USSR until 1938"
(Note 29 *) - article "Fracture", Encyclopedia " World aviation"Issue #153
(Note 30 *) - F. Mellenthin "Tank battles. Combat use of tanks in WW2"
(Note 31 *) - V. Kotelnikov "Spitfire. The best Allied fighter"
(Note 32 *) - V. Beshanov "Flying coffins of Stalin"
(Note 33 *) - V. Ivanov "Airplanes of N.N. Polikarpov"
(Note 34 *) - M. Bykov "Combat "crutch" Friedrich Nikolaus" magazine "Arsenal-collection" 6 \ 2013
(Note 35 *) - A. Medved "Focke-Wulf" FV-190 - multipurpose fighter of the Luftwaffe "
(Note 36 *) - "Operations in Europe and the Mediterranean" magazine "World Aviation" No. 65
(Note 37 *) - D. Donald "Luftwaffe combat aircraft"
(Note 38 *) - V. Shunkov "German Aircraft WW2"
(Note 39 *) - Kuznetsov "Yak-1 - our best fighter of 1941"
(Note 40 *) - A. Firsov "Wings of the Luftwaffe. Part 4. Henschel - Junkers"
(Note 41 *) - D. Sobolev "History of aircraft 1919-45"
(Note 42 *) - K. Munson "Fighters and Bombers of the Second World War"
(Note 43 *) - B. Sokolov "M. Tukhachevsky. The life and death of the Red Marshal"
(Note 44 *) - S. Moroz "Speed, range, height" magazine "Science and Technology" 8 \ 2007
(Note 45 *) - Y. Mukhin "Aces and propaganda"
(Note 46 *) - article "Victory in the sky of France", magazine "World Aviation" No. 62
(Note 47 *) - Y. Borisov "Flying "coffin" magazine" Wings of the Motherland "8\2002
(Note 48 *) - N.Cherushev "Four steps down" magazine "Military Historical Archive" 12 \ 2002
(Note 49 *) - V. Galin "The political economy of war. The conspiracy of Europe"
(Note 50 *) - A. Speer "The Third Reich from the inside. Memoirs of the Reich Minister of War Industry"
(Note 51 *) - "Aviation collection. Special issue No. 2 \ 2002. Bombers 1939-45"
(Note 52 *) - V. Kotelnikov "Heinkel" -111. Blitzkrieg Bomber"
(Note 53 *) - M.Zefirov "Target ships. Confrontation between the Luftwaffe and the Soviet Baltic Fleet"
(Note 54 *) - "Bf-109f. Militant Friedrich" magazine "World Aviation" No. 52
(Note 55 *) - A. Zablotsky "In the sight of FW-189"
(Note 56 *) - F. Cheshko "Eastern Front: "Aces" against "experts" magazine "Science and Technology" 6 \ 2012
(Note 57 *) - S. Manukyan "How the war began" magazine "Science and Technology" 6\2012
(Note 58 *) - A.Isaev "Operation" Bagration: Blitzkrieg to the West "Popular Mechanics" magazine 5 \ 2014
(Note 59 *) - "B-17.Flying Fortress. Operations in Europe-part 2" magazine "World Aviation" No. 52
(Note 60 *) - I. Drogovoz "Air Fleet of the Country of Soviets"
(Note 61 *) - M.Zefirov "Aces of World War II. Allies of the Luftwaffe: Estonia, Latvia, Finland"
(Note 62 *) - A. Zablotsky "To aim for transport in ports" magazine "Aviapark" 2 \ 2009
(Note 63 *) - A. Chechin "MiG-3: speed and height" magazine "Model designer" 5 \ 2013
(Note 64 *) - "100 battles that changed the world. Air war on the Eastern Front" No. 141
(Note 65 *) - M.Zefirov "Aces of World War II. Allies of the Luftwaffe: Italy"
(Note 66 *) - A. Zablotsky "Catalina seaplanes in Soviet naval aviation during the war years" Science and Technology magazine 1 \ 2013
(Note 67 *) - "History of the Great Patriotic War Soviet Union"
(Note 68 *) - collection "Air collection: fighter I-153 "Seagull" 1 \ 2014
(Note 69 *) - Yu. Kuzmin "How many FV-190s were in total" Aviation and Cosmonautics magazine 3 \ 2014
(Note 70 *) - A.Stepanov "Development of Soviet aviation in the pre-war period"
(Note 71 *) - "Encyclopedia of WW2. Opening of a second front (spring-summer 1944)"
(Note 72 *) - S. Slavin "Secret weapon of the Third Reich"
(Note 73 *) - Y. Mukhin "Blitzkrieg - how it's done"
(Note 74 *) - C. Ailesby "Plan Barbarossa"
(Note 75 *) - D. Degtev "Wehrmacht air cabs. Luftwaffe transport aviation 1939-45"
(Note 76 *) - A. Zablotsky "Air bridges of the Third Reich"
(Note 77 *) - O. Greyg "Stalin could attack first"
(Note 78 *) - A. Osokin " Great Mystery Great Patriotic War"
(Note 79 *) - F. Funken "The Encyclopedia of weapons and military costume. WW2. 1939-45 (2 hours)"
(Note 80 *) - magazine "Sea Collection" 5 \ 2005
(Note 81 *) - Y. Sokolov "The Truth about the Great Patriotic War"
(Note 82 *) - N. Yakubovich "Soviet "mosquito" or how to become a deputy people's commissar", magazine "Wings of the Motherland" 01 \ 1995
(Note 83 *) - A. Haruk "All Luftwaffe aircraft"
(Note 84 *) - V. Dashichev "Strategic planning of aggression against the USSR", magazine "Military History Journal" 3 \ 1991
(Note 85 *) - M. Maslov "The Seagulls" went halfway", the magazine "Aviation and Cosmonautics" 9 \ 1996
(Note 86 *) - P. Pospelov "History of the Great Patriotic War in the USSR 1941-45" v.2
(Note 87 *) - S. Kolov "In the backyard of the Luftwaffe" magazine "Wings of the Motherland" 10 \ 1996
(Note 88 *) - S. Ivannikov "Hawk" - an aged chick", magazine "Wings of the Motherland" 05 \ 1996
(Note 89 *) - E. Podolny "Black Sea "Seagull", magazine "Wings of the Motherland" 05 \ 1996
(Note 90 *) - V. Ivanov "Wings over the Baltic", magazine "Wings of the Motherland" 3 \ 1996
(Note 91 *) - V. Kotelnikov "Trace" Werewolf ", magazine" Wings of the Motherland "3 \ 1999
(Note 92 *) - N. Kudrin "Aircraft with an enviable fate", magazine "Wings of the Motherland" 10 \ 1999
(Note 93 *) - S. Kolov "Humpback "hawk" Marchetti", magazine "Wings of the Motherland" 2 \ 2000
(Note 94 *) - S. Kolov "Classic "Heinkel", magazine "Wings of the Motherland" 3 \ 2000
(Note 95 *) - V. Kotelnikov "Fighters of France", magazine "Wings of the Motherland" 5 \ 2000
(Note 96 *) - V. Alekseenko "In the harsh years of the war", the magazine "Wings of the Motherland" 5 \ 2000
(Note 97 *) - S. Ivantsov "Large "diamond" of the Mediterranean", magazine "Wings of the Motherland" 9 \ 1998
(Note 98 *) - S. Kolov "Many-faced "Frenchman", magazine "Wings of the Motherland" 5 \ 2001
(Note 99 *) - M. Morozov "How the Skagerrak was missed" magazine "Arsenal-Collection" 8\2013
(Note 100 *) - V. Kotelnikov "On the eve of the Second World War", magazine "Wings of the Motherland" 4 \ 2001
(Note 101 *) - E. Manstein "Missed Victories"
(Note 102 *) - V. Kotelnikov "Fighters of Belgium", magazine "Wings of the Motherland" 1 \ 2002
(Note 103 *) - V. Kotelnikov "Model 75", magazine "Wings of the Motherland" 2 \ 2002
(Note 104 *) - Y. Smirnov "Hero of "shuttle operations", magazine "Wings of the Motherland" 6 \ 2002
(Note 105 *) - S. Kolov "Cigar" of the company "Mitsubishi", magazine "Wings of the Motherland" 1 \ 2003
(Note 106 *) - S. Sazonov "Big-eyed owl" or "flying frame", magazine "Wings of the Motherland" 8 \ 2002
(Note 107*) - N. Soiko "Flight of the Condor", magazine "Wings of the Motherland" 1\2003
(Note 108 *) - E. Podolny "Attack aircraft that rushed to the front", magazine "Wings of the Motherland" 5 \ 2004
(Note 109 *) - S. Kolov " Long life"Mustang", magazine "Wings of the Motherland" 9\2004
(Note 110 *) - S. Kolov "Fairy "Battle" - an elegant loser", magazine "Wings of the Motherland" 11 \ 1998
(Note 111 *) - S. Kolov "Quickly aged defender", magazine "Wings of the Motherland" 5 \ 2006
(Note 112 *) - V. Alekseenko "In the harsh years of the war", magazine "Wings of the Motherland" 5 \ 2000
(Note 113 *) - S. Kedrov "Makki" - avid warriors", magazine "Wings of the Motherland" 6 \ 1999
(Note 114 *) - S. Kolov "Classic "Heinkel", magazine "Wings of the Motherland" 3 \ 2000
(Note 115 *) - collection "Long-range aviation of Russia"

Once again, he received a comparative number of Air Force losses in World War II. I perfectly understand the desire to feel a sense of pride in one's ancestors, but lying has never contributed to this. The numbers below appeared out of nowhere a few years ago and are circulating on the Internet, acquiring conjectures and fictions. I will give "invigorating" figures at the end, as well as a table of US Air Force casualties.

But for starters, there are no reliable facts about the losses of the Air Force of Nazi Germany. In general, there are no primary data for 1944. BUT existing documents different departments of the Reich differ from each other at times.
Attack aircraft Il-2 German airfield

Here are some examples:

On the eve of the October holidays, the command of the Lenfront received intelligence information about the alleged German raid on November 7 on Leningrad. It was decided to preempt the enemy by first striking at the Siverskaya airfield.

At 11.25 on November 6, seven Pe-2s from the 125th BAP (leading regiment commander, Major V.A. Sandalov), accompanied by ten MiG-3 fighters from the 7th IAP, attacked German aircraft stands. "Pawns" dropped 28 ZAB-100, 210 8-kg fragmentation and 280 2.5-kg bombs (fragmentation and incendiary) onto the airfield.

The Germans obviously missed the raid. According to the report of our pilots, the fire of anti-aircraft artillery was opened late and was conducted in a disorganized manner. At 10.40 nine I-153s from the 7th IAP stormed the firing points on the outskirts of the airfield. On the retreat, our pilots fought with the Messerschmitts. Lieutenant Timoshenko and junior lieutenant Stoletov did not return from the battle, the first was killed, and the second was captured.

Pe-2 dive bomber of the Northern Fleet Aviation at the airfield

From 10.50 to 10.55, six Il-2s, accompanied by eight fighters, struck the second blow. Ten ZAB-100s, ten high-explosive "fifty" and 30 rockets hit the German parking lots. Anti-aircraft fire shot down the "silts" of captain Anisimov and junior lieutenant Panfilov.

At 14.17 seven Petlyakovs repeated the attack. Again, 28 ZAB-100, 112 AO-15 and 140 ZAB-2.5 were spent. On the way back, Captain Rezvykh's Pe-2 crashed. The crew remained unharmed.

The reports of the GKL (Quartermaster General of the Luftwaffe) paint the following picture of the results of our air raid. Two Junkers-88s were destroyed (100% loss) (serial No. 2543 from III./KG77 and 1256 from KGr806), another one was damaged (60%) and was to be written off (serial No. 3542 from III./KG77). Three aircraft from the 806th group were damaged (40%), but could be restored (serial numbers 1081, 2501 and 4547). Thus, in the most favorable scenario, three enemy bombers were destroyed, three were seriously damaged. In addition, two pilots from the 77th squadron, one military builder and one anti-aircraft gunner** were injured.

And here is how the events of November 6 in Siverskaya are reflected in the "Journal of Combat Actions of the 18th Army" ***.
“November 6, 1941, 15:20.

A Luftwaffe communications officer reports the results of today's raid on the Siverskaya airfield. At 10.15 nine enemy fighters flew over the airfield. At 10.30, at an altitude of 200 meters above the airfield, seven bombers passed under the cover of fighters and immediately behind this, seven attack aircraft. The planes dropped thirty bombs from strafing flight. Six aircraft were destroyed, four were seriously damaged, and eight were lightly damaged. Losses in personnel: two killed and two wounded. Burned 20 thousand liters of gasoline.

Two duty fighters took off on alert and shot down two enemy planes in pursuit.
Later it was found that irretrievable losses amounted to five cars.

21 hours 35 minutes.
The communications officer of the Luftwaffe informed the chief of the operational department of the army that in the afternoon the enemy had made a second raid on the Siverskaya airfield. One aircraft was destroyed, one was seriously damaged and one aircraft was lightly damaged. He also received damage to the "fiziler-storch".

Thus, according to the "Journal of Combat Actions of the 18th Army", German losses during two raids amounted to six aircraft destroyed, five seriously damaged and ten aircraft lightly damaged (see table)!

German bombers Ju-88A from the "Lion" squadron KG30 in flight over the Banak airfield

Now fast forward to 1942. Far North, a very successful raid by Il-4 bombers on the Banak airbase in Northern Norway as part of an operation to escort the infamous PQ-17 convoy.

On June 30, five Ilyushins from the recently arrived Northern Fleet 35th mine-torpedo aviation regiment dropped thirty high-explosive "acres" into the parking lots of the German air base. According to the reports of the crews, the entire airfield was covered with gaps. The Severomorians did not suffer any losses, and upon returning they reported the destruction of two enemy aircraft as a result of a bombing attack, which were identified as Bf-109 Messerschmitts. However, this is the one rare case when their undoubted successes in the reports "upstairs" were underestimated.

GKL reports, on the contrary, report the destruction of four "Junkers" (plant No. 0051, 3717, 2125, 1500, all 100%) from the 30th "Eagle" bomber squadron *. Another bomber from KG30 was seriously damaged (70%) and was to be scrapped (Serial No. 1753) and one (Serial No. 2060) could be repaired locally (30%)**. If the number of burnt aircraft in various documents coincides, then the situation differs with the number of damaged cars and differs very significantly.

Here is what you can learn about this in the documents of the Kriegsmarine:
“June 30, 9:10 a.m./9:30 a.m.

Air raid on Banak airfield. Five aircraft from a height of 5800 meters dropped 15 bombs. Four destroyed, 17 aircraft damaged. Two seriously and two lightly wounded. ***

The enemy learned from the events of 30 June, so the next raid on Banak on 2 July was no longer so successful. On the bombing of the airfield, on that day, two groups of Il-4 flew out. The first five returned from the Varde region due to a malfunction of the engine of the leading aircraft. Of the four Ilyushins of the second group, one aircraft broke off in the clouds and also returned to the airfield. The remaining three DB-3f continued to fly towards the target, dropping thirty FAB-100s onto the airfield from a height of 5500 meters. At the moment our bombers left the target, a pair of Messerschmitts appeared in the air. Within a few minutes, they successively shot down the DB-3f commander of the 35th MTAP, who had just arrived in the North, Major A.A. Krylov and the commander of the 2nd Guards Regiment, Captain P.D. Zubkov. The third crew, despite the numerous holes in their Ilyushin, managed to escape.

This time, the GKL reports on the results of the raid remain deadly silent. But the information of interest to us was found in the "Journal of Combat Operations of the Admiral of the Polar Sea" ****:
July 2, 3:00 p.m.
Air raid on Banak. Four aircraft type DB-3. Altitude 4500 meters. Dropped eight 500 kg bombs. One container with 33 small bombs did not explode. Five planes were damaged at the airport. The Luftwaffe shot down two bombers reliably and two presumably.

Now fast forward to 1943, on the southern flank of the Soviet-German front. Here is what was reported to the headquarters of the 6th field army Wehrmacht, on the results of a Soviet air raid on the Kuteynikovo airfield, in a report on the air situation of the 15th anti-aircraft artillery division of the Luftwaffe dated July 14, 1943*****:
“Preliminary loss report.
Nine vehicles were lightly damaged: four Focke-Wulf-189s, one Me-110, one W34, one Klemm and two Fiziler-Storchs.
Two vehicles were heavily damaged: Me-110 and Fw-189.
One "Fiziler-Storch" was destroyed.
One serviceman was killed, two seriously injured, two buildings were destroyed.”

What, in turn, can be learned about this by looking at the reports of the Quartermaster General of the Luftwaffe? In the report of the GKL, moreover, from the fifteenth day, it is indicated that as a result of the bombardment of the Kuteynikovo airfield, one Fw-189A-2 (plant No. 0125, 15%) and one "Fisiler" (plant No. 5074, 40%) ** ****.

As you can see, the overlap between these two documents is minimal. Fw-189A-2 from the GKL report can only be attributed to lightly damaged vehicles, and the “stork” is not at all clear in which category to write down. On the one hand, it was damaged quite seriously and required factory repairs. On the other hand, he was not listed in the army report as a seriously injured person. As the only possible justification for the German staff officers, one can assume that the information about the raid on Kuteynikovo eventually migrated to the reports for 1944, later lost. But this is just a guess.

And here is a figure walking around the network:

In first place - Japan: 60,750 pilots killed (well, this is understandable, "kamikaze", traditions of honor, etc.)
In second place - Germany: 57.137 killed pilots.
In third place - England: 56.821 killed pilots.
In fourth place is the United States: 40,061 pilots killed.
And in the FIFTH, last, place - the USSR: 34,500 killed pilots.

Losses are even less than those of the United States! Why?

Maybe the Soviet military leaders hesitantly used aviation, "took care" of it? Not! USSR aviation was used THREE times more intensively than Germany: during the years of the war on the Eastern Front, German aviation made 1,373,952 sorties, and USSR aviation - 3,808,136 sorties!

This fact alone smashes to smithereens the legends about the "bad-headed Vanka", who, they say, is stupid, stupid and not far off in order to fight on equal terms with the "civilized Aryans" - for military aviation is always, then and now, the technical elite of the army. And a combat pilot is a unique fighter, combining the knowledge and intelligence of an engineer with the skills and reflexes of an Olympic-level professional athlete. Therefore, the main thing is to save the pilot, because compared to the cost of his training, the plane itself is a penny ...

However, in terms of losses of the "material part" of the USSR, it is also not in the first place:

During the Second World War, the aviation of the warring countries lost:

1. German Air Force: 85.650 aircraft;
2. Japanese Air Force: 49.485 aircraft;
3. USSR Air Force: 47.844 aircraft;
4. US Air Force: 41,575 aircraft;
5 RAF: 15,175 aircraft

And some other statistics:

According to the losses of pilots of the Red Army Air Force. During the war years, 44,093 pilots were trained. 27,600 died in battle: 11,874 fighter pilots, 7,837 attack pilots, 6,613 bomber crew members, 587 reconnaissance pilots and 689 auxiliary aviation pilots (V. I. Alekseenko. Soviet Air Force on the eve and during the Great Patriotic War).

There are many data and very different ones from various historians. Mukhin also has a table of losses by type of troops on January 1, 1945. True, not pilots, but all the Luftwaffe, without allies. I will not cite them simply so as not to impose a discussion on the party.

But any more or less reliable figures prove two facts

1 - the victory was very expensive for the USSR;
2 - we did not throw any corpses into Nazi Europe.

* - The documented maximum time interval between an event and the moment it is recorded is about a year
** - Military archive of Germany VA-MA RL 2 III / 1179 S. 321, 327, 329
*** - US National Archives NARA T-312 roll 782 frame 8433368, 8433374
More examples - https://topwar.ru/29659-chudesa-nemeckoy-statistiki.html

Original: Brophy, A. The Air Force: A Panorama of the Nation's Youngest Service. — New York: Gilbert Press, 1956.

Book on site:

(written in early 2004)
Published with abbreviations:
http://www.ng.ru/ideas/2004-07-09/11_avia.html

“Pilots are piece specialists” (literally and figuratively, during the war and in the post-war years, which are undoubtedly even more difficult for aviation in terms of consequences).

The white wind behind the temples flutters -
time of our youth
aviation
Time of honesty, and honor, and commonwealth,
blue, burning courage.
Thunderstorms in the sky, like roses, but prickly,
on earth, treason is burning, combustible,
But it is not in vain that the earth considers
color of the nation
those who were
who is,
who will be
in aviation.

During the war, individual pilots (crews) died. After the war, very, very many famous aviation regiments, divisions and even entire air armies disappeared.
According to the Military Historical Report on the combat operations of the DCBF Air Force in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, part three, 1946

as a result of non-combat losses, 625 aircraft were irretrievably lost
did not return from mission 364
destroyed on landing from combat damage 353

shot down by fighter aircraft 558
shot down by anti-aircraft artillery 308
Total: 2208

With to a large extent Reliability suggests that of the 364 who did not return from the mission, half can be attributed to non-combat losses.
Of the 353 that were broken during landing, according to war veterans, at least one in three, or even the second, was lost by no means due to combat damage, but was simply broken due to the banal mistakes of pilots in piloting technique. In total, about 300 more cars will be obtained. Taking into account the officially recognized non-combat losses (625), it turns out that almost every second aircraft was irretrievably lost without any enemy impact.

My thoughts are not indisputable, because, for example, in the Red Army Air Force Information Agency in the Second World War, for one irretrievably lost fighter aircraft, there were 26 damaged ones.
According to the Air Defense Academy, the non-combat losses of the Red Army Air Force fighters in 1943 slightly exceeded the combat losses, in 1944 they already exceeded the combat losses by more than 2 times, and in 1945 - almost four (!) Times. In 1944 and 1945, about 5,000 aircraft were irretrievably lost as a result of combat losses of the IA; over the same period, non-combat losses amounted to 13,000 (!!!) fighter aircraft.
These 13,000 machines were destroyed by fighter pilots, the vast majority of whom died along with the aircraft, by no means due to an excess of feelings overwhelmed by anticipation of an early victory.
This impressive number of aircraft was lost partly due to fatigue accumulated during the war, partly due to failures of aviation equipment, and in the overwhelming majority of cases, due to piloting errors during takeoff, landing, collision with each other in the air, errors in use due to elementary under-education.
If my memory serves me, the non-combat losses of the Americans in Vietnam amounted to 56%, but it was not pilots - theorists who fought there, but pilots - "centurions".
During the Second World War, the Air Force of the Baltic Fleet lost 1319 pilots, but at the same time they sank 1389 ships and vessels. For the death of each pilot, the enemy responded with one sunken ship with an average displacement of 1961 tons, in addition, 825 enemy ships and transports were damaged, 2203 were shot down in air battles and another 215 enemy aircraft were destroyed at airfields.

Returning to the analysis of a large number of non-combat losses, as I believe, precisely because of low level training of pilots, especially in the last years of the war, sufficient confirmation of this are, in my opinion, two indicators:
1. In the second year of the war, night raids accounted for 30% of the total, in the third year - 8, and in the fourth - only 4%. (It is appropriate to say that all indicators for the years of the war were not calculated from the beginning calendar year, and from the month of the beginning of the war, i.e. for example, the raid in the fourth year of the war is taken here for the period from June 1944 to May 1945, i.e. almost a full year.)
2. During the first two years of the war, the BF Air Force carried out 90,394 sorties, in which 39 pilots died due to landings on aircraft that received combat damage. During the last two years of the war, the BF Air Force carried out 67,656 sorties, i.e. a third less, but for a similar reason, 165 pilots died, i.e. more than four times more.

(Either the Germans began to shoot better, or we, which is more likely, began to send pilots to the front who could not even land).

I dare say that at the present time, "if war breaks out", we will be in 1946 in terms of the number of non-combat losses, or, in other words, at least 4 out of every five pilots will be killed themselves.
Although, I have not seen any methods for calculating the percentage of non-combat losses during my service. This is the business of the military. aviation academies, Research Institute, Flight Safety Service, Centers for combat training and retraining of flight personnel of aviation branches.
If such methods are developed and non-combat losses are predicted in terms of the level of actual training of the flight crew, I am sure that the results will simply be amazing.
During one of the KShU, I received a “play-on” telegram from the fleet headquarters, which said that after two and a half months (!!!) of hostilities, I had 5 flight crew losses, 3 of which were returnable and only 2 were irretrievable. Before starting my report at the CP BF, I allowed myself to notice that this telegram was prepared and signed by an amateur in aviation, since, according to the experience of the war and taking into account the fact that we have been “sitting on the ground” for more than 10 years, I am already on the first sortie I will put half of the pilots due to non-combat losses. They shamelessly interrupted me: “What are you suffering, what non-combat losses, will they die drunk in your ditch?”
After this holy question in its simplicity, I somehow realized at once and quite clearly that even though the leading flight personnel of naval aviation study with naval commanders at the same - the first command department in the same Naval Academy, but apparently still - with different teachers and different sciences.

After I was appointed in February 2001 to the post of Commander of Naval Aviation of the Baltic Fleet, I made the following analysis for myself. For one crew commander (pilot on fighters and attack aircraft) - the one who goes into battle, and for whom the entire personnel works, there were 27 military personnel and 21 workers and employees, based on the states, i.e. 48 people work daily for one pilot, and he has been a zero specialist for years as a pilot. The overwhelming majority of these 48 people in the most conscientious manner fulfill their functional responsibilities, receive a salary, receive housing, and the one for whom they selflessly work, still cannot wait for the first export flight - there is no kerosene.

It turns out exactly according to M. Zhvanetsky: “Such a state of constipation with, in general, the vigorous activity of the whole organism.”
Paradox, isn't it?
Young pilots say:
As soon as our sons grow up, we will buy them caps with huge visors, so that from under them they will never see the sky, so that a crazy dream of becoming pilots does not suddenly arise in their unintelligent heads - that dream that was ruined "on the vine" of them fathers with what is happening now in aviation.

Well, there are no drivers without experience, and pilots without a raid!

The best aces of the anti-Hitler coalition: Kozhedub and Pokryshkin shot down 62 and 59 aircraft, respectively. Few people know that 102 fascist pilots shot down more than 100 aircraft each, 15 - more than 200, and two - more than 300 of our aircraft. Erich Hartman - 352 (of which 347 are ours and 7 American), Gerhart Barkhorn - 301 (all victories on the Eastern Front).
It is very difficult even to imagine that 15 German pilots shot down more than 3 and a half thousand, and 300 German pilots - more than 24,000 of our machines. Moreover, some of them shot down 15, 16 and even 18 of our aircraft per day and 13 in one battle.
From 1925 to 1933, in Lipetsk, we taught German pilots to fly in violation (bypassing) the international agreements that existed after the First World War, which forbade Germany to have an air force.
In the words of Leonardo da Vinci: "Pity is the student who does not surpass his teacher." The Germans were worthy students and, as we see, they surpassed their Russian teachers, for which I am forced to “take off my hat” to them.
This is by no means an attempt to praise the enemy we have defeated, but a desire to recall the lessons of a terrible war, which we won to a greater extent not by skill, but by numbers.

For the foreseeable future, we will have neither the number nor the skill, because The system of training Soviet pilots, recognized all over the world and, in my opinion, being a very correct and reliable system, has been destroyed, and the Russian one has not yet been created.
1991 can be considered the "extreme" year of normal flight work, after which its sharp decline began.
Due to the catastrophic shortage of kerosene, the task of training graduates of flight higher educational institutions, which was always paramount, turned into a third-rate one, and in the Air Force of the Baltic Fleet for 10 years (before my appointment as commander) was not carried out at all.
I see only one way. A pilot in a flight higher education institution (the hand does not rise to write “at a flight institute”) is learning to fly an L-39 (MiG-AT, Yak - 130), maybe. performs familiarization flights on combat aircraft. After graduation - in ROSTO on L - 39, 29, Yak - 18t (attack aircraft), Yak - 52 (fighter) is gaining flying time to the level of the second class. Then he goes to the pulp and paper industry and PLS of a kind of aviation, where he receives the second class on L - 39. All the time after graduating from a flight high school, he intensively flies on a modern combat aircraft simulator under the guidance of "his" instructor, gaining a flight time of several hundred hours.
Only after the fulfillment of the above conditions does it begin to prepare for the regular aircraft of the unit. Fuel consumption on training aircraft is tens and hundreds of times less than on combat aircraft, and this will be feasible for a meager military budget.
Without any self-promotion, the task of training pilots of the BF Air Force on Yak - 18t and Yak - 52 aircraft in 2004 is actually carried out by the ATSK ROSTO "Guards" under the guidance of a fanatic of the flying profession I.A. Barskov.
The political officer of the theoretical training course of the Orenburg VVAUL, Major Kurnaev, taught us 30 years ago: training a combined arms officer costs the country 15-20 thousand rubles, training one pilot costs more than one and a half million, so go in for sports, strengthen and protect your health, study properly, as training each of you costs as much as the training of 100 officers from among the "non-pilots".
According to statistics, out of 100 cadets (students) of any military higher education institution before retirement upon reaching age limit no more than three (!) people serve.
Each of us receives our own genetic makeup from our parents. And one - by the age of 40 - is disabled, the other at 50 - "you can't dump a liter."
So what is the logic in the fact that an officer - a pilot who has passed the most severe "natural selection", who is one of 33, "the last of the Mohicans", a fabulously expensive piece specialist at 45 years old, should definitely be retired?
Let him serve (if he so desires and his state of health and his physical fitness are appropriate), well, at least up to 50 years, especially since we have not prepared not only an equivalent, but in general no replacement for him. In 2001, I was the head of the delegation during the visit of the Guards Sandomierz Order of Alexander Nevsky Fighter Aviation Regiment. Marshal of the Soviets Union A.I. Pokryshkin of the BF Air Force to the F-17 regiment at the Ronneby airfield in Sweden, during which I happened to perform two flights, 40 minutes each. each, on aircraft with dual control SK - 60 and "Viggen" with takeoff as part of a group.

What I would like to note:
1. The commander of the regiment, Lars Johansson, shortly before the start of the visit at 51 and a half years (!) Was only appointed to the post of commander of a fighter regiment.
2. The highest level of piloting technique in group flights of all pilots of the regiment. (During all five days of the visit, flight shifts were carried out in the regiment, during which the vast majority of flights were carried out with take-off and landing in pairs; and this despite the fact that during all the days of our stay there was a severe minimum of weather at the airfield.
3. Fuel in the regiment, serviceability of the aircraft fleet is not a problem at all, since the regiment commander was allocated a budget in the form of a “regimental treasury” for the year in the amount of 57 million dollars (59 was planned for the next year) and he alone decides how to spend (“either on new checkers for the hussars, or on hay for horses”).
4. Based on the video recordings of episodes of demonstration and demonstration flights, I note with sadness: in terms of behavior and facial expressions, without differences in the form of clothing, ITS: not in a hurry, smiling and smug - this is exactly a Swede, fussing, terribly preoccupied and "shabby" - that's for sure " our".
5. Genuine highly respectful attitude of the Swedish pilots to the country's leadership. During all the days of the visit, it was repeatedly heard: Our Government decided to create our regiment, Our Government decided to re-equip the regiment from Viggen aircraft to Grippen aircraft, Our Government decided to increase the budget of the regiment ...
What our pilots say about our Government I would never wish to hear from the members of our Government.
On radio and television every day you hear and see how a huge number of people in power take care of us, the inhabitants of Kaliningrad region. Where were those who prepared and signed the Belovezhskaya agreement and what did they think? If they thought with their heads, then Crimea, for which Russia fought for more than two hundred years, would not have become a “royal gift” to Ukraine and would have been forever - eternally stipulated and legally fixed free and free passage and span between the Kaliningrad region and Greater Russia .
But if then no one remembered such a “trifle” as almost a million people living in the territory of the former East Prussia, then at least today, then, finally, it would be possible to conclude an agreement between Russia and Lithuania on the procedure for using airspace Lithuania for the flight from the Kaliningrad region to another part of Russia and back. After all, since 1994 (!) we have been flying under the Interim Agreement for the period of the withdrawal of troops from Lithuania. And the troops were withdrawn a long time ago, and ten whole years have passed, but somehow there is still no agreement. Indeed, there is nothing more permanent than something temporary.
A couple of years ago, during the stay of the Minister of Foreign Affairs I. Ivanov in the Kaliningrad region, I turned to him on this issue. To his credit, in three weeks the debt of the Russian Defense Ministry to Lithuania for the flight of military transport aircraft of the Baltic Fleet Air Force in the amount of more than two hundred thousand US dollars, accumulated since 1994, was closed, but I never saw the contract.
The commander of any air army of the RF Armed Forces has the right, if necessary, to give a command to submit an urgent plan for the departure of a duty aircraft and fly to any point in Russia in two hours. The Air Force of the Baltic Fleet for a flight to Moscow or St. Petersburg is obliged to declare the time of departure of each aircraft no later than eleven days (!!!) through six intermediate instances (strictly in order of subordination). On Thursday, planning for the next week is carried out on transport flights, and on Friday late in the evening, more often on Saturday, and sometimes only on Monday, you receive a response to an application submitted more than a week ago. Quite often, permits for overflight from the Lithuanian side simply do not come without explanation. The permissions obtained are severely limited. Departure no later than 30 minutes from the permitted take-off time, two aircraft cannot be in the air at the same time over the territory of Lithuania, all aircraft must be equipped with RBS.
Lithuanians are not at all interested in the fact that there may be fog at the airfield, a failure of aviation equipment may be detected before departure, or the cargo may not be delivered on time to the plane scheduled for delivery to Kaliningrad due to traffic jams in Moscow. Within 30 minutes from the time declared for eleven days ago did not take off, the application for departure must be canceled. In such cases, calls are made by officers of the BF Air Force Command Command to Lithuania with humiliating pleas not to cancel the application, but to postpone it for an hour or two.
What the Lithuanians, as a rule, go for, sarcastically remarking that even with their innate tendency not to rush too much, in ten or so years, Russia should have long ago concluded a Treaty with them instead of the Interim Agreement, because this, in general, is something , it is necessary first of all for Russia, and not for Lithuania.
The flight of combat aircraft and helicopters to greater Russia and back, even to aircraft repair plants and back, is generally prohibited.
Maybe even Lithuania's accession to NATO will force us to move on this issue.
Reform (read - a simple reduction) of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
Since 1990, the Baltic Fleet Air Force has not received a single new aircraft (and other air armies, too). Those that are in service are without spare parts, require major repairs both on the aircraft and helicopters themselves, and on the engines.
There is no money to repair them.
By the way, during the war, the average serviceability of BF Air Force aircraft was 85.5% (in the first year of the war - 80%, in the fourth - 89%).
For more than two years, I got out with only two serviceable Su - 27 engines, on which I had to carry out daily combat duty and fly on them in flight shifts.
Trying to solve the problem of repairing engines for Su-27 aircraft, I turned to the management of the Salyut MMPP, which agreed with my proposal and in a letter dated July 4, 01 No. , and keep 8 for myself, on account of the cost of repairing the twelve returned to me.
I reported on the command, they answered me - "It's impossible, there is no mechanism." He again turned to the management of MMPP "Salyut" and on November 23, 2001 received in his address signed by the General Director Yu.S. Eliseev Fax No. 62/382 “In response to your request dated November 22, 2001, I inform you: given the critical situation with the serviceability of aircraft engines in the Guards IAP named after. Air Marshal A.I. Pokryshkin, FSUE MMPP Salyut is ready to repair and send to your address 8 - 20 aircraft engines AL-31F in the near future with the simultaneous modernization of these engines and an increase in the overhaul life up to 500 - 800 hours according to technical condition with payment for repairs in 2002-2009 (!!!) years.”
I again reported on the command and again received the same answer: "It's impossible, there is no mechanism."
Yes, I found two options (mechanisms), they only need to be legalized. But no one needs it.
I also received a “suggestion” that I was addressing “over my head” and received a written instruction to ban such appeals.

Initiative in the army, as you know, is punishable.

Well, fly yourself (if you have anything left).

Luostari, Rovny, Umb - lake, Grayling, Onega, Severomorsk - 2, Melt stream (SF), Dunaevka, Spit, Nivenskoye (BF). These are currently large concrete clearings that were airfields. In the Air Force of the country, on the fingers of one hand, one can count the airfields, the condition of the runways and taxiways of which corresponds to the standards of serviceability of military (not to mention civilian) airfields.
The overhaul period of airfields of the BF Air Force (18 years) expired 10 - 15 years ago.
A few engines worth tens of millions of rubles are put out of action, we do not get tired of changing wheels on aircraft that wear out beyond measure, although the cost of repairing the GDP is commensurate with the cost of one engine for the Su-27 aircraft.
As M. Zhvanetsky says: “It’s scary to be a prophet in your own country, when your most terrible predictions, unfortunately, come true,” however, I dare to assume that in the very near future, according to the law of pairing existing in aviation, 2-4 aviation accidents will occur due to the destruction of the landing gear tires during takeoff or landing, or even due to broken landing gear, after which, having killed the crews, and maybe passengers, we suddenly find that almost all military airfields due to runway coatings that have become completely unusable require urgent and simultaneous repairs. After this “enlightenment”, by the Decree of the President, this will be entrusted to the “lifesaver” of the country S.K. Shoigu, who, with his characteristic indomitable energy, by the forces of his ministry, will patch up this, but not at all suddenly, and not at all yesterday, a hole that appeared, which will require colossal funds and the production of lane repairs in a short time, which, of course and inevitably, will affect the quality of work; and after 18 years it will again require their simultaneous repair.
If we cannot maintain military airfields, then let's extend to them the effect of Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 702 of 3.07.98. “On Improving the Efficiency of Using the Property of Federally Owned Airports”, or we will put it up for auction with one condition for potential buyers, that the airfield should remain an airfield. I know that by existing law airfields are not subject to sale, but a mechanism or a way to maintain them in good condition must be found, life itself forces it to be done.
If this does not happen, then forests will grow around the airfields listed above, and many hundreds of other airfields (by no means construction ones), and foreigners greedy for such things can be invited to take them for walks, as they are the most expensive alleys available only in Russia.
At present, there are only seven general pilots left in the entire naval aviation of the country (two lieutenant generals and five major generals). In 2007 there will be four of them, after 2010 - two, and at the beginning of 2012 - none. Who will he be - this "last hero"?
If their service life is not extended (if they still wish it) by 3-5 years, commanders of regiments that have not flown for years will be appointed in their place (there are no more divisions), but generals are not born, but become.
The generation gap continues, the departure of experienced generals and complete amateurism in the organization of flight work and the leadership of the Air Force of the Fleets of potential candidates to replace them with catastrophic speed is approaching the day when naval aviation will cease to exist altogether as a branch of the Navy.
AT last order in terms of class, a pilot of the first (!) Class must be prepared for flights only as part of a pair. (Naturally, he can fight and we, apparently, are going to, also only in pairs).
We will sit without flights on the ground for two or three years and issue the following order, according to which the third class will be assigned for the first export flight, the second class for the first solo flight in a circle, and the first class for the first flight into the zone.
Then, after another two or three years, a schoolboy entering a flight institute, simultaneously with enrollment, will be hung on his chest with the sign of "pilot - sniper", and maybe immediately "Honored Military Pilot of the Russian Federation."

So I want to ask - who are we fooling?

On my article, published in a somewhat distorted form in Nezavisimaya Gazeta and in Nezavisimaya Voyennoye Obozreniye dated January 16, 2004, the Chief of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces, General of the Army Kvashnin, addressed the same day to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, a resolution:

“Everything is objective. Only a blind non-professional can not see. Report jointly on radical improvement of the situation”.

And it pleases.
(The original article can be found online.)

The Air Force is an “expensive pleasure” and not every even rich country has them.
But how can Russia, with its vast expanses, do without a powerful air force in general and without practically destroyed transport aviation in particular?

If we want to have aviation, then I consider it necessary to urgently carry out the following measures:
1. Meeting of commanders air armies(and formations) with the invitation of commanders who are in reserve and retired, heads of flight institutes, heads of the Flight Safety Service and ROSTO, Representatives of the Government and the Presidential Administration, or even Supreme Commander RF Armed Forces with the aim of a detailed analysis of the state of the Air Force and the development of a long-term, 10 - 20 years ahead program of action for the revival of military aviation.
2. Immediately reassign the Air Force of the Fleets to the Air Force and Air Defense Command.
3. In as soon as possible create a network of ROSTO airfields (mainly on abandoned airfields of military aviation schools). The main task of ATSK ROSTO should be the training of students of flight institutes and additional training of pilots of combat regiments on aircraft L - 39, 29, Yak - 18t, Yak - 52 to the level of the second class, and only after that it is advisable to retrain them, if possible, to a full-time av. regimental equipment. Should work, and not be good wishes Government Decree No. 809 of October 26, 2000 “On measures state support ROSTO” and Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 410-r dated March 23, 2001.
4. Stop chasing the health of the fleet of aircraft and helicopters. Why high serviceability if there is no one to fly on these serviceable aircraft? In each unit, ensure serviceability and a resource reserve for 4 - 6 aircraft (maximum - 1 aircraft for each trained pilot available in the regiment). All other machines are either to be mothballed or to carry out the established types of periodic work on them, tk. conservation of individual aircraft is more expensive than their usual maintenance. On these 4 - 6 machines, to ensure intense, rhythmic training of pilots according to the programs of the Design Bureau. All funds that are “freed up” from such a “deliberate reduction” or failure to improve serviceability should be directed to the purchase of fuels and lubricants, primarily aviation kerosene.
If necessary, the serviceability of the fleet of aircraft can be restored in 2 - 3 months, and the pilot must be trained for 3 - 5 years or more.
6. Creation of new simulators on a modern element base for each aircraft in service or planned for delivery to the Air Force and their delivery to regiments in such quantities that each young pilot could "fly" several flights 3-4 days a week with a load as in the flight shift.
7. Remove restrictions on the size of the pension for preferential service, which will be an incentive for pilots to serve and fly longer.
8. Suggestions for retaining the instructor staff:
as an option - the creation of "colonel" regiments - instructor pilots;
prolongation of service life of pilot instructors for 3-5 years after passing the examination in a hospital and checking the level of physical fitness;
conferring the rank of "colonel" to-ram AE, deputy. number of regiments;
the introduction of a staff unit with a good salary - an adviser (consultant) to the regiment commander, to whom to appoint experienced (literally) regiment commanders in reserve (retired);
the introduction of several staff positions with a decent salary: pilots - instructors of simulators, on which they should work, who have mastered the aircraft to perfection, pilots - instructors who have retired (written off from flight work)
9. By order of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, it is obligatory for commanders of formations, formations and commanders of aviation units to leave part of decommissioned aircraft as museum exhibits. An example is the Museum of Aviation Equipment and Weapons of the Northern Fleet Air Force, which has exhibits that are not even in the famous museum in Monino.
10. To oblige the directors of aircraft repair enterprises to maintain the condition (“presentation”) of aircraft (helicopters) located in museums (in garrisons, cities) within the district, region, initially, apparently, only on the basis of sponsorship.
11. On the territory of the Kaliningrad region should be only part of the forces of constant readiness.

I don't need cheap popularity. The life of the general after his dismissal is just beginning, and now I know for sure. To live and be happy with a worthy northern pension, honestly earned over 20 years of service in the Arctic.
This article is a cry from the heart of an officer who has served in naval aviation for more than 30 years and knows something about it.

I joined aviation on 08/05/72 at its peak, and on 01/25/04 I quit it, clearly seeing that for the last ten years it has been in a deep coma, turning into agony.

We must remember that:
1. A country that does not want to maintain its army will very soon feed the army of invaders.
2. If you want peace, prepare for war.
3. The world respects, fears or reckons only with countries that have powerful Armed Forces.

Will this cry of the soul be heard? After all, by God, not at all for myself, but, in the words of Vereshchagin, it’s a shame for the State!

Oh how beautiful these people are
and strong in the sky with earth!
Air Force,
special pride of the country.

Heaven has earthly orders.
Put on the helmet again
which is called cosmic,
but it should be called flying.

Flies, the miracle continues
high thirties,
and the sky, as before, is beautiful
in the dawn honey of the clouds.

On duty on alert -
four minutes, and take off!
The real gods are leaving
in non-paradise heights.

So that the tabernacles of the earth grow
we are in a peaceful suffering of being,
Air Force,
my love and holiness!

F. Chuev
_______________________________________________

"In the Great Patriotic War, out of 106.4 thousand aircraft lost by the Soviet Air Force, non-combat losses amounted to 60.3 thousand (!), The level of non-combat losses of the German Air Force is estimated at 40-50%, the pilots of which, do not underestimate, had an average higher level of training ."

http://www8.airforce.ru/staff/fighter/page_05.htm

Aviation of the Russian Navy: past, present and future

http://blog.kp.ru/users/3790905/post212816056/

Victory certainly has absolutely importance in war, but the face of the victorious state depends on the price that was paid for it. In this case, the price of victory in the air can be determined primarily by the number of lost crews and aircraft during the period of combat operations. The cost of victory in the air is the most important criterion for the level of combat skill and military art of command personnel and flight crews, which determines the winner as having achieved victory with much fewer losses than the enemy.

Unfortunately, we have to reckon with the fact that the price for the victory of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War was paid very, very high. The victory in the air did not become in this regard some absolutely separate indicator. Judge for yourself.

If from the Red Army Air Force on the Soviet-German front 129,400 aircraft participated in the hostilities, which made 3.8 million sorties (29 on average per aircraft), then from the German Air Force - 48,450, which made 1, 8 million sorties (37 on average per aircraft).

During the war years on the Soviet-German front, the ratio of aircraft losses was 1 to 1.15. If the combat losses of the KA Air Force amounted to 46,100, and not combat losses - 60,300, then the German Air Force on the Soviet-German front lost 52,850 aircraft, and in total since 1941 - 85,650 aircraft on the Eastern and Western fronts.

According to Germany itself, losses in aircraft of the German Air Force, taking into account damage from 10% to the complete destruction of the aircraft, for the entire Second World War, from 09/01/39, amount to 71965.

Moreover, if the aircraft industry of the USSR produced only 122,100 aircraft from 1941 to 1945, then the aircraft industry of Germany - 100,749. According to other sources - 113,514. Therefore, we can talk about more aircraft produced and fewer combat losses by the Soviet Union .

However, we must not forget that Germany fought on two fronts: since 1939 - 64 months, and its non-combat losses were several times less than the losses of the Air Force of the spacecraft, which can generally indicate a high level of aircraft technology and an equally high level of training aircrew of the Luftwaffe.

If the irretrievable losses of the flight personnel of the Air Force of the Spacecraft from 1941 to 1945 amounted to 48,158, including 28,193 pilots, then Germany lost more than 66 thousand people of the flight personnel on two fronts in the same period killed and missing. According to other sources, the Luftwaffe from 1939 to 1945 lost only about 24 thousand killed and 27 thousand missing.

Even based on these figures, one can imagine at what cost the victory in the air went to the Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War.

The results of the combat operations of the Soviet Air Force in the initial period of the war were negatively affected primarily by the predominance of aircraft in their composition. obsolete types, crowded basing of aviation units and formations and cumbersome and sluggish organizational staff structure frontline aviation. In addition, the level of training of the flight crew did not meet the requirements of the war.

Forcing the growth of the number of aviation personnel occurred at the expense of the quality of their training, which, in turn, led to a decrease in the combat capability and combat readiness of air units and air formations. On the eve of the war, the commanding staff of the Air Force turned out to be unsure of itself. The flight crew was slowly retrained for new military equipment, was poorly prepared for flights in adverse weather conditions, at night, for combat use. complex types maneuver. The combat experience gained in military conflicts of the interwar period did not fit well with the conditions of modern warfare, and, moreover, when generalized, led to incorrect conclusions, primarily in the tactics of aviation branches.

All this led to high losses of Soviet aviation in the first two years of the war, increasing the "price of victory" of the Red Army Air Force.

Despite the fact that the size of the aircraft fleet of the KA Air Force was constantly increasing due to the growth in the volume of aircraft received from the aircraft industry and under Lend-Lease, the composition of the German Air Force grouping on the Soviet-German front was actually consistently reduced. As a result, this led to a twofold or more numerical superiority of the air group of the Soviet Air Force starting from 1943 in all strategic operations. By the end of the war, the number of new types of aircraft increased to almost 97%.

During the war years, the spacecraft entered service with the Air Force whole line modern machines that were not inferior to similar aircraft in Germany. The Soviet aviation industry managed to seriously improve the combat qualities of aircraft without increasing their weight.

In addition, Soviet aircraft, born before the war itself, had reserves for modification, while the German aircraft, created much earlier, had actually exhausted such possibilities already at the beginning of the war. At the same time, shortcomings in combat use, organization of interaction and control of aviation in separate operations contributed to an increase in unjustified losses of spacecraft aviation and undoubtedly affected the cost of victory.

One of the reasons for the high losses can also be called the lack of centralized leadership of the Soviet Air Force. The division of aviation, before the creation of air armies, into army and front-line aviation prevented the massing of front-line aviation in the main directions.

A huge role in the Air Force personnel training system was played by the formation of reserve and training air regiments, the in-line pilot training system and the reduction of training periods in aviation schools and colleges. In essence, on the one hand, these measures were justified under those conditions. On the other hand, they can also be attributed to the factor of increasing losses.

Researchers of VVS spacecraft losses indicate that many of them resulted from significant shortcomings in the theory and practice of the combat use of the VVS. The lack of initiative in the SC Air Force in the initial period of the war led to its huge losses. In addition to errors in the theory of the construction and use of the Air Force, one can also pay attention to the neglect of the experience of the war taking place in the West. This is especially true for air supremacy and the practice of distributing the main efforts of the Luftwaffe according to tasks.

Most important is the fact that the fight against enemy aircraft was carried out, as a rule, by fighter aviation forces, covering the most important groupings of front troops and providing other branches of aviation.

At the same time, for a number of reasons, such active actions as hunting, blocking airfields, imposing air battles, in contrast to the enemy, were carried out extremely rarely. It can be said that almost completely in Soviet aviation there were no radar sights and electronic warfare equipment, which, in turn, imposed significant restrictions on the use of the Air Force both at night and in difficult weather conditions. And this also led to unjustified losses ...

Thus, it can be argued that the KA Air Force suffered significant combat losses and even more significant non-combat losses.

N. Bodrikhin considers the amazing results of the Luftwaffe aces untenable. He's writing: “After all, the results of the combat work of more than 40 thousand fighter pilots alone, who fought on the side of Germany during the Second World War, are described by the law of normal distribution, and if we assume that the best of them really won the declared number of victories (352 - E. Hartman, 301 - G. Barnhorn, 13 more pilots - over 200.88 - more than 100, etc.), then the total number of aircraft shot down in air battles will exceed the actual number by several times. He claims, “that the loss of Allied aircraft in World War II, according to American data, consisted of non-combat losses (40-50%), losses from anti-aircraft artillery fire (15-20%), the number of those shot down in air battles (20-30%) and lost at the airfields. (7-12%).

In this case, the loss of aircraft of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition in air battles in the European theater should not exceed 30-35 thousand aircraft, and the estimated number of Luftwaffe shot down by pilots exceeds 60-80 thousand.

Of course, patriotism is a good and necessary thing. Today it is just not enough. But as for the historical past, in this regard, the truth is still more expensive. Studies show that Germany, by the nature of the losses of the Air Force, lost 57% in air battles, or 30125 aircraft on the Soviet-German front, 17% were the losses of aircraft at airfields (8984) and 26% - from anti-aircraft artillery fire.

Therefore, in this case, the American data are not suitable for assessing the loss criterion for both the German Air Force and the KA Air Force.

It should be noted that the method of destroying enemy aircraft in the air was most widely used during the war years. This method accounts for 96% of all sorties carried out by Soviet aviation in the struggle for air supremacy. In this case, the pilots of the Luftwaffe during the Second World War could well have won about 70 thousand victories, including 25 thousand on Western front and 45 thousand on the East. However, some researchers claim that the real numbers of victories for Luftwaffe pilots are 19,000 on the Western Front, and about 32,000 on the Eastern. In total, about 5,000 German pilots had five or more victories to their credit.

The list is Soviet aces has more than 2,000 names, of which about 800 pilots have achieved 15 or more victories, another 400 - from 10 to 15, and about 200 pilots shot down 20 or more enemy aircraft.

In no case should we forget that after the First World War in the young Republic of Soviets, and then in the Soviet Union, there was no continuity of generations in the field of fighter aviation. There was no school... We started from scratch. In Germany, on the contrary, great attention devoted to the training of fighter pilots. They perfectly understood their value in a future war, which means they valued them. And the question of succession as such was not raised at all. It is not surprising that in this case the German ace was primarily an individualist and, if you like, a "hunter". He was not afraid of improvisations in tactics in the name of air victory.

In the Air Force of the spacecraft for "hunting" the smallest number of sorties was carried out. For example, in the 28th IAP, in which I happened to serve as a lieutenant after school, only 86 sorties were made for this task (in 1944 - 48, in 1945 - 38). Of the 14,045 sorties, this is only 6%.

According to the authoritative opinion of the Hero of the Soviet Union, General G.A. Baevsky, “the Luftwaffe was not only a group of outstanding pilots, they, and the leading aces of Germany A. Galland and E. Hartman agreed with this, also had “thousands of young, unknown German pilots who died without winning a single battle!"

This once again shows how difficult the profession of a fighter pilot is. The French fighter pilot Pierre Huystermann, in principle, shares this opinion: “There seemed to be no “middle” in the Luftwaffe, and German pilots could be divided into two quite clear categories.

Aces, making up 15-20% of the total number of pilots, really outnumbered the average Allied pilots. And the rest did not deserve special attention. Courageous, but unable to extract from their plane maximum benefit. The reason for this was primarily a hasty selection due to heavy losses in the "Battle of England" and in the Russian campaign. Their training was very short and not very well balanced; priority was given to education morale, devotion to the great German idea and adherence to military theories, while underestimating technical instruction. From the end; In 1943, an acute shortage of fuel was added to these errors. So existed, gradually carrying huge losses in severe trials in the skies of Europe, the heroic detachment of "experienced people" of the Luftwaffe, real veterans with three or four thousand hours of flight behind them. These pilots who went through the school of Spanish civil war, who survived the successful campaigns of the Luftwaffe, starting in 1940, thoroughly, in all the subtleties knew their work - cautious and self-confident masters of flight, they were very dangerous.

On the other hand, there were young fanatics with high fighting spirit and bound by iron discipline, who could be in many difficult circumstances relatively easy to send into battle.

In general, in late 1944 and early 1945, the average standard of German fighter pilots was much higher than at any other time since 1940. This can be explained - in addition to the importance of combat morale and a sense of patriotism - by the fact that elite units of fighter pilots had unsurpassed authority and primacy in everything - until the distribution of fuel and lubricants.

The 28th IAP during the war years destroyed only 511 aircraft and at the same time lost 56 pilots.

During the war years, the 5th Guards IAP won 539 confirmed victories and at the same time lost 89 pilots (36 in air battles, 23 did not return from a combat mission, 7 died from anti-aircraft artillery fire, 7 died during bombing, attack and shelling, 16 - in disasters).

During the war, the 32nd IAP destroyed 518 enemy aircraft and lost 61 pilots.

The 9th IAP shot down 558 enemy aircraft in total.

The most productive regiment in the Red Army Air Force was the 402nd Red Banner Sevastopol IAP, which destroyed 810 enemy aircraft in battle.

So why couldn't the most effective fighter squadron of the Luftwaffe (52nd) destroy 10,000 aircraft during the war years? After all, you need to divide into three groups, in our opinion - into three regiments. And it will turn out more than three thousand per group, per regiment. At the same time, one squadron in the Luftwaffe was so productive, and not all. Why not agree ... For example, in another elite fighter squadron ("Green Heart" - 54th) from June 22, 1941 to 1945, 416 pilots did not return from combat missions. In 1942, 93 pilots were lost there, in 1943 - 112, and in 1944 - 109. And in the very first month of the war in Russia, from June 22 to July 22, 1941, 37 pilots of this squadron (out of 112 included in it according to the list) were killed or went missing. That is, in each regiment or group, on average, more than ten per unit.

For example, in 1943, Major Hans Hann (108 victories) was captured from this squadron on February 21, Lieutenant Hans Beisswenger (152 victories) was shot down and died on March 17, Major Reinhard Seyler (109 victories) was also shot down on July 5 , and Lieutenant Max Stotz (189 victories) jumped out with a parachute and was captured on August 19. We still believe that if a German pilot was shot down with so many victories, then he could not have had so many.

In the Soviet Union, only 2,332 pilots were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Of these, in fighter aircraft 810 (35%). Only twice - 61. Of these, 22 (36%) in fighter aviation. Only three times - 2, and all in IA.

In Germany, 1730 pilots became holders of the Knight's Cross. Of these, 568 (33%) are in fighter aviation.

The Oak Branch was awarded to 192 pilots. Of these, 120 (63%) are in fighter aviation; "swords" - 41, including 25 (61%) in fighter aviation; "diamonds" - 12, including - 9 (75%) in fighter aviation.

And here we see a similar restraint in awarding aces pilots from both sides. And here and there they didn’t hang high awards anyone. This means that Goebbels' propaganda did not finish, since in the Third Reich Knight's crosses should have been poured several times more. At two or three! But no. In two countries, awards were usually given for a certain number of victories, and each victory, as you know, had a high price.