Case Studies in the Achievement of Air Superiority - Air Force ...

SOVIET AIR FORCE
experience that gave them an inferiority complex for some time. Soviet air
tactics were also behind those of the Luftwaffe, and it was not until well
into 1942 that the Soviets emulated the looser and more flexible tactics of
their opponents.
In spite of the June catastrophe, however, the Soviets managed to keep
an air force in being and by late 1941 and early 1942 had received enough
replacement aircraft to make creditable showings at Leningrad and Moscow.
Although many Soviet aircraft were destroyed on the ground in the
opening days of the war, many pilots escaped disaster and were available
to man the new aircraft being produced. Nevertheless, losses in aircrews
were high enough to induce substantial cutbacks in training programs. By
1943, the situation in planes and manpower had improved enough to allow
the old regimen to be reinstituted.
During the war the importance of the Voluntary Society for the Promotion
of Defense, Aviation, and Chemical Warfare [Osoaviakhirn] in preparing
aircrews, especially pilots, declined, and most pilots began their
training in primary flying schools. One German account reports that there
were 130 of them by the latter part of the war. The trainees spent 9 to 12
months in primary flying schools before going to service schools for
advanced training in their specialty. There were 60 for fighter pilots, 30 for
bomber types, 30 for ground-attack fliers, and 8 for long-range aviation.
The entire training program lasted from 12 to 14 months. The student load
at the different schools varied widely, from 200 to 2,000, with the average
fighter school having 750 trainees.hn Since the Soviet Union had no manpower
problems, the production of pilots exceeded the output of aircraft, a
situation quite contrary to that prevailing in Germany.
The Luftwaffe, despite its easy triumphs in the initial months of the
war, did suffer a steady drain in men and planes as it expended its energies
in close support of the ground forces. Furthermore, as early as 1942, the
Germans began to raid their training program for emergency operations on
the Eastern and Mediterranean Fronts. Both training aircraft and instructors
were siphoned off to meet these situations. For example, a German
force of around 100,000 men was surrounded by the Soviets in early January
1942 at Demyansk, and the Luftwaffe was ordered to supply the
entrapped force by air. For 3 months (February 20 to May 18) the German
Ju-52 transports delivered an average of 276 tons a day to the beleaguered
troops, while enduring the worst possible weather and overflying hostile
territory. But the loss of 265 transports with their crews was a high price to
pay. Furthermore, as a German writer points out, it set a precedent that led
to a disastrous loss of pilots and transports-the ill-fated airlift designed to
supply Paulus's Sixth Army trapped at Stalingrad.h' Later in 1942, some 320
Ju-52s were sent to the Mediterranean theater to aid the faltering German
campaign in North Africa, and 164 of them were lost. That, combined with
the 495 transports expended in the Stalingrad fiasco, made a total of 659
197