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

AIR SUPERIORITY
engine considerably, but the new engine, the M-107, was not put into series
production until 1944 because the demand for engines was so great that
interruptions to retool or delays by assembly-line changeover were certain
to get a resounding “nyet” from Stalin and his GK0.7X
Radio-Radar Capabilities
Throughout the war the Soviets lagged behind both the Germans and
the Allies in the use of radio and radar. As of June 22, 1941, the VNOS
[vosdushnoe nublyudenie, opoveschenie i suyuz’], or Air Detection, Warning,
and Communications Service, was all the Soviets had for early warning
and alerting the air units of approaching attacks. VNOS deployed a regiment
and nineteen separate battalions along the western frontier from the
Baltic to the Black Sea, and only one battalion and three separate companies
were in the radio business, the rest being restricted to visual observati~n.~~
With an unsophisticated system as thin as that, it is little wonder that
Soviet air units were constantly being surprised, both on the ground and in
the air. Unlike the separate Air Signal Corps of the Luftwaffe, Soviet signal
officers were assigned to the air forces from the Red Army signal organization.
According to German General Schwabedissen’s description of the situation
in 1941, the signal officers assigned to armies or Fronts in turn
controlled the signal personnel in division, regiments, or lower level units
at the mobile air bases. The personnel in the mobile air base units operated
the wire and radio communications within their assigned airfield systems.xo
Former German airmen are nearly unanimous in their observation that Soviet
radio transmissions were often in the clear, proof positive (in their
opinion) of poor radio discipline.
By late 1941 Soviet ground-air communications in control of airborne
fighter and ground-attack units were becoming much more frequent. But on
the whole, adequate utilization of radio as an air-control tool was hindered
by the shortage of equipment, the lack of trained personnel, and poor radio
discipline.” During the defense of Stalingrad, VVS commander Gen. A. A.
Novikov ordered the creation of a radio network for the 16th Air Army, a
system consisting of a central station near the Air Army’s headquarters,
substations on the airfields of divisions and regiments, and transmitters
along the front for direct communications with the fighters. The radio control
stations, according to the Soviets, had the following tasks: “inform
fliers in the air concerning the situation in the air; warning about enemy
aircraft that might appear; summoning fighter planes from airfields and
reassigning them to new targets.”** The major method of air control in the
counteroffensive was by radio.83 In the area of reconnaissance, radio communications
were widely used for the first time in the summer of 1942, but
even then the reconnaissance was mostly tacticaLK4
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