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

AIR SUPERIORITY
translation of this article by James Waddell can be found in Aerospace Historian, June 1975,
pp 73-76.
47. Kozhevnikov, “Birth of the Air Armies,” p 69.
48. Ibid., p 70.
49. Soviet Air Forces in World War II, p 115.
50. Alexander Boyd, The Soviet Air Force Since 1918 (New York. 1977), pp 144-45.
51. M. Kozhevnikov., “Koordinatsiya deystsviy VVS predstavitelyami Stavki VGK PO
aviatsii” [The Coordination of VVS Operations by Stavka VGK Representatives for Aviation],
Voenno-istoricheskiy zhurnal, 2 (February 1974). pp 34-35.
52. Ibid.; Zhukov in his memoirs as quoted in the Kozhevnikov article lists the top
Stavka representatives at Stalingrad, in addition to himself and Novikov; they included Golovanov,
chief of ADD, Voronov, head of artillery, and Fedorenko, armored forces chief.
Obviously, Stavka sent only its best as representatives.
53. Hardesty, Red Phoenix, pp 28-29; the authors of Soviet Air Force in World War II,
pp 106-07, have only paeans of praise for the ramming (taran) tactic and the roll call of faran
heroes at Stalingrad almost equals that bestowed on Captain Gastello of earlier fame.
54. Mike Spick, Fighter Pilot Tactics (New York, 1983). pp 43-44.
55. According to Spick (p 43) the loose pair, or Rotte, was developed in Spain in 1937
when the Germans had too few of the new Bf 109s to stick to the conventional vic formation
of three aircraft. The Russian experience against the Rotte of the Condor Legion in Spain
impressed some fliers, but the concept was slow in being adopted in the VVS.
56. Hardesty, Red Phoenix, p 141; the authors of the official history, The Soviet Air
Force in World War II, p 111, claim that the zveno of four aircraft, that is two para, became
the basic tactical unit as early as the early fall of 1942.
57. SVE, vol3, p 641; John T. Greenwood, “The Great Patriotic War, 1941-1945,” in R.
Higham and J. Kipp, eds, Soviet Aviation and Air Power (Boulder, Colo., 1977). p 84; V.
Babieh, “Vliyarnie razvitiya aviatsionnoy tekhniki i oruzhiya na taktiku frontovoy aviatsii”
[The Influence of the Development of Aviation Equipment and Armament on the Tactics of
Frontal Aviation], Voenno-istoricheskiy zhurnal, 8 (August 1983), p 22.
58. Hardesty, Red Phoenix, p 143.
59. Soviet Air Force in World War II, p 103.
60. Maj Gen Walther Schwabedissen, The Russian Air Force in the Eyes of German
Commanders (Maxwell AFB, Ala., 1960). p 378.
61. Cajus Bekker, The Luftwaffe Diaries (New York, 1968), p 277.
62. Williamson Murray, Strategy for Defeat: The Luftwaffe 1933-1945 (Maxwell AFB,
Ala., 1983), pp 160-63.
63. Ibid., pp 254-55.
64. Schwabedissen, Russian Air Force in the Eyes of German Commanders, p 379.
65. William Green and Gordon Swanborough, Soviet Air Force Fighters, part 2, (New
York, 1977), p 57.
66. Ibid., part 1, p 25.
67. Alexander, Russian Aircraft Since 1940, pp 173-74.
68. Ibid., p 436.
69. Kenneth Munson, German Aircraft of World War 2 in Color (Dorset, UK, 1978). p
122; Martin Windrow, German Air Force Fighters of World War II, vol 1 (New York, 1968).
pp 17-18.
70. Munson, German Aircraft of World War 2, p 60.
71. Cooper, The German Air Force, p 51.
72. Alexander, Russian Aircraft Since 1940, pp 295-304; Aviatsiya i Kosmonavtika, 10
(October 1974), p 27.
73. Cooper, The German Air Force, p 268.
74. Ibid., p 259.
75. Data for the calculations was derived from Ist. Velik. Otech. Voyn., vol6, pp 45-48
and Overy, The Air War, p 150.
76. Cooper, The German Air Force, pp 266-67.
77. Murray, Strategy for Defeat, p 318.
78. Alexander, Russian Aircraft Since 1940, p 4 and 7.
79. SVE, vol2, p 163.
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