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

LESSONS BEFORE WORLD WAR I1
According to Soviet sources, total aircraft output in 1940 numbered only 64
Yak-1 fighters, 20 MiG-3 fighters, and 2 Pe-2 dive bombers, while that of
the first half of 1941 reflected an increase to 1,946 fighters, 458 bombers,
and 349 attack planes. Soviet statistics remain suspect, but the irrefutable
fact seemed to be that the main air forces available to the Soviet Union on
the eve of World War I1 consisted principally of outdated models, many of
which had already proven inadequate in Spain and the Far East. With an
imperfectly mobilized defense establishment, peacetime airfields crowded
with storage facilities, flight lines virtually inviting attack, and the absence
of a modern air warning network on the western frontier, the Soviet air arm
in 1939 was quite unprepared for war.53
Moreover, Soviet military leadership, caught in the purges, could not
quickly incorporate the lessons of Spain and the Far East into doctrine. A
draft Red Army Field Manual of 1939 stated simply: “Aviation is linked
strategically and tactically to the ground forces, it performs independent
air operations against objectives deep in the enemy rear area, and it fights
enemy aviation securing air supremacy.” The VVS would perform combat
missions to “attain air supremacy, support ground troops in penetration of
enemy tactical defenses, cover troops and rear facilities from air strikes,
carry out strikes against operational and strategic reserves and targets in
the enemy rear area, support the commitment of an exploitation echelon to
a breakthrough, support the latter’s combat actions in the operational depth
of the enemy defenses, support airborne landing parties, support friendly
forces by air, and perform air reconnaissance.” The first of these missions-gaining
air superiority-was an essential prerequisite for the success
of the others, and that theme echoed implicitly but not explicitly
through both official field manuals and what passed for theoretical treatises
on employment of a~iation.5~
Soviet leaders could not agree on the means of attaining air superiority.
A conference of high-ranking commanders in December 1940 issued a report
entitled, “The Air Force in an Offensive Operation and in the Struggle
for Air Supremacy.” The title expressed Stalin’s unswerving zeal for offensive
rather than defensive operations. The authors of this report suggested
that air supremacy would make it possible to prepare an army group’s offensive,
provide air cover to troops being brought up to the front (especially
cavalry and mechanized forces), quickly and systematically
penetrate an enemy’s fortified zone, and exploit a success in depth. “Attainment
of air supremacy,” declared the authors, “requires destruction of the
enemy’s aviation on his airfields, coupled with a simultaneous strike against
aviation rear services.” A minority of conference attendees, however,
doubted such conclusions. This equally persuasive group argued that aviation
had to be divided into Army Aviation intended for close support of
ground forces, and Frontal Aviation operating in accordance with an Army
Front or Group. Further, this group downplayed the German surprise
29