Soviet fighter planes

[Kerensky]

So from what I've gathered:

Yak-7 Somewhere between the 109F and 109G in combat performance.
LA-5, The Historical fighter that the Russian used to answer the threat of the Fw190, will have stats roughly equal (slightly inferior) to the FW190A
Yak-3 around the 109G and 109K (possibly equal to or better than 109K) in combat performance
Yak 9D slightly inferior to the LA-7, roughly equal to the FW190A
LA-7 superior to the FW190A
Yak 9U slightly superior to the LA-7

If all goes to plan, I may actually design some Late War scenarios where the Russian air force is once again present. (There's a reason Urban Warfare has 0 airfields and The Frozen North snows all the time.)

[impar]

Something like that.

[skarczew]

So from what I've gathered:

Yak-7 Somewhere between the 109F and 109G in combat performance.
LA-5, The Historical fighter that the Russian used to answer the threat of the Fw190, will have stats roughly equal (slightly inferior) to the FW190A
Yak-3 around the 109G and 109K (possibly equal to or better than 109K) in combat performance
Yak 9D slightly inferior to the LA-7, roughly equal to the FW190A
LA-7 superior to the FW190A
Yak 9U slightly superior to the LA-7

If all goes to plan, I may actually design some Late War scenarios where the Russian air force is once again present. (There's a reason Urban Warfare has 0 airfields and The Frozen North snows all the time.)

My few cents:
- hard to compare German and Russian planes, as they were built with different philosophy; Germans concentrated on boom&zoom tactics, machines could climb like monsters; Russian planes were nimble and more suitable for dogfight; thats why there were so many losses during Barbarossa; German planes generally were better at higher altitudes, while Russian felt the best near ground;
- La-5 was not "an answer", but rather a salvation for LaGG-3 - one hell of nightmare and crappy fighter; initially La-5 should be inferior to Fw-190A-8; over time La-5 received a big number of construction fixes, etc - this in result gave La-5FN, a version that SHOULD be modeled in the game; why? Because it was quite decent plane and produced in big numbers; please add La-5FN, as it is far more important than Yak-9D or other strange versions; La-5FN should be slightly inferior to FW-190A-8; if you want less mess with the Russian fighters, you can replace La-5 with La-5FN and everything will be fine;
- Yak-9D was a long-range version of Yak-9; therefore in the game range should be increased - at the cost of other stats compared to "standard" Yak-9;
- I do not see La-7 really superior over FW-190A-8; check the general characteristic - looks for me like German was was slightly worse without boost, slightly better with the boost, and ALWAYS better when it comes to firepower;
- I do not see Yak-3 "better than Me-109K"; please check the stats again; this plane was capable of equal fight with Me-109G (more agile, but crappy weaponry); remember also the good stats of Yak-3 came at cost - very small range, not really durable construction, lack of some equipment and the armament of single 20 mm ShVAK cannon and one 12.7 mm machine gun;
- Russian planes had crappy construction and were not very durable (during dogfight they could lose parts of its construction); this improved during war as plywood and wood were replaced with aluminum from the USA ; also, in general: La fighters were more durable and better armed than Yak fighters; Yaks usually were more nimble and had higher speed (Initiative I guess);
- do you want more usable fighters? introduce the Lend-Lease ones;

[Kerensky]

Alright, we'll see what we come up with. The basic idea is not to make Soviet aircraft totally superior to their German counterparts, but at least make them competitive (Me262 will clearly outclass them all, but that's acceptable as long as their prices are somewhat reasonable).

[skarczew]

Of course all my reasoning is true when the Luftwaffe consists of typical machines (for example at the end of the war: FW-190A, D, Me-109 G, K) and not Me-262 alone.
Jet fighters/bombers should be scarce and hard to obtain (maybe only as AUX?).

[impar]

- I do not see Yak-3 "better than Me-109K"; please check the stats again; this plane was capable of equal fight with Me-109G (more agile, but crappy weaponry); remember also the good stats of Yak-3 came at cost - very small range, not really durable construction, lack of some equipment and the armament of single 20 mm ShVAK cannon and one 12.7 mm machine gun;

Everything I read about Yak-3 point to it being an extremely powerful low altitude dogfighter

http://www.world-war-2-planes.com/Yak-3.html
The Yak 3 was a highly maneuverable, low-altitude fighter-interceptor. All German pilots were taught to fear the Yakovlev 3 because it could outturn, out-climb and out-accelerate both the Messeschmitt Bf 109 and Focke-Wulfe 190s at the low altitudes at which it tended to operate.
Most air battles on the Eastern front were fought at low altitude. The Yak 3 was designed as an air-superiority plane for this specific level of the battlefield. It was meant to intercept Junkers Ju 88s and other ground attack planes and their escorts.
...
The Yak 3 was a deadly weapon when skilled hands held the stick.

Pretty good rate of climb and power/mass ratios when compared to german fighters:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakovlev_Y ... 28Yak-3.29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschm ... 109_G-6.29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focke-Wulf ... 190_A-8.29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focke-Wulf ... 190_D-9.29

- Russian planes had crappy construction and were not very durable (during dogfight they could lose parts of its construction); this improved during war as plywood and wood were replaced with aluminum from the USA ; also, in general: La fighters were more durable and better armed than Yak fighters; Yaks usually were more nimble and had higher speed (Initiative I guess);

Quality of construction shouldnt be considered. How would that be modelled for the mechanical problems of Panthers in Kursk?

[skarczew]

Hey!

The Yak 3 was a highly maneuverable, low-altitude fighter-interceptor. All German pilots were taught to fear the Yakovlev 3 because it could outturn, out-climb and out-accelerate both the Messeschmitt Bf 109 and Focke-Wulfe 190s at the low altitudes at which it tended to operate.
Most air battles on the Eastern front were fought at low altitude. The Yak 3 was designed as an air-superiority plane for this specific level of the battlefield. It was meant to intercept Junkers Ju 88s and other ground attack planes and their escorts.

Actually, almost all the Russian planes (notable exceptions: Mig-1, Mig-3 and some special versions of the other planes) felt the best near the ground. With the altitude they were losing speed, climbing, etc very quickly.
The similar situation was above 5k meters, which was the best altitude for German planes. No Yak-3 or La-7 could stay there for a long time.

The Yak 3 was a deadly weapon when skilled hands held the stick.

True, but that can be said about lots of the aircrafts .

Pretty good rate of climb and power/mass ratios when compared to german fighters

Thats right, Soviets had the talent to create (at the end of the war) light and decent fighters. Those fighters lacked one thing, though - sturdiness and robustness, to which I will get back in a moment.

Thanks for links , but I have to complain about them a bit:
- try not to use Wikipedia, it is not reliable historical source; the way Wikipedia is created, it reflects "common knowledge" - but this does not need to be the real truth;
- pure stats quoted by you are very misleading; most of Russian planes were losing their qualities very quickly at higher altitude; on the other side, German planes were gaining till certain height;
Example of Me-109K performance (pink line):
http://www.spitfireperformance.com/spit ... -level.jpg

I will stress it again: no good German pilot would give himself a handicap and fight at the terms dictated by Russians. Good Luftwaffe pilots were utilizing Boom & Zoom tactic to take advantage of their engines.
Of course there are always people like some guy in Me-262 that wanted to dogfight with La-7.

Quality of construction shouldnt be considered. How would that be modelled for the mechanical problems of Panthers in Kursk?

Quality of construction can be translated into few things:
- lots of stats quoted in the Wikipedia are from official tests of the prototypes and the machines specially prepared for tests;
- normal mass-produced equipment were losing lots of its qualities straight on production lines; the quality was not an imperative, the quantity was; LaGG-3 could be dissolved by a heavy rain; Yak-1 could lose parts of its wings in a steep dive, pilots had to fly with open canopy which was becoming non-transparent; Yak-9 and Yak-3 were forbidden from doing certain acrobatic figures , as it could put airframe to a dangerous stress; there were much more of those problems with the equipment made in the USRR; luckily for Soviets it was improving throughout the war, and the German had their problems as well;
- such inability to use machine to human limits can translate to less attack power; call it AA, SA, HA;

- lighter, not so sturdy construction meant that the opponent could use such weaknesses to his advantage;
- less sturdy and durable plane = less defense, as the machine is more prone to damage; call it AD, etc;

I hope it is a bit clearer now .

Last, but not the least: Yak-3 should be Soviet-made fighter with the highest Int, I guess. The firepower should go to La-7, though (2-3 20mm cannons).
And the best Soviet-used fighter should be King Cobra anyway .

[impar]

- try not to use Wikipedia, it is not reliable historical source; the way Wikipedia is created, it reflects "common knowledge" - but this does not need to be the real truth;

Lost that bias against Wikipedia a long time ago.
Which sources do you have that contradict what is there?

- lots of stats quoted in the Wikipedia are from official tests of the prototypes and the machines specially prepared for tests;

Not a problem. Pretty sure the same thing happened to other countries equipment.

And the best Soviet-used fighter should be King Cobra anyway .

Dont think it has been modeled.

[skarczew]

Which sources do you have that contradict what is there?

Imho Wikipedia mostly states opinions and not the pure facts. Everyone can write what he/she wants as long as it is cited somewhere (can by anything, from a good book to a propaganda pamphlet).
The extreme example is that you may be researcher that have the best knowledge about something, but your knowledge will be useless for Wiki, as it is not cited anywhere. On the contrary, cited lies will be useful.

The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true.

Example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornier_Do_335
First sentence - our famous Dornier is said to have been a "heavy fighter", which is half-truth at the best.

I regard such materials as a good source for discussion:
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/ ... stdata.jpg
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/ ... fx953.html

Not a problem. Pretty sure the same thing happened to other countries equipment.

You are right. It happened in the other countries as well. But it was mostly USSR that had real problems with the equipment that could not keep initial performance for longer than several hours. Or maybe it was not a real problem, since a typical soldier usually died before his equipment failed?

Dont think it has been modeled.

Game lacks Lend-Lease .

[impar]

Imho Wikipedia mostly states opinions and not the pure facts. Everyone can write what he/she wants as long as it is cited somewhere (can by anything, from a good book to a propaganda pamphlet).

This is the article I usually link to regarding Wikipedia accuracy:

Experts rate Wikipedia's accuracy higher than non-experts
...
Thomas Chesney, a Lecturer in Information Systems at the Nottingham University Business School, published the results of his own Wikipedia study in the most recent edition of the online journal First Monday, and he came up with a surprising conclusion: experts rate the articles more highly than do non-experts.
...

You can go and and volunteer yourself to correct the articles you find incorrect.

The extreme example is that you may be researcher that have the best knowledge about something, but your knowledge will be useless for Wiki, as it is not cited anywhere. On the contrary, cited lies will be useful.

Thats the way most academic studies work. A non-published well knowledgeable researcher is useless.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornier_Do_335
First sentence - our famous Dornier is said to have been a "heavy fighter", which is half-truth at the best.

For the introduction, that has to be short, it is acceptable to call Do-335 a heavy fighter.
Besides, "the RLM issued a new directive to redesign the Do-335 as a multi-purpose day fighter, night fighter, fighter-bomber, Zerstorer and reconnaissance platform" (Warplanes of the Luftwaffe, David Donald, page 47), "Dornier was informed by the German air ministry that that the original bomb-carrying intruder requirement had been abandoned and that the Do-335 was to be finalised as a multi-role fighter with options for development in heavy fighter, fighter-bomber, high speed light bomber and reconnaissance variants in the baseline single seat configuration, and in all-weather interceptor and night-fighter variants in a two-seat configuration" (German Warplanes of World War II, Chris Chant, page 147), "[Dornier] main contibution to aviation innovation lay in his development of a twin-engined fighter-bomber with its powerplants in a single axis... Initially, there was considerable resistance to its development from the RLM for the somewhat inconclusive reason that Dornier built not fighters but bombers, and the company had to undertake to build an intruder version before permission to continue with was forthcoming." (Germanys Secret Weapons in World War II, Roger Ford, page 26-27).
Heavy fighter works, no?

Game lacks Lend-Lease.

The game does lacks some units. Lets hope it is successfull enough to grant itself a larger pool of units in the future.

[skarczew]

You can go and and volunteer yourself to correct the articles you find incorrect.

I am already too busy with various non-commercial stuff. Time to think about myself now .

Heavy fighter works, no?

Imho it should be called Schnellbomber from the start, and later explained that due to its qualities it had many other versions. People tend to read few very first lines, and after that "tl;dr" happens .