The military-political leadership of Finland did not accept defeat in the Winter War and, after the conclusion of a peace treaty with the USSR, was actively preparing for revenge. Contrary to the terms of the peace treaty signed on March 12, 1940, the Finnish government did not demobilize the armed forces. The active purchases of military equipment and weapons abroad testify to the preparations for war. Particular attention was paid to strengthening the combat potential of the Air Force and Air Defense. For well-known reasons, in 1940 England and France were no longer able to help the Finns, and Germany and Sweden became the main suppliers of weapons and ammunition.
But Sweden could not offer Finland modern fighters, and Germany itself was in dire need of combat aircraft. Under these conditions, the American-made Curtiss P-36 Hawk fighters captured by the Germans in France and Norway, which were exported under the designation Hawk 75A, came in handy.
The fighter entered service in the United States in 1938, with a Pratt & Whitney R-1830 air-cooled engine with a capacity of 1050 hp. developed a speed of 500 km / h in horizontal flight at an altitude of 3000 meters.
The Finnish fighter squadrons received 44 Hawk fighters of modifications: A-1, A-2, A3, A-4 and A-6. Some of the machines were equipped with engines with a capacity of 1200 hp, which allowed the aircraft to accelerate to 520 km / h.
According to archival data, the first batch of fighters arrived on June 23, 1941. The delivered aircraft underwent pre-sale training and partial replacement of equipment at German enterprises. Some of the aircraft were assembled from kits captured in the warehouses of the port in Oslo in disassembled form. But the armament on the French and Norwegian fighters, apparently, did not change. Initially, the armament of the former French fighters consisted of 4-6 machine guns of 7, 5 mm caliber. The Norwegian Hawks were originally equipped with 7, 92 mm machine guns. However, after re-equipping the Soviet Air Force with new types of combat aircraft and increasing their survivability, rifle-caliber machine guns no longer met modern requirements, and cartridges of 7, 5 mm caliber ran out. Therefore, after 1942, most of the Hawks were rearmed. The standard version was the installation of one or two 12.7 mm Colt Browning or BS machine guns, as well as two or four British 7.7 mm machine guns.
The Finnish Hawks entered the battle on July 16, 1941, after Finland had sided with Germany. American-made fighters were very popular among Finnish pilots. According to Finnish data, until July 27, 1944, the Hawk pilots managed to win 190 air victories with the loss of 15 of their fighters. However, by the summer of 1944, hardly a dozen aircraft remained in service. Operation of the Hawk 75A in the Finnish Air Force continued until August 30, 1948. After that, the surviving aircraft were placed in storage, where they were for another 5 years.
Another type of fighter received after the end of the Winter War was the Caudron C.714. The order for these aircraft was issued in January 1940; a total of 80 fighters should be delivered under the contract.
The Caudron C.714 has been adapted to achieve high airspeed, relatively low engine power and low weight. This light fighter, which had a large proportion of wooden parts in its design, had a narrow cross-section, and its design was largely based on the developments of the company "Codron" on the creation of racing aircraft. The fighter used an in-line 12-cylinder liquid-cooled Renault 12R-03 engine with a capacity of 500 hp. At the same time, the maximum take-off weight was only 1,880 kg. At an altitude of 5000 meters, the aircraft could accelerate in horizontal flight up to 470 km / h. Armament - 4 machine guns of 7.5 mm caliber.
Before the fall of France, they managed to send six aircraft to Finland, another ten were captured by the Germans in the port in disassembled form. Later they were handed over to the Finns. However, the Finnish pilots quickly became disillusioned with the Codrons. Despite its low weight, the fighter had a low thrust-to-weight ratio, and the armament for 1941 was already downright weak. But, most importantly, the aircraft turned out to be absolutely unsuitable for basing on unpaved airfields. The long engine hood and deeply recessed cockpit with gargrotto obstructed normal visibility. This was especially true during the landing approach. After the occurrence of several emergency situations, the Finnish Air Force command considered it good to abandon problem fighters, which, moreover, had low combat characteristics. In 1941, all Caudron C.714 fighters were withdrawn from combat squadrons and did not participate in the war with the USSR.
In the Continuation War, as the Finns call it, several captured I-153s participated. The aircraft were added to the LeLv16 reconnaissance squadron. However, taking advantage of the confusion, in the initial period of the war, the Finns used "Seagulls" for attacking Soviet convoys and ships. After one Finnish I-153 was shot down in an air battle with an I-16, and the other was damaged, the combat use of the captured "Seagulls" ceased.
According to Western historians, the Finns captured 21 I-153s and 6 I-16s in total. There were also three LaGG-3s and one Pe-3, captured in 1942. One Curtiss P-40M-10-CU Warhawk became a Finnish trophy.
If in 1941 the main enemy of the Finnish fighters was the I-16 and I-153 fighters familiar from the Winter War, as well as SB and DB-3 bombers, then in the second half of 1942, Soviet Yak-1 and LaGG fighters began to appear on the Karelian front. 3 and Pe-2 and Il-4 bombers, as well as the allied Hawker Hurricane Mk II, P-40 Tomahawk and P-39 "Airacobra" and A-20 Boston bombers. The Il-2 attack aircraft made a great impression on the Finns with their vitality and powerful weapons.
The aircraft of the new generation were often still raw, and their pilots were inexperienced, but they had powerful small arms and cannon armament and armor protection, and in terms of their flight data, as a rule, they were superior to the machines of a similar class of the Finnish Air Force. In this regard, the Finnish fighter pilots, despite all their professionalism, every day it became more and more difficult to conduct air battles. As they mastered new technology, Soviet pilots gained experience, which affected the results of air battles.
The growing losses and wear and tear of aircraft have led to a decrease in the activity of the Finnish fighter aircraft. At the same time, the ground units suffered more and more from bomb and assault strikes, the ports and cities of Finland were subjected to raids by Soviet long-range bombers. In these conditions, the Finnish leadership made persistent requests to its main ally to provide modern day and night fighters. However, the command of the Third Reich, whose troops were bogged down in bloody battles on the Eastern Front and in North Africa, in the conditions of incessant bombing by British aviation could not allocate any significant number of combat aircraft to strengthen the Finnish air force. However, Bf.109G-2 fighters of the German II./JG54 group, which actively participated in hostilities, were deployed on Finnish territory.
But by the end of 1942, it became abundantly clear that without renewing the aircraft fleet or increasing the number of German fighters stationed in Finland, the Finnish Air Force would not be able to withstand the ever-increasing Soviet air power for a long time. The Finns did not sit idly by: even during the Winter War, faced with an acute shortage of fighters and wanting to get rid of foreign dependence, work began on the creation of their own fighter at the state aircraft plant Valtion Lentokonetehdas. The project received the designation Myrsky, which means "Storm" in Finnish. Since there was not enough duralumin in the country, they decided to make the plane out of wood and plywood. The issue with the engines was resolved after the purchase of a batch of captured Pratt & Whitney R-1830s with a capacity of 1050 hp from Germany.
The first prototype took off on December 23, 1941, tests showed that the design of the aircraft was overweight and did not correspond to the design data. A total of three prototypes were built, but they all crashed during testing. The debugging of the fighter dragged on, and the implementation of the project itself was in question. However, an improved version went into production under the designation VL Myrsky II. A fighter with a maximum takeoff weight of 3, 213 kg developed a speed of 535 km / h and was armed with four 12, 7 mm machine guns.
The Finnish aviation industry supplied 47 aircraft to the troops. In the fighting, they managed to take 13 fighters. Basically, they carried out reconnaissance missions and participated in the bombing of Soviet airfields. There are no confirmed aerial victories on the account of their pilots.
The Finnish Air Force lost 10 Myrsky IIs, allegedly the main part of the machines was lost in flight accidents, with 4 pilots killed. It soon became clear that the adhesive base, which connected the cladding and wooden parts, is susceptible to moisture. That in some cases led to accidents and disasters. The last flight of the Myrsky II took place in February 1948.
For a long time, the sector of the front where units of the 7th and 23rd armies were fighting, due to its relative static nature, was a real reserve of aviation equipment built before the war. If Finnish fighters, built mostly in the late 30s, fought on an equal footing with Ishaks and Seagulls, and the outcome of the battle depended more on the qualifications of the pilots, then after the start of massive deliveries of Soviet and imported new generation fighters, the Finns had to tight.
At the beginning of 1943, it was possible to agree with Germany on the supply of Bf-109G fighters. In total, the Finns were sent 162 aircraft of three modifications: 48 Bf-109G-2, 111 Bf-109G-6 and 3 Bf-109G-8. The following reached the Finnish airfields: 48 Bf-109G-2, 109 Bf-109G-6 and 2 Bf-109G-8. Until the very end of the war, Bf-109G fighters were a formidable weapon. Under the control of experienced pilots, they could successfully resist the Soviet fighter that appeared after 1943.
Fighter Bf-109G-6 with a liquid-cooled engine Daimler-Benz DB 605 A-1 with a capacity of 1455 hp. developed a speed of 640 km at an altitude of 6300 meters. The armament is two 13.2 mm MG 131 machine guns and a bicaliber 15/20 mm automatic cannon MG 151/20.
The first Bf-109Gs appeared in Finnish combat squadrons in the spring of 1943. In 1943, the Messers, together with the Brewsters, Morans and Hawks, actively fought with Soviet fighters and attack aircraft, achieving good results at times. This was due to the fact that on the Karelian front there were many frankly outdated Soviet combat aircraft. So, until the beginning of 1944, the I-15bis and I-153 were in service with the 839th IAP. The success of the Finnish pilots was favored by the tactics developed by the Germans. They did not seek to get involved in protracted battles, practicing surprise attacks and withdrawal to the heights. If the Messerov pilots saw that the enemy was determined and ready to fight back, they, as a rule, preferred to retreat. After being attacked, Finnish fighter pilots, trying to deceive the enemy, often imitated an uncontrollable fall.
But soon the pilots of the Bf.109G had no time for aerial hunting. At the beginning of 1944, Soviet long-range bombers began to launch massive strikes on major Finnish cities, and all forces were thrown into repelling these raids. In the second half of 1943, the Red Army Air Force won air superiority. At the same time, according to Finnish sources, it was at this moment that the pilots flying the Messerschmitts achieved the most impressive successes, announcing 667 Soviet aircraft shot down before the end of hostilities. In total, Finnish aviators claim 3313 aerial victories with the loss of 523 of their aircraft. Of course, the figure of Soviet losses is completely unrealistic, even if we assume that the Finns, like the Germans, in pursuit of high personal scores preferred to fly on a free hunt. The Finnish aces often stated about 3-4 enemy aircraft shot down in one sortie, referring to the data of the movie camera, which was turned on at the time of the opening of fire. But, as you know, hitting an enemy plane does not mean it was shot down, the Messers themselves often returned with holes. Information about the losses of the sides in this sector of the front is very contradictory, and one should be very careful about the air victories declared by the Finns. How "true" the information of the Finnish side is, can be judged by the fact that the Finnish fighter pilots announced the destruction of about a dozen British Spitfire and American Mustangs, although it is absolutely reliably known that there were no such aircraft on this sector of the front. According to Soviet archival data, during the entire war in this sector of the Red Army Air Force lost 224 aircraft shot down and made forced landings behind the front line. Another 86 cars are reported missing and 181 were wrecked in accidents and disasters. Accordingly, the aviation of the Baltic Fleet lost 17 aircraft in battle, and 46 in flight accidents. That is, the reports of the pilots sitting in the cockpits of Finnish fighters are overestimated by about 10 times.
After withdrawing from the war on the side of Germany in September 1944, the Finns had to remove the German tactical designations of the Ostfront: yellow engine hoods and lower wingtips, a yellow stripe in the rear fuselage and the Finnish swastika. They were replaced by the emblems of the colors of the Finnish flag: white, blue, white.
The Finnish Messerschmitts soon clashed with their former allies during the so-called Lapland War. Military operations against Germany, which began under the threat of the occupation of Finland by Soviet troops, lasted from September 1944 to April 1945. The Germans stubbornly held on to the territory in the north of Finland, bordering Norway. The loss of this area meant for Germany the loss of nickel mines in the Petsamo area, despite the fact that an important strategic raw material for steel smelting was already sorely lacking. The terms of the armistice with the USSR demanded the disarmament of German troops and the transfer of German prisoners, but the Germans categorically did not want to leave the nickel mining area voluntarily. Thus, the Finns found themselves in a situation that had already been experienced by the Romanians and Italians, who, after going over to the side of the Allies, were forced to liberate their territory from German troops on their own.
Talking about the Finnish Messers, one cannot fail to mention that an attempt was made in Finland to copy a German fighter. However, the Finnish car cannot be called an analogue of the Bf-109G. Since there was an acute shortage of duralumin in Finland, they decided to build the aircraft using the technology used in the Finnish Myrsky II. The power plant was a German Daimler-Benz DB 605. However, after the construction of an experimental prototype, it became clear that the aircraft turned out to be too heavy, and further participation in hostilities on the side of Nazi Germany had no prospects. The original German Bf-109Gs served in the Finnish Air Force until 1954, when the airframe was exhausted and the supply of jet fighters from abroad began.
