Having analyzed in the first part the confrontation between Polikarpov and Messerschmitt fighters, we turn to the so-called "Soviet triad", new generation aircraft that appeared at the beginning of the war and, together with Polikarpov's fighters, took the first strike of the Luftwaffe.
Since we are talking about the aircraft operating in 1941, there will be not three, but five.
To begin with, back in 1939, the leadership of the Red Army Air Force realized the level of Soviet aircraft lagging behind the examples of battles with Japan, and that is why a whole cohort of our aircraft designers began work on new-generation aircraft.
Polikarpov Nikolay Nikolaevich
Mikoyan Artem Ivanovich
Gurevich Mikhail Iosifovich
Yakovlev Alexander Sergeevich
Lavochkin Semyon Alekseevich
Gorbunov Vladimir Petrovich
Gudkov Mikhail Ivanovich
The result was a "triad": Yak-1, MiG-1 and LaGG-3.
All three fighters have a lot in common, both externally and conceptually. It is quite characteristic that they all turned out to be much more similar to the Messerschmitt than to the I-16. This similarity is not accidental. This is a practical rejection of the Polikarpov model of the "high-speed-maneuverable" fighter, embodied in the I-16.
All three aircraft were speed-oriented, all equipped with two-row water-cooled engines, and all had elongated "sharp-nosed" fuselages with closed cockpits, smoothly turning into gargrottes. The geometric dimensions of the vehicles are also very similar, as well as many design solutions such as the landing gear retraction scheme or the placement of gas tanks in the wing, and a water radiator under the cockpit.
Unfortunately, a characteristic feature of all three fighters was the widespread use of wood and plywood in them. The mass production of all-metal fighters in the required quantities was beyond the capabilities of the USSR industry in those years. And the planes were necessary, since there was confidence in the inevitability of a future war.
In general, by the beginning of the 40s of the 20th century, the USSR was the only aviation power in the world that built its fighter aircraft on the basis of wood as the main structural material. On the one hand, this simplified and cheapened production, on the other hand, wood has a lower specific strength and a higher specific gravity than duralumin. As a result, wooden load-bearing elements, with equal strength, inevitably turned out to be noticeably heavier and more voluminous than duralumin ones.
Some authors of studies on this topic reproach the fact that the construction of aircraft was carried out according to the scheme "faster, easier, cheaper." To a certain extent, this is so. But this was justified, because it would still be unrealistic to ensure the quality of continuous production, at least equal to that of German, American or English, under the conditions of that time.
Too much was lacking in the country. And first of all - qualified engineering personnel and workers. Alas, this is so. Plus, the volumes of duralumin produced were not able to meet the needs of the aviation industry.
Therefore, the aircraft of the new generation were 60-70% wood.
MiG-1
The prototype was the Polikarpov I-200 model, which Mikoyan and Gurevich modified and brought to mass production.
Much has been said about this machine. And mostly unflattering. Quite heavy (3 tons) aircraft with a very heavy, albeit powerful engine AM-35A (weight 830 kg). For comparison: the M-105P engine, which was on the Yak-1 and LaGG-3, weighed 570 kg.
AM-35A was considered a high-altitude engine. The highest rated power - 1200 hp. with. he gave out at altitudes of five kilometers, and the power at low and medium (up to 4 km) heights was approximately 1100-1150 liters. with.
It was believed that the I-200 was created as a high-altitude fighter. However, in the KB documents there is no mention of such a designated purpose. The plane is called there a high-speed fighter, and the maximum speed values are easier to achieve at high altitudes, that is, where the rarefied air has less resistance.
For the MiG-1, such an optimal height provided by the engine was 7500 - 8000 m, and it demonstrated its highest speed there. During testing, the prototype was able to accelerate to 651 km / h at an altitude of 7800 meters. But, the closer to the ground, the worse its characteristics became.
The armament was also frankly weak. 1 × 12, 7 mm BS machine gun with 300 rounds, and 2 × 7, 62 mm ShKAS machine guns with 375 rounds for each.
All machine guns were synchronous, which did not improve combat effectiveness. Both the scanty ammunition load and the proximity to the engine did not allow to shoot in long bursts. The machine guns overheated and began to malfunction. The size of the engine compartment did not allow to increase the ammunition load.
In total, about a hundred MiG-1s were produced. 89 machines were transferred to the flight units of the Red Army Air Force, but their service was very short-lived.
MiG-3
In fact, this is work on errors carried out with the MiG-1. Many of the MiG-1's shortcomings were resolved, although heavy piloting remained. A third gas tank appeared in the center section, increasing both the range and the already considerable weight of the car.
The armament was also strengthened.
On the MiG-3, they began to install two BK machine guns in underwing containers. Its wooden structure with very voluminous load-bearing elements did not allow to mount machine guns with ammunition directly in the wing. That also did not add flight characteristics, containers increased not only the mass of the vehicle, but also its drag.
This photo clearly shows the machine gun under the wing in the fairing.
In addition, in the first months of the war, BC machine guns were not enough, and they got to the point that the underwing machine guns were removed and sent to the plant to be installed on new aircraft. Pokryshkin wrote about this in "The Sky of War". It is worth noting that before the dismantling of Pokryshkin, the weapons were quite enough to shoot down the Germans.
At the end of 1941, shortly before the termination of production, the MiG-3's armament was nevertheless decided to be strengthened. 315 vehicles were built with two UBS synchronous machine guns, and 52 were built even with two ShVAK cannons.
However, such quantities, as they say, did not make the weather anymore.
Serial MiG-3s, produced in the first half of 1941, were a kind of compromise between more or less satisfactory flight performance and firepower.
The MiG-3 lost to opponents in the face of the Me-109E and Me-109F in everything. At altitudes up to five kilometers, the MiG-3 lost both in speed and in climb rate. According to this indicator, the MiG-3 at low and medium altitudes lagged behind the "Emil" by one and a half times, and from the "Friedrich" - almost twice. Then, when the engine power began to decrease with an increase in the height of the Messers, the gap gradually narrowed, but did not completely disappear until the practical ceiling was reached.
In horizontal maneuverability, the MiG-3 also lost a lot, especially the early series of machines that did not have slats. Depending on the height, the Messerschmitt, even without deflecting the flaps, made turns for a few seconds faster and with a smaller radius.
The meager equipment and armament of the MiG-3 also caused a lot of criticism. The absence of an artificial horizon and a gyrocompass among the instruments made it difficult to fly in the clouds and at night. The PBP-1 collimator sight was, to put it mildly, not the height of perfection. Well, the machine guns placed close to the red-hot engine, which could not fire in long bursts due to the risk of "burning" the barrels, were not something that could be opposed to the weapons of any modification of the Messerschmitt.
The MiG-3 was inferior to its German opponents in almost all respects, with the exception of the overclocking characteristics in a dive. In the dive, the much heavier MiG-3 picked up speed faster than the Messerschmitt, and then, due to inertia, it could make a higher and steeper "slide". The generalized assessment of the fighter by combat pilots, Air Force Research Institute testers and the aviation command was generally negative.
This is one of the reasons that the production of the MiG-3, having reached its peak in August 1941, then sharply declined. But the decision of the State Defense Committee on a sharp increase in the production of Il-2 attack aircraft equipped with AM-38 engines finally put an end to it. And these engines were produced by the same plant as the AM-35A. In October, the production of "35" engines stopped in favor of the "38", and in December the production of the MiG-3 also dropped to zero. A total of 3278 of these machines were built.
Nevertheless, the MiG-3 was the most massive Soviet new generation fighter on the eve of the Great Patriotic War. In the first half of 1941, 1,363 of them were built. By June 22, there were 917 "migs" in the five border districts (almost 22% of the total number of fighters). True, according to the reports, after two days there were only about 380 left.
LaGG-3
"The ugly duckling", which Lavochkin still made a swan. But about the events of 1942-43 later, but for now it is about LaGG-3.
The glider of this aircraft consisted almost entirely of wood; in the most important structural elements, the wood was plasticized with bakelite varnish. This material is called "delta wood".
Delta wood had a much higher tensile strength than ordinary wood, burned reluctantly and did not rot. But it was heavier than ordinary plywood.
Another disadvantage in the conditions of that time was that the chemical components of the plasticizer were not produced in the USSR, and they had to be imported. At the beginning of the war, this immediately caused great difficulties.
The armament on the first series was quite powerful, consisting of a large-caliber BK machine gun that fired through the gearbox shaft, two synchronous UBS machine guns and two also synchronous ShKAS. The entire "battery" was housed under the hood. The mass of a second salvo was 2.65 kg, and by this indicator the LaGG-3 surpassed all Soviet serial fighters produced at the beginning of the war, as well as all the then modifications of single-engine Messerschmitts.
Since September 1941, the production of the LaGG-3 with the ShVAK motor-gun instead of the BK machine gun began. To save weight, the right synchronous UBS was removed, leaving one heavy machine gun and two ShKAS. The mass of the second salvo has slightly decreased - to 2, 64 kg.
But the flight qualities of the LaGG-3 were, to put it mildly, not very good. The heavy aircraft, which, by the way, like the Yak-1 was developed for the M-106 engine, was equipped with the M-105P.
The takeoff weight of the LaGG-3 cannon was 3280 kg, that is, 330 kg more than that of the Yak-1, with the same engine of 1100 hp. As a result, the aircraft turned out to be rather inert, slow and difficult to control. He sluggishly reacted to the actions of the pilot, barely got out of the dive and had a tendency to stall into a tailspin when "pulling" the handle, which made steep turns on it were impossible. According to its flight data, the serial LaGG-3 of the second half of 1941 could not be compared with the Messerschmitt of the F series, in many respects being inferior even to the Emil. Yes, and "yaku" he lost on all counts, except for firepower.
The rate of climb at the ground was only 8.5 m / s, and the maximum speed was 474 km / h. At an altitude of 5000 m. LaGG-3 accelerated only up to 549 km / h. The turn time of aircraft not equipped with slats (and they began to be installed on LaGG-3 only from August 1942) was 24-26 seconds.
Such fighters first entered the battle in July 1941, often causing annoyance and irritation to their pilots, who openly envied their colleagues on the Yak-1.
It is clear that the Yak-1 was not a "lifesaver", but the heavy and slow LaGG-3, which earned the pilots the unflattering nickname "iron", turned out to be much worse than the "yak".
The entire further history of its development, up to its withdrawal from production in 1942, was accompanied by a constant desire to reduce weight at any cost. So, starting with the 10th series, they stopped installing ShKAS machine guns on the plane, because of which the LaGG-3 lost its advantage in firepower over the yak, but still did not compare with it in flight data.
On the 11th series, they abandoned cantilever gas tanks, sacrificing flight range for the sake of lightness. But it was all in vain. The "innate" heaviness of the design and the low quality of production at serial factories "ate up" all the efforts of the developers.
The situation was aggravated by the fact that due to the termination of imports of synthetic resins with the beginning of the war (note that earlier they came to the USSR mainly from Germany), the production of delta wood fell sharply. The pre-war stocks quickly dried up, and from 1942 this material had to be replaced with ordinary wood. This means that the mass of the LaGG-3 airframe has increased even more.
The tests of one of the production vehicles, armed only with a ShVAK cannon and one BS machine gun, which passed in the spring of 1942 at the Air Force Research Institute, showed a maximum speed of only 539 km / h. For those times, it was no longer good for anything. Nevertheless, 2,771 LaGG-3s were produced in 1942 in addition to 2,463 units built a year earlier.
Among the few positive qualities of the LaGG-3, we note the higher combat survivability and relatively low flammability when hitting, due to the increased safety margin of the airframe and the presence of a system for filling gas tanks with inert gas. On LaGG-3, such systems were mounted from the beginning of serial production, and on "yaks" they appeared only at the end of 1942.
In addition, already in 1941, most of the LaGG-3, unlike the Yak-1, were equipped with radio receivers, and every tenth with a transmitter, the quality of which, however, left much to be desired.
The installation of the M-105PF engine allowed only a slight increase in flight data. LaGG-3 with such an engine showed a speed of 507 km / h on the ground and 566 km / h at an altitude of 3850 m. The takeoff weight of the car with two gas tanks was 3160 kg. It became clear that in its current form, the fighter is unpromising, and with any modifications it will lose to the Yak equipped with the same engine. In April 1942, an order was issued to withdraw the LaGG-3 from production at the large Gorky aircraft plant number 21 and transfer this plant to the construction of the Yak-7.
Yak-1
The fighter was the first of three brethren to enter trials in January 1940, and passed in subsequent modifications from start to finish throughout the war.
The Yak-1 had a mixed design, in which wood and metal were represented approximately equally. Only the rudders and aileron frames (sheathing - canvas), removable engine hoods, a water radiator tunnel, wing and tail fairings, hatch covers, landing flaps, as well as flaps covering the landing gear struts in the retracted position were made of duralumin. For its time, the design of the machine was very archaic.
Initially, the I-26 was designed for the 1250-horsepower M-106 engine, but engine builders did not manage to bring it to the required degree of reliability. Yakovlev had to install on the prototype of his fighter a less powerful, but more reliable and proven M-105P engine, which developed 1110 hp. with. at an altitude of 2000 meters and 1050 liters. with. - 4000 meters.
The first production copies of the Yak-1 were equipped with the same engine (or M-105PA of the same power). Of the positive qualities of the Yak-1, which favorably distinguished it from the I-16 and Mig-3, in addition to a significant increase in flight data, it should be noted good stability, ease and simplicity of piloting, which made the aircraft affordable even for low-skilled pilots.
Yakovlev managed to find a balance between maneuverability, stability and controllability; it was not for nothing that before the war he specialized mainly in training and sports cars.
The Yak-1 model of 1941 had a takeoff weight of 2950 kg (without a radio station and equipment for night flights - about 2900 kg). Thus, even without radio communication, the aircraft turned out to be noticeably heavier than the Me-109E and F, lagging behind them in terms of power-to-weight ratio due to its greater weight and less powerful engine.
The speed at an altitude of 5000 meters was 569 km / h, at the ground no more than 450 km / h. Me-109E-2 gave out 575 km / h and 480 km / h, respectively.
As a result, the Yak-1 was inferior to the Messerschmitts in the rate of climb over the entire altitude range, and to the more aerodynamic Bf 109F in speed, although not as fatally as the I-16. This was the inevitable price to pay for simplicity and cheapness.
However, the Yak-1 turned no worse than a German fighter, and the combat speed was also about the same.
At first, the Yak-1 had many shortcomings caused by design and manufacturing defects. You can read about this (for fans of the history of aviation) in the book of design engineer AT Stepants "Yak fighters".
There were many childhood illnesses, but they were gradually dealt with in factories and the aircraft as a whole, and its individual units became more reliable and trouble-free, although some defects, for example, ejection of oil from the gearbox shaft seal, poisoned the lives of pilots and mechanics for a long time.
But the state of affairs with radio communications on the Yak-1 was sad at first. The first 1000 copies of the fighter had no radio stations at all. It was only in the spring of 1942 that the installation of radio equipment became more or less common, and in August it became mandatory.
At the same time, at the beginning, only every tenth car had transmitters, from August 42nd - every fifth, and from October - every fourth. On the rest, only receivers were installed.
The armament of the Yak-1 was similar to the Messerschmitt Me-109F - one 20-mm motor-gun ShVAK (ammunition - 120 rounds) and two synchronous ShKAS machine guns above the engine (750 rounds for each).
The mass of a second salvo (1.99 kg versus 1.04 for the Me-109F) - due to the higher rate of fire of Soviet weapons, exceeded that of a German fighter.
By the beginning of the war, the Soviet aviation industry had produced 425 Yak-1 fighters. 125 vehicles managed to enter the air regiments of the western border military districts, 92 of them were in combat readiness, but almost all of them were lost in the first days of the fighting.
Until the end of 1941, another 856 Yak-1s were built. In the autumn of the same year, its modification appeared, which received the designation Yak-7.
Yak-7 is a single-seat version of the UTI-26 two-seat training fighter. In terms of weight and size characteristics, equipment and armament, the Yak-7 was similar to the Yak-1, however, it originally had an M-105PA engine, which, to improve the temperature regime, the speed was reduced by changing the reduction from 2700 to 2350 rpm. / min.
Because of this, the rate of climb of the car has deteriorated markedly, although the other characteristics remained unchanged. In terms of climb rate, the Yak-7 of the 1941 model turned out to be even worse than the machine-gun modifications of the I-16.
We are not talking about proper competition with the Me-109F.
Yak-7 (aka UTI-26) was also used as a reconnaissance aircraft, like the plane shown in the photo. For singles, the second chair was simply removed.
Nevertheless, it is quite possible to say that the Yak-1 became, in fact, the first aircraft capable of fighting the "Messers", if not on equal terms, then not at the limit of its capabilities. Lagging behind the Messerschmitts in some respects, the Yak-1 could fight both horizontally and vertically, and even surpassed the Me-109F in armament (salvo power).
Subtotal. On June 22, 1941, the Red Army Air Force met with the Luftwaffe, having a numerical superiority. German aircraft, being faster, lighter and more maneuverable, possessed not only excellent radio communication, but a ground guidance system, more advanced, and most importantly, proven tactics.
Nevertheless, to say that the Luftwaffe conquered the air, scattering the air force of the Red Army "with one left on the sleeping airfields" is to say nonsense.
And, before continuing to review the fighters that took part in the battles in the skies of the Great Patriotic War, we will make one small digression. And we will consider some points that, as it were, are not customary to cover in the generally accepted history. And then 1942 and 1943 will await us, the continuation of the "2 on 2" duel of Yakovlev and Lavochkin against Messerschmitt and Tank.
It was then that new aircraft appeared in the armament of both countries, and the war for the skies made a new round.
In pursuit of the Luftwaffe. 1941, Polikarpov vs. Messerschmitt
