, SOVIET COMBAT AIRCRAFT - VOLUME ONE Contents OKBs DataTables Introduction 6 Bereznyak-Isaev 15 A Lavochkin 174 Glossary ...........................12 Bisnovat ...........................17 B Mikoyan-Gurevich 175 Notes 13 Borovkov-Frolov 18 C PolikarpovBiplanes 175 ColourProfiles 180 Gudkov 20 D PolikarpovMonoplanes 176 Type Index 183 Ilyushin 20 E OtherFighterTypes 177 Kozlov 22 F YakovlevFighters ofthe FirstHalf Lavochkin 22 ofthe SecondWorldWar 177 Mikoyan-Gurevich 64 G YakovlevFighters ofthe Second Half Nikitin 84 ofthe SecondWorldWar 178 Pashinin 86 Polikarpov 86 Silvansky..........................118 Sukhoi 119 Tomashevich 121 Yakovlev 122 Yatsenko..........................172 5 SOVIET COMBAT AIRCRAFT - VOLUME ONE Introduction BILL GUNSTON aBE FRAeS Stalin's domain was a fairly closed society. Dmitri Khazanov have had the benefit not Well-known,butveryevocative,stateinformation The rest ofthe world had little idea ofwhat only of long experience studying Soviet air photograph,showing'Sovietfighterplanesonan airfield'.MiG-3sinavarietyofcolourschemes. went on in the Soviet Union, and even after craftbutalsoofaccesstothe archivesofthe PhilipJarrettcollection OperationBarbarossa- the invasionbyNazi various design bureaux. Even after the col Germanyon22ndJune 1941whichlaunched lapseoftherigidSovietsystemin1990quitea whattheSovietUnioncalledTheGreatPatri few errors persisted where Soviet aircraft emigrated.Thefewthatwereleftwereorgan oticWar- forseveralmonthsnearlyallthein wereconcerned. isedintogroupscalledanOKS(experimental formationonSovietaircraftwasgleanedfrom construction bureau), administered by the propagandamaterial putoutbythe German Sovietaviation centralised Glavkoavia, from 1939 renamed enemy. Checking through a 1941 volume of One ofthe fewthings thatthe outsideworld the MAP (Ministry ofAviation Industry). De TheAeroplaneSpotterIfound onlyone pho did knowaboutSovietaviationwas thatina spite the word 'construction', the real pur tograph ofa modern Sovietaircraft that had Communiststatetherewereno'companies'. poseofthesebureauxwastodesignaircraft. notbeencapturedbytheenemy.Itshoweda Iapologiseforretracingwhatmaybefamiliar Iftheyhadthefacilities, theyalsobuiltproto MiG-3.Neverhavingheardofsuchanaircraft, ground, butthe systemwas sounlike thatin typesoftheirdesigns. thecaption-writersaiditwasan'1-18...armed other countries that it may need to be ex Eachbureauwasallocatedafewtechnical witheightmachineguns'! plainedyetagain. staffanda largernumberofmostlyunskilled Todaywe can put such nonsense behind IntheearlydaysoftheSovietstateseveral workers. Everyone, especiallyseniordesign us. IncompilingthisbookYefimGordonand of the most experienced aircraft designers ers,wasallocatedtoaparticularOKS,buttoa 6 INTRODUCTION verylimiteddegreeindividualscouldchoose production capacity. After 1934 some ofthe almost all the Luftwaffe's bombers. Hitler toworkelsewhere. largestnewfactorieswerebuiltfartotheEast, never intended to make his armies march These bureaux undertook hardly any re in such places as Irkutsk, Gorkii, Rybinsk, 5,000 miles across Siberia to the Pacific. His search.Thatwaslefttocentralisedestablish Khabarovsk and Novosibirsk. However, on reason for attacking the Soviet Unionwas in ments, such as the Central Aviation and 22ndJune 1941 veryfewofthese newplants ordertotakeovertheoil-producingregionof Hydrodynamics Institute (which had wind had been completed. More than 900/0 ofthe Azerbaijan. He then intended to set up a tunnels) and the Central Institute ofAviation Soviet aircraft industrywas still in European guardedfrontieronorWestofthe Urals,and Motors. Even more surprisingly, not onlydid Russia, and by 1943almosteveryfactory ex thencarryonthewaragainstBritain. theOKBsnotbuildaircraftinquantitybutthey cept those within the cities of Moscow and WeBritishthoughthewouldbeabletoac hadalmostno sayinwhere the aircraft they LeningradhadbeenoverrunbytheGermans. complish this. To quote the 'The Spotter' had designed were built. If an aircraft was Thus,oftheaircraftinthisbookthatfinally again,on3rdJuly1941 itsaid'WhiletheLuft deemedworthyofbeingmadeinquantity- in made it to production before June 1941, al waffe is primarily occupied on the Russian some cases aftercompetitive trials between mosteverytypewasheldbackbytheneedto front, an immediate invasion ofthis country rivalprototypes- theMAPwouldarrangeforit evacuatethefactoryandre-establishproduc does not seem likely. Such a state ofaffairs to be put into production at a selected GAl tioneastofthe Urals. The effortthis entailed cannotbeexpectedtolast... thereseemslit (StateAviationFactory) can be left to the imagination. It was not a tle doubt that Germany will be able to turn Stalinwas intenselyconcernedwith mod case of simply loading everything on trucks from Russiatothe oneotherremainingfront ernweapons,suchasaircraft.Hetookaclose and driving off. East ofMoscow most ofthe in Europe before the autumn is far ad personal interest in their design, and in the roads petered outand became mere tracks, vanced... Wemustbepreparedtomeetand designers. Though he was a hard man to thick mud in summer and rock-hard rutted defeat the full furyofthe Germanonslaught, work for, and often thought that designers iceinwinter. Mostoftheevacuatedfactories turnedfromtheEasttotheWest...' wouldworkharderiftheywereputinprison, andOKBsfoundthattheyhadbeenallocated This pessimistic beliefstemmed from the hedidtrytogive theWS (airforce) the best anunsuitableexistingbuilding,ora fine new colossalGermanvictoriesofthefirstweekof aircraft,andhedidtrytobuildupthe USSR's factorythatwasnotyethalf-finished. Barbarossa, which transcended anything Oncethe evacuateddesignteamsandthe seen before in warfare. They strongly re production factories had actually been able inforcedthepreviously-heldopinioninWest toresumeworktheyhadonebigadvantage. ern countries that Sovietweapons might be TheI-15bis,continueddevelopmentofthebiplane TheSovietUnionwasagiganticcountry,and availableinimpressivequantity,butthatthey fighter,buttherewasmoretocomefrom Polikarpov.PhilipJarrettcollection the newlocationswere beyond the reachof weregenerallyinferiorandobsolete. 7 SOVIET COMBAT AIRCRAFT - VOLUME ONE Polikarpov's1-153couldposequiteahandfultoa Bf109Epilot.PhilipJarrettcollection Eventhepilotsoftenhadonlyarudimenta ry idea ofhow engines and aircraft systems actually worked, and this handicap was accentuatedinthe GreatPatrioticWar. Most oftheshatteringlossesinthefirsttwoweeks were sustained notinaircombatbutonthe ground. This usually left the pilot intact but unemployed, but such was the Luftwaffe's commandoftheairthatby1942over70%of the pre-war pilots had been killed or cap tured. WS flying training schools found the onlywaytheycould copewithdemandwas by shortening the period ofinstruction (this policywasfairlysoonreversed). Ingeneral the Sovietfighters were notde signed for inexperienced pilots, and indeed Therequirements This posed severe problems to aircraft with wereparticularlychallenging.Accordingly,by Though Czarist Russia was home to a large liquid-cooled engines, and to the lubrication anystandardthenumberofseriousaccidents number of pioneer designers, in the 1920s ofeverymovingpart.Italsomeantthatinwin wasunacceptable. mostaircraftintheSovietUnionwere offor teranyaircraft, evena fighter, mighthave to eignorigin.Eventhoseinproductionwereto operateonskis. Aircraftdesign alargeextentbasedonforeigndesigns.How Consideration of landing gear was made Anyobjectivestudyoftheaircraftinthisbook ever, to a far greaterextentthan the outside moredifficultbythefactthatinalandwarthe must make it clearthat the Sovietdesigners world realised, these early types were re battlefront is unlikely to stay in the same didnot,aswascommonlysupposedbyWest placed by aircraft of totally Soviet design. place. Even the unique experience ofstatic ern observers inJune 1941, merelycopythe Though obviously constrained by the avail trenchwarfareintheFirstWorldWardidnot creationsoftheirforeigncounterparts.Whilst able engines- and toa considerable degree blind the Soviet commanders to this fact. In pursuingallthe expectedconfigurations,So the engines thatwere available for front line theGreatPatrioticWarthefrontoftenmoved viet designers tried many others. For exam service did remain derivatives offoreign de 30 miles (48km) in a day, and altogether ple, the Kozlov EI had a variable-incidence signs even to the end of the Great Patriotic moved East 1,000 miles (1,600km) and then wing,andtheNikitinISfamilyhadretractable War- theSovietdesignerswereforcedtocre backagain. Insuchanenvironmentallcom lower wings. Several fighter prototypes had ate aircraft able to meet a particularly chal bat aircraft had to be able to operate from boosterrockets(two,theLa-7RandSu-7,are lenging set ofrequirements. Merely copying hastilypreparedairfields. featured here) and the BI rocket interceptor Westernaircraftwouldhavebeenshortsight Between September 1941 and April 1945 had no parallel elsewhere except the much ed,asprovedbythefactthatmanyBritishand theWSconstructionbattalionscreated8,545 more tricky and dangerous Me163 Komel. Americanaircraftsuppliedin 1941-44proved front line airfields (in addition to over 1,300 Polikarpov's last aircraft, left incomplete at unabletostanduptotheenvironment. much better ones elsewhere in the Soviet hisdeath,wastheMalyutka(littleone),anat From its birth, the Sovietstate was preoc Union). Usually the surface of the front-line tractiverocket-enginedfighter. Perhapseven cupiedbytheideaofattackbyahostileneigh airfieldwasgrass,sandorearth,oftenfreshly more advanced in technology, ramjet en bour (as indeed happened). The entire clearedofscruboreventrees.Overvastareas gines were tested on several Sovietfighters, country was divided into Military Districts, the surfaceinsummerwassoftmud orbog, includingtheLa-7PVRDincludedhere. andtheCommanderofeachwasanarmyof andoverfourmillionstraighttreetrunkswere The authors deliberately confined them ficer with authority over all arms in that re used to make runways. Such surfaces were selvesinthisbooktotypesthatwereactually gion. The WS (air force) was thus from the too severe for Western fighters, such as the built.Hadtheyincludedunbuiltprojectsthey outset seen as an adjunct to the army and Vickers-Supermarine Spitfire (the Bell P-39 could have added many more that nobody othergroundforces. Indeed,inthe 1920sthe Airacobrawasawelcomeexception). couldeverhavesaidweretheresultofplagia first Sovietair operations were in support of Amajorproblemwasthefactthatin 1941 rism. For example, Belyayev's never-com forcesbroughtagainstinternalrebels,notably 44 more than two million men and women pletedEOIseatedthepilotina totallyglazed inTurkestan. Thus, the primarymissionwas joinedtheWSinvariousgroundduties.Afew nosewiththeenginebehindhim.Moskalyev, closeairsupportofgroundtroops.Airopera hadexperiencewithtrucks andtractors, but whohadin1935actuallyflownhiscomplete tionsbecamepolarisedaround the ideaofa most had no technical training whatsoever. ly tail-less SAM-7 Sigma, almost completed battlefront. Despitesustainedattemptstorectifythissitu the push/pull SAM-13 (which had a tail) be Where fighters were concerned, the pri ation, it had always been taken for granted forehavingtoevacuatetoOmsk. maryrequirementswereseenasspeed,rate that the general level oftraining ofservicing In1941themostexperiencedSovietfighter ofclimb and, especially, manoeuvrability in personnelwouldbeextremelybasic.Evenas designerwas NikolayPolikarpov. Inthemid close combat. Where Sovietaircraftdiffered late as 1943 many aircraft were unwittingly 1930s WS fighter pilots were no different from most others was in the environment. rendered unserviceable by 'brute force and fromthoseinothercountriesinlikingagilebi Nowhereelsemightfighters have tooperate ignorance' methods, andthe basicdesignof planeswithopencockpits,andhatingmono in ambient temperatures ranging from 40° theaircraftalwayshadtobearthispossibility planeswithenclosedcockpits.Caughtinthe (104°F) in summerto-50° (-58°F) inwinter. inmind. middle,ourNikolaydidhimselfnofavoursby 8 INTRODUCTION creating,intheTsKB-12,whichledtothe1-16, particularnationalcharacteristicsincorporat These figures inevitablysuggest that, having anunnecessarilytrickymonoplane.Heprob ed. Theseare examinedunderthe following massiveenginesinsmallairframes, theSovi ablywas influencedbyBoeing's P-26,which subheadings. etfightersmusthavehadpoormanoeuvrabil wastrickyenough,butIcan'thelpfeelingone ity, very high take-off and landing speeds onlyhadtogivethe1-16asingleglancetosay Airframe (implying the need for a long run) and very 'Not for me!' Half a century later designers Itseemscommonsenseforafighterdesigner short radius of action, suffering all these began deliberately to create fighters that 60 years ago to have made his airframe the penaltiesinordertoachievefantasticspeed. werelongitudinallyunstable,butin1933such smallest possible structure that could still Tosomedegreethisassessmentwasindeed aircraftwereliabletocrash,evenwithoutthe house the engine, fuel, pilotand armament. true of the MiG, but the Lavochkin and the assistanceofanenemy. ThistendencyshowedinSovietfightersmore Yakovlevhadexcellentmanoeuvrability,and In parallel, Polikarpov continued with his than in any other country. Of course, there couldoperatefromthesamekindoffrontline biplanefighters,andtookthistechnologyfur wereafewexceptions,butingeneraltheair airstripasanyotherwartimefighters. therthaninanyothercountry.Versionsofhis craft in this book were characterised by big Moreover, themostsurprisingthingisthat, 1-153notonlyhadretractablelandinggearbut enginesinsmallairframes. despite bolting huge engines into small air also 20mm cannon, rockets, a turbosuper To get a lot of information into a small frames, the Soviet fighters were if anything charger and a pressurised cockpit, though space the following table compares some slower than average. Of the aircraft picked not all at once on the same aircraft! In the mass-produced Soviet fighters with impor out for comparison, the slowest was the handsofaskilledandaggressivepilot,thePo tantcounterpartsinothercountries. JapaneseA6M,whichatitsbestheightcould likarpov1-153 could pose quite a handful to reach 351mph (564krn/h). This is because it thepilotofaMesserschmittBf109E,andwas had the least powerful engine. At their opti SovietFightersandtheirContemporaries far superior to the Italian Fiat CR.42 which mum altitudes the three Soviet fighters had stayedinproductionevenlonger. maximum speeds of 397, 375 and 401mph EngineCapacity WingArea Despite the attractions of the biplane, by (638,603and645km/h),whereastheSpitfire 1935 itwas fast becoming accepted all over in](li/res) ff(m2) IXand P-51Dreached 408 and 437mph (656 theworldthatthewaytodesignafighterwas MiG-3 2,847 (46.66) 187.7 (17.43) and703krn/h)respectively.Thismatterisdis toputthe mostpowerfulavailable engine in Spitfire 1,649 (27.0) 242.2 (22.5) cussedlaterundertheheading'Engines'. thefrontofthefuselage, drivingatractorpro La-S 2,514 (41.2) 186.0 (17.27) peller,andputa monoplanewinginthe low A6M'Zero' 1,696 (27.8) 241.5 (22.43) position,withanenclosedcockpitabovethe Yak-3 2,142 (35.1) 160.0 (14.86) The1-16tookthePolikarpovsmallfighter trailing edge. The vast majority of Soviet P-Sl Mustang 1,649 (27.0) 233.0 (21.64) formulaintomonoplaneformat,withequal wartimefightersadoptedthislayout,butwith success.PhilipJarrettcollection 9 SOVIET COMBAT AIRCRAFT - VOLUME ONE Apartfromthebasiccharacteristicofa big Engines Tempest II and Fury which were some engineinasmallairframethemostoutstand Despitesustainedeffortsbytheenginedesign 50mph(80km/h)faster. Injustthesameway, ingfeatureoftheSovietwartimefighterswas bureaux and the central institutes, it was whena teamunderIGLazarevhastilyfitted the widespread use of wood, and wood probablyinthe matterofenginesthatSoviet anM-82(ASh-82)intoaMiG-3theresultwasa derivedmaterials.Thisreflectedthefactthat fighter designers found it most difficult to greatdisappointment.Laterin1942aproper theSovietUnion,whileithadlimitlessforests compete. The most important engine family lyengineeredinstallationwasachievedinthe andquitealotofironorewithwhichtomake forfightersin1941-45wasthatderivedbyVYa AircraftYe, or1-211, and this was the fastest steel,hadverylimitedindigenoussuppliesof KlimovfromtheFrenchHispano-Suiza12Yof Sovietfightereverflownatthattime. bauxite with which to make aluminium. In 1934. This had 12 cylinders in V-form, and A particularly instructive comparison can 1942-44 the Western Allies shipped to Mur though a refined engine with a 20-year her be made betweenthe LaGG-3 and the La-5. mansk and Archangel over 250,000 tons of itage behind it, itwas fundamentally unable The LaGG was a typical Sovietfighter ofthe aluminium ingots, but this could not have to sustain the rotational speeds and boost 1939-40 era, with a small wooden airframe beenforeseen.Accordingly,eventhoughthe pressuresoftheBritishRolls-RoyceMerlin.In and a big M-I05 (VK-I05) engine. Despite SovietUnionhadmadegreatstridesindevel 1941 the typical fighter Merlin (not the new frantic improvements it was indifferent in opingawide range oflightalloys, fighterde 60-series with a two-stage supercharger), of combat, and large numbers of LaGG pilots signerswerestronglymotivatedtousewood 1,649in3(27litres) capacity, hada maximum werekilledduringtraining.'LaGG'wassaidat asmuchaspossible. powerof1,470hp(1,230kW)at3,000rpm.On the time tomeanLakirovanniiGarantirovan By1941 teamsattheVIAM(All-UnionInsti fuel of94/95octane, the Sovietengine made niiGrob,meaning'varnishedguaranteedcof tute for Aviation Materials), and in several in the greatest numbers, the VK-I05, could fin'. After Lavochkin replaced the VK-I05 by GAZ, had developed wood construction fur notgivemorethan1,260hp(940kW)andusu anASh-82theaircraftwastransformed,even therthaninanyothercountry.Apartfromtra allyonly 1,150hp (858kW), at 2,700 rpm, de tually becoming a fighter in which a skilled ditional techniques with machined solid spite having a capacity of 2,141in3 (35.09 pilotcouldrackupagoodscoreevenagainst woodand ordinaryply, therewere two new litres). ,109sand'190s(IvanKozhedubscored62). techniques. One, called shpon, consisted of The onlyotherfamily ofliquid cooled en One cannot help but be bemused by a thin(typically1mm)veneers,usuallyofbirch, gines available from production were even widespread belief, even in the Soviet Union wrapped to form a skin over a male die less suitable for small fighters. AAMikulin's butespeciallyinBritainandFrance,thatfight (sometimesovertheactualunderlyingstruc 'AM' series had the same V-12 layout, but ers had to have liquid-cooled engines. Prop tureofframesandstringers).Asecondsheet, used cylinder blocks derived from the Ger erly installed, the air cooled radial was less like the first - a long band perhaps 20-40cm man BMW VI, with a capacity of 2,847in3 vulnerable, lighter, offered roughly equal wide-wouldthenbegluedoverthefirst,with (46.66litres).Suchabigengineoughttohave drag, worked better in cold environments, thegrainrunninginadifferentdirection.The beeninthe2,000+ hp(1,490+ kW)class,but andprobablywasshorterandthusenhanced finished structure mighthaveas manyassix in fact they were designed originally for dogfightmanoeuvrability.Towardstheendof layers. bombers, and even at full throttle had low the war the British Hawker and Japanese Theothertechnique,deltadrevesina(delta crankshaftspeeds. Otherthingsbeingequal, Kawasaki companieswere surprised to find wood), involved impregnating each layer of an engine's power is proportional to the the radial engine to be superior, while veneer with resin adhesive. After this had speedofrotationofitscrankshaft.TheAM-35 YakovlevputanASh-82FNintoaYak-3tocre soakedin,theplieswerethenbondedtogeth had a governed speed of only 2,050rpm ate- sohetoldthewriter- thebestofallthe erunderpressure. This was used mainlyfor (compared with 3,000 for the Merlin), and wartimefighters. stiffprimarystructures,suchaswingspars.In thusdespiteitssizeandmassiveweightgave aboutDecember1940theimportedresinwas only1,200hp(895kW).TheAM-35Awasrated Armament replaced bylocallyproduced sheets ofphe at1,350hp(1,007kW). Italwaysamazedthewriterthat, lackingnei nol-formaldehyde adhesive with a trace of Oneoftheunexpectedmajorsuccesssto thermoneynordesignanddevelopmentca borax. After bonding at 150°C the material ries was A D Shvetsov's 14-cylinder radial, pability, the British and Americans should wascalledbakelite-ply. originally designated M-82 and in 1941 - in have fought their greatest war with aircraft The operating environment of what was conformity with the new designer-based guns designed in the FirstWorld War. Even calledtheEasternFrontintheSecondWorld scheme- rechristened the ASh-82. This had stranger,theBritishselectedforeigndesigns. Warwas the harshesttowhichaircrafthave air-cooled cylinders based on those of the The Soviet Union, like the Germans, recog ever been subjected. It is remarkable that AmericanWrightR-1820Cyclone(whichhad nisedthatitisnotagainstthelawsofnatureto woodenstructurescouldstanduptoit,espe a single rowofnine cylinders) butwithcon designone'sownguns,andtrytomakethem ciallyastheyfrequentlyhadtospendlongpe siderable development by Shvetsov, in the thebestintheworld. riodsintheopen. Inwintergreatcarehadto course ofwhichhe reduced the stroke from Thus, designers had a large and growing exercised to try to keep aircraft clean, be 174.5mm to only 155mm. This resulted in a rangeofweaponstochoosefrom.Inthe1930s causeslush, mudand oilwouldfreeze rock compact engine with an overall diameter of theShKASwastherifle calibreweapon.This hard, adding weight, causing aerodynamic only 49.6in (1,260mm). With a capacity of took a 0.30 cal (7.62mm) cartridge fed by a turbulence and preventing landing gear re 2,514in3(41.2litres),theASh-82FNwasquali belt at the outstandingly high rate of 1,800 tractionorcontrolsurfacemovement. fiedinearly1942at1,630hp(1,215kW),rising rounds per minute. ABritish fighter of 1940 Of course, it was also essential to devise to1,850hp(1,380kW)on100octanefuel. with five ShKASwould have had greaterhit safefrontlinemethodsforrepairingdamage. Avital factor in any radial-engined fighter tingpowerandmorestrikespersecondthan This was crucial where the damage was to wasthewaytheenginewasinstalled.Forex with eight Brownings, besides saving over primarystructure,suchasadeltawingsparor ample, even though the first Bristol Centau 66lb(30kg)inweight. In 1937thelightweight asteeltubefuselage. Damagerepairandthe rus-enginedTornadoin 1941 wasfasterthan UltraShKASfiredat2,700roundsperminute, quickreturntooperationalservice9fcombat anypreviousHawkerfighter,afteracaptured a remarkable figure for a single barrel gun, aircraftwasbroughttoa fine art, eveninthe Focke-WulfFw190 had beenstudied the in butbythistimeitwasrecognisedthatheavier frontlineinwinter. stallation was redesigned, leading to the calibreswereneeded. 10
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