The Unknown War is an American 20-part series that documents the World War II conflict between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
Today, SouthFront shares the 9th part of the series titled “War in the Air”. The Soviet Air Forces showed great resilience in the face of the Luftwaffe during World War II.
Soviet airfields were among the first targets hit by the Nazis with the start of Operation Barbarossa on June 22 of 1941. 800 Soviet airplanes were lost on the ground and 40 in the air. Still, the Soviet Air Forces put on a fierce fight, with several pilots like Pokryshkin shooting down multiple German airplanes.
German newspapers announced the triumph, but failed to take into account the determination of Soviet pilots and the capabilities of Soviet industry.
On August 8 of the same year, Soviet bombers raided Berlin. Goebbels attributed the raid to British bombers in a desperate attempt to hide the embarrassing failure of the Luftwaffe.
Soviet industry boosted the production of airplanes, while engineers kept improving them. Meanwhile, the recruitment of pilots expanded to include even women.
After the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943, the Soviet Air Forces became dominant in the air. The Germans experienced endless aerial bombardment.
By the end of 1944, the Russians had beaten more than 20,000 German pilots. On the other side, 200,000 Soviet pilots were awarded for bravery, 2420 of them became heroes of the Soviet Union.
The Russians had shot down 77,000 Nazi airplanes by the end of the war. The Soviet Air Forces emerged victorious over the Luftwaffe, which was wiped out.
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never forget that russia shamefully allied with the nazis to invade poland.
russia was ready to surrender to hitler until the usa came to its rescue.
never trust the orcs!!!
heheheh
i don’t know that the russians allied with the nazis to to invade poland, nor that doing such a thing was shameful. the usa was busy being defeated by and surrendering to an inferior japanese force in the phillipines at the time that the russians broke the german invasion of the soviet union.
now there are nazis only in russia. russia is last bastion of fascism and militsristic chauvinism.
andriy yevheniiovych biletsky, is that you?
“shamefully” = a projection of post ww2 ethics on events from the past
the stalin-ribbentropf pact belongs to a long list of treaties from that period where many european leaders tried very hard to stay out of war and to protect themselves from attack by aligning themselves with whoever deemed strong enough to deter such an attack.
stalin probably had to check out his position, moskow underground city, communist kadre, industrializatie behind the urals and the like before, making speeches to the public.
the orcs proved to be very reliable in matters of energy security, weapons trieties and un politiks.
it’s a shame that after playing such important role in the great patriotic war against natzie germany the ukrainian people were fooled and forced by us/uk/nato to become the very same evil they once so valiantly fought. and just like germany the will become an occupied vassal statelet to be plundered of their natural resources.
they have been and it was the fact that they chose to join the catholic nazi party in the first place
esa guerra fue solo otra cruzada veneciana contra rusia venecia es el poder britanco ni el diablo es tan malo como bretaña venecia y los nordicos
los paises le tienen verdadero pavor a los britanicos por que son solo venecianos malvados lo peor de lo peor en salsa vikinga normanda
la propaganda b ritanica es muy buena escondiendo esa enorme maldad que tienen
with all respect for urss pilots, but a- the 1st day barbarossa 1,500 planes were destroyed at the grond and 300 in the air (soviet admitted 1,200) and no way urss could have shot down 77,000 german planes. simply there weren’t as many in eastern front. overclaiming was big in those days.
nice, soviet victory
sovietair forces (vvs rkka etc) were lousy compared to raf and usaaf. in 1944 it was 8 times more dangerous to luftwaffe pilot to fly against western allied than in eastern front. that explains also why luftwaffe were able to use obsolete aircraft like stukas and he-111 in eastern front while not after 1942 against western allied.
are you really trying to claim that the stuka was used on the eastern front because the russians were incapable of shooting it down? lazy, lazy nafomosexual.
german munition production figures are revealing interesting facts making rooskies uneasy. in 1939-45 germany used on average 42% of munitions just building aircraft. if taking navy and air war production with vessels, aircraft, their weaponry and ammo – over 65% of german war production was targeting air and sea warfare, mostly against western allied. land war was given surprisingly little (likely 1/3 of munitions)
how are munitions used to build aircraft? is the aluminium shot out of a cannon at the aircraft in order to fuse the pieces together on impact? you derp hard when you derp, and you derp a lot.
as zhukov said:”without western aid we won’t have been able to build our strategic reserves and continued the war”.
lend lease made red army much more faster. actually usa helped soviet union to build its metal, steel etc industry from early 1930s.
76% of luftwaffe combat losses were inflicted by western allied. usaaf destroyed 80% of german aviation fuel production in may-june 1944. at the same time soviet aircraft were unable to block german material flowing to east. the quality of soviet airpower was not excellent at all. one must remember that soviet aluminium production was lagging much behind other power including japan too.
was the usaaf conducting tactical ground support missions against 150 german divisions operating on us territory? thanks for derping, fuck-o.