Originally posted by Meyer
From other thread, about the P39... this is priceless 
"The regiment fell into the "oven" of combat over the Kuban and on the second day suffered its first loss: Airacobra 41-38427 with engine Allison V-1710-63 (E-6) no. AAC 42-135031 did not return from its combat mission. This was the first P-39D-2 shot down on the Soviet-German front.
The regiment had to face Luftwaffe aces from Udet, Green Heart, and Mulders squadrons. Already on the following day, 11 March, two P-39D-2s (138433 [11] and 446) went into repair. Nonetheless, the regiment quickly launched into the fight with the stubborn Teutons. On 23 March 8 Airacobras faced off against 30 Messerschmitts and shot down 13, losing 3 of their own. But this victory came at a terrible price. Two pilots, in order to change the course of a badly developing battle, consciously flew their damaged and burning aircraft into enemy airplanes and perished, destroying two Messers in the process. Sergeant N. Kudryashov was 19 years old and Senior Lieutenant I. Shmatko was in his twenties. B. B. Glinka was wounded in this battle-a round came straight through the cockpit of his P-39D-2, no. 138431.
April aerial combats were particularly successful, when the pilots had a firmer grasp on their airplanes and tactics. During that month I. I. Babak shot down 14 fighters, Lieutenant Boris Glinka 3 fighters and 2 bombers, Senior Lieutenant Dmitriy Glinka 5 and 1, Sergeant I. Kudrya 5 and 1, Lieutenant N. Lavitskiy 1 and 2 respectively, and Senior Sergeant V. Sapyan 2 fighters. The regiment suffered losses as well, because its opponents were the "cream" of the Luftwaffe. 15 April 1943 is considered the "black day" of the regiment: D. Glinka and V. Sapyan were shot down at around 1300, and Senior Lieutenant M. Petrov and Sergeant Bezbabnov in the evening at around 1900. Erich Hartmann, a relatively new fighter pilot in III/JG 52, shot down one of the "evening" Cobras (41-38451 or 42-4606). This was the seventh kill (and first Airacobra) of the future top German ace of World War II, who finished his career in Soviet captivity with a score of 352 kills, some 345 of them on the Eastern front.
Altogether during two months of intense aerial combat over the Kuban, pilots of 45th IAP shot down 118 German aircraft, losing 7 Airacobras shot down and 8 damaged in combat or in accidents, 1 P-40E shot down and 1 destroyed in an accident. The regiment had the best results in the theater and was quickly, already by 10 May, re-equipped with new models of the Airacobra: P-39L, M, and N. The surviving intact old P-39D-2s (138416, 429, 456, and 458), P-39K, and P-40Es were handed off to the 16th Guards IAP and 298th IAP."
"The regiment went into combat on 17 March 1943 from Korenovsk airfield, in the Kuban, as part of the 219th Bomber Division, 4th Air Army. The regiment fought in this subordination for the entire extent of the celebrated air campaign over the Kuban. It fought against the best German fighter squadrons: JG 51 (Mulders) and JG 3 (Green Hearts). During the period from 17 March to 20 August 1943, the regiment flew 1,625 combat sorties with a flight time of 2,072 hours. It conducted 111 aerial engagements, in which it shot down 167 and damaged an additional 29 enemy aircraft. Its losses were 30 Airacobras destroyed and 11 damaged.
For combat successes in the Kuban campaign, the 298th IAP was designated the 104th Guards IAP on 24 August 1943. The regiment commander, I. A. Taranenko, received the rank Hero of the Soviet Union and was promoted. Major V. G. Semenishin, who had been awarded HSU on 24 May 1943, was named the regiment commander on 18 July 1943. In August 1943, the newspaper Pravda published a photograph of the four best pilots of the regiment with the inscription, "Fighter pilots who, in the battle for the Kuban, have shot down 60 German aircraft: major V. Semenishin, Captains K. Vishnevetskiy and V. Drygin, Junior Lieutenant A. Vilyamson". V. M. Drygin received the HSU rank on 24 May 1943, Vishnevetskiy at the end of the Kuban campaign on 24 August 1943, and Vilyamson on 27 June 1945"
"The regiment began combat operations on 9 April, at the very beginning of the battle for the Kuban. This campaign is considered pivotal in the history of Soviet VVS. Over the course of two months of intense battles with the best fighter squadrons of the Luftwaffe, Soviet pilots won strategic superiority in the air. Approximately 1100 German aircraft were destroyed, some 800 of them in the air. Western historians call this battle the "Stalingrad" of the Luftwaffe.
The pilots of the regiment fought combat operations of a corresponding nature with German fighters. The outcome of the battles in April: 289 Airacobra and 13 Kittyhawk combat sorties, in which were conducted 28 aerial engagements. Shot down were Bf-109E-14, Bf-109F-12, Bf-109G-45, FW-190-2, Ju-88-4, Do-217-1, and Ju-87-1. Of these, Guards Captain A. I. Pokryshkin shot down 10 Messers, Guards Senior Lieutenant V. I. Fadeev 12-Bf-109s, and Guards Senior Lieutenant G. A. Rechkalov 7 Messers and 1 Ju-88."
"Drawing conclusions, it can be said that the debut of the Airacobra in the Soviet VVS was singularly successful. In skilled hands it was a powerful weapon, fully on a par with the enemy equipment. There was no "special" operational environment for the Airacobras-they were employed as normal multi-purpose fighters that fulfilled the same roles as Lavochkins and Yakovlevs: they contested with fighters, escorted bombers, flew on reconnaissance, and protected our ground forces. They differed from Soviet-produced fighters in having a more powerful armament, survivability, and a good radio, and fell behind our fighters in vertical maneuverability, capability to withstand excessive G-forces, and to execute acute maneuvers. The pilots loved their Airacobras for comfort and good protection. As one P-39 pilot expressed it, he felt like he was "flying in a safe". Airacobra pilots did not burn because the aircraft was metal and the fuel cells were positioned far away in the wing. They were not subject to jets of steam or streams of oil because the engine was behind them. Their faces were not beat up on protrusions of the gunsight. If the airplane should happen to flip over on landing, they were not turned into lump of flesh, as happened to twice HSU A. F. Klubov after transitioning from a P-39 to an La-7. There was a kind of mystical belief that a pilot attempting to preserve a damaged Cobra by belly landing it would almost always emerge not only alive, but also undamaged. But if he bailed out of the same airplane he often was seriously injured or killed by the stabilizer, which was on the same level as the door."
How bout getting a clue....I haven't put up a single comment I cant back up with facts. 
