Originally posted by whgates3
did Finn 109s ever fight LW 109s?
No. The 109s had too short range. The only Finnish with long enough range to operate over Lappland was the Brewster. Still, I don't recall any other air combats except one or two occasions when Brewsters intercepted German bombers.
The air war on the north was by then mostly Finnish bombers vs German ground targets and German AA vs Finnish bombers. And the German AA was a hell, hell I tell you.
Quote from one of our interviews:
http://www.virtualpilots.fi/hist/Mr. Viljo Lehtinen, Blenheim bomber radio operator/gunner:
http://www.virtualpilots.fi/hist/WW2History-ViljoLehtinenEnglish.html#lapplandGerman AA was the worst threat during Lappland war
We were moved to the airbase at Paltaniemi, near Kajaani (to operate against the Germans, during Lappland War 1944-1945).
You didn't see any German fighters?
Fighters? No, we were never attacked by them. Maybe we saw some, but we didn't stay to take a good look, we came home low. But AA was so much worse. You know the weather in Lapland in October, the clouds hung at 400 meters and we had to fly low. And the Germans had really heavy AA.
Aro mentioned this multibarrel gun...
The Vierling. The German had this excellent weapon, four 20mm guns on the same base. It's an awesome weapon for low-level defense.
They all fire together?
Yes, yes, with the same trigger. The Russians had the one with four Maxim MG's, but that's a toy. But this German Vierling, with four 20 millimeter automatic guns, it's outright scary.
Wonder how fast it fired.
I think it was the same gun the 109 had. Each barrel shoots 700 rounds a minute. It's dreadful. If a plane comes to range, it's gone. Then they had the 37 mm gun, and the heavies. Also what was new to us, when we were flying above clouds, there suddenly were puffs of heavy AA around us. How in hell can they shoot here? Then we realized, they had radar! The heavy AA aimed with radar and clouds didn't matter at all. We hadn't even known what a radar was, until then. But it was not as dangerous as flying low. To think about it, flying at 400 meters against such AA.
So had the Russians, even worse, but we never flew low against them. Russian targets were areas and they were bombed from high altitude, 2,000-3,000 meters. In Vuosalmi, where their AA was dreadfully heavy - they said they had 20 heavy batteries in addition to light ones - we flew in 4,500-5,000 meters. The light guns wouldn't reach that high, only the heavies. Sometimes when they shot in our front, it felt like no one could go through that. But there was no choice, and it was possible. But this German low level AA, it was horrible, they shot down many Brewsters and Blenheims...
I remember one flight, it was at Kittilä or Ranua. We had to bomb marching columns on a road. It was frightening. The clouds were at 300-400 meters, so we had to go low. When we approached the road, there was such a lot of sparks coming at us that we had to dodge to the side. There were snaps ringing all around the plane and I tried to look where we were hit...
Back in the base we started looking more thoroughly where the daylight is shining through and we found 9mm submachine gun bullets in the flare ammo box. You see, when you go over a marching column, every man had lifted their guns and shot. SMG's, rifles, machine guns, all. You never think of infantry as a threat, but they can be a real danger. When an AA gun fires, it all goes to the same place. But when there's lots of men shooting at you, one is bound to hit something.
