Teaser: air combat tactics lectures

[Grendel]

Oh boy, just received in email the final edition of the english translation of Finnish Air Force air combat tactics guide written in 1943.

I'll post this during the weekend to the Icebreakers/Virtual Pilots Finland WW2 history website and announce it then here as well.

Four people have been working with the translation for quite a time and it has been worked through by a professional translator. SHould be a hit in the community!

Information:

Captain H. Wind's Lectures on Fighter Tactics were written in 1943 to be used in training of new pilots. Afterwards, the lecture series was used in the Finnish Air Force for several decades. The lectures have been transferred into digital format in as original and accurate a form as possible - the way they were written in 1943.

Many thanks to the following people who were immensely helpful in carrying out this project:
Jaakko Kuusisto - who answered our call for a copy of this document, and kindly allowed us to copy it.
The Finnish Air Force and the Chief of Readiness, Colonel Jarmo Lindberg - who kindly presented the original document to the Commander of the Finnish Air Force and to the Chief of Operations, making sure that we can transfer the material into digital format and publish it. "According to the security policy of the Finnish Defence Forces, any material declared secret will become public after 25 years, unless the period is specifically extended. Applying this rule, and in the opinion of the Commander of the Air Force this material can be published."

The birth of this lecture series as told by Väinö Pokela:

"It all started in 24 Fighter Squadron during '42 or '43 if I remember correctly. Someone suggested that one of the squadron pilots go to Kauhava (Air Force Academy) to lecture on tactics, 'how to wage war with Brewsters'. That was because the Americans also started waging war and they had no clue how to go about it. There in the Pacific when they started fighting it was completely pitiful. They had three engagements where Brewsters were used. And in the last one they had 17 Brewsters in one aerial engagement, and if I remember correctly, 13 were shot down. After that all the Brewsters were sent to Florida for their Air Force cadets.

And all of this was the result of them attacking Zeros. They didn't consider at all that the Zero had no armour, was made of wood and was much lighter. But it had an engine of the same size. And they (Americans) started turn-fighting them (Zeros). So, the Brewsters were shot down. They just should have used rocking-chair (vertical) tactics, attack and pull out. The Finns had already learned that in the Winter War when they attacked the I-15s and I-16s with their Fokkers. You did not turn-fight them. And this lecture, the paper about air combat tactics written by Hasse, started right from this idea."

Captain Hans Henrik "Hasse" Wind 30.7.1919-24.7.1995
75 aerial victories, double recipient of the Mannerheim Cross (the highest military award in Finland) http://www.saunalahti.fi/~fta/finace02.htm  http://www.saunalahti.fi/~fta/wind-01l.jpg

Clip:

There can be two kinds of "protection flights":
a) escorting our own aircraft
b) protecting our ground troops


a) In our circumstances the escort flights have been performed with a single finger four division or with one flight at the most. This is because of the fact that there has usually been only one aircraft to be escorted (on a reconnaissance or photography mission). The escorted aircraft must always be within visual range of each escort (each wingman as well). Therefore the escorts must fly about 200-500 meters behind and on both sides of the escorted aircraft, and depending on the weather about 500-1,000 meters above. This difference in altitude must always be maintained for us to be able to prevent any faster enemy from bouncing on the escorted aircraft.

When the escorted aircraft is attacked, it is imperative to let the escorted aircraft know about this with an agreed signal. At least one section must always be as a close escort. It is best if the close escort is assigned before the take-off. Once the aerial engagement begins the close escort closes to about 50-100 meters from the escorted aircraft in order to thwart any surprise attacks. If they are also attacked, one member of the pair must stay and engage the bogies while the other escorts the protected aircraft to safety. It is worth noting that the mission is of the kind where there is no need to search for combat. You only join in the combat out of necessity and even then only for defence, disengaging at the first possibility. The main thing is that the escorted aircraft gets home safely.

Clip:

The I-153 Chaika is mainly used at low altitudes of 0-2,000 m. Quite difficult to shoot down because of its excellent manoeuvrability. If attacked from below and rear, tends to evade by pulling up and after that shoots back when we go up. Superior in dogfights. The best way to shoot it down is to approach fast from lower rear quarter, in which case you can pull up behind it after firing.

The I-16 and I-16bis are very nimble fighters used at lower altitudes. A formation of several planes (about 5-10) willingly form the so called "Spanish fly", that is, the planes fly round in circles on a horizontal plane [Lufberry circle], so when attacking against one of them you become target of the next plane. The best method against this kind of circle is to form a similar one above it. The circle goes around in the same direction, but you attack from above, and after firing, pull up. When flying alone the I-16 (as well as the Chaika) prefers to shoot head-on. In such a case you should try to evade either up or down depending on [original text illegible] using the rudder with force.

The LaGG-3 is not especially agile in dogfight. It usually tries an outflanking approach from up and behind, shoots and pulls up. Likes head-on shooting. The tail has a heavy armour. When attacked it tries to evade with a quick half aileron roll to either side. The most vulnerable points are the engine and the radiator below the aircraft.

The LA-5 is an extremely agile and fast fighter. Similar hooking tactics as LaGG-3 thanks to its good climb performance. The method of fighting: usually an attack in sections from above; the flight leader fires first and his wingman when the target is evading.


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Brewster into WB!

VLeLv Icebreakers
Überfinns Perkele
http://www.compart.fi/icebreakers

[streakeagle]

Brewster into WB? err... umm... AH maybe?  

[DB603]

S!

 Thank You Grendel & all people behind this!Really great to be able to read such stuff soon   And Streakeagle..IceBreakers flies in WB  



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DB603
3.Lentue
Lentolaivue 34

[Otter]

 

Originally posted by Grendel:
The birth of this lecture series as told by Väinö Pokela:

"It all started in 24 Fighter Squadron during '42 or '43 if I remember correctly. Someone suggested that one of the squadron pilots go to Kauhava (Air Force Academy) to lecture on tactics, 'how to wage war with Brewsters'. That was because the Americans also started waging war and they had no clue how to go about it. There in the Pacific when they started fighting it was completely pitiful. They had three engagements where Brewsters were used. And in the last one they had 17 Brewsters in one aerial engagement, and if I remember correctly, 13 were shot down. After that all the Brewsters were sent to Florida for their Air Force cadets.

And all of this was the result of them attacking Zeros. They didn't consider at all that the Zero had no armour, was made of wood and was much lighter. But it had an engine of the same size. And they (Americans) started turn-fighting them (Zeros). So, the Brewsters were shot down. They just should have used rocking-chair (vertical) tactics, attack and pull out. The Finns had already learned that in the Winter War when they attacked the I-15s and I-16s with their Fokkers. You did not turn-fight them. And this lecture, the paper about air combat tactics written by Hasse, started right from this idea."

[/B]

Sorry to disabuse the author of this quote but there are some factual errors. The Reisen (Rei Sentoku-Zero fighter) was not wooden it was made of a light weight aluminum alloy. The pricipal American fighters to first encounter the Zero were the F4 Wildcat and P-40's although the Brewster Buffalo encountered then in the Dutch East Indies campaign it was in very low numbers and was already on the way out as a frontline American fighter.

Even though the Zeros dominated all they encountered early, counter tactics as implied by the above author were quickly developed, they included the AVG Flying Tigers using boom and zoom tactics and the Navy Wildcats using the "Thatch weave".



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Otter

[danish]

Otter wrote:
"..counter tactics as implied by the above author were quickly developed,."
Dont know what quickly is, my assumption was that at least for the best part of the summer -42 the US airforce took a steady beating in the far east.

Like in James B. Morehead "In My Sights.The Memoir of a P-40 Ace" ISBN 0-89141-634-X.

And wtg Grendl: I envy you guys =)

danish

[Otter]

Quoted from Joe Baugher? (wasn't sure of the info I collected it awhile ago)
During the first year of the Pacific War, the standard shipboard fighter serving with the US Navy was the Grumman F4F Wildcat. The A6M2 was superior to the F4F Wildcat in speed, climb rate, and maneuverability, but the Wildcat had better firepower and was more robust. In a dive the two aircraft were fairly equal, but the turning circle of the Zero Fighter was very much smaller than that of the Wildcat by virtue of its lower wing loadings.

In the first Japanese attack on Wake Island on December 8, eight Wildcats were destroyed on the ground. The remaining Wildcats fought courageously for two weeks, breaking up a number of air attacks and turning back one seaborne invasion attempt. However, they were overwhelmed by superior Japanese forces and the last two Wildcats were destroyed on December 22.

By the time of the Battle of Midway in June 1942, Wildcat pilots had evolved tactics to deal with the superior performance of the Zero. One of these was the "Thatch Weave", named for LtCmdr John S. Thatch, commander of VF-3. In this maneuver, two Wildcats would criss-cross back and forth, each one alternately covering the other's tail. Whenever possible Wildcat pilots tried to get above their opponents, so that they could then dive through the enemy formation in a firing pass, continuing their dive until they were able to zoom-climb back up to a favorable altitude for another attack. Efforts were made to avoid close-in dogfights, where the Zero clearly had the advantage.

.....

[Otter]

....and
The only bright spot during these dark days was the American Volunteer Group (AVG), better known as the Flying Tigers. They were first in battle on December 20, 1941 during a Japanese raid on Kunming. The P-40s flown by the AVG were faster than the Zero in level flight, but were much less maneuverable. It was soon concluded that it was suicide to try and out-maneuver a Zero, and AVG pilots found that they were able to take advantage of the superior diving speed and ruggedness of their P-40s. The tactics that most often achieved success were to first make sure the P-40s had a height advantage, dive down on the Zeroes, shoot, and then run as fast as you could. By the time that the AVG was absorbed into the 14th Air Force in early July of 1942, they had been credited with 286 Japanese aircraft destroyed in the air as against 13 pilots killed in aerial action "

It seems to me from these quotes the Allies acknowledged they were facing a superior turning plane and in a relatively short amount of time had adjusted tactics to it. The Japanese had some 400 hundred operational Zeroes and many of the early success was also due to the large number of experienced pilots and aircraft in the air as well as the plane.

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Otter

[Grendel]

Well, the 84 years old Brewster/109 ace remembered it wrong that Zero was made of wood.

But the air combat stuff and Brewsters, thats something he knows :-) He's been studying Brewster history and lecturing about the planes actively and I'd bet theres not many things he doesnt know about them.

The tactics lectures are released, by the way.
 http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/Forum1/HTML/009755.html



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Brewster into WB!

VLeLv Icebreakers
Überfinns Perkele
http://www.compart.fi/icebreakers

[danish]

Otter.
Seems we pretty much agree on the timing thingy.

<S>

danish

Edith: and thx once again Grendl.Will sit down tonight, take a deeb breath, forget about this &%¤# RL, and read your stuff :=)

[This message has been edited by danish (edited 05-14-2001).]