Here is some more excellent reading on the P39. First the link to the main webpage which covers lend-lease in general:
http://lend-lease.airforce.ru/english/index.htm Here is the P39 specific link from this site that is another excellent read:
http://lend-lease.airforce.ru/english/articles/romanenko/p-39/index.htmAnd a relevent quote from this article/interview on the P39:
Returning to the Airacobra, it must be noted that the British somewhat underrated it. Soviet pilots preferred the Cobra despite its many shortcomings to any other aircraft received from the Allies, including the Spitifire VB, which the British deigned to give us only in 1943.
The reasons for this will be examined below, but one of them can be noted right here and now: The Airacobra almost ideally corresponded to the nature of combat activities on the Soviet-German front. Here the struggle was not for absolute air superiority, but for superiority over specific areas of active combat activities. Dive bombers and close support aircraft, that is, aircraft directly supporting ground forces, operating at low altitude over the battlefield or at medium altitudes in the operational-tactical airspace, were the basis of both the Luftwaffe and the VVS Red Army. Correspondingly, the fighters had either to counter the enemy's fighters, or accompany one's own bombers at those same altitudes. Air battles rarely occurred at altitudes above 5,000 meters. In these working environments the Airacobra just had the best flight characteristics. If one adds to this good maneuverability, easy handling, powerful armaments, and excellent vision, then its success on the Soviet-German front becomes obvious.
And another quote from the same article:
One who has carefully read the material above regarding the Airacobra might logically ask the question, why was this same model of the airplane so bad for British employment and so good for Soviet employment? What can explain this contradiction?
There were several reasons. We will dwell on the most important: First, we received already "reworked" aircraft that lacked the initial deficiencies. Second, our specialists tested the Airacobra for the specific altitude envelope of the Soviet-German front, which corresponded well with the best flying performance characteristics of the aircraft. Third, the aircraft actually were not bad. And fourth, the brief test period did not permit sufficient testing to expose the basic weaknesses of design and construction that were later revealed in the process of mass exploitation. The flat spin, the engine throwing connecting rods, and other manifestations were yet to be discovered.
And a very interesting observation here:
The myth regarding the employment of the Airacobra in the Soviet VVS almost exclusively as a "shturmovik" [ground-attack aircraft] is widespread in Western literature (W. Green, P. Bowers, E. McDowwell). This myth arose out of an insufficiency of information: both Soviet official and memoir sources were carefully screened by Glavlit [political censorship overseeing publication of all printed material in the USSR] and stood on the "only believable" conceptual positions, and almost until the 1970s attempted to conceal any information about Kittyhawks, Cobras, and Hurricanes, as though they almost never existed. This phenomenon was very astutely expressed by Larry Bell as far back as 1944 when in a conversation with Soviet test pilots he said, "I have sent you three thousand airplanes and I could just as well have thrown them into Lake Ontario! I know nothing about them, how they are fighting, and if your men are satisfied with them!"
With the release in the late 1960s of A. I. Pokryshkin's "The skies of war", one of the starkest books about pilots in war, translated into many foreign languages, the situation regarding the Airacobras was somewhat clarified. However (nature abhors a vacuum), now Western authors have taken up "class positions". From the description of hundreds of aerial combats they have selected only a small period and have advanced a new myth: the "Russians", it seems, successfully employed the Airacobra only against slow-moving transports and aging bombers. This was an introduction to the tale and the tale is forthcoming.
There are some great pictures and insights at this website, well worth the time it takes to read it all.
Magoo
