Originally posted by 1K3
I'm wondering how in the world did IARs decimate the allied fighters @ Polesti... The IAR is like 80 mph slower compare to 38s/47s/51s.
For the most part, people talk about the IAR "decimating" allied fighters in relation to the June 10th, 1944 raid on Ploesti, Bucharest and Brasov by the 1st and 82nd FGs in which nearly 1/4 (23, although all claims filed by the ARR, Luftwaffe and AAA crews amounted to 51 claims) the attacking force was lost to enemy fighters- only 1 71st Squadron P-38 (Lt. Herbert "Stub" Hatch) made it home, and he was credited with 5 "Fw-190s", despite the fact that only 3 of the defending IAR-81Cs were in fact shot down in that fight, 8 P-38s shot down outright and 7 more not making it back to base for various reasons. The USAAF pilots claimed 33 kills that day, though only a total of 14 aircraft were lost over all of Romania that day, and most of those were non-combat types caught on the ground or at low level by the Lightnings. This incident is often referred to as "Black Sunday".
For one thing, the P-38s came in OTD, in formation, with the sun in their faces right over a defended airfield where the defenders had been alerted to their approach and had ample time to climb out and set an ambush.
For another, many (but by no means all) of the Vanatoari by 1944 were seasoned veterans of 3 years on the Eastern Front and 2 years of the USAAF attacks, so they new what they were doing, and they knew their aircraft. Plus they were defending their home base and fighting over their own territory, which tends to make people fight a bit harder.
Saying its a lightly armed Fw-190 isn't really a fair comparison, I think of it more like a radial engined Spit V. Four 7.7mm MGs and two MG-151s (in the IAR-81C and 81M) in the wings, a wing loading of 27.1 lb/ft² (to 28 lb/ft² on the Spit V) and top speed around 340 mph at 23,000 ft (to 370 for the SpitV).
Might do pretty well in the MW, or with 6 MGs and bombs in the EW.
