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Biggest Air battle of the war (1 viewing) (1) Guest
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TOPIC: Biggest Air battle of the war
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Biggest Air battle of the war5 Months, 1 Week ago
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What was the biggest air battle of the war in the east? By this I mean the battle involving the most aerial combat either as a result of bomber interception or air superiority combats and NOT the biggest Air-Land battle (bombers attacking without signifigant opposition).
I would think, right off the bat, that it would have to be the dogfights around Kursk during the Kursk battle.
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Re:Biggest Air battle of the war5 Months, 1 Week ago
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You're probably right. Kursk was the last hurrah of the Luftwaffe in the east. After that its strength declined rapidly, primarily because it had to direct its main effort to defence against the Western Allies.
The other possibility is June 1941. A lot of Soviet aircraft were destroyed on the ground in the opening days of the war but there must also have been many thousands of sorties that resulted in somewhat one-sided aerial combat.
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Re:Biggest Air battle of the war5 Months ago
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I think Barbarrossa was the largest scale ANYTHING but the lack of details and the nature of the surprise attack change the dynamic of it all. You could say that Pearl Harbor was the Japanese Navy's most lopsided victory of the war and you'd be right, but in pitched battle you'd have to pick Savo Island. I'd use the same logic for comparing the 6/22 attack to any subsequent operations.
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Re:Biggest Air battle of the war5 Months ago
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I don't think the analogy is all that close. Pearl Harbour was a genuine hit-n-run attack that was a complete surprise to those on the receiving end. The German attack was somewhat anticipated - in the Baltic Region Col-Gen F I Kuznetsov imposed a black-out weeks before Barborossa. Anyway I was thinking more about the days after 22 June when Red Army commanders committed aircraft to attacks all along the frontline.
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Re:Biggest Air battle of the war4 Months ago
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There are several to choose from.
The slaughter on and after June 21, 1941 is unmatched.
The slaughter of the Luftwaffe transport force at Stalingrad is unmatched.
As far as scale, the air armies assembled for the Bagration and Berlin offensives are unmatched.
In terms of importance, the air war over Kuban in the spring of 1943, following on from Stalingrad, set the stage for the air battle at Kursk three months later. Between March and May, the VVS siezed and maintained air superiority, albeit locally, and in the course of that battle inflicted very substantial losses on the Luftwaffe that they were not able to make good by Kursk. From those battles emerged viable tactics for fighters and Sturmoviks, advanced by Pokryshkin among others, that did for VVS pilots what the "Thatch Weave" did for US Wildcat pilots. It was the turning point for the VVS. From there they took the offensive to the Luftwaffe.
Regards
Scott Fraser
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Re:Biggest Air battle of the war4 Months ago
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Surely there's more to it than simply improved tactics. Improvements in Soviet aircraft design meant that by 43/44 the Soviets were able to achieve a degree of parity in fighter aircraft performance that they had not previously enjoyed. More important was the sheer number of Soviet aircraft produced in those years (plus the lend-lease aircraft equivalent to more than six months of Soviet domestic production). This at a time, post-Kursk, when most of the Luftwaffe's strength and the vast majority of its losses were in Western Europe. Even then, despite its numerical superiority, the Red Air Force suffered disproportionate losses - 2.5 aircraft lost for every German aircraft lost on the eastern front.
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