Page 94 - The Chief Culprit

About “Obsolete” Airplanes y 71

leaked out and the motor overheated and stopped working. On the other hand, the I-16 had
a coolant system that was not vulnerable to such direct hits, because it was air-cooled. at
engine was based on the American Wright Cyclone design.
e I-16 was inferior to the German fighter in speed. e I-16 type 28 had a speed near
ground of 427 km/h, while the Bf-109 E-1 flew at 464 km/h, and the Bf-109 E-3 flew at 540
17
km/h. At an altitude of 5 kilometers, the I-16 type 29 flew at 470 km/h, while the Bf-109
E-1 and E-3 flew at 532 and 555 km/h, respectively. But the I-16 surpassed the Bf-109 in
18
vertical maneuvers and greatly surpassed it in horizontal maneuvers. e I-16 could do a
turn in 17 seconds, while the Bf-109 took 25 seconds. If the German fighter did not wish to
engage the I-16 in battle, it could always evade it. e Bf-109 evaded battle using its speed,
while the I-16 used its maneuverability.
It’s interesting to point out what Germany’s own fighter pilots thought of the I-16’s ca-
pabilities: “ e I-16, with an able pilot inside, was a dangerous enemy. German pilots did not
at all consider the I-16 an easy target. Even though they could almost always win the initiative
in air combat against the Ishachok (“little donkey”—a Russian nickname for the I-16), the
pilots tried to avoid maneuver-based combats against Russian veterans. Among themselves,
the Germans used to say that one should not corner a rat, referring, of course, to the plane’s
nickname, Rata, earned on the Spanish front. If the Messerschmitt pilots did not follow this
principle, the fight could turn out very badly for them indeed.” From 1934 to 1942, 10,292
19
I-16 units were produced. is number includes 3,189 I-16 type 15s (UTI-4), the training
versions of the aircraft. So the total of combat ready I-16 units produced was 7,103. 20
Aside from this plane, Stalin also had the I-153. ere were 3,437 of them produced.
is plane had lower speed than the I-16, but it had phenomenal maneuverability. It climbed
to a height of 5 kilometers in exactly a minute less than the Bf-109. e I-153 did a turn in
12 seconds. It had time to make two full turns faster than the Me-109 did one.
Why then in the first stage of the war did the Soviet air force lose air superiority from
day one? Why did the Germans have the advantage in the air, given that their air force lost
out to the Soviet air force both in plane quantity and plane quality? e answer is simple:
the majority of Soviet pilots, including fighter pilots, were not taught the dogfights. Soviet
aviation was oriented to conduct one grandiose, sudden, aggressive operation, in which the
Soviet air force in one raid would crush the enemy’s air force on the ground and claim air
superiority. Already in 1929 in the Soviet journal Voyna I Revolutsia (War and Revolution),
the fundamental article “ e Early Period of the War” made the conclusion that was later
repeated by Soviet air force directives, including ones from 1940 and 1941: “It seems to
be extremely advantageous to show initiative and be the first to attack the enemy. He who
exhibits initiative by attacking his enemy’s air bases with his air force can later count on air
superiority.” 21
Precisely for this reason Soviet aviation in 1941 was concentrated along the borders.
e field air base of the 123rd fighter air force regiment, for example, was located only two
kilometers away from the German border. In a war situation, this saves fuel during takeoff
in the direction of the enemy. In the 123rd regiment, just like in many others, the majority
of altitude gain after takeoff was to be acquired over German territory. Ten years after these
events, Major V. Khmelev, then an eyewitness, described them: “ e bomber aviation air
bases [were] located no further than 80 km from the new German-Soviet border. It was at
that time clear to every Soviet soldier and officer that the entire Red Army was feverishly