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To: cunning_fish
"Modern" Soviet fighters saw too little WWII action—when it mattered.

On the Eastern Front, the Nazis used thousands of Russky biplanes for target practice.

The girls of the "Night Witches" applied Stalin's best use of the Russky biplane.

BTW: It was Alexandr Seversky whose design-skills were dearly missed by the Bolshevik Revolution in designing the Allies' P-47.

Lucky us! :)

9 posted on 06/14/2013 3:57:42 AM PDT by Does so (Progressives Don't Know the Meaning of INFRINGED...)
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To: Does so

You miss my point. Biplanes weren’t a backbone of Soviet air force during WWII for sure, thus they had a SMALL number of biplane fighters (i-153). These planes were a rollback from an i-16 known as a rata or mosca. An i-16 was a pretty revolutionary plane for earlier 1930s (a fast agile monoplane featuring retractable landing gear). An i-153 biplane came in 1934 as a less revolutionary alternative but the history proved that even an i-16 turned absolete by late 1930s with a Bf-109 in the skies.
The point is the Soviets has stuck with a technology from the early 1930s with Stalin’s purges.
U-2 biplane in Night Witches’ use weren’t even a combat planes.


10 posted on 06/14/2013 4:19:39 AM PDT by cunning_fish
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To: Does so

Obviously, you are not familiar with the Yak-3 and its successor, the Yak-9. The LaGG-5 was also a good fighter, though its predecessors, the LaGG-1 and LaGG-3 got creamed. The Soviets build some amazing planes. Their issues were with pilot training, not their aircraft.

BTW: Germans and Italians were also using biplanes. The Germans used the Henschel Hs 123 until 1944 as dive bomber, and the Italians used the Fiat CR-32 and CR-42 fighters. The Brits still operated the Gloster Gladiator biplane fighter at the beginning of the war and operated the Swordfish and Albacore biplane torpedo bombers for the entire war.


15 posted on 06/14/2013 5:15:02 AM PDT by Little Ray (How did I end up in this hand-basket, and why is it gettingthe so hot?)
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