It's more complicated, this is the primary case that good pilot in average machine is better then poor pilot in good machine. Finnish pilots were in most cases better trained and very motivated, brave and aggressive. They fight in home defense, that is also important factor. Soviet pilots, they were almost their opposite. Poorly trained, unmotivated, lack of sometimes even the basic combat skills, command was literally butchered by earlier purge. They had good planes, more then adequate to the task even if the quality and maintenance of them were often terrible. This is the secret of why, plane that had rather poor reputation in US has almost a legendary status in Finland.
Kind of ironical, considering the little tubby airplane has a really bad reputation, compared to other contemporary fighters. That the Finns did well with them, can to some extent be attributed to the quality of Soviet aircrew and tactics. The German East Front aces also managed to score very high numbers of kills, several of them into the hundreds. But of course also among the Finns there were excellent pilots who'd do well no matter what they were flying.
It's more complicated, this is the primary case that good pilot in average machine is better then poor pilot in good machine. Finnish pilots were in most cases better trained and very motivated, brave and aggressive. They fight in home defense, that is also important factor. Soviet pilots, they were almost their opposite. Poorly trained, unmotivated, lack of sometimes even the basic combat skills, command was literally butchered by earlier purge. They had good planes, more then adequate to the task even if the quality and maintenance of them were often terrible. This is the secret of why, plane that had rather poor reputation in US has almost a legendary status in Finland.
ReplyDeleteKind of ironical, considering the little tubby airplane has a really bad reputation, compared to other contemporary fighters. That the Finns did well with them, can to some extent be attributed to the quality of Soviet aircrew and tactics. The German East Front aces also managed to score very high numbers of kills, several of them into the hundreds. But of course also among the Finns there were excellent pilots who'd do well no matter what they were flying.
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