[OT] Russian things

Derk Groeneveld schrieb:
> On Thu, 30 May 2002, Thomas Barclay wrote:
> 
> > 9) WW2:
> > the T-34s and the Russian Air Force (often
> > under-rated, but unjustly so) would have
> > savaged the US forces if it had ever come to it,
> 
> I'm not commenting on how they would have fared against 
> the US as I just have no clue about that. But one thing that
surprised me 
> reading 'In Deadly Combat' by G.H. Bidermann, a german NCO and later

> lieutenant on the east front, is just how much grief the russian
airforce 
> was giving them. I went 'the russians had an effective airforce? wow,
i had 
> no idea!' 

Right. The Russians didn't have much of a Strategic air force (though
they occasionally bombed Berlin), but their tactical air force was
quite up to the job. 

Overall, their aircraft designs were as good as those of the other
powers, and they kept up with developments. And they produced hordes of
them.

I have read an account that as early as late 1941, German pilots
reckoned the air defences of Moscow to be "Tougher than London". And
from that point on, the Russian air force was able to hold its own
against the Luftwaffe and eventually to gain air superiority.

> (Including the curious rumour going about amongst the 
> beleaguered landsers that the allied fleet was coming to rescue them
from the 
> pocket, to integrate the wehrmacht into the allied forces to push 
> the russians out of europe....)

Such rumours were rife among German forces late in WWII. So much so
that, when the Allies and Soviets exchanged notes and captured papers
after the war, the Allies censored any German texts alluding to such
rumours. (There is a paper by Glantz - American Eastern Front Expert -
on the subject ).

Greetings