Customer Reviews

Attack of the Airacobras: Soviet Aces, American P-39s, and the Air War Against Germany (Modern War Studies)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As an enthusiastic sim pilot, I found this book absolutely facinating! American pilots were destroyed in the P-39, while the Soviet pilots defeated German 109's and 190's in the Cobra. This book explains how it was done.

Alexandr Pokryskin was the Soviet hero that developed new tactics that use the Cobra's awsome firepower to rule the Eastern Front. This writing dispells the myth that the Cobra was used as an air-to-ground attack aircraft. In fact, it was an air superiority fighter on the Eastern Front.

I was able to employ tactics explained in this fabulous book in the flight sims IL2 & IL2FB to great effect. Also, a hither to unknown (to me at least) part of WWII came alive for the first time. I knew very little about the Eastern Front. I highly recommend this book to any aviation enthusiast.

This book gets into the day-to-day operational life of a Russian
P-39 squadron. It's an excellent reference of life outside of the cockpit, and yet still let's you know that the P-39 was more than competitive against Me-109's & FW-190's. The point isn't stated exactly, but the reason they WERE competitive is that combat on the Russian Front was generally below 15,000 ft, and never above 20,000 ft. Remember, neither side was using high-altitude, long-range stategic bombers, it was all low-level tactical aviation.

Still, the book doesn't get into the airplane specifics I would like, i.e. . . how specifically it was better than the 109/190, or even how it compared to their own MiG's, Yak's, LaGG's.

The point is, it's a great book on the operational use of the P-39, and is worth reading.

This book is a must read for WWII aerial warfare enthusiastics. The author clears up a lot of confusion about a plane that is erroneously classed as second rate. Here is the Bell Airacobra from the point of view of pilots who used it to defeat the Luftwaffe over Russia.

A difficult read due to turgid, repetitive Soviet-style prose. I would reccomend this book only to a historian or a very serious aviation buff. I count myself as one of the latter, and I'm having trouble working up the interest to get more than halfway through this one.

The P-39 was a dog. The British, even as desperate as they were in the beginning of WW2, refused it. US pilots hated it. Over 9,000 P-39 and P-63 were built, almost all going to the Soviet Union under Lend Lease. This book explores the Soviet experiences with this mid-engined plane with a 37mm cannon firing through the propeller. Like the A-10 Warthog that followed 30 years later, this plane was built around the cannon.

For the Soviets, the planes deficiencies were not as critical. They had a dire need for anything, they did not have as much high level combat as in the Pacific and European Theaters of War. There were a few Russian Aces in the P-39 which is as much a tribute to the skills of those pilots as the plane.

One thing I did not like about this book. For many years, no Soviet ever dared say anything bad about The Great Patriotic War - so you should read these memoirs with a bit of caution.

This is not a technical, nuts and bolts book, nor would it be good for modelers. This is for die-hard P-39 fans or someone who wants to know more about how and with what the Soviets defeated the Germans. For the die hard fans only, the rest buy used or simply move on.