No panic: lend-lease is not a recipe for victory. Aircraft
Recently, the media and the blogosphere have been discussing the issue of adopting a lend-lease law in the United States regarding the supply of military equipment to Ukraine. In Ukraine itself, there is a complete victory over this, they are celebrating this event and seriously believe that now, with the advent of new and modern technology, both Crimea and Donbass will be recaptured.
Well, until we begin to say nothing on this topic.
Another question is that on our side a huge number of writing people, many of whom call themselves military experts, began to discuss this topic. It is surprising how some of the “colonels” of the Internet gave out very strange analytical calculations, in which there was a fear that the Abrams and the Falcons could have a significant impact on the situation in Ukraine.
I don’t consider myself a great specialist in lend-lease issues, but in the works on the series “Among Strangers” and “Another Lend-Lease” (together with A. Staver), I had to study mountains of related documents. And on the basis of this information, as well as with the help of real experts, I will venture to present a third point of view on Lend-Lease.
Three highly respected specialists will help me in this:
- on behalf of aviation great master of the use of imported equipment, air marshal, thrice Hero of the Soviet Union, Alexander Pokryshkin.
Or rather, his book. To the surprise of many, this will not be the "Sky of War" that is on the shelf of every interested person. history that war of a man, and its reissue, “Know Thyself in Battle”, which came out after the death of the famous pilot. This book was published by a group of editors as closely as possible to the author's text and without gaps. By the way, for the first time there, Pokryshkin’s opponent and his regimental commander are called not Kraev or Zaev, but the real name Isaev.
- on behalf of fleet admiral of the Soviet fleet Gordey Levchenko and his book “Together with the fleet. Unknown memoirs of the admiral.
There is only one episode, but what, after all, it was Levchenko who was the commander of the detachment of ships received under Lend-Lease from the British in 1944.
- our tank expert, Lieutenant Colonel Alexei Kuznetsov (Alex TV), who very well put on the tracks my knowledge in some aspects of the use of armored vehicles in general and in particular.
Considering that there will be many details, we will start with questions that we ourselves will answer.
It is worth starting from the most crazy point, replicated by the Ukrainian press and repeated by Russian unfortunate experts. From F-16C / D aircraft, which, allegedly, are already standing in even rows somewhere on the border with Ukraine and are waiting for their pilots.
And in all seriousness, these experts are discussing the damage that Ukrainian pilots can cause by sitting in the cockpits of these aircraft.
As already established, we are going into history, that is, in those days when Lend-Lease was a very significant matter. The Great Patriotic War for us and World War II for the rest of the world. Then lend-lease was a very significant help for both the UK and the USSR.
So, American and British military equipment went to the USSR. It was. And this technique was a very useful help, no matter what the especially rabid ones said. Tanks, planes, trucks, jeeps, locomotives - it was all there.
But we have planes. And here the memoirs of Alexander Ivanovich Pokryshkin, who shot down the lion's share of the planes precisely on the American fighter Airacobra, are very appropriate. Together with Twice Heroes of the Soviet Union A. F. Klubov and G. A. Rechkalov, as well as Heroes of the Soviet Union I. I. Babak, V. E. Bondarenko, G. G. Golubev, N. M. Iskrin, V. P. Karpovich, K. V. Sukhov, A. I. Trud, V. I. Fadeevvm, V. A. Figichev, the Glinka brothers and many others.
Here it is worth referring to Pokryshkin's memoirs, from which it follows that in 1942, from August to December, the regiment in which Pokryshkin served did not participate in the battles. And in 1943, the regiment in full strength had a foreign business trip to Iran, which lasted until April 1943.
What did the regiment do? Studied and distilled new materiel. It took almost eight months!!! Moreover, the stage, you know, is a trifle in terms of time. They flew in, got planes, got a leader-guide and flew back. The maximum is a week.
Three walks, good. Spare aircraft, for those who have to retrain - everything is clear. But this is a maximum of a month, although during the war time was not wasted like that. Alexander Ivanovich himself wrote that the delay for a day with the receipt of the leading crew caused displeasure.
But did it take time only to train pilots? Of course not!
Yes, an ace pilot of the Pokryshkin level could sit in the cockpit of an aircraft of an unfamiliar design, having at his disposal a competent, knowledgeable machine, technician, and successfully fly in two or three hours. These facts took place and are mentioned by many pilots.
But it seems that in order for Pokryshkin to fly and shoot down German planes, his Chuvashkin technique was enough. Well, as in the film “Only Old Men Go to Battle”, the role of the technical staff is also shown there ... episodically.
In fact, in order for one pilot to carry out combat missions, the work of more than a dozen people was needed. Engineers, electricians, hydraulics, gunsmiths - this is only half, the second is airfield services. But we are interested in the first part.
So, the lion's share of the time was spent not on the training of pilots, but on the training of technical staff. Engineers who had previously worked with Klimov or Mikulin engines should have clearly understood what Allison is, what are the features of its operation, how to properly maintain this engine.
In general, the task of instrumentation was simply cool: to ensure the translation and correct calibration of instruments that worked in the inch metric system.
As they say, feel the difference. Of course, you can study everything. The question is how quickly and efficiently.
The new range of weapons became a headache for gunsmiths. There was a whole lot to think about here. Not only that, 39 types of guns came with the R-2 (37-mm Browning M4 gun, which is mistakenly called Oldsmobile, according to the brand of the manufacturer and 20-mm Hispano-Suiza HS-404), large-caliber 2 mm Browning M12,7 machine gun, 7,62 mm M2 machine gun again from Browning, it was necessary to know the work patterns, the causes of failures and delays, maintenance and repair.
And so in everything.
Moreover, regular maintenance meant even more than repairs. For it, maintenance, maximally postponed the repair and everything connected with it. And all this had to be taught to technicians.
Of course, analogies, experience and everything else helped to reduce the time, however, much more time was spent on studying the material part than on the aircraft's behavior in the air and piloting capabilities.
That is why the REGIMENT was retrained, and not the pilots of the regiment. Everyone studied, both flight and technical staff. That is why there is such a “hole” in the fighting of the Pokryshkin regiment, from August to April. But, having retrained, they showed that the time was not wasted.
Six months. This is the period for which everything happened in not the worst regiment of the Red Army Air Force. I would say outstanding.
And yes, this despite the fact that there was a war going on, and while the regiment in which Pokryshkin served was being retrained, other pilots were fighting at the front.
Can the Ukrainian Air Force arrange something similar? Definitely not. The state of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine does not differ for the better both in the number of personnel and in quality. This is justified by the unstable financing of the Air Force, which undoubtedly affected the quality of training. Hence the losses, because in modern war it is difficult to compensate for the lack of training with patriotic zeal. Modern air defense systems do not take into account patriotism.
And the technology has become more complex. Switching from a MiG-29 to a seemingly classmate F-16C / D is much more difficult than from a MiG-3 to a R-39. Yes, humans have evolved a bit too, but…
There is a difference, right?
It is not easy to take and sit in the cockpit of the F-16 after the MiG-29. You need to know the technique, know the language. Yes, it is probably possible to translate all electronics into Ukrainian, but who will bother with this business in the USA? And will it be at all.
How difficult it is to retrain from the MiG-29 to the F-16, I can’t judge, but there is information about how much time was spent on retraining the pilots of the 2nd SAP and 47th BAP from Su-24 aircraft to Su-34. Retraining took place on the basis of the 4th State Center for the Training of Aviation Personnel of the Ministry of Defense of Russia named after V.P. Chkalov in Lipetsk.
Considering that the personnel were “driven” on four aircraft, and from 70 to 80 flight hours were spent for each pilot with piloting, shooting, bombing, plus the technical staff was also retrained, since the Su-24 and Su-34 are generally aircraft of different eras, it is not surprising that retraining took ... more than half a year!
Here, however, there are some nuances. Russia did not conduct military operations at that time (the 47th bap was retrained in 2012, the 2nd bap was retrained in 2016), no one was in a hurry, training on flight simulators was actively used and, in general, training in peaceful conditions is different from wartime .
By the way, the 47th bap showed its capabilities in Syria perfectly, which indicates that the retraining was carried out with high quality.
It is difficult to say how much time Ukrainian pilots and technicians have. But the task they will be given is more than difficult: in the shortest possible time to master not just equipment, but imported, which, to put it mildly, is completely different from the one that the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine uses today.
That is, the activated lend-lease program offers Ukrainian pilots what Pokryshkin and company did in 1942: to transfer from the MiG-3 to the Airacobra as quickly as possible. It will be no less difficult for technicians and engineers, and most likely more. So - it is very doubtful that everything will go smoothly and smoothly.
In addition, it is clearly impossible to train on the territory of Ukraine. As soon as it becomes known that pilots on American planes are being trained somewhere, cruise missiles or something no less harmful will immediately arrive there.
There remains the neutral territory of the same Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. Yes, you can safely train pilots and technicians there, you can make sorties from there without fear of Russian army attacks on airfields.
But whether Ukrainians will have that much time at their disposal is a more important question than many others. And the effectiveness of the use of aircraft due to the now safe border is also in doubt, because it is necessary, for example, to fly from the airfield in Iasi to the places of hostilities, and this is already about 700 km. Considering that the combat radius of the F-16 with external tanks is about 1500 km (and an incomplete combat load), it turns out that half of the distance that the Sokol can fly has already been spent just flying to the scene.
It turns out not a very good alignment: foreign equipment, for which pilots and technicians will be trained in a big hurry (more on the timing below), will be forced to fly half the combat radius under the guns of long-range Russian air defense systems and Russian fighters ...
I doubt that the Ukrainians will be able to repeat the success of the 16th GIAP, in which Pokryshkin served.
In addition, it is worth considering not only the training school for flight personnel. It must be taken into account that the design schools of the USSR and the USA were completely different. This will also add difficulty in mastering the “new” technology, since it is completely clear that the planes are different and you won’t be able to take it off the hook and fly.
And most importantly: unlike the times of the Great Patriotic War, today the Americans are NOT GOING TO supply new equipment.
Yes, being our allies, unlike the British, who shoved us everything that was not good for themselves, the Americans behaved more than nobly. The aircraft were delivered new, provided with spare engines, gearboxes, cannons, machine guns.
Is this possible today? Definitely not.
Seeing the F-16C/D, which have been flying since 1984, on the lists, I realized that this is nothing more than a replacement of an old and almost outdated fleet with a newer one.
In the end, the F-16C / D Block 25 did not fly far from the F-16A / B. This is a very light (12 tons of normal takeoff weight versus 15 for the MiG-29) aircraft capable of maneuverable air combat. It is armed with air-to-air and air-to-surface missiles, you can even use the aircraft as an attack aircraft, equipping it with a 30-mm cannon with a laser rangefinder in the ventral container and bombs, both free-falling and laser-guided. It turned out such a modest front-line support aircraft. Modest - because the armor "was not delivered."
And there is another problem: a unified engine compartment, which allows aircraft to be equipped with both General Electric and Pratt & Whitney engines, which are installed on the F-16 at the choice of the customer. But in practice, the motors are NOT interchangeable in the field, which creates additional problems for the technical staff.
The picture is somewhat different, say, from 1942. At that time, Soviet pilots and technicians were trained in the use of new technology. Tomorrow, Ukrainian pilots and technicians will receive lessons in flying and operating American equipment, which is not even new in principle.
If we draw analogues, we were supplied with such "Hurricanes" by the gentlemen of the British allies. From Africa, who won back their own, even in sandy camouflage. And, as everyone remembers, there was very little sense from these aircraft. And even the heroic efforts of Soviet technicians and engineers could not make normal combat vehicles out of these veterans.
Approximately the same will happen with the “Fighting Falcons”, which the United States will gladly sell to Ukraine.
Questions arise as to who, how and where will teach pilots to fly, and engineers and technicians to maintain and repair these F-16C / D. But the main question is: how long will it take? Moreover, not only in terms of how well or badly certain specialists in American aircraft will prepare Ukrainians, but will Ukrainian specialists have so much time at their disposal?
The answer to this question is more important than the hypothetical ability of the F-16C / D to inflict damage on the Russian army. No, of course, the Falcons are able to inflict damage if competent pilots sit at their controls. If not, everything will be very sad, and in fact, the planes are doomed to one-time actions.
But in the United States, having got rid of old aircraft, they will still receive a profit, since it will be necessary to build new ones in place of the F-16C / D friendly given to Ukraine. Loading their assembly lines is not bad for the military-industrial complex. And, as you know, money for this business will be printed easily and naturally.
So Lend-Lease 2022 is very different from Lend-Lease 1942. Alas, other times and customs. Business, nothing personal.
In Ukraine, it would not be worth hoping so much that with the help of forty-year-old fighters and pilots with express training, they will be able to turn the tide of the war in the air in their favor. It's… somewhat presumptuous.
Unfortunately, the volume has already approached the maximum, so it was decided to transfer the disassembly of armored vehicles with Alexei Kuznetsov to the next article.
Information