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

by Dmitriy Loza

Book Overview

During its titanic military struggle with Germany, the Soviet Union received a major boost with the arrival and deployment of nearly 5,000 Bell P-39 Airacobra fighter planes-courtesy of America's Lend-Lease program. The impact was dramatic, as the Soviets quickly adapted the planes into a devastatingly lethal force. Dmitriy Loza's account, admirably translated and edited by James Gebhardt, vividly re-creates the battle campaigns of this odd coupling...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0700616543
• ISBN13: 9780700616541
• Release Date: January 2002
• Publisher: University Press of Kansas
• Length: 386 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Great read for an IL2FB Sim Pilot - Revolutionary Tactics

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.

As good as it gets, so far

This book gets into the day-to-day operational life of a RussianP-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.