Red Phoenix Rising

Red Phoenix Rising
Author: Von Hardesty
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2012
Genre: World War, 1939-1945
ISBN: 9780700618286

The definitive account of the Soviet Air Force in World War II. Provides a fast-paced, riveting look at the air war on the Eastern Front as it has never been seen before.

The Air Force Way of War

The Air Force Way of War
Author: Brian D. Laslie
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2015-06-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 0813160855

“Laslie chronicles how the Air Force worked its way from the catastrophe of Vietnam through the triumph of the Gulf War, and beyond.” —Robert M. Farley, author of Grounded The U.S. Air Force’s poor performance in Operation Linebacker II and other missions during Vietnam was partly due to the fact that they had trained their pilots according to methods devised during World War II and the Korean War, when strategic bombers attacking targets were expected to take heavy losses. Warfare had changed by the 1960s, but the USAF had not adapted. Between 1972 and 1991, however, the Air Force dramatically changed its doctrines and began to overhaul the way it trained pilots through the introduction of a groundbreaking new training program called “Red Flag.” In The Air Force Way of War, Brian D. Laslie examines the revolution in pilot instruction that Red Flag brought about after Vietnam. The program’s new instruction methods were dubbed “realistic” because they prepared pilots for real-life situations better than the simple cockpit simulations of the past, and students gained proficiency on primary and secondary missions instead of superficially training for numerous possible scenarios. In addition to discussing the program’s methods, Laslie analyzes the way its graduates actually functioned in combat during the 1980s and ’90s in places such as Grenada, Panama, Libya, and Iraq. Military historians have traditionally emphasized the primacy of technological developments during this period and have overlooked the vital importance of advances in training, but Laslie’s unprecedented study of Red Flag addresses this oversight through its examination of the seminal program. “A refreshing look at the people and operational practices whose import far exceeds technological advances.” —The Strategy Bridgei

Red Air Force at War

Red Air Force at War
Author: Sergei Kramarenko
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2008-10-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781844157358

Sergei Kramarenko was a lucky man. As a Soviet fighter pilot, an ace, he fought in two wars - first against the Luftwaffe, then the US Air Force - and survived. This is his story. On the Eastern Front in the bitter conflict with the Germans, he dueled with Messerschmitt 109s and Focke-Wulf 190s. Then, in Korea, flying a MiG-15, he came up against the Americans, the British and the Australians, in the first fighter-against-fighter clashes of the jet age. His accounts of combat against the F-86 Sabres, F-84 Thunderjets and Gloster Meteors are among the most vivid and remarkable of his long career.

The Petlyakov Pe-2

The Petlyakov Pe-2
Author: Peter C Smith
Publisher: Air World
Total Pages: 458
Release: 2020-03-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 1526759330

During the Second World War, the Soviet Union’s Petlyakov Pe-2 _Peshka_ dive-bomber was unique in that it was as fast as most fighter aircraft. This was in a period when it was considered by the RAF that it was impossible for monoplane aircraft to conduct vertical bombing with any degree of success. During the war the Pe-2 was the principal dive- and light-bomber of Russia’s air power across the vast Eastern Front and it continued in service until the early 1950s with the air forces of the Warsaw Pact countries and Yugoslavia. Conceived by a team of top aircraft designers whom Stalin had incarcerated in a prison camp on trumped-up political charges, the Pe-2 had originally been designed as a high-altitude twin-engine fighter plane, but, due to the outstanding success of the German Stukas in the Blitzkrieg, its role was quickly changed to that of a fast dive-bomber. The Pe-2 arrived in service around the time of the German attack on its hitherto ally. Although only a handful had reached front line units by the start of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, the Pe-2 soon became the main dive-bomber in both the Soviet VVS and Naval service. Mass production, by factories hastily moved back beyond the front, meant that numbers increased rapidly, and more than 11,000 of the type, including many variants, were built up to 1945. The Peshka became the mainstay of the Soviet counteroffensive that ultimately resulted in the fall of Berlin. Pe-2s also led the way in the brief but annihilating Manchurian campaign against Japan in the closing days of the war in 1945. Using official sources, including the official Pe-2 handbook, and numerous color and black-and-white photographs made available to the author from both official and private sources and collections, this book is the definitive record of the Pe-2 - the dive-bomber supreme!

Wings, Women, and War

Wings, Women, and War
Author: Reina Pennington
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2002-01-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 0700615547

The Soviet Union was the first nation to allow women pilots to fly combat missions. During World War II the Red Air Force formed three all-female units-grouped into separate fighter, dive bomber, and night bomber regiments-while also recruiting other women to fly with mostly male units. Their amazing story, fully recounted for the first time by Reina Pennington, honors a group of fearless and determined women whose exploits have not yet received the recognition they deserve. Pennington chronicles the creation, organization, and leadership of these regiments, as well as the experiences of the pilots, navigators, bomb loaders, mechanics, and others who made up their ranks, all within the context of the Soviet air war on the Eastern Front. These regiments flew a combined total of more than 30,000 combat sorties, produced at least thirty Heroes of the Soviet Union, and included at least two fighter aces. Among their ranks were women like Marina Raskova ("the Soviet Amelia Earhart"), a renowned aviator who persuaded Stalin in 1941 to establish the all-women regiments; the daredevil "night witches" who flew ramshackle biplanes on nocturnal bombing missions over German frontlines; and fighter aces like Liliia Litviak, whose twelve "kills" are largely unknown in the West. She also tells the story of Alexander Gridnev, a fighter pilot twice arrested by the Soviet secret police before he was chosen to command the women's fighter regiment. Pennington draws upon personal interviews and the Soviet archives to detail the recruitment, training, and combat lives of these women. Deftly mixing anecdote with analysis, her work should find a wide readership among scholars and buffs interested in the history of aviation, World War II, or the Russian military, as well as anyone concerned with the contentious debates surrounding military and combat service for women.

Bomber Pilot on the Eastern Front

Bomber Pilot on the Eastern Front
Author: Vasily Reshetnikov
Publisher: Pen and Sword Aviation
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2008
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

Soviet bombers played a vital role in defeating the Germans on the Eastern Front, yet their contribution is often forgotten. This graphic memoir should help to set the record straight. The author, a leading Soviet bomber pilot who flew throughout the conflict, tells his story from the desperate days of the German assault in 1941 to the point where Germany was invaded and the Nazis were destroyed. He gives a vivid account of his experiences during over 300 bombing missions in the dangerous skies over Russia, the Ukraine, Poland and Germany. His story is compelling reading.

Red Flag

Red Flag
Author: Tyson V. Rininger
Publisher: Zenith Press
Total Pages: 128
Release: 2006
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780760325308

Red Flag takes the reader behind the scenes of the biggest, most complex, high-tech military exercise conducted anywhere in the world. The Red Flag exercises, which take place at Nellis Air Force Base just outside of Las Vegas, brings together the U.S. Air Force and aircraft and crews from its allies around the world for two weeks of training that is as intense and demanding as actual combat. Red Flag: Air Combat for the 21st Century offers a complete history and an unprecedented insider’s view of the fully integrated, war-conditions exercise that uses the largest combat range on the planet—the size of Connecticut—and involves every kind of military aircraft and asset, from fighters, tankers, and bombers to helicopters, satellites, and unmanned aircraft. With dynamic photos and firsthand description, the book also gives readers a close-up look at the modern and upgraded version of Red Flag—Joint Red Flag, an all-new exercise integrating live and virtual elements in a seamless campaign that challenges warfighters and tests command and control procedures, processes, and architecture.

Red Devils over the Yalu

Red Devils over the Yalu
Author: Stuart Britton
Publisher: Helion and Company
Total Pages: 601
Release: 2014-03-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 1910294314

The Korean War (1950-1953) was the first - and only - full-scale air war in the jet age. It was in the skies of North Korea where Soviet and American pilots came together in fierce aerial clashes. The best pilots of the opposing systems, the most powerful air forces, and the most up-to-date aircraft in the world in this period of history came together in pitched air battles. The analysis of the air war showed that the powerful United States Air Force and its allies were unable to achieve complete superiority in the air and were unable to fulfill all the tasks they'd been given. Soviet pilots and Soviet jet fighters, which were in no way inferior to their opponents and in certain respects were even superior to them, was the reason for this. The combat experience and new tactical aerial combat tactics, which were tested for the first time in the skies of Korea, have been eagerly studied and applied by modern air forces around the world today. This book fully discusses the Soviet participation in the Korean War and presents a view of this war from the opposite side, which is still not well known in the West from the multitude of publications by Western historians. The reason for this, of course, is the fact that Soviet records pertaining to the Korean War were for a long time highly classified, since Soviet air units were fighting in the skies of North Korea "incognito", so to speak or even more so to write about this was strictly forbidden in the Soviet Union right up to its ultimate collapse. The given work is in essence the first major work in the post-Soviet era. First published in a small edition in Russian in 1998, it was republished in Russia in 2007. For the first time, the Western reader can become acquainted with the most detailed and informative work existing on the course of the air war from the Soviet side, now in English language. The work rests primarily on the recollections of veterans of this war on the so-called 'Red' side - Soviet fighter pilots, who took direct part in this war on the side of North Korea. Their stories have been supplemented with an enormous amount of archival documents, as well as the work of Western historians. The author presents a literal day-by-day chronicle of the aerial combats and combat work of Soviet fighter regiments in the period between 1950 and 1953, and dedicates this work to all the men on both sides who fought and died in the Korean air war.

Red Wings Over the Yalu

Red Wings Over the Yalu
Author: Xiaoming Zhang
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2002
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781585443406

The Korean conflict was a pivotal event in China's modern military history. The fighting in Korea constituted an important experience for the newly formed People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF), not only as a test case for this fledgling service but also in the later development of Chinese air power. Xiaoming Zhang fills the gaps in the history of this conflict by basing his research in recently declassified Chinese and Russian archival materials. He also relies on interviews with Chinese participants in the air war over Korea. Zhang's findings challenge conventional wisdom as he compares kill ratios and performance by all sides involved in the war. Zhang also addresses the broader issues of the Korean War, such as how air power affected Beijing's decision to intervene. He touches on ground operations and truce negotiations during the conflict. Chinese leaders placed great emphasis on the supremacy of human will over modern weaponry, but they were far from oblivious to the advantages of the latter and to China's technological limitations. Developments in China's own air power were critical during this era. Zhang offers considerable materials on the training of Chinese aviators and the Soviet role in that training, on Soviet and Chinese air operations in Korea, and on diplomatic exchanges over Soviet military assistance to China. He probes the impact of the war on China's conception of the role of air power, arguing that it was not until the Gulf War of the early 1990s that Chinese leaders engaged in a broad reassessment of the strategy they adopted during the Korean War. Military historians and scholars interested in aviation and foreign affairs will find this volume of special interest. As a unique work that presents the Chinese point of view, it stands as both a complement and a corrective to previous accounts of the conflict. Xiaoming Zhang earned his Ph.D. in history at the University of Iowa in 1994. He has had works published in various journals, including the Journal of Military History, which has twice selected him to receive the Moncado Prize for excellence in the writing of military history. Zhang currently resides in Montgomery, Alabama, where he teaches at the Air War College. Zhang's study is masterful in placing the Chinese air war in Korea in the context of China's development in the twentieth century. In addition to providing important new evidence on China's role in the Korean War, Zhang offers a particularly noteworthy analysis of Sino-Soviet relations during the early 1950s. William Stueck, Distinguished Research Professor of History, University of Georgia; author of The Korean War: An International History (1995) and Rethinking the Korean War: A New Diplomatic and Strategic History (2002)