Radio Communications Equipment in the Soviet Air Force to 1945
From OnAirpower.org
Radio Communications Equipment in the Soviet Air Force to 1945
The Soviet Air Force was plagued by unavailability (and unreliability?) of radio communications equipment well into World War II.
Some quotations:
- "The majority of airplanes [in the Kiev Special Military District], especially fighters, did not have radios."[1]
- "Actually, we didn't start to have good radio communications until towards the end of 1943. Prior to that it wasn't really possible to tune-in the radio decently--there was so much noise that you had to turn off the radio. By the Battle of Kursk we began to have good communications both with the ground and between aircraft. We started to have female ground controllers who did a good job of assisting us, giving us information about enemy aircraft, and helping us get our bearings. Sometimes after a fight we would have to apologize because we used such terribly foul language, but they would usually reply, 'No, it's okay'."[2]
Contents |
[edit] Radio Equipment by Fighter Type
[edit] I-16
The I-16 was first equipped with radios beginning with the I-16 Type-17 variant, but according to at least one Soviet veteran,"They were poor excuses for radios. Garbage! The circuitry was wound on some type of cardboard material. As soon as this 'cardboard' got the slightest bit damp, the tuning of the circuit changed and the whole apparatus quit working. All we heard was crackling[3]"The lack of effective radios led to the use of visual signals for communication within a formation:
"Command and control of a group in the air was accomplished by maneuvering one’s aircraft (for example, rocking the wings), by hand signals, fingers, pointing to one’s head, and so on. Let’s say I showed two fingers and then swept my arm to the right—this would mean “pair to the right”. Every facial expression and gesture carried some special meaning[3]"
[edit] Yak-1
The first 1000 Yak-1 fighters produced did not have radios[4].
