At 0300, 22 June 1941, the Luftwaffe opened the campaign by the now-standard method of a surprise strike at the enemy's airfields. The weather that day was almost perfect-warm and sunny with a slight haze that cleared up later during the day. For reasons that remain inexplicable to this day, the Soviets had made no preparations to oppose the aggressors. The German pilots found Red aircraft by the hundreds lined up wingtip-to-wingtip on the aprons, and they reported very little opposition on the ground or in the air.  According to whether they consisted of bombers, fighters, or dive bombers, German units flew as many as four, five, six, or even eight missions per day-astonishing figures attributable to the simplicity of the machines, the often short distances that had to be covered, the excellence of the ground organization (including a specially developed apparatus that allowed nine aircraft to be refueled simultaneously), and the unparalleled determination of the crews. The first attack was carried out by 637 bombers (including dive bombers) and 231 fighters . Reportedly it hit 31 airfields, three suspected billets of high-level staffs, two barracks, two artillery positions, a bunker system, and an oil depot, all at the cost of two fighters missing. By the evening of the first day, some 1,800 Soviet aircraft were reported destroyed, the great majority on the ground but 322 of them shot down as they rose to meet the German machines. (This disproportion was to prove important later on because Soviet aircrews had not been affected and would survive to fight another day.)

Meanwhile, photoreconnaissance was being conducted on a grand scale. It disclosed the existence of numerous additional airfields, 130 of which were identified and attacked during the next few days. By the end of the first week, the Armed Forces High Command was able to report the destruction of 4,017 Soviet aircraft against a loss of only 150 German ones.  By 12 July Soviet losses had risen to about 6,850. This included entire bomber squadrons flying obsolescent machines without fighter cover that were shot down like turkeys as they hurled themselves at the invading German columns. After the first few days, Soviet air operations were reduced to scattered attacks by small numbers of aircraft that appeared out of nowhere, dropped or fired their ordnance, and made off as best they could. Having achieved air superiority to the point that they could command the sky whenever and wherever they wanted, the Germans on 25 June felt that the time had come to shift the center of gravity to support their own ground forces. In so doing, they soon discovered that the number of aircraft available was never really sufficient to cover the vast theater of operations; this in itself made a coordinated system of operativ warfare difficult since the constant demands for air support tended to disrupt planning, dissipate the available forces, and hinder the creation of Schwerpunkte. Russian roads, often consisting of mere tracks, were difficult to attack because they were usually easy to repair or bypass. Attacks on Russian villages, designed to reduce houses to rubble and thus block the communications passing between them, seldom led to lasting results owing to the wide distances separating the houses and to the wood used in their construction. In the north, as well as on the fringes of the Pripet Marshes, extensive forests enabled even large units, particularly those consisting of infantry or cavalry, to escape observation from the air.

Still, in other ways the Russian countryside offered advantages to the attacker from the air. The density of the railway network was relatively low, there being only 52,000 miles of track (many of them single) in the entire gigantic country. Hence, the task of disrupting the lines and bringing traffic to a standstill did not appear as insoluble as it would have been if the USSR had been a developed Western country with many intersecting, parallel, and redundant lines of communication and numerous technically advanced facilities for repair and maintenance. In the center and south, the open, flat, almost treeless terrain-much like the American Midwest-made it nearly impossible for ground units to find cover against air attack except by utilizing the occasional ravines. A well-planned campaign should have exploited these advantages and avoided the obstacles. However, this was something that the Germans, operating with only relatively small forces and trying to achieve too many things at once, were never really able to do.

The Luftwaffe's central archives were destroyed at the end of the war, and no good information is forthcoming from the Soviet side. Therefore, what little quantitative data can be found on the impact of the German air attacks on the Soviet ground forces, transportation system, and logistics have to be put together from the scattered surviving records of individual Luftwaffe units. These show that Ju-88 light bombers of a single Kampfgeschwader (bomber group) belonging to Fliegerkorps II claimed to have destroyed 356 trains and 14 bridges, interrupted railway traffic 322 times, and flown 200 sorties against troop concentrations, barracks, and supply depots in support of Army Group Center in "indirect" operations between 22 June and 9 September. During the same period, and acting in "direct" support of the army, the same unit claimed to have destroyed 30 tanks and 488 motor vehicles in addition to flying some 90 sorties against artillery positions. The Me-110s (twin-engined fighters) of another group claimed to have destroyed only 50 trains and 4 bridges between 22 June and 27 September but compensated by scoring 148 tanks, 166 guns, and 3,280 vehicles of all kinds.

As the records of many ground units show, Soviet opposition in the air during this period was so weak as to be almost negligible. This permitted even single-engined fighters to be diverted away from the escort role to attacking ground targets, and so one Jagdgeschwader (fighter group) flying in support of Army Group Center was able to report 142 tanks and armored cars, 16 guns, 34 locomotives, 432 trucks and one train destroyed. Certain entries in the diary of the chief of the German Army General Staff-who himself relied on information originating in the Luftwaffeshow that these attacks were not without effect on ground operations. On individual occasions, they deprived the Soviet armies of supplies, blocked reinforcements, and created congestion on the Ukrainian railroads in particular. However, the available evidence does not permit a detailed reconstruction of the impact of these operations on the campaign as a whole.

In the north, the German ground operations had three aims. They were to surround and cut off the Soviet forces in the Baltic countries (Eighteenth Army on the left), advance on the shortest line to Leningrad (4th Panzer Group in the center), and cover the right flank while keeping in touch with Army Group Center (Sixteenth Army on the right). These diverging objectives, imposed on Army Group North by Hitler himself, are open to criticism; however, because the terrain in this theater, as in Russia as a whole, became more open as the attacking army advanced further toward the east, gaps were bound to appear on the flanks of the advancing spearheads.

The German system of maneuver warfare was by now fully developed. Its consistent aim was to drive deep wedges into the enemy and to encircle his forces (consisting, as of 10 July, of 31 divisions and six independent mechanized brigades grouped together under Soviet Field Marshal Kliment Voroshilov's Northwestern Front). The speed of the advance was spectacular, reaching 40 miles per day during the first few days. Nevertheless, Army Group North never really succeeded in cutting off the main Soviet forces as it had planned to do. Nor did it have the infantry needed to seal what pockets that were formed; many Red Army units, though isolated from each other, remained intact or, at any rate, sufficiently cohesive to continue fighting, especially since the dense forests afforded plenty of room for them to hide. It fell to the Luftwaffe to leap into the breach and to identify and prevent counterattacks from developing into dangerous threats. This caused its independence to be gradually eroded until finally it was reduced to the role of a mobile fire brigade, just the kind of thing Luftwaffe leaders had always wanted to avoid.

For example, on 27 June units of Fliegerkorps I were instrumental in beating back a Soviet counteroffensive near Shaulyai (Schaulen), Latvia, where approximately 200 enemy tanks were destroyed. 24 On 2 and 3 July the same units first helped breach the fortifications along the old border and then, switching back to operativ warfare, attacked the bridges over the Dvina River in order to prevent the Soviets from making good their escape to the northeast. In this they were only partly successful. On 6 July it was the turn of the Red Air Force to try and wreck the bridges over the Dvina in order to slow down the German pursuit. This enabled General Keller's Luftflotte 1 fighters to shoot down 65 out of 73 attacking aircraft, thus putting an end to large-scale enemy attempts to interfere with ground operations in this sector. Units of Luftflotte 1 also assisted in supplying Sixteenth Army during its advance, given the single road (in reality, little better than a forest track) leading from Pskov toward Narva had not yet been cleared and was dominated by isolated Red Army units.  

Thus, during the first two weeks of the campaign, all the ways in which an air force might assist maneuver warfare were displayed to the fullest. As flying units were moved forward onto newly captured Soviet airfields, the distances between them and their targets diminished. Beginning in the second week of July, this permitted the Luftwaffe to mount repeated attacks on the Moscow-Leningrad railway with the aim of severing communications between Russia's two most important cities .28 Like others after them, however, the Germans were to learn that railways, while not difficult to disrupt, were not difficult to repair. Though traffic suffered, the line could not be completely cut until the ground forces had advanced sufficiently to throw a ring around the city.

Beginning in the last week of July, Luftflotte 1 was reinforced by Gen Wolfram von Richthofen's Fliegerkorps VIII, which was detached from its original assignment to Army Group Center and brought up to the newly occupied Baltic airfields. Acting in his favorite role as a close-support expert, Richthofen repeatedly massed his forces to deliver concentrated blows at key targets. On 15 August they assisted Sixteenth Army in the capture of Novgorod. On 24 August their intervention was decisive in beating back a Soviet counteroffensive against the left wing of Army Group North at Staraya Russa. On 28 August they helped bring the attack on Tallinn (Reval) to a successful conclusion. However, despite repeated attempts and many hits on both warships and freighters, Luftflotte 1 was unable to prevent the bulk of the Red Fleet from retreating to Kronstadt and Leningrad. In a sort of mini-Dunkirk, the Soviets succeeded in evacuating some of their troops in the Baltic, and these were later instrumental in the defense of Leningrad.

Fliegerkorps VIII was still available when the offensive against Leningrad got under way on 26 September. Against strong antiaircraft fire, it helped the units of Fliegerkorps I attack targets within the city as well as ships in the harbor; a Soviet counterattack in the direction of Lake Ladoga was beaten off, and the ring around "the capital of Bolshevism" closed. However, only a few days later, Richthofen's units were taken away and sent back to support the offensive of Army Group Center against Moscow. Army Group North itself had now been deprived of the bulk of Fourth Panzer Army, which was also sent to the Moscow area. Relying on a single motorized corps (XXXIX), it was still able to carry out a last offensive effort, crossing the Volkhov River in the direction of Tikhvin, where it hoped to link up with the Finns on the river Svir. Though its aircraft (Ju-88s) were not really suited to the task, especially in view of the densely wooded nature of the terrain, Fliegerkorps I flew missions directly supporting the operation as well as attacking railway lines leading into the area. After bitter fighting, Tikhvin fell on 9 November. However, the battle was by no means at an end, and the Germans, finding themselves counterattacked by three Soviet armies under Gen K. A. Meretskov, were forced to evacuate it a month later. By this time, bad weather, including persistent winter fog, affected the operations of Luftflotte 1 to the point where it was unable to reconnoiter effectively, let alone mount coordinated attacks on what targets could still be identified. The operations of Army Group North became essentially static and were destined to remain so until the siege of the city was lifted in January 1944.

In this siege, Luftflotte 1, its forces much reduced by losses and by the limited availability of aircraft, was assigned the task of attacking military targets within the city as well as the supply routes leading to it. In spite of the reported destruction (by 23 August) of 2,541 enemy aircraft plus 433 probable kills, Soviet opposition began reviving in the autumn, and by the end of the year the city was defended by several hundred fighters, 300 balloons, and 600 antiaircraft artillery barrels. Although the Germans never lost the ability to gain air superiority where and when they wanted, they were unable to make much headway in capturing Leningrad. From September through December 1941, the Luftwaffe dropped a total of 1,500 tons of bombs on targets in and around Leningrad; this was less than the amount dropped by Allied air forces on a single German city in a single night in 1944-45. As a result, the lifeline to Leningrad, which as of 18 November consisted of motor convoys (later a railway as well) crossing over frozen Lake Ladoga, could never be completely severed for any length of time.

As 1941 drew to an end, the troops of Luftlotte 1, living under impossible conditions and prevented by the weather from flying much of the time, were drowning their sorrows in alcohol.

As the German forces were being assembled in the east slowly at first and then more rapidly from February 1941, when the real buildup began-the Luftwaffe was still engaged in fighting England. Its first move consisted of an attempt to destroy the Royal Air Force's (RAF) Fighter Command and gain air superiority in order to pave the way for a seaborne invasion. The Luftwaffe was unsuccessful, however, both because the Germans appear to have failed to realize the importance of sustained attacks on the opposing radar system and because the RAF, favored by geography that allowed it to withdraw its aircraft beyond the range of the German fighters, was able to dictate the pace of the battle as it saw fit.9 From the end of September 1940, the Germans, confronted by growing opposition, changed their tactics. First, they shifted to daytime bombardment of British "strategic" objectives. When that proved too expensive-again and again in World War II, it was shown that unaccompanied bombers stood little chance against modern fighters-they concentrated on nighttime attacks directed, insofar as any center of gravity can be detected, against aircraft factories and harbors. Britain's cities, particularly London, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Liverpool, Glasgow, and Coventry suffered heavily. Nevertheless, the Luftwaffe, its twin-engined light and medium bombers designed for participation in operativ warfare and not for waging an independent strategic campaign, never came close to forcing the British to their knees. Indeed, the realization of this fact was one of the factors that finally drove Hitler to decide to turn east.

The Luftwaffe received with mixed feelings the news that Germany was about to invade Russia. Many of its leaders, including Hermann Goering and his deputy, Eberhard Milch, tried to warn Hitler against waging a two-front war because of the inevitable dissipation of forces that would follow.  Others, however, expressed relief at the anticipated return from independent "strategic" warfare to the more congenial operativ form of war to be waged in conjunction with the rest of the Wehrmacht. "Finally, a real campaign" was the comment of Chief of Staff Hans Jeschonnek. Directive No. 21 had charged the Wehrmacht with "destroying the Soviet forces in a rapid campaign" in order to prevent their withdrawal into the interior. Within this general framework, the task of the Luftwaffe was defined as (1) knocking out the Soviet air force in order to obtain and maintain air superiority over the theater of operations ; (2) supporting the operations of Army Group Center and, in a more selective form (Schwerpunktmaessig, literally "by way of forming centers of gravity"), those of the other army groups; (3) disrupting the Soviet railway net in order to prevent reinforcement on the one hand and withdrawal on the other; and (4) capturing important transportation bottlenecks such as bridges ahead of friendly forces by using parachutists and gliders.  "In order to use all available forces in support of the Army," the directive went on, "the enemy's armaments industry should not be targeted during the main campaign," meaning that the German forces would be directed against the regular Soviet forces rather than at whatever resistance would remain after the destruction of those forces. Only after the end of the mobile phase of operations would attacks on the Soviet armaments industry, chiefly in the Urals, get under way.

In preparation for the campaign, the Luftwaffe divided its forces into three Luftlotten. (The forces that operated in support of the Finns in the far north will not be considered here, since there was little opportunity for maneuver warfare there.) Each was clearly earmarked for the support of one army group, although from the command and control point of view, there was no question of subordinating air force units to ground headquarters-but rather only of cooperation between them. In the north, Luftflotte 1 was commanded by Gen Alfred Keller. His flying units, consisting merely of a single air corps, Fliegerkorps I, and a few smaller forces, possessed a total of 592 transport and combat aircraft (453 operational), plus 176 reconnaissance and liaison machines (143 operational). In the center, Field Marshal Albert Kesselring's Luftlotte 2 was much stronger with two Fliegerkorps (II and VIII)-1,367 transport and combat aircraft (994 operational) and 224 reconnaissance and liaison machines (200 operational). Finally, Gen Alexander Loehr's Luftlotte 4, with two air corps (Fliegerkorps IV and V), supported Army Group South. Its forces consisted of transport and combat aircraft (694 operational), plus 239 reconnaissance and liaison machines (208 operational). The total number of combat aircraft (bombers, fighters, and close support) was 2,713, of which 2,080 were operational. Thus, in spite of the huge task with which it was faced militarily as well as geographically, the German air force in the east had a strength no greater than it had been during the French campaign in the previous year. This reflected the fact that fully one-third of its forces had to be left to fight in the west, the north (Norway), or the Mediterranean; qualitatively, too, the forces on the eastern front were not the most modern since obsolescent aircraft no longer capable of serving against Britain were still considered fit to confront the Soviets .  

Throughout the first half of 1941, the Luftwaffe was hard at work preparing for the campaign. The aircraft industry and training facilities were expanded until they were considered able to keep up with anticipated losses, but no more. Luftwaffe units flew numerous photoreconnaissance missions inside Soviet territory, and the list of targets within a 200-mile zone from the frontier had been completed by the end of April 1941. Meanwhile, many new airfields were built and existing ones improved, the necessary ground organization put in place, and the required reserves of POL, ammunition, and equipment assembled. The last stage, starting towards the end of May, was to bring in the flying units themselves under a heavy cloak of secrecy. In Hitler's own words, the German ability to win this most ambitious of all campaigns rapidly and decisively depended on tanks and aircraft working together in order to "break the Russian." Thus, the importance of a smooth system for air-to-ground cooperation was greater than ever; yet, when hostilities broke out, the organizational problems of securing it had by no means been solved in spite of many suggestions raised by Richthofen and other key Luftwaffe commanders.

The system that divided responsibility between the Kolufts on the one hand and the Flivos on the other remained in force. A process of decentralization took place as both types of officers were increased in numbers until, instead of there being one for each army and corps, one of each could be assigned to every division. Towards the end of 1941, the Flivos even started accompanying some individual regiments, although there were never enough of them to expand this system to the army as a whole.  Each air corps (instead of air fleet, as formerly) headquarters now included a Nahkampfuehrer. His task was to coordinate all Luftwaffe support for the army, for which purpose he was given operational control over all units available for that mission. Some progress was also made in providing ground and air units with common radio apparatus to enable them to communicate directly with each other. At Fliegerkorps VIII, experienced Stuka pilots were now riding in Mark III tanks and acting as forward air controllers. Nevertheless, the German army as a whole still depended on various agreed-on, rather primitive, visual recognition signals to prevent attacks on friendly troops. Above all, Goering steadfastly refused any measures that would have assigned the army any control over the sorties flown by Luftwaffe combat units, and the Germans had to wait until 1944 for a real solution for that problem.

Like the Soviet Union in general, the Red Air Force at this time was something of a mystery to the Germans.  The chief of intelligence at the Luftwaffe General Staff was Gen Joseph Schmidt, an opinionated officer whose estimates of the situation reflected his Nazi prejudices. He put total enemy strength at approximately 10,500 machines, including 7,500 in Europe. Supposedly the Soviets had 1,360 reconnaissance aircraft and bombers, plus perhaps 2,200 fighters (including those added during the first half of 1941). Most of the machines were supposed (correctly as it turned out) to be inferior to their German equivalents both in general flying characteristics and, to an even greater extent, in specialized instruments such as radio and navigational aids. The Germans assumed the mass of the Soviet air force personnel, including pilots, to be primitive and ill-trained by Western standards and their organization as a whole to be heavy-handed and inflexible. They believed that once the Germans occupied the industrial centers in European Russia, the Soviets would not be able to keep up their strength in aircraft and would be reduced to fighting in uncoordinated remnants-a belief that turned out to be grossly mistaken.

Soviet production of new submarines began in 1927. Clandestine cooperation with Germany gave Soviet engineers access to design data for German types from late World War I: minelayers, Type UBIII, and Mittel-U. The Soviets salved and recommissioned the sunken British submarine L-55, which gave them access to late-war British design information. Soviet designers also gained considerable data from rehabilitating the later czarist-era Bubnov-designed boats and the final examples of the ubiquitous Holland H-type submarines. Synthesizing this information permitted the Soviets to produce a wide variety of submarines on a large scale. There were two basic series of “M”-type coastal submarines, two basic medium submarine series—the “Shch” or Pike type of indigenous origin (though strongly influenced by British practice), and the later “S”-type derived from the same basic design as the German Type VII, minelayers of the “L”-type developed from the L-55, and long-range boats of the “K”-type. At the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, the Soviet Union deployed the world’s largest submarine force, with 168 boats in service.

The final “M”-type displaced 283 tons surfaced, had a range of 4,500 miles at 8 knots on the surface or 36 hours at 3 knots submerged, could dive to 295 feet, and had a battery of 2 torpedo tubes with 4 torpedoes and a 45mm antiaircraft gun. The developed “S”-type displaced 856 tons surfaced, had a range of 9,500 miles at 9 knots on the surface or 45 hours at 3 knots submerged, could dive to 330 feet, and had a battery of 6 torpedo tubes with 12 torpedoes and a 4-inch deck gun. Their indigenous rivals displaced 587 tons, had a range of 3,650 miles at 7 knots or 50 hours at 2.5 knots submerged, could dive to 295 feet, and carried 6 torpedo tubes with 10 torpedoes. The minelayers displaced 1,108 tons, had a range of 10,000 miles at 8.6 knots or 60 hours at 2.5 knots submerged, could dive to 330 feet, and carried 8 torpedo tubes with 14 torpedoes and 20 mines. The “K”-type were very popular with their crews and were regarded as the best Soviet submarines of World War II. They displaced 1,480 tons, had a range of 15,000 miles at 9 knots or 50 hours at 2.5 knots submerged, could dive to 330 feet, and carried 10 torpedo tubes with 24 torpedoes. Despite this variety, the Soviet Union’s yards produced large numbers of submarines during World War II, completing some 200 boats during the course of the conflict.

SERIES XIV (1938) “K” class

K-1 (29 April 1938), K-2 (29 April 1938), K- 3 (31 July 1938), K-56 (29 December 1940), K-55 (7 February 1941), K- 54 (March 1941), K-57 (1946)

Builder: Admiralty K-22 (4 November 1938), K-23 (28 April 1939), K-52 (5 July 1939), K-51 (30 July 1939), K-21 (14 August 1939), K-53 ( 2 September 1939), K-24 (1940)

Builder: Baltic K-58, K-60, K-77, K-78 (1946)

Builder: Zhdanov

Displacement : 1490 tons (surfaced), 2140 tons (submerged)

Dimensions: 320940 x 24930 x 149100

Machinery: 4 diesel engines, 2 electric motors, 2 shafts. 8400 bhp/2400 shp = 21/10 knots

Range: 14,000 nm at 9 knots surfaced, 160 nm at 3 knots submerged

Armament: 10 x 533mm torpedo tubes (6 bow, 2 stern, 2 trainable external mounts), total 24 torpedoes, 20 mines, 2 x 100mm guns, 2 x 45mm AA guns Complement: 60

Mikhail Alekseevich Rudnitskiy designed these large double-hull cruiser submarines. In addition to mines laid through two vertical tubes amidships, these boats originally were to carry a seaplane in a hangar abaft the conning tower, but the aviation proposal was abandoned. These submarines performed well and were the best Soviet-designed boats in service during World War II. All the class operated with the Northern Fleet. One additional boat building at Leningrad was not completed because of the German siege.

The K- 22 was mined off Cape Harbaken on 6 February 1942; the K-23 was lost off Okse Fjord on 12 May; the K- 2 failed to return from a patrol off the Norwegian coast in September. The K-3 was lost off Batsfjord on 21 March 1943, and the K-1 probably was mined in the Kara Sea in October. The surviving boats were stricken in the late 1950s, and the K-21 became a memorial at Severomorsk.

Captain Lunin

K-21

According to citations from captain Lunin's report - at 16:55 sonarman detected far unclear sounds, at 17:00 the deck-house of submarine was detected by watch officer via periscope and soon it became clear that was not submarine but the bridge of one of escort destroyers, at 17:15 Lunin detected battleship, heavy cruiser and 8 destroyers from ~30 cables [in reality those were battleship, 2 heavy cruisers, 7 destroyers and 2 torpedo boats], the attack was performed at 18:01 from 18-20 cables by 4 torpedoes with time gaps 4 sec; in 135 sec soundman heard two explosions, at 18:31, 18:32 and 18:38 long explosions were detected which continued 20 sec each. The periscope was raised at 19:05 and there were no any ships on the horizon.

HQ officers supposed after analysis that all torpedoes missed because of errors in determination of target course angle and speed, the same did historians later [speed of Tirpitz was 24 knots and Lunin calculated it as 22 knots, target course angle was 90 degrees and Lunin calculated it as 60 degrees]. If Lunin used time gaps in torpedo salvo not 4 sec but 14 sec he could hit the target with high possibility [probably, he didn't want to stay at periscope depth too long]. In principle, such torpedo fire [90 degrees of target course, angle, distance 18-20 cables and speed 22-24 knots] was prohibited by Soviet naval manuals as useless and Lunin, probably, just wanted to use at least small chance.

The explosion heard at 18:04 was explosion from self-exploded torpedoes after their maximal run, explosions between 18:31-18:38 were from depth charges of German destroyers which detected British submarine. Germans didn't detect K-21 and couldn't hear explosions from missed torpedoes so they got info about attack against "Tirpitz" only after interception of radio message from the Soviet submarine.

Prof. Platonov doesn't mention in his excellent book that "Tirpitz" was among official claimed hits of K-21. Even Dmitriev [Soviet-era historian] who described the "combat" between K-21 and Norwegian fishing motor boats as combat between K-21 and German anti-submarine vessels mentioned only that K-21 attacked very powerful German battleship "Tirpitz" using stern torpedo tubes and there are no words about any hits.

The fact that submarine attacked "Tirpitz" was very important itself that time [especially the radio message from K-21 which was intercepted by British convoy and Germans] - the visibility and sea state were very good so Lunin could raise periscope only for very short period of time [and that caused mistakes in the definition of distance and target course angle - as the result Lunin fired from stern tubes under very disadvantageous position], Lunin (as well as all other Soviet submarine commanders) had absolutely no experience in attack of large high-speed warship guarded by strong escort and performed anti-submarine manoeuvring [and he did that for the first and single time during the war among Soviet submarines], Lunin also didn't know the abilities of modern German anti-submarine weapons and he was afraid for his submarine and crew too much.

Translated from Russian.

Though the Battle of Kursk is rightly considered a tank engagement, the struggle in the skies was no less important. The Luftwaffe gave the panzer divisions excellent aerial support, but the Red Air Force was to prove the eventual master in the air.

The Luftwaffe commitment at the beginning of Operation Citadel was 1800 aircraft. This figure represented some two-thirds of the machines deployed on the entire Eastern Front. The bulk of this force was concentrated to support the southern pincer under VIII Air Corps commanded by General Otto Dessloch. A squadron commander during World War I, Dessloch had vast experience, having led various Luftwaffe units prior to the Kursk operation. Under Dessloch's leadership, VIII Air Corps controlled the flying units of 4th Air Fleet, 1st Hungarian Air Division and I FlaK (antiaircraft artillery) Corps, disposing a total of 1100 aircraft. Included amongst these flying formations were seven units of dive-bombers, the infamous Ju 87D Stuka.

The Stukas were expected to carry out their classic role, established during four years of war, as flying artillery plunging out of the skies to bomb and strafe the enemy immediately ahead of the panzer wedges. The near-vertical dive that preceded bomb release was accompanied by a howling wail, as the pilot aimed his aircraft at the target, a wail that froze the blood of the men on the ground, convincing them that they as individuals had been specially chosen for death.

Operation Citadel was the last time the Stuka would be employed in this manner, as its performance no longer matched the demands of the Eastern Front. When their dive-bomber role was rescinded, all the remaining Stukas were transferred to low-level ground-attack duties, and it was during the Kursk operation that Stuka "tank busters" were employed on a wide scale for the first time. A 37mm antitank gun was fitted under each wing, and this weight of fire in the hands of an expert such as Flight-Lieutenant Hans-Ulrich Rudel was to wreak havoc in the Soviet tank fleets. It is claimed that Rudel destroyed 12 tanks on the first day of Citadel alone.

Another first for the Luftwaffe at Kursk was the employment of Schlactsgeschwaders (ground-attack wings) utilizing Focke-Wulf Fw 190 A-4s and Henschel Hs 129 B-2/R2s in large numbers. The Henschel Hs 129 had been designed specifically as a "tank buster". In its nose were two 7.92mm machine guns and two 20mm cannons, but its real power was in its main armament, a single 30mm Mark 101 or 103 cannon housed in a gondola beneath the fuselage. When brought to bear on the thin engine housing at the real of a tank, unarmoured lorries or the timber-built Soviet bunkers, this weight of fire was usually fatal. The Fw 190s operated closely with the Hs 129s, dropping SD1 and SD2 fragmentation bombs to disrupt the Soviet infantry attack lines.

The slow speed of the ground-attack aircraft such as the Hs 129 and the Stuka necessitated close fighter cooperation to allow their crews to concentrate on the job in hand, and this was to be provided by the Messerschmitt Bf 109 G-6 and Focke-Wulf Fw 190 A-5s. The armament of the Fw 190 — four 20mm cannon in the wings and two 7.92mm machine guns in the forward fuselage — coupled with a speed of 605km/h (382mph), made it a fighter to be reckoned with. The weaponry and performance of the Bf 109 was similar. Heavier bombing operations were to be conducted by other tried and trusted aircraft, such as the Heinkel He III and the Junkers Ju 88.

The Luftwaffe supported the northern pincer with Colonel-General Ritter von Greim's 6th Air Fleet, which consisted of the 1st Air Division, the 12th FlaK Division and the 10th FlaK Brigade. The mixed bag of antitank fighter and bomber aircraft numbered 730. Amongst these were three Stuka groups. The guns of the FlaK units were highly effective weapons, particularly the 88mm. However, such was the effectiveness of the 88 against Soviet tanks that many FlaK batteries were assigned to the Wehrmacht to bolster the antitank gun formations which had less effective weapons. The consequence was that the protection available to Axis airfields was severely curtailed.

The Luftwaffe that now geared up for Operation Citadel was not the one that had dominated the Russian skies for almost two years. Commander of the Luftwaffe, Hermann Göring, had promised that no bombs would fall on the Reich. By early 1943 the emptiness of his words was proven daily by the Anglo-American bomber offensive that damaged Germany's industrial output and chiselled away at the people's morale. To counter this, Göring had withdrawn many fighter squadrons from the Eastern Front and diverted aircraft output to the West, with the consequence that the Eastern Front fought with diminished assets. To further compound this difficult situation, the Western air war was given priority in the allocation of fuel, so that the fuel allowance for the Battle of Kursk was 30 percent below its actual requirement.

However, the experience of the aircrews, the efficiency of the ground crews and the superiority of the machines were all factors that the ordinary German soldier took for granted; after all, had not the Wehrmacht enjoyed almost total air superiority over the Red Air force since the first hours of Operation Barbarossa? What the Landser in their trenches were unaware of was that the Red Air Force was now not, as it had been for so long, mere target practice for the Red Baron's proteges, but a real force to be reckoned with, and one to be taken very seriously indeed.

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On 5 July the day dawned bright and warm. On the dusty runways of Belgorod, Kharkov, Poltava and Dnepropetrovsk the Ju 88 and He 111 bombers of VIII Air Corps lined up for take-off as the first waves of the Citadel air offensive, when the wireless monitoring service reported a considerable increase in Soviet air traffic, and soon afterwards the "Freya" radar at Kharkov detected the approach of large air formations from the east. These formations contained 132 Shturmoviks and 285 fighters of the Second and Seventeenth Air Armies, detailed to destroy the German bombers on the ground when their fighter escorts were not yet airborne. But this pre-emptive strike was not to succeed. The Soviet regiments were intercepted by the Bf 109 Gs of Jagdgeschwader (hunting formations) 3 "Udet" and JG 52 scrambled from Kharkov East and Mikoyanovka, which claimed 120 air victories in the opening air battle.

In the northern sector, the Germans reported that Soviet fighter reaction to 1st Airborne Division operations began only in the late afternoon, and the Fw 190 fighters of JG 51 and JG 54 had claimed 115 Soviet aircraft by nightfall. The committal of fighters to the abortive pre-emptive strike in the early morning left the VVS unable to contest Luftwaffe air supremacy on the southern flank of the salient, and in the north, Soviet replies to the Luftwaffe attacks were tardy and ineffectual. The two fighter corps designated to give frontline cover, Yumashev's VI Fighter Corps over the Central Front and Klimov's V Fighter Corps over the Voronezh Front, were unable to cope. Without adequate air cover, the Soviet ground forces lost confidence and the Wehrmacht began to make headway. Novikov had to give his attention first to the failings of his fighters and, as a result of his investigations, Yumashev and Klimov were both replaced, VI Fighter Corps being taken over by Major-General Yerlykin and V Fighter Corps by Major-General Galunov.

Nor were the Soviet attacks on German armour initially successful. Despite new antitank bombs, their RS-82 rockets and more formidable 37mm cannon, the Il-2 Shturmoviks failed to get through and stop the panzers rolling forward. Flying in small groups, the Il-2s and Pe-2s often lacked fighter escort or they were abandoned when the very first sign of trouble appeared.

On Khudyakov's orders, the Shturmoviks began to fly in much larger formations of regimental size to make escort easier, and to enable the Il-2s to break through and suppress ground fire by sheer weight of numbers and the persistence of attack. Flying in pelang formation - staggered line abreast — the Il-2s no longer made hasty passes at low level under favourable conditions, but carried out calculated dive approaches from under 1000m (3280ft) at angles of 30-40 degrees, releasing their bombs and rockets when 200-300m (656-984ft) from their target, and making repeated passes with cannon and machine guns.

At the end of the second day, in the north of the salient, the VVS had overcome its problems and was able to contain the German fighters, if not the bombers. But from 7 July the Sixteenth Air Army got into its stride and began to wear down the Luftwaffe. By 8 July Khudyakov was able to report on the improvement in Shturmovik potency, and the Luftwaffes power to control air space over the battle areas declined. The Luftwaffe was running out of replacements to maintain its squadrons at full strength, and the RAF began to range more freely over the German lines.

Although the Germans could still mount effective ground-support missions, in specific areas if not along the entire combat zone, their superiority was being eroded at an alarming rate. By the end of effective ground-offensive operations in the northern sector, the power of the Luftwaffe was much reduced.

The picture to the south was much the same. Soviet weight of numbers and the increasingly efficient use of machines whittled away at the numerically inferior Germans, and by 11 July the Luftwaffe was only able to achieve success in narrow areas such as supporting the thrust of II SS Panzer Corps towards Prokhorovka. As Rotmistrov described the scene over the battlefield of Prokhorovka from his command post:

"At the same time, furious aerial combats developed over the battlefield. Soviet as well as German airmen tried to help their ground forces to win the battle. The bombers, ground-support aircraft and fighters seemed to be permanently suspended in the sky over Prokhorovka. One aerial combat followed another. Soon the whole sky was shrouded by the thick smoke of the burning wrecks."

If Prokhorovka was, as Konev described it, "the swansong of the German armour", then Operation Citadel would mark the coming of age of the Red Air Force. For the first time since the outbreak of war, the VVS had met the Luftwaffe on almost equal terms, and although there was a long way to go before they reached the final victory, the Soviet air fleets had clipped the wings of Hitler's Luftwaffe and had gained control of their own skies once more.