Osprey Aircraft of the Aces 095 - Polikarpov I-15, I-16 and I-153 Aces.pdf

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OSPREY AIRCRAF T OF THE ACES
®
• 95
Polikarpov I-15, I-16
and I-153 Aces
Mikhail Maslov
SERIES EDITOR: TONY HOLMES
OSPREY AIRCRAF T OF THE ACES • 95
Polikarpov I-15, I-16
and I-153 Aces
Mikhail Maslov
O
SPREY
PUBLISHING
Front cover
The I-16 took a beating from the
Jagdwaffe during the first few
months of the ‘Great Patriotic War’,
as the obsolescent fighter struggled
to match the performance of the
Bf 109E/F. Occasionally, however,
the nimble Polikarpov fighter hit
back, especially when flown by
a skilled pilot such as Lt Vasiliy
Golubev. On the morning of
12 March 1942 he had led his
3rd Squadron of 4th GIAP in an
attack on the railway station at
Mga, near Lake Lodoga. The mission
was being flown in support of an
offensive launched that day by the
Soviet 54th Army from the southern
shore of the frozen lake, which was
situated near the Finnish border.
Having attacked their target
without interference from German
fighters, the I-16 pilots knew that
they would almost certainly be
bounced on their way home. In fact,
the Me 109Fs of 1./JG 54 waited
until the Soviet pilots were almost
back over their airfield before they
made their move. Golubev, who had
seen combat in I-16s since the start
of the war flying with the Air Force
of the Baltic Fleet, had dropped
slightly behind the main body of
Soviet fighters so as to protect
the rear of the formation. He soon
spotted two Me 109Fs heading
towards them above the treetops;
‘A pair of enemy fighters stayed
low and closed on us – they had
swallowed the bait. They thought
we were easy meat, but wanted
to show off by shooting us down
right over our own airfield. That
was what I’d been waiting for. I
accelerated and climbed.’
With 13 victories already to his
credit, Golubev knew exactly how
to get the most out of his I-16, and
he soon shot the lead Bf 109 down
in a head-on pass;
‘I got the leader in my gunsight
when he was about 500 metres
away. Now I had just a second-and-
a-half left – it was death or glory.
The fingers of my right hand
instinctively pressed the machine
gun firing button and three streaks
of fire pierced the slender
Messerschmitt’s fuselage like some
magic lightning strikes. Not waiting
to see the outcome, I made a sharp
turn and saw the second “Messer”
attempting to flee above and ahead
of me. Instinctively, I pulled the
First published in Great Britain in 2010 by Osprey Publishing
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ISBN 13; 978 1 84603 981 2
Edited by Bruce Hales-Dutton and Tony Holmes
Page design by Tony Truscott
Cover Artwork by Mark Postlethwaite
Aircraft Profiles and Scale Drawings by Andrey Yurgenson
Index by Alan Thatcher
Originated by PDQ Digital Media Solutions
Printed and bound in China through Bookbuilders
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firing handle, hardly bothering to
assess the necessary deflection, and
launched all four underwing RS-82
rockets in his direction. Four black
clouds from the explosions
appeared just behind the tail of the
enemy fighter, but the “Messer”
continued climbing steeply. I had
no chance of catching him.’
A few moments later, its
elevators jammed by debris from
the rockets, the second Bf 109 hit
the treetops and crashed on its belly
on the edge of the Soviet airfield. The
German pilot extricated himself from
the wreckage of his fighter but
subsequently died of the wounds he
had received in the crash. The latter
was almost certainly 26-victory ace
Unteroffizier Hans Schwartzkopf,
although the identity of the first pilot
remains a mystery. Golubev would
eventually claim 19 victories with the
I-16, and survive the war with a tally
of 39 and 12 shared kills to his name
(Cover
artwork by Mark Postlethwaite)
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 6
CHAPTER ONE
SPANISH CIVIL WAR 16
CHAPTER TWO
SWALLOWS OVER CHINA 33
CHAPTER THREE
KHALKHIN GOL 42
CHAPTER FOUR
WINTER WAR 62
CHAPTER FIVE
GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 68
APPENDICES 89
C O L O U R P L AT E S C O M M E N TA R Y 9 1
INDEX 95

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