Question on Soviet vs. Allied plane defense BR1-2

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I know from history that the USSR’s air force was less than stellar prior to 1943 (they started getting decent planes of their own make around mid-1942), and had to depend on thousands of American craft to stay afloat at all.

When I mention “plane defense” above, I mean literally, the ability to withstand enemy fire.

One thing I take a lot of enjoyment/pride in, is my AA guns taking out enemy planes. For whatever reason, it feels like the Soviets can literally take a lot more flak than Allied planes can. (And people talk about how strong THOSE planes are).

Am I imagining things? I’ve taken down over 500 planes, none of which with aircraft. (I have maybe flown 3-4 times, total.) I’ve taken out 250 planes with German AA alone, and scarily enough, most of those were American. For whatever reason, the Soviet planes are able to withstand multiple hits and I end up with more missed shots.

I hesitate to say it’s a Gaijin bias, but…is it? Or are they just picking Soviet planes that were their most durable examples? I couldn’t find a lot of statistics in game or on the spreadsheet.

Uncharacteristically, I haven’t tracked this outside of my own impressions and experience. So, it could just be anecdotal bunk - but that’s why I’m asking.

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I dunno i just use American P-40E and haven’t bothered with any other plane it dies extremely quickly when fighting vs German planes like IAR. But i can say that IL-2 takes too long to kill when i was playing as GER.

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As a USSR main, I have noticed that the German planes seem to be less durable than soldiers when it comes to AA weaponry. While it takes several hits to kill infantry, one hit clipping the wing is enough to down one of their planes. Also a lot of the soviet planes were more armored than some of their counterparts from other powers, but I haven’t been on the receiving end of AAA to see the difference.

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Talk doesn’t mean it existed - ther is no reason to suppose there’s any significant difference.

The Sturmovik is well armoured of course, but that really only counts vs rifle caliber bullets.

What soviet planes have is SMALL SIZE and they are correspondingly harder to hit - the Yaks are smaller than a Spitfire or P-40, but not really that much that you’d notice.

Yaks are also a lot more maneuverable than most other fighters, which can make them a bit harder to hit.

Mig-3’s OTOH are pigs for manouverability.

I suspect you are just getting some confirmation bias.

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By “a lot” you mean ONE - ONE soviet plane was better armoured - the Il-2.

Soviet AA might be a little bit better than the others by virtue of being 25mm vs 20mm.

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Well, true, but most commentary I’ve seen on the forums sure seems to confirm that Allies have the best air force. I imagine it may differ at different BRs. (I know from reading history that it didn’t take very long for the Americans to catch up and surpass the Japanese Zeros, as the Japanese emphasized firepower over pilot defense…)

But, above, I was focusing on German AA vs. Soviet and American planes, so my above point isn’t really relevant. :wink: However, the Soviet planes, until the La-5, were inferior to American planes, so it seems odd that the Soviets and Americans, were, in effect, using the same planes. (P-40, Hurricane, P-39, etc) and yet, in my experience, the Soviets are able to sustain more hits. Literal confirmed hits, and still they keep flying.

It’s not uncommon for me to literally blow the wing off a Hurricane when fighting Americans. Not much recovery from that! Much rarer, in my experience, have I seen that against any Soviet planes.

Certainly possible. Was hoping to see if anyone else playing Germans had seem something similar.

(And fwiw, I don’t have a German bias. I played exclusively Allied when I started playing a year ago, with the Soviets being my “backup”. The only side I do not play a lot of is, is the Japanese, though I have completed their research tree.)

Also FWIW, my breakdown on planes killed by AA is: 250 as the Germans, 72 as the Japanese, 70 as the Allied and 110 as the Soviets. The 70 as the Allied is primarily due to how I started playing Enlisted by almost exclusively playing Allied (and almost never hopped into AA guns). Apparently, I love punishment. :wink: (My win ratio with the Americans is by far the lowest, at just over 60%.)