Interview with HSU Sturmovik pilot Alexei Batievskii

[FPSOlkor]

http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/pilo...batievskii.htm
As always - comments, discussions welcome. Feel free to post on other forums

[Blackdog_kt]

What an excellent, lengthy interview! Took me more than an hour to read it all, as i wanted to do it carefully and not miss a thing.

That guy is what, 89 years old and he still remembers so many things and most of all, interesting and "daredevil" ones along with the usual tactical stories that we find in war time memoirs.

My hat is off to these guys, they didn't only have to fight against some of the most dangerous enemies in the world at that time, but they also had to fight against the weather, poor logistics and even some of their own countrymen...it's always the most near-sighted people that get the powerful positions and make decisions based only on rules and regulations, while the ones who already do all the dangerous work have to take the extra risk due to these actions. I've read quite a few of your interviews and while many pilots seem neutral or even nostalgic of the old days and the previous government system, most of them have bad things to say about political commisars or officers who were getting awards for doing nothing or sending the rest to certain death and rightly so.

Translation is not perfect but it's good enough to understand 100% of the story, so no issues there.
A little thing that might help would be to have a short summary of places mentioned in the interviews and the names of the people involved in the story, maybe in diagram form to make it easier to do. Of course, i understand that this is extra work for you guys and i'm not nitpicking.

The reason is that it would help a lot in understanding the area of operations and the people involved, as we see a lot of names that rise through ranks and get transferred between units (or even across entire fronts) during the course of the story, only to return at later dates. For example, i had to double-back and read again certain paragraphs to make sure that the person i was reading about was indeed the one mentioned in a previous point of the story.

In any case, just interviewing these people is excellent work on its own. This interview is a lengthy one but still a terrific read (i couldn't stop reading once i started), especially since Mr. Batyevskii faced such interesting situations. It contains loads of different stories... from training and tactical considerations to daring stunts and immense feats of strength and courage. It combines the stuff that movies are made of with the realism and grim considerations of real war. Just talking to these great people and making it possible for us to know all this is good enough in my book, keep up the good work

[cmirko]

thank you, another great interview

cheers

[Tempest123]

Thanks, great read!

[rakinroll]

Yea great one, thanks.

[JtD]

Entertaining, interesting, scary. Thanks!

[KG26_Alpha]

I had to read it twice to digest it all.

Very interesting opinion he has regarding the Pe-2

>>

— What did you fly there?

In Mozdok, before the war ended, I flew sturmovik over Chechnya. When I was at the courses I flew torpedo bomber.


— What type?

Tu-2. It was a good plane, excellent one, but it came too late. If it would come one or two years earlier, the war might have ended several months sooner, because it was a mighty plane. Pe-2 was an absolute junk. It was created under impressions gained after the Germans started to dive at London and bombed precisely. And we hastily built this Pe-2 machine.
It had an ability to dive, but its bomb load was just 1000 kilograms. It dove rather poorly. It had two engines but no ability to fly on one engine. If one engine failed it couldn’t fly straight, it went with a descent. What kind of a plane is that? Two engine airplanes must have an ability to fly horizontally on one engine.
Our sturmovik Il-2 with a 1600 hp engine could lift 600 kilograms of bombs in overload.



— By the way, did you hang RSs when you took 600 kilograms of bombs?

Of course. Overload — 6 bombs and all the same. RSs and VYa 23mm cannons, 300 rounds per cannon, machine guns, 1500 rounds per barrel. Gunner also had large caliber machine gun with ammunition.
Pe-2 was an unsuccessful plane. Tu-2 had lower speed than dive bomber, but 2500 kilograms of bombs. And it had longer range. It was a great plane, it could fly on one engine.
But it came late, too late... There were not enough engines. This plane was designed by Tupolev in prison.

[zapatista]

good read, thx for posting it !

[swiss]

Originally Posted by KG26_Alpha

This plane was designed by Tupolev in prison.

LOL

Which Soviet airplane was NOT designed in Prison?

[rakinroll]

Originally Posted by KG26_Alpha

I had to read it twice to digest it all.

Very interesting opinion he has regarding the Pe-2

>>

— What did you fly there?

In Mozdok, before the war ended, I flew sturmovik over Chechnya. When I was at the courses I flew torpedo bomber.


— What type?

Tu-2. It was a good plane, excellent one, but it came too late. If it would come one or two years earlier, the war might have ended several months sooner, because it was a mighty plane. Pe-2 was an absolute junk. It was created under impressions gained after the Germans started to dive at London and bombed precisely. And we hastily built this Pe-2 machine.
It had an ability to dive, but its bomb load was just 1000 kilograms. It dove rather poorly. It had two engines but no ability to fly on one engine. If one engine failed it couldn’t fly straight, it went with a descent. What kind of a plane is that? Two engine airplanes must have an ability to fly horizontally on one engine.
Our sturmovik Il-2 with a 1600 hp engine could lift 600 kilograms of bombs in overload.



— By the way, did you hang RSs when you took 600 kilograms of bombs?

Of course. Overload — 6 bombs and all the same. RSs and VYa 23mm cannons, 300 rounds per cannon, machine guns, 1500 rounds per barrel. Gunner also had large caliber machine gun with ammunition.
Pe-2 was an unsuccessful plane. Tu-2 had lower speed than dive bomber, but 2500 kilograms of bombs. And it had longer range. It was a great plane, it could fly on one engine.
But it came late, too late... There were not enough engines. This plane was designed by Tupolev in prison.

I hope il2 plane modellers did not read that kind of russian pilot memories. Otherwise, we are trying to fly in a suspicious software...