Quote:
Originally Posted by cheesehawk
You have any good recommended reads? To date, I have only LW stuff, and stuff from the Pacific theatre, but the cursory investigations I've done on the Eastern front are eye-popping, even in just numbers and distances. I'm looking for a good read from the VVS point of view to give me some perspective.
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I recommend watching this film
It does not feature authentic aircraft but the war and people look authentic (a bit idealised of cause). If you like it I can find 1-2 more probably.
As a child I was reading memoirs of
Pokryshkin,
Kozhedub, Golubev (about Pokryshkin),
Vorozheikin or about those who died too young to write memoirs like
Lydia Litvyak, 21 or
Yekaterina Budanova, 26.
Most of these memoirs are not translated into English yet. You can find a couple of memoir books on amason though. Also there is a series on soviet aces published. Try googling "soviet fighter memoirs" and\or "vvs aces memoirs". Most of these books were published during soviet times and you have to skip some propaganda pages when reading.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ATAG_Dutch
Not really from a VVS perspective, other than a 'VVS Fighter Aces of WWII' type book, but a good read generally is 'A Writer at War' from actual notes made at the time by war correspondent for Krasnya Zvezda, Vasily Grossman.
Superb book. Most of my other research was online via links from good ole wiki.  |
Vasily Grossman's
Life and Fate banned and confiscated by KGB it was secretly taken outside the USSR, published in the west, then dramatised on BBC radio and even
made UK best-selling lists. It is about the most ruthless battle in the history of mankind - Stalingrad (Germany - total 841,000 casualties, USSR - total 1,129,619 casualties). If you want to read one book about the Eastern front (or about any war in general) I recommend this one. It is not the shortest but it is worth reading even in small portions. One of characters is a fighter pilot too.
Wiki article on Life and Fate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_and_Fate
Since La-5 was first introduced in Stalingrad I guess it can be the next theatre in the Il-2 series.
Regarding Eastern Front role in the war in general estimated Nazi losses on Eastern/Western front are 4,428,000 to 5,178,000+ for Eastern / 997,386 to 1,000,256 for Western according to English wiki (I know this is not 100% reliable). I think aircraft and armour losses are more or less proportional to some extent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern...orld_War_II%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western...orld_War_II%29