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Originally Posted by dimlee
For many Soviet young pilots it was the same in 1941 as well. Fighter pilots programs were considerably reduced in 1940-1941 - simultaneously with increase of recruiting. Quantity instead of quality.
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1941-42 Soviet pilots also had an additional problem - lethal levels of political correctness. Stalin's purges of the military forced military pilots to obey orders without question and take no initiative whatsoever. Basically, the opposite of what you want in a fighter pilot!
Combined with the lack of radios on many Soviet aircraft, that set up a tragic situation. Formations of Soviet aircraft would blindly follow their leader, not even maneuvering under fire.
So, you might have pilots who were technically quite good - plenty of flight hours and decent gunnery training - but who functionally had no "Situational Awareness" due to faulty air combat doctrine.
Some Japanese early war formations were similar. Junior pilots were expected to obey orders without hesitation, and do nothing without being ordered to do so. As an example of this mindset, most Japanese fighters were equipped with just radio receivers. That is, they could receive information, but not send it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dimlee
There were improvements from 1942 and on, of course, but even in 1943-1944 there were too many boys coming in with inadequate training. They were lucky if squadron/wing leaders were human enough to help them and/or their operational area was already cleared of LW opponents.
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By 1943-44, Soviet pilot training got better, but there were variations. If something went wrong, sometimes certain types of training got cut short or eliminated.
Something that IL2 doesn't simulate, but which was critical for real life pilots, was IFR and navigation training.
Every US pilot, no matter how bad things got, was IFR trained and had a few hours of aerial navigation training. With very few exceptions (e.g., mid-1940) RAF and Commonwealth pilots were also instrument-rated and had some aerial navigation training.
Every halfway decent pre-war air force training program also offered some IFR and aerial navigation training. The only exception might have been the Chinese AF.
But, once the stresses of war started to hit, IFR and navigation training went out the window, which meant that not only were pilots barely able to fly their planes, but they were in deep trouble if they ran into weather, or had to fly at night.