Soviet fighters and 4.12

[Treetop64]

Originally Posted by Z1024

The other potent soviet fighter was the i185 that had a potential to become the best soviet fighter of the war - modern type, high wing loading, very powerful engine (2000-2200hp for the M71 version) however the M71 engine never went into large scale production and was unreliable. As far as I understand Yakovlev did everything he could to kill off any competition and he succeeded in this case and almost succeeded in the La5s case, but La5 was just too good, and eventually went into production.

Yakovlev's political standing didn't have that much to do with the failure of the I-185 going into production, and he wouldn't have had to do much to block it anyways.

Something to consider is that the M-82 was a reliable engine. However, the La-5, which also used the M-82, was already in full production and being further developed. The I-185 was still in prototype stage. The priority for the Soviet Air Force at this stage was to get as many aircraft to the front as rapidly as possible. Tooling up for production of a new aircraft takes time, money, and resources. In the middle of a war, when you already have two fighters types that have been simultaneously well-established in production for some time, with aircraft basically akin to being 'stenciled out', it doesn't necessarily help to slow them both down to make room for a third fighter, one that will siphon engines away from one of the fighters already established in production.

Stavka knew how good the I-185 was but the pressing situation of the war dictated since they already had two good fighters well under way and with room for further development, and have already contributed to the war effort (albeit at a cost), then concentrate on maximizing those. The I-185 just arrived a bit too late.

This was common. All the major nations experienced similar issues with prioritization. Particularly the United States, which produced an absolutely bewildering array of aircraft types, many of which were very highly advanced, extremely capable, and very promising. However, they never went any further than prototype stage.

Moreover, there's more to researching aircraft capabilities for modelling in a sim than just looking up and reciting physical and performance figures. It helps to know the math that enables the aircraft to generate those numbers in the first place.