I wish Western writers would stop writing about Soviet aircraft

[Heck 496]

I know I'm going to touch off some people here, but so be it. When it comes to Soviet aircraft, I would really like to read, in English, real accounts, from real ex-Soviet pilots, about what it was like to fly their cold war aircraft. What could these planes do? What couldn't they do? Good, old, fighter pilot tales, tall ones included, I've heard enough tall tales from Americans over the course of my sixty-five years. I'm tired of reading the same old stories, which often quote each other as sources, and when they're contradicted by ex-Soviets, the ex-Soviets must be lying about their own stuff. I've lived long enough to know that Napoleon was right: History is a set of lies; agreed upon. I've heard from the Western pack of liars all my life. Now, I want to hear from the other pack of liars, so I can re-write the agreement, simply for my own amusement. Anyone know of any good books in English? Sorry, I can read Russian. 

[JosefK 911]

Start here: https://smile.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_11?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=yefim+gordon&sprefix=Yefim+Gordo%2Caps%2C230&crid=37KSW61EOOWAS

 

Yefim Gordon is the real deal and he writes in perfect English.

 

Yefim's book on the Il-2 is a proud part of my personal collection.

[+Erik 1,812]

Sounds a bit strange to me. That's like a Russian asking for an American pilot review of American aircraft they've flown but only write about it Russian. I would assume that if a Russian recounts tales of their aircraft history it would be written in Russian. 

[Heck 496]

1 minute ago, Erik said:

Sounds a bit strange to me. That's like a Russian asking for an American pilot review of American aircraft they've flown but only write about it Russian. I would assume that if a Russian recounts tales of their aircraft history it would be written in Russian. 

I know. I'm trying to find out if Russian accounts have been translated. I'm hoping some have.

[Heck 496]

9 minutes ago, JosefK said:

Start here: https://smile.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_11?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=yefim+gordon&sprefix=Yefim+Gordo%2Caps%2C230&crid=37KSW61EOOWAS

 

Yefim Gordon is the real deal and he writes in perfect English.

 

Yefim's book on the Il-2 is a proud part of my personal collection.

Thank you, JosefK. I'll check it out. I'm interested in any accounts I can read from any of the nations that flew these aircraft. They're all just fighter jocks, after all. I hope more and more of their accounts will be translated, for poor single tongue speakers like myself. Czechs, Poles, East Germans, Egyptians, anyone who's flown them in a military setting. If anyone has leads to translated accounts, even just magazine articles, I'd love to hear of the connection.

[JosefK 911]

3 minutes ago, Heck said:

Thank you, JosefK. I'll check it out. I'm interested in any accounts I can read from any of the nations that flew these aircraft. They're all just fighter jocks, after all. I hope more and more of their accounts will be translated, for poor single tongue speakers like myself. Czechs, Poles, East Germans, Egyptians, anyone who's flown them in a military setting. If anyone has leads to translated accounts, even just magazine articles, I'd love to hear of the connection.

Welcome, I have intentions to read as well Red Star Against The Swastika: The Story of a Soviet Pilot over the Eastern Front Kindle Edition by Vasily Emelianenko .  Problem is, when I do I'll want to fly around in an Il-2...

[MigBuster 2,884]

Two I have:

Air combat over the eastern front and Korea - Sergei Kramarenko

 

Fulcrum A top gun pilots escape from the Soviet Empire - Alexander Zuyev

[MigBuster 2,884]

The Arab Mig Series by Tom Cooper et al - remember Heck that Western writers that interview and source directly from the pilots that were there cant be totally dismissed.

Some western writers have owned and flown some of them - not really any mysteries here.

[Heck 496]

Thank you both. I knew if I asked here I'd get ideas. That's the type of stuff I'm looking for, MigBuster. Good solid interviews with these pilots from the other side. I've read accounts from Western sport pilots who own some of the aircraft, and I guess that's what started my quest. Often what they've said about them didn't match what had been said by past histories. For example, the Mig-15 bis. My reading has been confined a great deal to WW2 and prior. It's time for my old brain to catch up with the jet age, before I pack it in. Always find bits of time for more reading. I have to find Sergei Kramarenko's book, a great place to start. Oh, a million years ago, I read a statistic that 80% of German war effort went to the Eastern Front, up until the time Hitler transferred most of it to the west for the Bulge offensive. Has anyone else heard that?

[+Gepard 11,316]

The soviet war literature is the same as the american. "We are the heros, the others are the dumb fools."

An other thing were the military literature, which was intended to teach lessons to the new military generation. From tanks over planes to air defence. There were also analysis of different wars after WW2, from Korea to Falkland, and mostly without any idiological rubbish.

Biographies would be also interessting. Pokryshkin, the soviet no 2 ace in WW2, wrote a very interesting one. Then there was a czech or slovak author. Franticek Faitle, who fought first in the RAF and then moved to the USSR and then was transfered into the area of slovak national rebellion to fight with La-5FN against the german Luftwaffe in Slovakia.

Problem. All in german translation. I doubt, that english translations are available.

 

Edit, the czech pilot was:

František Fajtl

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/František_Fajtl

Edited June 18, 2018 by Gepard

[MigBuster 2,884]

On 6/18/2018 at 2:08 PM, Heck said:

 Oh, a million years ago, I read a statistic that 80% of German war effort went to the Eastern Front, up until the time Hitler transferred most of it to the west for the Bulge offensive. Has anyone else heard that?

WWII not really my thing outside of of the well known or less well known....have the Meteor Fmk1 Vs V1 flying bomb (WWII) Osprey book and even got another called Zeppelin Vs British Home Defence (WW 1) - very funny seeing some of the failed aircraft they had designed as Zeppelin interceptors.

 

Have just started reading MiG-23 Flogger in the Middle East 1973 to 2018 which kinda follows on from the Arab MiG series so might be less of interest.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/MiG-23-Flogger-Middle-East-Gurevich/dp/1912390329

The research collaboration and technical knowledge from this author has improved vastly compared to what he was putting out 14 years ago.

 

[jeanba 1,920]

You cannot imagine how often I wished US or English writers to stop writing about french planes !

 

Though honnestly things improved for the last years

Edited June 20, 2018 by jeanba

[Snailman 517]

Usually I am disgusted of the following term "According to US pilots" in such writings.   It sounds like, 9 out of 10 dentists recommend this toothpaste...

 

Well I am quite fortunate that I can read both english and russian books, and I have hundreds of both.

Rule No1  I used to take, if it's about a western craft - I take the western source and vice versa, eastern source for the eastern tech. Either case they are both boasting and chest-banging about their own stuff but this way the sides equalize each other

Yefim Gordon is a must. But he is not God writing holy books, but simply an excellent - english - source. Same could be said about Norman Polmar (Navy stuff) - he is best on his side - of his time. Bui we must take that into account that by the time they wrote their books they could not possibly have the knowledge we have right now.

Rule No2 is simply to take as many sources as you can from different authors (possibly not copying plagiarizing each other) AND ask people of specific forums whose topics and answers seem creditable. Better if you know real life pilots, soldiers etc and ask them personally and match his talk with your background knowledge and sources. Some can brag or "color" his story, but you can ask questions politely to clear out controversies. I was soldier, I also have anecdotes which are "based upon real events"  (sorry for the outraging Hollywood term from HiFi , history-fiction movies).

Rule No3 is to cooperate and share info with others - without getting into endless who's is longer style debates   perhaps this is the hardest to keep

[MigBuster 2,884]

I have quite a few of the Technical Yefim Gordon books and the technical bits are very good however for some reason at the end of some of them he discards facts and demonstrates a clear lack of understanding by trying to compare various aircraft. Although not the only author to do this back then it would have been better staying as factual as possible IMO.

A better read for anyone wishing to get an overview of Cold War Soviet fighters and their sub versions would be this by Bulgarian Alexander Mladenov from 2017:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Soviet-Cold-Fighters-Alexander-Mladenov/dp/178155496X

Easier to read, more concise, and obviously cannot go into the detail Yefim does but still outlines a lot of the technical differences (data links, radars etc) of each aircraft variant.

His recent books on the Su-25 and MiG-21 are also good IMO

 

https://ospreypublishing.com/mikoyan-gurevich-mig-21

https://ospreypublishing.com/su-25-frogfoot-units-in-combat

https://ospreypublishing.com/sukhoi-su-25-frogfoot