Right after WWII and well into the late 1980s, the Soviet air forces were on a par if not larger than the United States air arms. Like the United States, Soviet pilots got a chance to hone their skills in two major wars; one in Korea and the other in Afghanistan. The US, of course, had Vietnam in between there. Post WWII, the emphasis was on jet power, much to the detriment of several excellent propeller driven aircraft, like the La-9 and La-11. Even in terms of speed, these prop fighters were the equal if not the better of early jet fighters, but soon the difference grew and quickly these fighters were relegated to second line status or sold to pro-Soviet states.

It was in attack aviation where the props continued to be on the front lines. But that was not for long as it was decided that jet fighters could do the same job so the entire branch of attack aviation went away with the IL-10 in the mid 1950s.

This book is not what I'd call a quick read. It is absolutely chock full of information and photographs. We get a look at early Soviet jets and there is a large section on Soviet units operating in Korea, albeit with their planes marked as North Korean. A goodly amount of space is given to the Korea situation including the claimed successes of Soviet pilots. One area where the Soviets screwed up is that once a unit was considered combat experienced, the entire unit was pulled out and replaced with a fresh one, where the experience had to start from scratch. In US units, there was a constant rotation of pilots so there would always be experts to help train the new guys and help keep them alive. I also found quite interesting the sections on the Soviet military in Egypt and in Cuba, two places that made major use of Soviet crews.

The other major war that is covered is the Afghanistan operation. This takes up several chapters and it was somewhat odd to read names that are common in today's news, like Bagram airbase and Khandahar. Their experiences both with fixed and rotary wing aircraft are fully covered. Interestingly, helicopters were given over to Army aviation, much to the dismay of their pilots, who were often dissatisfied with the lack of flexibility in the Army hierarchy and left the military under less than happy conditions.

We are given a look at the full gamut of aircraft flown during this time by tactical aviation including Yak-23s, La-15s, MiG-15/17/19/23/25/27/29, IL-28 bombers, Su-7/17/24/27  and other aircraft types. This all goes up to the fall of the Soviet Union, so the chaos of that fall is not covered in this book. I also found it very interesting that near new MiG-23/27 fighters were stuck in storage in the mid 1980s as it was decided that single engine fighters were 'not safe'. Of course, with the increasing lack of funds of the time, these airframe basically rotted away from lack of proper preservation maintenance.

Typical of this series, there are dozens of full color profiles and hundreds of photographs, some in full color. Actually, to my eye, quite a few of the full color ones were taken right after the fall of the Soviet Union when Western photographers were given unparalleled access to Soviet bases in Eastern Europe, mostly the old East Germany, where a small bribe to the base commander and crews would help ease things along. That only lasted a few years before things clamped down again and lasted until Soviet forces finally pulled out in the mid 1990s.

In all, it makes for an excellent addition to the series and is a book that I can easily highly recommend.

March 2012

Review book courtesy of Specialty Press, where you can order your copy of this and many other superb aviation and modeling books. Visit their website at the link above or call them at 1-800-895-4585

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