War over the Steppes

Chapter 1: 1931-41This chapter traces the changing relationships between the two allies in a decade that saw them swing from co-conspirators against the Versailles Treaty to enemies. It examines the Luftwaffe build-up, which began during the Battle of Britain, and how the Mediterranean campaign would begin to effect the air war in the East like the 'Moon and the tides'. Soviet air power expanded explosively during the 1930s, but the huge air fleet had pilots who were barely trained. Moscow and Leningrad had air defences supported by radar, yet the flight to Moscow of a Lufthansa airliner sparked a purge of Soviet air leadership.Chapter 2: June 1941-April 1942The Luftwaffe had its greatest success destroying enemy air power in the opening hours of the campaign, but it destroyed aircraft and not men. The Soviet response was furious, but at terrible cost, allowing the Luftwaffe to pave the way for great advances that ended at the gates of Moscow. After that it covered the retreat and supplied isolated garrisons. These operations dissipated German air power, which could not escape the Wehrmacht's supply problems. It also allowed Luftwaffe commander in chief Herman Göring to consolidate his grip on the army's squadrons as the reconnaissance arm was reorganised. Russian air power was held together by its new commander, Pavel Zhigarev, yet he would leave only the lightest of footsteps on the sands of time. In response to the terrible blows that severely undermined the Soviet aircraft industry, Soviet air power was fragmented but Zhigarev laid the foundations for its consolidation and, in almost his last act, authorised development of the La-5 fighter. However, losses and a disrupted industrial base meant the USSR had to extemporise, possibly influenced by the clash at Khalin Gol in 1939, from obsolete aircraft and trainers the night bomber force that would be a significant element of their air power until the end of the war

E. R. (Ted) Hooton has been a journalist for 40 years and a defence journalist for about 25 years. He has written numerous articles on military history and three highly regarded books on the history of the Luftwaffe - The Luftwaffe: A Study in Air Power 1933-1945 (2010), Phoenix Triumphant: The Rise and Rise of the Luftwaffe (1992) and Eagle in Flames: The Fall of the Luftwaffe (1997), as well as contributing to several others. He has also written a detailed history of air operations over the Western Front, War above the Trenches - Air Power and the Western Front Campaigns 1916-1918 (2010) and Stalin's Claws (2012), an account of Stalin's military purges and the Soviet wars prior to Barbarossa.