I talked to a few people at one point about the wartime yak serie and it's a very complicated story about those yaks. It's very difficult for me to understand and rationalise exactly the differences, progression and timeline between each model. From what I understand they didn't even have different models as such, not in the way we tend to think of in the west, there is never really such a thing as an "A" then a "B" then a "C" model or specific variants with the yaks, they're all over the place. A Yak-7 doesn't really mean anything different from a Yak-9 or a Yak-1 depending on the situation. The Soviet industrial complex was very complex.
It was all very awkward having to move all the factories in early 1941. Then they shipped the existing workforce but also expanded a new one, the idea was to increase production by three times. And it was very disorganised because some sections of the new workforce were woodworkers and textiles machinists, but then some of them were highly qualified alloy metallurgists. Some had to be trained from farmers, others were already tractor mechanics, some were professional aeronautical engineers if the Gulags hadn't claimed them yet. This was happening right at the time when the Yak (I26) was first being surveyed by VVS and Stavka.
Stalin was very paranoid but his reasons were from watching what happened between Lenin and the military commands around 1920, dozens of little-emperors essentially drove him to his death and threatened to rule the empire in the form of shadow governments of independent and warlord fiefdoms not unlike what was happening in China, and over there they were actually murdering their own revolutionary leaders as soon as power was secured and then all the different provinces warred each other for centralised dominance, Stalin was determined that this was not going to happen to him. Personally I suspect and I think Stalin suspected Lenin was poisoned.
These are important factors involved in the production of the yak between 1941-43, the fact is two different workers councils, TsAGI and Stavka were all directly involved and it was a situation where some workers were so scared of what they were doing because anywhere from 30-70% of any leading workforce members were being shipped off to Gulags under charges of sabotage at any one time, all it took was the accusation most of the time. Plus was the fact that the yak was hardly the most important fighter to Stavka, they liked the LaGG and Il2 mostly.
There is a situation where the Yak1 is almost a failure because the finish quality was so bad, but the surplus of YakUTI couldn't be overlooked. There were two major fronts in Ukraine and at Leningrad areas, plus peripheraries. The British started sending lots of aircraft and fuel very quickly along with domestic consumables, and this was a benefit but there were problems with foreign aircraft operating in Russian conditions, very similar to the situation the RAF/FEC had with their Hurricanes in Burma, the local fuel and conditions were so bad the Merlins couldn't take it and had to be detuned, their MkII operated no better than the early MkI of 1940, at least until about 43. In Russia it was like this at times, especially early on. Plus there was the weather, British engines had to be completely drained and reserviced using local fluids and tuning conventions, it killed the performance of the Merlin which was never as celebrated in Russia as it was elsewhere.
With the American lend lease planes there was the complication that they either came through the Middle East route (through Armenia) or shipped to Vladivostok and the entire Siberian railway had to be rebuilt to transport them to the Fronts. This meant the bulk of American lend lease aircraft like the P-39 wound up being stockpiled at receiving ports until the Kuban offensive in 43. The period of some lend lease aircraft in 42 were mostly in the southern Front (Don valley), these were generally detuned British Hurricanes and Bostons operating as bombers and easy meat for the Luftwaffe F4 and G2, even the Bf110 had good success without escorts. It is shown in the pilot kill records which Germany kept religiously, noting type and location of kills. Some small amount of lend lease fighters were available but it was sporadic and often they were simply stripped for things like their armoured seats and radios which were then fitted to LaGG fighters operating at Leningrad in 42.
But there was a good surplus of YakUTI that was built in early 41 because the decision was made this would be the main conversion trainer for all the new fighters the MiG, the LaGG and the Yak1. They made quite a few and because they had larger wings than the Yak1 with better fuselage balance they were very stable and very popular. It was easy just to fit the PF engine in 42 and ShVAK gun so you had a fighter, just strip the rear cockpit position.
So the Yak9 was really based on this concept. The Yak7 is mostly like a modified YakUTI which incorporated all the common factory improvements being forced by TsAGI reports and Stavka involvement. The improvements are represented generally with Yak1 and Yak7 in production series. Later Yak1 used YakUTI wings and eventually became the Yak3 but the popularity of the Yak7/9 never really subsided. And a very big part of all this was the concern of how many fighters are being produced by the month, it was quicker to make 2000 Yak7 than it was to adapt to 1500 Yak9 even though the Yak9 is basically a retooled Yak7 on common lines. It's a question of interrupting the lines and modifying the workers requirements.
All of them really get very blurred in late42 to mid43 until production finally standardised the Yak9 and then reintroduced the Yak1 derivative in the form of the Yak3.
Yak9 were operational in units from Feb43 however, but the Yak7 remained in production through the transition and at this time there is almost no difference between them, excepting which factory was making it.
Therefore to reiterated, as this description has been to the best of my understanding but may be at fault, I find it all very complicated and difficult to understand any exact progression and model distinctions so much as a general development of series production for the Yak family.
I guess the point is that I would like to mention that I am very thankful for any mods for 4.101 which will expand the Yak series effectively for historical campaign building. But even if it is a relatively minor thing, can somebody pretty please fix that horrible looking prop spinner so that it looks nice and smooth
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Topic: Yak-7 without razorback (Read 38341 times)
