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Also curious... La-5FN prototype... I know it was hand built but how different was it from a stock performance version from middle to late 1944? I was figuring that unless weight was substantially different (i.e. due to inclusion of standard equipment like guns, ammo, radio, etc.) it should be fairly similar to the later models that the game represents. The 1943 tag next to the La-5FN should probably be changed to 1944.
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Generally, prototypes are handbuilt
byskilled & experienced workers in close collaboration with the design engineers. Chances are that the early production La-5s, in many cases built from LaGG-3 airframes and parts lacked the fit and finish that makes an aircraft that last 10-30 mph faster.
When we talk about production models, you have to consider what conditions the work force operated under, how long they had been on the job, and how well the plant is run. In the US and Britain, early war production was performed in many cases by workers relatively inexperienced in the higher quality demands of aviation construction, but they were largely well supervised and worked in (generally) safe and secure facilities, so they improved rapidly and by mid-war, the vastly increased production quality was as good as or better than the pre-war 'artisan' standard.
Mid-war, probably most of the Soviet aircraft production was coming out of factories that had literally been picked up and moved a thousand kilometers or more just a few months earlier; the workers were often plucked off of the local farms and towns and had nothing like industrial experience and education to draw from, so they had to learn from 'scratch' and the surviving workers from the original facilities had to supervise them closely. The facilities where they worked were not as 'complete' as the ones that originally built that bureau's aircraft, and were considerably less comfortable and safe than their Western counterparts. It took them a bit longer to get their standards up to pre-war levels, and given where most of them started and the conditions they worked under, it was an exceptional achievement that they did so by the end of 1943/early 1944.
Japanese and German production quality appears to have gone the other way; the attrition of skilled workers to military demands, material shortages and enemy attacks coupled with the growing dependence upon captive labor made their production quality increasingly worse, particularly for the Japanese (that fighting to the last man ethos cost them a great many skilled technicians who should have been evacuated when things looked bad).
cheers
horseback
07-16-2013, 01:54 PM
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