Attack of the Airacobras: Soviet Aces, American P-39S, and the Air War Against Germany (Modern War Studies)

by Frank Borman, James F. Gebhardt, Dmitriy Loza

Release Date: December, 2001

Edition: Hardcover

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Zzzzzzzzzz

A difficult read due to turgid, repetitive Soviet-style prose. I would reccomend this book only to a historian or a very serious aviation buff. I count myself as one of the latter, and I'm having trouble working up the interest to get more than halfway through this one.

As good as it gets, so far

This book gets into the day-to-day operational life of a Russian
P-39 squadron. It's an excellent reference of life outside of the cockpit, and yet still let's you know that the P-39 was more than competitive against Me-109's & FW-190's. The point isn't stated exactly, but the reason they WERE competitive is that combat on the Russian Front was generally below 15,000 ft, and never above 20,000 ft. Remember, neither side was using high-altitude, long-range stategic bombers, it was all low-level tactical aviation.

Still, the book doesn't get into the airplane specifics I would like, i.e. . . how specifically it was better than the 109/190, or even how it compared to their own MiG's, Yak's, LaGG's.

The point is, it's a great book on the operational use of the P-39, and is worth reading.