Рыбин, Ю. В. Советские асы на Харрикейнах в годы Второй Мировой Войны / Юрий Рыбин . – [Б. м. ] : Osprey Publishing, 2012. – 97 с. : ил., портр. – Англ. яз.

First published in Great Britain in 2012 by Osprey Publishing Midland House, West Way, Botley, Oxford, OX2 0PH 44-02 23rd Street, Suite 219, Long Island City, NY, 11101, USA E-mail: info@ospreypublishing.com Osprey Publishing is part of the Osprey Group © 2012 Osprey Publishing Limited All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrical, chemical, mechanical, optical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission. All enquiries should be addressed to the publisher. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978 1 84908 741 4 e-book ISBN: 978 1 84908 742 1 e-Pub ISBN: 978 1 78096 885 8 Edited by Bruce Hales-Dutton and Tony Holmes Page design by Tony Truscott Cover artwork by Mark Postlethwaite Aircraft profiles and line artwork by Aleksander Rusinov Originated by PD Q Digital Media Solutions Printed and bound in China through Bookbuilders 12 13 14 15 16 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Osprey Publishing is supporting the Woodland Trust, the UK’s leading woodland conservation charity, by funding the dedication of trees. www.ospreypubiishing.com © Osprey Publishing. Access to this book is not digitally restricted. In re-turn, we askyou thatyou use itforpersonal, non-commercialpurposes only. Please don't upload this ebook to a peer-to-peer site, e-mail it to everyoneyou know, or resell it. Osprey Publishing reserves all rights to its digital content and no part o fthese products may be copied, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in anyform by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise (except aspermitted here), without the written permission o fthe publisher. Please support our continuing bookpublishingprogramme by using this e-book responsibly. Every effort has been made by the Publisher to secure perm issions to use the images in this publication. If there has been any oversight we w ould be happy to rectify the situation and written subm ission should be made to Osprey Publishing. Front Cover During the short polar day of 15 December 1941, when it was only light between 1100 hrs and 1400 hrs, 11 Hurricanes of 78th IAP of the Northern Fleet Air Force took off in tw o groups to escort six twin- engined bombers - tw o DB-4Fs and four SBs - whose crews had been ordered to attack enemy frontline positions. Following the failure of the Wehrmacht's September advance on Murmansk, Gebirgsjager units w ere digging in for a lengthy period of 'trench warfare', but their activities w ere being disrupted by Northern Fleet aircraft, which were systematically bombing their positions by day and night. Cloud cover was, in places, down as low as 600 m (1950 ft), yet the influence of the gulfstream kept the air temperature on the northern shores of the Kola Peninsula relatively warm . It was about -10°C, even though in more southerly areas of the northern front the temperature was down to about -25°C. The Soviet aircraft dropped their ordnance during their first run, and they were followed over the target by 11 Hurricanes carrying bombs on external racks. The latter dropped 34 2.5 kg (5.5 lb) bombs plus 1000 leaflets. As soon as the Soviet formation had set course for home, Bf 109Es of 14./JG 77, led by ace Leutnant Alfred Jakobi, appeared from out of the darkness at high altitude. The interception did not come as a surprise to the Soviet pilots, however, and two formations of Hurricane Ils, led by Lts Dmitriy Amosov and Konstantin Kononov, quickly turned to meet the German attack. At first the Soviet aircraft remained in a cohesive group, but this soon broke up when individual dogfights started and each pilot ended up on his own. This was due to the Soviet reliance on a basic fighter formation that consisted of three aircraft, rather than a pair as was the case w ith other Allied and Axis air arms. The former proved impossible to keep together during combat manoeuvres. The Germans immediately shot one Hurricane down when it separated from the main formation, the aircraft crashing in flames in enemy-held territory and its pilot, Lt K G Kononov, being killed. Tw o other Hurricanes sustained combat damage but were able to return to base. During this brief battle Lt Amosov, flying Hurricane IIB Z3768 adorned w ith the legend 'For the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (VKPb)', managed to fire a long burst from all 12 of his Browning machine guns at a Bf 109 from a range of 70-100 m (75-110 yards). According to the pilot's report, the Messerschmitt crashed in enemy territory and exploded. This was the first victory scored by Dmitriy Amosov in a Hurricane, the future ace having claimed his first kill on 23 August 1941 while at the controls of an I-153 biplane. Z3768 remained Amosov's mount until it was w ritten off in combat on 31 August 1942, by which tim e he had taken his score to seven victories, including five achieved whilst flying a Hurricane II (Cover artw ork by M ark Postlethwaite)