Aircraft
Hungarian Bf 109s
The first Hungarian produced Me109 – still Ga-4 – was finished on November 21, 1942. Its first flight was on December 30, 1942. In October 1942, Germany gave Hungary 50 Bf109F-4s, which were used to re-equip Re.2000 units. 40 Ju87D-1s, 30 Ju87D-5s, 6 Bf110G-4s, and 160 Me210s (which the Germans were happy to get rid of) were added to the…
Most Recent
Tactical and Strategic Heavy-Lifting Air Operations I
Lockheed C-130 Hercules (1954) In the twenty-first century air power manifests itself in many different ways. It is not always about applying kinetic effect. There is also a dimension of reach. Air power can be applied at a strategic, operational and tactical level, but it is important not to immediately…
Tactical and Strategic Heavy-Lifting Air Operations II
Lockheed C-5 Galaxy (1968) Berlin Crisis 1961 In previously highly-classified documents recording the meeting in Washington on 5 April between the newly-installed Kennedy Administration and the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and senior members of his Cabinet the matter of just how far those contingency plans should go was…
Operation Barbarossa – Bf 109 Operations I
The German invasion of the USSR, Operation Barbarossa, began on 22 June 1941. Supporting the invasion were a number of Bf 109 units, including II./JG 53 and I. to III./JG 54 (Luftflotte 1 operating on the northern front), II. and III./JG 27, I. to IV./JG 51, II./JG 52, I. and…
Operation Barbarossa – Bf 109 Operations II
Ground-attack units Bf 109s fitted with an external bomb rack were used as fighter-bombers over southern England. Organised within the VIII. Fliegerkorps, II.(Schl)/LG 2 played an important role during the invasion with its bomb carrying Bf 109Es and Hs 123s. Based at Praschnitz (Przasnysz in present-day Poland) on 22 June…
Polikarpov and MiG
Numerically, the most important fighter in the V-VS arsenal at the time was still the Polikarpov I-16—revolutionary in 1935, but obsolescent in 1941. The second most numerous Soviet fighter, the I-153, was essentially a refined I-15 biplane with retractable landing gear, designed in 1937 after the I-16 because Nikolai N.…
Lockheed C-5 Galaxy (1968)
The fourth C-5A Galaxy 66-8306 in the 1980s European One color scheme. A C-5B Galaxy of the USAF’s 436th Military Airlift Wing in the European One ‘lizard’ camouflage scheme worn during the 1980s. The B-model was basically similar to the C-5A, but added the various improvements made during that type’s…