[vanir]

The impression I had spending a few hours at a Russian aviation museum website pretty much reflected the il2 aircraft description. That most of these aircraft, Yaks and LaGG were produced in such varied conditions and significant circumstances, the sheer ultimate scale of the Soviet air forces so immense by the late war and each of these types remaining in production perhaps long after what would have otherwise been the case (and rushed to service in the first place on similar reasoning) that an endless series of variation, modification and customisation, plus regional and industrial differences during series production, that the major types such as the Yak-1 and LaGG-3 were models which were constantly improved and modernised throughout series production. One day a revised surface finish adds 5km/h. Another some Messerschmitt style exhaust manifolding gives another 8km/h. And so on.

The Yak-1 does have a good year worth of service for say, flying a Soviet Pilot Campaign/Career and fighter type choices.

So I'd like to plus 1 the request that we need a couple of more "improved" Yak-1's which definitely reached historical service, featuring streamlining and quality control improvements, albeit at a piecemeal pace until early-43 according to most reports. These would be sort of like "F" and "FN" versions to the La-5 and kind of make a years worth of campaigning a bit more fun. I mean the LaGG has several versions running into 1943, a few changes since 1941 so let's see some "series 35" Yak-1's too. Otherwise generally it's just smarter to switch to LaGG as soon as they get the leading edge slats and take La-5/F/FN until 1944 before you jump in a Yak (3 followed by 9U).

I'm all for this idea, the more I think about it. It'd be nice to play around more with the early Yaks, but once again with that Yak-1 it's just not smart in 42 and it gets kinda monotonous. Yak-1B is what, November 42? La-5 is the go about then. It's like using a Focke Wulf against the Germans.