| Dan, Wargames are just that, and reality is a much different story! (Wargames at least give you a rough idea of what to do and what not to do, so they do have value in training if nothing else.) The point of view was that at the proper altitude -- airspeed being at least as much a factor of altitude as power and "clean" or "dirty" conditions -- a B-29 in a shallow dive could easily hit over 400 mph when getting "the hell of of Dodge", and at low altitude the La-11 could not catch the B-26. A special "court martial" was held according to a number of Russian authors in which the cuprit -- the La-11 -- was found guilty of not being fast enough and was cashiered in favor of the MiG-15. La-11s carried no radar, and in a tail chase could not overhaul a departing B-29 before it got to the sea (over which the Soviet pilots were forbidden to fly, another artificial barrier to interception). Cookie Sewell AMPS |