Spanish Civil War What-If?

[papacavy]

I'd like some input on the fictional deployment of several Polikarpov I-17 fighter aircraft to the Spanish Republican Air Force. How do you think that plane would have done against the Condor Legion and Italian monoplanes?

 

[Justo Miranda]

I'd like some input on the fictional deployment of several Polikarpov I-17 fighter aircraft to the Spanish Republican Air Force. How do you think that plane would have done against the Condor Legion and Italian monoplanes?

Good question, Chuck

The I-17 was an unsuccessful attempt to use the aerodynamics of the French V-12 engines to improve the I-16's performance. The I-17 did not adapt to Soviet mass production systems and inherited all the problems of the I-16 plus some of its own such as the difficulty of maintaining and cooling the engine in hot climates, longitudinal instability and the weakness of the landing gear retraction cables.

In Spain they would have faced modern German fighters equipped with radio, oxygen, 20-mm cannons and new formation and attack tactics... they would have had no better luck than the Dewoitine D.500.

 

[Dilandu]

I'd like some input on the fictional deployment of several Polikarpov I-17 fighter aircraft to the Spanish Republican Air Force. How do you think that plane would have done against the Condor Legion and Italian monoplanes?

Problem is, USSR wasn't exactly keen to send its experimental hardware into action. If anything, USSR was over-secretive, preferring that nobody would knew about any of its new weapons before they would be in production. So the idea of "combat testing" would be almost unimaginable - it could even be interpreted as traitorous attempt to disclose military secrets.

 

[Justo Miranda]

That is true, but the design and construction of the I-17 contained no technological secrets that needed to be preserved: the M-100 engine, based on the French V-12s, was already being used in my country in the Tupolev Katiuska bombers and in the two Dewoitines imported from France, the landing gear retraction system, based on that of the Lockheed Altair it was already being used on the I-16, as well as the excellent ShKAS machine guns, the OP-1 Aldiss telescopic gunsight, the Pioneer-Bendix instruments, the Sromberg carburetor and the Scintilla ignition system.

The monocoque system of wood manufacturing was also not a secret.

The aircraft was aesthetically appealing, but so were the MiG-3 and LaGG-3, excellent for modellers and a disaster for the military.