The Horrible History of Russian Fighter Planes

Well guys, the long awaited tale of how the Russian Fighter Force began, developed and failed spectacularly upwards has finally arrived. From epic failure to calamitous catastrophe to a soaring triumph over fascism.

This is the story of the early days of Russian fighter design. From 1908 to 1946. Featuring our cast of intrepid heroes as they try to bring Russia's fighters to life, while keeping their own.

Music by Karl Casey at Whitebat Audio and the works of Russia's great composers.

Special thanks to @habitual_linecrosser for his guest appearance!

Support the channel on Patreon:

Bibliography and Source List
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The Silvansky IS:

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The Works of Yefrim Gordon – The leading historiographer of Soviet Aviation:
Soviet Air Power in WW2 (2010)
Soviet Combat Aircraft of the Second World War: Volume One (1998)
Yakovlev’s Piston-Engine Fighters (2002)
Lavochkin’s Piston-Engine Fighters (2003)
Mikoyan’s Piston-Engine Fighters (2003)
OKB Mikoyan: A History of the Design Bureau and its Aircraft (2009)
Polikarpov's I-16 Fighter: Its Forerunners and Progeny (2002)
(And all his other associated works that are far too numerous to list here. Go read them)

LaGG and Lavochkin Aces of the Second World War (2002) – George Mellingher
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Janes Fighting Aircraft of WW2 (1995 edition) – By Bill Gunston and Fred Jane
The Russian Military Air Fleet in World War I, Volume One (2010) – August Blume
The Imperial Russian Air Service: Famous Pilots & Aircraft of World War One (1995) – Victor Kulikov
Russian Aero-Piston Engines (2005) – Vladimir Kotelnikov
World Encyclopedia of Aero-Engines (1989) – Bill Gunston
Lavochkin Fighters of the Second World War (2017) – Jason Moore

[AnimarchyHistory]

Correction: in the video I stated that Duralumin is an earlier form of Aluminium. This is not strictly correct. Duralumin alloys are an aluminium alloy which were and are used in aviation. The reason I chose to describe it that way is to separate the poorer quality less advanced alloy compositions used by the Soviets from Western and Japanese Duralumin alloys. Also fun fact, the Japanese aluminium alloys used in the Zero were more advanced than anything in the western aviation industry, so much so that US companies reverse engineered it. Leading to the high quality aircraft aluminium alloys used today. So it wasn’t just a Euro-American race.

Well guys, the long awaited tale of how the Russian Fighter Force began, developed and failed spectacularly upwards has finally arrived. From epic failure to calamitous catastrophe to a soaring triumph over fascism.

This is the story of the early days of Russian fighter design. From 1908 to 1946. Featuring our cast of intrepid heroes as they try to bring Russia's fighters to life, while keeping their own.

Music by Karl Casey at Whitebat Audio and the works of Russia's great composers.

Special thanks to @habitual_linecrosser for his guest appearance!

Support the channel on Patreon:


Bibliography and Source List

The Silvansky IS:


The Works of Yefrim Gordon – The leading historiographer of Soviet Aviation:
Soviet Air Power in WW2 (2010)
Soviet Combat Aircraft of the Second World War: Volume One (1998)
Yakovlev’s Piston-Engine Fighters (2002)
Lavochkin’s Piston-Engine Fighters (2003)
Mikoyan’s Piston-Engine Fighters (2003)
OKB Mikoyan: A History of the Design Bureau and its Aircraft (2009)
Polikarpov's I-16 Fighter: Its Forerunners and Progeny (2002)
(And all his other associated works that are far too numerous to list here. Go read them)


LaGG and Lavochkin Aces of the Second World War (2002) – George Mellingher

Janes Fighting Aircraft of WW2 (1995 edition) – By Bill Gunston and Fred Jane
The Russian Military Air Fleet in World War I, Volume One (2010) – August Blume
The Imperial Russian Air Service: Famous Pilots & Aircraft of World War One (1995) – Victor Kulikov
Russian Aero-Piston Engines (2005) – Vladimir Kotelnikov
World Encyclopedia of Aero-Engines (1989) – Bill Gunston
Lavochkin Fighters of the Second World War (2017) – Jason Moore

[mland]

The existence of R&D gulags makes me imagine the possibility of HR gulags, marketing gulags, and IT gulags.

[SonOfAB_tchndClass]

An engine falling out of the sky and landing on the Russian Knight is frankly the most Russian thing ever.

[AKKK]

"Mr. Putin how would you comment on the criticism against the Su-57?"
"Before we start, I would like to do a quick 30 second to a minute historical recap if that's okay? So we must return to the year 1908 at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute..."

[Dunkopf]

"I'd intercept me"

-mentaly stable aircraft

[katjamuller]

I'm very glad you mentioned the Czechoslovak legion in the video as they were absolute gigachads. Czechs want to go home, Czechs get told no and are labelled enemies of the Russian state, Czechs steal a train, Czechs proceed to win every battle despite being outnumbered, Czechs arrive in Vladovostok, there's no boat, Czechs steal a boat, Czechs win a naval battle, Czechs go home, the game last train home does a great job telling the story too

[matthewstrakna]

I still cant believe the first ever quad-engine aircraft died via Looney Tunes gag.

[LazerPig]

I don't even want to think how many beers Animarchy went through trying to put together this video.

[FPoP]

Every Russian history video about anything has a section "And then came Stalin".

[seanmarshall]

I used to think the phrases “and then it got worse” and “then along came Stalin” were more memes than anything else. Turns out it describes pretty much all of the USSRs history fairly accurately.

[bthsr]

I'm starting to see why the famous "Night Witches" had to make do with obsolete biplanes lacking proper insulation.

[jonathansteadman]

'Some guy called Archie Duke shot an ostrich because he was hungry " classic Blackadder

[edwardkennedy]

My grandfather flew IL 2 during the war. Over the course of three years, he lost four gunners, returned more than a dozen times with the fuselage almost completely shot through, and was even shot down twice, but each time he landed the aircraft. This plane was not just called a flying tank, it really was one.

[ThMkrn]

Animarchy: "if we keep fostering our economic growth and the passion of our workers we can-"
Joseph Stalin: (interrupts your sentence) -"and everyone died, the end"

[Kepora]

Advisor: "The people can't eat guns!"
Stalin: *"Then they can eat bullets."*

[geoffreyentwistle]

"What is beyond dispute is that the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry, and is widely considered to have been a bad idea."

That got me properly cackling... Well played. 😂

[jonathanwhite]

The sheer irony of the god king Emperor of America's Rotary Aviation help create Russia's Air Force

[barrybend]

I'm now picturing you and Laserpig somehow conveying all this history in a musical with the Horrible Histories title.

[reinisrunkulis]

1:12:23 Aeronautics engineer here. Duralumin is an aluminum alloy which offers a more favorable strength to weight ration over steel. It is basically stronger then regular aluminum, while still being very light. Such alloys are still widely used today. In Western aviation mostly 2024 series alloys are used while the Russians use D16 and D16T.
I guess you meant not a lower grade aluminum, but an alloy that was just out of spec and shit.

[clueless]

“It appeared that the Russians/Soviets held an advantage at the time.

Unfortunately, this was a facade.”

Tale as old as time.