Kasil Oyunsky's Kursk BeSS-3

[comrade harps]

Irkutsk Aviation Collective (IAC) BeSS-3 Series 45
White 12, 194th (Siberian) Escadrille, Socialist Union Air Force (SUAF)
Personal mount of Flight Leader Kasil Oyunsky
Starry Oskol, July 1943

The BeSS-3 is derived from the successful BeSS-1 and is named after the leaders of its design collective, Mikhail Belyaeva, Dimitri Sharapova and Rudolf Speransky and was the team's second fighter for the Irkutsk Aviation Collective (IAC). The BeSS-1 was designed to meet a SUAF requirement for a fighter that prosessed both long-range and superior dogfighting abilities. It entered production at Irkutsk in March 1940 and served with distinction early in the War Against Fascism (WAF). Lightly built (but all-metal), nimble with an economical radial engine, the early series BeSS-1s were armed with a pair of 7.62mm ShVAK machine guns and entered service with units of the SUAF's Far East and Strategic commands.



Following the Axis Barbarossa invasion, emphasis was placed on developing tactical versions with more power, heavier armament (initially two 12.7mm BS machine guns, later a pair of 20mm ShVAK cannons) and better protection for service in the frontline Western Command area. The result was the BeSS-3, which entered production in mid-1942 at IAC's own factory at Irkutsk and a second line at Magnitogorsk. Despite the change in service designation, IAC saw both types as variants of the same design, factory records documenting the last BeSS-1s being Series 17 and the first BeSS-3s as Series 18s.



Although slower than many of its contemporaries, the BeSS-1 and -3 were favoured by many for their agility, pilot vision, reliability and endurance. Ironically, its much promoted all-metal structure became a handicap once wartime shortages set in. This slowed deliveries but 7,380 had been delivered when the last BeSS-3 Series 59 was rolled out at Magnitogorsk in February 1944. The all-new, larger, faster and more powerful BeSS-5 replaced the BeSS-3 at both Irkutsk and Magnitogorsk.



There has been some confusion over the model of the BeSS-3 flown by three-time ace Kasil Oyunsky (an ethnic Yakut from the Yakut Autonomous Socialist Republic) during the Battle of Kursk in July 1943. In 1949 the book Red Aces Of The WAF (War Against Fascism) included an illustration of a BeSS-3 Series 46 whose caption stated that it was of "Flight Leader Kasil Oyunsky's BeSS-3 White 12 at Kursk." Others drew upon this image and it thus became conventional wisdom. The error was only discovered in the mid-1990s when the aviation historian Valeri Karpin researched archive material in preparation for a book on the Siberian contribution to Red airpower during the WAF.



Karpin found photographs of Oyunsky and BeSS-3 White 12, but noticed that since these failed to show the nose of the fighter that they were inconclusive in determining the aircraft's sub-type. Other documentation demonstrated that the 194th (Siberian) Escadrille was solely equipped with the Series 45 model in July 1943, during the Battle of Kursk. Both the Series 45 and 46 were armed with 20 mm ShVAK cannons (distinguishable by twin elongated fairings ahead of the canopy), but all 700 Series 45 airframes built at Magnitogorsk featured tab-like exhaust stubs whereas the 570 Series 46 machines built at Irkutsk had individual ejector exhaust stacks. Additionally, the original illustration accurately matched the camouflage of the July 1943 White 12 photographs, which show a scheme consistent with the typical factory applied pattern adopted at Magnitogorsk.



Kasil Oyunsky is credited with 19 air-to-air kills, including 3 solo and two shared kills claimed during the Battle of Kursk. He was killed  on 23 June, 1944, when the BeSS-5 he was flying was struck by German flack in the cockpit area.

[NARSES2]

I like that

[PR19_Kit]

Why am I thinking 'What's Whiffish about this?' 

VERY clever if it really is a Whiff, with an amazing backstory too, even if I can't pronounce half of it.... 

[Gondor]

So who or what is the SUAF?

Gondor

[zenrat]

So who or what is the SUAF?

Gondor

Socialist Union Air Force.  Comrade Harps states this in his Red Star Swordfish back story.

Very good tovarishch.

[comrade harps]

Why am I thinking 'What's Whiffish about this?' 

VERY clever if it really is a Whiff, with an amazing backstory too, even if I can't pronounce half of it.... 

Pop it in the right camo and markings and a Nakajima Ki-43 can look convincingly Soviet. Or, in my alt. universe, Red, as Soviet is something else, which is about to be explained in the Product 17 backstory.

Thank you all for your kind words (and the anti-tank torpedo speculation with the Red Swordfish). I've been taking a break from modelling over summer and now that Melbourne's cooling towards my favourite time of the year, Modelling Season, I'm catching up. The Soviet Product 17 is but minutes away!

[DogfighterZen]

Somehow i saw a bubbletop Zero when the first pic came up... 
Great job, love the build and the story!

[comrade harps]

I've pulled my North Vietnamese BeSS-5 (long story) out from the bungalow for a photoshoot with the BeSS-3:

[DogfighterZen]

A couple of beauties!