Technically (I am no expert in this, thus I have to rely on Vladimir Fadeitsev’s, Y. Michelet’s and espec. Scott Fraser’s knowledge), “the last generation of Soviet fighters (La-7, La-9, Yak-3, Yak-9P) were formidable aircraft”, especially below 15,000 feet. (“Free-French fighter pilots fought alongside the Russians 1943-45 were very satisfied with their Yak-3s”). There were a handful of encounters near the end of the Second World War where Soviet and American pilots mistook each other for the enemy. These engagements were pretty much inconclusive — each side lost aircraft to the other.” Not a sign of better U.S. air quality.

Let’s assume that the US/CW Air forces were about twice as large as the VVS. This is without doubt air supremacy. Air superiority still need to be gained by the U.S. And this wouldn’t be a matter of days, but weeks.


A very interesting and "gray" area you bring up, Andy. But I think you're still being a little conservative in saying that U.S. air superiority would take weeks.
From the looks of it, the struggle would have been considerably longer. Yes, the Yak-3, La-p, and Yak-9Ps were popular with Soviet pilots, but this was when they were pitted against aircraft such as Stukas, ME-109s (even the nimble K model), FW-190s and the like. Now, If it is widely believed that American high-altitude fighters such as the P-51, P-47, and P-38 were BETTER than their Luftwaffe rivals, I'm going to make a logical deduction that the Americans had superior aircraft to anything in the Soviet inventory.

But Herr Hartmann, what about the sheer numbers of aircraft and troops that the Soviets had at the time!?! You forgot about that.....

No, I didn't. American planes would be FAR outnumbered. And yes, in the log run the USAAF would ultimately lose. But as mentioned earlier, it was a matter of simply buying time and holding the red star while getting a foothold of the heavy bombers - most noteably the B-29.
These Superfortresses would not operate from the Pacific, either. Boeing's Renton and Wichita plants did officially stop production until around October, 1945 - and many of these went to England. Well within range to meet the Soviets.

Now that we're thinking about it in depth, it is a good thing that none of this happened