Deliveries to frontline fighter regiments began in the spring of 1941 and were a handful for pilots accustomed to the lower-performance and docile
Polikarpov I-152 and
I-153 biplanes and the
Polikarpov I-16 monoplane. It remained tricky and demanding to fly even after the extensive improvements made over the MiG-1. Many fighter regiments had not kept pace in training pilots to handle the MiG and the rapid pace of deliveries resulted in many units having more MiGs than trained pilots during the
Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion. By 1 June 1941, 1,029 MIG-3s were on strength, but there were only 494 trained pilots. In contrast to the untrained pilots of the 31st Fighter Regiment, those of the 4th Fighter Regiment were able to claim three German high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft shot down before war broke out in June 1941. High-altitude combat of this sort was to be rare on the
Eastern Front where most air-to-air engagements were at altitudes well below . At these altitudes the MiG-3 was outclassed by the Bf 109 in all respects, and even by other new Soviet fighters such as the
Yakovlev Yak-1. The shortage of ground-attack aircraft in 1941 forced it into that role as well, for which it was totally unsuited. Pilot Alexander E. Shvarev recalled: "The Mig was perfect at altitudes of 4,000 m and above. But at lower altitudes it was, as they say, 'a cow'. That was the first weakness. The second was its armament: weapons failure dogged this aircraft. The third weakness was its
gunsights, which were inaccurate: that's why we closed in as much as we could and fired point blank". On 22 June 1941, most MiG-3s and MiG-1s were in the border military districts of the Soviet Union. The
Leningrad Military District had 164, 135 were in the
Baltic Military District, 233 in the
Western Special Military District, 190 in the
Kiev Military District and 195 in the
Odessa Military District for a total of 917 on hand, of which only 81 were non-operational. An additional 64 MiGs were assigned to Naval Aviation, 38 in the Air Force of the
Baltic Fleet and 26 in the Air Force of the
Black Sea Fleet. The 4th and 55th Fighter Regiments had most of the MiG-3s assigned to the Odessa Military District and their experiences on the first day of the war may be taken as typical. The 4th, an experienced unit, shot down a
Romanian
Bristol Blenheim reconnaissance bomber, confirmed by postwar research, and lost one aircraft which crashed into an obstacle on takeoff. The 55th was much less experienced with the MiG-3 and claimed three aircraft shot down, although recent research confirms only one German
Henschel Hs 126 was 40 per cent damaged, and suffered three pilots killed and nine aircraft lost. The most unusual case was the pair of MiG-3s dispatched from the 55th on a reconnaissance mission to
Ploieşti that failed to properly calculate their fuel consumption and both were forced to land when they ran out of fuel. Most of the MiG-3s assigned to the interior military districts were transferred to the PVO where their lack of performance at low altitudes was not so important. On 10 July 299 were assigned to the PVO, the bulk of them belonging to the 6th PVO Corps at
Moscow, while only 293 remained with the VVS, and 60 with the Naval Air Forces, a total of only 652 despite deliveries of several hundred aircraft. By 1 May 1942, Naval Aviation had 37 MiGs on strength, He later recalled: “Its designers rarely succeeded in matching both the fighter's flight characteristics with its firepower… the operational advantage of the MiG-3 seemed to be obscured by its certain defects. However, these advantages could undoubtedly be exploited by a pilot able to discover them”. ==Variants== There were several attempts to re-engine the aircraft with the engine it was originally designed for, the
Mikulin AM-37. This was designated the
MiG-7, and one MiG-3 was converted to evaluate the engine in May 1941. It proved to have poor longitudinal stability and the powerplant itself still had a number of problems. The German invasion the following month caused the cancellation of the development of the AM-37 as Mikulin's resources were required for the AM-35 and AM-38 engines already in production. To improve the low-level performance of the MiG-3, one aircraft was tested with the AM-38 engine used by the Il-2 in July 1941. It proved to be faster than the normal MiG-3 at sea level and was more maneuverable as well. It was recommended for production after passing its State acceptance trials in September, provided that a cure for the engine's tendency to overheat in ambient temperatures above was found. However the sole prototype was shot down on 5 October during flight tests and it was decided not to proceed with the idea as all AM-38 production was allocated to the Il-2. Ironically, later in the war, about 80 MiG-3s were reengined with AM-38s to make them airworthy again. Many of these were rearmed with two 20 mm ShVAK cannon as well. On 13 May 1941 the NKAP ordered the OKO to convert a MiG-3 to use the
Shvetsov ASh-82A
radial engine then entering production. The resulting aircraft had a variety of names, including I-210, MiG-3-82, Samolet IKh or Izdeliye 65. The design was a failure, but was promising enough to continue the program as the
I-211. A variety of other tests and other projects were conducted using MiG-3s.
Leading edge slats were evaluated in 1941 although they were not fitted on production aircraft, but were used by the I-210. A six-bladed propeller was fitted on one aircraft to increase thrust at high altitude to enable the fighter to catch the high-flying
Junkers Ju 86P aircraft then overflying Moscow. A new propeller hub was made that mounted six standard VISh-61 blades, but nothing more is known of the project. Four aircraft were converted to carry AFA-I cameras for evaluation and a fifth was then converted to evaluate all the improvements learned from the first four. It was approved for use after trials at the NII VVS. To improve their
service ceiling two aircraft were reduced in weight to , but no further details are known other than one reached a height of . There was also a proposal in 1941 to use the MiG-3 as part of a
Zveno combination with a
Petlyakov Pe-8 mother ship. The four-engined bomber would carry two MiG-3SPB (
Skorostnoy Pikeeruyushchiy Bombardirovshchik—Fast Dive Bomber) fighters, modified to carry a FAB-250 bomb under each wing, close to the target and would then release them to conduct the attack after which they would fly back to the nearest friendly airbase. Some preliminary work was done before the Germans invaded, but it was abandoned afterwards due to the pressure of other work. The combination was estimated to have a maximum speed of and a range of .
Summary of variants ;MiG-3 :Production variant powered by a
Mikulin AM-35A engine. ;MiG-3SPB :
Skorostnoy Pikeeruyushchiy Bombardirovshchik (Fast Dive Bomber), proposed
parasite fighter variant for the
Zveno project to be carried by a
Petlyakov Pe-8 mother ship. ;
I-211 (
Samolet Ye) :Derivative of the I-210 with a redesigned fuselage and powered by a Shvetsov ASh-82F engine. Single prototype built. ;I-231 (
Samolet 2D) :Improved I-230 with a more powerful
Mikulin AM-39 engine. Production aircraft would have been designated
MiG-3DD. ;Undesignated experimental MiG-3 variants :*Single MiG-3 tested with a
Mikulin AM-38 engine. :*Single MiG-3 tested with
leading-edge slats in 1940. :*Single MiG-3 tested with a six-bladed propeller. :*Five MiG-3s tested with AFA-I cameras. ==Operators==