The MiG-3 fighter plane, like the history of the creation of the Mikoyan
and Gurevich (Микоян и Гуревич) design bureau, is relatively well known
to anyone interested in the history of Soviet aviation. Many books and
articles have been published about this machine, but information about
the circumstances of the birth of the project and the conditions of its
creation are very brief and concise. MiG-1 and MiG-3 were the most
numerous new generation fighters in Soviet aviation at the time of the
German invasion of the USSR. They played a very important role in the
first period of the war. Until now, it has been assumed in the
literature that this applies mainly to the use of these aircraft during
the battle of Moscow, as well as capital's and Leningrad's air defense,
but MiGs also took on a large weight of air combat at the front in 1941.