Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-3, part two

MiG-3s were delivered to the frontline units in the spring of 1941 and only a handful of pilots were trained to flight them as most of VVS's pilots were used to pilot the Polikarpov I-153 and I-153 biplanes and the I-16 monoplane. In spite of the many improvements made from the MiG-1, it remained hard and tricky to control. Due to the defective pilots training programme, there were more MiG-3 than trained pilots available when Germany attacked USSR in late June 1941.
Just by the beginning of June 1941 there were 1029 MiG-3 available and only 494 trained pilots. In fact, prior to the official invasion date, 21st June 1941, the Luftwaffe made various reconnaissance flights over western USSR and faced MiG-3 both from 31st Fighter Regiment and 4th Fighter Regiment. More exactly, on 10th April 1941, three untrained pilots of the 31st Fighter Regiment, belonging to the PVO (Soviet Air Defences) tried to intercept a Luftwaffe high-altittude reconnaissance aicraft over Kaunas, in Lithuania, flying at 9000m high (30000ft). The aircraft entered in an irrecoverable spin and the pilots were forced to bail out, one of them being killed.
However, the trained pilots of the 4th Fighter Regiment were able to claim three German high-altittude reconnaissance aircraft in the previous days of the German invasion.
Anyway, that kind of aerial combat proved to be uncommon in the Eastern Front, where most of aerial combat took place in altittudes below 5000m high (16000ft) where the MiG-3 was outclassed not only by the Messerschmitt Bf.109F but also by other contemporary Soviet fighters like the Yakovlev Yak-1. Furthermore, the shortage of ground-attack aircrafts, pushed the MiG-3 into that role where it didn't shine as it was totally unsuited. One of Soviet pilots, Alexander E. Shvarev said that 'The MiG was perfect at altittudes of 4000m and above. But at lower altittudes 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 at point blank'.

Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-3
2. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters