Airplanes 1944. German jets in battles against Stalin's falcons

As follows from the tables: the number of combat aircraft sent by NKAP factories to Air Force units was almost 3 times higher than the losses of combat aircraft of all types of front-line aviation without taking into account wear and tear, including obsolete and imported aircraft. (Recall that during the 6 months of the 1941 war, on the contrary, the losses of our combat aircraft exceeded 2.4 times the number of new type combat aircraft sent by NKAP factories to Air Force units).

The year 1944 was a turning point in the Luftwaffe's strategy on the Soviet-German front.

The German command disbanded several bomber squadrons, the flight personnel of which were sent for retraining to replenish fighter squadrons. Some aviation schools and rear service units were also disbanded, the equipment of which was transferred to replenish combat flying units, and personnel, mainly non-commissioned officers and privates of all specialties, were sent to replenish SS ground units.

The measures to disband some flying schools and bomber squadrons show that the German command did not expect to strengthen its bomber aviation in the future, completely abandoned the offensive strategy and sought to keep the active units of the Air Force fully equipped and even have some reserve, especially in fighter aircraft, which is a means of defensive strategy.

The main reasons for this change in strategy, in our opinion, are the absolute dominance of Soviet aviation in the air, the successful advance of Soviet ground forces on the Soviet-German front, and, as a consequence, the successes of the Allied Air Force and ground forces in other theaters of military operations, including the opening the long-awaited 2nd front in Europe.

In the second half of 1944, the German command significantly strengthened the cover of ground forces by fighter aircraft and aerial reconnaissance.

In 1944, compared to 1943, the use of FV-190 aircraft sharply increased due to a decrease in the use of Yu-87, Yu-88, Xe-111 and FV-189, especially Yu-87 and FV-189. The number of FV-189 sorties 190 in 1944 increased from month to month. This suggests that the German command turned the FV-190 fighter into a multi-role aircraft that operates as a fighter, attack aircraft, light bomber and short-range reconnaissance aircraft. It was produced in 20 modifications. Fighter production in Germany in 1944 reached a maximum of 23,805 aircraft, due to the release of the FV-190 and a decrease in the production level of some bombers. (See Table 3)

In the Soviet Union, due to the absolute conquest of strategic air supremacy by aviation and a significant reduction in losses, the production of combat aircraft, starting in October 1944, began to exceed their needs. This created a large reserve of aircraft, especially fighters. A situation arose when the question arose of a significant reduction (even cessation) of the production of combat aircraft and, instead, the development and production of only prototype aircraft.

A unique document from the category “For official use” describing the design and operation of the YuMO-004B jet engine of the last and most advanced military aircraft of Nazi Germany at that time in the world, the Messerschmitt-262. In the last months of the war, it was with this aircraft that Hitler and Goering’s hopes for a turning point in the “air war” were tied, during which the Reich suffered one defeat after another. However, testing and serial production of the Me-262 began too late due to the shortsightedness of the Luftwaffe leadership, led by Ernst Udett and Goering's deputy Erhard Milch. The document was developed by a team of the so-called “Bureau of New Technology” of the USSR Ministry of Aviation Industry in 1946. Each copy of this document had its own registration number- in our case, No. 233. A similar document issued by the same bureau was devoted to the fuselage and aerodynamic qualities of the aircraft (not in our collection). Original, condition consistent with age. Full version document is located in .

The German Me-262 fighter is considered by many experts to be one of the best military aircraft that took part in the Second World War. If the leaders of the Third Reich had timely assessed its capabilities and combat potential, victory in Europe would have gone to the Allies at a much higher price. However, Hitler’s short-sightedness, the lack of professionalism of the Luftwaffe commander Hermann Goering, and bureaucratic delays turned this jet fighter, the first in the history of air warfare, into a kind of “pariah” in the combat detachment. aircraft. But no matter how unsuccessful and short the fate of the Me-262 turned out to be, so amazing was the post-war history of the ideas of jet aviation embedded in it.

THE FURER'S LAST HOPE

This plane had its own mission from the very beginning. Along with the “weapon of retaliation” (atomic bomb) being hastily developed by German scientists, the Messerschmitt-262 was considered as a “weapon of salvation” of the Third Reich from total defeat by the Allies. Under the influence of the Imperial Minister of Propaganda J. Goebbels, whose opinion was shared by many generals of the German High Command, Germany owed its defeats on the fronts primarily to the unprofessionalism of the commander of the air force, Hermann Goering, who was unable to protect the skies and cities of the Reich from the destructive raids of allied aviation. Many believed that if the German Luftwaffe had managed to become master of the situation in the air, a decisive turning point could have occurred in the course of the war. And the main hope in this matter rested on the new jet Messerschmitt.

In the notes of Joseph Goebbels, which he kept punctually throughout the war, the theme of the Me-262 jet comes up constantly, and in the last weeks of the war it sounds like a spell: “In accordance with the availability of gasoline, all but five types of aircraft will be withdrawn from our weapons program. The main attention, according to the Fuhrer’s decision, will be given to the production of ME-262.”<…>“Direct hits from the ME-262 simply tear apart the Mosquito.” It takes four hits to shoot down such a bomber. In a month of such battles, the Anglo-American enemy must suffer such significant losses that he will have to limit his activity in the air.”<…>“Now the Fuhrer has great hopes for jet fighters. He even calls them “machines of German destiny.” He believes that thanks to jet aircraft it will be possible - at least through defensive actions - to undermine the enemy's superiority in the air."<…>“The Fuehrer now places his greatest hopes in new jet aircraft. This month 500 of them will be produced, and next month - 1000. Airfields for them can be built with great difficulty.”<…>“The Fuehrer pins all his hopes on the use of these new jets. The enemy will not be able to oppose anything significant to them in the air.”

All these are records dated March and April 1945, when the outcome of the Second World War was no longer in doubt. Already in last days war, when Soviet troops stood at the walls of Berlin, six commissioners were appointed at Hitler's headquarters to implement the program for accelerated production of the Me-262. Management of the program was entrusted to two trusted combat generals - Joseph Kammhuber, who was responsible for the production of night fighters, and Dietrich Peltz, who was responsible for the production of day fighters. The Third Reich was dying, but an order was sent to flight schools to recruit 20 thousand cadets who were to take to the air on the planes of the “German hope.”

The German jet fighter "Messerschmitt-262" also had another name - Schwalbe, which means "Swallow". Its flight advantages were demonstrated already in the first battle - on July 25, 1944, in the skies over Munich, the new Messerschmitt was almost torn to pieces by the English high-speed Mosquito bomber. However, the Third Reich did not have enough time to produce a sufficient number of “miracle aircraft”. And although from 1944 to 1945, 1,433 Me-262 jet fighters were assembled at German aircraft factories and transferred to the front, which also became the most popular jet aircraft of World War II, it failed to fulfill its original mission. Perhaps due to the fact that the new plane’s path to the sky turned out to be surprisingly difficult.

LONG ROAD TO SKY

The idea of ​​​​creating a jet fighter aircraft in Germany was born almost simultaneously with the beginning of the development of a turbojet engine (TRE). It should be noted that in the 1930s, the labor intensity of creating a turbojet engine, as one of the most knowledge-intensive finished aircraft products, was considered the greatest. In addition, the very idea of ​​​​transonic aircraft was perceived with some skepticism, since the wind tunnels that existed at that time did not make it possible to determine the characteristics of such high-speed aircraft. The development of a pursuit aircraft under the designation P-1065 first began in October 1938. It was planned to install two P3302 jet engines with a thrust of 600 kgf each. It was expected that a fighter with these turbojet engines would be able to reach speeds of up to 900 km/h. The appearance of the aircraft did not take shape immediately, and its evolution is in many ways similar to the development of flora and fauna: from simple to complex. In addition, the new aircraft could fly “in the slop,” as aircraft designers joked—that is, it did not require special highly purified aviation gasoline. At the end of the war, when Germany lost access to oil, this turned out to be an important argument in his favor.
Based on the dimensions of the turbojet engine, which was manufactured at the BMW plant, German aircraft designer Willy Messerschmitt approved the first version of the future Me-262. The unusual combination of fuselage contours and load-bearing surface (the Me-262 was equipped with a so-called “swept” wing) was a step towards an integral aircraft layout, which, as is known, became widespread during the creation of fourth-generation combat aircraft. The design of the aircraft was developed in such a way that each part was easy to manufacture and could be manufactured at various enterprises. A large shortage of aluminum alloys forced designers, to the detriment of the weight of the airframe, to widely use steel and wood in the airframe construction.

Fritz Wendel (right) and aircraft designer Willy Messerschmitt after a test flight. 1935

The first flight of a jet fighter, piloted by one of Germany's best pilots, Wendel, took place on March 25, 1942 and almost ended in disaster. The plane slowly gained an altitude of 50 meters, and when the pilot began to retract the landing gear, the left turbojet engine failed, and a little later the right one. The pilot managed to turn the car around and successfully land it at the airfield. This was a result of the low reliability of early turbojet engines. However, in the meantime, the Heinkel plant completed testing of the Junkers Jumo 004 A engine, which developed a thrust of 840 kgf. These engines were installed on the Me-262 and tests continued.

A total of three prototypes were produced, and its testing did not go very smoothly. On April 18, 1942, an experienced Me-262 crashed, killing the pilot. All this threatened that the idea of ​​​​a jet fighter could be abandoned altogether, but the situation was saved by one of the best test pilots in Germany, Adolf Galland. He thoroughly tested the aircraft in the air and on the ground and a few days later reported to Reichsmarschall Goering that “this machine is a real smile of Fortune! It gives us an advantage while our opponents use piston engine aircraft. This aircraft opens a new page in combat use.” Galland proposed some technical improvements to the design of the fighter, in particular, from now on all Me-262s were equipped - for the first time in the history of fighter aviation - with ejection seats for emergency evacuation of pilots in case of damage to the vehicle. By the way, until the end of the war, this saved the lives of 70 Luftwaffe pilots whose high-speed fighters were shot down or damaged.

Goering himself became infected with the enthusiasm of the pilots. The Luftwaffe was rapidly losing air supremacy, and the appearance of a new “indestructible” aircraft was supposed to correct the reputation of Goering himself. However, he did not immediately manage to convince Hitler that the Me-262 should become that “miracle weapon”. Hitler even then treated Goering and the entire Luftwaffe with such great distrust that he personally wanted to verify the effectiveness of the new technology. He demanded from engineers, designers and specialists obligations and guarantees that they could not give. When the designer Messerschmitt himself arrived at headquarters with a report on the new aircraft, Hitler attacked him with reproaches, not allowing him to say a word. He ordered to continue testing on a few prototypes, and because of this whim of the Fuhrer, preparations for mass production of one of the best aircraft of the Second World War were delayed for almost a year!

Not only the choleric temperament of the German Fuhrer played a role, but also his attitude to issues of strategy. Defense in Hitler's eyes was a secondary matter. Where the Luftwaffe was concerned, he listened only to what related to offensive actions; he was deaf to the needs of air defense. When, at the end of August 1944, Speer and Galland personally brought to his attention the vital need to concentrate German fighter power in defense of the Reich, Hitler simply threw them out the door shouting that they must obey his orders. In turn, Goering never objected to Hitler, but only passed down the destructive orders of the Fuhrer. In relation to honored pilots, he sometimes behaved completely insultingly. At one of the meetings, Goering began to argue that German fighter pilots had received too many awards that they did not deserve. Galland, who was present at the meeting, upon hearing this, turned pale, tore off the Knight's Cross and noisily threw it on the Reich Minister's table. An icy silence reigned, but Goering left it without consequences. At the very end of the war, Galland, who was, in fact, one of the creators of combat jet fighter aircraft, was sent to Italy with tacit instructions not to return to Germany until the end of the war. He survived, and in 1953 he wrote memoirs in which he spoke in detail, among other things, about the history of the creation of the Me-262.

BATTLE OF THE DOOMED

Meanwhile, the situation at the fronts was rapidly deteriorating, and already in November 1943, Nazi leaders again remembered the “miracle plane.” Its construction was hastily included in the weapons program and given emergency powers to organize rapid production. Goering personally visited the Messerschmitt factories to get acquainted with the progress of work on the Me-262. However, now another hitch arose: Hitler proposed converting the Me-262 into a jet bomber, which would require a complete change in design, attaching bomber sights and suspensions for aerial bombs. This could have slowed down the production of the aircraft for a long time, since the jet fighter, due to its flight characteristics and visibility from the cockpit, was not at all suitable for targeted bombing.

And a few weeks later, a large-scale disaster overtook the German aviation industry: in February 1944, Allied aircraft carried out targeted mass raids on German aircraft factories (the so-called Operation Big Week). As a result, more than 100 Me-262 aircraft were destroyed at the factories in Augsburg and Regensburg, and many technicians and workers were killed. The production of jet aircraft was urgently moved deep into Germany, to Leipheim, but even there, on April 24, the final assembly shops were destroyed by a powerful daytime raid by American bombers...

Jet Messers began to enter service with the troops only in the fall of 1944. The first squadron of jet fighters was assigned to form one of the best German aces, Walter Nowotny, who had 250 downed aircraft and was one of the most successful fighter pilots in the Reich. The creation of the first jet fighter unit, called the 7th Fighter Squadron (JG-7), began in the air town of Achmer near Osnabrück. Novotny personally selected the pilots for his squadron and equipped it with the best fighter aces that the Luftwaffe had at that time. The “bomber hunters” had to take their “baptism of fire” on the Western Front, which especially suffered from Allied air raids. The pilots noted that the Me-262 was much easier to control than the main Luftwaffe fighter Messerschmitt-109 (Gustav). True, the Me-262 accelerated worse, but in a dive it could easily exceed the speed limits. In addition, the jet fighter flew quite well on one engine, and its speed reached 450-500 km/h. The duration of its flight at an altitude of 7000 meters reached 2.25 hours. The fighter's armament consisted of four 30-mm MK 108A-3 cannons with 100 rounds of ammunition for the upper guns and 80 for the lower ones. The choice of such guns indicated that the aircraft was intended to fight enemy bombers, and there was no talk of any maneuverable combat with fighters. According to the German historian K. Becker, “with these weapons, the pilots of the JG-7 squadron destroyed 45 four-engine bombers and 15 accompanying fighters in the last week of February 1945.” For example, on March 17, several Me-262s from Group III took off to intercept B-17s bombing Ruland, Bohlen and Cottbus. In that battle, non-commissioned officer Koster shot down two Flying Fortresses, and Oberleutnant Wegmann and Oberfeldwebel Gobel - one each.

Mostly the Me-262 fought in the West, but there were also clashes with Soviet pilots. The first battles between Soviet aircraft and the Me-262 showed the vulnerability of Soviet aircraft to German jets. At the end of February 1945, Soviet pilots even received a special order - to open fire on the Me-262 without waiting for approach, from a distance of 600 meters. However, some Soviet aces - for example, the famous Ivan Kozhedub and Yevgeny Savitsky - managed to shoot down a Messerschmitt-262. Alexander Pokryshkin also encountered the Me-262, but was unable to shoot it down. It also happened that a Soviet pilot managed to shoot down an Me-262, but the command did not believe him. This happened to fighter pilot Major Okolelov, who shot down a Messerschmitt-262 in the last days of April 1945 in the area of ​​the Breslau-Berlin highway. The downed plane fell in a hard-to-reach area, and the command simply did not believe the Soviet pilot. Only many years later did he manage to prove that he was right - and only thanks to the memoirs of an English pilot who witnessed this battle and wrote about it in his memoirs. The Soviet command believed the Englishman.

Soviet pilot, commander of the 518th Fighter Aviation Regiment Yakov Okolelov waited for confirmation of his victory over the Me-262 for many years after the war.

The enormous advantage that jet fighters had over piston-engined machines was best demonstrated on April 7, 1945. On this day, the Luftwaffe, acting according to the “Wehrwolf” (werewolf) plan, aimed its attacks not as usual against the bombers, but against the escort of fighters accompanying them. Without suffering any significant losses, JG-7 reported twenty-eight enemy fighters shot down. On the other hand, on the same day, American P-51 Mustang fighters staged a deadly hunt for the German Messerschmitt-109 and Focke Wulf-190. The war diary of the US I Air Corps records the loss of at least 133 German aircraft and the death of seventy-seven pilots.

This was the last great air battle in the skies over Europe. A few days later, the Me-262 pilots had to relocate to an airfield in Prague, which was very far away for active participation in hostilities. And the courage and resilience of individual pilots could no longer prevent the military defeat of Nazi Germany. Thus ended the combat history of the Me-262. Developed before the war, ignored for years and almost even banned by Germany's top military leaders, the German fighter jet remains a shining symbol of German ingenuity even in times of crisis, although its influence on the outcome of the war was negligible. A significant portion of the Me-262s built were lost during Anglo-American air raids; many of them never managed to take to the skies.

FALCONS VS SWALLOWS

Of course, the Kremlin knew that the Germans had a jet fighter, and were waiting for an opportunity to get at least one copy of this miracle of German engineering. In general, the USSR was as jealous of the German achievements in military aircraft construction as Germany was of the characteristics of Soviet tanks. The rivalry between Russian and German pilots began during the First World War (see note) and continued during the Spanish confrontation (see note). Perhaps it was in Spain that the most sensitive blow was dealt to the pride of the Soviet military aircraft industry. Despite the incredible efforts of the USSR, German aviation reigned supreme in the Spanish skies, completely wiping it off the face of the earth as a demonstration of its power. spanish city Guernica. And this despite the fact that the USSR did not skimp on expenses, trying to bring its aviation closer to the battle sites in Spain. These days, few people know that the Canelobre caves, which have become a tourist attraction in the city of Alicante, were used in 1936 as a hangar for the assembly and shelter of Soviet Polikarpov aircraft - the U-2 multi-purpose biplanes (known in the West as Po-2). Work on equipping this natural cave, pouring concrete, making a giant tunnel (which still serves as the entrance to the cave), as well as laying almost three kilometers of mountain road took Soviet military specialists less than a year.

Today, only specialists know about this episode of the war in Spain. On the Canelobre cave itself there is not a single indicator of what happened here in the years Civil War. And in the USSR itself, they tried not to remember the war in Spain once again. Only occasionally - and even then due to oversight - did the Soviet press publish materials on this topic, such as the one shown in the illustration below - which depicts Polikarpov’s planes in the skies of Spain.

However, the Soviet pilots also had one more tooth against the German aces. The fact is that many of them, in the 20s and 30s, bypassing the terms of the Versailles Treaty, studied in the USSR and were even graduates of higher military educational institutions: the future Chief of Staff of the Supreme High Command Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Field Marshal Walter Model, Field Marshal Walter von Brauchitsch, General Manstein, Kruse, Horn, Feige, Hitler's adjutant from the Air Force, Colonel Nicholas von Below and many others. And the future developer military aviation Luftwaffe aircraft designer Hugo Junkers also lived in Moscow in the late 20s, where he interned at Andrei Tupolev's design bureau. And although many of them did not share the idea of ​​war with the USSR in their hearts, they all used their experience gained during their studies in the USSR in the war. Thus, in the memoirs of Nicholas von Below there is an interesting dialogue that took place between him and Hitler back in 1939, when the Fuhrer asked his adjutant what experience he had learned from his training in the USSR. In response, von Below said that one day, when German pilots were conducting training bombing in the Lipetsk area (where they studied at the local secret aviation school), one of the bombs exploded in a field where local boys were grazing horses. Both children and horses died, but the Soviet authorities billed the German command only for the horses. Not a word was said about the dead children. From this incident, von Below drew a conclusion, which he shared with Hitler: “In war, the Russians will not count people...”

German cadets - future aces of World War II flight school near Lipetsk. Photo by D. Sobolev

Of course, such treachery did not add to the love of the German pilots among the Soviet military. It is known that in many units German pilots were not even captured alive. The technical superiority of German aircraft, which had developed at the beginning of the war, was leveled off by its middle. New Soviet fighters, as well as Soviet tanks, were not inferior to, and in many respects even superior to, the enemy. And then, out of nowhere, the Me-262, practically inaccessible to Soviet aircraft. There was an urgent need to study new car- but for this it was necessary to get it somewhere. Such an opportunity presented itself only in April 1945. Then Chief Sergeant Major Helmut Lennartz from that same 7th Fighter Squadron was forced to commit emergency landing in territory occupied by Soviet troops. At the same time, the engines of his plane received additional damage from the earth that fell into them. After that, the car ended up in the hands of the Soviet troops, it was taken to the Air Force Research Institute and, under the leadership of the chief engineer, I. G. Rabkin, it was repaired. It was then repainted in Soviet military aviation colors, the swastika on the tail was replaced with a red star, and the vehicle was handed over for flight testing.

Captured Me-262, which became a Soviet fighter

A little later, units of the 16th Air Army captured more than 20 Me-262 jet fighters at airfields in Oranienburg, Dalgov, and later in Tempelhof in Berlin. General Savitsky came to test the captured jet machine. He took off in a two-seat fighter and was assisted in the flight by a German captured pilot. The aircraft were transported to the Air Force Research Institute, where Soviet specialists became familiar with their design. Our pilots knew that jet Messers were repeatedly pulled into a dive at high speed and German pilots crashed along with their vehicles, so the candidate for testing was selected especially carefully. The first Soviet pilot to fly the Me-262 was Andrei Kochetkov. On September 15, 1945, he launched a test flight on the repaired Schwalbe. Until November 1945, he completed 17 more flights, for which he received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. During the tests, the same unpleasant features were revealed when flying at high speeds that German specialists had previously encountered. While attempting to reach a maximum speed of 870 km/h, the plane entered an uncontrolled dive. Luckily for the pilot, this happened at an altitude of 11,000 m and Kochetkov, with great difficulty, managed to save the car. Until the end of the summer of 1945, the Air Force Research Institute was able to test the gas turbine Jumo 004 using domestic low-octane gasoline, and another turbojet engine, the BMW 003, using tractor kerosene. For the first time, it was possible to determine the thrust, fuel consumption, and optimal speed of the most advanced German engines.

Meanwhile, in the occupied regions of Germany, Soviet and American specialists were on a real hunt for military-technical documentation and all kinds of “know-how” of German industry. In April 1945, army counterintelligence officers arrested the chief technical adviser on jet aircraft, engineer E. Purucker, in Berlin. Within a few days, the head of the GRU, General F. Kuznetsov, informed the USSR Minister of Aviation Industry A. Shakhurin: “The prisoner E. Puruker is of great interest to you, as he is widely aware of the production of jet engines for aircraft in Germany. The prisoner is in Moscow and can be presented for special interrogation by your representative.” It was from Purucker that it became known where exactly the technical documentation for the Me-262 and other experimental Luftwaffe aircraft was kept. Special teams were sent to retrieve the drawings and thoroughly searched the design offices in Ceske Budejovice, Wiener Neustadt and Bergkristall east of Linz. A high-ranking engineer also reported on a secret airfield in the vicinity of Prague, where about 60 aircraft were based. Purucker turned out to be a very valuable informant, because it was he who spoke about the technical difficulties that the Germans encountered in the process of “bringing to mind” their jet Swallows. He also clarified that greatest number The German aviation industry reached production of the Me-262 in March 1945, having received 237 aircraft from assembly lines.

Numerous reports from German pilots, engineers, and high-ranking aviation officials increased interest in the Messerschmitt jet in the Soviet Union. The captured aircraft were sent to aircraft factories in Syzran and to the experimental sites of the Air Force Research Institute, where specialists carefully studied each component. At the conclusion of the act based on the results of flight tests, it was noted, in particular, that the Me-262 is a mature jet aircraft and has a great advantage in maximum horizontal speed over modern domestic and foreign fighters with piston engines. Deputy People's Commissar of the Aviation Industry P.V. Dementyev, having received the first results of flight tests of a captured fighter, sent a letter to Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars G.M. Malenkov with a proposal to immediately begin serial production of Soviet jet aircraft based on the Me-262. Production of the aircraft was planned to be organized at factories No. 381 in Moscow and No. 292 in Saratov. The study of the design of the aircraft, the production of drawings and adaptations of the aircraft for Soviet equipment and weapons were entrusted to the chief designer of the department, Myasishchev, and the development of engines was entrusted to the designer Klimov. Vladimir Mikhailovich Myasishchev, having carefully studied the design of the Me-262, also noted in his report: “I should note that this aircraft, according to the review of the Air Force Research Institute, has a number of operationally proven designs, such as a three-wheeled landing gear, cabin pressurization, etc., has good characteristics controllability, allows the possibility of installing very powerful weapons and using it as an attack aircraft, has a proven two-seat training version and the ability to further increase the maximum flight speed (up to 900-960 km/h) and range (up to 1200 km). At the same time, equipping the Air Force with jet aircraft (in single-seat and two-seat training versions) can begin in mid-1946.”

However, the famous aircraft designer Alexander Yakovlev turned out to be a fierce opponent of this idea. In his book “The Purpose of Life” he wrote: “At one of Stalin’s meetings, when discussing issues of the aviation industry, the proposal of People’s Commissar Alexei Shakhurin was considered for the serial production of the captured Messerschmitt-262 jet fighter captured by our troops. During the discussion, Stalin asked if I was familiar with this plane and what was my opinion. I replied that I know the Me-262 aircraft, but I object to its launch in our series because it is a bad aircraft, difficult to fly and unstable in flight, which suffered a number of accidents in Germany. If it enters our service, it will scare our pilots away from jet aviation. They will quickly see from their own experience that this plane is dangerous and also has poor takeoff and landing properties. I also noticed that if we copy the Messerschmitt, then all attention and resources will be mobilized on this machine, and we will cause great damage to the work on domestic jet aircraft...” After subsequent discussion, the proposal to copy the Me-262 was rejected. Although the Soviet history of the German jet Messerschmitt did not end there. In preparation for the November 1946 parade over Red Square, the Air Force proposed using the Me-262 to train pilots selected to fly the first MiG-9 and Yak-15 jets at a rate of 5-6 flights each. To train pilots, it was planned to transport 20 Me-262 aircraft to the airfield of the 16th Air Army in Chkalovskaya. However, this proposal did not pass: the first Soviet jet fighters, the famous MIG-9, were designed for one pilot, and our pilots would have to retrain from German twins.

Life itself put the final stop on the issue of copying German jet aircraft. On September 17, 1946, during a test flight at the Chkalovsky airfield near the village of Kishkino in the Moscow region, one of the German Messerschmitt-262 crashed, burying test pilot F.F. Demid under its rubble. From that moment on, the final decision was made - not to copy the “Germans”, but to develop our own. Nevertheless, the Me-262 left a deep mark on Soviet aviation. It's not common to just talk about it.

TROPHY AIRCRAFT INDUSTRY

In fact, this is one of the carefully hushed up topics of the post-war Soviet history– how exactly Soviet science, the military-industrial complex and industry disposed of the engineering “legacy of the enemy” that we inherited as a result of the war. During the fighting on German territory, the zone of Soviet occupation included areas in which many aviation enterprises were concentrated - mainly large aircraft manufacturing concerns such as Junkers, Arado, Heinkel, Focke-Wulf, Dornier. Most of the factories were heavily damaged by aerial bombardment, many turned into ruins. The aircraft designers and developers of the new military equipment- Prandtl, Betz, Busemann, Georgi, Heinkel, Lippisch and others. However, what the winners got could have been enough for many years with thoughtful and serious study. Therefore, almost simultaneously with the beginning of the fighting on the territory of the Third Reich, a special scientific and technical council (NTS) was created in Moscow, which immediately after the war was transformed into the Bureau of New Technology - it was it that issued the document presented in our collection. Professors, academicians, and leading scientists were mobilized to work in the STS, whose task was to “determine scientific and technical policy for the further development of the army and navy,” or, simply put, to make the most of the captured military-technical and scientific potential of Germany for needs of Soviet industry. Thousands of pages of drawings and texts, product samples, descriptions of experiments, and scientific literature were delivered to Moscow in a continuous stream. Hundreds of German translators were recalled from the front and retrained as specialists in scientific and technical translation. At the same time, in Germany itself, everything that was of even the slightest value was being dismantled. By mid-1946, 123 thousand machine tools and other industrial equipment were exported from Germany to the USSR. This made it possible to create nine new aircraft factories in the Soviet Union, including two aircraft and three engine factories.

Naturally, special attention was paid to the latest types of weapons - jet aircraft, rocket technology, nuclear projects... Although Stalin, Voroshilov, Budyonny before the war did not believe in the power of new developments in the field of weapons and spoke contemptuously about missiles, the experience of the war taught them a lot. In March 1945, when the war was still raging, but Germany’s fate had already been decided, the State Defense Committee issued a decree on the removal of radar documentation and equipment from German factories for their production in the USSR. Soon the State Defense Committee issued a decision “On sending a commission to remove equipment and study the work of the German Rocket Institute in Peenemünde.” It's about about the enterprise where the German “miracle weapons” - V-1 and V-2 - were created. Academician Georgy Byushgens wrote: “After the end of the war in 1945, TsAGI scientists and other aviation specialists had the opportunity to familiarize themselves with captured aviation research materials from the German DVL Institute in the city of Adlershof. These materials contained, in addition to the results of tests in the wind tunnels of the institute, models of specific aircraft, and general data.”
Captured materials from TsAGI scientists - Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute named after N.E. Zhukovsky was not immediately appreciated. However, many specialists at the institute quickly realized the promise of this area. Further theoretical and experimental research was entrusted to a team of the most authoritative scientists of the institute. In addition to technical documentation, Soviet specialists discovered unfinished samples of Me-162 single-engine jet fighters and three damaged He-280 twin-engine jet fighters. Soviet doctrines studied enemy developments. Here is a quote from one of the reports: “The development of jet technology in Germany has taken on a large scale in recent years. Captured samples of German jet technology available in the USSR - jet aircraft (fighters, attack aircraft, bombers), aviation jet gas turbine engines, liquid jet engines, radio-controlled and unguided missiles (long-range and for combating anti-aircraft targets), projectile aircraft and jet glide bombs controlled by radio from aircraft show that the introduction of jet technology in aviation, navy and artillery was carried out in Germany on a large scale, and the Germans had serious success in this area.”

To study enemy achievements and the possibility of using them in the USSR, by government decision in the summer of 1945, an interdepartmental Commission on Jet Technology was created under the State Defense Committee. In August 1945, bench tests of German jet engines were carried out. At pilot plant No. 51, production of “10X” projectile aircraft began, similar to the German V-1 cruise missile. Also in 1945, the idea arose to use German specialists to develop jet aviation in the USSR. People's Commissar of the Aviation Industry Shakhurin addressed the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks with a secret letter. It said, in particular: “A large number of German specialists and scientists in the field of aviation are now in our hands. These scientists and specialists have enormous reserves of knowledge accumulated during their work in research and experimental organizations in Germany... From our point of view, it would be advisable to have a special type of organization with a special regime on the territory of the USSR or in the zone of Germany occupied by us (under the supervision of the NKVD ), where German scientists could conduct research work - according to our instructions...".
This was immediately reported to Stalin, and the go-ahead was given to use the “enemy’s legacy” for the development of the domestic military industry. The search for and attraction of German specialists to cooperation occurred in various ways. Some, for example, the former head of pilot production at Junkers, Dr. B. Baade, voluntarily expressed a desire to cooperate in order to continue working in aviation. The leading aerodynamics specialist at Heinkel, Z. Gunter, also contacted the Soviet authorities. Many were motivated by mercantile considerations - money and food rations. Some scientists, having heard about the cruelties of the NKVD, were simply afraid to refuse.
In total, over a thousand German scientists were involved in the work. They were collected in Berlin, Dessau, Leipzig, Halle, Strasfurt and Rostock. Everyone wrote a report on the past activities of the scientific institution and spoke about their work. Having become acquainted with these materials, Soviet specialists gave their resumes and set new tasks for the “trophy” scientists. The completed work was sent to the People's Commissariat of the Aviation Industry, to research institutes and enterprises for more complete study for application in their future work.
At the end of August 1946, the most valuable and promising German specialists were transported to the USSR. There were about seven thousand of them. Aircraft builders were assembled at pilot plant No. 1 in the village of Podberezye, Kimry district, on the shores of the Moscow Sea. Specialists in turbojet engines and instruments were sent to pilot plant No. 2, located near Kuibyshev. Scientists working on engines took their jobs at enterprises near Moscow - plant No. 500 in Tushino and No. 456 in Khimki. It is still unknown exactly what contribution German teaching made to the development of Soviet aircraft construction and how many ideas they suggested to their colleagues from the USSR. However, one can guess that the contribution of 7 thousand of the best minds of the German aviation industry to the development of Soviet military-technical thought turned out to be very significant. Perhaps it was these and similar developments that became the main military trophy of Russia. A trophy that allowed a dilapidated country to turn into a world superpower in a matter of years - with the best aviation and weapons in the world...

PLANES-PROJECTILES

The development of projectile aircraft began at the dawn of the development of aviation; according to the terminology of that time, this type of aircraft was called aircraft torpedoes. In 1910–1911 Frenchman R. Lauren developed a project for the world's first projectile aircraft.

During World War I, the development of aircraft torpedoes began in England. At the end of 1915, Professor A. Lowe, who worked on the creation of radar devices, was involved in the development radio controlled aircraft to combat German Zeppelins and to attack ground targets. The projectile aircraft was designated AT, which stood for Aerial Target, this was done for reasons of secrecy in order to hide the true purpose of the weapon. The AT aircraft was a small radio-controlled monoplane equipped with a 50 hp Gnome engine. With. The first AT prototype took off in October 1916; during testing it became clear that the operation of the engine created strong electrical interference with the radio control system. In this regard, work on AT was stopped, but other aircraft manufacturing companies became interested in A. Lowe's concept.

A prototype of a monoplane aircraft torpedo with a wingspan of 6.7 m and a 35 hp engine was built at the Farnborough Aviation Plant. e., developed by ABC. One of the aircraft torpedoes of this type was demonstrated in March 1917, but it crashed immediately after launch. The Sopwith company tried to build an aircraft torpedo using a biplane design with an ABS engine, but this aircraft was never completed. The exact number of different types of aircraft torpedoes developed by the British during the First World War and the details of their chronology are unclear.

In 1918, the United States began testing the first unmanned aerial vehicles designed according to the “biplane” design – N-9 developed by E. Sperry-Curtis and Bug (“Bug”) designed by Charles Kettering. Further tests revealed the advantage of the N-9, after which the US Army ordered a pilot batch of 100 devices. The N-9 aircraft had the following characteristics: wingspan - 6.7 m, aircraft length - 4.6 m, take-off weight - 431 kg, maximum speed - 113 km/h.

Work on automated aircraft resumed in England after the war. In 1920, the production Bristol F.2B fighter aircraft was equipped with radio control and flew successfully, although during test flights the aircraft had a pilot to back up the automatic control system in case of an emergency. In 1921, a radio-controlled aircraft was tested, and in 1927, an aircraft torpedo Larynx (“Laryn”),

In the Soviet Union, work on the creation of radio-controlled projectile aircraft was carried out by the Special Technical Bureau for Military Inventions for Special Purposes (Ostekhbyuro), led by V.I. Bekauri. The heavy bombers TB-1 and TB-3 were chosen for work on the telemechanical aircraft (TMS - that’s what an automatically or remotely controlled aircraft-projectile was called at that time).

In 1933, the Daedalus system was created for the TB-1 telemechanical aircraft. It allowed, after the TMS took off in manual mode with the help of the crew and subsequent switching to the system, to control the projectile aircraft via radio from the TB-1 escort aircraft, after which the crew ejected from the TMS with a parachute. Next, the projectile aircraft was controlled by radio from the control TB-1, and when the TMS approached a certain distance to the target, the control vehicle issued a signal for it to dive.

In October 1933, tests began on a prototype TMS (TB-1 No. 750) with an AVP-2 autopilot interfaced with radio control devices. At first, only the autopilot was tested; the pilot sitting in the cockpit supported the automation. This aircraft carried out flights Moscow - Klin-Moscow and Moscow - Odoev - Moscow - Zagorsk - Moscow. The autopilot maintained the set course during flights satisfactorily, but the speed of the vehicle fluctuated greatly, and several times the pilot had to take the helm and interfere with the operation of the automation.

The next stage was to control the TMS by radio, but with the presence of a pilot on board. Command signals were given from the tower of the Central Airfield in Moscow. During testing on October 13, 1933, a failure occurred in the control system, after which the plane spontaneously went into a dive, but the pilot reacted in time and took control. It turned out that the cause of the failure was the failure of AVP-2. After repairing the autopilot, we planned to try to attack a conditional target - the intersection of a highway and railway in Khimki.

The TMS was supposed to be controlled from the TB-3 control aircraft. It was planned that the TMS would fly to Lake Senezhskoe, return and pass exactly over the checkpoint at the intersection. The tests lasted two weeks, the best achievement was the flight to Dmitrov and back with a deviation of about 100 m when passing the checkpoint.

Subsequently, many different autopilot designs (pneumatic, hydraulic, electromechanical) and several improved radio control systems were tested on the TB-1. For example, in July 1934, an airplane with an AVP-3 autopilot was tested in Monino, and in October of the same year, an airplane with an AVP-7 autopilot was tested.

In July 1935, Deputy People's Commissar of Defense M.N. Tukhachevsky approved the task for the development of a telemechanical aircraft complex, designated TMS-36. It consisted of two radio-controlled TB-1, equipped with an explosive charge, and one TB-3 guidance aircraft. The take-off of the TB-1 aircraft was carried out by pilots who then parachuted out, and then they were led to the target by operators from the TB-3, which was walking behind at a distance of 10–20 km. In 1936, prototype aircraft were built and tested, but the TMS-36 was not accepted for service due to the low reliability of the control system. At the beginning of January 1938, work on telemechanical aircraft was stopped, although at that time the technique of returning the pilot of a TB-3 projectile aircraft to his airfield by transferring into an I-15 or I-16 fighter suspended from the TB-3 was being worked out. In addition, the TB-3 TMS was being developed with 3500 kg of explosives, on the back of which a KR-6 control aircraft was attached. The range of action of this coupling was about 1200 km.

However, in May 1939, the commissions of the Air Force Military Council demonstrated flights of the TB-1 (serial number 712), controlled by radio from takeoff to landing; there was no crew on the plane. In the act, the commission wrote: “The tests carried out proved that for the first time in the USSR... the problem of creating a telemechanical aircraft was resolved...” The experience gained helped in the design of other, more modern radio-controlled aircraft. In September 1939, the Defense Committee issued a decree on the creation of telemechanical modifications TB-3, SB, I-16 and UT-2. The work was to be carried out by plant No. 379 together with the Leningrad branch of NII-10. The Krechevitsy airfield near Pskov was selected as a testing base; the chief designer of the work was R.G. Chachikyan.

In January 1940, a resolution of the Council of Labor and Defense was issued on the production of telemechanical aircraft, which put forward requirements for the creation of telemechanical aircraft with takeoff without landing (disposable) TB-3 by July 15, telemechanical aircraft with takeoff and landing (reusable) TB-3 by October 15, SB command aircraft by August 25, and DB-ZF by November 25, 1940. This work was carried out within the framework of the Berkut project.

Several prototypes of remotely controlled aircraft based on the TB-1 and TB-3 were built. At the beginning of 1941, TMS TB-3 “Bomb” (another name is TB-3 “Torpedo”) designed by R.G. Chachikyan successfully passed state tests. Two other TMSs, TB-3 and command SB, were undergoing testing at the LII; two other TMSs with command aircraft (SB engineer Neopalimogo and UT-2 engineer Nikolsky) were undergoing factory tests in Leningrad. State tests for them were scheduled for July-August 1941, after which it was planned to form the first special-purpose squadron of telemechanical aircraft. With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, work on the production of six experimental telemechanical aircraft at the Leningrad plant No. 379 was mothballed, two tested samples of the TMS TB-3 were transferred to the Research Institute of the Red Army Air Force for military tests.

At the end of 1941, one fully prepared TMS, consisting of a TB-3 Torpedo (No. 22 707) equipped with a 35 00-kg high explosive bomb, and a DB-ZF command aircraft were at the jump airfield in Ivanovo. In January 1942, this TMS was sent to destroy the Vyazma railway junction. When approaching Vyazma, the antenna of the DB-ZF command aircraft was destroyed by enemy anti-aircraft artillery fire, so the uncontrollable TB-3 “Torpeda” went behind the rear of the German troops. The second copy of the “telemechanical” aircraft burned down at the airfield when ammunition exploded in a nearby bomber. After this, work on telemechanical aircraft in the Soviet Union was stopped.

A year after the cessation of work on telemechanical aircraft in the USSR, work on the creation of similar systems began in the United States, the US Navy began research within the framework of the Option project. The first of this project was the remote-controlled aircraft TDN-1 (in American terminology - attack drone) from Interstate Aircraft & Engineering, which could carry a torpedo or bomb under the fuselage. About a hundred TDN-1 aircraft were built, but they were used primarily for training and evaluation tests. Following the TDN-1 was a series of TDR-1 projectiles in the amount of 189 copies. Their first combat use took place in the late summer - early autumn of 1944 in the area Solomon Islands during attacks on Japanese ships. Of the 46 launched devices, 29 units reached their goal. However, the result was not considered satisfactory, so the US Navy abandoned the further continuation of the program.

The US Air Force developed its series of projectile aircraft as part of the secret Controllable Bomb, Ground Launched project, this series was designated BQ. Among the devices of the BQ series there were machines of various configurations, including even a converted Fairchild AB-21 training aircraft, but the ones that were most brought to practical use were the radio-controlled bombers B-17 and B-24, which carried an explosive charge.

In July 1944, the US Air Force adopted a program called Aphrodite (“Aphrodite”), which was supposed to convert some of the B-17 bombers awaiting repair into radio-controlled projectile aircraft. Approximately 25 B-17 bombers, mostly B-17F variants, were converted into BQ-7s, which were to be used to attack heavily fortified targets such as submarine repair docks and launch sites for German V-1 cruise missiles. The 562nd Bomb Squadron, based in Honinggon (England), was responsible for the combat use of projectile aircraft. After completing the training program, the squadron, equipped with ten attack aircraft and four control aircraft, moved to Fersfield (north-east of London).

The converted B-17 aircraft carried 9,070 kg of Torpex explosive with a contact fuse. The BQ-7 was supposed to take off under the control of a crew of two (pilot and engineer). The crew left the projectile with parachutes after setting the device's course to the target and bringing the explosives into combat readiness. To improve safety when leaving, the top of the aircraft cabin was cut off. After the crew bailed out, the unmanned vehicle continued to fly, remotely controlled from a CQ-4 escort aircraft (a conversion of the B-17); for this purpose, the Double-Azon radio control system was installed on the BQ-7. At the initial stage of the flight, the BQ-7 and CQ-4 were accompanied by a fighter, which, in the event of loss of control of the projectile aircraft, was supposed to shoot it down.

As soon as the BQ-7 approached a certain distance to the target, its controls, upon command from the CQ-4 aircraft, were installed in the position required for the attack, after which the control aircraft went to base. The first tests of the BQ-7 showed that it needed further development. Two television cameras were installed on it - one in the cockpit to monitor the instrument panel and one in the bow to monitor the flight course based on ground landmarks; images from the cameras were transmitted to the control aircraft.

The first combat use of the BQ-7 took place on August 4, 1944. The target was the launch sites of German V-1 rockets near Pas-de-Calais. In the first phase of the operation, two control aircraft and two unmanned aerial vehicles took off, but one of the aircraft went out of control shortly after the first crew member parachuted. The device fell near the coastal village of Orford and exploded, leaving behind a huge crater. The body of the other crew member was never found. The second unmanned aerial vehicle successfully reached the target area, but due to low clouds the television image on the screen of the operator's receiver in the control aircraft was poor, so the deviation from the target during the attack was about 500 m. The second phase of the operation was little more successful. One BQ-7 aircraft suffered a control failure before it could attack its target and was shot down by German anti-aircraft artillery. Another aircraft attacked the target with a deviation of within 500 m.

On August 6, two bomb planes took off with the aim of attacking German missile launch sites in France. The drone crews successfully left their vehicles after takeoff, but a few minutes later one of the vehicles went out of control and fell into the sea. Another unmanned vehicle, due to a failure in the control system, suddenly began to move in a circle over the industrial area of ​​​​Ipswich, but after a while, fortunately, it turned towards the sea and drowned.

After these failures, the decision was made to replace the Double-Azon radio control system with a Castor system. The very first raid of a drone with a new control system was accompanied by a disaster: the parachute of the pilot of one of the devices did not open during the jump, and the pilot died. Nevertheless, the unmanned vehicle completely followed the planned route to the target, but was shot down by anti-aircraft guns and fell approximately 100 m from the target. During the next flight, one of the devices crashed, missing the target due to poor quality of the television image, and the second device sank into the sea due to failures in the control system.

Further operations took place in October, but were without much success. One unmanned vehicle was shot down by anti-aircraft artillery, and another lost control over the North Sea and crashed into the water after running out of fuel. The third device was unable to detect its target due to poor visibility, so the angry operator from the control aircraft directed it towards Berlin. The fourth drone fell close to its target and caused serious damage to it.

On October 27, the US Strategic Air Command in Europe concluded that the BQ-7's operations against heavily defended targets were not successful, so the decision was made to use the BQ-7 against industrial targets in large German cities. The first of these raids took place on December 5th, targeting a railway station west of Hanover. Due to difficult weather conditions, the first aircraft was unable to find its original target and was shot down by anti-aircraft artillery while approaching the next target. The warhead of the second device did not explode after it fell on the target, and the Germans got a relatively undamaged aircraft with a full set of remote control systems. The final flight of the Aphrodite program took place on January 20, 1945, targeting the Oldenberg power plant. Both projectiles missed their target, after which the Aphrodite concept was considered a failure. In addition, she proved to be expensive and was often more dangerous for her crews than for the Germans.

In 1944, the US Air Force in the Pacific began converting several worn-out B-24D/J bombers into BQ-8 radio-controlled unmanned aerial vehicles, which were intended to be used against heavily defended targets in the Japanese islands. The concept was the same as for the BQ-7, takeoff was to be carried out by a crew of two. After takeoff and reaching cruising altitude, the crew releases the warhead fuses, switches manual control of the aircraft to remote control from the escort aircraft and jumps out with a parachute. The BQ-8's payload consisted of 11,300 kg of Torpex explosive. The total number of B-24 bombers converted into BQ-8 bombers is unknown, but it is known that they never saw combat.

As part of its own Project Anvil, the US Navy converted at least two PB4Y-1 aircraft (the patrol version of the B-24 bomber) into projectile aircraft, but the BQ-8 designation was not applied to these aircraft. The same project included testing a remote control system based on the PY-1 television installation

Ventura. The television camera image from the projectile aircraft was transmitted to the B-17 escort aircraft. The control signal corrected by the system was then sent to the projectile aircraft. Two PB4Y-1 flights took place in the North Sea, but without any success. On the first vehicle on August 12, 1944, during takeoff, the warhead spontaneously exploded and destroyed both crew members. The second device in September of the same year made an attack on an area target, but the accuracy of the strike could not be determined because the television camera was damaged by anti-aircraft artillery fire. Due to the low reliability and insufficient accuracy of unmanned weapons, the Anvil program was soon closed.

Similar work on remotely controlled projectile aircraft began in 1942 in Germany. On instructions from the Ministry of Aviation (RLM), the DFS Glider Institute began studying the features of the use of projectile aircraft using the “Mistelle” scheme, similar to Vakhmistrov’s “Zvena” scheme. After preliminary tests were completed, a program codenamed “Beethoven” was adopted. As part of this program, in July 1943, RLM issued the Juncker company the task of preparing 15 copies of the Mistel-1 combat system. This system consisted of a Ju 88A bomber and a control aircraft, a Bf 109F fighter.

In the spring of 1944, as part of the IV group of the KG 101 bomber squadron (IV/KG 101), a special squadron was formed, which began to receive the Mistelli-1. The control fighter was mounted on the back of the bomber on two front rigid struts and one rear spring-loaded strut. There were two options for combat use of the bundle. According to the first option, takeoff and flight to the target was carried out only with the engines of the lower vehicle running. The control aircraft's engines were started when approaching the target, after which the pilot put the flight into a shallow dive and uncoupled. The freed bomber dived onto the target, and the control plane went to the base. The second option provided for the joint operation of the engines of both aircraft until the moment of undocking, while the engine of the upper aircraft was powered by fuel from the carrier. On the night of June 24, 1944, the Mistele 1 squadron from IV/KG 101 attacked Allied ships for the first time in France at the mouth of the Seine River.

Other variants of the Mistels were also developed. For example, Mistel-2 was a combination of a Junker Ju 88G-1 projectile aircraft with an Fw 190A-6 or Fw 190F-8 control aircraft. In 1944, 75 Ju 88G-1 bombers that were under repair were converted into Misteli-2. The first sample took off in November of the same year, it was planned to deliver 125 copies.

Mistel-3 was a modernization of Mistel-2, which had an additional landing gear installed under the fuselage of the projectile aircraft, which was reset after takeoff. The strengthening of the landing gear was caused by several accidents of the Mistele-2 due to breakdowns of the struts during takeoff from poorly prepared airfields.

In October 1944, IV Group of the KG 101 bomber squadron was transferred to II/KG 200, and was armed with 60 Mistels. In December it was planned to carry out a massive attack naval base English in Scapa Flow, however, due to bad weather conditions the attack did not take place. Then the German command redirected the Mistels to use them as part of Operation Eisenhammer (“Iron Hammer”), which was planned for March next year. The essence of the operation was a one-time bombing of power plants located in the European part of the Soviet Union, with the aim of paralyzing the defense industry. Operation Iron Hammer required approximately 100 Mistels to complete. According to the scenario of the planned operation, the Mistels were supposed to take off from airfields in East Prussia, but in March these airfields were captured by advancing Soviet troops. Due to the change in the situation, II/KG 200 was ordered to redirect its Mistels to attack bridges on the Oder, Neisse and Vistula rivers. Since April, the KG 30 bomber squadron, partially rearmed with the Misteli, was involved in these hostilities.

A variant of the Mistel-3 was being developed, which was intended for reusable use as an ultra-long-range fighter. At the same time, the lower plane was piloted by its crew; to achieve maximum range, two drop-drop fuel tanks with a capacity of 900 liters were hung on it.

Mistel-4 was a combination of a Ju 88G-7 and a Focke-Wulf Ta 152N fighter. By the end of the war, about 250 copies of them were built, up to 50 copies were captured by the Allied forces in the Mercerburg area.

“Mistel-5” was a combination of a lower Ta 154A aircraft filled with 2500 kg of explosives and an upper Fw 190A-8 control aircraft. On July 14, 1944, specifications were issued, and the Posen plant was expected to convert four Ta 154As for this combination. The Focke-Wulf company assumed that the first Mistel 5s would be ready for delivery at the end of August; fifty units were being prepared for conversion. Work continued with a high degree of urgency until mid-August 1944, but then orders were received from the RLM to stop work.

In the first half of 1944, one of the Savoia-Marchetti S.M.79 bombers of the Fascist Italian Air Force was converted into a projectile aircraft. The plane, loaded with explosives, took off under the control of a pilot on the night of June 4-5, 1944, and headed for Gibraltar with the aim of attacking the British ships stationed there. In a given area, the pilot switched the aircraft's controls from manual to remote control, and then jumped out of the car with a parachute. The projectile aircraft continued its flight following radio signals from the accompanying Cantieri control aircraft Cant Z. 1007-11. However, the attack failed because, due to a defect in the radio control system, the projectile crashed before reaching the target. Nevertheless, work in this direction was continued, and the Italian company Ambrosini built a prototype of the projectile aircraft, which passed flight tests in June 1944. Information about it combat use No.

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Assessing the decisive role of aviation as the main striking force in the struggle for the spread of Bolshevism and the defense of the state, in the first five-year plan the leadership of the USSR set a course for creating its own large and autonomous air force from other countries.

In the 20s, and even in the early 30s, USSR aviation had a fleet of aircraft, mostly foreign-made (only Tupolev aircraft appeared - ANT-2, ANT-9 and its subsequent modifications, which becamesubsequently the legendary U-2, etc.). The aircraft that were in service with the Red Army were of many brands, had outdated designs and poor technical condition. In the 20s, the USSR purchased a small number of German aircraft of the Junkers type and a number of other types for service air routes of the North / research of the Northern Sea Route / and execution of government special flights. It should be noted that civil Aviation in the pre-war period it practically did not develop, with the exception of the opening of a number of unique “demonstration” airlines or occasional flights of ambulance and service aviation.

During the same period, the era of airships ended, and the USSR builtin the early 30s, successful designs of “soft” (frameless) airships of the “B” type. Digression, it should be noted about the development of this type V aeronautics abroad.

In Germany, the famous rigid airshipdesign "Count Zeppepelin" explored the North, was equipped with cabins for passengers, had a significant flight range and quitehigh cruising speed / up to 130 km/h or more, providedseveral motors designed by Maybach. There were even several dog sleds on board the airship as part of the expedition to the North. The American airship "Akron" is the largest in the world, with a volume of 184 thousand cubic meters. m carried on board 5-7 aircraft and transported up to 200 passengers, not counting several tons of cargo over a distance of up to 17 thousand km. without landing. These airships were already safe, because... were filled with the inert gas helium, and not hydrogen as at the beginning of the century. Low speed, low maneuverability, high cost, complexity of storage and maintenance predetermined the end of the era of airships. Experiments with balloons also came to an end, which proved the latter’s unsuitability for active combat operations. A new generation of aviation with new technical and combat performance was needed.

In 1930, our Moscow Aviation Institute was created - after all, the replenishment of factories, institutes and design bureaus of the aviation industry with experienced personnel was of decisive importance. The old cadres of pre-revolutionary education and experience were clearly not enough; they were thoroughly eliminated and were in exile or in camps.

Already by the Second Five-Year Plan (1933-37), aviation workers had a significant production base, the basis for the further development of the air force fleet.

In the thirties, by order of Stalin, demonstration, but in fact test, flights of bombers “camouflaged” as civil aircraft. The aviators Slepnev, Levanevsky, Kokkinaki, Molokov, Vodopyanov, Grizodubova and many others distinguished themselves.

In 1937, Soviet fighter aircraft underwent combat tests in Spain and demonstrated technical inferiority. AircraftPolikarpov (type I-15,16) were defeated by the latest German machines. The race for survival began again. Stalin gave the designersindividual assignments for new aircraft models, widely and generouslyThere were bonuses and benefits - the designers worked tirelessly and demonstrated a high level of talent and preparedness.

At the March 1939 Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, People's Commissar of Defense Voroshilovnoted that, compared to 1934, the Air Force has grown in its personalis 138 percent...The aircraft fleet as a whole has grown by 130 percent.

Heavy bomber aircraft, which were assigned the main role in the upcoming war with the West, doubled in 4 years, while other types of bomber aircraft, on the contrary, decreased by half. Fighter aircraft increased two and a half times. Altitudeaircraft already amounted to 14-15 thousand m. The technology for the production of aircraft and engines was put on stream, stamping and casting were widely introduced. The shape of the fuselage changed, the aircraft acquired a streamlined shape.

The use of radios on board aircraft began.

Before the war, great changes took place in the field of aviation materials science. In the pre-war period there was a parallel development of heavy aircraft of all-metal construction with duralumin skinand light maneuverable aircraft of mixed structures: wood, steel,canvas. As the raw material base expanded and the aluminum industry developed in the USSR, aluminum alloys found increasing use in aircraft construction. There was progress in engine construction. The M-25 air-cooled engines with a power of 715 hp and the M-100 water-cooled engines with a power of 750 hp were created.

At the beginning of 1939, the USSR government convened a meeting in the Kremlin.

It was attended by leading designers V.Ya. Klimov, A.A. Mikulin,A.D. Shvetsov, S.V. Ilyushin, N.N. Polikarpov, A.A. Arkhangelsky, A.S. Yakovlev, head of TsAGI and many others. The People's Commissar of the aviation industry at that time was M.M. Kaganovich. Possessing a good memory, Stalin was quite well aware of design features aircraft, all important issues regarding aviation were decided by Stalin. The meeting outlined measures for the further accelerated development of aviation in the USSR. Until now, history has not conclusively refuted the hypothesis of Stalin’s preparation for an attack on Germany in July 1941. It was on the basis of this assumption about the planning of Stalin’s attack on Germany (and further for the “liberation” of Western countries), adopted at the “historic” plenum of the CPSU Central Committee in August 1939 and this fact, incredible for that (or any other) time, of the sale of advanced German equipment and technology to the USSR seems explainable. A large delegation of Sovietaviation workers, who traveled to Germany twice shortly before the war, got their hands on fighters, bombers, guidance systems, and much more, which made it possible to dramatically advance the level of domestic aircraft production. A decision was made to increase the combat power of aviation, since it was from August 1939 The USSR began covert mobilization and prepared strikes against Germany and Romania.

Mutual exchange of information on the state of the armed forces of the three states (England, France and the USSR), represented in Moscow in August1939, i.e. before the start of the partition of Poland, showed that the numberThere are 2 thousand first-line aircraft in France. Of these, twothirds were completely modern aircraft. By 1940, it was planned to increase the number of aircraft in France to 3000 units. Englishaviation, according to Marshal Burnet, had about 3,000 units, and the potential production was 700 aircraft per month.German industry underwent mobilization only at the beginning1942, after which the number of weapons began to increase sharply.

Of all the domestic fighter aircraft ordered by Stalin, the most successful variants were the LAGG, MiG and YAK.The IL-2 attack aircraft delivered a lot to its designer Ilyushinneniya. Manufactured initially with rear hemisphere protection (double)he, on the eve of the attack on Germany, did not suit the customers of hiswastefulness.” S. Ilyushin, who did not know all of Stalin’s plans, was forced to change the design to a single-seat version, i.e., bring the design closer to the “clear sky” plane. Hitler violated Stalin’s plans and the plane at the beginning of the war had to be urgently returned to its original design.

On February 25, 1941, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars adopted a resolution "Onreorganization of the aviation forces of the Red Army." The resolution provided for additional measures to re-equip air units. In accordance with the plans for a future war, the task was set to urgently form new air regiments, and, at the same time, equip them, as a rule, with new machines. The formation of several airborne corps began.

The doctrine of war on “foreign territory” and “little bloodshed” causedthe emergence of a “clear sky” aircraft intended for the unpunishedraids on bridges, airfields, cities, factories. Before the war, hundreds of thousands

young men were preparing to transfer to a new one, developed by the post-Stalincompetition, the SU-2 aircraft, of which it was planned to produce 100-150 thousand units before the war. This required accelerated training of the corresponding number of pilots and technicians. SU-2 is essentially a Soviet Yu-87, and in Russia it did not stand the test of time, because There was never a “clear sky” for either country during the war.

Air defense zones with fighter aircraft and anti-aircraft artillery were formed. An unprecedented recruitment into aviation began, voluntarily andforced. Almost all of the small civil aviationwas mobilized into the Air Force. Dozens of aviation schools were opened, incl. ultra-accelerated (3-4 months) training, traditionally, the officers at the helm or control handle of the aircraft were replaced by sergeants - an unusual fact and evidence of haste in preparing for war. Airfields were urgently moved to the borders (about 66 airfields), supplies of fuel, bombs, and shells were imported. Carefully and raids on German airfields and the Ploieşti oil fields were detailed in special secrecy...

On June 13, 1940, the Flight Test Institute was formed(LII), during the same period other design bureaus and research institutes were formed.In the war with the Soviet Union, the Nazis assigned a special role to theiraviation, which by this time had already gained complete dominance inair in the West. Basically a plan for the use of aviation in the Eastplanned the same as the war in the West: first to conquer the dominantin the air, and then transfer forces to support the ground army.

Outlining the timing of the attack on the Soviet Union, Hitler's commandThe operation set the following tasks for the Luftwaffe:

1.Destroy Soviet airfields with a surprise attackSoviet aviation.

2.Achieve complete air supremacy.

3. After solving the first two tasks, switch aviation to support ground forces directly on the battlefield.

4. Disrupt the work of Soviet transport, complicate the transfertroops both in the front line and in the rear.

5. Bombard large industrial centers - Moscow, Gorky, Rybinsk, Yaroslavl, Kharkov, Tula.

Germany dealt a crushing blow to our airfields. Only for 8Hours of the war, 1,200 aircraft were lost and mass casualties occurred.flight personnel, storage facilities and all supplies were destroyed. Historians noted the strange “crowding” of our aviation at the airfields the day beforewar and complained about the “mistakes” and “miscalculations” of the command (i.e. Stalin)and assessment of events. In fact, “crowding” foreshadows plansa super-massive strike on targets and confidence in impunity, which did not happen. The Air Force flight personnel, especially the bomber ones, due to the lack of support fighters, carried big losses, the tragedy of the death of perhaps the most advanced and powerful air fleet inhistory of mankind, which had to be revived again under the blows enemy.

It must be admitted that the Nazis managed to largely implement their plans for an air war in 1941 and the first half of 1942. Almost all available forces were thrown against the Soviet Union G Itler's aviation, including including units removed from the Western Front. Atit was assumed that after the first successful operations, some of the bombsarmored and fighter formations will be returned to the Westfor the war with England. At the beginning of the war, the Nazis had not only quantitative superiority. Their advantage was also the fact that the pilotsthe personnel who took part in the air attack have already been seriouslynew fighting school with French, Polish and English pilots. Onthey also had a fair amount of experience interacting with their troops,acquired in the war against Western European countries.Old types of fighters and bombers, such as the I-15,I-16, SB, TB-3 could not compete with the latest Messerschmitts and"Junkers". Nevertheless, in the unfolding air battles, even on the lipsnew types of aircraft, Russian pilots caused damage to the Germans. From 22June to July 19, Germany lost 1,300 aircraft only battles

Here is what the German General Staffist Greffath writes about this:

" Behind period from June 22 to July 5, 1941 German air forcelost 807 aircraft of all types, and during the period from July 6 to July 19 - 477.

These losses indicate that despite the surprise achieved by the Germans, the Russians were able to find the time and strength to provide decisive resistance ".

On the very first day of the war, fighter pilot Kokorev distinguished himself by ramming an enemy fighter, the crew’s feat is known to the whole worldGastello (the latest research into this fact suggests that the ramming crew was not Gastello’s crew, but the crew of Maslov, who flew with Gastello’s crew to attack enemy columns), who threw his burning car onto a cluster of German equipment.Despite the losses, the Germans in all directions brought everything into battlenew and new fighters and bombers. They abandoned the front4940 aircraft, including 3940 German, 500 Finnish, 500 Romanianand achieved complete air supremacy.

By October 1941, the Wehrmacht armies approached Moscow and were busycities supplying components for aircraft factories, the time has come to evacuate the factories and design bureaus of Sukhoi, Yakovlev and others in Moscow, Ilyushin inVoronezh, all factories in the European part of the USSR demanded the evacuation.

Aircraft production in November 1941 decreased by more than three and a half times. Already on July 5, 1941, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR decided to evacuate from central regions countries of some equipment factories of aircraft devices to duplicate their production in Western Siberia, and after some time it was necessary to make a decision on the evacuation of the entire aircraft industry.

On November 9, 1941, the State Defense Committee approved schedules for the restoration and relaunch of evacuated factories and production plans.

The task was not only to restore aircraft production,but also to significantly increase their quantity and quality. In December 1941The aircraft production plan was completed in less than 40 years.percent, and motors - only 24 percent.In the most difficult conditions, under bombs, in the cold, cold of Siberian wintersbackup factories were launched one after another. They were refined and simplified.technologies, new types of materials were used (without compromising quality), women and teenagers took over the machines.

Lend-Lease supplies were also of no small importance for the front. Throughout the Second World War, aircraft supplied 4-5 percent of the total production of aircraft and other weapons produced in the USA. However, a number of materials and equipment supplied by the USA and England were unique and indispensable for Russia (varnishes, paints, other chemicals substances, devices, tools, equipment, medicines, etc.) that cannot be characterized as “insignificant” or secondary.

The turning point in the work of domestic aircraft factories came around March 1942. At the same time, the combat experience of our pilots grew.

Between November 19 and December 31, 1942 alone, the Luftwaffe lost 3,000 combat aircraft in the battles for Stalingrad. Our aviation becameact more actively and showed all its combat power in the NorthCaucasus. Heroes of the Soviet Union appeared. This title was awardedboth for downed aircraft and for the number of combat sorties.

In the USSR, the Normandie-Niemen squadron was formed, staffed by French volunteers. The pilots fought on Yak aircraft.

Average monthly production of aircraft rose from 2.1 thousand in 1942 to 2.9 thousand in 1943. Total industry in 1943produced 35 thousand aircraft, 37 percent more than in 1942.In 1943, factories produced 49 thousand engines, almost 11 thousand more than in 1942.

Back in 1942, the USSR surpassed Germany in the production of aircraft - the heroic efforts of our specialists and workers and the “complacency” or unpreparedness of Germany, which did not mobilize industry in advance for war conditions, had an impact.

In the Battle of Kursk in the summer of 1943, Germany used significant quantities of aircraft, but the power of the Air Force for the first time ensured air supremacy. For example, in just one hour on one day of the operation, a force of 411 aircraft was struck, and so on in three waves during the day.

By 1944, the front received about 100 aircraft daily, incl. 40 fighters.The main combat vehicles were modernized. Aircraft withimproved combat qualities of the YAK-3, PE-2, YAK 9T, D, LA-5, IL-10.German designers also modernized the aircraft."Me-109F,G,G2", etc.

By the end of the war, the problem of increasing the range of fighter aircraft arose; airfields could not keep up with the front. Designers proposed installing additional gas tanks on airplanes, and jet weapons began to be used. Radio communications developed, and radar was used in air defense. Bomb strikes became more and more intense. Thus, on April 17, 1945, bombers of the 18th Air Army in the area of ​​Königsbergaz carried out 516 sorties for 45 minutes and dropped 3,743 bombs with a total weight of 550 tons.

In the air battle for Berlin, the enemy took part in 1,500 combat aircraft based at 40 airfields near Berlin. This is the most intense air battle in history, and the highest level of combat training on both sides should be taken into account.The Luftwaffe was fought by aces who shot down 100,150 or more aircraft (record300 combat aircraft shot down).

At the end of the war, the Germans used jet aircraft, which were significantly faster than propeller-driven aircraft in speed - (Me-262, etc.). However, this did not help. Our pilots in Berlin flew 17.5 thousand combat sorties and completely destroyed the German air fleet.

Analyzing military experience, we can conclude that our aircraft, developed in the period 1939-1940. had constructive reserves for subsequent modernization. Along the way, it should be noted that in the USSR not all types of aircraft were accepted for service. For example, in October 1941, production of MiG-3 fighters was stopped, and in 1943, IL-4 bombers.

The USSR aviation industry produced 15,735 aircraft in 1941. In the difficult year of 1942, during the evacuation of aviation enterprises, 25,436 aircraft were produced, in 1943 - 34,900 aircraft, in 1944 - 40,300 aircraft, in the first half of 1945, 20,900 aircraft were produced. Already in the spring of 1942, all factories evacuated from the central regions of the USSR beyond the Urals and to Siberia, they fully mastered the production of aviation equipment and weapons. Most of these factories in new locations in 1943 and 1944 produced products several times more than before the evacuation.

The successes of the rear made it possible to strengthen the country's air force. By early 1944, the Air Force And grounded 8818 combat aircraft, and German - 3073. In terms of the number of aircraft, the USSR exceeded Germany by 2.7 times. By June 1944, the German Air Forcehad only 2,776 aircraft at the front, and our Air Force - 14,787. By the beginning of January 1945, our Air Force had 15,815 combat aircraft. The design of our aircraft was much simpler than that of American, German or British aircraft. This partly explains such a clear advantage in the number of aircraft. Unfortunately, it is not possible to compare the reliability, durability and strength of our and German aircraft, as well as to analyze the tactical and strategic use of aviation in the war of 1941-1945. Apparently, these comparisons would not be in our favor and would conditionally reduce such a striking difference in numbers. However, perhaps, simplifying the design was the only way out in the absence of qualified specialists, materials, equipment and other components for the production of reliable and high-quality equipment in the USSR, especially since, unfortunately, the Russian army traditionally recruits by “numbers” and not by skill .

Aircraft weapons were also improved. in 1942, a large-caliber 37 mm aircraft gun was developed, later it appearedand a 45 mm cannon.

By 1942, V.Ya. Klimov developed the M-107 engine to replace the M-105P, adopted for installation on water-cooled fighters.

Greffoat writes: “Relying on the fact that the war with Russia, like the war in the West, would be lightning fast, Hitler intended, after achieving the first successes in the East, to transfer bomber units, as well asthe required number of aircraft back to the West. In the East they mustair connections intended for directsupport for German troops, as well as military transport units and a number of fighter squadrons..."

German aircraft created in 1935-1936 at the beginning of the war no longer had the possibility of radical modernization. According to the German General Butler "The Russians had the advantage that in the production of weapons and ammunition they took into account all the featuresconducting the war in Russia and ensuring maximum simplicity of technology. As a result of this, Russian factories produced a huge amount of weapons, which were distinguished by their great simplicity of design. Learning to wield such a weapon was relatively easy... "

The Second World War fully confirmed the maturity of domestic scientific and technical thought (this ultimately ensured the further acceleration of the introduction of jet aviation).

Nevertheless, each country followed its own path in designing airplanes.

The aviation industry of the USSR produced 15,735 aircraft in 1941. In the difficult year of 1942, during the evacuation of aviation enterprises, 25,436 aircraft were produced, in 1943 - 34,900 aircraft, for1944 - 40,300 aircraft, 20,900 aircraft were produced in the first half of 1945. Already in the spring of 1942, all factories evacuated from the central regions of the USSR to the Urals and Siberia had fully mastered the production of aviation equipment and weapons. Most of these factories moved to new locations in 1943 and 1944 years they produced several times more production than before the evacuation.

Germany had, in addition to its own resources, the resources of the conquered countries. In 1944, German factories produced 27.6 thousand aircraft, and our factories produced 33.2 thousand aircraft in the same period. In 1944, aircraft production was 3.8 times higher than the 1941 figures.

In the first months of 1945, the aircraft industry prepared equipment for the final battles. Thus, the Siberian Aviation Plant N 153, which produced 15 thousand fighters during the war, transferred 1.5 thousand modernized fighters to the front in January-March 1945.

The successes of the rear made it possible to strengthen the country's air force. By the beginning of 1944, the Air Force had 8,818 combat aircraft, and the German - 3,073. In terms of the number of aircraft, the USSR exceeded Germany by 2.7 times. By June 1944, the German Air Forcehad only 2,776 aircraft at the front, and our Air Force - 14,787. By the beginning of January 1945, our Air Force had 15,815 combat aircraft. The design of our aircraft was much simpler than the American and Germanor English cars. This partly explains such a clear advantage in the number of aircraft. Unfortunately, it is not possible to make a comparison of the reliability, durability and strength of our and German aircraft, andalso analyze the tactical and strategic use of aviation in the war of 1941-1945. Apparently these comparisons would not be inour benefit and would conditionally reduce such a striking difference in numbers. However, perhaps, simplifying the design was the only way out in the absence of qualified specialists, materials, equipment and other components for the production of reliable and high-quality equipment in the USSR, especially since, unfortunately, the Russian army traditionally recruits by “numbers” and not by skill .

Aircraft weapons were also improved. In 1942, a large-caliber 37 mm aircraft gun was developed, and later a 45 mm caliber gun appeared. By 1942, V.Ya. Klimov developed the M-107 engine to replace the M-105P, adopted for installation on water-cooled fighters.

The fundamental improvement of the aircraft is its conversionchanging from a propeller to a jet. To increase flight speeda more powerful engine is installed. However, at speeds above 700 km/hspeed increase from engine power cannot be achieved. Outputhouse from the position is the use of jet traction. Appliesturbojet/turbojet/ or liquid jet/LPRE/ engine.the second half of the 30s in the USSR, England, Germany, Italy, later - inThe United States was intensively creating a jet aircraft. In 1938, jets appearedhighest in the world, German jet engines BMW, Junkers. In 1940the first Campini-Capro jet aircraft made test flightsneither", created in Italy, later the German Me-262, Me-163 appearedXE-162. In 1941, the Gloucester aircraft with a jet was tested in Englandengine, and in 1942 they tested a jet aircraft in the USA - "Irokometh". In England, a twin-engine jet aircraft "Me" was soon createdtheor", who took part in the war. In 1945, on the Me planeTheor-4" set a world speed record of 969.6 km/h.

In the USSR, in the initial period, practical work on the creation of reactionstive engines was carried out in the direction of the liquid rocket engine. Under the guidanceS.P.Koroleva, A.F.Tsander, designers A.M.Isaev, L.S.DushkindevelopedThe first domestic jet engines were built. Pioneer turbojeakA.M.Lyulka became the first ative engine.At the beginning of 1942, G. Bakhchivandzhi made the first flight on a jettive domestic aircraft. Soon this pilot diedduring aircraft testing.Work on the creation of a jet aircraft for practical useresumed after the war with the creation of the Yak-15, MiG-9 using non-German JUMO jet engines.

In conclusion, it should be noted that the Soviet Union entered the war with numerous, but technically backward fighter aircraft. This backwardness was, in essence, an inevitable phenomenon for a country that had only recently embarked on the path of industrialization, which Western European states and the United States followed in the 19th century. By the mid-20s of the 20th century, the USSR was an agricultural country with a half-illiterate, mostly rural population and a tiny percentage of engineering, technical and scientific personnel. Aircraft manufacturing, engine manufacturing and non-ferrous metallurgy were in their infancy. Suffice it to say that in Tsarist Russia they did not produce ball bearings and carburetors for aircraft engines, aircraft electrical equipment, control and aeronautical instruments at all. Aluminum, wheel tires and even copper wire had to be purchased abroad.

Over the next 15 years, the aviation industry, along with related and raw materials industries, was created practically from scratch, and simultaneously with the construction of the largest air force in the world at that time.

Of course, with such a fantastic pace of development, serious costs and forced compromises were inevitable, because it was necessary to rely on the available material, technological and personnel base.

The most complex knowledge-intensive industries—engine building, instrument making, and radio electronics—were in the most difficult situation. It must be admitted that the Soviet Union was unable to overcome the gap from the West in these areas during the pre-war and war years. The difference in the “starting conditions” turned out to be too great and the time allotted by history was too short. Until the end of the war, we produced engines created on the basis of foreign models purchased back in the 30s - Hispano-Suiza, BMW and Wright-Cyclone. Their repeated forcing led to overstressing of the structure and a steady decrease in reliability, and, as a rule, it was not possible to bring our own promising developments to mass production. The exception was the M-82 and its further development, the M-82FN, which gave birth to perhaps the best Soviet fighter of the war, the La-7.

During the war years, the Soviet Union was unable to establish serial production of turbochargers and two-stage superchargers, multifunctional propulsion automation devices similar to the German “Kommandoherat”, powerful 18-cylinder air-cooled engines, thanks to which the Americans crossed the milestone of 2000, and then at 2500 hp. Well, by and large, no one in our country was seriously involved in work on water-methanol boosting of engines. All this greatly limited aircraft designers in creating fighters with higher performance characteristics than the enemy.

No less serious restrictions were imposed by the need to use wood, plywood and steel pipes instead of scarce aluminum and magnesium alloys. The irresistible weight of the wooden and mixed construction forced us to weaken the weapons, limit the ammunition load, reduce the fuel supply and save on armor protection. But there was simply no other way out, because otherwise it would not have been possible to even bring the flight data of Soviet aircraft closer to the characteristics of German fighters.

For a long time, our aircraft industry compensated for the lag in quality through quantity. Already in 1942, despite the evacuation of 3/4 of the aircraft industry's production capacity, the USSR produced 40% more combat aircraft than Germany. In 1943, Germany made significant efforts to increase the production of combat aircraft, but nevertheless the Soviet Union built 29% more of them. Only in 1944, the Third Reich, through the total mobilization of the resources of the country and occupied Europe, caught up with the USSR in the production of combat aircraft, but during this period the Germans had to use up to 2/3 of their aviation in the West, against the Anglo-American allies.

By the way, we note that for each combat aircraft produced in the USSR there were 8 times fewer machine tools, 4.3 times less electricity and 20% fewer workers than in Germany! Moreover, more than 40% of workers in the Soviet aviation industry in 1944 were women, and over 10% were teenagers under 18 years of age.

The given figures indicate that Soviet aircraft were simpler, cheaper and more technologically advanced than German ones. Nevertheless, by the middle of 1944, their best models, such as the Yak-3 and La-7 fighters, surpassed German aircraft of the same type and contemporary ones in a number of flight parameters. The combination of fairly powerful engines with high aerodynamic and weight efficiency made it possible to achieve this, despite the use of archaic materials and technologies designed for simple production conditions, outdated equipment and low-skilled workers.

It can be argued that the named types in 1944 accounted for only 24.8% of the total production of fighter aircraft in the USSR, and the remaining 75.2% were older types of aircraft with worse flight characteristics. We can also recall that in 1944 the Germans were already actively developing jet aviation, having achieved considerable success in this. The first samples of jet fighters were put into mass production and began to arrive in combat units.

Nevertheless, the progress of the Soviet aircraft industry during the difficult war years is undeniable. And his main achievement is that our fighters managed to recapture from the enemy low and medium altitudes, at which attack aircraft and short-range bombers operated - the main striking force of aviation on the front line. This ensured the successful combat operation of the Ilovs and Pe-2s against German defensive positions, force concentration centers and transport communications, which, in turn, contributed to the victorious offensive of the Soviet troops at the final stage of the war.

Last edition 12/12/2011 17:06

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Since the summer of 1944, the Third Reich and its allies went into “blind defense.” The catastrophe in Belarus, the transfer of hostilities on the eastern front beyond the borders of the USSR, the opening of a second front, massive bombing of German territory: everything suggested the inevitable and imminent collapse of the “eternal” Reich. Some local successes of the German armed forces simply prolonged the agony. Germany and its allies were forced to wage a war on two fronts: from the east, the Red Army, whose military power was growing every day, was approaching the original German territories; from the west, Anglo-American troops were advancing, which had a “big grudge” against the Nazis and a huge technical advantage.

In the context of the conduct of hostilities between June 1944 and May 1945, several rather interesting questions arise. How great were the Reich's losses in personnel armed forces and in the main types of military equipment during this period? How were they distributed across theaters of war? Which direction (Western or Eastern) was a priority for the Reich leadership? For those who live in the territory of the former USSR, it would seem that the answer is obvious. But is he true? After all, for those who live in the West and the USA today, the correct answer seems completely different.

On the one hand, there is a “canonized” opinion, the source of which lies in the Soviet interpretation of the events of the Second World War: the main efforts of the Reich Armed Forces and the German allies were concentrated against the Red Army, and they considered the Western Front as secondary. On the other hand, there is an opposite opinion, especially in English-language “pop” historiography, which regards the eastern front as “secondary”.
Let's try to abstract from personal biases, preferences and patriotism, and analyze the distribution of resources in the Reich across theaters of war and their losses during the last year of World War II in Europe. Based on these statistics, we will see which front was considered a higher priority by the German leadership. Simply put, who was Hitler “more afraid of?” Let's start with military equipment.

AVIATION

Combat aviation played a huge role in World War II. Air superiority allowed the opposing sides to inflict significant losses on the enemy, in turn greatly reducing their own. Moreover, the aircraft industry was a kind of “litmus test” for each of the warring countries, showing both the industrial and intellectual potential of the country and the ability to implement it in practice.
We need to start with statistics on the production of aircraft during the Second World War:

According to German data, the German aircraft industry and the industry of the countries occupied by Germany from September 1, 1939 until the end of the war produced 113,515 aircraft of all types, of which 18,235 bombers, 53,729 fighters, 12,359 attack aircraft, 11,546 training aircraft, 1,190 naval aircraft , 3145 transport-landing gliders.

IN Soviet time it was claimed that the Germans lost 77,000 aircraft on the eastern front. The classic work “Soviet Aviation in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 in Figures” gives more modest figures for the losses of the German Air Force on the Eastern Front: 1941 - 4200 aircraft, 1942 - 11,550, 1943 - 15,200, 1944 - 17,500 , 1945 - 4,400. Total: 52,850 aircraft.

In the monograph “The Classification of Secrecy Has Been Removed,” a team of authors led by G.F. Krivosheeva contains other data on German Air Force losses on the Eastern Front: 1941 - 4,000 aircraft, 1942 - 11,500 aircraft, 1943 - 19,000, 1944 - 17,500, 1945 - 7,500. Total: 59,500 aircraft of all types. This, so to speak, is the official Russian point of view at this moment.

There is a point of view that differs from our official one. For the first time, the figures for irrecoverable/total losses of the German Luftwaffe were made public by a famous aviation historian O. Groiler(Gröller) in the 3rd issue of the magazine “Militaergechichte” back in 1972, based on daily reports of the 6th Department of the Quartermaster General of the Reich Air Force. To say that these data differ from those circulating in Soviet historiography means to say nothing. So, according to these data, aircraft losses for 1941 on the eastern front amount to 2213 irretrievably damaged aircraft and 1435 severely damaged ones. During the period from January to August 1942, 4,561 were destroyed and 3,740 were damaged.

But the fact is that the documents of the 6th department were not completely preserved, since the Luftwaffe archive was mostly destroyed by the Germans themselves. More or less complete data was preserved until December 1943, partially until December 1944, and fragmentarily for 1945. The remainder of the documents were mostly exported to the United States, and only in the 1970s were they returned to the military archives of Germany.

Thus, there is no reliable data on the losses of the German Air Force during the last year of fighting in Europe. However, irretrievable losses on the eastern front suffered precisely during combat missions were known quite accurately. According to Groiler, in 1944 they amounted to: 839 fighters, 1342 bombers and attack aircraft, 376 reconnaissance aircraft. Some domestic “historians” happily clung to these figures and, based on the known losses of the Soviet Air Force, derived a loss ratio of 6:1 in favor of the Germans, and some even managed to get 8:1. However, these “historians” forgot to take into account that all belligerents suffered significant non-combat aviation losses throughout the Second World War. The figure for non-combat losses ranges from 40% in the German Air Force to 50-55% in the Soviet Air Force. In addition, Groyler wrote his work back in 1972, since then several more very detailed studies have been published on the issue of losses of the German Air Force in the period from 1940 to 1945.

On this moment the most complete and reliable information on Luftwaffe losses and the breakdown of these losses in the theater of operations is contained in the works of the professor Murray and aviation historian Michael Holm.

According to these data, Luftwaffe losses are: on the Eastern Front for the period February - December 1942, 2,955 aircraft destroyed directly in battle, 2,308 aircraft lost “outside enemy influence” and 1,806 aircraft damaged. The total losses of the Luftwaffe on the Soviet-German front amounted to 5,263 aircraft destroyed plus 1,806 damaged, for a total of 7,069 combat vehicles, which is 58% of all Luftwaffe losses in 1942 in relation to all theaters of operations. On all other fronts, 3,806 aircraft were lost permanently and 1,102 damaged, or 4,908 combat vehicles. There are no data on training units for 1942.

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