Stolen technologies: the “flying fortress” of the USSR

The Boeing B-17 was the most popular heavy bomber of the Second World War, and its reputation for almost complete invulnerability when meeting with Messerschmitts, exceptional survivability (the plane returned to the base even on one engine of four, with huge holes in the hull) and nine Browning machine guns M2 12.7 mm caliber made him a real legend. The first flight of the B-17 took place in 1935, and a decade later, by the end of the Second World War, it was already outdated. The bomber could lift only 2,200 kg of aerial bombs, and the first atomic bombs, the Little Boy and Fat Man, weighed 4,400 kg and 4,670 kg, respectively. Despite the appearance of the British Avro 683 Lancaster bomber, the invasion of the Allied forces in Japan required a new aircraft. This was the strategic bomber Boeing B-29 "SuperFressress".

In terms of technical characteristics, the B-29 surpasses almost all bombers in aviation history, except modern ones. Yes, the B-29 was slow, but only because the jet engines were in their infancy in 1944. The bomber was a forgotten super-weapon of the Second World War, and everyone - Japan, Germany, Great Britain and the USSR - wanted to get the same. Only the Soviet Union was able to go so far as to make its own B-29, using reverse engineering of crashed and crash-landing American aircraft in the USSR.

Like all countries in World War II, the Soviet Union needed a heavy bomber. The distance from Moscow to Berlin is 1600 km, and from Vladivostok to Tokyo - only 1060 km, so the Russians did not need so much a long-distance bomber as a car capable of carrying more than a dozen 250-kilogram bombs.
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Petlyakov Pe-8, Soviet heavy bomber of the Second World War

At the beginning of the war, the most powerful Soviet bomber, Petlyakov Pe-8, was inferior to any four-engined bomber of the Allied forces. Pe-8 could deliver only 900 kg of aerial bombs at a distance of 1900 km, while the B-17 delivered 2700 kg at the same distance. The USSR was far behind, and although Berlin and Tokyo were at a short distance, a heavier bomber was clearly required.

Raids on Tokyo

The United States attacked Tokyo at the beginning of the war: Doolittle's raid happened in April 1942, but with minimal success. During the operation, the 16 B-25 Mitchell medium bomber had to take off from aircraft carriers, fly over Japan and land in China. But for 15 planes it was a one-way flight. Only one car survived, and after the raid, the Japanese organized a large-scale operation in East China in search of surviving pilots. The damage to Japan from the bombardment was negligible. Lt. Col. James Doolittle himself thought that he would be judged upon his return to the United States. This did not happen due to the fact that the Dulittl raid proved that Japan is not capable of protecting its territory. This contributed to the improvement of morale, so the raid was considered successful.

The Doolittle raid was never repeated, and the next attack on Japan took place only two years later. In the summer of 1944, the US Air Force organized the Matterhorn operation , launching bombers from air bases deep in China to Manchuria and Formosa (Taiwan) controlled by the Japanese, as well as the Japanese island of Kyushu. Although this operation can hardly be considered successful - the logistics of supplying fuel and bombs from bases in India to Chinese air bases became a real nightmare - it was she who provided the USSR with several B-29 corps to study.

B-29 Recovery

The Soviet Union was an ally, but the United States refused to supply Lend-Lease B-29 bombers. The point is not that the Americans did not want to help with airplanes: the same fighters of the P-39 Air Cobra are generally known more like a Soviet plane: half of all the cars produced were delivered to the USSR under a lend-lease. Thousands of fighters were transported to Alaska, through Siberia to the Eastern Front. But the B-29 was special, it is the largest and most powerful bomber of its time, something that every country wanted to get, and what America did not want to share.

During several sorties during the Matterhorn operation, individual B-29 aircraft were damaged and landed on Soviet territory. One B-29 crashed, three others made an emergency landing. Experts predicted that the USSR would need five years to create its own long-range heavy bomber, and in 1944 there were no such plans at all. For Stalin, the arrival of the B-29 on Soviet soil was a real gift. He ordered an exact copy of the B-29, bolt to bolt, in two years.

Miracle of technology

B-29 was a real technical marvel. Remote-controlled turret guns, Norden’s high-precision bomb sights , hermetic compartments and extraordinarily powerful engines were the pinnacles of the 40s technology. There were other technological advances. For example, the B-29 was equipped with a huge chassis - such a Soviet industry could not produce. The impressive transparent plastic dome on the nose of the B-29 also failed to copy in the USSR; Test pilots then often complained that Soviet acrylic panels were crooked and distorted the view.

The most advanced Soviet bomber installed fabric-covered ailerons on the wings, whereas the B-29 were all aluminum. Copying the B-29 seemed a practically impossible task even at the best of times, but this task was shouldered by Andrei Tupolev, the head of the USSR’s largest design bureau.


Dismantling of the General HH Arnold Special bomber at the Central Airfield named after Frunze in Moscow

Three B-29 bombers landed in Siberia after a Japanese raid, they were quickly transported to the Central airfield in Moscow. These aircraft General HH Arnold Special , Ding How and Ramp Tramp disassembled in detail or used for training and test flights, or kept intact for sample. For reverse engineering, the B-29 needed to make duplicates of more than 100,000 parts, and the Stalin directive required making a perfect copy. This copy of the B-29 will later become known as the Tu-4.

This is easier said than done. The Soviet Union did not have the ability to produce many parts, and even in the B-29, aluminum lining was used with a thickness of 1/16 ", and in the USSR the metric system of units was used. Nevertheless, the aircraft was cloned successfully. A group of designers and designers of Tupolev copied even the color interior design and repair patch General HH Arnold Special .

The differences between the B-29 and Tu-4 were hidden inside. The powerful Wright R-3350 engine at 2,200 hp, found in the B-29, was unavailable. The Tu-4 was equipped with a copy of this engine, the ASH-73TK with a centrifugal supercharger and two turbo-compressors. The first version of the engine was inferior in power Wright R-3350. 12.7 mm machine guns from the B-29 could not be made, so the Tu-4 was equipped with air cannons. The massive B-29 tires were beyond the power of Soviet industry, so agents sent to the western military market to produce suitable tires.

Disclosure

Germany signed the act of surrender on May 8, 1945, and according to the Tehran Agreement, the USSR was obliged to go to war with Japan within 90 days. However, on August 6, the United States dropped an atomic bomb in Hiroshima, and on August 9, in Nagasaki, and the frightened Japan capitulated on September 2. By that time, the B-29 was completely dismantled at the Central Aerodrome in Moscow, although it took another two years for the USSR to show for the first time its own heavy bomber of a new generation.

On August 3, 1947, during the celebration of the Day of Aviation, representatives of all the branches of the USSR Air Forces gathered at the airfield in Tushino. There, for the first time, the Su-9 and Su-11 fighters — copies of German turbojet fighters Messerschmitt Me 262 — were to show. And suddenly, during an air show, three large bomber flew over the heads of the public at an altitude of only 200 meters. The characteristic streamlined shape, the four roaring engines and the unique plexiglas nose made it clear to observers that these are the most forgotten B-29s that were lost three years earlier. After them, another Soviet Tu-4 passed over the crowd, this time the passenger version of the aircraft. The world has now learned that the Soviet Union has completely new B-29s.


The last surviving Tu-4 is stored in the Central Museum of the Air Force in Monino

B-29s were practically not used after the war: they were soon replaced by B-36 “Peacekeeper” massive intercontinental bombers, and in 1955, they gave way to the “stratospheric fortress” B-52 “Stratofortress”. But the Tu-4 served in Soviet aviation for several decades.

Many myths have been created around the Tu-4, for example, that this is an absolutely exact copy of the B-29, up to scratches on one of the wings from anti-aircraft fire. In fact, it is not. The Tu-4 pushed the development of the Soviet aerospace industry, and only 10 years later, the Soviet Air Force presented the Tu-16, a jet bomber, which is still in service with the Chinese Air Force, and the Tu-95 - the legendary turboprop strategic bomber-rocket carrier, which until is still in service with the Russian Air Force and plans to serve until the 2040s.

This is an excellent piece of engineering, although much of the design is copied from a Boeing product. Not the first time the American design was copied by Soviet engineers. The first Soviet atomic bomb RDS-1, modeled on the American Fat Man (Fat Man), was dropped from the Tu-4 compartment.

Today, only one copy of the Tu-4 survived, it is stored in the aviation museum not far from Moscow. Although this is not a very good survival rate, given the hundreds of manufactured specimens, it is a great demonstration of how Stalin pushed the Soviet aerospace industry to development.