"2M", aka "M-4", aka "Product 103" (NATO codification "Bizon-A") are all designations of one aircraft - the first serial Soviet jet subsonic strategic bomber, which was created by specialists from the Myasishchev Design Bureau. It is noteworthy that the M-4 became the first strategic jet bomber in the world to enter combat units; it was several months ahead of its overseas rival, the famous B-52 bomber.
Let's figure out the names of the aircraft. 2M is the military designation of the bomber in the Air Force system, “M-4” is the design code of the OKB-23 project, and “Product 103” is the code of design and technological documentation in the MAP system in serial production (in pilot production, the aircraft had the fourth designation “Product 25 "). In the future, on the basis of the M-4 project, several experimental and serial strategic jet bombers were created in the Soviet Union. For example, the serial "strategists": "3M" (M-6) and "3MD" (M-6D) were further development of this project in terms of improving flight performance.
The road to the skies for the M-4 aircraft, which first took to the air on January 20, 1953 (66 years ago), was paved by the creation of atomic weapons. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by American bombers at the very end of World War II marked the beginning of a new era, including in the field of weapons. The atomic bomb was already a formidable and very terrible weapon, but it was not enough to invent and manufacture it - the bomb had to be delivered to objects on the territory of a potential enemy. It was with this that the participants in the only gaining momentum of the Cold War had problems. The United States and the USSR lacked modern bombers that could cross the ocean and reach enemy territory; they had to be developed from scratch.
Bomber M-4. The photo was taken at the Ukrainka airbase.
The Americans were the first to start creating strategic bombers, who were not only the first to create an atomic bomb, but also accumulated extensive experience in the creation and use of long-range bomber aircraft during the Second World War. The contract for the creation of a strategic jet bomber that could deliver nuclear bombs to the territory of the USSR was won by Boeing back in June 1946. The first explosion of the Soviet atomic bomb took place only in August 1949, and it was only after this event that they began to seriously think about the means of delivering it to the enemy's territory. At the same time, the long-range Tu-4 bombers that had just entered service, which were a practical complete copy of the American Boeing B-29 "Superfortress" bomber, were considered as a temporary measure.
The Boeing B-29 "Superfortress" and the reverse-engineered Tu-4 were good aircraft. The shape of the fuselage, structure and equipment (up to the interior of the pressurized cabin) were completely copied from the American aircraft, with the exception of Soviet radio equipment, more powerful engines and its own propeller-driven group, as well as reinforced armament, which became cannon (10 automatic 23-mm cannons). At the same time, the Tu-4, like its overseas brother, had one drawback - a limited flight range. For the Tu-4, the maximum range was 5,000 km, which means that it was necessary to place such bombers as close as possible to the likely enemy, which put the plane at risk of surprise strikes. Therefore, the task of creating an aircraft, which, being based in the depths of the country outside the reach of the enemy's means of destruction, could reach his territory, was as urgent as possible.
It is quite natural that the design bureau of Andrey Tupolev, who was considered the main specialist in the creation of domestic bombers, was involved in the creation of such an aircraft. At the same time, Tupolev considered it impossible at this stage to create an intercontinental jet bomber with a swept wing of large aspect ratio due to the low efficiency of the existing turbojet engines and poor knowledge of such a scheme, and Tupolev considered information about the development of the future B-52 bomber in the United States as a bluff. The designer personally spoke to Stalin about this. At the same time, another Soviet aircraft designer Vladimir Myasishchev, a student of Tupolev, considered the creation of such an aircraft possible and emphasized that he was ready to take on the project. Ultimately, Stalin made a strong-willed decision, and the tactical and technical assignment developed by the Air Force for the project of an intercontinental jet bomber was approved and issued by both OKB-156 of A. N. Tupolev and the initiative group of designers headed by V. M. Myasishchev, which was still working over the project on an initiative basis (that is, for free) within the walls of the Moscow Aviation Institute and TsAGI. OKB-23 at the Moscow Aviation Plant No. 23, which in the future began to produce a new 2M (4-M) jet bomber, was officially formed on March 24, 1951.
Diagram of the M-4 bomber
Myasishchev was proactively working on the project of a new "strategist" even before the formation of OKB-23. Therefore, on November 30, 1951, the layout of the future aircraft was approved, and on May 15 of the following year, the first prototype was laid. According to the tasks set before the designer by representatives of the Air Force and the Soviet government, the new bomber was supposed to have the following set of characteristics: maximum flight speed - 900-950 km / h, flight range 12,000 km, ceiling - 12-13 km. In addition, the aircraft was supposed to have a large bomb load and powerful defensive armament. The aircraft was planned to be used in any weather and at any time of the day with the provision of targeted bombing above the edge of the clouds.
In reality, Soviet designers provided the world's first combat jet strategic bomber M-4 with the following performance characteristics: maximum flight speed - 947 km / h, service ceiling - 11 km, practical range - 8100 km, combat radius - 5600 km. At the same time, the plane really had a serious bomb load, as the military demanded. The normal combat load was 9000 kg, the maximum - as much as 24 tons, at that time this with a margin overlapped the requirements of the military. In addition, the aircraft had powerful defensive armament, represented by three double-barreled cannon turrets.
It took almost six months to build the first experimental bomber at the Myasishchev Design Bureau. In the fall of 1952, the plane, disassembled into parts, was transported to Zhukovsky near Moscow at the LII airfield, where the stage of its ground tests began. On January 20, 1953, the car, under the control of the crew of test pilot Fyodor Opadchy, took to the skies for the first time. The M-4 strategic jet bomber, which caused many problems during its creation, testing and operation, became the world's first aircraft of its class to enter combat units, several months ahead of its overseas competitor in the person of the B-52, whose development path was also not strewn with roses. Formally, the state tests of the new Soviet M-4 bomber ended only on July 25, 1955, but in fact, the first bomber flew to the combat unit in the city of Engels on February 28, 1955, and the first American strategic jet bombers began to enter service on June 29, 1955.
B-52F drops Mk 117 (340 kg) bombs during the Vietnam War
The Myasishchev bomber was created simultaneously with the Tupolev Tu-95, which, after a series of deep modernizations, is still in service with the Russian Aerospace Forces. The 2M bomber differed from the Tu-95 by a higher speed and a mass of bomb load, but a shorter range, this was due to the high specific fuel consumption of the AM-3 engines, which were installed on the aircraft. In order to reduce the weight of the machine, the designers turned to large-panel assembly, which seriously complicated the process of manufacturing the bomber itself. A feature of the Myasishchevsky bomber was also an "aerodynamically clean" wing (there were no nacelles for engines and chassis on the wing) and, as a result, the use of a "bicycle chassis", which added headaches to the crews, as it made the landing process very difficult and almost ruled out further modernization of bomb bays and use of external suspension.
Pilots mastered new technology already in 1954, the pilots began to study the materiel directly at the aircraft plant number 23. The first serial bomber M-4 reached Engels on February 28, 1955, and on March 2, a second plane also flew here. The first acquaintance made a very strong impression on the pilots of the specially formed 201st Heavy Bomber Aviation Division, who had previously flown the Tu-4. Many of them went through the Great Patriotic War, some even remembered the unsuccessful "strategic offensive" on Helsinki, which failed due to the insufficient effectiveness of the Il-4 and Li-2 used at that time. Now, for the first time since the TB-3, long-range aviation pilots received not just a new, but one of the most powerful bombers in the world.
But a closer acquaintance with the novelty brought the crews not only pleasant emotions. The aircraft was produced in a very limited series, while each of the bombers had its own individual characteristics, sometimes significant, which was a problem when training crews. It was a very difficult task to achieve stable operation of the control system - the number of units to be adjusted was in the hundreds. At the same time, the number of operations that each crew member performed while preparing the aircraft for takeoff turned out to be very large.
Strategic jet bomber M-4
At the same time, the M-4 bomber was considered strict in piloting an aircraft, especially at the time of takeoff and landing. For a very long time, the pilots could not get used to the fact that the jet bomber was lifted off the runway “automatically”, only due to the triggering of the mechanism of “rearing” the aircraft, and at the moment of takeoff they had only to keep the plane on a straight line with pedals, and if necessary, counter the emerging roll. Many pilots, guided by their subjective feelings, tried to "help" the bomber to take off and took the control wheel, which could lead to very sad consequences.
The tactics of using M2 strategic jet bombers provided for a flight along the route in a regiment or squadron formation at an altitude of about 8-11 km. The aircraft were to, in close cooperation with each other, reflect the attacks of enemy fighters. In the USSR, it was believed that the cannon armament system would effectively combat interceptor aircraft armed with large-caliber 12, 7-mm machine guns and NAR with a launch range of up to a thousand meters. The route to the targets had to be made bypassing air defense airfields. Directly above the targets, the formation was disbanded and each "strategist" went to attack his ground object. The return of the aircraft to the bases took the shortest route, since it was believed that after the use of nuclear weapons, the control of the air defense system would be disrupted, which would allow the aircraft to bypass areas dangerous for them with minimal losses.
At the same time, taking off from Engels, the first Soviet strategic jet bombers could reach targets only in the center and in the north of Canada. In order to strike at the territory of the "stronghold of imperialism" it was necessary to modernize the airfields that were located near the country's borders, primarily Shauliai (in the Baltic States) and Ukrainka (Far East). It was from these airfields that combat missions were to be made in the event of a major war with the United States. The main targets of the Soviet bombers were to be large industrial and military facilities. So, dozens of strategic aviation bases of the United States were located near the border with Canada: Lauryn (Maine), Griffis (New York), Grand Forks (North Dakota), Fairchild (Washington) and others. There were also the most important industrial facilities - machine-building, metallurgical and chemical enterprises, power plants, as well as mines.
Strategic jet bomber M-4
If the target of the bombing was outside the range of the aircraft (and there were a huge number of such “interesting” objects for the attack), the option of actions was seriously considered in which the jet bomber did not return back to the USSR, but was withdrawn to a given area of the ocean, where the crew that left the aircraft, had to wait on an inflatable boat for the approach of Soviet submarines. It was believed that even one atomic bomb dropped on enemy territory would justify such a "expendable" method of using existing strategic bombers.
Of the 32 production vehicles built (there were still two experimental ones), three aircraft died along with the crews, and soon after construction. One of the disasters happened when a strategic bomber was transferred to a combat unit due to being caught in a thunderstorm. The second - during acceptance tests due to a fire that arose as a result of the destruction of a weakened fuel line, from which, as part of the struggle to reduce the weight of the aircraft, the "extra" attachment points were simply removed. The third accident happened when a factory crew was flying around a bomber (commander - Ilya Pronin, co-pilot - Valentin Kokkinaki, the younger brother of the famous Soviet test pilots), this disaster was associated with the aerodynamic features of the M-4 during takeoff.
During the first three years of operation of the new strategic bomber in the 201st TBAD in Engels, there were a large number of accidents and at least six accidents involving the new aircraft. It all ended with the fact that a real "woman's riot" happened in the unit, when the wives of the pilots gathered on the airfield, disrupting the conduct of flights. For the sake of fairness, we can say that the process of development and operation of other machines began hard, for example, only from 1954 to 1958 in the Soviet Union at least 25 Tu-16 bombers died in accidents. At the same time, in the future, this aircraft will become the standard of reliability, and its deeply modernized version of the Xian H-6 is still flying and is, in fact, the only "strategic" bomber in the PRC.
Strategic jet bomber M-4
In 1958, the combat operation of the entire existing fleet of 2M aircraft was stopped for more than a year due to the high accident rate of the machine and a large number of failures. At this time, the crews of the bombers flew on Tu-16s or were seconded to other units, many of them underwent training at Aeroflot. During the forced downtime, 2M bombers changed their profession, turning into tanker aircraft, and a significant set of improvements was also carried out, including the landing gear and the aircraft control system. In total, more than two dozen vehicles remained in service, from which two squadrons of tanker aircraft were formed, which were directly subordinate to the command of the 201st TBAD.
Despite the high accident rate and the existing shortcomings, the Soviet strategic jet bomber 2M aka M-4 was the first of its kind. The experience of operating these aircraft in the 201st Heavy Bomber Aviation Division specially created for their development on September 4, 1954 did not pass without a trace. It did not become useless for the designers, who, based on the real experience of operating the machine, created the next modification of the strategist - the famous Myasishchevsky "3M", which remained in service until 1994, just like its predecessor, ending up serving as a tanker aircraft.
