Silver "Migs", queues of "Sabers", falling "Fortresses"!
How many "Superfortresses" the Americans lost on that "Black Tuesday" or "Black Thursday" is not known for certain. But the legend about Tuesday / Thursday spread across the Internet, saying that "the armor is strong, and our MiGs are fast."
However, not as fast as we would like …
On October 30, 1951, 21 Superfortress from the 307th Bomber Group, accompanied by 89 Thunderjets, raided the Nancy airfield. To intercept the American armada, 44 MiGs from the 303rd and 324th fighter air divisions were raised, which easily shot down 9 or 12 or even 14 strategic bombers at the cost of losing one MiG-15. Of course, the Yankees were unhappy with this alignment, downplaying their losses and announcing a greater number of downed MiGs. Whatever it was, but the general alignment was clearly not in their favor. The Russian "Li Si Qing" managed to knock about a dozen four-engine bombers and several more "Thunderjets" of the escort to the ground.
A similar case took place in the spring of the same year, when during a raid on bridges on the river. Yalujian, with a similar alignment of forces, the battle ended with a similar result (pogrom on April 12, 1951). This is how the Tuesday-Thursday confusion arose. The Americans were beaten twice. They beat me hard and accurately.
B-29 with Tarzon super-heavy guided bomb (British 5-ton Tallboy with remote control unit). Such bombs were intended to destroy bridges, dams, tunnels and fortified structures in Korea.
Exactly ten years before Gagarin's flight, the Russian aces three times Hero of the Soviet Union Ivan Kozhedub, who then commanded the 324th Fighter Aviation Division, dispelled the myth about the invulnerability of the American flying super-fortresses B-29 - those who dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and were preparing to do the same with dozens of cities in the USSR.
This defeat marked complete collapse of the use of strategic aviation in the daytime.
The fact of aerial victories is undeniable. But what is the B-29 “invulnerability” myth? By 1951, the piston "Fortress" was outdated and needed immediate replacement (the same B-52 - the first flight in 1952). And this was understandable even to the most inveterate optimists in the US Air Force Strategic Command. In the era of jet aircraft, even the massive use of the B-29 did not leave any hope that the "heavenly slugs" would hold out for at least an hour in Soviet airspace (Plan Dropshot, yeah).
At the same time, the shooting of the piston Super Fortress by no means guaranteed safety for the Soviet sky.
However, about all the heroes of those battles in order.
Boeing B-29 "Superfortress"
“Better than“Superfortress”can only be“Superfortress”, said Comrade. Stalin, ordering Tupolev to curtail all his own developments and copy the B-29.
A unique bomber of its kind. Born in the midst of World War II, he was strikingly different in design and characteristics from any of his peers.
60 tons of take-off weight, propelled by four 18-cylinder turbocharged "stars" ("Cyclone" displacement 54 liters, power 2200 hp). The maximum fuel supply of the Super Fortress reached 30 tons.
Three pressurized cabins, remotely controlled turrets, guided by data from five analog computers (calculation of the lead depending on the relative position of the bomber and the target, their speed, air temperature and humidity, the effect of gravity). But the real survivability of the "Superfortress" was determined not by weapons, but by its flight characteristics: a speed of 500 km / h at an altitude of 10 kilometers! In an attempt to catch up with the Stratofortress, the Axis interceptors hummed their engines forcibly and then uncontrollably fell down. The destruction of the B-29 was a great deal of luck, and often an accident. Moreover, the "Fortresses" themselves did not need to descend over the target, they could aim bombing through the clouds. Each B-29 was equipped with an APQ-7 "Eagle" centimeter radar.
B-29 next to its development, overgrown B-36 "Peacemaker" (1948)
Bomber number 1 for all time, thunderstorm and the power of heaven. The only aircraft that used nuclear weapons in practice.
MiG-15
500 kilometers per hour at an altitude of 10 km. For the jet MiG, the American "Fortress" was a sedentary target. The jet thrust and swept wing provided the fighter with twice the speed and five times the rate of climb in steady state. Given the larger ceiling (15,000 meters), the MiGs could dive through the Superfortresses line from a dive on a transsound, riddling the helpless machines from their automatic cannons. Unlike the Sabers machine guns, the caliber of the Russian fighters was just right. Just for such a large and tenacious target as "Superfortress" (two rapid-fire 23 mm + 37 mm "rapier").
Unlike the Sabers, our fighters did not have radars (radio sights). Only a hot heart, a cold mind and a keen eye. And Russian ingenuity: instead of a radar - a radar detector, nicknamed "Comrade".
“Comrade warns. On the tail - "Sabers".
However, on that Black Thursday, the Sabers were not in the air. There were only bombers and their sluggish escort.
They categorically could not fight on an equal footing with MiGs: the defensive armament of the "Fortresses" was ineffective against jet fighters. The sighting range of the 23- and 37-mm cannons was twice that of the 50-caliber Browning. At the same time, at small distances, the Fortress computers could not calculate the correct lead, at a convergence speed of 150-200 m / s. And the turrets themselves often did not have time to aim at a target that had an angular velocity of tens of degrees per second.
Finally, the wing with a span of 43 meters (like a 16-storey building laid on its side) - it was impossible to miss the Superfortress.
With the advent of jet aircraft, the once formidable Superfortress became the Slowfortress (a slow, backward fortress). Despite the fact that the format of the Korean War itself weakly corresponded to the concept of using strategic bombers: the vast majority of bomb strikes were delivered from multi-role jet fighters. The only mission of the "Fortresses" was the use of super-heavy bombs. And their only way to reach their target was to have a powerful fighter escort. However, on that Black Thursday, the Americans did not even bother with that.
Outdated, unprepared for this role F-84 were allocated instead of the swift Sabers to cover the bombers.
F-84 "Jet Thunder"
The dispatch of jet aircraft to Korea caused a lot of controversy related to basing on unpaved airfields. To dispel doubts, the military decided on a dangerous experiment: to drive a couple of handfuls of sand through the engine. Legend has it that the Allison J-35 failed only after being hit by 250 kilograms of sand …
F-84 Thunderjet! Heir to the legendary Thunderbolt and predecessor of the Vietnam hero, Thunderchif. Like all the machines of Alexander Kartveli (Kartvelishvili), the F-84 "was" in size and surprised opponents with its striking capabilities.
Normal takeoff weight is almost 2 times more than that of the MiG-15.
First flight - 1946.
Originally created as a fighter, the Thunderjet became infinitely outdated in just five years and was forced to leave the ranks of fighter aircraft, switching to bombing.
According to official statistics, fighters of this type made 86,408 sorties, dropped 50,427 tons of bombs and 5560 tons of napalm, fired 5560 unguided missiles, and inflicted 10,673 strikes on railways and 1366 on highways. During these sorties, 200,807 buildings were destroyed, 2,317 vehicles, 167 tanks, 4,846 guns, 259 steam locomotives, 3,996 railroad cars and 588 bridges were destroyed.
Even if you divide the numbers by three, “Thunderjet” will remain a devil who destroyed everything in its path. They accounted for 2/3 of all bomb strikes. It was they, not the Super Fortresses, that were the main bombers in the skies of Korea. Moreover, unlike the latter, the F-84 could make a spectacular combat turn and, dropping bombs, stand up for itself in aerial combat. As archaic as its straight wing design was, it remained a jet fighter. In a war, where even piston aircraft of the past years was used in full force.
In spite of everything, its thrust-to-weight ratio with a normal take-off weight was two times less than that of the MiG. Less speed, rate of climb and more load on the wing. More inertia and worse maneuverability due to the presence of bulky fuel tanks at the wingtips.
In general, he was no competitor for the fast-paced MiG-15 with a swept wing.
On Black Thursday, April 12, 1951, in the sky over Yalujiang, aircraft of different eras accidentally met: jet fighters of the late 1940s. and WWII piston bombers escorted by jet fighter-bombers of the early post-war years.
The meeting ended with a natural result. Arrogant Americans were torn to shreds like fools.
But the Yankees, unfortunately, were not fools.
The next battle ended in favor of the bomber. A whole regiment of MiGs chased the intruder, but the Stratojet filmed all the planned objects and dumped them to the West (air battle over the Kola Peninsula, May 8, 1954). Despite a half-shot wing, the crew of the Stratojet managed to reach Fairford airbase in Great Britain.
Strategic jet bomber B-47 "Stratojet". The speed is 977 km / h. Introduced into service in 1951
There is nothing to blame the interceptor pilots for. Having used up the ammunition, one of the MiG-17s even decided to ram - the cameras installed on the Stratojet filmed it almost closely. The air battle on May 8 is a stern statement of the fact that, with only cannon armament and no advantage in speed, a fighter is not capable of intercepting a bomber.
Convinced of this in practice, the US Air Force moved to more decisive action. For the next few years, B-47s flew with impunity over Leningrad, Kiev, Minsk. They even appeared in the skies over the Moscow region (incident on April 29, 1954). In 1956, Operation Home Run began. A group of twenty jet B-47s from the Arctic airbase Thule made 156 incursions into Soviet airspace in a month.
The “golden era” of bomber aviation ended in 1960, when pilot Vasily Polyakov on a MiG-19 supersonic fighter confidently caught up and smashed RB-47H cannons. Just as they shot down helpless piston “Fortresses” in the sky of Korea.
From that moment on, the advantage in the bomber vs fighter battle remained with the fighter.
