In a combined arms offensive battle, air support can be dispensed with: a howitzer artillery division of the Soviet army could bring down half a thousand rounds of 152 mm caliber on the enemy's head in one hour! Artillery strikes in fog, thunderstorms and blizzards, and aviation operations are often limited by unfavorable weather conditions and dark hours of the day.
Of course, aviation has its strengths. Bombers can use ammunition of enormous power - an elderly Su-24 soars upward like an arrow with two KAB-1500 bombs under its wing. The ammunition index speaks for itself. It is difficult to imagine an artillery piece capable of firing the same heavy shells. The monstrous naval gun "Type 94" (Japan) had a caliber of 460 mm and a gun weight of 165 tons! At the same time, its firing range barely reached 40 km. Unlike the Japanese artillery system, the Su-24 can "throw" a couple of its 1.5-ton bombs for five hundred kilometers.
But for direct fire support of ground forces, such powerful ammunition is not required, as well as an ultra-long firing range! The legendary D-20 cannon-howitzer has a range of 17 kilometers - more than enough to hit any targets in the front line. And the power of its shells weighing 45-50 kilograms is enough to destroy most objects on the front line of the enemy's defense. After all, it is no coincidence that during the Second World War the Luftwaffe abandoned the "hundredths" - for direct support of ground forces there were enough bombs weighing 50 kg.
As a result, we are faced with an amazing paradox - from the point of view of logic, effective fire support on the front line can be provided only by the use of artillery means. There is no need to use attack aircraft and other "battlefield aircraft" - expensive and unreliable "toys" with redundant capabilities.
On the other hand, any modern combined arms offensive battle without high-quality air support is doomed to quick and inevitable defeat.
Attack aircraft have their own secret of success. And this secret has nothing to do with the flight characteristics of the "battlefield aircraft" themselves, the thickness of their armor and the power of the onboard weapons.
To solve the puzzle, I invite readers to get acquainted with seven of the best attack aircraft and close-support aircraft in the history of aviation, trace the combat path of these legendary vehicles and answer the main question: what is ground attack aircraft for?
Anti-tank attack aircraft A-10 "Thunderbolt II" ("Thunderbolt")
The Thunderbolt is not an airplane. This is a real flying gun! The main structural element around which the Thunderbolt attack aircraft is built is the incredible GAU-8 gun with a rotating block of seven barrels. The most powerful 30mm aircraft cannon ever installed on an airplane - its recoil exceeds the thrust of two Thunderbolt jet engines! Rate of fire 1800 - 3900 rds / min. The speed of the projectile at the end of the barrel reaches 1 km / s.
The story of the fantastic GAU-8 cannon would be incomplete without mentioning its ammunition. The armor-piercing PGU-14 / B with a depleted uranium core is especially popular, piercing 69 mm of armor at a distance of 500 meters at a right angle. For comparison: the thickness of the roof of a Soviet first-generation infantry fighting vehicle is 6 mm, the side of the hull is 14 mm. The phenomenal accuracy of the gun makes it possible to lay 80% of the shells in a circle with a diameter of about six meters from a distance of 1200 meters. In other words, a one-second volley at maximum rate of fire gives 50 hits on an enemy tank!
A worthy representative of his class, created at the height of the Cold War to destroy the Soviet tank armada. The "Flying Cross" does not suffer from the lack of modern sighting and navigation systems and high-precision weapons, and the high survivability of its design has been repeatedly confirmed in the local wars of recent years.
AS-130 Spektr fire support aircraft
At the sight of the attacking Spectrum, Jung and Freud would embrace like brothers and cry with happiness. National American fun - shooting the Papuans from cannons from the side of a flying plane (the so-called "gunship" - a cannon ship). The sleep of reason gives birth to monsters.
The idea of "gunship" is not new - attempts to install heavy weapons on the aircraft were made during the Second World War. But only the Yankees guessed to mount a battery of several cannons on board the C-130 Hercules military transport aircraft (analogous to the Soviet An-12). At the same time, the trajectories of the projectiles fired are perpendicular to the course of the flying aircraft - the cannons fire through the embrasures in the left side.
Alas, it's not fun to shoot from the howitzer at the cities and towns floating under the wing. The operation of the AC-130 is much more prosaic: the targets (fortified points, accumulations of equipment, rebellious villages) are selected in advance. When approaching the target, the "gunship" makes a turn and begins to circle over the target with a constant roll to the left side, so that the trajectories of the shells converge exactly at the "aiming point" on the surface of the earth. Automation helps in complex ballistic calculations; Ganship is equipped with the most modern sighting systems, thermal imagers and laser rangefinders.
Despite the seeming idiocy, the AC-130 "Spectrum" is a simple and ingenious solution for local conflicts of low intensity. The main thing is that the enemy's air defense does not have anything more serious than MANPADS and large-caliber machine guns - otherwise, no heat traps and optoelectronic protection systems will save the gunship from ground fire.
Twin-engine attack aircraft Henschel-129
The disgusting celestial slug Hs. 129 was the most notorious failure of the Third Reich's aviation industry. Bad plane in every sense. Textbooks for cadets of the Red Army's flight schools speak about its insignificance: where whole chapters are devoted to the "messengers" and "junkers", Hs.129 was awarded only a few general phrases: you can attack with impunity from all directions, except for a head-on attack. In short, knock it down however you want. Slow, clumsy, weak, and to everything else, the "blind" plane - the German pilot could not see anything from his cockpit, except for a narrow section of the front hemisphere.
Serial production of the unsuccessful aircraft could have been curtailed before it could begin, but the meeting with tens of thousands of Soviet tanks forced the German command to take any possible measures just to stop the T-34 and its countless "colleagues". As a result, the poor attack aircraft, produced in the amount of only 878 copies, went through the entire war. He was noted on the Western Front, in Africa, on the Kursk Bulge …
The Germans repeatedly tried to modernize the "flying coffin", put an ejection seat on it (otherwise the pilot could not escape from the cramped and uncomfortable cockpit), armed the Henschel with 50 mm and 75 mm anti-tank guns - after such a "modernization" the plane could barely stay in the air and somehow developed a speed of 250 km / h.
But the most unusual was the Forstersond system - the plane equipped with a metal detector flew, almost clinging to the treetops. When the sensor was triggered, six 45 mm shells were fired into the lower hemisphere, capable of breaking through the roof of any tank.
The story of the Hs. 129 is a story about flying skills. The Germans never complained about the poor quality of equipment and fought even in such poor machines. At the same time, from time to time, they achieved some success, on the account of the damned "Henschel" a lot of the blood of Soviet soldiers
Armored attack aircraft Su-25 "Rook"
A symbol of the hot sky of Afghanistan, a Soviet subsonic attack aircraft with titanium armor (the total mass of armor plates reaches 600 kg).
The idea of a subsonic highly protected strike vehicle was born as a result of an analysis of the combat use of aviation against ground targets at the Dnepr exercises in September 1967: each time, the subsonic MiG-17 showed the best results. The outdated aircraft, in contrast to the supersonic fighter-bombers Su-7 and Su-17, confidently found and aimed at precision ground targets.
As a result, the Rook was born, a specialized Su-25 attack aircraft with an extremely simple and tenacious design. An unpretentious "soldier plane" capable of responding to operational calls from ground forces in the face of strong opposition from the enemy's front-line air defense.
An important role in the design of the Su-25 was played by the "captured" F-5 Tiger and A-37 Dragonfly, which arrived in the Soviet Union from Vietnam. By that time, the Americans had already "tasted" all the delights of the counter-guerrilla war in the absence of a clear front line. All the accumulated combat experience, which, fortunately, was not bought with our blood, was embodied in the design of the Dragonfly light attack aircraft.
As a result, by the beginning of the Afghan war, the Su-25 became the only aircraft of the Soviet Air Force that was maximally adapted to such "non-standard" conflicts. In addition to Afgan, due to its low cost and ease of operation, the Rook attack aircraft was noted in a couple of dozen armed conflicts and civil wars around the world.
The best confirmation of the effectiveness of the Su-25 - "Rook" has not left the assembly line for thirty years, in addition to the basic, export and combat training version, a number of new modifications have appeared: the anti-tank Su-39 attack aircraft, the Su-25UTG carrier-based aircraft, the modernized Su-25SM with " glass cockpit "and even the Georgian modification" Scorpion "with foreign avionics and Israeli-made sighting and navigation systems.
Multipurpose fighter P-47 "Thunderbolt"
The legendary predecessor of the modern attack aircraft A-10, designed by the Georgian aircraft designer Alexander Kartvelishvili. It is considered one of the best fighters of the Second World War. Luxurious cockpit equipment, exceptional survivability and security, powerful armament, a flight range of 3,700 km (from Moscow to Berlin and back!), Turbocharging, which allowed a heavy aircraft to fight at sky-high heights.
All this is achieved thanks to the advent of the Pratt & Whitney R2800 engine - an incredible 18-cylinder air-cooled "star" with a capacity of 2400 hp.
But what makes an escort high-altitude fighter on our list of the best attack aircraft? The answer is simple - the combat load of the Thunderbolt was comparable to the combat load of two Il-2 attack aircraft. Plus eight large-caliber "Browning" with a total of 3400 rounds of ammunition - any unarmored target will turn into a sieve! And to destroy heavy armored vehicles under the wing of the Thunderbolt, 10 unguided missiles with cumulative warheads could be suspended.
As a result, the P-47 fighter was successfully used on the Western Front as an attack aircraft. The last thing that many German tankers saw in their lives was a silvery blunt-nosed log diving at them, spewing out streams of deadly fire.
IL-2 armored attack aircraft vs Junkers-87 dive bomber
An attempt to compare the Ju.87 with the Il-2 attack aircraft always meets with fierce objections: how dare you! these are different planes: one attacks the target in a steep dive, the second - fires at the target from a low level flight.
But these are just technical details. In fact, both vehicles are "battlefield aircraft" created to directly support ground forces. They have common tasks and a UNIFIED purpose. But which of the attack methods is more effective - find out.
In September 1941, 12 Ju.87s were produced. By November 1941, the production of "laptezhnik" was practically stopped - only 2 aircraft were produced. By the beginning of 1942, the production of dive bombers resumed again - in just the next six months, the Germans built about 700 Ju.87. It is simply amazing how the "laptezhnik" produced in such insignificant quantities could do so many misfortunes!
The tabular characteristics of the Ju.87 are also surprising - the aircraft is outdated 10 years before its appearance, what kind of combat use can we talk about ?! But, the tables do not indicate the main thing - a very strong, rigid structure and brake aerodynamic grilles, which allowed the "bastard" to dive almost vertically on the target. At the same time Ju.87 could GUARANTEED "put" a bomb in a circle with a radius of 30 meters! At the exit from the steep dive, the speed of Ju.87 exceeded 600 km / h - it was extremely difficult for Soviet anti-aircraft gunners to hit such a fast target, which was constantly changing its speed and altitude. The defensive anti-aircraft fire was also ineffective - the diving "laptezhnik" could at any time change the slope of its trajectory and leave the affected area.
However, despite all its unique qualities, the high efficiency of the Ju.87 was due to completely different, much deeper reasons.
“It does not break into a spin, it flies steadily in a straight line even with thrown control, sits down by itself. Simple as a stool"
The most massive aircraft in the history of military aviation, "flying tank", "concrete plane" or simply "Schwarzer Tod" (incorrect, literal translation - "black death", correct translation - "plague"). A revolutionary machine for its time: stamped double-curved armor panels fully integrated into the Sturmovik's design; rockets; the most powerful cannon armament …
In total, 36 thousand Il-2 aircraft were produced during the war years (plus about a thousand more modernized Il-10 attack aircraft in the first half of 1945). The number of Il-2 fired exceeded the number of all German tanks and self-propelled guns available on the Eastern Front - if each Il-2 destroyed at least one unit of enemy armored vehicles, the Panzerwaffe's steel wedges would simply cease to exist!
Many questions are related to the invulnerability of the Stormtrooper. The harsh reality confirms: heavy booking and aviation are incompatible things. Shells from the German automatic cannon MG 151/20 pierced the Il-2 armored cabin through and through. The wing consoles and the rear fuselage of the Sturmovik were generally made of plywood and did not have any reservations - the turn of the anti-aircraft machine gun simply "chopped off" the wing or tail from the armored cabin with the pilots.
The meaning of the "armor" of the Sturmovik was different - at extremely low altitudes, the probability of hitting German infantry with small arms increased sharply. This is where the Il-2 armored cabin came in handy - it perfectly "held" rifle-caliber bullets, and as for the plywood wing consoles, small-caliber bullets could not harm them - the Ilyas safely returned to the airfield, having several hundred bullet holes each.
And yet, the statistics of the Il-2's combat employment is bleak: 10,759 aircraft of this type were lost in combat missions (excluding non-combat accidents, accidents, and decommissioning for technical reasons). With the Stormtrooper weapon, it was also not so simple:
When firing from a VYa-23 cannon with a total consumption of 435 rounds in 6 sorties, the pilots of the 245th ShAP received 46 hits in the tank column (10.6%), of which only 16 hits the target tank (3.7%).
Without any opposition from the enemy, in ideal range conditions for a predetermined target! Moreover, shooting from a gentle dive had a bad effect on armor penetration: shells simply ricocheted off the armor - in no case was it possible to penetrate the armor of enemy medium tanks.
An attack with bombs left even less chances: when 4 bombs were dropped from a horizontal flight from a height of 50 meters, the probability of at least one bomb hitting a 20 × 100 m strip (a section of a wide highway or the position of an artillery battery) was only 8%! Approximately the same figure expressed the accuracy of firing rockets.
White phosphorus has shown itself well, however, the high requirements for its storage made it impossible to use it massively in combat conditions. But the most interesting story is connected with cumulative anti-tank bombs (PTAB), weighing 1, 5-2, 5 kg - the attack aircraft could take on board up to 196 such ammunition in each sortie. In the first days of the Kursk Bulge, the effect was overwhelming: the attack aircraft "carried out" PTABs by 6-8 Nazi tanks in one run, in order to avoid a complete defeat the Germans had to urgently change the order of building tanks. Nevertheless, the real effectiveness of this weapon is often questioned: during the war years, 12 million PTAB were manufactured: if at least 10% of this amount were used in battle, and of which 3% of the bombs hit the target, nothing would be from the armored forces of the Wehrmacht not left.
As practice shows, the main targets of the Sturmoviks were not tanks, but German infantry, firing points and artillery batteries, accumulations of equipment, railway stations and warehouses in the front line. The contribution of the Stormtroopers to the victory over fascism is invaluable.
So, we have before us the seven best aircraft of close support of the ground forces. Each "superhero" has its own unique story and its own unique "secret of success." As you may have noticed, all of them do not differ in high flight characteristics, rather the opposite - all as one clumsy, low-speed "irons" with imperfect aerodynamics, at the mercy of increased survivability and weapons. So what is the raison d'être of these aircraft?
The 152 mm D-20 howitzer cannon is towed by a ZIL-375 truck at a maximum speed of 60 km / h. The Rook attack aircraft flies in the sky at a speed of 15 times faster. This circumstance allows the aircraft to arrive at the desired section of the front line in a matter of minutes and pour out a hail of powerful ammunition on the enemy's head. Artillery, alas, does not have such operational maneuvering capabilities.
Hence follows an uncomplicated conclusion: the effectiveness of the work of "battlefield aviation" primarily depends on competent interaction between the ground forces and the air force. High-quality communication, organization, correct tactics, competent actions of commanders, air traffic controllers, spotters. If everything is done correctly, aviation will bring victory on its wings. Violation of these conditions will inevitably cause "friendly fire".
