Life is often unfair, that is why the fighters got all the laurels of glory, the films "Top Gun" and "Only Old Men Go to Battle" were made about them, and the unflagging public interest is riveted on these agile and fast-moving machines. The harsh truth is different - fighters are just an appendix to bomber aviation; they were created exclusively to counter bomb carriers or, conversely, to cover their bombers from enemy fighters.
Directly at the very basis of the air force lies the idea of bomber aviation - the destruction of enemy manpower and military equipment, command posts and communication centers from the air, the destruction of the transport infrastructure and economy of the enemy state. These are the main tasks of the Air Force, which in a generalized form sound like "promoting the successes of ground forces." All the rest of the fuss in the sky, without bombers, would not make any sense.
Based on these conditions, the main problem of bomber aviation at all times was, despite the fierce opposition of the enemy, to fly from point "A" to point "B", empty out your deadly cargo and, naturally, safely return back to point "A". And this problem is by no means so simple …
In the air, bomb carriers have only two enemies - air defense and enemy fighter aircraft
Before the invention of anti-aircraft missiles, anti-aircraft gunners were never particularly effective. Despite the periodic successes associated with the emergence of radar and the development of fire control systems, the overall situation was not at all in their favor: single victories against the background of hundreds of combat missions of enemy aircraft. Probability theory, no more …
The reason looks quite obvious: even if the gallant anti-aircraft gunners are able to determine the distance to the target, the flight altitude, and the speed of the enemy aircraft with an accuracy of a meter, even if the ballistic computer calculates the lead point when firing with extreme accuracy, and the calculation of the anti-aircraft gun has time to aim the gun at this point - they will miss 99.99% of the time.
At the moment when the barrel of the anti-aircraft gun shudders from the shot, the pilot of the aircraft will deliberately (anti-aircraft maneuver) or, conversely, under the influence of an accidental gust of wind, change the course of the aircraft by several degrees. In a dozen seconds, when the unguided anti-aircraft projectile reaches the design point, a bomber flying at a speed of at least 400 km / h (≈120 m / s) will deviate from it by a good hundred meters.
The only solution to this problem is the introduction of continuous correction of the anti-aircraft projectile during flight to the target, i.e. we come to the idea of anti-aircraft missile systems, which half a century ago changed the face of aviation.
But rocket weapons will appear a little later, and during the Second World War, anti-aircraft gunners had to be content with barrage fire - for example, the Germans did not consider it shameful to shoot down the Flying Fortress, while shooting one and a half thousand 128 mm shells, the cost of which exceeded the cost of the plane they shot down.
In such conditions, the aircraft designers first of all faced the question of protecting the bomber from fragments of anti-aircraft shells. The task was feasible, it was enough just to introduce a number of special technical solutions into the design:
- armoring of the cockpit, main components and assemblies;
- duplication of vital systems (wiring, control rods), as well as the use of a multi-engine circuit that allows you to continue flying after a failure of one or even two engines;
- refusal to use liquid-cooled engines, which are less durable - just one hole in the radiator is enough to disable the motor;
- Protecting fuel tanks and pressurizing their free volume with nitrogen or engine exhaust gases.
The Americans advanced farthest in this matter - the legendary Flying Fortress had 27 armor plates integrated into its design (the total mass of armor was 900 kg!). A four-engine monster with a take-off weight of 30 tons with an extremely robust and reliable design, which made it possible to continue flying even with extensive destruction of the fuselage power set, severe damage to the wing, or if half of the engines were out of order. Duplication of the most important systems, self-lowering landing gear, sealed fuel tanks, and finally, a rational layout that made it possible to save the lives of the crew members during an emergency landing on the fuselage.
However, even the first bombing raids deep into Germany showed that all the efforts of American engineers were in vain. The first alarm bell sounded on April 17, 1943, when 16 Flying Fortresses were shot down while trying to attack an aircraft factory in Bremen. The bloody denouement came on August 17 of the same year - the daytime air raid on Schweinfurt and Regensburg ended with a complete pogrom of the American bomber armada. 400 Luftwaffe fighters piled up from all sides shot down 60 strategic bombers, and half of the 317 Fortresses that returned to bases suffered significant damage, including bringing another 55 dead bodies inside their fuselages.
In this case, we are talking about the Boeing B-17 "Flying Fortress" - objectively, the best long-range bomber of those years with unprecedented measures of security and self-defense. Alas, neither the huge size, nor the powerful armor, nor the 12 large-caliber machine guns could save the Flying Fortresses from small nimble fighters - the Luftwaffe pilots broke through the deadly fire of hundreds of barrels and shot the Fortresses point-blank. It was experimentally found that about two dozen hits of 20 mm shells were enough for the American car.
The Americans solved the problem with their inherent straightforwardness - they created the escort fighters P-51 "Mustang" and P-47 "Thunderbolt" (more precisely, special equipment for these machines and outboard fuel tanks). They were now capable of escorting bombers throughout the flight to any point in Germany. 1000 "Fortresses" under the cover of 1000 "Mustangs" did not leave the Germans any chance of successfully repelling such a massive attack.
Similar events took place in other belligerent countries. Even if the Flying Fortress could not adequately defend itself in air combat, there was nothing to hope that a group of Il-4, Junkers-88 or Heinkel-111 would be able to independently break through to targets deep behind enemy lines. For example, the Il-4 could not simultaneously fight off attacking fighters from behind and above and from behind and below (one gunner controlled the turrets in the rear hemisphere), and all the numerous firing points of the Junkers had only 4 crew members (including the pilots)!
There was only one salvation - to go on a mission only with fighter cover. As a result, the flight range of all WWII bombers was not limited by the capacity of their fuel tanks, but by the combat radius of the escort fighters.
True, there was another way to avoid heavy losses in long-range bombing raids - not to meet with enemy fighters at all. According to statistics, during the air Battle of Britain, German bombers had 1 loss in 20 sorties during daylight hours and 1 loss in 200 combat missions during night sorties! Even the appearance of the first imperfect radarsthermal imagers and systems of the "Wrong Music" type ("Shrege Muzyk" - a special arrangement of weapons on German night fighters at an angle to the horizon) did not change the overall alignment - the losses of night bombers remained at the level of 1%. Alas, the effectiveness of nighttime bombing strikes was expressed by the same figure.
The situation was somewhat corrected by the appearance of radar bomb sights. The device, called the AN / APS-15 Mickey, did more for the safety of the Flying Fortress than all of its 12 machine guns. From now on, "Fortresses" could bomb through the clouds, hiding from fighters and anti-aircraft guns in thick clouds.
The advent of jet aircraft once again changed the rules of the game. By the end of the 1940s, when the MiG-15 and F-86 "Saber" with reliable and high-torque jet engines and swept wings optimized for high flight speeds took to the skies, not a single low-speed piston bomber could seriously count on completing missions deep behind enemy lines.
The apotheosis of these stories was "Black Thursday" over the Yalu River, when Soviet MiGs shot down, according to various sources, from 10 to 14 "Superfortresses" and 4 more jet fighter-bomber F-84. The pogrom was a natural result of the reckless decisions of the American command, which sent outdated "Superfortresses" on an important mission under the cover of not the best escort from the F-84 "Thunderjet". Naturally, the swift MiGs, sharpened for the destruction of heavy bombers, smashed the American armada of 23 mm and 37 mm cannons to shreds - almost every B-29 that returned had killed or wounded.
While the MiGs were celebrating their triumph in Korea, on the other side of the earth, no less significant and disturbing events unfolded. Since 1954, systematic violations of the USSR airspace began with the use of strategic jet reconnaissance aircraft (bombers) RB-47 "Stratojet". If earlier violators - RB-29 reconnaissance aircraft or PB4Y "Privatir" naval patrol aircraft hoped only for the mercy of Soviet pilots and a ban on opening fire in peacetime (sometimes in vain - on April 8, 1950, PB4Y was shot down over the Baltic Sea in the Liepaja region, the crew died The same fate befell the insolent B-29, which was sunk by MiGami in the Sea of Japan on June 13, 1952), but with the advent of high-speed "Stratojets" with engines from "Sabers" the situation became truly critical.
On April 29, 1954, a group of three RB-47s made a daring raid along the Novgorod - Smolensk - Kiev route. Attempts to intercept the intruders were unsuccessful.
The situation repeated itself on May 8, 1954 - the RB-47 reconnaissance plane again invaded Soviet airspace, two MiG-15 regiments were raised to intercept. Again failure - RB-47 filmed all the objects on the Kola Peninsula and easily eluded his pursuers.
By 1956, the Americans had become so emboldened that they decided to carry out Operation Home Run - between March 21 and May 10, 1956, RB-47s made 156 deep incursions into Soviet airspace in the Kola Peninsula, the Urals and Siberia.
The lawlessness continued in the summer of the same year - from 4 to 9 July, single Stratojets, taking off from air bases in West Germany, violated Polish airspace every day and, accompanied by a dense swarm of MiGs, invaded 300-350 km deep into the western regions of the USSR.
The situation was complicated by a sense of uncertainty - it was rather difficult to distinguish the "harmless" RB-47 with reconnaissance equipment and cameras, from the formidable B-47 with 8 tons of nuclear bombs in the internal bomb bay.
The reason for the impunity of the American RB-47s was the too high flight speed - about 1000 km / h, which is only 100 km / h less than the maximum speed of the MiG-15 or MiG-17. And going to intercept, without having a significant advantage in speed, was useless - as soon as the fighter had time to take aim at the bomber, the RB-47 pilot slightly changed course. The MiG had to turn a turn, losing speed and again with difficulty catching up with the bomber. A couple of unsuccessful attempts - and the fuel is at zero, it's time to stop pursuing.
10 fighters cannot shoot down a single bomber! - no pilot of the Second World War would have believed in this fairy tale. Fortunately, the "golden era" of bomber aviation ended quickly - with the introduction of the supersonic MiG-19 and MiG-21 into the armament of the USSR Air Force, the flights of RB-47 violators became an extremely risky undertaking.
On July 1, 1960, an ERB-47H electronic reconnaissance aircraft was mercilessly shot down over the Barents Sea. 4 crew members were killed, two more were rescued by a Soviet trawler and sent home.
The appearance of missile weapons, including anti-aircraft missiles, put a big question mark on the strategic bomber aviation, and the entry into combat duty of submarines with ballistic missiles finally put an end to this issue. The development of strategic bombers was frozen for a long time - it is no coincidence that today in the sky you can see the ancient flying "artifacts" B-52 and Tu-95. However, these machines have long since departed from their original origins, turning into platforms for launching cruise missiles, or, in the case of the American "Stratospheric Fortress", into a simple and cheap means for carrying out carpet bombing of Third World countries.
Peacemaker with a nuclear bomb
Speaking about strategic bombers of the late 40s - early 50s, one cannot fail to note such a fierce death machine as the B-36 Peacemaker. The creators of this miracle of technology followed an extensive path of development, trying to defend to the last the right to exist for their piston engine in the era of jet aircraft.
It is fair to admit that the B-36 was already at birth a monster with incredible dimensions and a completely inadequate appearance - which cost only six push-propeller engines! In principle, the idea of the appearance of the "Peacemaker" is quite obvious - even greater speed, even heavier bomb load, even greater flight range.
All characteristics are at the limit of the possible! 39 tons of bombs, 16 automatic cannons of 20 mm caliber, maximum take-off weight - 190 tons (which is 3 times more than that of the legendary B-29!). It's strange why there was no one in the Pentagon who would say: “Guys! You're out of your mind. " A stunning car was adopted and produced in the amount of 380 copies. However, the "Peacemaker" had one big advantage: lightly equipped, it could climb into the stratosphere to an altitude of 13-15 km, becoming completely inaccessible to any air defense systems and fighters of those years.
Unfortunately for the Americans, the rapid development of aviation technology, after a couple of years, raised the question of removing this slow Leviathan from service to the Air Force. The new jet B-47 could perform the same tasks with even greater efficiency and lower cost.
Trying to preserve their brainchild, the engineers of the "Convair" company began to really freak out: in addition to the six piston engines, four more "afterburner" jet engines from the B-47 were attached to the "Peacemaker". As a result, the huge B-36 was able to accelerate to 700 km / h for a short time! (the rest of the time he slowly swam at a speed of 350 … 400 km / h).
Realizing that the best defensive weapon of a bomber is a fighter escort, even at the dawn of the B-36 project, a "pocket pistol" project for a strategic bomber began to be worked out. The result of work on this topic was the smallest jet fighter in the history of aviation - the XF-85 "Goblin", suspended inside the giant B-36 bomb bay, and released when enemy fighters appeared.
To the credit of the McDonnell designers, they managed to do the incredible - to create a full-fledged combat aircraft the size of a minicar! Behind the funny appearance of this "flying egg" was a truly combat-ready jet fighter, which was not inferior in speed to the MiG-15 and armed with four large-caliber "Browning" with 300 rounds for each barrel. The duration of the autonomous flight was calculated based on considerations: 20 minutes of air combat and half an hour of flight in cruise mode. The tiny aircraft even had a pressurized cockpit with an ejection seat and some semblance of a chassis made in the form of a steel "ski".
Despite promising flight test results, the very idea of a "parasite fighter" proved to be too complex, ineffective and unreliable for real air combat. By the way, a similar thought struck Soviet designers back in the 30s: towing by a TB-3 bomber three I-16 fighters at once. The project did not receive much development, primarily due to the fact that the TB-3 was not able to carry the "triple" load - the flight range was sharply reduced, and the speed dropped below all reasonable limits. As for the B-36 Peacemaker, these unusual vehicles were safely sent to the landfill in the late 50s. By the way, they were used more than once as high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft for flights over China and the USSR - the huge size of their fuselages made it possible to place high-resolution cyclopean cameras inside.
Tactical strike aviation has acquired particular importance these days. - a unique symbiosis of multi-role fighters and front-line bombers, some of whose functions are duplicated by attack aircraft and attack helicopters.
F-15E, F-16, F / A-18, "Tornado" - these are the main characters of modern local wars.
On the Russian side, the list will include Su-24, Su-25 and promising Su-34. One can recall the Su-30 multipurpose fighter-bombers and the elderly MiG-27 strike aircraft, which are still actively operated by the Indian Air Force.
Despite belonging to different classes, all these machines perform the same function - "provide maximum assistance to the success of ground forces", ie, as usual, perform the main task of military aviation.
The main way to increase the protection of modern bombers (and strike aircraft in general) is under no circumstances to be seen by the enemy! Otherwise, the plane will face a speedy and inevitable death. Someone builds cars using stealth technology, someone is trying to "snuggle" as low as possible to the ground, flying below the radio horizon of radars. In addition, in modern combat, optoelectronic jamming stations, fired traps and dipole reflectors are actively used, anti-splinter armor is still relevant. Some of the strike tasks of aviation began to be shifted to the shoulders of drones.
Despite the global stagnation in the creation of new designs of attack aircraft at the turn of the XX-XXI centuries, we are now on the verge of a real breakthrough - perhaps at the beginning of the next decade, hypersonic attack vehicles and deadly supersonic drones with artificial intelligence will appear in the sky.
