“Flying Supergrabs” B-29 and Tu-4. Stalin’s nuclear response: Nikolai Yakubovich

If any aircraft of the Second World War and earned the honorary title of “miracle-armed”, it is the legendary “Flying Superhrection”-the American Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, which in the 1940s. It seemed an alien from the future: the crew’s hermetic cabin, which allowed a flight in the stratosphere, a huge combat load (up to 9 tons), a powerful defensive weapon (12 large -caliber machine guns), phenomenal speed (574 km/h), range (6380 km) and altitude (more than 12000 m) allowed him to solve strategic problems, overcoming any overcoming any. The enemy’s air defense and washing entire cities from the face of the earth. It was the “flying fortresses” that threw the first atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki for the obvious goal not only to put Japan on his knees, but also to demonstrate the US military superiority to the Soviet leadership. And the same plane was Stalin’s response to an American challenge – fully copied by the “reverse disassembly” method in the OKB A.N. Tupolev and, in record time, adopted by our service in …

Author
Yakubovich Nikolay Vasilievich
Publisher
Eksmo, 2013
Series
War and we. Aviation collection
Genre
Military equipment