Page 58 - The Chief Culprit

Stalin and the Destruction of Soviet Strategic Aviation y 35

important detail—the fifth additional engine. Without it, the best strategic bomber of the
13
world became an average commodity. After Hitler’s invasion, the TB-7 series was resumed in
production. But by then it was too late.
A question arises: If Stalin had issued the order to produce a thousand TB-7s and did
not cancel it, could the Soviet industry have fulfilled such an order? Could it have put out,
by the end of 1940, a thousand such airplanes? e creator of the TB-7, Vladimir Petliakov
(after Petliakov’s tragic death the TB-7 was renamed Pe-8), did not doubt this for a minute.
Alexander Mikulin, creator of the engines for the TB-7, was completely certain that Soviet in-
dustry could meet such a demand. Professor L. Kerber, the deputy to the airplane designer A.
Tupolev, and experts in the air industry S. Eger, S. Leshchenko, E. Stoman, chief engineer of
the factory that produced the TB-7s I. Nezval, head technologist of the factory E. Shekunov,
and many others on whom production of the TB-7 depended—all thought the task could be
accomplished by the designated deadline. Airplane designers V. Shavrov and A. Tupolev held
that one thousand TB-7s could be ready by November 1940.
e confidence of the engineers and leaders of industry is understandable: the TB-7
was not being built just anywhere. Russia is the motherland of strategic bombers. I say this
with pride and without irony. At the beginning of the twentieth century, when the entire
world was flying on single-engine planes, Russia was the first in the world to start producing
twin-engine airplanes. e world did not have the time to fully appreciate this advance-
ment, when the great Russian engineer Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky built the first four-engine
heavy bomber Ilya Murometz in 1913. e Murometz was unrivaled in terms of armament,
bomb capacity, and range for several years. It had the best navigation system, bomb-aiming
sight, and the first electrical bomb release mechanism in the world. For defense, it had eight
machine guns, and there had even been an attempt to install a 76-mm cannon on board.
In 1914, Russia became the first country in the world to create a unit of heavy bombers—a
squadron of air ships.
When the Communists took over the country, Igor Sikorsky found himself among the
exiles. However, Russia’s technological potential remained large, and development continued.
Despite the terror, despite the Communist burden, Russia continued to be the leader in the
area of heavy bombers. In 1925, the design bureau of A. Tupolev created the TB-1, the first
entirely metal bomber in the world, also the first monoplane with a cantilever wing. e rest
of the world at the time still built wooden biplane bombers. e test trials of the TB-1 yielded
two world records. In a short time, 216 TB-1s were built—another record. Russia had more
14
heavy bombers than all the other nations combined. As the planes were built, more and more
squadrons, regiments, and brigades were formed.
In 1930, Tupolev put out an even more powerful bomber—the TB-3, the first four-
engine monoplane with a cantilever wing. e TB-3 was the largest of all airplanes in the
world, both military and passenger. Such planes were unseen not only in production, but even
in blueprints. Tupolev, in 1933, had already begun experimenting with refueling the TB-3
while in flight. e TB-3 set several world records, including high altitude flights with cargos
of 5, 10, and 12 tons. e design of the TB-3 became a basic model for this class of airplane
for many decades to come. e plane was assembled with astonishing speed, which reached
three TB-3 models per day.
15
Soviet industry broke its own records—in a short period it put out 819 TB-3s. Air
regiments and brigades were no longer enough. On March 23, 1932, the Soviet Union be-