Page 83 - The Chief Culprit

60 y e Chief Culprit

Marshal Ivan Pstygo: “ e Su-2 made a strong impression—it was a bomber, but
looked like a fighter—small, compact, beautiful.”
On top of it all, the Su-2 had remarkable resiliency. Hero of the Soviet Union M.
Lashin: “I flew the Su-2. It is a light plane, flies well, maneuverable, extremely durable. It took
[a] long time for the Su-2 to burn. It never burst into flames like a torch.” Hero of the Soviet
Union V. I. Strelchenko: “ e Su-2 did not burn even when its fuel tank was damaged—the
carbon dioxide defense helped.”
On June 22, 1941, the German army delivered a sudden crushing blow to the Red
Army. is happened at the point of time when the Su-2s were just beginning to be deliv-
ered to the troops en masse. By June 22, 1941, about six hundred Su-2s were produced and
delivered to eight air regiments located in the western border military districts. However,
many aircraft were still parked at the plant airports and on their way to the places of deploy-
ment. On November 19, 1941, a decision was made to stop Su-2 production. An output
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of 100,000 to 150,000 was planned, but only about eleven hundred were produced. After
the war, historians explained this by saying that the Su-2 was obsolete, so production was
stopped. is explanation is surprising. How could it be that the outstanding designer Sukhoy
created an airplane that became obsolete in the following year? How could a plane become
obsolete if there is no other plane in the world that can compare to it in terms of firepower?
Airplane designer V. B. Shavrov wrote the fullest and the most objective history of the
development of Soviet aviation. All other designers were his competitors, so Shavrov was not
frugal in criticizing them. But he did not criticize the creators of the Su-2: “[I]ts creators can-
not be reproached for anything; the plane corresponded to realistic demands that appeared
only until the war [started].” In other words, everything was good, there was nothing to re-
5
proach the designers, before June 21, 1941, the Su-2 corresponded to demands, but at dawn
on June 22 it no longer could satisfy those demands. How are we to understand this?
e tale of the Su-2 began five years before the German invasion. In the summer of 1936
Stalin gathered airplane designers at his dacha, greeted them with hospitality, and then gave
them the task to construct an airplane under the codename “Ivanov.” Many groups simulta-
neously worked on Project Ivanov, including some under the command of Tupolev, Neman,
Polikarpov, Grigorovich, as well as the design teams of Petlyakov, Sukhoy, Arkhangelsky,
Myasishchev, Mikoyan and Gurevich, Lavochkin, and Grushin. In other words, almost all
the Soviet airplane designers were concentrated on fulfilling this one single request. And do
not think they cooperated. On the contrary: there was harsh competition—only the stron-
gest would win, and all knew “Comrade Ivanov” had plenty of whips and rewards. e Su-2
was the one plane that Stalin placed his stakes on in the upcoming war, which he constantly
described as necessary and unavoidable. What did the customer need in his order?
If Stalin had intended to avert World War II, he would have needed a strategic bomber
in order to take away the potential aggressor’s desire to invade. But Stalin already had a stra-
tegic bomber. Remember, this was the same year, 1936, when Petlyakov finished working on
the TB-7. If Stalin was intending to avert war, he had no need to gather designers and to put
before them the task of creating a new airplane: he simply should have issued an order to start
series production of the TB-7. But he did not do this. Stalin did not need an airplane to avert
war. So, Stalin was not going to give an order to start producing such a plane in series. Or,
actually, he issued such an order four times, and repealed it four times as well.