Page 85 - The Chief Culprit

62 y e Chief Culprit

like an invisible mobilization reserve. It was the same as the situation with the PPSh subma-
chine gun. e PPSh—the Shpagin submachine gun—was created before the war, tested,
and approved. e war began and immediately every workshop, every plant that produced
hardware, every small-scale factory began producing the most simple, reliable, very powerful
weapon in inconceivable quantities. Stalin planned to proceed exactly the same way with the
Ivanov airplane. Immediately after carrying out the first strike, Soviet aviation industry was
to begin a mass production of the Su-2.
Here the question of defense arises. A relatively slow bomber, acting above the battle-
field and adjacent enemy territory must be protected by fighters. If Stalin planned to simul-
taneously launch production of a corresponding number of fighters for cover, the light Su-2
bombers could have been used in any situation, for example for deflecting aggression. But
there was no order for fighter planes in such quantities; therefore there was only one possible
way to use the Ivanov Su-2 planes in war: to attack the enemy first and neutralize his aviation.
Using large masses of such planes is impossible without crushing the enemy’s air bases first.
is is why Stalin’s plan to produce a minimum of 100,000 light Su-2 bombers was equiva-
lent to a decision to start the war with a sudden strike against the enemy’s air bases.
In order to picture Stalin’s plan, we must imagine ourselves on the shores of the
Hawaiian Islands in December 1941. It is a bright sunny morning. e American fleet is in
its harbor. Suddenly, the first wave of Japanese bombers, fighters, and torpedo-planes arrives.
e first wave consists of 183 planes. Less than a quarter of these are fighters for cover. A pow-
erful cover is not needed in the given situation. e calculations are based on the premise that
American fighters will not have time to get off the ground and deflect the sudden strike. e
Japanese air armada consisted mostly of attack planes—the bombers and torpedo-carriers
Nakajima B-5N1 and B-5N2. ere was nothing remarkable about the design and char-
acteristics of the B-5N aircraft, but in a sudden attack it was awesome. In appearance, size,
and flight characteristics, the Nakajima B-5N resembled a fighter more than a bomber. is
gave it the ability to fly so low above its target that the faces of the pilots could be seen from
the ground and the ships, so low that there were almost no misses when its lethal cargo was
dropped. e Nakajima B-5N was a monoplane, with a low wing configuration and one ra-
dial two-row engine equipped with an air-cooling system. In some planes the crew consisted
of three men: pilot, navigator, and gunner. But in most, it was only two: the planes were used
in tight formations, like swarms of enraged bees, so there was no need for every plane to have
a navigator. e bomb load of the plane was less than a ton, but each drop was made at point
blank range. e B-5N had relatively weak defense weapons—one or two machine guns to
defend the hind hemisphere. ese planes did not need much defense weaponry. ese were
planes for sudden attack, “planes of clear sky,” a sky in which there are either very few enemy
planes or none at all.
e light bomber Nakajima B-5N worked very well at Pearl Harbor, but its heroic
days were over after that. e sudden attack was insufficient to take the American fleet and
aviation out of the war for long. In consequent battles, when the Americans recovered, when
regular war began without stabs in the back, the B-5N did not show any particular useful-
ness. Production of these planes continued for some time. Overall there were over 1,149 of
them produced, and on that their history ended. e B-5N was created for a situation when
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nothing hampered its work in the sky. e B-5N was frightening to the weak and defenseless,
frightening in groups, frightening during a sudden attack. It was frightening like a pack of