Tag: Tu-4

Despite being on opposing sides, 4,500 km and 6 years apart basically the same planes were used for the same milestone. The Tupolev Tu-4 and Boeing B-29. A specially modified Tupolev Tu-4A piston-engined strategic bomber was the first Soviet aircraft to drop an atomic bomb – the 41.2-kiloton RDS-3. The standard Tu-4 (reverse-engineered from the American Boeing B-29) was not capable of carrying nuclear weapons. Ten of the Tu-4s were converted for use as atomic bombers and designated as the Tu-4A ( the A was for Atomiy, “Atomic” in Russian).…

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During WWII the Russians didn’t need help with tanks – they had arguably the best all-purpose tank of the war in the T-34. Cannons? When Berlin was surrounded in 1945, it is estimated that the Soviets had close to 10,000 guns aimed at just that one city. Planes? The Russians had decent fighters by wars’ end. The Americans even gave them P-39 Airacobras, but that was because American pilots hated them. What the Soviets lacked was a strategic bomber force. They saw first hand the damage done to German cities…

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