Talk:Tupolev Tu-4

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Contents 1 The three B-29s 2 Web page 3 Duplicated damage 4 Order of Battle 5 Neutrality faults 6 POV

[edit] The three B-29s

[edit] Web page

Russian Aviation Page: Soviet B-29, a Tupolev Tu-4 Story claims that three B-29s landed in USSR in 1944, not in 1945. In addition, it is not clear from Tupolev Tu-4 that USSR was not the one which forced the three bombers to land on its territory - they were in fact forced so by the Japanese. --romanm (talk) 10:10, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Duplicated damage

There were three planes that had to land in Russia. Two were used to discover their performance characteristics and one was completely dismantled for reverse engineering to build duplicates.

That one happened to have a patch from repair of earlier battle damage. Only the first Tu-4 had that repair duplicated. Russian aeronautical engineers weren't dumb. There were some differences between the B29 and Tu-4, most notably in the thickness of the outer skin. The B29's skin was all the same thickness. Due to aluminum being in shorter supply in Russia, the skin on the Tu-4 varied in thickness, only matching the B29 where it was riveted to structural members. It was thinner between the structural supports.

The History Channel did a good documentary on this. After the Tu-4 was in production, they were demonstrated at an international airshow. The USSR cleverly flew three planes past (unknown if any were the two B29's left intact), causing the American military people present to assume the Russians had simply repaired the three B29's. Then a fourth plane was flown past, an airliner version. That caused a bit of consternation amongst the american personnel, leaving no doubt the USSR now had the exact same bomber capability as the USA.

As for why the repaired damage was duplicated on the first Tu-4, I've heard that a likely reason was the men doing the project feared that any visible discrepancy could mean at best the loss of their jobs or at worst their lives. I also heard somewhere that it could've been a bit of a joke, to see if the project's government inspectors would notice what should obviously be seen as a patch. The idea of duplicating bullet holes is silly. The people doing the work would certainly have been familiar with such damage and would never mistake a bullet hole for a design element. - IP 67.136.145.224 , 16 November 2005

It is said that Stalin himself ordered an exact copy of the B-29 to be produced, and it was not up to the engineers to question the wisedom of "the great leader of the advanced world" so they probably copied even the bullet hole patches and according to Viktor Suvorov they even had a problem if they should paint a white or red star on the exact copy. Mieciu K 18:14, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

"To every detail" is a considerable exaggaration. In reality there were considerable redesign in fuel system, defensive armament, bomb bays etc. Viktor Suvorov is not a credible source. --Mikoyan21 19:19, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Order of Battle

Does anybody have data on the units that flew the Tu-4 and their deployment history. The CIA had 1,150 AC in units during 1953. This needs an update since only 847 were produced--Woogie10w 21:06, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality faults

Some paragraphs of this article are not about the plane model, but the "american" point of view" only.

The development of the Soviet atomic bomb in 1949 gave the air defense program a new urgency, since the United States felt itself in danger of a nuclear attack with the Tu-4 as the delivery platform. This convinced the United States to develop an extremely costly air-interception capability involving ground radar installations, a Ground Observer Corps, radar picket planes, surface-to-air missiles, and fleets of jet interceptor fighters. Project Nike was founded by the US Army and delivered the world's first operational anti-aircraft missile system, which utilized Nike Hercules missiles against Soviet long range bombers. This eventually became NORAD in 1957.

I think this should be rewritten -- rgawenda 17:36, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV

How do we know it was the Russians that copied the USian design? Couldn't the USians have just as easily copied the Russian design? This needs to be addressed. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 35.11.183.95 (talk • contribs).

Get real. —Joseph/N328KF (Talk) 07:11, 29 January 2007 (UTC)