Tupolev ANT-6
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The Tupolev TB-3 was a heavy bomber aircraft which was deployed by the Soviet Air Force in the 1930s and early 1940s. It was an angular mid-wing monoplane with fixed landing gear based on the Tupolev TB-1 design. The standard version was powered by four 610 kW Mikulin AM-34 engines. A total of 818 TB-3s were built.
In World War II, some were used as transports and even night bombers, but by then the aircraft was completely obsolete; they were retired after 1942. Prior to the war, the Soviets experimented with air-lifting T-37 tank and T-38 tanks by slinging them under the bellies of TB-3s.
[edit] The Zveno
In June 1931, Vladimir Sergeyevich Vakhmistrov of the Soviet Scientific Research Institute of the Air Forces suggested a method of escorting bombers, by means of fighters carried on the bomber's wings. The first proposal involved a four-engined TB-3 bomber with two I-4 fighters attached to the top of the wing. Apparently, the full range of the I-4 was 341 miles, but was estimated to increase by as much 372 miles when it was released, as it did`nt have to take-off and climb. The combat radius of the TB-3 bomber was 250 miles. The tail of the I-4 rested on a triangular folding strut. The strut’s locks were opened by a wire pulled from within the bomber’s cockpit, the tail release being done from the fighter.
The first successful flight of these was on the 3 December 1931. Further flights were made to prove the concept and it was suggested that the larger, four-engined TB-4 bomber be used as the ‘mother ship’. The experiments continued and produced a whole line of different ‘Zvenos’ with varying combinations of ‘parasites’ – culminating in the operational use of the ‘Zveno-SPB’ to bomb the oilfields of Constanta in Romania during the Great Patriotic War.
