Star combined model Soviet bomber su 2. Legendary aircraft. Airplane for heroes

A couple of topics with a discussion of the model, almost 15 pages each, heated debates, categorical statements are a clear sign of the release of a new product from Zvezda. I don’t judge it good or bad, it’s a pity that as a result, there are not so many assembled models on the network. So I correct this misunderstanding and exhibit the second model, assembled within the framework of GB RedStars 2. Now - a Sukhoi Su-2 light bomber with an M-88B engine.

About the plane itself I will not tell much. Among people interested in military history, the Su-2 is a fairly well-known vehicle (well, I'm not lucky for rare prototypes, I have to use this phrase all the time). Partly thanks to the peculiar, but publicized reflections of Viktor Suvorov, partly due to the fact that this plane is "lucky" to model in various museums. The truth is lucky only with the number of these, but not with the quality. And the release of the Zvezdinskaya model contributed to the popularization of this aircraft. As usual - I can send those who are eager for minimal information about the prototype to the "Corner of Heaven" - http://www.airwar.ru/enc/bww2/su2.html

Model went on sale in November 2013. Another model from Zvezda on the 48th scale, like the previous one, developed using 3D design technology.

Zvezda's drying turned out to be good, although not without drawbacks. To the disadvantages of plastic, which are most striking, I will attribute the hood. Alas, in the drawings of Khazanov / Gordyukov, according to which this model was made, the hood is drawn incorrectly. And if on paper this error is not striking, then on the model the native hood very much resembles a cut of some pipe, due to the almost absent bevel along the leading edge. You will have to either edit this jamb by hand, or buy sets from Vector.
At the expense of riveting, which has caused various reviews, I will not speak too much. Yes, it is not perfect and exaggerated, but it looks normal on the finished model, and was noticeable on the prototype. Ideas to putty it or transform it into an external one, I associate with some kind of insanity.
Other jambs include poor detailing of the cockpit, incorrect chassis niches (they were sewn on the sides, as, for example, on the I-16). All this can be done by hand, without much effort. Too weak sag of the blade, missing joining lines, lack of tread on the chassis wheels and other trifles, I do not take into account, this is too much for the connoisseur and has little effect on appearance models in general.

A jamb crept into the decals of Zvezda, since none of the options, apparently, matches the plastic. The plane with number 15 was equipped with a TSS-1 turret, which means that it had a different engine, M-88B. And the hood with the spinner was different too. As for the car with number 21, there are also big doubts, but here it is necessary to better dig information.
Well, I'll be honest. The choice for the prototype of not the most massive and not the most beautiful modification of Drying is also surprising. It would be much more logical to make a variant with the M-88B. Although who knows, maybe everything is ahead.

Of aftermarket resin kits were purchased from Vector - a conversion with a motor and a hood for an aircraft with an M-88b, steering surfaces and ShKAS.

I bought resin wheels from the Spare Parts Kit.

At the time of assembly, it was almost all the available aftermarket.
Now there are photo-etched pieces from Eduard and Metallic Details, decals from AML and Behemoth. These kits will make it even easier to build a great model than using the tools at hand that I have resorted to.

Assembly started by selecting a prototype and folding the main parts dry.
Everything docked perfectly. Well, the right word, with this hood it is much more beautiful than in the box version.

The prototype will be determined quickly. I must say that the interior filling depends on his choice (the presence or absence of a walkie-talkie (if I understood everything correctly). I had to download it - I wanted a car with a walkie-talkie, because it looks beautiful. But all cars with a walkie-talkie carried a rather boring color. the choice fell on a car from the 288th bap, without a walkie-talkie, but in a very interesting (and questionable) camouflage. Apparently, it was originally painted not according to the standard scheme (white washable paint only on the tail), but the entire fuselage was painted with it Seeing this, the authorities were horrified and ordered to wash off the paint. As a result, it washed off, but a translucent coating remained. Moreover, it became dirty white. But on the tail and fairings there was a peeling white camouflage.

But the painting was still ahead, and I started assembling the model from the cockpit. I must say that while working with the interior I got into a funny situation. It seems that there is little information on Sushka, and there is almost no information about cars without a walkie-talkie, but still, in the photographs of the same experimental machines, so much is stuck that you don't know when to get up. As a result, I put it on from the heart. He added a power set to the wall of the bomb bay and the pilot's cabin, added letnab pedals, threw the elevator thrust on the left side, added equipment, valves, levers, a bag for maps, footboards under the turret and other little things. Part of course is purely fantasy on the topic, but why the cabin is empty. I decided to leave the AFA-13 camera, without it it would be too boring on the starboard side. They could have put it to record the results of the raid, for example. I added equipment in the cockpit, threw just a bit of wiring at the back wall.

The armchair from the set does not work at all. Maybe there was something like that on the early machines, but photographs of combat vehicles say that it was higher, had an armored back, etc. Most likely the chair looked like an SB chair.

As a result, I found a suitable-sized armchair cup in stocks, cut out and bent the back from some discount card, and made a pillow from Tamiyev's two-component putty.

In order not to bother with cutting out the walkie-talkie from its "table", I simply cut off the fasteners, and the "table" itself was cut out of plastic.
On the panel, the letnab closing the cabin from above added wiring to the instrument cluster, restored the tapes on the cylinder damaged during the cleaning of the molding seams, and diversified the box for the cartridge tape with a lid strap.
The turret was also reworked. The native seat is too thick, and as for me it is pulled up too high. Cut a new cigarette pack out of paper. I also added some kind of (did not find signatures for the turret diagram) device on one side and wiring to it. Well, he portrayed the bell of the liner. And some kind of wiring.

In addition, I decided to open the lower arrow point. There is little information on it, but we managed to find a photo where this stele dot is visible on a car with an M-88B. In addition, there are a couple of photos and one diagram for the Su-2 with the M-82.

It turned out that it was an MV-2 turret, the same one that was installed on the Ar-2 (first photo) and DB-3. There is also very little information on it. So I made a very distant semblance, since it will be well hidden by the shutters. In addition to the turret itself, I made a thrust, a "bed" for the shooter, a blank for a machine-gun belt and a cartridge box on board.

The solution to the tidy issue was found before me. I decided to combine my own detail and decal. Stopped the thickness, drilled out, tried on the decal. Of course, the decal does not match the holes perfectly.

I also assembled the engine, made the valve pushers from wire. It turned out that I was wrong - our M-88s were wired from the front. But after trying on the engine in the hood, I decided not to do it - it still won't be seen. Under the engine, I remade the heat-resistant panels on the sides (I putty the panel that had come from somewhere on the left side and made a new one on the right side).

At this stage, put everything together to check the connectivity after improvements.


The next step is the chassis niches. I sewed up the sides of the niches (of course, for reasons, like almost all the improvements, but the cat cried out for information on them, and even made them with a mistake, the side in the area of \u200b\u200bthe racks goes too far and will not allow the strut of the rack to get out.)

I cut out air intakes in the wing, inserted grilles from etched scraps into them, drilled out seats for bomb racks and machine gun barrels.

Then he primed and painted the cabin. Honestly, I don't know how to paint cabins, it turned out boring. Painted with acrylics Mr. Hobby, Vallejo, Zvezda. A little (or a lot) of dry brush, remover, a bit of dirt. I spoiled the decal on the Letnaba cork - I made a new tidy of plastic and transparent film with devices from stocks. I glued the deck cut into parts into my own tidy, dripped gloss into the dials. Not perfect, but I still can't do it better. In addition, the engine blew out. With him I decided not to be very sophisticated, all the same it is almost invisible. Well, I gathered it dry again.




After gluing the wing and fuselage, I put the Vector rudders. True, only ailerons and rudder. I was too lazy to change the elevators, and they are relatively decent in the model. Then he deepened his own jointing and restored the models of the jointing lines forgotten by the developers.

Since on cars with M-88b, most often there was one headlight, I pasted and putty the headlight on the right wing. And in the niche of the left headlight I drilled a recess for the installation of the "elf" headlight. I made glass from scotch tape. The panel around the headlight is self-adhesive foil. In addition, he installed machine gun fire pipes.

Made BANO. ... I drilled out my relatives that they were joining (and then only on the lower halves of the wing), pasted in their place a handful of colored sprues, grinded.

I closed the seam on the center section (by the way, everything was docked well, without gaps, but there should not be a seam there, again the Zvezda gets the same situation as with the Yak-3). I restored the jointing on the fairing, rolled the riveting (I picked up the wheel with the necessary pitch, but the size of the riveting is, of course, smaller than the native holes).

On the hood, I drilled drain holes on the sides and rolled a riveting line.

Modified the sight. Strongly based on what was at hand. Something looked at the etched sights from North Star Models when I was drying with one glass. Well, okay, I have a different crosshair. Let there be such a compromise solution.

Cut and pasted the masks. Especially a lot of trouble was delivered by the detail that the Star gives for the open version of the cockpit. The binding there is given from both sides, and even rather complicated due to the abundance of rounded edges. Putting it on the inside is something with something. Nothing is visible and incomprehensible. What happened becomes clear only after painting. On his belly he decided to hide the Star's jamb with the cabin walls and put them under cover. Well, let the side windows be edged. The turret will be open.


The next step is soil. On the belly, a couple of small shrinkage of the putty got out along the joints. Reapplied. Corrected a few previously unnoticed joints with riveting and joining. I drilled out the place where the pitot tube was attached and made a new one from foil and steel tube.



Slightly modified the landing gear doors and struts.

The turn has come painting.First blew out the top into the base.

Then came the turn of winter camouflage. I tried to portray to the best of my ability. Off-white bloom inflated with thinned paint. Winter damask - hairspray and white paint, rubbed with a toothbrush and water. In the end, blew out Futura under the decals.

Translated decals. Big stars are relatives. The star on the tail is from the new Po-2 model from ICM. Now ICM has excellent decals that can be translated without problems) And 8ku blew through a stencil. It didn't work out perfect, but there's nothing you can do about it. The stars (native) shine a little and on green they went into crimson, in the photo this is not visible due to the flash.
I made a wash. On green and blue - black, on black - gray.

Paid a little attention to small things. I blew out the chassis parts in a gray and glossy finish (for washing). I also cut out the flaps of the lower turret, riveted it and blew it out in the interior color from the inside.

It's time to put everything together. I started with the tail landing gear, which had to be repaired (it broke off during painting). Drilled out and put the pin out of the wire. He put the model on its feet. Set the bottom firing point. I drilled out the mount for the venturi tube, painted it and put it in place. Then he blew out the model with matte varnish, took off the masks from the cockpit lights (in general, it turned out not bad, though flaws still appeared in a couple of places). I must say, I don't really like the idea of \u200b\u200ba Star with a shifted pilot lamp, molded from the rear. It is better to do it from separate parts, removing the sliding part if desired, since the docking allows it. I put on the tail bano, smoked a bit of the exhaust and machine guns. I hung up the bombs. By the way, the FAB-250 itself took from Tamievsky

The 1/48 scale model of the Soviet Su-2 bomber went on sale in November 2013. In general, the reviews about the model are good. There are minor flaws, but you can close your eyes to them if you are not a fan of historical copies. A noticeable drawback is the irregular shape of the hood

general information

Russian tank T-14 "Armata"

Manufacturing firm: Star

Scale: 1/35

Vendor code: 3670

Number of details: 157 pc

Model size (mm): 21.80 cm

Appearance and contents of the box

A colored box from Zvezda in the usual color scheme with an illustration of a Su-2 in flight against a background of smoke. Illustration by Zhirnov.

On the side is a table with the required colors for painting and general information

Inside is a dense cardboard box. We open. The box is almost full.

Place the contents on a model rug for scale. Included: Sprues (each in a separate package), transparent sprue, Decals and instructions.

Model gates

Sprues: A, B, C and D sprues with transparent parts.

Gating A

Gate A contains large parts of the aircraft body.

Let's take a closer look. Casting quality is excellent. No flash. The jointing is straight. AND LOTS of rivets on the body.

Gating A

Sprue B has only airplane wings.

I cannot judge the correct position of the rivets on the model. But they will surely look great after washing on the finished model.

Gating C

There are already many small details of the model, as well as the pilots of the aircraft.

Gating D

The transparent parts are on the D sprue and they look great. The glasses are transparent, which is even scary to take in your hands.

Decals

Decals are given on one piece of paper: dashboard, Number 15 and Stars different sizes... There are only 2 color options out of the box. For other options, you need to buy additional decals.

Instructions

The manual is as usual in black and white in the form of an A3 brochure. For gluing 153 parts of the Su-2 We will have to study 3 spreads. The instructions are quite detailed. But in any case, it is better to study all the stages before assembling the model.

Read the instructions for the Su-2 from Zvezda online:

Model additions

There are various additions to the prefabricated model of the Su-2 aircraft

1. Decals Behemoth



2. Color photo-etched cab Eduard





3. Photo-etched Exterior Eduard



4. Photo-etched Flaps Eduard





5. Photo-etched Metallic details

Why one of the best light bombers of the early 1940s got lost in the shadow of the more famous creations of aircraft designer Pavel Sukhoi

A short-range Su-2 bomber with missile guides under the wings. Photo from the site http://www.airwar.ru

The last pre-war five-year plan was the time when the Red Army, one by one, received the latest weapons - the country was preparing for war, which smelled more and more distinctly in the air. In half a century, this active preparation will become a pretext for outright insinuations, boiling down to accusing the USSR of preparing for an attack on Germany, and the Su-2 will have a special place in this stream of lies. They will call him "the winged Genghis Khan", take it apart to pieces, "prove" its complete technical inconsistency - and immediately announce that it was planned to be released in tens of thousands and assigned the role of the main air invasion allegedly being prepared.

The reality is much simpler and more mundane than all these fictions of scouts-defectors. For the entire existence of the Su-2, it was produced in a small batch: slightly less than 900 aircraft - negligible compared to the most massive combat aircraft of all times and peoples, the Il-2 attack aircraft. But both, as we remember, were a direct or indirect result of the "Ivanov" competition. Despite all the excellent assessments of the test pilots, and the combat pilots who had a chance to fly on a close Sukhoi bomber, he, figuratively speaking, was late for the Great Patriotic War. I was late in the sense that, despite all the progressive design, excellent aerodynamics, a well-thought-out cockpit environment and excellent combat qualities, it was an aircraft of irrelevant tactics. However, it was determined not by the designer, but by the military - and the generals, as we know from the winged words of Winston Churchill, are always preparing for the last war.

Su-2 in winter parking, early 1942. Photo from the site http: //aviaru.rf

"Ivanov" becomes "Stalin's task"

It took exactly eight months to complete and lift into the air the first prototype of Sukhov's "Ivanov". On August 27, 1937, the chief pilot of TsAGI (it is worth remembering that formally the design team of Pavel Sukhoi was still in the structure of this institute) Mikhail Gromov lifted into the air a machine that had the internal plant index SZ-1 - that is, "Stalin task, first copy" ... As the tester noted at the end of this flight, the car turned out to be simple and convenient to fly, had good stability and controllability.

In fact, it was at this moment that it was decided which of the three "Ivanovs" - the brigade of Pavel Sukhoi, the design bureau of Nikolai Polikarpov, or the team of the KhAI under the leadership of Joseph Neman - would go into the series. The fact is that a month before that, on July 25, 1937, the Defense Committee under the USSR Council of People's Commissars approved a plan for experimental aircraft construction for 1937-1938. Among other tasks, there was an item concerning the Ivanov competition: the three teams left in it were instructed to design and build Ivanov aircraft with an M-25 engine in four versions - a reconnaissance aircraft, an attack aircraft, a short-range bomber and an escort for long-range bombers. And at the same time, a very tough deadline was set for the cars to enter state tests - September 1937.

Variants of airplanes developed at an early stage by the participants of the "Ivanov" competition. Photo from the site http://www.nnre.ru

Only Pavel Sukhoi's brigade met this deadline, even ahead of schedule. Nikolai Polikarpov, whose design bureau was simultaneously working on several important projects, "Ivanov" was in the corral and by September, by September, there was no time for testing. And at the same time, the team of Joseph Neman was bringing its R-10 aircraft to serial production - a reconnaissance aircraft, outwardly very, very similar to the Sukhoi aircraft, and received a formal delay of five months after the delivery of their version of Ivanov. Formal, since it was clear that it was the R-10 that would become the KhAI's contribution to the "Ivanovo" competition - and the place of the closest bomber would be given to the Sukhoi aircraft.

And then what usually happens during testing of new technology began: periodic breakdowns and equipment failures, unsuccessful and emergency landings, rapid development of the resource of components and assemblies due to the fact that they have to be "driven" at maximum modes ... Three experienced a copy of the new aircraft: SZ-1, followed by SZ-2, which first took to the air on January 29, 1938, and the last - SZ-3, which made its first flight on November 3, 1938.

Prototype SZ-2 during tests in Evpatoria, 1938. Photo from the site http://www.tupolev.ru

Alas, in addition to purely engineering and technical problems, which in fact are not just inevitable, but a necessary part of any tests, since they allow revealing the weak points of the structure before its launch into series, a purely human factor also intervened in the fate of the future Su-2. The car was built at the plant number 156, under which the design group of Pavel Sukhoi formally existed. But the situation was such that the workers of the group had to write a letter to the very top in order to achieve the continuation of the suddenly stalled work on the finalization of the "Stalin assignments". Here is a typical quote from this letter, which Vadim Proklov cites in his article “The Su-2 Near Bomber and Its Modifications”: “All these facts are extremely painful for our team. We are confident that our one and a half year work was needed by the country and our car is a good contribution to the defense of our Motherland. We have no doubt that this aircraft is really adapted for mass production and even surpasses the Woolti aircraft in its flight and tactical data and production simplicity (meaning the Vultee V-11 attack aircraft, which aircraft designer Sergey Kocherigin brought to serial production under the index BSh-1. - Author's note), which makes it possible to very quickly introduce the car into a series. Therefore, we cannot come to terms with the attitude of the plant management to our machine and the fate of our team closely related to it. Plant No. 156, which was building several heavy and medium-sized vehicles at the same time, now suddenly turned out to be able to perform work on only one medium-tonnage vehicle, to the detriment of all the others. The Sukhoi design bureau is actually deprived of the production base at the plant and is even limited in the construction of models of machines planned for design "...

Su-2: "the ugly duckling" of the pre-war aircraft industry

The letter, oddly enough, achieved its goal: work on " Stalin's assignment”At the plant # 156 accelerated sharply, and on December 28, 1938, the last prototype of the SZ-3 was transferred for state tests at the Air Force Research Institute. The flights within the framework of these tests, like the previous instance, SZ-2, were performed by the troika in Evpatoria, and they began on February 3, 1939. And after a month and a half, the People's Commissar of Defense Marshal Kliment Voroshilov and the People's Commissar of the aviation industry Mikhail Kaganovich addressed the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars Vyacheslav Molotov with a letter in which they noted that "the plane" Ivanov "with the M-87A in its flight data and firepower significantly surpasses the same type of aircraft, consisting of we are in service (R-zet M-34RN and R-10 M-25V). Given the good performance of the aircraft "Ivanov" with<двигателем> M-87A, we ask permission to adopt it into service with the Red Army and organize serial production of these aircraft at the Sarcombein plant "(cited in the article" Su-2 close-range bomber and its modifications ").

One of the most famous Su-2 pilots, Major Anatoly Pushkin, the commander of the 52nd Bomber Aviation Regiment, flew on an airplane built at the expense of the workers of the city of Molotov (modern Perm; the last machines of this model were produced in this city). Photo from the site http://airaces.narod.ru

In the same letter, it was noted that “the design of the aircraft being tested is all-metal. Serial aircraft will be produced with a wooden fuselage, with the subsequent transition in the series to a wooden wing with a steel spar ... ". It was a fundamental moment: as with the previous aircraft designed by Pavel Sukhoi, a paradoxical situation developed with the future Su-2, when the modern aircraft was forced to "age" for economic reasons, since the country did not have enough chain mail for the serial production of such all-metal aircraft.

However, it was not difficult to predict such an outcome not only for economic reasons. Let's remember: according to the results of the first stage of the "Ivanov" competition, the developers of three variants of the new aircraft were appointed: all-metal (Pavel Sukhoi), mixed construction (Nikolai Polikarpov) and wooden (Joseph Neman). Almost certainly, initially, it was the mixed version, as the most economically and technologically justified, was considered as the main one, for which the appointment of a much more eminent designer responsible for it also speaks. But when another became the winner, it was he who had to remake his plane for the needs and capabilities of the domestic aviation industry. So the Su-2 repeated the fate of the I-14 - although not in everything, fortunately.

Unfortunately, it was the choice of production facilities for the production of the aircraft, which had already received the serial index BB-1, that is, the first close-range bomber. Pavel Sukhoi's group formed into an independent design bureau, unlike most other aircraft design bureaus Soviet Union, at first did not have its own industrial base. And its planes were instructed to build two factories: Kharkov No. 135 (where, to speed up the construction process, Pavel Sukhoi took over as chief designer) and Sarcombein. But despite the threatening instructions from Moscow, neither there nor there they took the new car seriously, which ultimately became the reason for a serious conversation at the top. It ended with a strange decision for Pavel Sukhoi and his design bureau: all production was transferred to the plant newly created on the basis of KB-29 of the People's Commissariat of the Aviation Industry in Podlipki near Moscow (present-day Korolev), which was assigned No. 289 and where Sukhoi took the position of chief designer. The task of the new plant included the construction of two experimental aircraft and 10-15 machines of the zero series within the next year.

The MV-5 turret on the Su-2 is one of the earliest modifications. Photo from the site http://www.airwar.ru

But neither this decision, nor the orders issued in early 1940 by the new People's Commissar of the aviation industry, Alexei Shakhurin, on the urgent deployment of serial production of BB-1 short-range bombers at three factories at once - in Kharkov, Taganrog and Dolgoprudny - led to no radical change in the situation. The factories chosen by the responsible were objectively unable to cope with the task of producing aircraft, whose design features were much higher than the technological capabilities of production. After all, Pavel Sukhoi created a machine in the design of which extruded profiles, stamped and cast power units from aluminum alloys, flexible textolite were widely used ... The creator of the Su-2 also took care of the possibility of mass flow production, deciding to use a plaza-template method of ensuring the interchangeability of structural elements - but the leadership of the aviation industry did not find an opportunity to locate the production of BB-1 at one of the leading aircraft factories in the country. And all the rest simply could not fully cope with the task assigned to them.

The army is trying "drying"

All this ultimately led to the fact that only in May 1940 - just a year before the start of the Great Patriotic War! - the military from the specially created bomber aviation regiment No. 135 (according to the number of the plant that produced the cars) accepted and began to test the first 16 serial BB-1s. The results of military tests turned out to be very successful: despite the discovered shortcomings and weaknesses of individual components of the aircraft (which is natural for any new technology), the pilots noted good overview forward from the cockpit and a comfortable high control knob, they said that the aircraft was easy to operate, it was convenient for technicians to maintain it, since they had convenient access to all units, and therefore repair and replacement of parts were not difficult.

“The pilots with lower than average qualifications, who came to the unit from the Air Force flight schools, master the plane easily and after 20-25 export flights they independently released on the BB-1,” the report on military tests said. Another innovation of Pavel Sukhoi also influenced the ease of mastering the new aircraft: from the very beginning he designed a duplicated BB-1 control system, suggesting that in a combat situation it might be necessary for the navigator to replace the wounded or dead pilot. This foresight, already during the war, made it possible to preserve and bring to its airfield more than a dozen heavily damaged Su-2s (and the absence of such a system on the Il-2 caused the death of many attack aircraft, in which the surviving radio operator gunner could not take over control instead of the pilot). In the meantime, in the pre-war months, such a dual control system made it possible for pilots to train directly on the equipment on which they were to fly in the future, without the use of special training machines.

Navigator of a short-range Su-2 bomber behind a turret located behind and above its main workplace. Photo from the site http://www.wunderwafe.ru

As is usually the case, military tests brought not only positive feedback, but also comments and suggestions for fine-tuning certain units and assemblies of the machine. This also took a significant amount of time, and as a result, the widespread introduction of the Su-2 - this is how it was officially called BB-1 in December 1940 - in combat units began only in January 1941. And still, even when the war was already in full swing, the Sukhoi design bureau, together with allied partners and production workers, continued to refine and test new aircraft modifications - they were looking for the best options.

Unfortunately, even the most outstanding of them could no longer meet the strict and stringent requirements that the Great Patriotic War presented to aviation technology. Low-speed (speed within 430-480 km / h), not too well armed (only three machine guns of 7.62 mm caliber), with a small bomb load (400 kg), the Su-2 could no longer perform the tasks that were originally assigned to him. The duties of an attack aircraft were successfully performed by the Il-2, the bomber - by the Pe-2 and other twin-engine bombers, the scout - by many serial fighters ... Even the niche of the low-speed night bomber was occupied by the U-2, which took on a mass production and extreme ease of control, surpassing even the Su-2.

And yet, this close-range bomber managed to say its weighty word in the history of the Great Patriotic War. As, indeed, many other models of the Red Army's weapons, with which it met the war and which rapidly became obsolete during its first months. TB-3 bombers and fighters I-16, BT-7 and T-28, which seemed formidable at parades, were all from the "last war". But the people who controlled them were from this one - and they did everything to give the enemy such a rebuff, even with this outdated, clumsy, weak weapon, which he had never expected.

By June 22, 1941, the vast majority of Su-2 bombers were concentrated in the western military districts. According to Nikolai Gordyukov and Dmitry Khazanov, by June 1, the military envoys received a total of 413 bombers, of which 64 "dryers" were listed in the Western Special Military District, 91 in Kiev Special, 22 in Odessa, and 124 in Kharkov. Another 85 vehicles were already accepted, but defended at the factory airfields, and seven were listed in training center... The rest of the planes were either en route to their destination, or were written off as a result of flight accidents.

The crew of the Su-2 at their car, autumn 1941. Photo from the site http://www.lietadla.com

According to reports, the plan for the production of the Su-2 for this period was fulfilled by 119%, and by the end of the year the Red Army was to receive over 700 more vehicles. The training of pilots and flyers (as navigators of this kind of aircraft were often called at that time) for new bombers went on at an accelerated pace. But their training was also designed for a period until September, or even longer. Therefore, there is nothing surprising in the fact that, according to Nikolai Gordyukov and Dmitry Khazanov, by the beginning of the war, eight out of 82 close-bomber aviation regiments of the Red Army Air Force had mastered the Su-2 to one degree or another, and two more did not have time to receive vehicles from the factories, but planned to start the retraining process soon. At the same time, all 195 bombers located near the border (of which only 132 were serviceable) were located south of the 55th parallel, that is, they covered mainly the borders of Belarus and Ukraine - right up to the Black Sea. There they met the war.

Airplane for heroes

From the first days, the Su-2, in addition to their purely bombing duties, carried out tasks of attacking the advancing enemy, and escorting long-range bombers, and were scouts - in short, anyone. And, of course, they suffered and suffered losses: the German pilots, many of whom had more than one military campaign behind their backs, the hastily retrained crews of the "dryers" could do little to oppose. However, even this little was enough to not only carry out the tasks of bombing the enemy, but also to inflict damage on the Luftwaffe. In particular, in the report of the headquarters of the 97th air regiment, which at the end of June 1941 had to be withdrawn to the rear for reorganization due to the loss of combat effectiveness, it was said about 14 shot down German fighters.

The crew of a near-by Su-2 bomber accepts congratulations on the first sortie. Photo from the site http://techno-story.ru

The fact that the Su-2 were capable of conducting full-fledged air battles and successfully resisting the Messerschmitts is also stated in the documents of other air regiments armed with this machine at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. For this, sometimes their crews used such rare view air combat like a battering ram. In particular, the Su-2 is famous for the fact that it was on it that the only woman in the entire history of combat, the deputy squadron commander of the 135th Bomber Aviation Regiment of the Southwestern Front, Senior Lieutenant Yekaterina Zelenko, performed her ramming (read more about this in articles and). At least two examples are known when the crews of the Su-2 aircraft repeated the feat of Captain Nikolai Gastello: the veteran of the Winter War, who served in the 43rd Bomber Aviation Regiment, Captain Alexander Avdeev, sent a burning plane to enemy vehicles with infantry approaching the Bolshoi Sitsy airfield, and the commander of squadron 209 of the 1st Bomber Aviation Regiment, Captain Khasan Mamin - in the midst of enemy aircraft at the Borovskaya airfield.

At the same time, the appearance of new close-range bombers in the armament of the Red Army was a clear surprise not only for the German troops, but also for the Soviet ones. The fact is that sometimes even their neighbors in military camps did not know about the appearance in the Su-2 air units: the rearmament with "dryers" was carried out in an atmosphere of increased secrecy. And sometimes it played a very tragic role in the fate of their crews.

For example, the future Air Marshal, Hero of the Soviet Union recalled many years after the war: “It was like this: we are going on a mission, two MiG-3s are joining us. We think flying with fighters is safer. Suddenly the incredible happens - one of the MiGs with precise shots knocks down the commander of our squadron and attacks my plane. I swing the car from wing to wing, showing our identification marks. That helped…
Many years later, when I was studying at the Academy of the General Staff, I told my classmates about this case. Alexander Pokryshkin, Hero of the Soviet Union, studied in our group three times. He asked me to repeat the story.
Retelling it again.
“It was me,” he declared, embarrassed and upset.
"Are you kidding, Sasha?"
“Yes, what are you kidding! At the beginning of the war, I did shoot down a Su-2. There was such a terrible incident with me, I did not know Sukhoi planes, because they appeared in the units just before the war, and their appearance is quite unusual - I thought they were a fascist ... ”.

This tragic episode almost cost the future ace Alexander Pokryshkin his career, if not his life, but in the turmoil of the mass retreat it did. It is possible that such episodes were not isolated, but we did not find out about the rest, and we will not know any more, since their participants died long before the end of the war.

The personnel of the Su-2 short-range bomber squadron are updating the latest intelligence data on the targets for the bombing. Photo from the site http://www.wunderwafe.ru

Short fate, eternal glory

How good the Su-2 turned out to be can be judged by its very wide use as not only a close-range bomber, but also an attack aircraft - a role for which he was preparing, but which he "missed". It is precisely the inability of the "dryers" to attack aircraft that explains the fact of their extremely high losses in the first months of the war and the fact that the specialists of the Soviet Air Force, who studied this sad experience, unambiguously came to the conclusion that the BB-1 was the worst prepared for combat operations. And at the same time, he was extremely tenacious: in some regiments that managed to reorganize the tactics of using the Su-2 in time, one loss of these aircraft fell on 80 sorties - four or even five times less than, say, Pe- 2! On average, according to statistics, the losses of "dryers" were slightly less than one and a half times less than the usual for Soviet bomber aviation combat irrecoverable losses.

A link of close Su-2 bombers is bombing. Southern Front, 1942. Photo from the site http://www.wunderwafe.ru

And yet there were too few of them, tenacious, nimble, capable of playing many aviation roles of the Su-2. By the fall of 1942, only two regiments were left along the entire length of the Soviet-German front, armed with these machines. The surviving units from other units gradually flowed into them, which were withdrawn for reformation and received new aircraft: some - Il-2, some - Pe-2 or other bombers. And the "dryers" continued to be assembled at the places of forced landings, repaired at the expense of spare parts taken from downed and unrepairable vehicles - and returned to duty.

The last of them, already as scouts and artillery spotters, continued combat missions until 1944, until they were finally written off due to extreme wear and tear and the lack of repair kits. And this despite the fact that the production of the Su-2 was finally discontinued on January 24, 1942! That is, for two more years the aircraft, which were no longer produced or accepted by military representatives, continued to fly, fight, strike at the enemy - and enjoy the sincere, ardent love of their crews.

Hot in the literal sense of the word: in addition to all the other amenities and remarkable features of the Su-2, the pilots especially noted the cabin heating system, which received hot air from the engine. This turned out to be especially important in the first war winter, when the "dryers" were still actively fighting at the front, and their pilots had to make several sorties a day in the bitter frost, which only got stronger as the altitude climbed. It is difficult even to imagine how the pilots of other, unheated planes envied them. But neither the praise of combat pilots, nor the high indicators of survivability could affect the desire of the belligerent country to reduce the range of aircraft in service and, accordingly, the efforts and costs of training pilots for them and providing vehicles with repair kits and spare parts.

In addition to working as bombers, attack aircraft, reconnaissance aircraft and artillery spotters, the Su-2 had to work as propaganda aircraft. Pictured: loading leaflets into the cockpit of the Su-2, summer 1942. Photo from the site http://waralbum.ru

And nevertheless, the Su-2 had the happy fate of a soldier who fulfilled his duty, as they say, to the last drop of blood. Throughout the vast space where the battles of the Great Patriotic War once thundered, there is not a single monument where this aircraft would have been installed, and not a single museum where it is exhibited. All Su-2s have passed their combat path with dignity - and lay down in the ground next to their pilots and their fellow soldiers in the Black Sea region, the Don steppes or the Belarusian swamps ...

The first two prototypes of the Su-2 had an all-metal construction. Not only the wings and stabilizer consisted of riveted duralumin, but also the fuselage and keel. A nine-cylinder single-row star-shaped M-62 engine with a two-blade propeller was used as a power plant. The hood at the rear did not have a movable "skirt", and between it and the fuselage there was a wide gap for the passage of cooling air.

Small arms were four LUKAC machine guns in the center section, one of the same machine gun in the upper turret and another in the lower hatch mount. Both machine guns were served by the navigator, which was not a very good decision, since he could not simultaneously fire from both shooting points.

Su-2 M-87

The first 30 production copies of the Su-2 were powered by two-row 14-cylinder M-87 engines, much more powerful than the M-62.

In addition, in order to save duralumin, the deficit of which began to be felt even before the war, Sukhoi was obliged to design a wooden fuselage for the aircraft. This caused some weighting of the structure, but it was offset by a significant increase in the power-to-weight ratio.

Another major change was the weakening of small arms. In 1940, the leadership of the Air Force chose the armored BSh-2 (future Il-2) as a promising attack aircraft, and left the role of a close bomber for the Su-2. Since it was believed that for such an aircraft, the main thing was not machine guns, but bombs, two wing LUKACs were removed from it, and at the same time the hatch installation.

Su-2 M-88

In 1940, on the basis of the M-87, the M-88 engine was created, which had an improved altitude due to the installation of a two-speed centrifugal supercharger. Soon, such engines began to be installed on long-range bombers DB-3F () and on the Su-2.

In March 1941, the MV-5 turret turret, which had an almost circular fire, was replaced by a lightweight and simplified TSS-1 turret with much narrower firing sectors. From above, it was closed with a transparent visor, which had to be moved forward before opening fire. The new machine-gun installation provided a gain in aerodynamics and a certain increase in speed, but the protection of the aircraft was further reduced.

At about the same time, in order to further improve the contours of the Su-2, the oil cooler, which had previously hung under the hood, was moved to the center section, and the shape of the engine intake pipe was made smoother. The aircraft with such innovations was sometimes called the Su-2M (modified).

With the outbreak of war, emergency changes had to be made to the design of the machine.

Firstly, the shortage of the Il-2 often forced the use of the Su-2 as an attack aircraft. Four machine guns for shelling ground targets are better than two, and therefore already in July 1941, the aircraft began to be produced with four ShKAS in the wings. The MV-5 turret was also returned to its place and the hatch installations began again, since German fighters often attacked from below.

Secondly, the air battles showed that the armor protection of the crew, especially the navigator, was absolutely insufficient.

By August, the problem was partially solved by the internal installation of armor plates on the bottom and sides of the fuselage in the area of \u200b\u200bthe rear cockpit. Su-2 M-88 was produced until October 1941, a total of 811 aircraft of this modification were built.

Su-2 M-82

Strengthening the armament and installing armor caused a noticeable increase in the mass of the vehicle, which in turn led to a deterioration in flight performance. To remedy the situation, the Su-2 was equipped with an M-82 engine, the most powerful Soviet serial air-cooled engine at that time. With this engine, which developed up to 1330 hp, the characteristics of the bomber not only returned to normal, but also significantly improved.

The first two copies of the Su-2 M-82 were built and flew in Kharkov in September 1941, but the deployment of mass production was prevented by the urgent evacuation of aircraft plant No. 135 in connection with the approach of the Nazi troops to the city. In October, the plant was evacuated to Perm, and soon echelons with the property of plant No. 207 removed from Dolgoprudny arrived there. Both enterprises were merged into a single complex, leaving No. 135 behind it, but great difficulties arose with the resumption of production. During the evacuation under bombing, a significant part of the equipment was lost, and not all of the workers were taken out either.
As a result, it was not possible to return to normal operation at the new location - in a few months only 58 bombers were assembled with great difficulty. There was nothing to help the plant, since everyone did not have enough people and machines. In January 1942, the Defense Committee, having studied the situation, made an unprecedented decision: to stop the production of the Su-2, to disband the aircraft plant No. 135, and to distribute the equipment and personnel among other enterprises.

Experienced all-wood aircraft BB-2, built in the spring of 1940. It was considered as a simplified modification of the BB-1 for mass production in conditions of duralumin shortage, but did not go into mass production. In addition to the wooden structure, the BB-2 differed from the BB-1 in improved armor and a modified landing gear retraction scheme. The only copy of the BB-2 crashed during testing and was no longer recovered.