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That was the plan, at least.F*ck me, as if being a tanker on the eastern front wasn't bad enough, they actually expected some of those poor bu*gers to 'fly' , er, 'land' several tons of armour into combat!?
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This appeared in the February, 1943 issue of Popular Science magazine. I wonder how many other weird designs were proposed on the Allied side? We all know of the strange wonder weapons the Germans were considering.
As goofy as it may seem, the Russians actually built as least 2 polymorphic aircraft, in the late 30s early 40s. That word isn't my creation.
Except they went from a biplane to a high wing monoplane.
The landing gear retracted into the lower wing, then the lower wing retracted into the bottom of the upper wing.
The Nikitin-Shevchenko IS-1 and IS-2, and a IS-4 was started but never completed. The first 2 were flight tested.
And someone was claiming Russian aircraft designers of that era were afraid to be very innovative in their designs.
I wonder if Nikitin and Shevchenko ended up cutting trees in Siberia?
And it should be mentioned that the tanks were dropped separately from the crew...lol
Good observations, Rinkol. In fact, it would make more sense to fold the lower wing into the upper wing, that way you at least retain a clean flow over the upper surface of the top plane (the upper surface generating most of a wing's lift). Irrespective, the transition period would have been diabolically frightening. It is a fascinating (but scarily wacky) concept!
now that is a horse of a different color! without a flight crew to guide it in makes more sense. if you can fly low and slow over fairly flat terrain and release ( which I think would be the best tactic) you would suffer less possible damage. unmanned and drop from higher alts could be disastrous.
The air-dropped tanks being tested (and in some cases, actually deployed) were theT-27 and T-37A tankette. These were typically dropped seperately from their crew.That tactic, if the timing is just a little off, or not dropped exactly accurately, might end up supplying you enemy with a tank.
But not much of a tank. At 6 tons, the T-60 was about equal to a Panzer Mk I.