The best Russian bomber?

The engine powers were in the ballpark above 6000m. The V-12 installation will give a bit of extra thrust and less drag in 1941/42. When cooling system is calculated in, the weight of AM-35A powerplant is a bit higher than of M-82? Also, the carb on the M-82 was before the supercharger, unlike as with Mikulins (and Klimovs) so harvesting of ram effect was a bit better. That chaged when ASh-82FN got direct injection.
The ASh-82F and FN are too late for Pe-8 by at least year and two, respectively.

added: the service ceiling of those two versions was in ballpark, above 10000m went only the versions/prototypes with 'combined' powerplant: Новая страница 1

A few photos of the PE-2 with external bombs.




The last is pretty fuzzy but shows an internal load could be combined with external bombs. However only on the outer racks?

It also appears that drop tanks could be used.

A Soviet-produced ww2 aircraft is indeed a rare sight.

tomo pauk said:

A Soviet-produced ww2 aircraft is indeed a rare sight.

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I think its even rarer to see Lend Lease equipment in Soviet photos. When you think about 1 in 5 tanks on the field were US or UK, its hard to find photos. The ratio of Lend Lease planes was probably greater. The price of a closed society.

Once again, the link pampas14 provided on the front page says "Page doesn't exist"

Going back to the original questions;
1st post best light bomber of the war?
2nd post best Russian bomber of the war?

we get into definitions.
1. What is a light bomber?
I like the A-26 but it weighs empty about what a Mosquito did with the Mosquito carrying a 4000lb bomb. The US may have called it a light bomber but only on comparison to a B-29.
Now things did change with time but even a Mosquito weighed considerably more than the PE-2 (perhaps 35% more depending on loads in each aircraft).
DO we decide on a somewhat arbitrary weight limit?
Bombload gets iffy real quick as some countries used external carriage of ordnance much more than other countries and many Japanese bombers carried a small war load but comparatively massive amounts of fuel.
The PE-2 not only stayed in service for the duration of the war, it stayed in service for several more years.
The US, once the A-20 went to R-2600 engines, got out of the light bomber catagory. Late model A-20s could gross over 50% more than a PE-2.
The British have the Mosquito and the Beaufort but both weigh a lot more than the PE-2.
So does the ME-210 and the Germans have no other aircraft with an internal bomb-bay anywhere near 16-18,000lbs after 1939/40.

Keep the weight limit at 17-19,000lb max gross and the PE-2 has a shot at the title of Best light bomber. Let the weight limit rise to 22-24,000lbs and the Mosquito pretty much takes over with a few other contenders for 2nd place. Including the TU-2.

For the 2nd question there is little doubt that the TU-2 was the best Russian bomber. However, it's contribution to the Soviet efforts were minimal due to small numbers. 80 were completed up until Jan 1943 when production stopped and was not restarted until Dec of 1943. 16 more being completed that month. By June of 1944 the 334th Red Banner Bomber Air Division began service trials on the Tu-2 with a strength of 87 aircraft of which 74 were airworthy. By Jan 1945 the Russians had 278 Tu-2s in service with 3 different units with 264 of them airworthy. This was 9% of the Soviet Bomber fleet. At the end of the war 1013 TU-2s had been built but the total production reached 2527 aircraft with the post war production.

The DB-3/IL-4 series falls in here and while a quite serviceable aircraft one is hard pressed to call it best of much of anything unless best Russian built medium bomber for most of the war.

As the tt
itle is the best Russian Bomber then the PE2 has to be a serious contender

Plenty of German planes seem to be in contention for "BEST" titles with only a few hundred (or less) in service, so the TU-2 gets the nod if amount of service is not a criteria.
The PE-8 is another hard to categorize aircraft. Number in service rarely exceeded 20 until the last year of the war even if it did see service for almost the duration of the war. Active service form the middle of 1944 on is questionable. A lot of the early engine installations were of such questionable reliability that qualifying for "best" seems hard. The later versions with M-82 engines were much more reliable but had the rear firing 12.7mm guns in the inner nacelles taken out and the engines were not fitted with flame dampers which made them more viable at night.

That leaves the PE-2 and IL-4 to duke it out for the title if the TU-2 is disqualified. And the two planes are so dissimilar that picking the "Best" is almost impossible. The Larger, slower IL-4 could carry a much larger bomb load much further with some of the most reliable engines the Soviet Union had (150 hours between overhauls ?) made it a favorite for long range night bombing and also for torpedo bombing. It's ability to operate by day with a very strong escort was minimal however. And the weight of IL-4, while light by western standards was around 35-40% greater than a normal PE-2. The IL-4 probably dropped majority of bombs dropped by soviet bombers.

The Il-2 was something of the Soviet He-111 or Wellington: unspectacular, but very useful under favorable circumstances.

IMO, the Soviets dropped the ball when failed to introduce the almost-Tu-2 (ANT-62, or 'aircraft 103') with either Mikulin or M-82 engines ASAP, like second half of 1941 or winter of 1941/42, or do the same with Yer-2 instead of trying to be too smart with the diesels.
The real Tu-2 almost drew the short straw, too.

The IL-4 was rather pedestrian but it got the job done in a number of roles that many of the flasher aircraft did not.

The problem with early TU-2s is engine availability. Many Russian aircraft have good performance numbers but serviceability or engine failure may have been higher than western nations would tolerate. It may be one thing to stick 50 hour (or less) engines in single seat fighters that normally flew 1-2 hour missions (30 to 50 missions before engine swap, assuming engine made it to rated hours). It is another thing to put short time engines in bombers with 3-5 hour missions (if using their long range and not tactical bombing the front line).
The AM series of engines were noted for their short overhaul life and unreliability. They only look good in comparison to the Diesels.
But they don't have the fuel economy of the diesels. YE-2 had around 50% more range with the first diesels than it did with the AM-37.

The M-82 engine went through 3-4 different versions during the war. The plain M-82 started production in small numbers in 1941 and was good for 1700hp max. The M-82A was developed in 1942 with the same power ratings but improved service life. The M-82F started production in Dec 1942 with improved supercharger drive and modified oil system and "no limitation on boost time" although still limited to 1700hp max. The M-82FN with fuel injection didn't start production until Jan 1943. In addition to the fuel injection it had a modified supercharger drive, strengthened pistons, new valves and improved ribbing (fins?) on the cylinder heads.
TU-2 performance in 1941 or for most of 1942 would have been lower than the performance in 1944. Reliability would have been worse.

The YE-2 looks sleek but even with AM-37 engines it cruised at 270mph. It was a rather large airplane (wing area almost that of a Wellington or 26% bigger than a B-26) and while having a good to excellent range it carried a small bomb load inside (normally) , had crap for defensive armament and was, with the engines fitted, too slow to evade using speed (top speed with diesels was close to the top speed of a Wellington) Almost 1/3 were built with M-105 engines and that was almost a different airplane. A pair of 1050 engines on a 25,000lb airplane? The prototype with AM-37 engines was noted as having a long take-off run. Weight had gone to 28,600lbs.

I would also note that they did a considerable redesign to the TU-2 between the AM-37 prototype and the M-82 prototype which lightened the structure and simplified the assembly. Rushing the early version into production in the fall of 1941 might not have been a good idea.

Shortround6 said:

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The problem with early TU-2s is engine availability. Many Russian aircraft have good performance numbers but serviceability or engine failure may have been higher than western nations would tolerate. It may be one thing to stick 50 hour (or less) engines in single seat fighters that normally flew 1-2 hour missions (30 to 50 missions before engine swap, assuming engine made it to rated hours). It is another thing to put short time engines in bombers with 3-5 hour missions (if using their long range and not tactical bombing the front line).
The AM series of engines were noted for their short overhaul life and unreliability. They only look good in comparison to the Diesels.
But they don't have the fuel economy of the diesels. YE-2 had around 50% more range with the first diesels than it did with the AM-37.

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Problematic were the AM-37 (got cancelled) and AM-35A. The AM-38 worked okay, and situation improved with the AM-35A (not that I'm suggesting that one above the AM-38).
Nobody have had the gasoline engines with low fuel consumption of the diesels.

...
I would also note that they did a considerable redesign to the TU-2 between the AM-37 prototype and the M-82 prototype which lightened the structure and simplified the assembly. Rushing the early version into production in the fall of 1941 might not have been a good idea.

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Having 2 x 1600 or 2 x 1700 HP engines allows far more elbow room (or room for glitches) than 2 x 1100 or 2 x 1200
So even of the 'pre-Tu-2' is not as great as the Tu-2S of 1944, that still leaves a good deal of the war for the bomber to take part in it.