The Soviet Bomber That Was Utterly Bonkers | Tupolev TB-3 [Historical Deep-Dive] 

Stopped playing it, because full of cheaters back then. Uninstalled it and restored the peace of mind.

Son of a bitch can you please shorten your fkn commercials?!

No!

Saying Warthunder can be run on a potato laptop is risky business. I tried to run it on my Dell from 2014, and that did not go well.

This video was far beyond anything I could've imagined when I (and probably others) first requested it many moons ago.

Like the Boing 737 ?

More or less most Soviet bombers and transports of that era resemble farm tractors with wings and propellers.

Yeah, but there's a difference between an American tractor and the DC-3, and a crappy Soviet tractor and the TB-3

@@Tomyironmane Most of the more successful Soviet tractors were indeed based on American designs. Their basic artillery tractor used in the "Great Patriotic War" was an almost direct copy of a Fordson tracked vehicle. But I'd not go so far as to say their farm tractors were "crappy". In most cases, they were very rugged and reliable, as with the generally bad weather in Russia, they have to be! OTOH, they weren't known for comfort, even though in most cases they were driven by women, simply because the tractor driver wasn't perceived as hard labor.

I mean they did win the war, the Me 262 did not :)

This is indeed correct, I should have followed up by stating that for the TB-3 they just drilled the holes with almost no follow up (most of the time, in latter years they did improve this). I just found the idea of a soviet engineer running around with a hand-drill post-flight to be highly comical.

As a Union Boilermaker Tubewelder we do it quite often ourselves. In my Craft it’s called Killing the Crack.

When I choose to wedge tenons in a sash I'm making I will sometimes drill holes at the ends of the saw kerfs to stop a split developing in the rail. Joiner here...

@@RexsHangar I mean to be fair the idea of a modern day USAF technician running around with a power drill seemingly randomly drilling holes into a jet fighter is even more hilarious to me :D

@@RexsHangar So, not an actual criticism, just all too typically a snide dig at a piece of Russian engineering.

Well, 1,5 meter thick wing also generated enough lift for this plane to be able to take off with FOUR fighters attached

Compared to virtually every other mid 1920's bomber design the early Tupolevs had sigificantly less drag.

Intolerable vibration in the 1920's must be epic...😳

@@Itsjustme-Justme Nope, they had a lot, and not just on account of wing thickness. Their wing and fuselage were built in seven (if I remember correct) big sections in order this plane to be suited for railway transportation - and since quality of fitting was low there were gaps up to half a meter wide (rarely this big though) inbetween It got better through time but still

​@@Itsjustme-Justme That's probably because drag got intimidated and decided to bother those other designs that weren't build on the aerodynamic principle of "COME ON IF YER THINK YER HARD ENOUG!!!

The stableness isnt modeled correctly then :D When you look at them formation-flying it seems like every single one is drunk

It's in war thunder too :)

Top Luftwaffe ace Erich Hartmann racked up a good deal of his 352 confirmed kills at the expense of Soviet bombers and transports.

@@PilotAwe I mean... interwar Russians, so they probably _are..._

@@seand.g423 just Russians....there thats enough. Doesnt matter what time period

The gunners probably wouldn't have sat there all the way, only during times when enemy fighter opposition was likely

Yeah, but as Soviet Russians they were used to this sort of thing.

It could not reach anywhere near really cold temperatures - service ceiling was only 3800 meters. That's with new engines, fine gas on a nice summer day. The Aviaarktika variants, built for extreme winter operations, had proper enclosed cockpits and none of this dustbin nonsense.

However, provided that they are shielded on all sides but the rear, they may have been even more comfortable than those positions at the back, which were exposed to the elements at all sides. Looks are not evrythring.

exposed cockpits and gunner positions were still a very common thing in the 20s and early 30s AFAIK?

The flying home base for air pirates!

It did! This plane was in “ The Windrise!” and shown in a parade during Jiro visited to Europe!

Russian problems require Russian solutions

What happens next with "precision" dive bombers I-16 ? Do they heroically smash in some target on enemy territories :-))

@@gorrugor256 Not ust that, the clown plane TB-3 will vomit out a hilariously large number of I-16 which in turn will vomit out a hilariously large number of 250ib bombs, and then it will crash. With confetti and gladiatorial entry music of course

@@gorrugor256 They return back to airfied

Andrei,s TB-3 was a step in the right direction,so much potential wrapped in that giant corrugated tin shed, but let down by its crap engines fed on equally crap petrol,. In the late 1920,s early 30,s Russian aero engineering had yet to divorce itself from its agricultural beginnings, clearly evident in the cloning of ex WW 1 Airco DH-4,s, Avro 504,s and other aeronautical rubbish, they happened to pick up. Andrei did not want to be a part of that thinking, so he started on something small, a tidy yet ulitarian fighter, just to get used to working with Mr Junker,s corrugated tin, then a tidy looking single engine two seat biplane light bomber to replace those re cycled DH-4,s,and take on Nikolai Polikarpov,s R-5. His big break came when the Russian Brass hats wanted a decent bomber to equip units of the VVS . Impressed at what Andrei had cooking on the stove, they tossed him a spec for a twin engine bomber the size of a Douglas DC-2. After a good deal of boiling stirring several pots then stoking said stove came up with the TB-1 a really cool looking cantilever twin engine monoplane, yes cats&kittens no excess of struts or wires holding it together like bloody budgie cage,all that in 1925-26.The Brass Hats liked what Andrei cooked up , apart from its tail plane braced by chicken wire,the open cockpits, crude divided tail skid undercarriage and tractor like engines twirling fixed pitch wooden propellers Andrei,s TB-1 was like nothing on earth extremely clean.Despite the crap tractor engines burning petrol you have second thoughts when filling the tank of your lawnmower . It showed decent performance bomb load in the trying conditions a good Siberian winter can offer.

Did the Ruskies invent bubble wrap too?

If you want to insert special forces but lack parachute silk, what can you do? Finnish ski patrols found quite a few soldiers head down in the snow, weighted down by their backpacks.

!!!!!!!!

@@donreed If you have something intelligent to say , say it .

@@svennoren9047 its because enemy dont see big parachute and guy falling for a pretty long time.

Funny you should mention that, because Tupolev actually did design a flying tank/bulldozer/tractor. Apparently, it had plenty of power, and unsurprisingly was nearly indestructible in and out of the air, but predictably was quite unstable and unmaneuverable.

By radius the end of the crack it reliefs the stress and stops further cracking. Yes it is the approved repair

Likely, every aircraft that Rex has ever flown in, had a crack repaired by a drill hole somewhere.

Or...SPEED TAPE! By "Gawd and Sonny Jesus", I shite you not.

Yes, I was structural repair in USAF in 69-73. Stop drilling in certain areas was common and the first repair taught. On top of a B-52 wing there are 2 foot long cracks with several stop drilled spots. If it cracked again, stop drill again. What ever works !

@@straybullitt drill holes and cable ties for me.

The slower the plane, the less bad it actually was. So with something huge like the TB3, things like the underwing turrets adds surprisingly little air resistance, despite looking like they should be huge breaks.

Yep, wind resistance and the drag it causes is geometric not arithmetic...

Well, when building war machines I believe making production and operation easier outranks that concern

@@ridhosamudro2199 not as true with aircraft as most other things since they're inherently high tech. The Soviets became much more concerned with rapid cheap production after the Germans invaded but in the 20s and 30s Stalin had delusions of competing with other world powers in the aerospace industry and in related combat fields. This wasnt Stalins only giant impractical bomber and he had paratroopers training when he didnt even have the ability to drop them in behind enemy lines or even transport most of them by air.

@@arthas640 Delusions? He succeeded. Hermann Goering bemoaned the USSR's production capability after visiting one of their aircraft factories that was able to produce a sizeable portion of Germany's entire production. As far as training paratroopers without sufficient airdrop capability goes the USSR was far from the only power that did this.

Yes!! The SPB missions were some of the coolest missions I’ve played in that game. Shame they didn’t have a stock campaign entirely dedicated to it

@@Eagle-od1im mistel mission too

Vodka can do wonderful things when designing planes

@@kittehgo Vodka can do wonderful things when...well, doing anything, really xD

This is the Soviet Union we're talking about here

We will never have an accurate number of deaths acreddited with the great Society experiment of Lenon, and Stalin. After the first 20 or so million die, counting seems unimportant.

Must agree

THis one was a stupid idea even with foresight.

@@GeorgeMonet Why? It did everything it was intended to do, plus a few things it was never designed for, and did its own part to help win World War 2 even though it was hopelessly obsolete by then... what more do you want from a plane?

@@GeorgeMonet It was the first all-metal 4-engined bomber in operational service in the world. It seems silly to look back with the advances made during WW2 and the Cold War but in the 1920s designers didn't really know what they were doing and they weren't going to learn it by drawing on a chalkboard.

Are you saying that full-metal 4-engine bomber was an idea which was not going to work? B-17 and B-29 would strongly disagree with you. For its time this was an innovative and progressive thinking. Don't forget that just 10-15 years before this project began people were flying on what can be described as chairs with paper wings. What did not help was devastation of the country by the revolution and following civil war, otherwise this project would have been completed much earlier and successfully replaced by the end of 1930s with newer designs. But it served its purpose well - moved forward the aircraft engineering school in the USSR, allowed people to get necessary experience and test many ideas. For example, in 1937 another Tupolev's design made non-stop flights from Moscow to Portland and from Moscow to California, and only 25 years after beginning of TB-3 project (i.e. in 1950) both Tupolev and Mikulin (the engine creator) made an extremely successful jet bomber Tu-16.

I'll ride in one of the dustbins!!!

CORRECTION: AN* _"...build _*_AN*_*_ air worthy, full scale replica."_

Wings of the Red Star narrated by Sir Peter Ustanov. 1990's Discovery Channel.

@@kellybreen5526 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Jm34OTrKmxc.html Close, but I think is was this, there was definitely a russian narrarator

Yes, yes, there is such a documentary series Wings of Russia, and also the armor of Russia, and the third Of all guns, I advise you to watch

Also: "there were 14 of them", so, maybe once a flight engineer had checked all gauges, already was time to go around and repeat the fuel checks...?

Using a stick to check fuel quantity is the preferred method. A watch will tell you fuel remaining. Hard to use a stick while underway. My first airplane didn't have a fuel quantity indicator. Fill it up and fill it again 2 1/2 hours later

It's not a repair and he never said why it was stupid, which is because it doesn't fix the underlying issue, especially on a new airframe.

Just climb out on the wings, comrade!

The extra-fun slippy slide, now with added friction burn!

Nah, that wasn't it. There were experiments of mounting man-sized boxes under R-5's lower wing with a pilot controlled mechanism that turns this box upside down when it's jumping time) Thing was called "Automatical Red Army soldier Ejector" and I'm NOT joking

​@@sergeireischel1610 they seriously invented drop tubes before Halo was even a thing.

I would looove to know more about those deployments in Romania, I never knew the concept ever went into actual combat!

are you familiar with the US Navy's attempts to do this in the 30s? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtiss_F9C_Sparrowhawk

In the 60's there was a proposal to hang two Folland Gnats under an up powered Vulcan. Each Gnat was to be armed with a couple of free falling nuclear bombs. Basically two manned cruise missiles. Wisely it was not proceeded with.

The SAB AB-20 would be my favourite batshit crazy French design, it makes the TB-3 look like a proper aircraft.

Baguettes with wings

In this plane's defense it was state of the art in 1930. Not so much, obviously, when it came time for it to see combat in 1941-45 but still shouldn't take anything away for how impressive a achievement this plane is for the time.

@@lafeelabriel True, the Russians give them credit are not affraid of going the distance on whatever they set their minds to in Aircraft my ultimate is the Ekranoplan..or the TU series.

In the Soviet Union you man what they tell you to man or you get shot and your family sent to Siberia.

Same method of "recruitment" for the rear gunner on an Il-2 Sturmovik: PUNISHMENT BRIGADES. Get a "volunteer", which actually weren't lacking, as the alternative was to clear minefields while under fire from the Germans or be the lead battalions assaulting their trenches. Give him enough training on how to fire and reload the weapon. Take him to the aircraft, and chain him to his position with NO parachute. If the aircraft gets hit, likely he's the first target for German fighters anyway, so why bother giving a perfectly good 'chute to a dead convict? The "incentive"? A complete PARDON after 25 missions, with restoration of rank and a return to his former unit, assuming that's still intact. Of course, not too many actually SURVIVED 25 missions, so either way, for Soviet Army personnel officers, a "winning combination".

@@selfdo considering these guys were also flight engineers, I'm gonna say probably no... a lot of WW2 bombers had horribly uncomfortable crew positions, and these guys were already obsolete by then. Remember they didn't spend the entire flight in those turrets, they'd only go down there if there was an actual risk of enemy attack.

Do you have any credible source for these claims?

Per chance, did you see my comment about this no the TB-1 video?

missing those war thunder videos!

they should do a ww1 event with some pre wars

The nostalgia. ^^

Still remeber the Finish winter map on te onpine servers. Good times indeed.

Il2 1946 is still great, modders keeping it relatively modern to this day

@@obamatraore2339 Swithced to WoT and never looked back. I miss the force feedback joystick, but K got to play with tanks instead...

I was thinking steampunk, good description.

Hardly; yet another gross exaggeration

They weren't used in the Winter War, those were DB-3s and SBs

@@JGCR59 looks like the Swede volunteer squadron shot one down 😊

I suspect that there is some confusion between TB-3 and DB-3. The latter were more numerous, they flew daytime missions, and took the most hits. The far less common TB-3 flew mostly by night, and their losses were accordingly smaller. One TB-3 was shot by flak, another by fighters. All other losses were non-combat accidents.

Fucoro thisudesu

That and Khalkin Gol

Ya know, I believe it!

Might want to look into some limited run stuff It actually exists in a Ukrainian box but it's old and expensive

soviets like their potatoes lol

@@emuthestreamerbtw9393 yeah, well. Her words May sound odd to a modern people bu she grew up in 1930's Finnish countryside. Potatoes drumming a tin vessel is The closest sounds she could Link it to, And tbh at least to me its a very good way of describing it.

Not like paratroopers are efficient

@@phunkracy There's inefficient, and then there's OMG, WTF are you DOING?!

@@lairdcummings9092 that's every failed paratrooper operation. it's either total disaster or a total victory

Kind of like the grab bars on the sides of T-34s for infantry to hitch a ride

@@mcuddy799 it's actually perfectly logical. Would you like to be on a tank that gets pounded by the enemy?