I know very little about the air war on the eastern front, but I believe that the type of area bombing etc carried out by the Brits and the USAF in the west was not common over there.

Am I correct?

Didn't the Ryussians at least try and take out the Rumanian oil fields the Germans relied on so heavily?

I think the Brits have bombed Ploesti even more than the Russians, I'm not sure though. Russia didn't have that many home-made bombers, it was more the smaller divebombers (vs tanks) and fighters, but then again they could probably have gotten bombers from the Americans.

The SU did have strategic bomber forces, the moderately succesfully designed IL-4, and the flawed Petlyakov Pe-8.

Strategic bombing missions conducted by the SU were limited to raids on German cities like Königsberg and Berlin, but were small and few in numbers compared to Anglo-American raids.

Nazi Germany had a small strategic bomber force, as Hitler in Göring during the 1930's development stage of the Luftwaffe failed to grasp the potential of strategic boombing. Luckily, they saw only the tactical side, considering bombers as little more than mobile artillery.

Anyone interested in Soviet / Russian military equipment might want to check out this site: Sword of the Motherland (http://www.russianwarrior.com/)

Originally posted by Panda
Nazi Germany had a small strategic bomber force, as Hitler in Göring during the 1930's development stage of the Luftwaffe failed to grasp the potential of strategic boombing. Luckily, they saw only the tactical side, considering bombers as little more than mobile artillery.

While I take your point about the configuration of the Luftwaffe, it could be argued that the Germans were largely right; their air force was most useful when it stuck to a broad tactical role. Ditto the Allies.

R.III

The Americans (B-24s) and the British (Lancasters) both launched repeated raids against the Ploesti oil fields in Romania, from bases in North Africa and Italy. The Americans also bombed Budapest after the Nazi occupation of Hungary, and they bombed Sofia for Bulgaria's attacks on the bombing runs against Ploesti.

There was never an equivelent on the Eastern Front of the sustained Allied strategic bombing of Germany, and neither the Germans nor the Soviets put much effort into long-range bombers. The reason I suspect was that industrial centers in the East were less concentrated, more scattered and in any event many of these countries relied heavily on imports for their industrial wares - making bombing targets scarce. Most aerial bombing in the East concentrated on targeting moving armies.

Looks like the topic was covered, but let's add some nice links for Rodgers to check out. ;)

Some nice data on the IL-4:
http://www.aeronautics.ru/il4.htm
http://www.warbirdsresourcegroup.org/AARG/ilyushinil4.html
http://www.kotfsc.com/aircraft/il4.htm
http://www.ctrl-c.liu.se/misc/ram/il-4.html

You can find links to several articles about Russian air operations here:
http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6453/wwii.html
Here is a discussion about Soviet night operations, which includes air ops:
http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/Sasso/SASSO.asp

A nice overview of Sovet Air operations throughout the war:
http://www.sci.fi/~fta/russia2.htm

Originally posted by Vrylakas
The Americans (B-24s) and the British (Lancasters) both launched repeated raids against the Ploesti oil fields in Romania, from bases in North Africa and Italy.
In an interesting sidenote, the German commander charged with the defense of Ploesti (correctly) guessed enemy bombers would fly through a narrow valley that led to the industrial areas. This valley contained a railroad track down its length. The Germans ingeniously modified a locomotive with many anti-aircraft guns, and during the allied attack, steamed it beneath the path of the bombers and wreacked havoc upon them.
In the end, the bombers destroyed the train, and bombed their targets, but at tremendous cost.
Even after numerous air attacks, Ploesti never lost much in the way of production, until being overrun by the Red Army.

good stuff, as usual - I will peruse those links when I have a spare moment. Thanks guys :goodjob: :D

Anytime.

Drop by more often. ;)

Originally posted by Rodgers
Didn't the Ryussians at least try and take out the Rumanian oil fields the Germans relied on so heavily?

Russian aicraft bombarded cities like Iasi, Chisinau and even our capital Bucuresti, mostly in night raids.

Regards

Sometime in 1944 the USSR requested a large number of B-24s in order to form their own strategic bomber force. However, this request got turned down. The reason given was that the US and UK wanted to avoid uncessesary duplication of allied efforts. However, the real reason was that the west, quite reasonably, didn't want Stalin to posses a heavy bomber force.

Later in the war the Soviets impounded any B-29s which made emergancy landings in Siberia [the crews were sent back though], and the Soviets eventually reverse-engineered these bombers in order to produce the TU-4 Bull, which was identical to the B-29, even to the point that it had the same engine problems!

Here's a picture of the TU-4:

http://aeroweb.lucia.it/~agretch/Monino/mon94js_tu4.jpg

it's looks like a B29!! as in Boeing 29 as in made in Seattle USA

It is.

The Soviets spent years working on an exact copy, that was completed in the early 1950s, by which time the USAF had moved on to bigger bombers like the B-36.

All through the 1950s the Soviet copy was their delivery system for nuclear weapons, untill the ICBM age.

They never used it in actual combat, but came close a few times.

The Soviets also gave a couple of dozen TU-4's to the Chinese, who operated them untill the 60s or 70s.