Mikhail Maslov

Authoritarian countries sometimes put a lot of money into projects that don’t make a lot of sense, often because a leader figure has been persuaded. The Soviet Union’s Zveno aircraft project nibbled around the edges of a good idea. Aircraft engineer Vladimir Vakhmistrov, whose previous experience was designing gliders, persuaded the Red Air Force to build and test Zveno (combined) aircraft, with a bomber carrying one or more fighters. Starting with the TB-1 twin engine bomber and two I-4 fighters mounted above the wings, the project eventually worked its way up to a TB-3 four engine heavy bomber with up to five fighter aircraft (two above the wings, two below the wings, and one that would dock to the fuselage underside in midair). The project survived the liquidation of one of its sponsors, Marshall Tukhachevsky, during the 1930s purges, but not the build up to war in 1940 and it was terminated to switch resources to the development of aircraft expected to be more useful. However, a number of Zveno aircraft had been built and when Barbarossa took off it was decided they might as well be used. The final version was a TB-3 with two I-16s under the wings; each I-16 carried two 250kg bombs and was set up as a dive bomber. The idea was the combined aircraft would fly until it was almost within interception range, release the fighters to continue to the _target and bomb, and both the mothership and fighters flew back to base independently. The aircraft flew out of Odessa and had some success against _targets in Rumania, notably destroying an important bridge over the Danube in a dive-bombing attack. However, as the Germans pressed and the situation became more desperate the Zvenos were thrown into less than optimum situations; the TB-3 was an ungainly and obsolete aircraft on its own and hanging a couple of fighters from it didn’t help its performance any. There don’t seem to be very good records of the fates of the final Zveno units.

Author Mikhail Maslov is an aviation engineer with an interest in aviation history and historic aircraft restoration. No translator is credited, but Maslov’s English is excellent; although not perfectly idiomatic there’s nowhere where it isn’t clear. The book has numerous photographs and line drawings, and nicely done color plates on the front and back covers. There are footnotes, but no bibliography or index. Pricey even from a remainder house but worth it for a thorough description of an interesting historical aircraft.… (more)