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General Specifications
Wingspan: 128 ft. 3.3 in. (39.10 m.) Length: 77 ft. 4.75 in. (23.59 m.) Height: 20 ft. 4 in. (6.2 m.) Empty Weight: 36,728 lbs. (16,294 kg) Max T/O Weight: 69,268 lbs. (31,420 kg) Engine: Four Mikulin Am-35A liquid-cooled engines Horsepower: 1,350 hp Guns: Two 20mm ShVAK cannon, and four 7.62mm (.30) ShKAS machine guns Crew: 11 ___________________________________________________________
The Pe-8 was a great might-have-been of Soviet aviation. Crippled by a lack of clear strategic doctrine in the use of heavy bombers by the Soviet military and by indifference on the part of Joseph Stalin, it languished instead of becoming a potent military force.
Soviet military doctrine prior to WWII was shaped by its experience in the Spanish Civil War, where Russian fliers flew against the best of the Luftwaffe. The Soviet military incorrectly concluded (as did the Luftwaffe) that while there was a lot of evidence to support a tactical (battlefield) aviation presence, strategic air forces of the kind foreseen by U.S. visionaries Hap Arnold and Carl Spaatz were too theoretical. Of course, it did not help that the two generals who primarily supported the Dalno Bombardirovchnaya Aviatsiya (long-range bomber aviation), Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky and General Yakov Alksnis, were executed in one of Stalin's purges. Additionally, the plane's designer, Mikhailovich Petlyakov, was imprisoned in a detention center in Factory No. 156.
On paper, the Pe-8 was competitive with the British and U.S. heavies, but was handicapped by several arbitrary design changes ordered by Stalin. Initially, the plane's four liquid-cooled engines breathed supercharged air from a single supercharger, which was powered by an auxiliary M-100 engine in the fuselage. Stalin ordered the installation of turbo-supercharged V-12 diesel engines, which increased range but had an unfortunate propensity to stop suddenly in high-altitude flight. This was a factor in the Pe-8's most famous raid on Berlin. Fourteen Pe-8s, under the command of Major General Mikhail Vassilievich Vodopyanov, took off from Kazan at 9:15 P.M. The next day Vodopyanov reported to Stalin and his advisors, "Eleven of our aircraft reached the target, six aircraft regained their base, one was shot down by our own anti-aircraft artillery, one is missing, and the rest made forced landings due to engine failures." Then in an act of courage, he continued, "I'm ready to tear out those damned diesels with my teeth! Engines must be reliable for operational flying, and flying with these diesels means the loss of aircraft and men!" The room was utterly silent in the wake of his attack on a personal decision of Stalin's. Shortly afterwards Vodopyanov was replaced as commander of his squadron and put on testing the Pe-8 with new radial engines. His courage was not enough to save the Pe-8 program, though. It was discontinued in October of 1941.
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