Ramming as a method of air combat remains the last argument to which pilots resort to hopeless situation. Not everyone manages to survive after it. Nevertheless, some of our pilots resorted to it several times.
The world's first ram
Nesterov had long believed that an enemy airplane could be destroyed by hitting the planes with its wheels. This was a necessary measure - at the beginning of the war, planes were not equipped with machine guns, and aviators flew on missions with pistols and carbines.
On September 8, 1914, in the Lvov region, Pyotr Nesterov rammed a heavy Austrian aircraft under the control of Franz Malina and Baron Friedrich von Rosenthal, which was flying over Russian positions on reconnaissance missions.
Nesterov, in a light and fast Moran airplane, took off into the air, caught up with the Albatross and rammed it, striking it from top to bottom in the tail. This happened in front of the local residents.
The Austrian plane crashed. Upon impact, Nesterov, who was in a hurry to take off and was not wearing his seat belts, flew out of the cockpit and crashed. According to another version, Nesterov jumped out of the crashed plane himself, hoping to survive.
First ram of the Finnish War
The first and only ram of the Soviet-Finnish War was carried out by senior lieutenant Yakov Mikhin, a graduate of the 2nd Borisoglebsk military aviation school of pilots named after Chkalov. This happened on February 29, 1940 in the afternoon. 24 Soviet aircraft I-16 and I-15 attacked the Finnish Ruokolahti airfield.
To repel the attack, 15 fighters took off from the airfield.
A fierce battle ensued. Flight commander Yakov Mikhin, in a frontal attack with the wing of the aircraft, hit the fin of the Fokker, the famous Finnish ace Lieutenant Tatu Gugananti. The keel broke off from the impact. The Fokker crashed to the ground and the pilot died.
Yakov Mikhin, with a broken plane, managed to reach the airfield and safely landed his donkey. It must be said that Mikhin went through the entire Great Patriotic War, and then continued to serve in the Air Force.
The first ram of the Great Patriotic War
It is believed that the first ram of the Great Patriotic War was carried out by 31-year-old senior lieutenant Ivan Ivanov, who on June 22, 1941 at 4:25 am in an I-16 (according to other sources - on an I-153) over the Mlynov airfield near Dubno rammed a Heinkel bomber ", after which both planes fell. Ivanov died. For this feat he was awarded the title of Hero Soviet Union.
His primacy is disputed by several pilots: junior lieutenant Dmitry Kokorev, who rammed a Messerschmitt in the Zambro area 20 minutes after Ivanov’s feat and remained alive.
On June 22 at 5:15, junior lieutenant Leonid Buterin died over Western Ukraine (Stanislav), ramming a Junkers-88.
Another 45 minutes later, an unknown pilot on a U-2 died over Vygoda after ramming a Messerschmitt.
At 10 am, a Messer was rammed over Brest and Lieutenant Pyotr Ryabtsev survived.
Some pilots resorted to ramming several times. Hero of the Soviet Union Boris Kovzan made 4 rams: over Zaraisk, over Torzhok, over Lobnitsa and Staraya Russa.
The first "fire" ram
A “fire” ram is a technique when a pilot directs a downed aircraft at ground targets. Everyone knows the feat of Nikolai Gastello (pictured), who flew the plane at a tank column with fuel tanks. But the first “fiery” ram was carried out on June 22, 1941 by 27-year-old senior lieutenant Pyotr Chirkin from the 62nd assault aviation regiment. Chirkin directed the damaged I-153 at the convoy German tanks approaching the city of Stryi (Western Ukraine).
In total, during the war years, more than 300 people repeated his feat.
There is an inconspicuous monument not far from Sinimäe, right next to the Tallinn highway.
Jr. Lieutenant Ismailbek Taranchiev is also not as famous as Captain Gastello. Installed at the site of his feat modest monument, which is a memorial slab on a granite stone. The pilot was only 21 years old...
T Aranchiev Ismailbek - pilot of the 566th assault aviation regiment of the 277th assault regiment aviation division 13th Air Army of the Leningrad Front, junior lieutenant.
Born on April 6, 1923 in the village of Bashkungey, now Bishkek region of Kyrgyzstan, into a peasant family. Kyrgyz. Graduated from 8th grade.
In the Red Army since June 1941. In 1943 he graduated from the 3rd Chkalov Military Aviation Pilot School. In the battles of the Great Patriotic War since January 1944. Member of the CPSU(b)/CPSU since 1944.
Pilot of the 566th Assault Aviation Regiment (277th Assault Aviation Division, 13th air force, Leningrad Front) junior lieutenant Ismailbek Taranchiev by March 18, 1944, carried out thirty-five successful attack sorties on an Il-2 aircraft defensive structures, equipment, manpower, railways, airfields and other enemy targets.
On February 26, 1944, as part of a group during an attack on an airfield in the Estonian city of Tartu, Taranchiev personally set fire to three enemy aircraft.
On March 18, 1944, as part of a group of four aircraft, carrying out a command combat mission to attack enemy troops and equipment in the Sinimäe area, junior lieutenant Ismailbek Taranchiev sent his winged vehicle engulfed in flames, hit by enemy anti-aircraft artillery, into a cluster of enemy tanks.
To the title of Hero of the Soviet Union glorious son Kyrgyz people introduced in March 1944.
U Order of the President of the USSR dated May 5, 1991 for courage and heroism shown in the fight against German fascist invaders in the Great Patriotic War of 1941 - 1945, junior lieutenant Taranchiev Ismailbek was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. The Hero's relatives were awarded the Order of Lenin and the medal " Golden Star" (№ 11648).
Awarded the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, the Red Star, and a medal.
First female ram
Soviet pilot Ekaterina Zelenko became the only woman in the world to perform a ram. During the war years, she managed to make 40 combat missions and participated in 12 air battles. On September 12, 1941, she made three missions. Returning from a mission in the Romny area, she was attacked by German Me-109s. She managed to shoot down one plane, and when the ammunition ran out, she rammed the enemy plane, destroying it. She herself died. She was 24 years old. For her feat, Ekaterina Zelenko was awarded the Order of Lenin, and in 1990 she was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
First ram by jet
A native of Stalingrad, Captain Gennady Eliseev carried out his ramming attack on a MiG-21 fighter on November 28, 1973. On this day in air space The Soviet Union was invaded over the Mugan Valley of Azerbaijan by the Iranian Phantom-II, which carried out reconnaissance on behalf of the United States. Captain Eliseev took off to intercept from the airfield in Vaziani.
Air-to-air missiles did not fire desired result: Phantom released heat traps. To carry out the order, Eliseev decided to ram and struck the tail of the Phantom with his wing. The plane crashed and its crew was detained. Eliseev's MiG began to descend and crashed into a mountain. Gennady Eliseev was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. The crew of the reconnaissance aircraft - an American colonel and an Iranian pilot - were handed over to the Iranian authorities 16 days later.
The first ramming of a transport aircraft
On July 18, 1981, a transport plane of the Argentine airline Canader CL-44 violated the USSR border over the territory of Armenia. There was a Swiss crew on board the plane. The deputy of the squadron, pilot Valentin Kulyapin, was tasked with imprisoning the violators. The Swiss did not respond to the pilot’s demands. Then the order came to shoot down the plane. The distance between the Su-15TM and the “transport aircraft” was small for the launch of R-98M missiles. The intruder walked towards the border. Then Kulyapin decided to go for the ram.
On the second attempt, he hit the Canadara's stabilizer with his fuselage, after which he safely ejected from the damaged aircraft, and the Argentine fell into a tailspin and fell just two kilometers from the border, his crew was killed. It later turned out that the plane was carrying weapons.
For his feat, the pilot was awarded the Order of the Red Star.
Ram (air)
Poster from the First World War “The feat and death of the pilot Nesterov”
There were often cases when a damaged aircraft was sent by the pilot to the ground or water target(Gastello, Nikolai Frantsevich, Gribovsky, Alexander Prokofievich). Japanese troops during World War II had special units kamikaze pilots rammed enemy ships with planes loaded with explosives.
July 18, 1981 - the Soviet Su-15TM interceptor (pilot - Kulyapin, Valentin Aleksandrovich) rammed a CL-44 transport aircraft (number LV-JTN, Transportes Aereo Rioplatense, Argentina), which was making a secret transport flight on the route Tel Aviv - Tehran and unintentionally invaded the airspace of the USSR over the territory of Armenia. All 4 crew members of the CL-44 were killed, including a British national. Kulyapin successfully ejected, although, according to his later recollections, the plane obeyed the controls, the engine was working, so he could try to reach the airfield and land. For the ram he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. This is the second case of ramming a border violator with a jet in the history of the Soviet Air Force.
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See what “ram (air)” is in other dictionaries:
One of the air combat techniques. It consists of striking an enemy aircraft with a propeller or wing of an aircraft (after expending ammunition). It is the highest manifestation of the pilot’s courage and will. First TV by plane carried out by a Russian... ... Encyclopedia of technology
air ram Encyclopedia "Aviation"
air ram- aerial ram one of the techniques of air combat. It consists of striking an enemy aircraft with a propeller or wing of an aircraft (after expending ammunition). It is the highest manifestation of the pilot’s courage and will. First TV... ... Encyclopedia "Aviation"
RAM, in military affairs, a weapon, device or combat technique intended for the destruction of defensive structures, ships, aircraft, tanks and other equipment of the enemy. In ancient times, a siege weapon used for destruction was called a ram. encyclopedic Dictionary
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The main form of fighter aircraft operations. Air combat is carried out by single aircraft (single combat) or groups of aircraft (group combat) with the aim of destroying the enemy or repelling his attacks. Variety... ...Marine Dictionary
USSR postage stamp of 1943 with a picture of Talalikhin's night ram Ramming is an air combat technique intended to disable an enemy aircraft or airship by colliding or cutting off the control planes with the propeller blades (in the event of... ... Wikipedia
MENSBY
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Gastello's feat became one of the most famous in the history of the Great Patriotic War, and the Gastello surname became a household name. In total, during the Great Patriotic War, many rams were carried out on enemy equipment...
110 years ago, on May 6, 1907, Soviet military pilot, hero of the Great Patriotic War Nikolai Gastello was born. His “fiery ram” on June 26, 1941, when the pilot, sitting at the controls of a plane shot down by the Germans, directed it directly at a column of enemy equipment, became a symbol of courage and willingness to die for his homeland.
The feat of N. F. Gastello became one of the most famous in the history of the Great Patriotic War, and the surname Gastello became a household name. Pilots who committed a “fiery ram” began to be called “Gastellites.” In total, during the Great Patriotic War, 595 “classic” air rams were carried out (by aircraft), 506 rams by aircraft on ground targets, 16 sea rams (this number may include rams by naval pilots on enemy surface and coastal targets) and 160 tank rams. There are also other numbers.
Origin
Nikolai Frantsevich Gastello was born on April 23 (May 6), 1907 in Moscow, in the working-class district of Presnya. His father is Franz Pavlovich Gastello, a Belarusian by origin (according to another version - a Russian German), a native of a poor peasant family, came to Moscow in 1900 from the village of Pluzhiny, Novogrudok district, Minsk province, in search of income and a better life. He welded metal in special cupola furnaces (cupola worker) in foundries on railway. This work was physically extremely difficult, but it also paid well. Mother - Anastasia Semyonovna Kutuzova, Russian by origin, was a seamstress. Nikolai was the first child in a working-class family, his sister Nina was born in 1912, and his brother Victor in 1913 (died in September 1942).
In 1915-1918 Nikolai Gastello studied at the 3rd Sokolniki city men's school named after A. S. Pushkin. In 1918, due to famine, as part of a group of Muscovite schoolchildren, he was evacuated to Bashkiria, but in next year returned to Moscow and to his school, where he studied until 1921. Labor activity Nikolai Gastello began in 1923, becoming a carpenter's apprentice. In 1924, the Gastello family moved to Murom, where Nikolai became a worker at the Locomotive Plant named after. F.E. Dzerzhinsky, where his father also worked. In 1928 he joined the CPSU(b). In 1930, the Gastello family returned to Moscow, and Nikolai went to work at the First State Mechanical Plant of Construction Machines named after May 1st.
Service
In May 1932 he was drafted into the Red Army. Sent to study at an aviation pilot school in the city of Lugansk. Studied in the 11th military aviation school pilots named after the Proletariat of Donbass. For the first time he took to the skies on a U-2 plane. Then he flew combat aircraft - R-1 and I-5. In December 1933, the School of Military Pilots graduated. Nikolai skillfully piloted the I-5 fighter, but to the surprise of the command, the graduate asked to be sent to serve in bomber aviation. “My dream is heavy aviation, big ships", he said. And his request was granted. In 1933-1938. served in the 82nd Heavy Bomber Squadron of the 21st Heavy Bomber Aviation Brigade, based in Rostov-on-Don. Having started flying as a co-pilot on the TB-3 bomber, Nikolai Gastello began piloting the plane independently in November 1934.
In 1938, as a result of the reorganization of the unit, N. Gastello ended up in the 1st Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment (TBAP). In May 1939, he became a flight commander, and a little over a year later, he became deputy squadron commander. In 1939, he took part in the battles at Khalkhin Gol as part of the 150th high-speed bomber aviation regiment, which was assigned a squadron of the 1st TBAP. We had to deal more with transporting troops to Khalkhin Gol, equipment, weapons, ammunition, food, and transporting the wounded to Chita. It was hard labour, the work lasted 12-16 hours a day. During breaks, the pilots slept right in the cockpits of their planes or on the grass under the wing. In addition to transport missions, there were also combat missions.
Nikolai Gastello participated in Soviet-Finnish war and operations to annex Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the USSR. The main task for pilots Karelian Isthmus was to directly support the offensive of our troops with air bombing strikes and help break through the Mannerheim Line. Aviation played big role in breaking through enemy fortifications. TB-3 bombers flew at a low altitude above the enemy’s front line and, with pinpoint accuracy, at a distance of only 500-700 meters from our troops, delivered targeted bombing attacks on Finnish fortifications, breaking and exploding enemy pillboxes and bunkers. Immediately after the air strike, our infantry went forward and occupied the destroyed enemy fortifications, while the enemy still had no time to come to his senses. This was a very dangerous operation: it was more suitable not for heavy, but for front-line high-speed attack aircraft, but the fact is that it was necessary to drop heavy bombs in order to break through and blow up the enemy’s strong fortifications.
In the fall of 1940, the aviation unit was relocated to western borders, to the city of Velikiye Luki, and then to the air town of Borovskoye near Smolensk. In 1940, N. F. Gastello was awarded the rank of captain. In the spring of 1941, Nikolai Gastello, having undergone appropriate retraining, mastered the DB-3f aircraft.
He met the beginning of the Great Patriotic War as the commander of the 4th squadron of the 207th DBAP of the 3rd Long-Range Bomber Air Corps, then commanded the 2nd squadron of the same unit. In the early morning of June 24, 1941, when at the Borovskoye airfield engineers, technicians and junior aviation specialists were intensely preparing their bombers for combat mission, the piercing wail of a siren was heard. A single Yu-88 bomber flew near the airfield, carrying out reconnaissance in the direction of Smolensk. A few minutes later an enemy bomber appeared with opposite direction and, flying near the airfield, opened machine-gun fire from all of its firing installations at our aircraft from low altitude. The commander of the 4th squadron, Captain Nikolai Frantsevich Gastello, bravely rushed to the bomber, jumped onto the upper turret and fired a long machine-gun burst at the enemy who was storming the airfield. The damaged Junkers was forced to descend and landed on a collective farm field.
The German pilots were caught. Captive German pilot then he stated that he was very surprised by such an unexpected turn of events: “I flew a lot over France, Belgium, Holland, Norway. As soon as a German plane appeared there, everyone fled different sides. And your pilots even fire at us from the ground. You have not only soldiers, but local peasants and peasant women rushed at us with clubs. An incomprehensible country, an incomprehensible war...”
Junkers 88A-1
Feat
For the combat initiative shown in repelling a German air raid on our airfield and the downing of an enemy bomber, the air division command nominated Captain Nikolai Frantsevich Gastello for a government award. But before they had time to complete the documents, the pilot made a new, truly immortal feat, forever glorifying his name.
On the third day of the war, the 207th regiment flew out on its next combat mission in full force. He bombed the advancing enemy troops in the Pruzhany-Kobrin area. The regiment was definitely bombed, but lost ten aircraft. Captain Gastello's plane was also shot down, and the navigator was seriously wounded. Gastello reached the airfield and landed the damaged car. On the fourth day of the war, the plane was being repaired, but Captain Gastello flew another plane and bombed the enemy’s Vilna airfield. On the fifth day of the war, June 26, Captain Gastello received an order for a combat flight as a unit - to strike bomb strike by enemy troops marching from Vilno to Minsk.
The flight took place in the afternoon. The crew of Senior Lieutenant Fyodor Vorobyov flew together with Captain Gastello. He described everything that happened. We walked at an altitude of 1000 meters. A little over an hour later, the unit discovered a large enemy motorized column south of Radoshkovichi. Gastello chose largest cluster refueled German tanks, vehicles and attacked the enemy. Navigator Anatoly Burdenyuk accurately placed the bombs on target. The squadron commander makes the second, third approach, the air gunner-radio operator, senior sergeant Alexey Kalinin, and the squadron adjutant (chief of staff), Lieutenant Grigory Skorobogaty, who took the place of the hatch gunner, fire at the fleeing Germans.
Moving away from the target, turning towards the sun, Vorobyov noticed smoke coming from Gastello’s plane. The plane, engulfed in flames, tilted to the right, but Gastello managed to right the car and signaled Vorobyov to return to base. The deputy squadron commander, senior lieutenant Fyodor Vorobyov, and the navigator, lieutenant Anatoly Rybas, witnessed the feat of the Gastello crew. Before their eyes, the plane, engulfed in flames, turned towards a cluster of German tanks and vehicles, went into a dive and crashed into the thick of enemy equipment. Until the last moment, lieutenants A. A. Burdenyuk, G. N. Skorobogaty and senior sergeant A. A. Kalinin fired at the enemy from the blazing plane. They fought to the end.
As the commander of the air corps N. S. Skripko (“For targets near and far”) recalled: “When the commander of the 42nd long-range bomber air division, Colonel M. Kh. Borisenko reported heroic feat Captain Nikolai Gastello, who committed the fiery ram, I ordered to send a plane with a photo installation and photograph from low altitude the place where the crew died. Literally the next day, Brigade Commissar A.K. Odnovol and I held in our hands a photograph in which we could clearly see the crater formed at the site of the plane hitting the ground, parts of the ship thrown away during the explosion and many burned around fascist tanks and cars. The enemy paid a heavy price for the death of the legendary Gastello crew!
I held the photograph in my hands and thought what enormous moral strength a person needs to do such a thing. sacrificial feat! All the pilots of the formation were shocked by the heroic death of the crew, experiencing both deep sadness and pride. It’s sad that we lost such a good, sincere and sympathetic pilot as Nikolai Gastello and members of his crew. And pride - because with their feat Gastello and his crew demonstrated unsurpassed moral spirit, valor and fighting qualities Soviet warrior. Nothing, not even the threat of death, can force him to submit to the enemy. Until the last minute of his life, he remembers his high duty to his Motherland, and even by his death he asserts victory!”
July 6, 1941 in a message Soviet information bureau, broadcast on the radio, the whole country learned about the fiery ram of the pilot. Exactly a month after the feat, on July 26, Captain Gastello was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. The Motherland awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, to members of the heroic crew - navigator A. A. Burdenyuk, air gunner-radio operator A. A. Kalinin, hatch gunner G. N. Skorobogatiy.
Long-range bomber DB-3f (IL-4). The crew of N. F. Gastello accomplished their feat on an aircraft of this type
The myth of the first “fiery ram”
It is worth noting that several myths are associated with the feat of the Gastello crew. Without questioning or downplaying the significance of the feat of the Soviet bomber crew, it is still necessary to remember a number of historical facts. So, for a long time It was believed that it was Nikolai Gastello who was the first in the history of aviation to accomplish such a feat. That’s why the pilots who attacked enemy equipment during the war were called Gastelloites, which is why most Soviet citizens knew who Captain Nikolai Gastello was. But, as it turned out, Gastello was not the first, and not even the second or third pilot to commit a “fiery ram.”
The first incident of a “fire ram” in Soviet history occurred on August 5, 1939 at Far East in the valley of the Khalkhin Gol River during the military clash between the USSR and the Mongolian People's Republic on the one hand, and Japan and Manchukuo on the other. On this day, the battalion commissar of the 150th Bomber Regiment, Mikhail Anisimovich Yuyukin, took his vehicle into the air to carry out a combat mission. While bombing enemy positions, the plane was hit by a shell, which set fire to the right engine. The pilots failed to put out the flames, and then the commander made his final decision. He ordered the crew to abandon the plane and directed a flaming car full of bombs towards a Japanese bunker. As the only crew member who managed to leave the cabin of the vehicle, navigator Alexander Morkovkin, recalls: “I was sure that, even losing consciousness in the suffocation of the flame, battalion commissar Yuyukin would direct his dying vehicle, which had turned into a torch, into the very center of enemy firing points. That’s what happened.” In August 1939 for heroism and exemplary performance combat mission Mikhail Yuyukin was awarded the order Lenin, and members of his crew - senior lieutenant Alexander Morkovkin and foreman Pyotr Razboinikov - were awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
A similar feat was accomplished in 1940 during the Soviet-Finnish war. Then the plane of Captain Konstantin Orlov, which caught fire from a shell hit, was sent into the very thick of enemy infantry and equipment. This happened on March 11, 1940. And the first ramming of a ground target in the history of the Great Patriotic War was carried out by the flight commander of the 62nd assault air regiment P. S. Chirkin June 22, 1941. He took the car into the air from an airfield near the village of Lisyatichi to conduct aerial reconnaissance and came under fire from the Nazis. When P. Chirkin’s car was hit, he directed it towards an enemy tank column. On June 24, the crew of the flight commander of the 33rd high-speed bomber regiment, senior lieutenant Grigory Khrapar, carried out another ram. This time, a burning plane destroyed a crossing near the city of Brody. And on June 25, Captain Avdeev rammed a burning car into German tanks. Obviously, there could have been more such cases, since in war conditions not all the exploits of pilots who ended their lives in fire could be recorded and confirmed.
Thus, Gastello’s feat was far from the first. However, it was the feat of the Gastello crew that was taken as a model, and it was used by state propaganda. There is nothing wrong with this; it is common wartime practice. Examples of heroism and self-sacrifice, similar to the feat of Gastello, among Soviet pilots were not isolated cases. According to military researchers, in the first year of the war alone, 152 feats were recorded, when the pilots’ last weapon was a dying aircraft. In total, during the years of the Great Patriotic War, Soviet pilots performed “fire rams” about 500 times. 505 crews took part in them, among which the first place belongs to the bomber crews, their number is 288. More than 800 people during the Great Patriotic War became heroes of the “fiery rams”. Therefore, remembering the feat of the Gastello crew, we should not forget that hundreds more pilots are worthy of our memory, respect and gratitude.
Another myth created in works of art, it is believed that Gastello carried out the ram while piloting a fighter. This misconception arose due to the fact that in the post-war fiction The main heroes of aviation were fighter pilots. A number of works were created, for example, the play “Gastello” by I. V. Shtok (1947), in which N. F. Gastello performed his feat on a fighter.
Denigration
For a long time, citizens of the USSR strongly associated the air ram with the name of Captain Nikolai Gastello. However, when the “era of change” began - the destruction of the USSR, Soviet civilization, its historical symbols, heroes, they tried to denigrate Gastello’s feat.
In the 1990s, publications appeared that stated that the feat was accomplished by the crew of A. S. Maslov. Captain Maslov is from the same unit as Gastello - commander of the 1st aviation squadron of the 207th long-range bomber aviation regiment of the 42nd long-range bomber aviation division of the 3rd long-range bomber aviation corps. And its crew also died on June 26, 1941, when striking an enemy convoy on the Molodechno-Radoshkovichi highway. According to one version, Maslov also directed a burning car towards a concentration of enemy equipment on the highway. Through the efforts of supporters of Maslov’s version of the ram, in 1992 he was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, and in 1996 - the title “Hero of Russia”.
According to the grandson of the Hero of the Soviet Union, named after his grandfather, Nikolai Viktorovich Gastello, all this is “the result of ignorance and painful ambitions.” On this day, 14 bomber crews were killed in this area, attacking the enemy without fighter cover, and all of them were heroes who fulfilled their duty to the end. Gastello's feat had two witnesses - the commander of the leading crew, Senior Lieutenant Vorobyov, and the navigator, Lieutenant Rybas. In addition, it is noted that the very fact of the discovery of the wreckage of Maslov’s bomber and the remains of its crew indicates that the plane did not crash into a convoy of vehicles with fuel and ammunition, but fell on soft ground. Maslov’s plane did not ram a mechanized convoy, as it fell 180 meters from the road: the car crashed into the ground during a low-level flight, or Maslov tried to ram the enemy convoy, but failed.
The world's first aerial ram was used on September 8, 1914 against an Austrian reconnaissance aircraft. During the Great Patriotic War, the first ramming occurred on the day it began - Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov rammed a German Heinkel, and himself died in the process. The last ramming in the history of the USSR occurred on July 18, 1981. We will tell you about it.
This is what the website aeroram.narod.ru, dedicated to air rams, writes:
On July 18, 1981, the state border of the USSR on the territory of Armenia was violated by a Canadair CL-44 transport aircraft of an Argentine airline with a Swiss crew, transporting a shipment of weapons to Iran. Two pairs of Su-15TM fighters from 166 IAPs were scrambled from the Sandar airfield (Georgia) to intercept. Not finding the target and having used up all the fuel, they returned to the airfield. Then the pilot of the same guard regiment, Captain V.A. Kulyapin, was aimed at the target. He was given the task of putting the violator on our territory. Having discovered the intruder aircraft at an altitude of 11,000 m, he approached it and followed a parallel course. Kulyapin began to give signs to the intruder to follow him. He did not react and continued to fly towards the border. Then the command came from the command post to shoot down the intruder. Kulyapin's Su-15TM (b/n 37) was armed with R-98M long-range missiles. The distance was insufficient to launch them, and there was no longer enough time to make a new attack - the intruder was approaching the border. Then Kulyapin decided to ram. He approached the intruder aircraft and, on the second attempt, struck the right stabilizer of the transport aircraft with his fuselage. After this, Kulyapin ejected, and the CL-44 went into a tailspin and fell 2 km from the border. The crew died. Nominated for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
And here’s more about this same ram from the collection of essays by L. Zhukova “Choosing a ram” (M.: Molodaya Gvardiya, 1985). Please note that the identity of the intruder aircraft is not revealed in this story, probably for political reasons.
Eight years later, in the summer of 1981, the second ramming on a jet plane was carried out by captain, now major Valentin Kulyapin, destroying an aircraft of unknown origin that had invaded USSR airspace.
I was in my third year at the Higher Military Flight School when I heard about Captain Eliseev’s ramming,” says Valentin Aleksandrovich. “All of us, nineteen-year-olds, asked each other in those December days: “Could you do it?” I kept silent then - what's the point, being safe, talking about the feat? But I decided to myself: Eliseev left us, the young, a testament to learn the art of ramming on a jet. So, once upon a time, Nesterov, with his heroic death, conveyed to the Russian aviators a covenant to use the risky method discovered by him as a weapon in the war with the enemy, and today the history of aviation counts more than 609 Soviet pilots - Nesterov’s heirs. In the summer of 1981 I had a difficult situation...
Valentin's voice is quiet, not at all commanding, although he was long years both the flight commander and the squadron commander's political officer. If you don’t listen to the essence of the words flowing from the tape, it seems that you are having a friendly, unhurried conversation, and not an interview with a brave man, a warrior, a hero of the ram. And one more thing about his voice. He is very similar to the well-known Gagarin to all of us. With his face and especially his smile, Valentin is also surprisingly similar to the first cosmonaut of the Earth, only his eyes are not blue, but blue-gray. Soft, kind.
On that summer day in 1981, the weather was wonderful - a cloudless velvet sky, a shining ball of sun, a light refreshing breeze... It’s nice now to be at sea, where Larisa and her children are now resting. I should be back in five days, Valentin just received a letter from them with little Pavlushka’s hand circled in pencil - look how she’s grown in a month!
Lunch time was approaching, and Valentin and his friends were going to dine. And suddenly the command was heard: - 733 - take off!
Eh, you'll have to fly on an empty stomach! - he jokingly said goodbye to his comrades.
“We’ll leave you a double portion,” they answered.
At supersonic speed, at an altitude of 11 thousand meters - into the square where the intruder was spotted.
And Larisa and the kids are now very close, swimming and basking in the sun.
Violator over our land. What are his goals? Reconnaissance, testing our strengths and capabilities, the power of our border?
It was a four-engine plane with unknown identification marks, without portholes, means it’s not a passenger one! - Valentin says quietly. - He did not respond to requests from the “ground”, nor to signals. The excess speed really bothered me - the intruder plane was traveling at a speed of 400 kilometers per hour. I also had to switch to this meager speed, although at supersonic, with its small-area wings, flying at low speed is risky - the plane becomes poorly controlled and can fall into a tailspin. The intruder pilots understood this well; they knew that to attack I needed to move a great distance away from them. During this time, they can sneak abroad.
“Realizing the safety of their position, the intruders behaved fearlessly. Either they came at me with a large list, threatening to catch me with the propellers, or they rushed even further from the border line, as if they were mocking me - what can you do to us? But you can’t do anything.” !
And such evil took over me. What do they need from us? Our land is under our wings! My situation is difficult - keep an eye on the dangerous “game” of the intruder, watch his every maneuver, and look at the speed indicator of your fighter - so as not to show an even lower speed, and also figure out what can still be done to stop the spy, so that others should not walk over our land.
And the “ground” still commands to land him at our airfield. “He” doesn’t want to! It begins to go towards the border. And then I came up with this - it’s already on last minutes There was a fight, but it lasted 13 minutes in total.
Naturally, the plane maintains its balance due to stabilizers - these are on the tail, if you don’t know, such small fixed parts - like small wings. So, if I hit him on the stabilizer, he will have to sit down involuntarily, if he doesn’t want to be picked up. But the jet does not have a striking propeller, and I need, like a skilled diver, to “dive” under the stabilizer and immediately “emerge”, not reaching its wing, and at the same time calculate this “diving” in such a way as to hit only with my fuselage and wing the stabilizer, not the fuselage or wing of the intruder. I still want to swim in the sea! And I want to guard the border for a long time!
But it’s curious: how long did those seconds stretch while I was walking under the right stabilizer (I chose the right one - it’s the right thing!). The speeds are almost equal - mine is a tiny excess, and here I go, I go, diving under the gray, dirty (that’s how it seemed to me) plane of the stabilizer, and it’s literally endless!
At this moment, the “earth” just asks: “What are your actions?” I answer so that there is no hitch: “I’m hanging under the target!” I was really hanging under it! I finally see clear sky. This means that my cabin stabilizer has passed through, I should be, according to my calculations, safe, and I can take the handle... Impact! This is the fuselage of my car ramming the stabilizer. Shaking... Quite tolerable. But the glass from the lantern starts to fall and it breaks. I had to eject. The parachute opens and the first thing I do is look at the sky.
But the intruder is not visible! I remember the coldness of fear entering my heart - has it really not knocked me down? After all, I calculated everything exactly! Slowly, slowly I lower my gaze, and “he” tumbles under me, walking toward the ground.
Then he sat down more comfortably and began to examine the ground. Where is the best place to land? Perhaps, in that hollow between the mountains - there is a road nearby. I land, two guys from a passing truck are already running towards me - they saw everything, look at me like I’m a god, with respect. I walk towards them, limping, wearing one shoe - the other one was torn off when landing. I laugh at myself, and so do the guys, and we get to the truck.
In part they lost me and a few hours after my last words“I’m hanging under the target,” we didn’t know what to think. It’s good that Larisa and the children were far away at these hours and did not worry in vain.
But the next day she unexpectedly appeared at the hospital, where doctors were checking me. He sits and is silent, he cannot say a word. Only when I saw the bruises on my arms did I burst into tears: “Couldn’t you have been more careful?” And the friend who brought her says:
Valentin accomplished the feat!
She is silent again. At this point I explained that I got bruises during the landing, but there were no consequences from the ramming, only the tablet hit me in the rib during the ejection, so that doesn’t count.
Larisa listens to her husband’s story with a smile in her eyes, which are as gray as his, sometimes shakes her head, remembering something of her own, then says:
That day I felt some kind of anxiety, I decided to urgently return home, I arrived and found out that he was in the hospital. It seems to me that if I were thousands of miles away from him, I would still feel that he was in danger of trouble or that he was sick. Do you know how many years we have known him? All life! Since childhood. We are both from Perm. And from the seventh grade we generally studied together. He pulled my braids, mimicked me, and I felt even then that he liked me. But he said about this only when he graduated from flight school and received an appointment to the border. He explained this by saying that he had no moral right to “disturb my peace”: after all, both were studying, I was in pedagogical institute, we would still live apart. And he was late for the wedding. All the guests were alarmed, one bride was calm: I knew, I felt that he would come. It turned out that his flight was delayed due to the weather. And when I gave birth to my daughter, my first child, Valentin, after the flights, went to the maternity hospital and stuck out under the window. I even caught a cold and finally got sick for the first time. And my son Pavlik is now five years old. To the question: “Who do you want to become?” - he confidently answers:
A pilot like dad!
Valentin pulls his little son towards him and says:
I, too, decided at the age of six that I would be a pilot. It howled on April 12, 1961, when my father was reading an article about Yuri Gagarin’s flight and I saw his photograph. At school I announced to everyone on the first day that I would be a pilot, and let’s encourage my friends to go to flight school with me. Physics and mathematics were my favorite subjects. I read a lot of books about aviation and pilots. I remember how shocked I was when I found out that Nesterov committed the loop on September 9, and this is my birthday! I considered this a good sign. But it was precisely these nine days, which I lacked until I was 17 by September 1, that almost prevented me from entering the flight school. Thank you, my father helped out - he wrote a letter to the head of the school asking him to allow the son of a Great Patriotic War veteran to take the exams as an exception.
Valentin's father, Alexander Konstantinovich, is a printer. During the Great Patriotic War, I was a boy and was very worried that he would not have time to grow up and fight the Nazis: how would he then look into the eyes of his peers and tell his children about these harsh years? But he managed to fight in 1945. Father's medal "For military merits" - one of Valentin's first memories from childhood.
He somehow put it on his jacket and admired himself in the mirror, and his mother said feigningly angrily:
Earn it first, hero!
And I will deserve it,” the son answered.
For his feat on the border, the commander of the squadron, Major Valentin Aleksandrovich Kulyapin, was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. On the day of his feat he was twenty-six years old. Now he is a student at the V.I. Lenin Military-Political Academy.
Brief biography of Valentin Kulyapin
Born on September 9, 1954 in the city of Krasnokamsk, Perm Region, in the family of an employee. Russian. Member of the CPSU. Soon he and his family moved to Perm. In 1971 he graduated from Perm high school No. 132. Since childhood I dreamed of enrolling in flight school, but did not pass the medical examination. I had to have surgery. Then they refused to accept his documents, since on September 1 he was not yet 18 years old. My father, a war veteran, had to directly contact the head of the school, who allowed Valentin to take entrance exams. In 1975 he graduated from the Stavropol Military aviation school pilots and navigators named after. V.A.Sudets. He served in the 166th Air Defense Fighter Aviation Regiment.
Later, Lieutenant Colonel Kulyapin graduated from the V.I. Lenin Military-Political Academy, after which he was appointed deputy regiment commander for political affairs. Was a delegate XIX Congress Komsomol. Currently, Colonel Kulyapin is in reserve.
The previous ram in the USSR was carried out in 1973. Deputy squadron commander of the 982nd Fighter Aviation Regiment (34th Air Army, Transcaucasian Military District) Captain Eliseev G.N. On November 28, 1973, he was on combat duty at the Vaziani airfield. In the area of the Mugan Valley ( Azerbaijan SSR) State border The USSR violated the F-4 "Phantom" (T-33?) aircraft of the Iranian Air Force. On command from the command post, he first took readiness number 1, and then took off in a MiG-21SM fighter to intercept the intruder aircraft. Captain Eliseev caught up with the intruder not far from the border. An order came from the ground: “Destroy the target!” Eliseev launched 2 missiles, but they missed. Captain Cherny received an order from the command post to stop the enemy’s flight at any cost. Eliseev replied: “I do!” Apparently Eliseev forgot that his plane (the only one in the regiment) was armed with a cannon, and decided to ram it. He approached the intruder aircraft and the wing of his fighter struck its tail. He went down. The crew, consisting of an American instructor and an Iranian crew, ejected and was detained by border guards. Eliseev’s plane crashed into a mountain after being rammed, killing the pilot. This happened at 13.15. This was the world's first ramming attack on a jet aircraft.
For the courage and heroism shown during the task of stopping the flight of the intruder aircraft, Captain G.N. Eliseev On December 14, 1973, he was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Awarded the Order of Lenin and medals. He was buried in the city of Volgograd, where a street was named after him and a Memorial plaque. Enlisted forever in the lists of the military unit.
From the first days of the war, the Red Army showed massive heroism, trying to slow down the enemy's advance. The air force did not stand aside either. Wide use received rams, including fire ones, with the help of which they destroyed a large number of enemy manpower and equipment.
Russian weapons
A classic aerial ram is the act of directing your aircraft at the enemy. It was first used in September 1914 by staff captain Pyotr Nesterov. At an altitude of more than 500 meters, the pilot aimed his monoplane at the Austrian plane. Since then, our pilots began to often use this method of combat.
The ram became especially widespread during the Great Patriotic War. Our pilots used it when they ran out of fuel and ammunition or in the event of a weapon failure.
A type of ram is a fire ram. It was used when there was significant damage to the aircraft, when it was clear that aircraft inevitable death awaits. The pilot in such a situation stood in front of difficult choice: either fail to complete the task and be captured, or at the cost own life destroy the enemy. Often they chose the second. In this case, the plane was sent to an accumulation of enemy manpower and equipment on the ground or to a water target.
Pilots performed fire rams at all stages of the war. They were present during the summer battles of 1941, and during the defense of Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad, in the battles on Kursk Bulge and the Dnieper, in Belarus and Poland, as well as after the defeat of Germany - in the campaign against imperial Japan.
Fire ram required special skill from the pilot; it was necessary to have nerves of iron and a readiness for self-sacrifice. Chief Marshal aviation Alexander Novikov said that a ram is highest manifestation a moral factor that the enemy could not take into account.
During the Great Patriotic War, about 600 cases of rams were recorded, of which 506 were against ground targets. The list of pilots who committed a fiery ram includes more than 450 people. In total, 237 such rams were carried out over four years. The discrepancies in the number of pilots and cases of fire ramming are explained by the fact that at that moment there were 2-3 people in the aircraft.
Very in rare cases The pilots who went for the fiery ram survived. One of these lucky ones is Lieutenant S.I. Koldybin. He sent the plane on fire to the German crossing of the Dnieper. The pilot was thrown out of the car by the blast wave. In total, only six pilots survived the fiery ramming.
On the enemy!
The first to direct the blazing plane at the enemy was 27-year-old senior lieutenant Pyotr Chirkin. This happened in the midst of a battle near the city of Stryi on Western Ukraine. It is symbolic that he accomplished his feat on the first day of the war - June 22, 1941. The I-153 fighter burst right into the center of the German tank column.
Forever inscribed in Russian history military glory and the feat of the crew of captain Nikolai Gastello. On June 26, two DB-3f bombers fired at a column of German tanks near Radoshkovichi-Molodechno. Gastello's plane circled a Wehrmacht armored group standing near the fuel tanks.
The plane was already leaving the target when suddenly a shell hit the fuel tank of the aircraft. A few seconds later the plane was engulfed in flames. At that moment, Gastello turned him around and directed him into a cluster of tanks.
In September 1941, a woman carried out a ram for the first and only time in history. Pilot Ekaterina Zelenko, flying a Su-2 bomber, managed to destroy one Nazi fighter, and then went to ram the second. The impact broke the Messerschmitt in half, and the pilot herself died.
There have also been cases of sea fire rams. So, on March 19, 1945, the crew of Major Merkulov took off to strike a convoy delivering reinforcements to the Courland pocket. The plane attacked the ships, but was damaged by an enemy bullet and caught fire. The crew directed the aircraft towards the German ships. All pilots died.
Rewards for heroes
Despite the fact that rams, including fire rams, were not provided for by the charter, Soviet command had a generally positive attitude towards them and considered them a manifestation of heroism. Accordingly, the pilots who went to ram almost always received a reward.
The Sovinformburo began glorifying the aviators who went to ram after Gastello’s feat. The Red Army command used his example for propaganda purposes. He was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.