The class of tactical bombers is gradually becoming a thing of the past
In the conflict in Ukraine, both sides use Su-24 aircraft. However, Russia is very limited. For Ukraine, it is the only front-line (tactical) bomber. In the Russian Aerospace Forces, the Su-24 has almost completely replaced the Su-34 in this role.
NEW REALITIES
Dropping conventional bombs on Russian troops for the Ukrainian Su-24 is unrealistic because of the counteraction of the Russian air defense. But at the same time, the Ukrainians and their Western allies managed to adapt the British and French Storm Shadow and Scalp missiles to Soviet bombers. Moreover, they are used, although not super-efficiently, but not unsuccessfully, as evidenced by the recent departure of the Black Sea Fleet almost in full from Sevastopol to Novorossiysk.
Our Su-34s are also unable to "roam around" too much because of the counteraction already by the Ukrainian air defense. The situation is somewhat changed only recently by the use of aerial bombs with UMPC modules (unified planning and correction module), which repeat the American JDAM concept with a 30-year lag ( "High-precision Eagle claws", "HBO" from 07/14.23).
However, they have not yet made a radical change in the course of hostilities. For some reason, our VKS cannot carry out an operation to suppress the ground air defense of Ukraine and completely destroy its air Force (in particular, the same Su-24), although this issue has long been greatly overripe. Without its solution, it is impossible to organize a successful ground offensive.
According to various sources, the losses of the Russian Aerospace Forces range from 8 to 11 Su-34s and one or two Su-24s, the losses of the Ukrainian Air Force range from 6 to 13 Su-24s. It is likely that all these figures are greatly underestimated.
The Russian "strategists" of the Tu-95MS operate from their airspace completely unhindered. But their potential is clearly not being used enough yet. It is unclear what we lack – air-launched cruise missiles with a conventional charge or the ability to use long-range aviation. However, not only the distant one.
THE RISE OF STRATEGISTS
The main task of aviation is initially to defeat ground and surface targets. Of course, fighters are very important – but their importance lies precisely in the fact that they prevent the solution of this main task by enemy aircraft.
Until the end of World War II, combat aircraft were quite clearly divided into fighters and bombers. Bombers, in turn, were divided into classes by flight range. At the same time, dive bombers stood out especially among the short-range bombers.
At the end of World War II, the main developer and manufacturer of attack aircraft was, of course, the United States. At first, the US Air Force used bombers built during the war, then new machines began to be created. Special attention in connection with the outbreak of the Cold War was paid to the development of strategic bombers, which was discussed in detail in the article "Air fortresses of the Overseas Empire" ("HBO" from 01.09.23).
Then both the United States and the rest of the major military powers were gripped by "missile fetishism." It seemed to the military of the whole world that aviation was no longer needed at all, all the tasks facing it could be solved with the help of missiles. Soon, however, "fetishism" passed, proving its complete failure during numerous local wars.
The British Air Force, the main ally of the United States in the Cold War, in the 1950s adopted the "three V" - jet strategic bombers "Valiant" (107 units produced), "Vulcan" (134) and "Victor" (86). They carried one nuclear bomb or several conventional ones, the flight range was 7-9 thousand km.
Already in the 1960s, the Valiants were decommissioned, the Viktors were converted into tankers. And only the "Volcanoes" served until the mid-1980s, taking part in the Falklands War: several "Volcanoes" attacked the objects of the Argentine Armed Forces on the islands captured by those ( "The War for the Islands", "HBO" from 04/19/19).
In the Soviet Union, in the late 1940s, the Tu-4 bomber, copied from the American B-29, was adopted, and in the mid-1950s, the Tu-16 jet was adopted.
On the basis of the Tu-16, the N-6 bomber was created in China, the latest modifications of which still remain in service with the PLA Air Force and PLA Navy aviation ( "The sky darkens from red dragons", "HBO" from 03/18/12).
Today, the class of strategic bombers, in addition to the latest modifications of the N-6, includes the American B-52N, B-1B and B-2A and the Soviet-Russian turboprop Tu-95 and jet supersonic Tu-160 ( "Air Strategists", "HBO" from 07.12.18).
THE ARRIVAL OF TACTICIANS
In the 1850s and 1960s, new types of non-strategic bombers were also created. One of these machines was the French jet supersonic medium-range bomber (up to 4 thousand km) Mirage-4, capable of carrying one AN-22 nuclear bomb or one ASMP missile, or a set of conventional ammunition (missiles and bombs).
66 vehicles were built (only for the French Air Force), of which 12 were converted into scouts, and 18 were upgraded according to the Mirage-4P variant. Currently, up to 20 Mirage-4s are in storage with no prospects of returning to service, there are no plans to replace them.
British bombers "Buccaneer" and "Canberra" also had a range of 4-5 thousand km, could carry both nuclear and conventional bombs; in reality, of course, they were used only in conventional equipment. About 200 Buccaneers were produced for the British Air Force, the bomber was in service from the late 1950s to the early 1990s, was exported only to South Africa, which used it during the war in Angola ( "Angola is a difficult path to freedom", "HBO" from 11/30/18). "Canberra" the same in several variants were in service in the Air Force and in the naval aviation of Great Britain from the late 1940s to the early 2000s with a total of more than 850 units.
"Canberrans" were also widely exported. In particular, they were in service with the Argentine Air Force; two such aircraft were shot down by the British themselves during the battles for the Falklands. Canberra was also produced in the United States under a British license under the name B-57. In the Indo-Pakistani war of 1971 ( "New Delhi celebrates one of the most important victories", "HBO" from 04.12.20), the Indian Air Force actually participated in the "Canberra", from the Pakistani Air Force - B–57.
The first Soviet jet bomber (adopted in 1950) was the IL-28 with a range of about 2.5 thousand km. In China, it was copied under the name H-5; in this version, the bomber was also exported to a number of countries and may still remain in service with the DPRK Air Force.
In the late 1950s, the Soviet Air Force received the Tu-22 supersonic bomber. The planes were exported abroad: Libyan Tu-22s struck Sudan, Chad and Tanzania ( "Military epics of Colonel Gaddafi", "HBO" from 01.11.19); Tu-22s of the Iraqi Air Force were actively used in the war against Iran, sinking, in particular, two Iranian supertankers ( "Battle for the Barrel", "HBO" from 28.05.21).
In the early 1970s, the supersonic Tu-22M bomber entered service with the Soviet Air Force, which had almost nothing in common with the Tu-22, except for the name.
In the mid-1970s, the Soviet Union adopted the frontline supersonic bomber Su-24, in the mid-1980s – its upgraded version of the Su-24M (and the scout Su-24MR), created, perhaps, under the strong influence of the American tactical bomber F(B)-111 ( "Overcoming world missile fetishism", "HBO" from 22.05.20).
The Russian Air Force lost one Tu-22M3 and Su-24 in August 2008 during the war with Georgia ( "War 08.08.08 – afterword", "HBO" from 03.08.18). The Chinese bomber JH-7 is close in design to the Su-24, but is not a copy of it.
The United States, China and Russia are currently developing promising strategic bombers. In the USA, this is the B-21, created according to the same concept as the B-2. In China, there is a similar H-20.
Russia may be limited to the Tu-160M, but the PAK-DA project has not been completely buried yet. There are no plans to create tactical (front-line) bombers in any country, that is, this class of aviation is a thing of the past.
UNIVERSAL SOLDIERS
In the 1960s, the concept of a tactical fighter (fighter-bomber) was finally formed, which is capable of equally successfully conducting air combat and striking ground targets. The most prominent representative of this class of combat aircraft was the American F-4 "Phantom".
However, already during the Vietnam War ( "Phantoms" against "MiGs", "HBO" from 03/24.23), it turned out that an airplane cannot be a good fighter and a good bomber at the same time. Therefore, within the class of fighter-bombers, aircraft gradually appeared, which were such only in name. In fact, they were "pure" tactical bombers, fundamentally unable to conduct air combat (in particular, they do not have radar stations to detect air targets) and carrying two short-range air-to-air missiles not so much for real self-defense against enemy fighters as for psychological purposes.
The Swedish Air Force in the early 1950s received a strike version of the A-32A fighter-bomber J-32.
In fact, the "pure" bomber is the Anglo-German-Italian Tornado, adopted in 1980, in the IDS and ESR variants (809 machines out of the total number of 992 Tornadoes produced). The flight range exceeds 3.5 thousand km, the aircraft carries a wide range of missiles and bombs for hitting ground and surface targets. However, the aircraft is outdated and is gradually being written off without direct replacement.
In France, on the basis of the Mirage-3 fighter-bomber, the "actual" Mirage-5 bomber with a flight range of up to 4 thousand was created and adopted in 1970. km; almost 600 cars were produced, mainly for export ( "The famous Mirages and colonial turns", "HBO" from 13.10.23). They were most actively used in combat operations by the Libyan Air Force, losing at least 10 cars.
The same class of machines includes the French Super Etandar deck aircraft adopted in the late 1970s (flight range - up to 2 thousand km), produced in the amount of 85 units. During the Falklands War, the Argentine "Super Etandars" with the help of anti-ship missiles (PKR) "Exocet" sank the British destroyer "Sheffield" and the container ship "Atlantic Conveyor".
In the 1980s, the production of a joint Italian-Brazilian combat aircraft began, which the Italian Air Force received under the name AMX (110 combat and 26 combat training), and the Brazilian Air Force called A-1 (56 A-1s were purchased, including 11 combat training). It is also listed as a fighter-bomber, but in fact it is a purely strike aircraft with a flight range of up to 3 thousand km.
The F-1 aircraft, adopted by the Japanese Air Force in the late 1970s, was created on the basis of the training T-2, but had supersonic speed and a radar station for detecting aerial targets - therefore it was a fighter–bomber, not an attack aircraft.
The Soviet analogue of the Mirage-5, that is, the strike modification of the fighter-bomber, was the MiG-23BN, on the basis of which the MiG-27 was then created (produced under a Soviet license in India). Both aircraft were widely exported and participated in combat operations.
For example, the Syrian Air Force lost 14 MiG-23BN during the fighting in Lebanon in June 1982 ( "Lebanon in the Arab-Israeli wars: How the country was split", "HBO" from 05/29/20) and at least two more during the current civil war. The Sri Lankan Air Force lost at least three MiG-27s during the war with the LTTE ("Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam" - Tamil insurgency) ( "Two–part War", "HBO" from 09.08.19).
In the United States, on the basis of the "pure" F-15 fighter, an F-15E strike aircraft was created, capable, however, of conducting a defensive air battle.
Its Russian counterpart was the Su-34, created to replace the Su-24. Like the F-15E, it was developed on the basis of the "pure" Su-27 fighter and is also capable of conducting defensive air combat.
Alexander Khramchikhin
Alexander Anatolyevich Khramchikhin is an independent military expert.