Oldest Bomber in WWII?

[GrauGeist]

We got into an interesting discussion over in the IL-2 lounge about the Soviet TB-3. That got me to wondering if it might have been the oldest bomber deployed during the war.

I know that some of the bombers used had thier roots reaching back a ways but thier designs had evolved to a certain degree.

As far as unchanged designs go, was there a bomber that was older than the TB-3 used in action? The Tupolev TB-3 was designed in the late 20's and first flew on 22 December 1930.

I checked to see if there was a thread covering this topic already, and came up empty-handed...if there is one already, let me know!

[B-17engineer]

Yea, I couldn't find one older than that, but I came close 1936 (That is an edit, I thought it was 32 and it says 36..)

Why is it that Russians have the oldest bombers?

Tupolev SB - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[vikingBerserker]

The Chinese flew them as well (already got the kit for the next GB). Though the service date only beat the B-10 being flown by the Dutch by 6 months.

[GrauGeist]

What's the stats on the B-10, VB?

[B-17engineer]

this one is old.

Martin B-10 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[GrauGeist]

lmao...I meant post it...

[vikingBerserker]

According to Combat Aircraft of WW II by Bookthrift, the first service delivery was March of 1932, but that was to the USAAC.

[GrauGeist]

The Martin B-10 looks far more modern than the TB-3!

[vikingBerserker]

It does, but for an old bomber the TB-3 was not bad:

10 x 7.62 MG
Bomb load: 2,200 kg (later increased to 5,800kg)
Range 1,550 miles

Not bad at all for an old bomber.

[GrauGeist]

But it's top speed was 122mhp...making it very vulnerable to enemy attacks and also being that slow, I wonder how it fared against AA...

[vikingBerserker]

Apparently not very well.

According to Tupolev The Man and his Aircraft page 44, It did well against Japanese fighters during a few clashes that they had in 38, but a year later the fighters were winning most of the fights. One of the final "combat" missions it had was a pair carried 2 x I-16's fighters each armed with a 250kg bomb to destroy a railroad bridge at Chernovodsk which they did.

The Chinese got 6 of them from the Soviets, but I've yet to find any info on them.

[Vincenzo]

There are some old biplane bombers used from RAF

[Marcel]

Originally Posted by GrauGeist

We got into an interesting discussion over in the IL-2 lounge about the Soviet TB-3. That got me to wondering if it might have been the oldest bomber deployed during the war.

I know that some of the bombers used had thier roots reaching back a ways but thier designs had evolved to a certain degree.

As far as unchanged designs go, was there a bomber that was older than the TB-3 used in action? The Tupolev TB-3 was designed in the late 20's and first flew on 22 December 1930.

I checked to see if there was a thread covering this topic already, and came up empty-handed...if there is one already, let me know!

Don't know if it counts as many consider it a reconnaissance a/c, but the Fokker C.V was a light bomber and was used as such. First deployment dates back to 1926.

[pbfoot]

The Fairey Fox which flew for the Belgium's was also of 1926 vintage

[parsifal]

Breguet 19 in my opinion. First flown 1923, entered squadron service in 1924, final French delivery in 1932, but continued to be built under licence in Yugoslavia until 1938. Remained in service with the Yugolslavs until 1941, then surivors were transferred to the Croat air force. In 1945, two were captured by Tito and used in the final offensives.

The Turks also used quite a number of them, and they remained in service until 1945 as well.

The Portuguese used a bomber version of the Ju52, dating back to 1931 as I recall.

The Persians used Hawker Hinds and Audaxes which were pretty ancient and then of course there was the Vickwer Vildebeestes used against the italians in Abyssinnia