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Ar-2. Combat Use.Mikhail MaslovThe arrival of the Ar-2 in military formations began in the second half of 1940. A distinctive feature was the transfer of single aircraft copies simultaneously with conventional and dive SB (i.e. equipped with PB-3 bomb racks). This practice was tracked later, which led to the presence of one or two squadrons or even single aircraft as part of high-speed bomber regiments armed with security forces. In 1940, the troops received about fifty dive bombers (still under the designation SB-RK). In 1941, before the German attack, deliveries amounted to 120 Ar-2. Thus, by the beginning of hostilities, most of the two hundred built Ar-2 dive bombers were in the army. In the Red Army Air Force, their deployment in June 1941 looked like this: Leningrad Military District. 2nd sbap (high-speed brmbarding aviation regiment) as part of the 2nd mixed air division - 20 Ar-2 and 39 SB at the Kresttsy airfield near Leningrad. Baltic Special Military District. 46th SBAP as part of the 7th mixed air division - 61 SB and Ar-2 at the Shavli airfield. 54th SBAP as part of the 54th mixed air division - 68 SB and Ar-2, 7 Pe-2 at the Vilno airfield. Western Special Military District. 13th SBAP as part of the 9th mixed air division - 51 SB and Ar-2 at Ross and Borisovshchina airfields. Kiev Special Military District. 33rd SBAP as part of the 14th Bomber Division - 54 SB and Ar-2 at the airfields of Belaya Tserkov and Gorodishche. One of the first in the fall of 1940, he received the Ar-2 (still under the designation SB-RK) of the 13th squadron of Colonel Ushakov (later the regiment was headed by Captain Gavrilchenko, even later Captain S. Bogomolov) from the 9th Mixed Air Division of the Western Special Military District. According to the memoirs of P.I. Tsupko, then a young pilot, who had just arrived in the regiment as part of a young replenishment from the Voroshilov-grad flight school, they were immediately put on the Ar-2 and began to practice diving flights. The polygon was located in the area of Belovezhskaya Pushcha. On the ground were drawn the outlines of tanks, vehicles, artillery batteries and just large white circles with crosses in the middle. Training cement bombs were used for training. By the spring of 1941, the pilots of the 13th sbap were quite confident in dive bombing. In 1940, the 13th sbap was based not far from the border, in the Ross air town near Bialystok. Since March 1941, they began to equip a hard-surface runway, so the regiment was transferred to the Borisovshchina field airfield. For this period, the regiment had 5 squadrons of 12 crews each. For three months, three crews were constantly on duty in a state of high alert with suspended bombs. Ironically, the first day off on the 13th was given on June 22nd. In June 1941, the 13th sap was armed with 51 SB and Ar-2. The quantity of each type has not been established. According to the official data of the USSR Ministry of Defense, 5 Pe-2 aircraft were also listed there. The latter is unlikely, because part of the regiment's crews went for retraining near Moscow on the Pe-2 and arrived there only on June 21, 1941. |
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