OT Korean war

Ted in NE-OH

Well-known Member
In the early 50's we has ground observers corps. on the southern shore of Lake Erie. The people in the towers were to look for planes coming over the North pole to bomb us. They were trained to identify models of planes and if they spotted one they were to call it into headquarters. Whose planes would they be looking for and did any country have planes in the early 50's that could fly that far?
 
They were watching for Soviet bombers. The Soviet bombers were modified designs based on B-29's they recieved from us as part of lend-lease during WW2!
 
It is my understanding that they didn't get any B-29s under lend lease however several of them made forced landings in the USSR and were interned and reverse engineered.
 
Yep! Story goes they were reversed engineered right down to a few bullet holes found in them. TU-2 I think.

Ben
 
The Soviet's are well known for reverse engineering a lot of stuff. They sell a motorcycle right now that is reversed engineered from the BMW. A guy here in town has one and the first time I saw it I thought for sure it was an older but in great shape BMW but he explained it to me and also said he wished they where as reliable so the BMW because he said it was always a problem keeping it running as it should. There called the Ural Emissary or some such name. The guy even gave me a business card that explains them a bit and say they have been being made since 1939 and also called the jeep of the motorcycle world
 
Our small town in central Iowa had a lookout tower on the edge of town to keep an eye out for enemy aircraft.
 
You've got it right. Stalin ordered it done and the KGB watched over it as the workers sanded down the aluminum so it would match the US thickness precisely. Russians used metrics. Stalin surprised everyone, especially the US observers, when 3 of them flew over the Mayday parade.
 
Even some of the Russian Limosines Zhil sure looked like reverse engineered mid fifties Packards.
Ben
 
Bingo, JF.

We gave B29s to no one during WWII but several made forced landings in the USSR and were interned by the Soviets.

Dean
 
IH dealer from around here went to Russia on a "farmer goodwill" tour in the '50s.He looked at tractors,combines,etc.even casting number were identical.The greatest Russian engineer was Comrade Reguspatoff
 
You're right on them using the crash landed ones. It was B-25's that were lend lease to USSR. I got that slightly mixed up!
I knew they had appropriated the B-29 design for their early heavy bombers.
 
They were not lend lease. We never gave the ruskys any thing other than light bombers. ------ offf uncle joe no end. The B29s they got hold of landed in Vlada what ever and the crews should have crashed them and burned them. Typical idiots. This was after they developed problems on runs over japan. They landed and were in the klink so fast their heads spun! Soviets were supposed to be our friends? They reverse enginered them right down to the letters cast into the parts. Made in USA and cast righ off of the original parts. They had to make modifications with the metal skin for the plane because they made metric metal and it is a little thinner. The russians also fixed most of the cooling problems with the engines on these planes. Check Aviation magazine from about three years ago. They had a very good many page artical on this story.
 
I read an article in a tanker magazine at Ft Hood one year. Told how the German tanks of WWII. Were planned by an American. Who took his idea to the American Army. Where he was laughed at by all the experts.Said the tanks would be to slow to heavy and the diesel engine. Would have to many problems.Said the tanks would be easy targets for the new Sherman tank.Guess they were wrong.
 
No this was about the overall tank.Like the Panzer that our Army experts said. Would be an easy target for the Sherman. Wouldn't be able to out run a Sherman. Which it didn't have to. Just sat in place and blew up every Sherman that came along.
 
We tested that German Leopard Tank and it was too much for our heavy field dynamometer so we used an M88 Recovery Vehicle for extra load. Here's
that same load when the pilot models M1's arrived. Hal
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