As designer Andrei Tupolev was imprisoned in one of Stalin's purges, his second in command, Alexander Arkhangelsky was authorized to name any variants of the Tupolev SB after him. The Ar-2 was an attempt at enlargement the long lifespan of the SB that started some years before, in 1934. As Arkhangelsky himself worked in a refined version of the SB, named MMN but it proved to be dissappointing as it wasn't better than the SB. So it was decided that the more the Ar-2's design departed from the original SB, the better, in order to fit it in with the PB-3 bombsights grating it, that way, dive bombing capabilities.
Engine nacelles were more streamlined, new wings were fitted and a new glazed nose was added. The engine cooling system was placed inside wings having the air inlets on the leading edges with exits on the underwings. As it was intended to have dive bombing capabilities, air brakes were added. Initially it was named SB-RK and two prototypes were tested in October 1940, one month later the Soviet Air Defence Forces evaluated the type and, in December of that year, the NKAP named it after Arkhangelsky.
The Soviet Air Defence Forces liked the type even if it wasn't as fast as expected but it was highly maneouvrable and the dive-bombing capabilities didn't dissappoint. It was also pointed that it suffered from engine cooling problems and some mistakes on the defensive weaponry, nonetheless, the Soviet Air Defence Forces ordered the type to be massly produced. It started to be manufactured in very late 1940 but, at the time, other bombers like the Petlyakov Pe-2 and the prototype of the Tupolev Tu-2 were already showing better performance. That's why the factory where the Ar-2 was being produced, switched it's production towards the Pe-2 in early 1941 after having manufactured only 190 Ar-2s.
Arkhangelsky continued trying to improve the SB design, creating an even more revised version, the SBB in 1941, however when Germany invaded the USSR, Arkhangelsky was assigned to Zavod 156 to oversee the maintenance and repairs of the existing SB airplanes.
Most of the Ar-2 operated side by side with the SB, as they were assigned to units equipped with the Tupolev SB. It's known that at least two of them were destroyed in June/July 1941 and some of them continued to operate in small numbers until 1943.
Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkhangelsky_Ar-2
2. https://wiki.warthunder.com/index.php?title=Ar-2
No comments:
Post a Comment