Tuesday 20 June 2023

Tupolev SB in Finnish service. Part one.

 

During the Winter War, which comprised from 30th November 1939 to 13th March 1940, the Finnish captured eight salvageable SB 2M-100A. Those were repaired and assigned to Ilmavoimat (Finnish Air Force), after the conflict, so they didn't see action with Ilmavoimat in the Winter War. However, eventually only one SB 2M-100A was in good enough conditions to be assigned to active service.

It was during that conflict that the Finnish managed to capture seven SB 2M-103, when many were forced to land in Finland.
The first SB 2M-103, registered as VP-10 by the Ilmavoimat, was overhauled at Valtion lentokonetehdas (State Aircraft Factory) at Tampere, Finland. On 13th August 1940 it was assigned to the Ilmavoimat and, on 15th October it was assigned to Lentolaivue 6 (LeLv - Flying Squadron) at Nummela. LeLv 6 was directly subordinated to Finnish Navy's Headquarters.
The Ilmavoimat re-registered the remaining SBs (among them the only SB 2M-100A which could be put into service) from VP-2 to VP-8. VP-10 was re-registered VP-1 in June 1941. During Continuation War, ranging from 25th June 1941 to 19th September 1944, LeLv 6 suffered its first casualty on 2nd August 1941 when VP-3 crash-landed at Nummela. The Finns changed the code for the remaining SBs in September 1941 but they didn't change the numerical suffix of each airplane. It was during this period that the SBs were repainted with yellow identification bands to identify them as Axis aircraft operating on the Eastern Front.
During the summer of 1941, the Germans captured several SBs in the context of Operation Barbarossa. Finland bought 16 SB 2M-103 from German war booty depots. On 5th November 1941 the six units arrived on Finland and were assigned codes SB-9 to SB-14. The following five were delivered in April 1942 and received codes SB-15 to SB-19. The last five ones reached Finland in August that same year. All those SB 2M-103 were refurbished at Valtion lentokonetehdas and some of them were equipped with additional carburetor intakes on the side of the engine cowling.
That made a total of 24 Tupolev SBs (23 SB 2-M103 and one SB 2M-100A) serving with the Ilmavoimat.


















Sources:
1st Signal Squadron - Aircraft In action 194 - Tupolev SB in Action
2nd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_SB
3rd https://massimotessitori.altervista.org/sovietwarplanes/pages/sb/tapani/finnish/finnish-number.htm

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