Petlyakov Pe-3
The Petlyakov Pe-3 was a Soviet twin-engined heavy fighter converted from the Pe-2 dive bomber in a four-day crash programme in August 1941, after the first German night bombing of Moscow exposed the need for a night fighter. About 360 were built, including the improved Pe-3bis; heavy losses in daylight ground-attack work pushed the type toward reconnaissance, and it remained in service until 1945.
Why It Mattered
The Petlyakov Pe-3 was a long-range heavy fighter developed from the Pe-2 dive bomber, created after German aircraft bombed Moscow by night in July 1941. The Soviet leadership had concluded that it needed a night fighter, and the Pe-2, the fastest twin-engined aircraft then in service, was selected for modification. The conversion was a crash programme: four days were allowed to rework the bomber's fuel, armament and radio systems, and the modified aircraft made its first flight on 7 August 1941. Only about 360 Pe-3s were built, but the type remained in service throughout the war, and most of its later production went to reconnaissance units.
Design Notes
The conversion started from the production Pe-2 and fitted three additional fuel tanks, totalling 700 litres: one in the bomb bay and two in place of the ventral gunner's position. The dive brakes under the wings were removed, the maximum bomb load was cut to 700 kilograms, and the bomber's radio was exchanged for the RSI-4 model used in single-seat fighters. Testing found the offensive firepower too weak, so production aircraft gained a 20 mm ShVAK cannon, a 12.7 mm machine gun in the dorsal position in place of the lighter weapon, and frontal armour for the crew. The improved Pe-3bis was tested that autumn and entered production in April 1942, carrying the changes further with armour totalling 136 kilograms and automatic leading-edge slats.
Operational History
The 95th High-Speed Bomber Aviation Regiment received the first Pe-3s in August 1941, and flew them on ground-attack and escort work around Moscow. Six Pe-3s flew escort for the C-47s bringing a British military delegation from Vologda to Moscow, and fought off several German attacks on the transports. On 24 October 1941 the 95th and 208th Fighter Aviation Regiments sent twenty-seven Pe-3s against the German airfield at Kalinin; the regiments claimed thirty German aircraft destroyed, and lost five aircraft and their pilots. About fifty aircraft were lost in the type's first three months of combat, roughly a quarter of those built so far, and units increasingly shifted to less risky reconnaissance missions. The type served in the Moscow air defence system until March 1942. On 1 March 1942 the 95th Fighter Aviation Regiment moved to the Northern Fleet's air force, flying convoy escort, ground-attack and reconnaissance missions for the fleet. From July 1942 the Pe-3 served in the evaluation of the Gneiss-2 airborne radar, which was approved for service in 1943, although only fifteen aircraft were fitted with it.
Afterlife
Production never ran for long at a stretch: after the Moscow factory was evacuated to Irkutsk in October 1941 it restarted in April 1942, built 132 aircraft that year and thirteen in 1943, and ended with a final batch of nineteen in early 1944. The production figures give the type's scale: 207 of the initial model and 152 of the Pe-3bis, about 360 aircraft in total. The Pe-3 remained in Soviet service throughout the war and was retired in 1945. Finland, the only other operator, repaired a captured aircraft and flew it as a photographic reconnaissance machine from 1944 until a Soviet bombing raid destroyed it at Lappeenranta on 2 July 1944. The nineteen aircraft of the final 1944 batch are sometimes given the designation Pe-3M.