“Crocodile” against “Phantom.” The most unusual duel in the war
MOSCOW, 22 Jul — RIA Novosti, Andrei Kots. The eternal question of “who is an elephant or a whale?” in the twentieth century repeatedly encountered on the battlefield. History knows many examples when in open battle converged opponents, who seem to could not engage in battle. One of these cases occurred 75 years ago, when off the coast of Florida, the American airship is attacked by German submarine.
About this and other unusual duels of the last century — in the material RIA Novosti.
The airship to the submarine
The eighteenth of July, 1943 blimp U.S. Navy K-74 performed the routine overflight of the Florida Strait. The Americans used manned balloons to patrol the coastline in search of enemy submarines. On Board the airships had everything we needed for this task — radar, sonar buoys, magnetic anomaly detectors. a powerful means of communication. Upon detection of enemy air-balloon crews were instructed to transfer the coordinates of the target and put on her anti-submarine aircraft. But, apparently, not all military balloonists had arranged for the observer role.
The pilot of the airship K-74 Nelson Grills found a surfaced German submarine U-134 in the dead of night. Near went its course, two American ships — a tanker and a cargo ship. Grills, for fear that the submarine will dive and try to attack them, fell sharply and went to the enemy.
The crew opened fire with heavy machine guns and dropped a few depth charges, one of which exploded below the waterline and damaged casing U-134.
Submarine in debt gone: fired K-74 20-millimeter guns. The shells caused serious damage, the airship crashed into the water.
The crew of ten survived, and the submarine, hastily salatov damage disappeared. The next day balloonists picked up American sailors. Pulled all but the mechanics of Isador Stesses. In a matter of minutes before the rescue he was dragged under water by a shark. This is the only American military balloonist, who was killed in the fighting.
To repel the fighter
Heavy attack helicopter Mi-24 equipped with weapons like a Christmas tree with toys has proven to be an ideal means of fire support of infantry, hunter tanks and flying “altbinaries” for the destruction of field fortifications. However, the Crocodile has repeatedly won victories in battles with other helicopters. In the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988 clashes between Iraqi Mi-24 of the Iranian and the cobras were a regular occurrence. According to Baghdad, his helicopter destroyed 53 enemy vehicles.
But the most exciting duel took place in Lebanon. The eighth of June 1982 the Syrian Mi-24 helicopters attacked a convoy of Israeli armored vehicles in the Bekaa valley. The Israelis called for reinforcements — to help the tankers from a nearby airport flew two “Phantom”. Further otherwise not be called a miracle — the helicopter has virtually no chance in a fight with a fighter. “Phantoms” is already out on the combat course, when suddenly a Syrian pilot made a sharp turn and fired their missiles melee P-60. The first was in the forward hemisphere of the Israeli fighter, the second landed in the left wing the slave.
In the first Chechen war, according to open sources, the Russian Mi-24 was shot down by a missile “air — air” catching up with the course the plane An-12, carrying for Dudayev weapon from one of the former Soviet republics. The transport Board was destroyed.
From a gun on sparrows
The famous Soviet tank and military commander Alexander Fadin, at its thirty fought at Voronezh, 1-m, 2-m and 3-m the Ukrainian front, fought at Kursk, participated in the Belgorod-Kharkov offensive operations. He and his crew destroyed dozens of enemy armored units, hundreds of Nazis first burst into the enemy occupied the village and has taken an unequal battle. Fadin made a lot of feats, but the most unusual victory in the winter of 1944, when the defeat of Korsun-Shevchenko enemy.
News
During the battle for the village of Dashukivka Alexander Fadin has detected a low-flying German aircraft of the Italian production of “Caproni”.
Freighter dropped over the German positions ammunition box, turned around and started to go to the second round. Fadin noted that “Caproni” was right above the road along the Telegraph line. And the distance between Telegraph poles — standard 50 meters. The tank commander quickly assessed the distance, calculated the pre-emption and embedded shrapnel. German aircraft literally torn in the air with a fine touch! For the first time in the history of the plane managed to knock out a tank.