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To my knowledge, there were no direct equivalents to the US AC (attack, cargo) type of aircraft were operational on large scale with Soviet/Russian air force, although some prototypes were build to asses the gunship's value.

ANT-29/DIP multi-seat canon fighter

ANT-29 was a first attempt to incorporate large canon on the aircraft. It was believed that this kind of weapon will be more lethal than a small-caliber aircraft gun and more precise than a bomb. Under Myasishchev's supervision, Tupolev team put a forward firing102mm Kurchyevskii gun (in which counterweight in rear of the weapon was fired at the same time as a projectile to reduce its recoil) on one of their medium range bombers. The aircraft was tested in 1934-35 and soon it was discovered that low-velocity gun was not acceptable as accurate air-to-ground weapon: the range to the target was changing significantly in the time it took to load and fire the round.

Tu-2 gunships

Tupolev returned to the idea of gunships in 1947. Few Tu-2 were fitted with RShR-57 antitank gun and this system proved to be more succesfull than ANT-29, although aircraft was not put into production. Another approach was used on Tu-2Sh: the pallet containing 88 PPSh submashine guns (infantry weapon) was fitted into bomber's bomb bay. Each submushine gun had its own drum and was aimed to fair at 45 degrees downwards. Although the practical use of this kind of system was very doubtfull, Tu-2Sh foreshadow the AC-47 "Puff The Magic Dragon" gunship developed much later in the USA.


Sources:

Soviet X-planes by Yefim Gordon and Bill Sweetman


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Last modified on: Thursday, July 17, 1997.