Sardaukar
Posts: 9847
Joined: 11/28/2001 From: Finland/Israel Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Fallschirmjager While never reaching British or American levels, the Soviets did become somewhat adept at both daylight and night bombing. They had some success against railyards and other targets. Helsinki in particular was hard hit on several nights. Budapest and Königsberg were also hard hit. The PE-8 was a pretty mediocre heavy bomber, but the Pe-2 and Tu-2 were outstanding light/medium bombers and ground attack craft that also found recon and night fighter roles. Finally, the PE-8 was capable of dropping some heavy bombs. The Soviets did develop the FAB-5000 which was a 5000 KG bomb and did drop a number of them. Actually Helsinki suffered relatively low damage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Helsinki_in_World_War_II The Finns deceived Soviet pathfinders by lighting fires on the islands outside the city, and only using the searchlights east of the city, thereby leading the pathfinders to believe that it was the city. Only 530 bombs fell within the city itself. The majority of the population of Helsinki had left the city, and the casualties were low compared to other cities bombed during the war. ..... While Helsinki and many other European cities endured bombing raids throughout the Second World War, the Finnish capital fared better than many of them thanks to the efficiency of its anti-aircraft and deception measures. Only 5% of the bombs fell within the city, and some of these fell in uninhabited park areas causing little damage. Some 2,000 bombers participated in the three great raids on the city and dropped some 2,600 tons of bombs. Of the 146 who died, six were soldiers; 356 were wounded. 109 buildings were destroyed. 300 were damaged by shrapnel and 111 were set on fire. The Soviet Air Force lost 25 aircraft. The Soviet embassy on the corner of Bulevarden and Albertsgatan was hit by bombs and burnt down completely.[6] It was Tallinn that was hit very hard.
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"To meaningless French Idealism, Liberty, Fraternity and Equality...we answer with German Realism, Infantry, Cavalry and Artillery" -Prince von Bülov, 1870- 
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