Taran
Taran (ram attack) was a tactic developed in the Soviet Union during World War II when they found that their aircraft were too underpowered and too underarmed to take on the Luftwaffe. Also the pilot could run out of ammunition in a dogfight, but it was expected that he would continue fighting anwyay. A taran is not the same as the kamikaze attack since the pilot stands a fair chans of surviving. The goal is to either outright ram the enemy aircraft or to destroy its controls using either your propeller or wing. Trading an outdated fighter to a technologically advanced bomber was considered a good trade.
Three types of taran attacks was made
- Using the propeller to go in from behind and chop off the controls in the tail of the enemy aircraft. This was the most difficult to perform, but it had the best chance of survival.
- Using the wing to cut off the wing or tail of the enemy aircraft. Some Soviet aircrafts like Polikarpov I-16 had strenghtened wings for this purpose.
- Direct ram (taranyy udar) was the easiest to perform, but also the most dangerous.
About 200-500 taran attacks were made between the beginning of Operation Barbarossa and the middle of 1943 when enough modern aircraft had been produced to make the tactic obsolete, even if Russian fighter pilots still are trained to perform it.
14 pilots managed to perform two taran attacks. One pilot, Aleksandr Hiobystov of the 147th IAP made three and Boris Kobzan of the 184th IAP, made four.
