Aerial ramming
Aerial ramming or air ramming is the deliberate ramming of an aircraft in flight into another airborne target, typically another aircraft. It is a last-ditch tactic in aerial combat, sometimes used when the aircraft is out of munitions, has its weapons malfunctioned, or all else has failed. The act of ramming a flying aircraft into surface targets, usually in the form of a suicide attack, is commonly referred to as a kamikaze attack.
Long before the invention of aircraft, ramming tactics in naval warfare and ground warfare were common. The first aerial ramming was performed by Pyotr Nesterov in 1914 during the First World War. In the early stages of World War II the tactic was employed by Soviet pilots, who called it taran , the Russian word for "battering ram".
A ramming pilot could use the weight of the aircraft as a ram, or they could try to make the enemy lose control of their plane, using the propeller or wing to damage the enemy's tail or wing. Ramming took place when a pilot ran out of ammunition yet was still intent on destroying an enemy, or when the plane had already been damaged beyond saving. Most rammings occurred when the attacker's aircraft was economically, strategically or tactically less valuable than the enemy's, such as pilots flying obsolescent aircraft against superior ones, or one man risking his life to kill multiple men. Defending forces resorted to ramming more often than the attackers.
A ramming attack was not considered suicidal in the same manner as kamikaze attacks—the ramming pilot stood a chance of surviving, though it was very risky. Sometimes the ramming aircraft itself could survive to make a controlled landing, though most were lost due to combat damage or the pilot bailing out. Ramming was used in air warfare in the first half of the 20th century, in both World Wars and in the interwar period. With jet aircraft, as air combat speeds increased, ramming became disused—the probability of successfully executing a ramming attack approached zero. However, the tactic is still possible in modern warfare.
Technique
Three types of ramming attacks were made:- Using the propeller to go in from behind and chop off the tail controls of the enemy aircraft. This was the most difficult to perform, but it had the best chance of survival.
- Using the wing to damage the enemy or force a loss of control. Some Soviet aircraft like the Polikarpov I-16 had wings strengthened for this purpose.
- Direct ramming using the whole aircraft. This was the easiest but also the most dangerous option.
History
Early concepts
Presaging the 20th century air warfare ramming actions, Jules Verne imagined an apparent aerial attack made by a heavy flying machine with a prominent ram prow against a nearly defenseless lighter-than-air craft in his science fiction work Robur the Conqueror, published in 1886. H. G. Wells, writing in 1899 in his novel The Sleeper Awakes, has his main character, Graham, ram one of the enemy's aeroplanes with his flying apparatus, causing it to fall out of the sky. A second enemy machine ceases its attack, afraid of being rammed in turn.In 1909, the airship was imagined as an "aerial battleship" by several observers who wrote about the possibility of using an extended ramming pole to attack other airships, and to swing an anchor or other mass on a cable below the airship as a blunt force attack against ground-based targets such as buildings and smokestacks, and against ship masts.
World War I
The first known instance of ramming in air warfare was made over Zhovkva by the Russian pilot Pyotr Nesterov on 8 September 1914, against an Austrian plane.Nesterov's Morane-Saulnier Type G and the Austrian Albatros B.II reconnaissance aircraft both crashed in the ramming, killing Nesterov and both occupants of the Austrian aircraft. The second ramming—and the first successful ramming that was not fatal to the attacker—was performed in 1915 by Alexander Kazakov, a flying ace and the most successful Russian fighter pilot of World War I. Sgt Arturo Dell'Oro of the Italian 83rd Squadron rammed a two-man Br.C.1 of Flik 45 on 1 September 1917. The American Wilbert Wallace White of the 147th Aero Squadron rammed a German plane on 10 October 1918, and was killed — his opponent survived.
Polish–Soviet War
As the advancing Soviet Red Army used very few aircraft in Poland, air combat rarely took place. However, during the course of the war, several Polish pilots, having depleted their ammunition and bombs, attempted to ram Soviet cavalry with their aircraft's undercarriages. This attack allowed an opportunity for an emergency landing, but it almost always ended with the destruction of, or serious damage to, the ramming aircraft.Spanish Civil War
Ramming was used in the Spanish Civil War. On the night of 27–28 November 1937, Soviet pilot Evgeny Stepanov, flying a Polikarpov I-15 for the Spanish Republican Air Force, shot down one SM.81 bomber near Barcelona and emptied the rest of his bullets into another. The second SM.81 continued to fly, so Stepanov resorted to using the left leg of his Chaika's undercarriage to ram the bomber, downing the plane.World War II
Soviet Union
In World War II, reports of ramming by lone Soviet pilots against the Luftwaffe became widespread, especially in the early days of the hostilities in the war's Eastern Front. In the first year of the Great Patriotic War, most available Soviet machines were markedly inferior to the German ones and pilots sometimes perceived a taran as the only way to guarantee the destruction of the enemy. Early Soviet fighter engines were relatively weak, and the underpowered fighters were either fairly well-armed but too slow, or fast but too lightly armed. Lightly armed fighters often expended their ammunition without bringing down the enemy bomber. Very few fighters had radios installed—the pilots had no way to call for assistance and the military expected them to solve problems alone. Trading a single fighter for a multi-engine bomber was considered economically sound. In some cases, pilots who were heavily wounded or in damaged aircraft decided to perform a suicidal attack against air, ground or naval targets. In this instance, the attack becomes more like an unpremeditated kamikaze attack.German air tactics early in the war changed in a way that created conditions ripe for ramming attacks. After clearing much of Soviet airpower from their path, the Luftwaffe stopped providing fighter escort for bombing groups, and split their forces into much smaller sorties, including single aircraft making deep penetration flights. One quarter of German aircraft on the Eastern Front had the task of performing strategic or tactical reconnaissance with their Aufklärungsgruppe units. These reconnaissance or long-range bombing flights were more likely to encounter lone Soviet defenders. Soviet group tactics did not include taran, but Soviet fighters often sortied singly or in pairs rather than in groups. Soviet pilots were prohibited from performing taran over enemy-held land, but could ram enemy reconnaissance penetrations over the homeland.
Nine rammings took place on the very first day of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, one within the first hour. At 0425 hours on 22 June 1941, Lieutenant Ivan Ivanov supposedly drove his Polikarpov I-16 into the tail of an invading Heinkel He 111. Ivanov did not survive but was posthumously awarded the Gold Star medal, Hero of the Soviet Union.
Yekaterina Zelenko on 12 September 1941 supposedly performed a diving ramming attack in her Su-2, which tore a Messerschmitt Bf 109 in two as the propeller of her plane hit the German aircraft's tail. She remains the only woman ever alleged to have performed an aerial ramming.
After 1943 more Soviet fighters had radios installed, and Chief Marshall Alexander Novikov developed air-control techniques to coordinate attacks. The fighters had more powerful engines, and in the last year of battle they carried sufficiently heavy armament. As Soviet air-attack options improved, ramming became a rare occurrence. In 1944, future Air Marshall Alexander Pokryshkin officially discouraged the taran, limiting it to "exceptional instances and as an extreme measure".
Lieutenant Boris Kovzan supposedly survived a record four ramming attacks in the war. Aleksei Khlobystov supposedly made three. Seventeen other Soviet pilots were credited with two successful ramming attacks. According to new research, at least 636 successful taran attacks were made by Soviets between the beginning of Operation Barbarossa and the end of the war. Of these, 227 pilots were killed during the attack or afterwards, 233 landed safely, and the rest bailed out.
As new Soviet fighter designs went into service, ramming was discouraged. The economics had shifted; now the Soviet fighter was roughly equivalent to the German one. By September 1944, orders describing how and when to initiate the ramming attack were removed from training materials.
United Kingdom and Commonwealth
On 18 August 1940, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve Sergeant Bruce Hancock of No.6 SFTS from RAF Windrush used his Avro Anson aircraft to ram a Heinkel He 111P; there were no survivors.On the same day Flight Lieutenant James Eglington Marshall of No. 85 Squadron RAF used his Hawker Hurricane to ram the tail unit of a Heinkel He 111 after he had expended the last of his ammunition on it. The Hurricane's starboard wing tip broke off in the attack and the Heinkel was assessed as "probably destroyed".
A significant event took place during the Battle of Britain. Flight Sergeant Ray Holmes of No. 504 Squadron RAF used his Hawker Hurricane to destroy a Dornier Do 17 bomber over London by ramming but at the loss of his own aircraft in one of the defining moments of the Battle of Britain. Holmes, making a head-on attack, found his guns inoperative. He flew his plane into the top-side of the German bomber, cutting off the rear tail section with his wing and causing the bomber to dive out of control and crash. Its pilot, Oberleutnant Robert Zehbe, bailed out, only to die later of wounds suffered during the attack, while the injured Holmes bailed out of his plane and survived. Two other crewmen of the Dornier bailed out and survived. As the RAF did not practice ramming as an air combat tactic, this was considered an impromptu manoeuvre, and an act of selfless courage. This event became one of the defining moments of the Battle of Britain and elicited a congratulatory note to the RAF from Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, who had witnessed the event.
On 27 September 1940, Flying Officer Percival R. F. Burton of No. 249 Squadron RAF used his Hawker Hurricane to tear off the tail unit of a Messerschmitt Bf 110 of V/LG 1. According to eyewitnesses on the ground, Burton deliberately rammed the Bf 110 after a "wildly manoeuvring" chase at rooftop height over Hailsham, England. Burton, Hauptmann Horst Liensberger and Unteroffizier Albert Kopge were all killed when both aircraft crashed just outside town. Burton's Hurricane was found exhausted of ammunition.
On 7 October 1940, Pilot Officer Ken W. Mackenzie of No. 501 Squadron RAF used his Hawker Hurricane to destroy a Messerschmitt Bf 109. His Combat Report read:
I attacked the three nearest machines in vic formation from beneath and a fourth enemy aircraft doing rear-guard flew across the line of fire and he developed a leak in the glycol tank... I emptied the rest of my ammunition into him from 200 yards but he still flew on and down to 80, to 100 feet off the sea. I flew around him and signalled him to go down, which had no result. I therefore attempted to ram his tail with my undercarriage but it reduced my speed too low to hit him. So flying alongside I dipped my starboard wing-tip onto his port tail plane. The tail plane came off and I lost the tip of my starboard wing. The enemy aircraft spun into the sea and partially sank.
On 11 November 1940, Flight Lieutenant Howard Peter Blatchford of No. 257 Squadron RAF used the propeller of his Hawker Hurricane to attack a Fiat CR.42 near Harwich, England. Blatchford had used up his ammunition during a mêlée with Italian fighters, and upon returning to base discovered two of his propeller blades missing nine inches. Although he did not see the results of his attack and only claimed the Italian fighter as "damaged", he did report splashes of blood on his damaged propeller.
Although technically not ramming, RAF pilots did use an intentional collision of sorts against the V-1 flying bomb. When it was discovered that shooting a V-1 could detonate the warhead and/or fuel tank, thereby endangering the attacking aircraft, pilots would instead fly beside the V-1. Once in position, the pilot would roll to one side, lifting his wingtip to produce an area of high-pressure turbulence beneath the wingtip of the V-1, causing it to roll in the opposite direction. This tactic was known amongst pilots as wing tipping/wing wacking. The rudimentary automatic pilot of the V-1 was often not able to compensate, sending it diving into the ground.