AKL-200601 AviaKollektsia N1 2006: Tupolev TB-1 Soviet pre-WW2 heavy bomber. Photos, schemes, colour pictures. 36 pages, soft cover, text in Russian (we provide translation to English).

The ANT-4 aircraft, an experimental model of the TB-1 bomber, took to the skies on November 26, 1925. It was truly a legendary machine. In many cases, the term "first Soviet" can be applied to it: the first Soviet-designed bomber to enter serial production, the first domestic monoplane bomber, and the first Soviet all-metal bomber. Additionally, the ANT-4 became the progenitor of a whole family of multi-engine aircraft created under the leadership of A.N. Tupolev. It was with the appearance of the TB-1 that the development of strategic aviation began in our country. These aircraft flew in our skies for more than 20 years.

In August 1921, a Special Technical Bureau for Military Inventions (abbreviated as Ostekhbyuro or OTB) was established in Leningrad. This organization, led by V.I. Bekauri, was involved in a wide range of tasks related to new types of weaponry. Among other things, they designed aviation mines and torpedoes. Experimental models of these devices needed to be tested, for which they used imported - English and German - aircraft. However, the capabilities of these machines did not fully meet the requirements, especially in terms of payload capacity.

At the same time, the adoption of special means for ship attacks by Soviet aviation was considered highly relevant. This was intended to compensate for the weakness of the fleet, which had not yet recovered from the revolution and the Civil War. On the initiative of the Commander-in-Chief of the Red Army, S.S. Kamenev, and the Manager of Affairs of the Council of People's Commissars, N.P. Gorbunov (both of whom were members of the government commission overseeing OTB's work), the bureau was tasked with developing an aircraft capable of carrying a torpedo or two mines and having a range of several hundred kilometers. However, OTB did not have its own aircraft designers, so they had to order the aircraft from abroad.

Initially, they attempted to place the order in England, where torpedo bombers were already being produced, albeit with lower payload capacity. The English agreed but requested half a million rubles (in foreign currency) and set a deadline of one and a half years. Such funds were not available, and the OTB was not satisfied with the timeframe.