Taran
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- Taran is also the name of the main character in the Chronicles of Prydain books.
Taran (in Russian language ram attack) was a tactic in air combat. The goal is to either outright ram the enemy aircraft or to destroy its controls using either your propeller or wing. It was often practised, when pilot ran out of ammunition and was too eager to destroy an enemy, or his plane have been already damaged. A taran is not the same as the kamikaze attack since the pilot stands a fair chance of surviving, though it was very risky.
Taran was especially popular 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 anyway. Trading an outdated fighter to a technologically advanced bomber was considered a good trade.
Three types of taran attacks were 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 strengthened wings for this purpose.
- Direct ram (taranyy udar) was the easiest to perform, but also the most dangerous.
The first taran attack ever was carried out by the Russian pilot Petr Nesterov on September 8, 1914, and it was probably the first air dogfight as well. Nesterov, flying an unarmed plane, probably tried to hit an upper wing of an Austrian reconnaissance plane with his undercarriage, but a crash eneded with death of Nesterov and his two opponents.
The first taran attack in World War II was carried out by the Polish pilot, Lt.Col. Leopold Pamuła on his damaged PZL P.11c on September 1, 1939, over Łomianki near Warsaw (taran is also a Polish word).
About 200-500 taran attacks were made by Soviets 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.
In some cases, heavily wounded pilots or in damaged aircraft decided to perform a suicidal taran attack, against air, ground or naval targets, similar to kamikaze.
In 1980 a soviet MiG-21 fighter jet rammed an iranian RF-4 Phantom II reconnaisance plane which intruded USSR airspace, resulting in the crash of both aircraft. There have been at least three other soviet taran attacks between the early 1970s and 1988.