DB-3A (China)

Description

The ␗DB-3A(known as 德勃-3轟炸機 in Chinese) represented the 24/30 DB-3 bombers aided to China in June 1939 alongside with other Soviet bombers like SB; the aircraft was perhaps more well-known to Chinese during major bombing runs on Japanese-occupied Wuhan Wangjiadun (王家墩) airfield which the bombers scored more than 100 aircrafts and hundreds of Japanese aircrews in September and October 1939. The aircrafts were likely been used by the Nationalist forces or Soviet volunteers until the aircrafts were eventually replaced by newer, larger bombers like B-24 from USAAF.

Introduced in Update 1.91 "Night Vision" as one of the bombers of the newly-introduced Chinese air tech-tree, not only it has rather generous payload at its tier (up to 2.1 ton), the coverage of front self-defense machine gun is also quite large, making enemies have to think twice before heading for DB-3A. Do be careful of aircrafts with autocannons as they can tear down DB-3A with ease.

General info

Flight performance

Details

Survivability and armour

• 6 mm steel behind pilot
• Self-sealing fuel tanks, with neutral gas pressurization system (2 in each wing)

Modifications and economy

Armaments

Suspended armament

The DB-3A (China) can be outfitted with the following ordnance:

• 10 x 50 kg FAB-50 bombs (500 kg total)
• 10 x 100 kg FAB-100 bombs (1,000 kg total)
• 3 x 250 kg FAB-250M43 bombs (750 kg total)
• 3 x 250 kg FAB-250M43 bombs + 10 x 100 kg FAB-100 bombs (1,750 kg total)
• 3 x 500 kg FAB-500 bombs (1,500 kg total)
• 1 x 500 kg FAB-500 bomb + 10 x 100 kg FAB-100 bombs (1,500 kg total)
• 1 x 1,000 kg FAB-1000 bomb (1,000 kg total)
• 1 x 1,000 kg FAB-1000 bomb + 6 x 100 kg FAB-100 bombs (1,600 kg total)
• 1 x 1,000 kg FAB-1000 bomb + 2 x 500 kg FAB-500 bombs (2,000 kg total)

Defensive armament

The DB-3A (China) is defended by:

• 1 x 7.62 mm ShKAS machine gun, nose turret (1,000 rpg)
• 1 x 7.62 mm ShKAS machine gun, dorsal turret (1,000 rpg)
• 1 x 7.62 mm ShKAS machine gun, ventral turret (500 rpg)

Usage in battles

The DB-3 has distinct pros and cons. It is a brilliant base / airfield-bombing plane with a maximum bombload of 1x 1,000 kg + 2x 500 kg bombs, allowing it to easily finish a base or cripple airfield modules in one run. The bombs drop one by one, allowing flexible targeting. It has greatly improved handling and stability comparing with the previous SB 2M, making flying a lot easier. However, the DB-3 is quite slow, making it an easy target to pick on. It also has next to no defensive firepower: only 3x 7.62 mm MG in total, the one in the nose has great coverage, however, most opponents are not likely to take head-ons. The top turret cannot even aim horizontally nor directly at the tail, meaning that the seemingly suicidal tactic of tailing a bomber can actually destroy a DB-3. The belly gun has good negative angle but its horizontal guidance is too limited. Therefore you can only target opponents at your front, upper half and lower rear.

When taking off, the DB-3 will shift to the right, so it is best to set separate key-bind for left and right brakes to counter the torque. Given your weak guns, you can only survive if the room is rather empty or if the opponent also has weak firepower. If you are bombing a base, fly at treetop level to force any attacker to engage you from above so you can fight back. Bombing airfield is more dangerous, as you are not only exposed to anti-aircraft artillery fire but also attackers hiding in your gunner's dead zones. Climb to at least 2,000 m before approaching the airfield, then target the modules of fuel sector (surrounded by 4 towers), residential area (a bunch of tents) and hangar (6 giant houses). Bombing the airstrip is the easiest but it seems to give fewer rewards. If you see an attacker trying to shoot at you, you will have to nudge the plane so that the target is within your gunner's guidance which is very awful. The bullets will not do lots of damage as the target might constantly get into your dead zones. Most of the times against manoeuvring or heavily armed/armoured attackers, you will not survive long.

Landing is easy and similar to the style of the SB 2M. Line up with the airstrip when it occupies around 1/3 of your windscreen and descent to treetop level. Cut throttle to around 0-40% to drop speed to 200 km/h, and deploy landing flaps and gears. Control the throttle so that the touchdown speed is around 140 km/h. Like the SB 2M, if you don't slow down enough the DB-3 will bounce off again and again which might lead to a crash. Once you landed, you can keep breaking as the nose will not dip down and cause a propeller strike.

Manual Engine Control

Pros and cons

Pros:

• Great maximum bombload of 2x 500 kg + 1x 1,000 kg bombs allows you to finish a base in one go, or even have spare bombs for other targets.
• Has a wide range of bomb combinations, meaning that you can choose between large and small targets
• Can break continuously until full stop, its nose will never strike the ground
• Nose turret has a wide coverage

Cons:

• Extremely weak defensive firepower: terrible gun coverage at the rear/bottom, you cannot aim at planes at your side, tail or underside. Gunners are unprotected, and the 7.62 mm MGs lack damage
• Quite slow and large, making it an easy target
• Below average climb rate
• Only has landing flaps
• Negative deflection of the elevator will not pitch the plane down at 390+ km/h

History

Due to the rather sparse information on DB-3 bombers, these aircrafts were very likely the result of the Sino-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact (中蘇互不侵犯條約); 24 or 30 of these aircrafts were then aided to China and has been stationed in Chengdu Taipingshi (太平寺; now a PLAGF Aviation Corps and PLAAF airbase), Sichuan with the 8th Wing.

One of these aircrafts were commanded by Soviet pilot Grigory Arimovich Kurishenko (Григорий Aримович Kуришенко). The most famous battle for these bombers was on 3rd October, 1939 where the squadron consisted of 9 DB-3s bombed Wuhan Wangjiadun (王家墩) airfield with some 60 Japanese aircrafts destroyed and 600 casualties for the aircrews, including the base commander Nishizō Tsukahara (塚原二四三) who lost his left arm during the bombing run^[1]; on the bombing run on 14th October, after destroying another hundreds of equipment and crews of Japanese forces, the returning bomber squadron was intercepted by Japanese fighters over the skies of Hubei; while his aircraft barely survived the assault, he controlled the now-single-engine bomber into Wan County, Sichuan (Wan County was renamed as Wanzhou District in 1998)^[2] until he has to ditch on the section of Yangtze River near Hongshaqi (红砂碛; now in Chongqing City). Although his crews managed to escape from the sinking aircraft, Kurishenko sacrificed due to exhaustion and drowning at only 36 years old, leaving his name on Chinese history books and listed as heroes against invaders; his corpse was recovered in November and now buried in Xishan Park with a memorial stele stating his good deeds.^[3]

The records of the operations of the remaining DB-3 were sparse, but they were very likely been replaced by US-built heavy bombers by 1943.

Media

Skins

• Skins and camouflages for the DB-3A (China) from live.warthunder.com.

See also

Links to the articles on the War Thunder Wiki that you think will be useful for the reader, for example:

• reference to the series of the aircraft;
• links to approximate analogues of other nations and research trees.

External links

• Official data sheet - more details about the performance

References