War Thunder - A Second Review of the TB-3!
In this episode I take a second look at the TB-3, this time in realistic battle. In the 3 battles I take part in the TB-3 somewhat redeems itself, proving to be a fairly capable bomber in the right circumstances, scoring multiple ground and air kills.
Also apologies for the rushed history of the aircraft, lack of time and no mention of it in any of my books limited me to online sources unfortunately.
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Game: War Thunder ⬅️
#warthunder #vvs #tb3 #review #ww2 #airforce #toreno
Also apologies for the rushed history of the aircraft, lack of time and no mention of it in any of my books limited me to online sources unfortunately.
Social Media ⬇️
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/toreno.bsky.social
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/Toreno4
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/toreno170
Mastodon: Toreno17@mastodon.social
Threads: https://www.threads.net/@toreno170
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/Toreno17
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/toreno5/videos
Game: War Thunder ⬅️
#warthunder #vvs #tb3 #review #ww2 #airforce #toreno
Category
🎮️
GamingTranscript
00:00Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of War Thunder.
00:03As you can see here we've got the TB3 again.
00:06If you remember in my last episode I did a bit of a review or look at the TB3.
00:11And basically at the end I sort of said it's a good plane but it's not the most useful in the world and it gets shot down quite easily.
00:18Because of it's slow speed, it's large size, you know it wasn't the most useful aircraft in arcade.
00:26I did mention at the time I think that I hadn't used it in realistic battles.
00:31I hadn't tested it there. A few people in the comments section have actually mentioned it would probably be better in realistic as well.
00:37So basically I've gone ahead and tried it in realistic and well it's a massive improvement.
00:44I've already recorded the actual matches so we'll quickly go over to them and I'll talk a little bit more about the aircraft.
00:54Now this was the first realistic battle I did with the TB3. It's Korea.
00:59So straight off the bat from spawning we're going at 80 miles an hour.
01:03I did record the whole match but I'm not going to show you all of it because it took me 5 minutes to reach the bases.
01:09Not the enemy bases, 5 minutes to reach the friendly bases.
01:14Which you know are like... you can see how near they are. It took me nearly 10 minutes just to get to the enemy bases.
01:22I have no idea... well I know why it took so long because it's a slow plane but that's probably the one big drawback about using this plane.
01:33While we're flying towards the target I will probably skip ahead in a little bit but I'll talk a little bit about the history of the plane.
01:41This first flight was in 1913. I think the end of 1913. It was introduced in about 1932.
01:50I'm happy to rely on internet sources for this because most of my books don't deal with the TB3.
01:55But apparently it was the world's first cantilever winged four engine heavy bomber.
02:01Cantilever if I'm not mistaken is without the use of external struts and all that.
02:08So yeah quite an advanced aircraft to its day.
02:12Now like I said this was withdrawn in 1939. The Russians had used them against the Japanese.
02:20I don't know if it was a war but Japan and Russia or the Soviet Union had quite a few battles against each other around the Kalkin Gulf.
02:29I can't remember exactly what happened but I think Japan and the Soviet Union had ended up fighting against each other.
02:37There were quite a few border conflicts. I remember Japan was involved in China at this time.
02:43I think it might have started over a month ago here even.
02:46But basically Japan was beaten and some people suggest this may have been why the Japanese didn't attack the Soviet Union along with the Germans.
02:58I think Zoukoff was involved in the battle. I think he was the general.
03:02I think he was involved in the battle. I think he launched the counter attack against the Japanese which I'm guessing got him noticed before the German invasion.
03:19I think these were also used in the Winter War against Finland.
03:23Like I said I'm relying on internet sources because my books don't have this plain listed.
03:28Some of the internet sources say it was used against the Finns.
03:31Like I said it was officially retired in 1939 but when the Germans invaded in 1941 they still had quite a lot of them left over.
03:44A lot of the Soviet air force was destroyed on the ground or in the air.
03:48So they had to put anything they had back into service.
03:54From what I understand it was put into a situation where it suffered quite badly.
04:01Daytime bombing without fighter escort.
04:05The Germans had a very good air force and a lot of them were probably shot down by fighters and then there's ground fire, the black guns.
04:18Like we've seen in the game it's a slow big target.
04:22It would have been a lot easier to shoot it down than the more nimble fighters.
04:28They were used in quite a lot of the war.
04:34From what I understand they were still used in the battle of Kursk and they were used in the post-war air parade to recognise their role.
04:43They weren't used for a long time despite being withdrawn years earlier and being obsolete when the war actually started.
04:51They were used for special variants, I'm trying to think of the right word.
04:59Two that I can think of.
05:02Parasite fighters, I've got a list of them as a Venno project.
05:07Basically it carries two fighters and then drops them off and they go and bomb the target.
05:14These were actually used operationally.
05:18The TB3 carrying two I-16s which were armed with a few bombs.
05:23They were used in a few missions, I'm just trying to find targets here.
05:29One of the first targets apparently was an attack against the Constantinople oil depot.
05:35It was a successful attack in broad daylight, no losses.
05:39It doesn't say what damage it did though so maybe only successful in that they got to the target and got out again.
05:45I think the main target they were designed to attack was this King Carol I bridge over the Danube.
05:54Which apparently carried the Plesty Constantinople oil pipeline.
05:59The first attack, one of the bombers had to turn back.
06:06The rest of the fighters got there and attacked the target, got home, but they didn't destroy the bridge.
06:14The second attack, there were six fighters but apparently they scored five direct hits on the bridges and completely destroyed one of the spans.
06:21They made their way back and attacked a few targets on the way back via strafing.
06:28After that they did a few more sorties, destroying a dry dock in Constantinople and the bridge across the Danube.
06:40It was actually during a repeat attack, four of the I-16s engaged Bf 109s and shot down two.
06:48They were quite successful but in the end they were withdrawn.
06:55They stopped doing the missions in 1942 because by now the TB3 were really obsolete, the I-16s were getting quite obsolete.
07:06They managed to fly 30 combat missions so they took an extremely obsolete bomber and made it into something rather successful.
07:15Getting back into the War Thunder game going on at the moment, you can see we've just reached our own friendly bases.
07:23We've still got a little way to get to the enemy target so I'm going to skip the video forward a little bit.
07:28You may have just seen the mission objective fail. That was actually to do with the enemy tanks going through the bridge.
07:38I think the enemy destroyed the bridge stopping our tanks from going across the bridge as well.
07:43You can see I'm just lining up for attacking the target.
07:48What I was hoping to do was bomb this target, bomb the next one. I was going to drop the two 500kg bombs here.
07:56Someone in the comments said it would take 1,500kg to destroy it.
08:02So I was hoping to do 1,000kg here and 1,000kg on the next one and then try and use the 250kg bombs to destroy both bases.
08:12So I could do it in an efficient way. In arcade you drop them one at a time but in realistic you drop them two at a time.
08:20So I ended up dropping 2,000 or 3,000 or 2,500kg worth of bombs on one target.
08:28Doing a massive overkill and only having 500 or 250kg left for the last one.
08:34So I'm just lining up for the target now.
08:38There's a Catalina in the distance. I was never bombed by any enemy aircraft.
08:43There seem to be main furies and biplanes if I can remember right.
08:49So I'm just lining up for the target.
08:53Coming up for it now. You should see it zoom in. There we go.
08:57And you'll see I dropped nearly my entire bomb load.
09:00Because I was hoping to drop I think two or three bombs and instead I clicked it three times and ended up dropping six bombs.
09:08I've sort of realised my mistake in a few seconds.
09:12I'm lining up for the next target because I might as well use the last bombs anyway to do some damage.
09:18You can see it's a massive overkill. You'll see the first explosion, the first explosion and then another two.
09:25I just completely wasted most of my bombs there.
09:31Now this match really shows where the CB-3 can shine.
09:36Where you manage to bomb the targets without being engaged by enemy aircraft.
09:43Basically that's it's main way of operating. Just try and not draw attention to yourself.
09:49But you will see in one of the other matches I did get attention drawn to myself.
09:55Taught well in the two different matches. One match it turned out very bad, one match it turned out ridiculously good.
10:02This match I was just happy enough not to be bombed by any enemies.
10:07We're approaching the new bomb site. I'm just going to skip it forward a little bit.
10:12Trying to actually just speed it up rather than skipping it actually.
10:16It seems to work a bit better I suppose.
10:18There we are, straight at the target.
10:21I think I only had two 250kg bombs left at this point so I didn't actually do all that much damage.
10:30Basically this was my contribution to the match over.
10:33I was on the way back. It's a slow plane and the enemy had lost all their targets.
10:37Well not all their targets, all their aircraft.
10:41So while I'm just flying on the way back I'll talk about the other project the CB-3 was involved with.
10:49Now the other project it was involved in as I was just saying was the Antonov A-43 tanker.
10:58Apparently this means tank wings in Russian.
11:03Basically it was a Russian attempt at a glider tank.
11:07Basically the intention was for a PEA, the other four engine bomb in Russia used.
11:12I think that was the only one they actually produced in the war.
11:16Like I said the TB-3 was produced before the war.
11:20An order TB-3 could be used to tow this or carry this glider tank.
11:27From what I understand it was a T-60 and they actually used a broader tank.
11:32There was only one flight, I'm just trying to find it in the page.
11:36The tank was lightened for air use by removing its armour, ammunition and headlights leaving a very limited amount of fuel.
11:45Like I said this was a test flight but what next will probably show why it probably wasn't very practical.
11:52Even with the modifications the TB-3 bomber had to ditch the glider during its own flight to avoid crashing because of the extreme drag.
12:00Apparently the tank reportedly glided smoothly to the ground when it landed, it landed near the air drone.
12:09It dropped the glider pilot or tank driver, I'm not sure which we would be classified as, just dropped the glider wings and tails and returned to the base.
12:20The project was abandoned, like I said it was lightened, it was modified to be lightened and it still had to be dropped early because it was creating too much drag.
12:31So yeah that was the other project, the other special project the TB-3 was involved in.
12:38In the game again we saw it being attacked by a flak, I can't remember if I took any serious damage, I think there was one near here that sort of caused me to worry a little bit.
12:49So it seems like it was here, I'm sure there was a bit of spark in there, maybe there wasn't, maybe I'm imagining it, but I'm surprised it didn't do any damage.
13:00Even with a light gun you would think there would be a bit of damage caused to the aircraft.
13:05Now at this point I actually picked up a bit of an escort fight from the way back, I didn't need it yet, like I said the enemy team lost all their vehicles.
13:15It's actually weird, my framerate just randomly went really bad at this point, probably not the place to talk about it, but I've noticed that sometimes I've been having okay framerate.
13:26As soon as someone comes near me it just drops like stone, I have no idea why, but yeah basically that's all the hostile teams here from Scott.
13:35We'll quickly see how I did in the actual match, point wise I actually did worse than I should have, point wise, because I forgot to change the efficient research from a tier 4 to a lower tier.
13:50So I lost something like 40% of my points I should have got, which is a shame, but you know, what can I do about it now, I should be just seeing the points.
14:02So with double XP I got 1778 for modifications, but it went down to about 1000 after changing the inefficient research.
14:15Now I actually skipped the beginning bit of this match, it was mainly just me flying towards a target, I think someone asked me what my plan was for this match.
14:25Oh there we go, I was just telling them I was going to bomb the bases, this was my second match so I knew about the double dropping of the bombs, so I sort of worked out a way of taking out 2 or 3 of the bases in one go this time.
14:38But unfortunately, well I'll quickly skip ahead to the moment, or is this where it starts, oh no I'll skip ahead to where I get attacked by the enemy aircraft.
14:53So just skipping forward, I think I ended up talking about, oh there we go, now it's a bit slow, rather prophetic, considering what happens next.
15:03You can see some enemy aircraft in the distance, it's an A6M2N, now this is good because it's a Zero but it's got a huge flow gun, so not the most manoeuvrable aircraft.
15:16What is behind it, the Ki-45s, not so good, twin engine fighters, they can have anything from 20mm to 37mm cannons if I remember correctly.
15:28So I'm trying to engage the Zero, but he's in my gunner's dead zone, he's being attacked, I actually noticed there's an La-5 in this match which I was quite surprised, it seemed a bit over tiered.
15:40And here's the Ki-45s coming in to attack, I've got some hits in, but he's already damaged my wing quite badly, and I can't manually engage two engine fighters at the same time.
15:53I should have really left it to the gunner so they could prioritise the target maybe.
15:58But I'm being attacked, I've already taken quite a bit of damage, I'm trying to dive although there's no point doing that really.
16:09I'm still getting hits in though, like here and there, and then that happens.
16:15It's weird, my pilot gets killed, my wing falls off on it's own, then I get rammed by one of the pilots.
16:21Oh here's the third match, I wasn't expecting to just skip there.
16:26Now this is where I did the best, I'm going to skip forward again because otherwise, you know, long journey to the front.
16:34Now this map I believe is saying how, as you notice there are no bases to destroy, what we have instead are bridges.
16:44Which is good, it would be nice if there were more matches where you had strategic targets like bridges or factories to destroy.
16:51Which would give a better job for these bombers, but as you can see there's two A6M2Ns, again they're the biplane, the floatplane versions.
17:03But they still carry 20mm cannons, so I think they still have the same armament as the A6M2Ns, so they could be a bit of a problem.
17:10So I'm just coming into a taxi first bridge, and basically I've decided to just use one bomb, or one lot of bombs on each bridge.
17:22Coming up for the first bridge, so I'm just getting through, I'm not really sure how this is going to work,
17:31I've had problems where I've tried to drop bombs and it's all clipped through the bridges, or it misses and hits the water and then it's a bit of a touch and go bit where I actually destroy or damage the bridge.
17:41In this case I seem to have got it right, and managed to get the bridge, which counts as two ground units, but I'm under attack.
17:49Gunners aren't fighting, so I know I can't, there's no point manually doing anything.
17:53I'm coming up to the next bridge, I've got my bombs and I've decided to get onto the guns, and thankfully he made a pretty good target.
18:02I'm using the incendiary ammo, like I said in my last video I've been using the long ammo, and they were just sitting on my tail, so it wasn't hard to hit them.
18:11I've set them on fire, I'm getting hits on this guy, not serious hits, but enough to keep him away and do a bit of damage to him.
18:19I've managed to shoot down the other CMO, I think he's burnt to death, or you know, burnt out, burnt out sorry.
18:26Oh my throat's getting a bit dry.
18:31Ah, lucky water.
18:34Coming up to the next bridge, I'm going to skip forward a little bit because at this point I'm just dropping bombs, it's when I'm on the way back that the other encounter happens.
18:44So basically at this point I just drop some more bombs, you know, nothing really amazing happened, and then I'm just flying back to base.
18:52Now at this point, you know, the engines are starting to overheat, and I'd fiddled with some of my settings before and changed some of the manual engine settings, so I'm trying to remember what the controls are.
19:02So, just minding my own business, not looking at the radar, I think you can see the red dot there, it looks blue because I'm where I am because it's movie maker, but I'm pretty sure that it's an enemy aircraft.
19:14So I'm about to go to controls and then that happens, and it's a Ki-61 Heine, now I can't actually remember what weapons the Heine uses, I'll leave a little annotation saying what weapons it is, but it could potentially be anything from, I think, 12.7mm machine guns, 50 caliber machine guns to 20mm cannons, unless I'm mistaken.
19:42So I'm not really sure whether this is just going to be a minor irritant, or, you know, well, it wouldn't be a minor irritant even with the 50 caliber machine guns, because as we all know, the pilot is extremely exposed.
19:54Now I'm getting lots of hits on the guy, and he's, I don't know, there was quite a few times I wasn't sure if he was going to ram me, like, he didn't ram me, thankfully.
20:05But they didn't, they were sort of like, the evasive maneuvers, like they were trying to get away from my guns, but they did it in a way that put them in the best position for my guns to get a shot at them, so, I kept getting hits in, and obviously they've damaged me, my wings blackened, or, sorry, dark red, I'm leaking fuel, I think one of my engines might be damaged, I can't quite tell, and I actually don't think it is, because, oh, one of them's a bit hotter than the others, so,
20:34possibly damaged, I'm still getting hits in, but they're getting lots of hits on me, now, the wing's black, the body's gone red, or pink, I think it's a red, I'm still getting hits in, but I'm just not setting them on fire, the one time I'm actually, you know, expose a Japanese plane or catch on fire, and it just won't happen, maybe because it's an army fight or something, but I finally get a critical hit on the tail,
21:03and, at this point, I think they end up just diving into the ground, I think they were diving when I hit them, although another enemy, oh, not another enemy, other planes come in to try and deal with them, I'm actually getting flying speed too low at 120 miles an hour, and aircraft destroyed, just as our war trooper heated, so they did quite a bit of damage to us, I think you can see one of the engines has definitely gone pink or red now,
21:33I'm just coming in for landing, but by this point the game is practically over, there's literally like 10-20 seconds of game left, so we'll see how I actually did in the match in the end, I believe I did reasonably well, I think I actually unlocked a new aircraft, the Yak-1 I think it was, because I'd finally changed it to research an aircraft efficiently, you can see there, nearly 5000 points for 2 air kills and a couple of ground kills,
22:02and 40,000 silver lions, and I came in at the top of my team, so yeah, I suppose if we look at this as a review of the aircraft in realistic battles, then yeah, it does have a place in the game, as we can see it can still be destroyed, because it is an obsolete bomber, it's massively slow, it's a big huge target, the pilots are exposed,
22:32the gunners actually do a lot better here, because obviously the enemy, it's not like arcade where you can just manoeuvre all over the place, dodging shots, it's sort of the Ki-61, I managed to do quite well there against the E-0, so my verdict of the aircraft in realistic battle, well, basically it's an extremely good aircraft in realistic battle, or a lot better than it is in arcade battle,
22:57so yeah, I would recommend, if you do get this plane, try it out in realistic battle, where you will have a very good chance of actually doing well with this aircraft, playing it up to it's strengths, now I didn't test it in simulated battles, or I did months ago, just for fun, but basically the same strengths and weaknesses there, some are more pronounced, for example the aircraft not being able to manoeuvre out of your guns is a lot more valid in simulated battles,
23:28and because the enemy, you know, you're harder to spot, you'll probably have more success at being a bomber, and you know, sneaking past the enemy, and dealing a good amount of damage to the enemy bases, so yeah, I would recommend using this in realistic or simulated battles, obviously being a bit harder to control in simulated battles, but you'll generally have a lot more success, so yeah, a very good plane for realistic and simulated battles.
23:54Anyway, thank you for watching, hope you enjoyed this second look at the TB3, if you liked the video, leave a like, leave feedback, can always do it with more feedback, subscribe if you like these sorts of videos, thank you for watching, and I'll see you next time.