The bombs and fuzes described herein are representative of those employed by the So-viet Air Force during the war period of 1939 to 1945. While knowledge of Soviet bombs is limited, general appearances indicate that they were the least developed of their arma-ment equipment. Up to the end of 1942, the Soviet bombs were prewar stock which had been designed and manufactured with little thought for ballistic qualities. Workmanship was essentially crude, due to their dependence on unskilled labor and a chronic shortage of supervisory personnel. With these conditions existig, little effort was ever expended on improving designs that had proved satisfactory. When new types of bombs were re-quired, they were hastily improvised, frequently, and primitive in design.

However, by the end of 1943, definite improvements had become evidente to the point where rechnicians of the German Air Ministry expressed the opinion that Soviet produc-tion of drawn tubes for bombs was equal to, or better than, American and German equi-valents. While there must have been some parallel improvement in bomb fuzes during this period, it apparently did not keep pace with the development of bomb case manufactur-ing technology.

Since very few Soviet bombs and fuzes are avaible for examination, the material for this publication has been drawn primarily from documentary evidence, which is often inconsis-tent. Consequently, discrepancies exist, and will be correcred upon receipt of supple-mental information. Whenever the actual specimen has been available to this activity for examination, it is so nored.