Bed Check Assassin Charlie

[Fulcrum]

I now that Po-2's & other light aircraft were used by some countries to bother their enemie's army bases at night, disturbing their sleep, hence "Bed Check Charlie".

Here's my idea: In a event of war during the cold war, a top secret Soviet/Warsaw Pact frontal aviation unit is tasked to take out any NATO/Western military & political headquarters, thus distrupting the chain of command & earn the Soviets an advantage against NATO C3I.

Aircraft that could be used: Su-17, Su-24, Su-25, Mig-27 & Mig-29M painted all black for nighttime missions.

Possible Units: Any secert Soviet fighter-bomber unit or the "Night Wichites".

Frankly, a modern, cold war adaptation of the famous "Night Wichites" that served with distinction in WW2.


Any suggestions or criticisms are welcomed...

Oh yeah, I think I misspelled "Wichites"....   *facepalm*

[Caveman]

Interesting concept. Why not arm the witches with the modern equivalent to the po2? whatever that may be.

[upnorth]

I think earlier on (say mid 50s or so), the Il-28 Beagle would probably get the nod for the job. Big enough to haul a respectable bomb load but small enough to be a bugger of a target at night given the radar technology of the era. The absence of an afterburner would work to some advantage for reducing visibility at night operations I would think.

Somewhat later (into the 60s) , the Sukhoi Su-7 might do the job. It would need the afterburner as radars would be much better developed by then, so speed would be a much bigger consideration that just staying concealed.

From there, you could just work through a steady progression of Sukhoi types in the Fitter family and then eventually swap out for Su-24 Fencers at some point in the 80s.

[upnorth]

Interesting concept. Why not arm the witches with the modern equivalent to the po2? whatever that may be.

I'm not sure the Po-2 really has a modern equivalent unless you wanted to try to rig out something like the Czech L-29 Delfin or Polish Iskra jet trainers for it. Of course in that scenario, the L-29 would eventually get replaced by the L-39 Albatross.

Under Socialism, the Soviets farmed out trainer production to satellite states like Czechoslovakia and Poland. We may ultimately not be looking at a Soviet originated aircraft for this job.

[Geoff]

How about a stealth version of the Hind, or more likely the Mi-28, lots of ECM, flares and low light systems like the Apachies in Iraq??

[philp]

My Chipmunski kind of fits this other than the jet option.
Mounting a radial engine on it and putting it in North Korean markings with grey uppers and black underneath.

[upnorth]

My Chipmunski kind of fits this other than the jet option.
Mounting a radial engine on it and putting it in North Korean markings with grey uppers and black underneath.

If you would look at Chipmunk type aircraft for this job, then the Zlin series of trainers would be rather an Eastern corelary.

You could work through the whole line from the early ones to today's Z-242. I thin AZ Modela has pretty much all of them covered in 1/72.

[Alvis 3.14159]

I'd nominate the AN-2 for this role. Rough field capable, slow speed, able to hedgehop and very likely capable of being modified to carry ordnance under the wings, such as rockets/ gun pods, perogies, etc. What made the BedCheck Charlies a nightmare to deal with was that they were slow and low, in the dark, and nothing in the USAF had the ability to get in behind them. The USN had a Corsair unit that dealt with them well, but even then, the Corsairs must have been operating near the bottom of their speed envelope, while the PO-2s were happily at a nice speed. NATO/Warpac era combat would be a similar situation, except that there's be helicopters capable of doing the role the PO2s had, as well as intercepting said vehicles as well.
The AN-2 would also be able to carry a good sized contingent of Soviet commandos, very capable of inflicting some serious damage themselves. I envisualise an AN-2 landing on a gold course on a US military base, disgorging troops. and then taking off to wreak havoc from the air, whilst the ground pounders set about blowing stuff up, etc. This going on all across the NATO front would be very disruptive.

Alvis Pi

[pyro-manic]

What about something similar to the Lockheed YO-3A? Use low-speed propellers and silenced engines to make an extremely quiet aircraft, and give it a couple of small bombs (firebombs or napalm?) or maybe rockets (a pair of Zunis?) - just enough to cause some serious damage before it disappears again.