Discover

In warfare, 'ramming' is a technique that was used in the air, sea and land combat. The term originated from battering ram, which is a siege weapon used to bring down fortifications by hitting it with force, of which the momentum of the ram being sufficient to damage the target. Thus, in warfare ramming refers to hitting a target by running oneself into the target.

Contents

History

Air warfare

Technique

After WWII

Ground warfare

At Sea

External Link

History

Already in 750 BCE the main striking force of the Assyrian army was the corps of horse-drawn, two-wheeled chariots. Their mission was to smash their way through the ranks of enemy infantry. As siege weapons they used battering rams. The Chinese had been using the ram for warships since the Spring and Autumn Period (722 BC-481 BC), as recorded in the ''Yue Jue Shu'' (Lost Records of the State of Yue), compiled and edited in 52 AD by Yuan Kang during the Han Dynasty. The ancient Greeks used their trireme vessels for ramming as well.

Air warfare

Ramming in air combat is a last-ditch tactic that was used when all else had failed. The ramming pilot could use his entire aircraft as a ram or he could try to destroy the enemy's controls using the propeller or wing to chop into the enemy's tail or wing. Ramming took place when a pilot ran out of ammunition yet was still eager to destroy an enemy, or when his plane had already been damaged beyond saving. Most ramming occurred when the attacker's aircraft was economically, strategically or tactically less valuable than the enemy's, such as by pilots flying obsolescent aircraft against superior ones or by single-engine aircraft against multiple-engine bombers. Defenders rammed more often than invaders.
A ramming attack was not considered suicidal in the same manner as kamikaze attacks — the ramming pilot stands a chance of surviving, though it was very risky. Sometimes the ramming aircraft itself could survive to make a controlled landing, though most were lost due to combat damage or the pilot bailing out. Ramming was used in air warfare in the first half of the 20th century, in both World Wars and in the interwar period. In the jet age, as air combat speeds increased, instances of ramming became rare. It was too risky.
The first known instance of ramming in air warfare was made over Zhovkva by the Russian pilot, Pyotr Nesterov on September 8, 1914, against an Austrian plane. That incident was fatal to both parties.
Ramming () was used in the Spanish Civil War. On the night of November 27-28, 1937 Soviet pilot Evgeny Stepanov flying a Polikarpov I-15 shot down one SM.81 bomber near Barcelona and emptied the rest of his bullets into another. The second SM.81 continued to fly, so Stepanov resorted to using the left leg of his ''Chaika's undercarriage to ram the bomber, downing the plane.^[1]
The first taran attack in World War II was carried out by the Polish pilot, Lt. Col. Leopold Pamuła with his damaged PZL P.11c on September 1, 1939, over Łomianki near Warsaw. (''Taran'' is also a Polish word.)
In World War II, ramming became a legendary technique of VVS pilots against the Luftwaffe, especially in the early days of the hostilities in the war's Eastern Front. In the first year of the war, most available Soviet machines were considerably inferior to the German ones and the ''taran'' was sometimes perceived as the only way to guarantee the destruction of the enemy. Trading an outdated fighter for a technologically advanced bomber was considered economically sound. In some cases, pilots who were heavily wounded or in damaged aircraft decided to perform a suicidal taran attack against air, ground or naval targets. In this instance, taran becomes more like an unpremeditated kamikaze attack (see Nikolai Gastello).
Nine rammings took place on the very first day of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, one within the first hour. At 04:25 hours on June 22, 1941 Lt. I. I. Ivanov drove his Polikarpov I-16 into the tail of an invading Heinkel He 111. Ivanov didn't survive but was posthumously awarded the gold star, Hero of the Soviet Union.^[2] Lieutenant Boris Kobzan survived a record four ramming attacks in the war. Alexander Khlobystov made three. Seventeen other Soviet pilots were credited with two successful ramming attacks. About 200 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 were still trained to perform it). However, Evgeny Stepanov stated in an interview that more than 580 taran attacks were made by VVS pilots in WWII.^[1]
On 15 September 1940, Flight Sergeant Ray Holmes of No. 504 Squadron RAF used his Hawker Hurricane to destroy a Dornier Do-17 bomber over London by ramming but at the loss of his own aircraft (and almost his own life) in one of the defining moments of the Battle of Britain. Holmes, making a head-on attack, found his guns inoperative. He flew his plane into the top-side of the German bomber, cutting off the rear tail section with his wing and causing the bomber to dive out of control. The German crew were killed in the crash, while the injured Holmes bailed out of his plane and survived. As the R.A.F. did not practice ramming as an air combat tactic, this was considered an impromptu manouvre, and an act of selfless courage.
The Japanese also practiced ramming. An example is the bringing down of a lone B-17 Flying Fortress ''The Flying Swede'' on May 8, 1942 by an Oscar. After three Japanese fighters had each made two attack passes, the bomber's pilot, Major Robert N. Keatts, made for the shelter of a nearby rain squall. Loath to let the bomber escape, Sgt. Tadao Oda made a head-on attack that resulted in ramming. Both aircraft were destroyed with no survivors. Sergeant Oda was posthumously promoted to lieutenant for his sacrifice.^[4]
Several rammings () were performed by Bulgarian fighter pilots defending Sofia against Allied bombers in 1943 and 1944. The first one to do so was Senior Lieutenant (posthumously elevated to Captain) Dimitar Spisarevsky on December 20, 1943.^[5]
Late in World War II, Sonderkommando Elbe used ramming to try and restore the Luftwaffe to its former glory. Strategically, the operation was a failure. Although some pilots succeeded in destroying bombers, the skies were still controlled by the Allies.
Presaging the 20th century air warfare ramming actions, H. G. Wells, writing in 1899 in his novel ''The Sleeper Awakes'', has his main character, Graham, ram one of the enemy's aeroplanes with his flying apparatus, causing it to fall out of the sky. A second enemy machine ceases its attack, afraid of being rammed in turn. ^[6]

Technique

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 aircraft like the Polikarpov I-16 had wings strengthened for this purpose.

★ Direct ramming was the easiest to perform, but also the most dangerous.

After WWII

During the Vietnam War, Vu Xuan Thieu, a North Vietnam pilot, is said to have rammed his Mig-21 into an American B-52, accounting for the second loss of a B-52 to an enemy interceptor (the first one was shot down by Pham Tuan). Thieu subsequently crashed, however, the reason for his crash is disputed. He might have been downed by the fireball of the destroyed B-52.^[7]
In 1981 a Soviet Su-15 fighter jet rammed an Iranian CL-44 reconnaissance plane which intruded USSR airspace, resulting in the crash of both aircraft. There have been at least three other Soviet ramming attacks between the early 1970s and 1988.

Ground warfare

At Sea

See Ram (ship)
In 1988 two US naval ships, a destroyer USS Caron and cruiser USS Yorktown were rammed by Soviet naval ships inside Soviet waters in the Black Sea, near the port of Foros.
During the "Cod Wars" between Britain and Iceland, unarmed trawlers found themselves opposed by Icelandic Coastguard vessels and converted trawlers. As well as Royal Navy coastguard vessels, Britain sent large, ocean-going tugs and lightships to protect them and there were numerous rammming incidents against both sides, sometimes with very serious consequences.

External Link

★ [German World War II ramming]