Tunguska was 250 meters in length, larger than any other airship in the Orenburg fleet, and bigger than the Narva in Soviet Russia by a full ten meters. It was even slightly larger than the mighty German Zeppelin Hindenburg that had been destroyed in a tragic fire that ignited its hydrogen lifting gas in 1937 before the war. To avoid that, this airship would use the rare helium gas, which had been mined from now classified sources within Siberia, and conserved to support the fleet. By reaching those metrics in her design, Tunguska would rightfully claim the title as the largest aircraft ever to be built and fly on the earth, three times the length of the biggest jumbo jets of modern times.
With all that lifting capacity the ship was endowed with a suite of 24 recoilless rifles, six more than Volkov’s flagship Orenburg, and the advantage was all in the bigger 105mm rifles on the main gondola. Better yet, there were secret racks of new rocket designs that Karpov had initiated a year ago for this project. They were based on the RS-82mm and RS-132mm rockets that had been in development as early as 1920 by the Soviets, but Karpov had used the information he commanded in his service jacket computer to modify them, and give them much better aerodynamic performance. They were unguided, and still too inaccurate to use against small ground targets, which was the reason the Russians abandoned them as a potential tank killer, and moved to the more promising PTAB bomblets instead. But Karpov believed they would still be useful as an area saturation weapon, like the dread Katyusha rocket that appeared in the Soviet arsenal, though that was not his primary use for the weapon.
Another airship was a very big target, and airship duels could often occur at very close ranges. So Karpov had a special swiveling rack installed forward of the main command gondola, and there he hid away his little surprise, one of several built into the design of this new airship. After seeing the success ‘Big Red’ had with his air fuel bomb, he also had a special bomb delivery rack installed on this ship so it could easily accommodate that weapon. When finally completed and commissioned, Tunguska had more guns and sheer fighting power than anything in the sky, and a double thick self sealing lining on the interior gas bags. With six powerful 1200hp engines, a third more power than the Hindenburg, it was capable of reaching speeds of 115km per hour in spite of its mass, or just over 70 miles per hour. And it could climb higher than any other airship then designed, capable of reaching 15,000 meters and still operating safely, which was well above the service ceiling of any fighter aircraft of the day.
Karpov had his Kirov, a fighting airship that he believed was unmatched by anything that might try to challenge him. Tunguska was twice the size of the Abakan, and so he naturally transferred his flag the day of the commissioning, and promoted his trusted Captain Bogrov to this new command. He was told to scour the fleet and select the very best air crews to serve aboard Tunguska, and he assigned it a company of his best troops for security, led by his Intelligence Chief Tyrenkov.
Striding aboard that day, Karpov was in a high mood, his newly shined boots hard on the metal mesh deck as he walked the long central passage from nose to stern. He greeted the new crew, spoke with them at their assigned action stations, touring every corner of the airship, from the high top platforms where machine guns and even 76mm recoilless rifles were mounted, to the Topaz Radar in the nose, and finally his secret rocket turret. He had business that day, a very special inaugural cruise planned for Tunguska.
The meeting had been arranged just after the collapse of the Omsk accords. Enraged at Volkov’s treachery, Karpov had made quiet contacts with Soviet Russia, and he convinced Kolchak that they should explore possibilities for cooperation in that area. So he was flying to Moscow that day, high above the Siberian cloud deck, where no other airship or plane could find or follow him. Yes, Volkov would learn of his arrival in Moscow soon, as his intelligence network was simply too good, but by then Karpov would have already achieved his aim.
Let him find out when I arrive over Red Square with Tunguska, he thought with a smile. That will put some ice in his veins. I’ve stopped his little offensive on the Ob, and his bid to quickly eliminate me as a threat on his eastern flank has been foiled. Now the Soviets are pushing hard in the Caucasus, and Volkov will be getting just a bit worried. Good! Let him stew and think I’m here to sign a new treaty with Sergei Kirov. He’ll likely go running off to Hitler again and whine that he needs more air support to stop Kirov’s troops.
