l Approved For Release 3 Wogk NSC BRIEFING Fr 27 April 1955 Wen mu AG EueurBy' MAY DAY 1 Last year's May Day parade in Moscow featured a single Type 37--the USSR's big new four-engine jet heavy bomber A During parade rehearsals for this year's show -next Sunday--our observers have seen as many as ten Type 37 s at a time flying in formation B These sightings mean that the Soviet heavy bomber program is substantially more advanced than we had estimated C Our old estimates held that the USSR would not start series production of these jet heavy bombers until the third quarter of 1955 D On this basis we calculated that the Jet heavies would not appear in operational units of the Soviet Air Force until the end of 1956 and that only 50 heavies would be in service by mid 1957 II The Air Force is presently revising these former estimates A The Air Force believes that a simultaneous sighting of ten jet heavies means that at least seventeen must now be in existence B From this a preliminary Air Fbrce calculation in- dicates that the Type 37 actually went into production in Aug 54 and that 55 of the jet heavies will be built by the end of 1955 I Doe man No 2 - lie NO CHANGE CLASS 1 CLASS CHANGEDTO- 1 DATE newt WEB 39 5 5 14 Approved For Release 2000109111 - I Approved For Release 2000419111 50004009-0 C The Air Force further calculates that peak production-- 13 planes a month -should be reached by the end of '57 and that 247 of the Jet heavies should be built by the end of '57 D Range of the Type 37 Map in round-trip flight from Soviet Siberian bases without benefit of in flight refueling covers the continental US in an are from Santa Barbara to Duluth Rehearsals for Sunday's air parade have also shown Western observer an entirely new large Soviet plane A This is a four-engine turbo-prop swept wing plane of heavy bomber size and configuration 1 Approved For Release 2000109111 The intelligence community is at a loss to ex- plain Soviet construction of a turbo prop heaVy bomber The jet-powered Type 37 is already in production and a large high performance cargo plane suitable for modification as an aerial tanker rather than a second class of heavy bombers would seem a more urgent Soviet military need As can be seen Map possession of an aerial tanker would substantially improve the range and flexibility of the Soviet long range Air Force A further twist to this puzzle is the fact that the Soviets have not exhibited a new four-engined cargo plane of any kind for the past 8 years when the and were flown on May Day 2 _e 40017-0 This document is from the holdings of The National Security Archive Suite 701 Gelman Library The George Washington University 2130 H Street NW Washington D C 20037 Phone 202 994-7000 Fax 202 994-7005 nsarchiv@gwu edu