Having spent the day researching at the RAF Museum in Hendon (there has to be some payoff for all the other crap I have to put up with at work) I got home to find Chris Barrie talking about tanks on C5. Now one of the things he mentioned was that the Russians often had all women tank crews to keep the weight down in the T34 battle tank.

This reminded me of something I had read ages ago about how during World War Two the Russians organised squadrons of women pilots, air and ground crew and put them into obsolete Polikarpov PO2 biplanes to bomb German positions. These aircraft could only carry two bombs at a maximum speed of 94 mph.

Now you'd think flying a mission in a plane that was slower than a WW1 fighter would be a suicide mission, but the Polikarpov's max speed was less than the stalling speed of a Messerschmitt 109 or a Focke Wulf 190 and it was very manouverable so it was quite hard for a fighter pilot to get a clear shot at it, especially in the dark.

The bombing raids were carried out by approaching the target at low level to avoid night fighters' radar, then turning the engine off to glide to the target and loose the bombs, which often caused complete surprise and panic. The first the enemy would know of it would be hearing the wind blowing through the bracing wires, by which time it was often too late. The Germans called these raiders the Nachthexen (Night Witches)

There must be potential in there for a movie.