When armed conflicts take place, the best weapons are used. However, they do not always turn out to be effective in certain conditions - then the development of new weapons that should help begin begins. This is how the project was created to create a machine with a unique lethality. We are talking about the Soviet M-25 aircraft, which was awarded a very apt nickname - "Hell Mower".
According to popular belief, the history of this unique project could not have begun, if not for the first armed conflict between the USSR and another large state after the Great Patriotic War. We are talking about the clashes on Damansky Island in 1969. Then the use of tanks did not have the desired effect, and the Soviet border guards suffered considerable losses until they used multiple launch rocket systems. So it became clear that it was necessary to look for new methods of mass destruction of the enemy.
The Soviet command was impressed by the results of the conflict with the Chinese, so the work on the creation of new weapons unfolded on a large scale. In particular, most of the research institutes and design bureaus of the Ministry of Defense and the branch ministries of the USSR were involved in the development. Among this rather large list was the Design Bureau of V. M. Myasishchev. The project of the "special-purpose aircraft" was named "Topic 25", the same number was later assigned to the aircraft as an index.
Most of the technical characteristics at that time were still in development, but the striking power of the future attack aircraft was already known - it was supposed to be a shock war that arises when the sound barrier is overcome. Its power is so great that when flying at low altitude, it is a deadly weapon for the personnel of a potential enemy.
After the studies carried out within the framework of the project, TsAGI formed the main theses on the design and technical characteristics. The aircraft must be large-sized with the required take-off weight and sufficiently powerful engines that would provide the ability to achieve supersonic speed at low altitude.
In addition, solutions were thought out regarding the main function of this machine - the creation of a shock wave of the required force. For this, it was envisaged to create special elements of the fuselage, which experts call a "wave former". As such a unit, it was proposed to use the so-called “non-aerodynamic” nose, the so-called “duck” scheme.
However, already at the stage of selecting technologies for the production of the M-25, problems arose. So, when, according to the design of the Myasishchev Design Bureau, the installation of a maximum of four turbojet engines was prescribed, it became clear that there were simply no suitable engines at the disposal of aircraft designers - at that time such technologies had not yet been invented.
In addition, the designers could not stop at one, the most acceptable technical appearance of the future M-25. Another major problem was the difficulty in controlling the projected aircraft. So, as a result of numerous checks and studies, it became clear that the only possible option was the autopilot, but the then level of technology was not perfect for this particular purpose.
As a result, research on the "Hell Mower" project lasted until 1972, after which they were closed. All documents marked "Topic 25" were sent to the archives under the heading "Secret", and only recently some of the papers were published in the public domain. A lot can be said about the reasons for the failure of the project, but one of them is quite transparent - the technologies of the late 1960s - early 1970s were not sufficiently developed to implement such an ambitious project in practice.
Do you want to know what else the army of the Soviet Union was replenished with after the conflict on Damansky Island? Then read: "Border Armored Tie", or How armored trains were given a second life in the USSR