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Soviet Rockets (?!) under French a P-63 in Indochina

Dreamk

Well-Known Member
I found this photo of the trials of rockets on P-63C in Indochina in 1951.
A pair of rockets on a dual launcher installed on the bomb rack (the dual launcher looks like the one later used on French Texans and Ouragans) .
Now, to identify these rockets is tricky, as they strongly look like Soviet A-G rockets!!!! - the idea may sound crazy but we must remember that the GC II/6 squadron that operated these P-63C was no other than the Normandie-Niemen squadron that came back to France at the end of ww2, 6 years before, with its Soviet planes and equipment, so.....
Can someone can throw more light on this?

Rocket-P-63-Indochina.jpg

To add a few details:
1) I have been unable to find other photographs of French P-63 with rockets (any type)
2) The operational records of the French P-63 squadrons in Indochina indicate that rocket lauching were testes on January 15th 1950 and November 23rd 1950 by aircraft of GC2/5 with quite unsatisgying results - 25% of the rockets failing to launch. However, records show that Rockets were also used in orpeations by the P-63 of GC 1/9 that replaced the GC 2/5 in indochina in January 1951 (the planes of the GC1/9 were the former planes of the GC 2/5), and on February 21st the P-63s of GC2/6 began also to use rockets in oeprations.
 
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Those are definitely not Soviet. However the fins are not exactly the same, they look more like the 4.5in T22 rockets with the T23 aircraft kit.

V.
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t23.jpg4fe89642126be_63e3969be2fa3.jpg
 
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Soviet Rs-82 rockets:
Such air ground rockets were used on Yaks and Il-2
On these too the fins are different fromm the picture of the P-63.
However the fuse on the rockets under the wing of the P-63 indeed looks more similar to the one on the T22.
I have till now been unable to trace mention of an autonomous French development of rockets in the immediate post war on the basis of rs-82 or T-22/T23.
Btw, as a curiosity, I found mention of the French P-63 being used as a launching plane in the early stages of the development if the Seram T-10 rocket

09-49-56-50303654751_ab02264e14_c.jpg09-49-52-50303805167_77f2816385_b.jpg
 
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I found this photo of the trials of rockets on P-63C in Indochina in 1951.

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(P-63s of three of the four air forces which operated the type.) (photo from Russian magazine World Aviation #19)
Of the 3,303 Kingcobras built, 2,421 (roughly 73%) were delivered to the USSR during WWII.

 

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I finally found the answer - It's indeed a 4.5in M8 rocket with a French Matras M45 adaptation kit - There is an instruction movie for this material on the site of the iconogarphic database of the French ministry of defense (if only their search engine was better and more specific)

Matériel d'adaptation MATRAS M 45 pour le tir des roquettes modèle 45 type M8​


A few screen captures from this movie:

Screenshot 2023-12-09 212448.jpgScreenshot 2023-12-09 212404.jpgScreenshot 2023-12-09 212331.jpgScreenshot 2023-12-09 212152.jpgScreenshot 2023-12-09 212052.jpgScreenshot 2023-12-09 211919.jpgScreenshot 2023-12-09 211851.jpgScreenshot 2023-12-09 212119.jpg
Screenshot 2023-12-09 211708.jpg
 
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