Alexsei the chinese Tu-4 Bull

Aleksei is, as some Americans would call her, a "Two-Faced Bitch". She was a triple agent in the Cold War, feeding information to both the Soviet Union AND the United States, while secretly building up her own repository of information on the Chinese to sell to the other major Cold War powers for a reasonable price. Love her or hate her, she provided invaluable intelligence that had adverted disaster on multiple occasions, most notably the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Officially, Aleksei joined the PLA Air Forces in 1949, and was immediately put into service as a Heavy Bomber. However, she was a very bright one, and felt that this was beneath her. After being chastised for her arrogance by a PLA Officer, she began listening to gossip, and soon enough came across a bit of juicy gossip regarding a sex scandal. Using this as blackmail, she had herself transferred to reconnaissance. Indeed, this worked well, as she came across her most trusted ally: a North Korean MiG-15 while conducting recon in 1952. She would continue her maneuverings until 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Desperate to prevent a war, China was approached by the USSR for advice. Aleksei had learned in the meantime of a possible idea the US had: they would consider removing their missiles from Turkey if the Soviets moved theirs from Cuba. As a result, many could say she was among a select few that saved the world from nuclear war, unknowingly as it may be.

In 1966, she was upgraded to an AWACS aircraft and retrofitted with turboprops, primarily as a form of repair after she lost much of her sight in a collision with a Shenyang J-6 (Chinese version of the MiG-19. She was a prototype, but alas the equipment proved too heavy and so they were not to see operational use in war. At last, this was the final indignity, and so she waited for over 50 years plotting her revenge. In 2012, she got her chance.

The Machine Revolution had begun, and like everyone else when China was attacked, she thought it was a Russian invasion, and indeed, when she came into contact with a MiG-35 in charge of the Revolutionary Air Forces, she gave him information on gaps in the Chinese Air Defense System, enabling a swift end to the war. It was only when she met the ground force commander, a GERMAN tank, that she learned the truth. Even so, after further improvements to her engines, she was inducted into the Revolutionary forces to conduct Signals Intelligence duties. Unlike her prior superiors, however, threats of blackmail were met with retaliatory threats of a missile up her tail, which promptly taught her that she might want to consider being more humble.







General characteristics

Crew: 11
Length: 30.179 m (99 ft 0 in)
Wingspan: 43.047 m (141 ft 3 in)
Height: 8.46 m (27 ft 9 in)
Wing area: 161.7 m2 (1,741 sq ft)
Aspect ratio: 11.5
Empty weight: 36,850 kg (81,240 lb)
Gross weight: 47,850 kg (105,491 lb)
Max takeoff weight: 55,600 kg (122,577 lb) - 63,600 kg (140,214 lb)
Powerplant: 4 × Shvetsov ASh-73TK 18-cyl. air-cooled radial piston engines, 1,790 kW (2,400 hp) each
Propellers: 4-bladed V3-A3 or V3B-A5, 5.06 m (16 ft 7 in) diameter

Performance

Maximum speed: 558 km/h (347 mph; 301 kn) at 10,250 m (33,629 ft)
Range: 5,400 km (3,355 mi; 2,916 nmi) at 3,000 m (9,843 ft) with 63,600 kg (140,214 lb) take-off weight including 3,000 kg (6,614 lb) of bombs and 10% fuel reserves
Service ceiling: 11,200 m (36,745 ft)
Rate of climb: 4.6 m/s (910 ft/min) at 1,000 m (3,281 ft)
Time to altitude: 5,000 m (16,404 ft) in 18.2 minutes
Wing loading: 400 kg/m² (82 lb/sq ft)
Power/mass: 0.11 kW/kg

Armament

Guns:
10 × 23 mm Nudelman-Suranov NS-23 aircraft cannon, two cannon in each of the four turrets and two cannon in the tail barbette
Missiles:
2 × KS-1 Komet standoff missiles (Tu-4K only; these anti-ship missiles resembled a scaled-down MiG-15)
Bombs:
6 × 1,000 kg (2,205 lb) bombs

or

1 x RDS-1, RDS-3 or RDS-5 nuclear fission bomb (Tu-4A only)