shot down one SM.81 bomber near Barcelona and emptied the rest of his bullets into another. The second SM.81 continued to fly, so Stepanov resorted to using the left leg of his Chaika's undercarriage to ram the bomber, downing the plane. World War II Soviet Union In World War II, reports of ramming by lone Soviet pilots against the Luftwaffe became widespread, especially in the early days of the hostilities in the war's Eastern Front. In the first year of the Great Patriotic War, most available Soviet machines were markedly inferior to the German ones and pilots sometimes perceived a taran as the only way to guarantee the destruction of the enemy. Early Soviet fighter engines were relatively weak, and the underpowered fighters were either fairly well-armed but too slow, or fast but too lightly armed. Lightly armed fighters often expended their ammunition without bringing down the enemy bomber. Very few fighters had radios installed—the pilots had no way to call for assistance and the military expected them to solve problems alone. Trading a single fighter for a multi-engine bomber was considered economically sound. In some cases, pilots who were heavily wounded or in damaged aircraft decided to perform a suicidal attack against air, ground or naval targets. In this instance, the attack becomes more like an unpremeditated kamikaze attack (see Nikolai Gastello). German air tactics early in the war changed in a way that created conditions ripe for ramming attacks. After clearing much of Soviet airpower from their path, the Luftwaffe stopped providing fighter escort for bombing groups, and split their forces into much smaller sorties, including single aircraft making deep penetration flights. One quarter of German aircraft on the Eastern Front had the task of performing strategic or tactical reconnaissance with their Aufklärungsgruppe units. These reconnaissance or long-range bombing flights were more likely to encounter lone Soviet defenders. Soviet group tactics did not include taran, but Soviet fighters often sortied singly or in pairs rather than in groups. Soviet pilots were prohibited from performing taran over enemy-held land, but could ram enemy reconnaissance penetrations over the homeland. Nine rammings took place on the very first day of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, one within the first hour. At 0425 hours on 22 June 1941, Lieutenant Ivan Ivanov supposedly drove his Polikarpov I-16 into the tail of an invading Heinkel He 111. Ivanov did not survive but