…what kind of plane did the Russians have that could drop it?
The Russian TB-3 was used to carry many interesting things aloft in the interwar period.
The TB-3, designed as a bomber, was also the standard heavy transport plane for the airborne forces of the Red Army. The Soviets were the first to experiment with paratroop forces, and were very active in experimenting with air-dropped armor for their paratroopers.
Here a TB-3 is used in an experimental air-drop of an amphibious light tank (from the pic I am pretty sure it's a T-37).
The Soviets also experimented with air-dropping the T-40 and T-60 light tanks, and developed glider-attachements for both BT and T-40/T-60 light tanks to allow them to land under their own control after being ferried (not towed) by TB-3s.
It was also used to carry "parasite" fighters. The parasite fighter configuration was actually used operationally in the early parts of Barbarossa to launch raids on the Romanian Ploesti oil fields (long before the US 9th AF was within B-24 range). Each TB-3 carried two I-16s that were configured for dive-bombing. The I-16s were transported within range of the oil fields, released to make their drops (far more accurately than level bombers could), and recovered for the ferry flight home.
The TB-3 was not fast, but it generated an impressive amount of lift. The wing was thick enough to contain an access tunnel, so that the flight engineer could preform maintenance work on the engines while the plane was in flight.
The Maxim Gorkiy, a one-off civilian plane developed by the TB-3 team, even had state rooms (sleeping rooms with beds) in each wing.
The Soviets may not have been geniuses, nor even particularly practical, but they certainly had capable engineers!
-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)
