Another impressive feat of Soviet pre-war aviation, the Tupolev TB-3 was one of the world's first four-engined bombers to be developed. It was also very widely produced and thus gave the Soviet Union, for a time, a strategic bomber force unparalleled by any other nation on earth until the advent of more advanced US and British designs. The sight of the massive TB-3s during the May Day fly-byes of the 1930s was an awesome spectacle of the power of the bomber in the years to come but as the years went by it became painfully clear that the TB-3, with its open cockpit and fixed landing gear, was approaching obsolescence in the face of modern fighter opposition. Eventually, despite some service at the beginning of the war, the TB-3 was eventually relegated to transport duties as it had been succeeded by the more modern Pe-8 as a heavy bomber.

The prototype ANT-6 was first flown on 22 December 1930 with production TB-3s entering service in 1932. Over the course of its production run, the TB-3 was equipped initially with the M-17F engine and later, the AM-34 which gave it improved performance and bomb carrying capacity. Converted transport variants were known as the G-2, incredibly enough some of these were further modified to carry vehicles and tanks betweent the undercarriage.