No. 5 Group RAF effective squadrons of Bomber Command, personified by No 617 Squadron the "Dambusters", formed from 5 Group aircrew in March 1943. Most of the group's main airfields were around Lincoln, including RAF Scampton. By the end of the war the group had grown to 15 squadrons. The group was noted for its high accuracy bombing, being involved the sinking of the "Tirpitz" in November 1944 and the shattering of the strategic Bielefeld railway viaduct in March 1945. The Group introduced new weapons operationally, including Barnes Wallis's "bouncing" and his Tallboy and Grand Slam "earthquake" bombs. The group was disbanded on 15
RAF-977 assembly capacity (only 3000 units a year) at the RAF plant (which still used trolleys, rather than a modern assembly line), its production started at the ErAZ factory in Yerevan, Armenia, 1 May 1966 as ErAZ-762. This was nicknamed "Yeraz" (Armenian for "dream"). By 1973, ErAZ's production reached 6,500 per year; with the innovation of overhead carriage, capacity almost doubled, to 12,000 a year. The 977 was also produced under licence by "Lugansk Avto Remontnyi Zavod" (LARZ). In 1969, an improved ErAZ-762A also appeared. Production of the RAF-977 ceased in 1975, when it was replaced by RAF-2203 Latvia. The 977