The Russians had a flying aircraft carrier that actually worked & deployed aircraft from the “mother-ship” that successfully shot down two Bf 109s

 

The Aviamatka PVO (transport aircraft for aerial defense) was tested at the end of 1935. Assembly composed of a Tupolev TB3 4M-17F capable of carrying 5 to 6 aircraft. source

One of the most strange and bizarre looking aircraft that ever took to the air has to be the Zveno composite bomber/fighter design by Vakhmistrov. The concept first took shape in the mid-twenties, when the Soviet Air Force were looking at ways to both, shoot down incoming enemy bombers and to supplement the ground troops in the battlefield
Zveno  was a parasite aircraft concept developed in the Soviet Union during the 1930s. It consisted of a Tupolev TB-1 or aTupolev TB-3 heavy bomber acting as a mothership for between two and five fighters. Depending on the Zveno variant, the fighters either launched with the mothership or docked in flight, and they could refuel from the bomber. The definitive Zveno-SPB using a TB-3 and two Polikarpov I-16s, each armed with two 550 lb bombs, was used operationally with good results against strategic targets in Romania during the opening stages of the German-Soviet War. The same squadron afterwards also carried out a tactical attack against a bridge over the River Dnieper that had been captured by advancing German forces.
In June 1931, Vladimir Sergeyevich Vakhmistrov of the scientific test institute of the air force started work on combinations of fighters rigidly attached to heavy bomber aircraft. The system was envisioned to serve several purposes: