Nelson Stepanyan is recorded to have sunk 13 German ships singlehandedly, scored 27 air-to-air kills, blasted five bridges and destroyed nearly 700 vehicles on the ground. Indeed, many Il-2 pilots achieved legendary status. While the Sturmovik had no way of keeping pace with German fighters, it proved deadly in taking down slower German bomber, observation and transport planes, resulting in several Il-2 aces. Nonetheless, such was the desperation of the air war over the Eastern Front then that the Il-2 was frequently called upon to serve as a fighter. The additional crewmember and weapon also reduced flight speed and badly unbalanced the airplane by shifting the center of gravity towards the rear. However, they weren’t protected by any armor plating, and suffered four times the fatality rate of the pilots. The tail gunners did prove useful in shooting down harrying German fighters. Its wing cannons were also upgraded to high-velocity 23-millimeter VYa types.įinding a suitable cannon for the Sturmovik proved a contentious process - the designer of one failed cannon prototype, Yakov Taubin, was executed for “plotting the production of inferior-quality weaponry.” The Il-2M, introduced in 1942, had an extended canopy to accommodate the gunner of a rear-mounted 12.7-millimeter UBT heavy machine gun. Stalin would influence the Il-2 in another manner - after receiving a letter from a Soviet pilot begging for a tail gunner to defend against German fighters, he ordered Ilyushin to switch to two-seater Il-2s. First place goes to the ubiquitous civilian Cessna 172. More than 36,000 Il-2 Sturmoviks were built over the course of the war, making it the second most widely produced airplane ever. This is my final warning.”Ĭoming from a man who had given no warning whatsoever to hundreds of thousands of Red Army officers executed for suspected disloyalty, the message must have proven motivational. I ask you not to try the government’s patience, and demand that you manufacture more Ils. It is a mockery of our country and the Red Army. Shenkman produces one IL-2 a day and Tretyakov builds one or two MiG-3s daily. Our Red Army now needs IL-2 aircraft like the air it breathes, like the bread it eats. You have the nerve not to manufacture IL-2s until now. “You have let down our country and our Red Army. Yet as German tanks blazed a trail toward Moscow in the fall of 1941, Stalin found time to personally address this famous telegram to the Il-2 factory managers. The VVS lost more than 4,000 aircraft of all types in the disastrous first month of hostilities - the Fourth Regiment, for example, lost 55 of its 65 Sturmoviks - and the Il-2 production facilities had to be evacuated east of the Ural Mountains, interrupting deliveries for two months. During periods of intense fighting, one Sturmovik was being lost for every 10 combat missions, a ratio that would “improve” to one loss for every 26 missions in 1943. German pilots dubbed the Il-2 the “Concrete Bomber” - a commentary perhaps both on its durability and agility, or lack thereof. However, the Sturmoviks sustained devastating losses as faster German fighter planes swooped around to hit their unarmored rears. Thrust into a desperate effort to blunt German advancing mechanized spearheads, Sturmovik pilots discovered their armor rendered the Il-2 nearly immune to machine gun fire from the front, and even gave it a chance to survive 20-millimeter cannon shells. Only a small number of Il-2s were deployed to frontline units - notably in the Fourth Aviation Assault Regiment - when the Wehrmacht began its devastating invasion of the Soviet Union on June 1941. The Sturmovik’s robust landing gear was also designed to handle rough frontline airstrips. Even the canopy averaged six centimeters of armored glass. However, it was slightly faster, at 250 miles per hour, and more heavily armed, with two 20-millimeter cannons in addition to two machine guns in the wings.Īn armored tub five to 12 millimeters thick shielded the cockpit, fuel tanks, AM38 engine and radiators. After several prototypes, the resulting single-seat Il-2 production aircraft weighed nearly 10,000 pounds, compared to 7,000 for the Stuka, and could carry a similar maximum bomb load of around 1,100 pounds.
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