The Ilyushin IL-2 Sturmovik (Cyrillic Илью́шин Ил-2) was re-
garded as the best ground-attack aircraft in the Second
World War. Produced by the Soviet Union in very large num-
bers, it was the single most produced military aircraft design
in all of aviation history. Over 42,000 aircraft were produced
in various models. It was a prominent aircraft for tank killing
with its accuracy in dive bombing and guns that were able to
penetrate tanks' thin top armor.
To IL-2 pilots, the aircraft was simply the diminutive "Ilyusha".
To the soldiers on the ground, it was the "Hunchback", the
"Flying Tank" or the "Flying Infantryman". It’s postwar NATO
reporting name was "Bark". The IL-2 aircraft played a crucial
role on the Eastern Front.
The IL-2 is a single-engine, propeller-driven, low-wing mono-
plane of mixed construction with a crew of two (some version
were single seat), specially designed for assault operations.
Its most notable feature was the inclusion of armor in an air-
frame load-bearing scheme. Armor plates replaced the frame
and paneling throughout the nacelle and middle part of the
fuselage, and an armored hull made of riveted armor steel
secured the aircraft’s engine, cockpit, water and oil radiators,
and fuel tanks.
Production early in the war was slow because after the Ger-
man invasion, the aircraft factories near Moscow and other
major cities in western Russia had to be moved east of the
Ural Mountains. Ilyushin and his engineers had time to re-
consider production methods, and two months after the
move IL-2s were again being produced.
Heavy losses to enemy fighters forced the reintroduction of a
rear gunner; early IL-2s were field modified by cutting a hole
in the fuselage behind the cockpit for a gunner sitting on a
canvas sling armed with a 12.7 mm UBT machine gun in an
improvised mounting. The semi-turret gun mount allowed the
machine gun to be fired at angles of up to 35°. These
changes added weight and made the 2 seat version of the
IL-2 slower and more difficult to handle than the single seat
version.
The final production version of the IL-2 used a 1,254 kW
(1,680 hp) Mikulin AM-38 engine. Armament consisted of
RS-82 and RS-132 rockets which could destroy armored ve-
hicles with a single hit. They were so inaccurate that experi-
enced Il-2 pilots mainly utilized the 23mm cannon. Another
potent weapon of the Il-2s was the PTAB shaped charge
bomblets. Up to 192 were carried in four external dispensers
(cluster bombs) or up to 220 in the internal weapon bays.
Skyshark R/C Corporation
260 London Bridge Road
Lake Havasu City, Arizona 86403
(928) 854-6100
Website: www.skysharkrc.com
Email: [email protected]
