Ilyushin Il-2 Sturmovik
Stalin: "The Red Army needs the Il-2 like it needs air and bread."
The Il-2 was an armoured flying shell — its pilot, engine, fuel tanks, and radiators were wrapped in an integral steel bathtub of up to 12 mm thickness. Slow and not remotely nimble, it was nevertheless the Red Army's indispensable ground-attack weapon, feared by German tank crews as the "Schwarzer Tod" — Black Death.
01Initial single-seat variants suffered appalling losses to rear-attacking fighters. The addition of a rear gunner from 1942 (Il-2M) improved survival. Stalin famously rebuked the production plant when output lagged, using language that ensured it never lagged again.
02Attacked in low-level cannon-and-rocket passes, often in large formations circling their targets in the "Circle of Death." The 37 mm cannon-equipped Il-2M3 variant was designed specifically to kill tanks, and PTAB shaped-charge bomblets devastated German armoured columns at Kursk.
03At 36,000+ aircraft, the Il-2 is the most-produced military aircraft ever made. Its successor, the Il-10, continued in service into the 1950s. The type remains a symbol of the Great Patriotic War in Russia today.
Theatres of operation
- ·Eastern Front
Principal operators
- ·Soviet VVS
- ·Polish Air Force
- ·Czechoslovak Air Force
Others in the same fight.
Hawker Hurricane
Mk.I — Mk.IV
Hawker Typhoon
Mk.IB
Republic P-47 Thunderbolt
P-47C / D / M / N
Yakovlev Yak-3
Yak-3