https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilyushin_Il-2
War. With 36,183 units of the Il-2 produced during the war, and in combination
with its successor, the Ilyushin Il-10, a total of 42,330 were built, making it
the single most produced military aircraft design in aviation history, as well
as one of the most produced piloted aircraft in history along with the American
postwar civilian Cessna 172 and the Soviet Union's own then-contemporary
Polikarpov Po-2 Kukuruznik multipurpose biplane.
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". Its postwar NATO reporting name was "Bark". The Il-2 aircraft
played a crucial role on the Eastern Front. Joseph Stalin paid the Il-2 a great
tribute in his own inimitable manner: when a particular production factory fell
behind on its deliveries, Stalin sent an angrily worded cable to the factory
manager, stating "They are as essential to the Red Army as air and bread." "I
demand more machines. This is my final warning!"
The Il-2 is a single-engine, propeller-driven, low-wing monoplane of mixed
construction with a crew of two (one in early versions), specially designed for
assault operations. Its most notable feature was the inclusion of armor in an
airframe load-bearing scheme. Armor plates replaced the frame and paneling
throughout the nacelle and middle part of the fuselage, and an armored hull made
cockpit, water and oil radiators, and fuel tanks.
Production early in the war was slow because after the German 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
reconsider production methods, and two months after the move Il-2s were again
being produced. The tempo was not to Premier Stalin's liking, however, and he
issued the following telegram to Shenkman and Tretyakov:
You have let down our country and our Red Army. You have the nerve not to
manufacture IL-2s until now. Our Red Army now needs IL-2 aircraft like the air
it breathes, like the bread it eats. Shenkman produces one IL-2 a day and
Tretyakov builds one or two MiG-3s daily. It is a mockery of our country and the
Red Army. I ask you not to try the government's patience, and demand that you
manufacture more ILs. This is my final warning.
As a result, "the production of Shturmoviks rapidly gained speed. Stalin's
notion of the Il-2 being 'like bread' to the Red Army took hold in Ilyushin's
aircraft plants and the army soon had their Shturmoviks available in quantity."
Role
Ground-attack aircraft
Manufacturer
Ilyushin Design Bureau
First flight
2 October 1939
Introduction
1941
Retired
1954 (Yugoslavia and Bulgaria)
Primary users
Soviet Air Force
Poland, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia
Produced
Number built
36,183
Variants
Ilyushin Il-10
"The Flying tank"
Thanks to the heavy armor protection, the Il-2 could take a great deal of
punishment and proved difficult for both ground and aircraft fire to shoot down.
One Il-2 in particular was reported to have returned safely to base despite
receiving more than 600 direct hits and having all its control surfaces
completely shredded as well as numerous holes in its main armor and other
structural damage.
Notable aircrew
Senior Lieutenant Anna Yegorova piloted 243 Il-2 missions and was decorated
three times. One of these awards was the Gold Star of Hero of the Soviet Union
that she had received "posthumously" in late 1944, as she was presumed dead
after being shot down. She managed to survive imprisonment in a German POW camp.
Junior Lieutenant Ivan Grigorevich Drachenko, another Il-2 pilot, was reputedly
one of only four men who were decorated as both Heroes of the Soviet Union and
also won all three of the Orders of Glory.
Specifications (Il-2M3)
General characteristics
Crew: Two, pilot and rear gunner
Length: 11.6 m (38 ft 1 in)
Wingspan: 14.6 m (47 ft 11 in)
Height: 4.2 m (13 ft 9 in)
Empty weight: 4,360 kg (9,612 lb)
Loaded weight: 6,160 kg (13,580 lb)
Max. takeoff weight: 6,380 kg (14,065 lb)
Performance
Maximum speed: 414 km/h (257 mph)
Range: 720 km (450 mi)
Service ceiling: 5,500 m (18,045 ft)
Rate of climb: 10.4 m/s (2,050 ft/min)
Power/mass: 0.21 kW/kg (0.13 hp/lb)
Armament
rounds
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