Black Death
IL-2 take off on a combat mission from a field airfield, approximately 1942 year. These single-seat attack aircraft are armed with ShVAK cannons, with the exception of an aircraft in the foreground, equipped with a WYa cannon (with a longer barrel, which is ShVAK).
attack plane
Outside Russia, the IL-2 and the IL-10 remain, oddly enough, less known than the rest of the machines of the Second World War, although they were produced in large quantities than any other military aircraft in stories.
These, captured in 1944 year, double IL-2МЗ could be seen over the entire Eastern Front, which by that time had crossed the pre-war borders of the USSR and had gone deep into Poland and Romania.
In the 1930s, Soviet aircraft designers were tasked with creating an attack aircraft - an aircraft for the fire support of advancing troops and attacking enemy front lines. By then, the best in the world had already been created in the Soviet Union. aviation weapons, including heavy machine guns, heavy recoilless guns, small armor-piercing bombs and unguided rockets. At the beginning of the decade, a number of stormtrooper projects were developed, and in 1935 the Kremlin adopted a decree on the creation of an airborne landing gear (armored attack aircraft), specially designed to destroy armored vehicles and fortified enemy points. By 1938, the competition for the creation of an attack aircraft was led by OKB S.V. Ilyushin and P.O. Sukhoi. Both designers opted for a single-engine machine with a low wing. Ilyushin’s project was completed earlier, in the spring of 1939. Named TsKB-55 and received the official designation BSh-2, this prototype attack aircraft was equipped with a 35 hp liquid-cooled engine AM-1350, and it was double - the pilot and rear gunner / observer were located in his cockpit in tandem. The wing, hydraulic flaps and tail unit were made of light alloy, and the bottom of the fuselage was made of armor plate covering the lower part of the engine, cooling pipes, radiator, fuel tanks in the fuselage and the cabin Four 7,62 were installed on the wing, on the sides of the wheel struts -mm machine gun. The fifth machine gun was in the rear of the cab. Four containers were located in the central part of the fuselage, containing up to 600 kg of aerial bombs.
The Il-2MZ shows an unusual design solution: the rear light of the cab is removed to improve the visibility of the arrow. As a rule, at the disposal of the shooter was a twin gunshot machine gun. On board the attack aircraft is well read the word "Avenger".
Shock program
Ilyushin was dissatisfied with poor armament, and test flights of TsKB-55 showed, as the designer predicted, its weak longitudinal stability.
The modified CCB-55, with a slightly shifted center of gravity and an increased tail plane, first flew into December 30 1939, but in summer 1940, the state commission found that the positive qualities of the machine did not redeem its poor stability, short range and overall performance. To save the attack aircraft, Ilyushin launched a “shock program” in his design bureau, and four months later he built TsKB-57. This prototype was equipped with an AM-38 engine with an 1600 horsepower. The aircraft became single (the tail light of the cockpit was replaced with an additional fuel tank), the armor plate became thinner and more successfully distributed along the fuselage, two machine guns on the wing were replaced with a ShVAK 20-mm aircraft cannon, and eight RS missiles appeared under the wing. -82. It was a much better machine, capable of speeds up to 440 km / h. Soon began mass production of the new attack aircraft at three aircraft factories - in Moscow, in Fili and in Voronezh.
Stalin vigilantly followed the release of IL-2. When a failure occurred in the production of aircraft, he told the plant manager: "The Red Army needs the Red Army like air, like bread ... this is my last warning."When 22 June 1941 of the Year Germany attacked the USSR, the Soviet Air Force Il-2 attack aircraft were clearly not enough - just 249. In October, the plants from Moscow and Sirloin were transported along with workers to the east, and Kuybyshev became a new center for the production of attack aircraft. However, the production of IL-2 was still insufficient, and Stalin sent a formidable telegram to the factory directors, in which he called their behavior “sabotage”. At the beginning of 1942, the ShVAK cannons were replaced with more powerful 23-mm VY.
Later, in the 1942 year, the IL-2М2 model appeared with an AM-38F engine with an 1750 hp power, improved aerodynamics and armor enhanced to 950 kg. The loss of attack aircraft in the battles were huge, but it was considered impractical to cover the plane with armor from above and behind. Despite the fact that Stalin forbade the development of new attack aircraft, Ilyushin at his own risk developed a double prototype with a rear gunner sitting behind. This prototype first rose to the sky in March 1942. The gunner had a 12,7-mm UBT machine gun with 150 cartridges, and now, unlike the TsKB-55, the gunner was separated from the pilot by a fuel tank located in the middle of the cab. In October 1942, Stalin gave the nod to the production of this two-seater attack aircraft, which was named Il-2MZ, and by the end of the month began to flow to the front.
Fight for aerodynamics
With the advent of the rear arrow, the number of lost attack aircraft dropped sharply, while the number of casualties at the Luftwaffe increased. The production of attack aircraft at that time reached almost 1000 machines per month, despite the fact that small corrections were constantly made to the design of the aircraft in order to improve aerodynamics, since by that time the maximum Il-2 speed had decreased to 404 km / h. Changes that were supposed to improve the aerodynamics of the car were made without interrupting production. By the middle of 1943, the attack ground speed was increased to 439 km / h, and this despite the fact that the car was constantly heavy.
The increase in machine weight was partly due to the emergence of a new, highest-quality aircraft weapon. The most important event was the emergence of a new family of 37-mm guns, incomparable in caliber, accuracy and rate of fire with the previous ones. Suffice it to say that they were able to penetrate the armor - except the frontal - of the latest German tanks Pzkpfw V (Panther) and Pzkpfw VI (Tiger). In the wing bomb compartments, the attack aircraft could now carry an additional number of bombs, and the new suspension under the wing was designed for large (132 mm caliber) missiles PC-132 and containers for 200 small armor-piercing bombs PTAB.
In 1942, the first dual-control IL was introduced for training. A few more machines were reequipped under field conditions, and from 1943, the dual-control attack aircraft began to be produced in small batches at factories.
As a result of another field alteration, an IL-2T appeared, a torpedo bomber capable of carrying an 450-mm torpedo without difficulty.
During the war years, about X-NUMX Il-36163 machines were produced, after which in August 2 the industry switched to the production of the Il-1944 attack aircraft. By that time, aircraft production rates reached a record high: 10 machines per month, 2300 IL-1944 was released in the first eight months of 16000 (for the entire 10 year, "only" 1943 aircraft were released). Thus, if earlier it was difficult to fully form an assault aviation regiment exclusively from IL-11200, now, in the 2 year, it took part in separate operations before the 1944 attack aircraft - after their raids on the ground, not a single unit of enemy equipment remained able to move. As a rule, when entering an attack, the commander or leader gave the order: “Do as I do!”. After that, the entire armada of attack aircraft began to dive, pouring fire at the enemy and bombarding armor-piercing bombs. In the Red Army, Il-500 was affectionately called "Ilya", and the Germans gave him the nickname "Schwarz Tod" ("Black Death").
In 1943, the IL-2 began to enter service in foreign units. About 650 attack aircraft received Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, and after the war more 2000 machines were sent to China and North Korea. In some countries, including Poland and Czechoslovakia, IL-2 received a new local name, because many machines were modified - they were equipped with a variety of equipment, weapons, and even made the back of the fuselage of fabric-wrapped welded steel tubes.
At the end of the war, this IL-2MZ served in the Polish 3 storming regiment of the 1 th mixed air corps, one of the first non-Soviet units equipped with attack aircraft.
"Columns of captured Germans, while flying over them IL-2, fell to the ground. The convoy, realizing the futility of trying to raise the system, quietly smoking, waiting for them to pass an attack of fear."
From the memoirs of a veteran of the Great Patriotic War
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