The Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovik was a russian ground attack aircraft of the Second World War. This two-seat version was operational form May 1942.
The Il-2 was designed by Sergey Ilyushin and his team at the Central Design Bureau in 1938.
Heavy losses to enemy fighters forced the addition 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° upwards, 35° to starboard and 15° to port. Tests showed that maximum speed decreased by between 10 and 20 km/h (6.212.4 mph) and that the two-seater was more difficult to handle. The new two-seat version was called Il-2/m3.
In his book Inside the Soviet Army, the Soviet defector Viktor Suvorov alleges the lack of protection for Il-2 rear gunners was part of a deliberate policy. Suvorov claims from 1942 on, all Soviet airfields had attached penal companies of air gunners. Such companies were made up of prisoners who were considered to be "enemies of socialism" or "enemies of the people." The air gunners were not provided with either armour protection, or allegedly, parachutes and were reliant entirely on their machine guns to ensure their own survival. The death rate among the air gunners was exceptionally high. According to Suvorov, prisoners who survived could theoretically clear their sentences after nine missions. The prisoners, however, were always transferred to mine clearing or other units for "medical reasons" before this could happen.
Many Il-2 pilots and rear gunners do not remember seeing or hearing about any prisoner crews, and German propaganda may have broadcast this claim as well. In recent years, documents from the Soviet archives have come to light indicating the Soviet Air Force did in fact use "penal squadrons" in some situations, but although they may have been considered expendable, there is no evidence that they would have been deliberately sacrificed.
(source: Wikipedia on line)
General characteristics
Crew: two. (Two-seat version)
Length: 11.6 m (38 ft 1 in)
Wingspan: 14.6 m (47 ft 11 in)
Height: 4.2 m (13 ft 9 in)
Wing area: 38.5 m² (414 ft²)
Empty weight: 4,360 kg (9,612 lb)
Loaded weight: 6,160 kg (13,580 lb)
Powerplant: 1× Mikulin AM-38F liquid-cooled V-12, 1,285 kW (1,720 hp)
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)
Wing loading: 160 kg/m² (31.3 lb/ft²)
Power/mass: 0.21 kW/kg (0.13 hp/lb)
Armament
2 × fixed forward-firing 23 mm caliber VYa-23 cannons, 150 rpg
2 × fixed forward-firing 7.62 mm ShKAS machine guns, 750 rpg
1 × manually aimed 12.7 mm Berezin UBT machine gun the in rear cockpit, 150 rounds
Up to 600 kg (1,320 lb) of bombs and/or 8 × RS-82 rockets or 4 × RS-132 rockets
Original MDL FS98: unknown.
Panel by G.Vinet.
All reworked to CFS, with new air file, up-scaled, damage profile, moving parts and new textures by Edmundo Abad, 2012.
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Repainted as VVS Il-2m3 #28, Kursk Front, Winter Camouflage, 1943.
I have included new textures, moving parts and damage profile for use with CFS1.
This virtual model is up-scaled to obtain a better view in Combat Flight Simulator.
(for accurate scale in FS98, replace the file stormovk.mdl by stormovk.old.mdl and rename this as stormovk.mdl)
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Installation FS98/CFS
1. Unzip to Temporaly directory "Il-2_3m.zip".
2. Copy "Il-2_3m" folder to X:\CFS\aircraft directory.
3. Copy "gauges" folder to X:\CFS\gauges directory.
