The Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovik was a russian ground attack aircraft of the Second World War. This first single-seat version was operational form May 1941.
The Il-2 was designed by Sergey Ilyushin and his team at the Central Design Bureau in 1938.
The first use in action of the Il-2 was with the 4th ShAP (Ground Attack Regiment) over the Berezina River days after the invasion began. So new were the aircraft that the pilots had no training in flight characteristics or tactics, and the ground crew no training in servicing or re-arming. The training received enabled the pilots to only take-off and land, none of the pilots had fired the armament, let alone learn tactics. Only 249 Il-2s were available on 22 June, 1941. In the first three days, 4 ShAP had lost 10 IL-2s to enemy action, but a further 19 were lost to other causes. 20 pilots were killed in these incidents. By 10 July, 4th ShAP was down to 10 aircraft from a strength of 65.
Tactics changed as Soviet aircrew became used to the Il-2's strengths. Instead of a low horizontal straight approach at 50 metres altitude, the target was usually kept to the pilot's left and a turn and shallow dive of 30 degrees was utilized, using an echeloned assault by four to 12 aircraft at a time. Although the Il-2's RS-82 rockets could destroy armored vehicles with a single hit, they were so inaccurate that experienced Il-2 pilots mainly utilized the cannon. Another powerful weapon of the Il-2 was PTAB-2.5-1.5 HEAT bomblets (ProtivoTankovaya AviaBomba, Anti-Tank Aviation Bomb - the number means that it was the size of a 2.5 kg (5.5 lb) bomb, but weighed only 1.5 kg (3.3 lb) due to the empty space in the shaped charge). Up to 192 were carried in four external dispensers (cluster bomb) or up to 220 in the internal weapon bays. The HEAT charge could easily penetrate the relatively thin upper armor of all heavy German tanks. PTABs were first used in large scale in the Battle of Kursk.
Thereafter, the Il-2 was widely deployed on the Eastern Front. The aircraft was capable of flying in low-light conditions and carried weaponry capable of defeating the thick armor of the Panther and Tiger I tanks. They were also proved capable of defending themselves against enemy aircraft, claiming an occasional Messerschmitt Bf 109.
General characteristics
Crew: one - pilot. (Single-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
Up to 600 kg (1,320 lb) of bombs and/or 8 × RS-82 rockets or 4 × RS-132 rockets
Based on FS98 Hervé Devred original.
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-2 #113, Single-seat, Winter Camouflage.
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 Il-2.mdl by Il-2.old.mdl and rename this as Il-2.mdl)
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Installation FS98/CFS
1. Unzip to Temporaly directory "Il-2_winter.zip".
2. Copy "Il-2_winter" folder to X:\CFS\aircraft directory.
3. Copy "gauges" folder to X:\CFS\gauges directory.
