The Ilyushin Il-2 is a ground-attack plane that was produced by the Soviet Union in large numbers during the Second World War. The word shturmov\u00edk, the generic Russian term for a ground-attack aircraft, became a synecdoche for the Il-2 in English sources, where it is commonly rendered Shturmovik, Stormovik[3] and Sturmovik.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To Il-2 pilots, the aircraft was known by the diminutive “Ilyusha”. To the soldiers on the ground, it was called the “Hunchback”, the “Flying Tank” or the “Flying Infantryman”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the war, 36,183 units of the Il-2 were produced, 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Il-2 played a crucial role on the Eastern Front. When factories fell behind on deliveries, Joseph Stalin told the factory managers that the Il-2s were “as essential to the Red Army as air and bread.”<\/p>\n\n\n\nngg_shortcode_0_placeholder\n\n\n\n
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 of riveted homogeneous armor steel AB-1 secured the aircraft’s engine, cockpit, water and oil radiators, and fuel tanks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
General characteristics
Crew: 2
Length: 11.65 m (38 ft 3 in)
Wingspan: 14.60 m (47 ft 11 in)
Height: 4.17 m (13 ft 8 in) (tail up)
Empty weight: 4,425 kg (9,755 lb)
Max takeoff weight: 6,360 kg (14,021 lb)
Powerplant: 1 \u00d7 Mikulin AM-38F liquid-cooled V12 engine, 1,280 kW (1,720 hp) (takeoff power),1,100 kW (1,500 hp) at 750 m (2,460 ft)
Propellers: 3-bladed AV-57-158 variable-pitch propeller, 3.60 m (11 ft 10 in) diameter<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Performance
Maximum speed: 410 km\/h (250 mph, 220 kn) at 1,500 m (4,900 ft)
Range: 765 km (475 mi, 413 nmi) at 275 km\/h (171 mph; 148 kn) and 1,000 m (3,300 ft)
Service ceiling: 4,525 m (14,846 ft) (service ceiling), 6,360 m (20,870 ft) (absolute ceiling)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Armament
Guns:
2 \u00d7 fixed forward-firing 23\u00d7152mm VYa-23 cannons, 150 rounds per gun
2 \u00d7 fixed forward-firing 7.62\u00d754mmR ShKAS machine guns, 750 rounds per gun
1 \u00d7 manually aimed 12.7\u00d7108mm Berezin UBT machine gun in rear cockpit, 300 rounds
Rockets:
8\u00d7 RS-82 rockets or
4\u00d7 RS-132 rockets
Bombs:
6\u00d7 100 kg (220 lb) bombs in wing bomb-bays and underwing or
4\u00d7 dispensers for 48 2.5 kg (5.5 lb) PTAB anti-armour bombs (192 total) in wing bays<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Ilyushin Il-2 is a ground-attack plane that was produced by the Soviet Union in large numbers during the Second World War. The word shturmov\u00edk, the generic Russian term for a ground-attack aircraft, became a synecdoche for the Il-2 in English sources, where it is commonly rendered Shturmovik, Stormovik[3] and Sturmovik. To Il-2 pilots, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1506,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wwii-aircraft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/infinitemodeler.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/infinitemodeler.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/infinitemodeler.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infinitemodeler.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infinitemodeler.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1567"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/infinitemodeler.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1568,"href":"https:\/\/infinitemodeler.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1567\/revisions\/1568"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infinitemodeler.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/infinitemodeler.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infinitemodeler.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infinitemodeler.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}