Il-2 Shturmovik: Red Avenger

432 Pages·2015·16.63 MB·English

by  Jason Nicholas

Squadron Commander Senior Lieutenant Valentin Kuzmin standing in
front of his Il-2, of the 949th ShAP, taken on 11 August 1944 on the Baltic
Front. He shot down two German aircraft and was given the Hero of the
Soviet Union award on 29 April 1945. (Viktor Kulikov’s collection)
Fonthill Media Language Policy
Fonthill Media publishes in the international English language market.
One language edition is published worldwide. As there are minor
differences in spelling and presentation, especially with regard to
American English and British English, a policy is necessary to define
which form of English to use. The Fonthill Policy is to use the form of
English used by the author. Jason Nicholas Moore was born and
educated in the United States and now lives in the United States but
prefers to write in British English and therefore British English has been
adopted in this publication.
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First published in the United Kingdom and the United States of America
2015
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data:
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Copyright © Jason Nicholas Moore 2015
ISBN 978-1-62545-042-5
The right of Jason Nicholas Moore to be identified as the author of this
work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Contents
Acknowledgements
Glossary of Terms
Preface
Introduction
PART 1: PRE-PRODUCTION
1 Precursors
2 Il-2 Prototypes
PART 2: ACTIVE SERVICE
3 Trial By Fire (Single-Seater)
4 Change of Fortunes (Straight-Winged Two-Seater)
Picture Section
5 The Red Army Triumphant (Swept-Winged Two-Seater—The Arrow)
6 Factories and Production
7 The Il-2 in Naval Service
8 Post-War/Foreign Users
9 Il-2 Pilot Interviews
10 Il-2 Survivors
PART 3: TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENT
11 The Il-2 Described
12 Evolution of the Il-2
13 Variants and Modifications of the Il-2
14 Second World War Analogues
15 The Successor—The Il-10
PART 4: LEGACY
16 Post-War Ground Attack Aircraft
17 Il-2 Production and Losses
18 German Losses to the Il-2 (Estimated)
19 Notable Il-2 Pilots
20 Il-2 in Popular Culture
21 Il-2 in Plastic
Internet Resources/Links
Further Reading
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgements
I gratefully acknowledge the kind assistance of Massimo Tessitori of
sovietwarplanes.com, Paul Flint, aka Dark Green Man, Konstantin
Lesnikov, and Mario Holly for their help on the Il-2’s camouflage and
colours. I also wish to thank Mr. Artem Drabkin for the use of his
interviews of two Il-2 pilots. I give great thanks to Nigel Eastaway OBE
and the Russian Aviation Resource Trust (RART) for the use of their fine
photographs of the Il-2. Without the help of the aforementioned people
and institutions, this book would have been much harder, even
impossible to complete. I would like to give a special thank you to Mike
Williams of Britmodeller.com (a fine site), who introduced me to the
Fonthill Media editor Jay Slater (a special thank you goes out to you, Jay,
also, and all the fine folk at Fonthill for your hard work in turning the
manuscript into a presentable book). I would also like to especially thank
Massimo Tessitori (again) for the fine artwork he prepared, based in
many cases upon rare photographs kindly provided to him by Aleksandr
Ruchkovsky. Without Massimo’s fine and accurate work this book would
have been much the poorer. And of course I would like to thank my family
for their moral support, financial assistance, and forbearance as I
pursued this literary work. Hopefully I’ve made them proud with it. Finally,
any mistakes and errors in this work are my own.
Glossary of Terms
AA—Anti-aircraft artillery, sometimes abbreviated to ‘AAA’. Another name
for this is the German ‘flak’ (which is the name I will normally use
throughout this book—see entry below). These were guns, ranging
from rifle calibre guns to 105-mm cannons, that were used against
aircraft. The larger cannons were of little use against the Shturmoviks,
as the cannons moved too slowly to track the low-flying Il-2s, but the
smaller calibre guns and cannons proved to be a mortal threat to the
Il-2 throughout the war.
Air Army—the largest division of the Red Air Force (VVS). There were no
Air Armies solely equipped with the Il-2. VA was the Soviet
abbreviation.
Arrow—translated nickname for the swept-winged two-seater Il-2 (see So
Strelkoi entry). This word is commonly used throughout this work to
refer to the swept-winged two-seater Il-2.
AVMF—Aviatsionniy Voyenno Morskovo Flota, the Naval Air Forces. Il-2s
were used both for anti-shipping duties and close air support.
Axis—When Mussolini publicly announced the signing of a treaty
between Germany and Italy, on 1 November, he proclaimed the
creation of a Rome–Berlin axis. Later this alliance would include
Japan along with Germany and Italy as the parties in the Tripartite
Pact, which was signed on 27 September 1940 in Berlin. Other
nations, such as Hungary, Romania, and client states such as
Slovakia also became parties to this alliance. Sometimes the word
‘Axis’ will be used in this work to refer to the forces fighting against the
Soviets, which included Croatian, Finnish, German, Hungarian Italian,
Romanian, Slovakian, and Croatian forces, and even a volunteer
Spanish division (Division Azul—‘[the] Blue Division’).
Bezant—a synthetic leather that was used by the Soviets for among
other items, to cover seat cushions, or portions of the landing gear.
Blitzkrieg—‘Lightning War’ in German. This was the name given to the
German method of war, whereby the enemy were to be overwhelmed
by the speed of armoured columns striking deep through the enemy’s
lines, supported by infantry and the heavy use of aircraft, such as the
dive bombing Ju-87. It was this method of warfare that worked so well
initially against the Soviets during Operation Barbarossa (see below),
and which the Soviets adopted and adapted for their own use,
particularly in Operation Bagration (the liberation of Byelorussia).
Bort—tactical or aircraft number. Most Il-2s bore some sort of aircraft
number, on the tail or fuselage, or much more rarely, both. Very early
in the war, occasionally the rudder would bear two different numbers.
The numbers were typically red and/or white, were normally one or
two digits (rarely three), and the style varied from regiment to
regiment. These were not applied at the factory, but in the field by the
regiments (polks—see below). They apparently had nothing to do with
the factory applied serial numbers (see below). Although you will often
see it in colour profiles, yellow was rarely used, as this was the Axis
identification colour on the Eastern Front.
CAS—‘close air support’, often referred to as ‘ground attack’, the main
duty of the Shturmovik. This consisted of support for the Red Army
ground troops and tank divisions, which involved attacking the
German units the troops were engaged with. This and the terms
ground attack or ‘ground support’ are used interchangeably in this
volume.
CMF—Black Sea Fleet. One of the naval fleets that used the Il-2. It was
based originally in Sevastopol.
Design Bureau—Known in Russian under the acronym of OKB (see OKB
entry below).
Doska—Russian for board; it referred to the straight-winged versions,
both single and two-seaters.
Eskadriylya—squadron. Consisted at first of ten aeroplanes, which was
then increased to fourteen, three of these making up a polk (see entry
below).
Flak—a contraction of the German term flugzeugabwehrkanone, or
‘aircraft defence cannon’. This is the same as anti-aircraft artillery
(AA) and is the term I will commonly use throughout this book.
Frontal Aviation—used to describe the aviation units that operated close
to the frontlines in support of the ground troops. The Il-2s, for
example, often operated within ten miles of the frontline.
GKO—State Committee for Defence. From Gosudarstvenniy Komityet
Oborony in Russian.
Gorbatiy—Russian for ‘hunchback’ or ‘humpback’; originally used in
reference to the single-seater version.
Gordon and Komissarov—Famous Russian Aircraft, Ilyushin Il-2/Il-10 by
Yefim Gordon, Sergey Komissarov and Dmitriy Komissarov. This
2010 book was the most comprehensive work I’ve seen published in
English about the Il-2; it is referred to as ‘Gordon and Komissarov’ in
the text. See the Bibliography for more information on this book.
Great Patriotic War—Velikoiy Otechestvennoiy Voiyni in Russian, or BOB
in Cyrillic—the Soviet/ Russian term for the war between Nazi
Germany and the Soviet Union (22 June 1941–9 May 1945). This
normally excludes the August 1945 campaign against the Japanese
Kwantung Army in Manchuria (known by the Soviets as the
‘Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation’—see below). It is
sometimes abbreviated as ‘GPW’, but in this book it is always referred
to by its full title of ‘Great Patriotic War’.
Ground attack (support)—see CAS above. These terms will be used
interchangeably throughout the text.
Guards—a designation for units that had distinguished themselves in
combat (Gvardiya in Russian). In addition to receiving higher pay than
normal Red Army units, they also were the first to receive new
equipment. Some Shturmovik units were designated as Guards units.
Heer—the official name for the German army under the Nazis. It was
seldom used as ‘the Wehrmacht’ (see below) has supplanted it in
common usage.
Hero of the Soviet Union—often abbreviated as ‘HSU’. The highest
military honour accorded to Soviet military personnel during the Great
Patriotic War. Equivalent to the American Medal of Honor or the