The Soviet aircraft of Il-2 in the years of the Great Patriotic War war in the years of the Great Patriotic War became a legend, they talked a lot about him and removed a lot.
If the western allies and German Luftwaffef had options and for the attacks of the terrestrial purposes, the Germans used not only Yu-87, and from 1943. The guns were also hung on him (modification G "Gustav"), was a controversial and not fitted attack aircraft "Henchel 129", they also used "IU 110" and were actively exploited as an attack aircraft "Fockey Wulf 190", then the RKKK Air Force "(Nickname IL-2) and the dive of" PE-2 ", in fact, nothing.
Make a bet on a universal and multipurpose aircraft, as the practice of war in exhaustion showed, was the right decision. If the Luftwaffe is constantly picked up with spare parts and was confused in his modifications, then from the second half of the war, the Soviet assault air force was delivered from these problems.
According to the pre-war views, the main shock power of the Red Army in the implementation of the immediate aviation support of the ground troops was considered assault aviation, but shutter versions of obsolete fighters - biblins and 15 bis and and-153 were in service.
It was believed that "bisa" and "seagulls" can be used as attack aircraft with shading flight and with dive using airbabes and reactive shells. Tactic was provided mainly two ways to attack: from horizontal flight from a height of minimally permissible up to 150 meters and from "slide" with small planning angles after approaching the goal on the shaking flight.
The bombing was made with a shaving flight using slow motion fuses. By the beginning of the war, only a few dozen pilots of assault aviation were retracted to new IL-2, at the end of June 1941, the units of them were at the front.
Tactics, which was based on the pre-war views of the use of light attack aircraft, did not fit the IL-2 attack aircraft and did not provide full use of its potential capabilities.
Learn the terrible price on their mistakes had to be right along the war. Starting from June 22 to the end of November 1941, 1,100 aircraft were lost at the front of the IL-2.
On July 4, 1941, the head of the General Command in its Directive demanded from the commander of the FRONTS Air Force "... categorically forbid departures to bombing by large groups." The defeat of one goal was allowed to allocate no more than one link, as a last resort, no more than one squadron.
In order to achieve continuity of impact on the enemy, the commander of the Western Front Air Force, Colonel Naumenko, at the beginning of August, ordered the use of IL-2 aircraft with small groups to maximize three or six aircraft in the group and apply echelonized blows with time intervals of 10-15 minutes from various heights and directions.
In fact, everything turned out very often not as thought. Ils attacked with a shaving flight or a gentle dive, declining pretty low, collecting the entire fire of the opponent's anti-aircraft artillery. With a rather weak fighter cover in the first year of the war or without him, on the approach to the goal or at the exit of the attack they could meet the enemy fighters.
Additional factors that influenced the high losses were accelerated and low quality of the preparation of flights in the conditions of war and the low quality assembly in the rear, when in difficult conditions of the evacuated industry, the plane was collected mainly women and children. It has also affects the correct use of the aircraft.
The alms were compensated for the lack of bombardment aviation, despite the fact that there was no bombarding sight on the plane.
They were sent, both on the storming of the front edge of the defense, and for the application of shocks on bridges and crossing, which were tightly covered with anti-aircraft batteries.
Here are the passages from the memories of the pilot of the attack aircraft of the senior lieutenant Vaganov Ilya Nikolayevich about the battlely in the fall of 1941, in the midst of the German attack on Moscow - the operations "Typhoon":
"Let's fly by two troops, the task of the storming of crossings on the approaches to Kalinin, even on the approach, 15 minutes to the target, already over our territory we are taking" thin ", attack on top, knock the Vanka Shilova - my lead, I see only smoke clubs and pieces of planes From his plane, I hit the cab lantern.
Everything - I'm in a panic, confused, this my first combat departure, still I do not see the air, the map of the terrain is barely know, the landmarks are just trying to distinguish, and I have already demolished that I already demolished that I can "green"?
In the crash of the crash, nothing to disassemble anything, I only worked for a radio, I only worked for the transfer to Shilov. I see the tracks ahead of me went, it means that I sat down on the tail, I sat down, I'm trying to leave with a decline, it is useless, the plane is heavy, it does not listen to me, I am even more adding panic.
The fight fell apart, on some episodes, I do not see anything, I do not understand, I lost the whole group. The German on the tail somewhere went, maybe lost me, maybe someone has switched.
The clouds of breaks went, it means I'm over the Germans. Where to fly I do not know where the goal is not known, but I am loaded on the most "hello", do not fly back full, you need to find a goal and discharge the ammunition. Circling around the area, scary, at any time, from behind the clouds, German fighters can fall out, and the fuel is calculated accustomed to the goal and back, convulsively looking for equipment on Earth, warehouses, lively, at least something.
I see near the lake of a small cluster of German cars, trucks, armored personnel carriers, and it is already cold, and they kind of wash on the lake. Made three sites, brought a rustle, they albeit in the lake, just to survive. Washed, damn ... unloaded the ammunition and dear from here faster. Gorusti barely enough to the airfield, at the pickle already the engine began to sneeze, I have a heart in my heels. The task was not fulfilled, but some damage is an enemy. Departure counted. It turned out that from all I just returned. "
If in Poland and France, the pilot would not rise to the air in Poland, and it would begin to seek to get out of the battle with damage or damage, then our pilots were not amenable to any European logic and common sense, they were shot down and grief crashed In the columns, and spending the ammunition went to the ram. Soviet pilot can be killed, but you can not win!
By 1943, when the level of preparation was tightened, and IL-2 began to be 30% of the entire Air Force Aviation, the IL-2 became a real horror for ground-based portions of the Wehrmacht.
The most effective aircraft demonstrated their own on the attack of the front edge of the enemy, but during the intersection of communications in the near rear, as well as the columns and live strength moving to the front. In addition to guns, machine guns, he could carry a 600 kilogram of battle load (bombs, RS shells), and when the iba began to supply containers with anti-tank bombs, Ptab, then the aircraft turned into an even more terrible Uber and enemy enemy armored vehicles.
Yes, no wonder the Germans called the Il-2 concrete, he was a living, but still vulnerable. There were cases when the plane literally did not have a living place on the plane, but the pilot reached the car to the airfield. It also happened that one successful queue or projectile by the aircraft could cut the tail or wing.
Booking a part of the hull beyond that it was just a good solution, also saved the aircraft from the bullets, but from the anti-aircraft shell save, alas, could not.
Yes, Il-2 was not ideal, but it was effective until the very end of the war, and the pilots sitting behind his steering wheel entered the story.
Let them say about the effectiveness of the aircraft to the Soviet fighter, who was adopted by a crowded battle, saw the Wehrmacht tanks will be crawling on his tank, and there are nothing to beat them in positions ...
Without hoping to stay alive, he suddenly heard a distant rumble, and the Germans dismissed with screams, trying to find the nearest ditch or shove into the ground. In this moment, the Soviet fighter fighters that he had a chance to appear, because the "humpback" appeared over the battlefield and stood in a circle ....