Ilyushin IL-2 Sturmovik, Weapons

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My previous IL-2 videos:

[Paladin]

Around 1987 I attended a Soviet aviation design and acquisition course in the USAF. One of our guest speakers was Sergei Sikorsky. He discussed Soviet aircraft design philosophy from WWII to the present. He specifically mentioned German reaction to the difficulty in downing the IL-2 Sturmovik. The plane had a reputation for surviving repeated hits and not burning. Inspection of recovered samples revealed an armored underbelly and engine exhaust venting that piped cooled fumes into the fuel tanks to displace any air, thus depriving a potential fire of the oxygen needed to ignite a spark.

[PresidentSkroob]

"Let's move on to bombs." A phrase I never thought I'd hear on YouTube.

[mitchelloates]

Watched an interview with Eric Winkle Brown the other night. He said that the "throwaway" concept of the 100 hour service life also applied to Soviet aircraft engines. He had the chance to fly several different Soviet aircraft for a couple months at the end of WWII, before relations with them started going south.
He said he was told directly by Soviet personnel of the 100 hour engine service life, their philosophy being why waste time producing an engine that would last upwards of several hundred or 1000 or more hours, when it was far more likely that the aircraft it was in would be lost, for one reason or another, long before the engine wore out.
And according to Captain Brown, those engines definitely sounded like they'd been built to only last 100 hours, enough to make him wonder at times if they would last the duration of his test flight.

[thegenericguy]

You ever consider a Pe-2/3 video? Fascinating and seriously underappreciated aircraft

[UJLite]

It's 0001 Saturday here. Evening all from 🇦🇺

[docnele]

"Shvak" is pronounced as "shmuck" with "v" instead of "m" ;) VYA 23mm round was a notch more powerful then contemporary 20mm-range ammo, but not as much as round dimensions would suggest (23x152mm). After the war, it was modified, made more powerful and in various forms of AP/HE, best known for use in cannons in ZSU-23-4 Shilka and ZU-23-2 AAA.

[Knuck_Knucks]

Okay Greg. You've convinced me.
Where can a guy pick up one of these Sturmoviks? 🐿

[asadunbar]

Excellent channel my man. Watched all your videos. Wish i could repay ya somehow. As a long time auto mechanic, infantry veteran, biker, and armchair historian, the information and detail on your channel really has explained these old ww2 planes to me in a way no other person has. My great granddad was an officer in the army air corps and flew a p38 in the pacific. I always thought these old machines were really the pinnacle of pure mechanical technology, no computers, limited electronics, immensely powerful and complex. Pure gold. Thanks for your service to the community.

[beastboy]

Hi Greg.
long time lurker here.
thank you for all your well done videos

[scotty]

I'm a Brit and the IL-2 Sturmovik is my favorite WW2 aircraft, I just love it's looks!

[Taliyon]

Greg: Says he doesn't really care to do a weapons video, and there are other/better channels for it... CRUSHES a 30 minute video anyways. You're too good to us.

[briankay]

Beginning to love your channel Greg …. The research levels are off the scales !!!!
Watched all your P-38 content back to back ….thought I knew a bit … the education I got there on one of the most beautiful of WWII birds was the best anywhere …

[bruceday]

Great video on the Sturmovich. One thing generally left out by us westerners though, Germany and the USSR both invaded Poland. Once again great vid, loved the info.

[vgramatski]

Another great video, Greg! Several points:

1. Regarding pronounciation, acronyms in Slavic languages tend to be read as a word rather than as separate letters, where consonants have a vowel added. So, where in English you'd proncounce Bf 109 and Me 109 as "B F One-oh-Nine" and "M E One-oh-Nine", in Slavic (and Russian in particular) languages, those would be "BeEf One-Hundred-and-Nine" and "Me One-Hundred-and-Nine".

SH (Ш) and YA (Я) correspond to letters in the Cyrillic alphabet that are specific sounds - SH is pronunced as "sh" in the English "shell", while YA as "ya" in "yahoo". You do have the sounds, especially in American English, just not designated as separate letters in the Latin Alphabet, hence why I think people feel they are difficult to pronunce. So, taking que from the words above, SHVAK is pronounced as "sh-vac", VYa as "v-ya" and SHKAS as "sh-cas". PTAB would be pronounced as "pe-tab" rather than "Pe-Te-A-B", and so on.

2. Enough about the language part, good that you've mentioned the FW-190F! The F/G series were the workhorses of the Luftwaffe in the East, I believe much more so than in the West (where the A-series Sturmbock for bomber intercepts was far more widely used and known). They were good ground assault (F) / fighter-bomber (G) machines and, while not quite cutting edge anymore, capable and were used in a pure fighter role. I would be interested to hear about there usage (I can provide you with a great trivia piece of information how one FW-190F-8 from SG-10 was lost due to a infrantryman sniper with a 20mm anti-tank Soluthurn gun with a single shot).

Looking forward to the last video on combat usage with great interest!

[jiyushugi]

My grandmother (Gusti Stridsberg, an Austrian) worked as a translator and interpreter in Moscow during the late thirties. Purges were going on then as well, and she describes them in her autobiography. The Russians haven't changed much during the intervening years.

[KurttankT]

Keep it coming, all piston powered stuff is excellent .

[kkiller]

The FW-190A was definitely a great ground attack aircraft, but the JU-87 was only a dive bomber if you wanted it to be a dive bomber. The G version with 37mm cannon pods was used as a level flight tank buster too and others carried cluster bombs for the same role. The Ju 87 has 5 weapons stations, which are highly configurable.

[hart-of-gold]

27:10 A possible comparision aircraft is the CAC Boomerang built as an emergency fighter. Due to problems getting technical packages to Australia, and the knowledge that any export orders from the UK at the start of the war were likely to be used in the UK. Replacement by later models at later dates would mean a couple of years without up to date aircraft.
They are armed with .303 machine guns and 20mm cannons. They were mostly used for ground attack as they were good down low but only had a basic supercharger and were outclassed as a fighter at higher altitudes. The cannons were reverse engineered in Australia apparently (common story).

[atempestrages]

Really enjoying these videos on the Sturmovik.

[Slaktrax]

Mistake @24:20 ''...modern Soviet tanks...'' Make it modern Russian tanks. We all know about Russia phobia, but they really are not as bad as the news media says they are.
Great video Greg, I (like many) appreciate the detail you put into your work. Thank you. 🙂