John Kettler Posted March 9, 2017 Share Posted March 9, 2017 Was trying to find out what was the most produced aircraft of the war (see above), and this popped up in my results. I'd call this a fairly impressive piece, and the photos of preserved examples are spectacular. I believe many of you will find this informative and worth your time. IRemember.ru has a great account by an Il-2 pilot, but when they redid the site, the easy access by category to veterans' accounts stayed, while the English side has no effective way of finding things. Instead, you get some name and not enough of a blurb to tell much of anything. Sometime last year, I believe, I asked that one of our Russian speakers contact the site owner and request this dreadful development be fixed, for the wealth of information there is positively dazzling; its loss is simply terrible in terms of losing access to practically impossible to obtain firsthand accounts, with one in which the guy managed to survive the entire GPW start to finish in Europe. The Il-2 pilot said the typical loss rate was an Il-2 and crew after seven missions! The blistering note Stalin sent to the Il-2 factory director is in the article below and probably caused the guy to wet himself. when you see the magnitude of the offense, you'll understand why. https://warisboring.com/the-il-2-sturmovik-wrecked-nazi-tanks-a78bbc407680#.mispnmlp3 Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aragorn2002 Posted March 9, 2017 Share Posted March 9, 2017 4 hours ago, John Kettler said: Was trying to find out what was the most produced aircraft of the war (see above), and this popped up in my results. I'd call this a fairly impressive piece, and the photos of preserved examples are spectacular. I believe many of you will find this informative and worth your time. IRemember.ru has a great account by an Il-2 pilot, but when they redid the site, the easy access by category to veterans' accounts stayed, while the English side has no effective way of finding things. Instead, you get some name and not enough of a blurb to tell much of anything. Sometime last year, I believe, I asked that one of our Russian speakers contact the site owner and request this dreadful development be fixed, for the wealth of information there is positively dazzling; its loss is simply terrible in terms of losing access to practically impossible to obtain firsthand accounts, with one in which the guy managed to survive the entire GPW start to finish in Europe. The Il-2 pilot said the typical loss rate was an Il-2 and crew after seven missions! The blistering note Stalin sent to the Il-2 factory director is in the article below and probably caused the guy to wet himself. when you see the magnitude of the offense, you'll understand why. https://warisboring.com/the-il-2-sturmovik-wrecked-nazi-tanks-a78bbc407680#.mispnmlp3 Regards, John Kettler Interesting John, thanks. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted March 9, 2017 Author Share Posted March 9, 2017 Aragorn2002, If you like that, you're going to love this. May I present the only operational Il-2 on the entire planet? That's right. Of somewhere between 31,000 and 36,000 produced (awful lot of slop there in the numbers), this is the only flyable Shturmovik! It was my privilege to see it and lots of other marvelous warbirds at Paul Allen's Flying Heritage Collection in Everett, Washington. And did I mention they have an 88?https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/stalin’s-ilyushin-il-2-shturmovik Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aragorn2002 Posted March 9, 2017 Share Posted March 9, 2017 You're right, John, I did love watching it. Superb plane. So clever of the Russians to develop such an aircraft and produce it through the entire war. I remember an account of German armored units in Lithuania in 1944 being attacked all day long by swarms of IL-2's. The German AA guns ran out of ammo after a couple of hours. Must have been a terrifying experience to be at the receiving end of such air power. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LukeFF Posted March 9, 2017 Share Posted March 9, 2017 Ehh, it's an alright article that's sloppy with the details in a couple of areas. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted March 9, 2017 Author Share Posted March 9, 2017 (edited) Aragorn2002, The Germans didn't call it the Black Death for nothing. Glad you enjoyed the video. LukeFF, There are two articles for which I've posted links. The first is from War Is Boring. The second is in the same post as the video and is from the Smithsonian Air and Space magazine. Which one do you mean, please? Regards, John Kettler Edited March 9, 2017 by John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aragorn2002 Posted March 9, 2017 Share Posted March 9, 2017 27 minutes ago, John Kettler said: Aragorn2002, The Germans didn't call it the Black Death for nothing. Glad you enjoyed the video. Or Schlachter (butcher). A name well deserved. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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