Talk:Ilyushin Il-2

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[edit] 17th Panzer Division losses at Kursk

17th Panzer Divison to my knowledge was not present at Kursk as a full division. It was with 1st Panzer army in reserve on the Donets, according to this. Andreas 12:13, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 3rd Panzer Division losses at Kursk

3rd PD reported total write offs of 9 (nine) tanks by 17th July. This does not include tanks judged as repairable, regardless of the level of damage they suffered. The division reported before the start of the battle on 30 June 1943 that it had 116 tanks and self-propelled guns present. This is based on an MA Dissertation from University of Dresden by Roman Töppel 'Die Offensive gegen Kursk', and sourced by the author to German wartime unit records. Andreas 12:17, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I've changed the article, then, to indicate "vehicles" lost rather than "tanks" as the other interpretation is clearly impossible, though one still does not have any faith in Liss' figures either way.Michael Dorosh 13:41, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Quoting from Archive 1:17th Panzer Division losses at Kursk:

First, no editorializing on the article page please. Second, the unnamed webmaster is not a credible source. Third, here's the quote: Эффективность "Кольца смерти" была продемонстрирована под Курском; массированое применение Ил-2 по германской 9-й танковой дивизии 07.07.43 привело к потере 70 ее танков за 20 минут. Два часа непрерывных ударов стоили 3-й танковой дивизии 270 танков и около 2000 убитых; через четыре часа 17 танковая дивизия фактически перестала существовать как боеспособная часть, потеряв уничтоженными 240 машин из примерно 300. The author (in my copy, at least) does not provide specific or general references. Again, if you can do better, please contribute. Don't just dispute the claims because they "don't sound right to you." - Emt147 Burninate! 17:35, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Running the Russian throught http://world.altavista.com/ into English gives:

"The effectiveness of the "rings of death" was demonstrated near Kursk; massirovanoye application Il-2 on German 9th tank division 07.07.43 led to loss 70 of its tanks in 20 minutes. Two hours of continuous impacts cost the 3rd tank division of 270 tanks, also, about 2000 those killed; after four hours 17 tank division actually ceased to exist as combat-effective part, after losing destroyed 240 machines from approximately 300."

Assuming good faith by Emt147 and that this is an accurate copy, and assuming that the translation is reasonably accurate I do not think the word "tanks" should be replaced with "vehicles" because that is not what was written in source. In the last phrase the term machines is used "240 machines from approximately 300", so the translation of that might be vehicles.

Having said that I am not sure that the second sentence applies just to losses to the "Ilyushin Il". It seems to me it is more likely to be talking about German combat losses to both Soviet air and ground forces against/in the "rings of death". In which case the source is only stating that "massirovanoye application Il-2 on German 9th tank division 07.07.43 led to loss 70 of its tanks in 20 minutes." I would like to here others opinions on this, preferably from some who can read the Russian --Philip Baird Shearer 14:33, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

There was a link in the archives to another web forum where some native Russian speakers took a shot at translating this. discussion hereMichael Dorosh 14:46, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Here is some more evidence on 3 Pz Div courtesy that link

posted 19 June, 2006 15:13 Michael,

Jason gave you that link in a recent post: http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/avenue/vy75/data.htm

"The largest portion of this data comes from the KOSAVE II study, run by the US Army's Concept Analysis Agency, and carried out by the Dupuy Institute and Russian subcontractors Rantek. The data reproduced comes from that report, with permission. The full report - hardcopy, plus a full CD of data - can be purchased from NTIS in the US, for US Nationals." So it should be a reliable source.

The data claims for the 3rd PD that it had 77 tanks (plus 2 PzIII spotter), 2 StuGIIIs and 12 Marder II on 4 July. There are no siginificant losses on any day. Lowest number for tanks is 38 on 11th, rising to 51 on 18 July.

Total number of vehicles is 197 on 4 July hitting a low on 15th with 140 vehicles.

No room for 270 destroyed vehicles or tanks in two hours Gruß JoachimMichael Dorosh 14:50, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

The last quote I added on the page is very useful in that it gives the number of aircraft (or sorties) in rough terms, and the number of tank kills claimed, in this case 60 to 90 sorties and 34 tanks claimed killed - in my opinion a better indicator of success than the early reference, which does not indicate number of aircraft or sorties, just vague references to time periods in which an indeterminate number of aircraft are discussed. The latter does, however, at face value suggest that tactical airpower was decisive beyond just tank kills in that the German force had to withdraw. A German POV on this would be most useful - losing 34 tanks of 50 would be much different than 34 out of 300. The true reason for their withdrawal would also be found in the German's histories.Michael Dorosh 15:13, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Please see WP:V "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth." that the author W. Liss in Aircraft profile 88: Ilyushin Il-2 mentions XYZ is verifiable and (assuming good faith) true. What I am trying to do is check that we are including what W. Liss says about the Ilyushin Il (not what others say that contradicts him/her). The question I am posing is: in the second sentence is W. Liss saying that those losses were soly due to the Ilyushin Il-2 or due to the lines of defence constructed by the Soviets. If the latter, then we can remove the sentences from the article which rely on them, because they are not an indicator of the effectivness of the Ilyushin Il-2. We would then end up with:
The true abilities of Il-2 are difficult to determine from existing documentary evidence. W. Liss in Aircraft profile 88: Ilyushin Il-2 mentions that a number of successful sorties were flown against tanks during the Battle of Kursk, including an engagement on 7 July 1943, in which 70 tanks from the German 9th Panzer Division were destroyed by Il-2 in just 20 minutes. Soviet staff publications bring this figure into question, stating that the Red Army itself calculated the Germans lost a total of 300 tanks from four divisions over five days of fighting, and that these losses were inflicted by both Soviet ground and air forces.
--Philip Baird Shearer 15:30, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm aware of verifiability; the only way to do that is to subject it to scrutiny - which is what you're doing, no? It highlights a problem I've preceived in articles on famous figures which may apply here - check out Elvis Presley or Hitler for the problem of using "fringe" sources to put forward unprovable hypotheses, which are unfortunately verifiable by virtue of the fact that a book got published on them. The Kennedy assassination is another example of that. The battle then becomes one of not finding sources, but determining which ones should matter - and ISTM wikipedia doesn't to weed out the unreliable sources very well as a determined hanging on by pet theorists sometimes keep them entrenched. Which doesn't apply to this article - I think the process so far has been unbiased and cooperative - just saying, the process is indeed involved as you point out.Michael Dorosh 15:48, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Incidentally, your last edit mixes up sources - the staff source in the last part of that para was discussing 17 Pz Div - I'd re-examine which parts of the para you want to cut as there seems to be some confusion? Michael Dorosh 15:51, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
It is not a confusion. I cut "(including the 17th Panzer)" out of "Soviet staff publications bring these figures into question because they state that the Red Army calculated that the Germans lost a total of 300 tanks from four divisions (including the 17th Panzer) over five days of fighting, and that these losses were inflicted by both Soviet ground and air forces." leaving "Soviet staff publications bring this figure into question, stating that the Red Army itself calculated the Germans lost a total of 300 tanks from four divisions over five days of fighting, and that these losses were inflicted by both Soviet ground and air forces." --Philip Baird Shearer 16:19, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

What was in the article was I would suggest:

The true abilities of Il-2 are difficult to determine from existing documentary evidence. W. Liss in Aircraft profile 88: Ilyushin Il-2 mentions a large number of successful sorties against tanks during the Battle of Kursk, including an engagement on 7 July 1943, in which 70 tanks from the German 9th Panzer Division were destroyed by Il-2 in just 20 minutes and that the 17th Panzer Division lost 240 of its 300 vehicles over a period of four hours.[1] Soviet staff publications bring the figures for 17th Pz Div into question, stating that the Red Army itself calculated the Germans lost a total of 300 tanks from four divisions (including the 17th Panzer) over five days of fighting, and that these losses were inflicted by both Soviet ground and air forces.[3]

Hmm, well, that's not exactly perfect either is it but it doesn't mix up the 17th Pz Div with the 9th.Michael Dorosh 15:55, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Why do you want to keep "and that the 17th Panzer Division lost 240 of its 300 vehicles over a period of four hours." Do you read the W. Liss text as including the 17th Panzer Division in the attack by the Il-2? Because as I said above it is not clear to me that the third sentence of the W. Liss text couples the two together. --Philip Baird Shearer 16:19, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I see what you're getting at with the 17th - if you check the translations at battlefront, it says

"in about 4 hours the 17th Panzer Division practically ceased to exist as a fighting unit, losing 240 destroyed vehicles out of a total of approximately 300"

Or in other words, yes, it does link. but it depends on which translation you want to use and I can't judge which is more accurate. Given that yours was automated and the ones at battlefront come from native speakers...still, an authoritative translation might be best before proceeding.Michael Dorosh 16:32, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Also at BFC, another translator gives "17th Pz div had lost 240 AFVs from 300 and in fact was no more able to fight" so two humans there seem to think they are linked. Again, I can't judge as I don't speak Russian.Michael Dorosh 16:34, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
I had already looked at their translations as well and thought they were basically the same as the machine translation.
"The effectiveness of the "Ring of death" was demonstrated at Kursk; the massive application of Il-2 against the German 9th Panzer Division on July 7 1943 led to its loss of 70 tanks in 20 minutes. Two hours of continual strikes cost the 3rd Panzer Division 270 tanks and about 2000 casualties; in about 4 hours the 17th Panzer Division practically ceased to exist as a fighting unit, losing 240 destroyed vehicles out of a total of approximately 300."
and
The effectiveness of “ring of death” was shown under Kursk. Massive stroke of IL-2 on German positions of 9th Pz div on 7th July 43 caused loss of 70 its tanks for 20 minutes. Two hours of non-stop strokes destroyed 270 tanks and 2000 causalities in 3rd Pz div. After four hours, 17th Pz div had lost 240 AFVs from 300 and in fact was no more able to fight.
The people on that page have jumped to the conclusion, that the third W. Liss text sentence is only about the Il-2 destroying things, not that it is a general comment of German losses from air and ground forces due to the multiple lines of entrenchments and tank killing zones, which are described as "Ring of death" in the text.
If we assume it does not, then with your latest source we can rewrite the whole section to be:
The true abilities of Il-2 are difficult to determine from existing documentary evidence. W. Liss in Aircraft profile 88: Ilyushin Il-2 mentions an engagement during the Battle of Kursk on 7 July 1943, in which 70 tanks from the German 9th Panzer Division were destroyed by Ilyushin Il-2 in just 20 minutes.[1] In another report of the action on the same day, a Soviet staff publication states that
Ground forces highly valued the work of aviation on the battlefield. In a number of instances enemy attacks were thwarted thanks to our air operations. Thus on 7 July enemy tank attacks were disrupted in the Kashara region (13th Army). Here our assault aircraft delivered three powerful attacks in groups of 20-30, which resulted in the destruction and disabling of 34 tanks. The enemy was forced to halt further attacks and to withdraw the remnants of his force north of Kashara.[2]
--Philip Baird Shearer 16:55, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Perhapse you would like to as the people on the www.battlefront.com site if they are sure that the third sentence is about the Il-2 or could it be about destruction by all elements the "Ring of death". --Philip Baird Shearer 17:00, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, if the book is so poorly written as to be that ambiguous, that alone may be reason not to include the information. Certainly, it is open to both interpretations (ie the figures are for 17th PD alone, or to all four divisions). I guess we can wait and see how other editors weigh in, including our own native Russian speaker.Michael Dorosh 17:00, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

What does it mean for verifiability of Liss that it is not verifiable that 17th Panzer Division even was at Kursk? I have done a bit of googling, and searched Google books, and nothing comes up, other than 17th Panzer being at Izyum during Zitadelle. It is also not included in the German OOB in Töppel. In my opinion Liss is not worth much as a source. Andreas 07:07, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

The question then becomes what was Liss refering to? The Soviets must have thought 17 PD was there as the staff report quoted by Glantz et al refers to the division. Either way, doesn't say much for either Liss or his own sources. I thought the 300 tanks per Pz Div was fantasy to begin with, this is just another nail in the coffin IMO.Michael Dorosh 13:53, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 50mm anti-aircraft fire?

I am wondering if the post war interviews referenced in the article are being misreported? I'm not aware of "50mm" anti-aircraft artillery being widely employed by the Germans. Does this perhaps actually refer to 37mm? This will need an actual reference either way.Michael Dorosh 15:00, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I was just looking through some online sources (wwiivehicles.com and tarrif.net) and I did not find any 50mm flak guns. The highest caliber "light" flak gun was indeed the 37mm.--Ashmole 20:34, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
The only 50mm I ever heard of was a late-war project that became the ZSU-57 mount. Trekphiler (talk) 16:05, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Production

The intro states that in combination with its successor, the Il-10, a total of 36,163 were built. It is possibly the single most produced military aircraft design in all of aviation history.

In addition to needing a source for this, it should also be expanded on in the article itself. I've started a section on production using the Stalin quote previously on the page, but any info on number of factories, rate of production, or statistics would be useful in completing the article.Michael Dorosh 15:13, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Aircrew

I've resectioned the Famous Pilots and Rear Gunners sections as subsections of Aircrew - a brief intro on pilot and gunner training would be appropriate I think as a lead in to what are essentially "trivia" sections. Stuff like issues specific to the Il-2 (hard to fly? hard to find volunteers for this specific type of aircraft? mortality rates compared to other aircraft.)Michael Dorosh 15:16, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

The piece on rear gunners needs to be cleaned up. It goes through attack after ataack on Suvorov's personal credibility, with no back-up that actually casts doubt on the claim itself, and somewhere in the middle it grudgingly concedes that Soviet archives support his claim. That's very, very far from NPOV. --Joe Katzman 20:09, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't see how this was different from any other WWII soviet weapon system. In every case a "good enough" solution was developed and then production was pushed to the max. For example the T-34 program accepted no modifications except those that would speed production for 2 years, despite the major tactical shortcomings inherent in a tank design which forced the commander to double as gunner. The article makes clear the pressure the designers were on to speed production, so is it any wonder that they did it in the simplest manner possible?

I'm not saying the Soviet mindest during WWII wasn't bloody-minded. There is a definite cost-bennefit equation involved that to our modern POV seems harsh. Would the reduced production needed to develop and change the assembly lines to include armor for the tail gunner balance the increased saftey for the tail gunner, when the difference in training needed for a pilot and a tail gunner is so large? The Soviets under Stalin never seemed to feel the need to come up a pretext to kill off those they didn't like. They had an entire Gulag system that openly did that.

While Mentioning that Viktor Suvorov made other claims that seem outlandish is off topic, it does seem fair to put the claim into context by giving the reader an opportunity to assess the reliability of his views, however it might be better to simply outline the basic facts of the claim regarding the Il-2 in this article and then reference the main article about Viktor Suvorov. --Jeff_F_F 10:29, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 'Concrete Aircraft'

Germany's most successful air ace Erich Hartmann in the biography The Blond Knight of Germany often referred to the Il-2 as 'the concrete bomber', and in the book there is a diagram of the Il-2 and the armor specifications. Jana Deenax - 28 Jun 100 620:34 UTC

Hartmann had a tactic for shooting down IL2s. Since the 20mm shells from a 109g had a tough time penetrating its thick armor, he would aim for the "Soft underbelly" of the Il2s.

--Ashmole 16:15, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Operational history

Information is repeated at least twice in this section. Please read again and rework.

Example: "Because of this ability to absorb damage Luftwaffe pilots referred to the Il-2 as the Betonflugzeug (Concrete aircraft). Unfortunately, the rear gunners did not have the benefit of all-around armor protection and suffered about four times more casualties than the pilots. Added casualties resulted from the Soviet policy of not returning home with unused ammunition which typically resulted in repeated passes on the target. Soviet troops often requested additional passes even after the aircraft were out of ammunition to exploit the intimidating effect Il-2s had on German ground troops who had given it the nicknames Schwarzer Tod (Black Death) and Eiserner Gustav (Iron Gustav). The Finnish nickname was Maatalouskone ("The Agricultural Machine" or "Crop Duster")"

"Unfortunately, the rear gunners did not have the benefit of all-around armor protection and suffered about four times more casualties than the pilots. Added casualties resulted from the Soviet policy of not returning home with unused ammunition which typically resulted in repeated passes on the target. Soviet troops often requested additional passes even after the aircraft were out of ammunition to exploit the intimidating effect Il-2s had on German ground troops who had given it the nicknames Schwarzer Tod (Black Death) and Eiserner Gustav (Iron Gustav). The Finnish nickname Maatalouskone ("The Agricultural Machine") derived from the habitual low attack pattern of the Il-2 [8]"

[edit] Operators

The map and list of operators do not agree, which is correct? Alastairward 13:23, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

List was updated later and is more correct, as usually. Piotr Mikołajski 07:41, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Movin' on

The article says, "aircraft factories near Moscow and other major cities in western Russia being relocated east of the Ural mountains after the German invasion." This is the popular myth; I understand (Cockburn's The Threat?) Sov factories had already begun moving well before the invasion, & most of them were beyond the Urals already. Can somebody confirm & correct? Trekphiler (talk) 16:03, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Ultimate Il-2 variant ?

This may be the ultimate variant of the Sturmovik (judging by it's appearance at least), the Il-102: http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/models_pages/modl_il-102.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilyushin_Il-102 163.189.217.40 (talk) 04:52, 16 May 2008 (UTC)