The Il-2 was the symbol of Soviet air power in World War II and Ilyushin built more Shturmovik than any other airplane of any wartime nation. The Il-2 mirrored Soviet wartime emphasis on ground-attack aircraft and its use during the war had a long-lasting effect on Soviet theory of warfare.
The Shturmovik sympolizes the Soviet stress on ground attack aircraft as part of combined arms warfare. In 1938 the Ilyushin design bureau began work on a heavily-armored low-level attack aircraft, a 'shturmovik' in Russian. This word came to be synonymous with the Il-2. Entering production in 1940, the Il-2 sported an armament of two wing-mounted armor-piercing cannon and two machine guns and carried eight rockets and 400 kilograms (880 pounds) of bombs. It had protective armor up to 12mm thick around the engine and two-man cockpit, although the rear fuselage was of plywood.
The VVS (Air Forces) had 249 Il-2s in service when the war started. As aircraft factories relocated east of the Urals in 1941 to escape German bombing, Stalin characterized the Il-2 as necessary to the Red Army "like air, like bread." Production became a national priority, and the Russians built 36,163 Il-2s by November 1944, at first under appalling winter conditions as laborers erected factory walls and roofs around open-air assembly lines. Later, production rates climbed as high as 1.5 aircraft an hour at some plants, and 41,129 were built by the war's end. The first production Il-2s flew directly to frontline units before tests of the prototype were even completed. The plane's easy handling, powerful armament, and invulnerability to ground fire made it a devastating ground attack aircraft, especially with the tenacity of desperate pilots, and the Germans called it the "Black Death." But losses were extremely high from German fighters, even after a rear gun was added for self defense-14,200 were claimed downed in 1943 and 1944 alone. The Luftwaffe even formed specially-trained fighter units to target Il-2s, and several of Germany's highest-ranking aces gained most of their kills against Il-2s.
Indicating how dangerous this ground attack work was, Il-2 pilots received the Hero of the Soviet Union award after only 10 missions. It normally required 100 missions to earn this highest Soviet award for valor. And pilots, surrounded by the Il-2's protective armor, expected to outlive six or more gunners. As the war progressed, the Il-2 received more powerful guns, including cannons of up to 37mm size, and more powerful engines. It was beloved by pilots and referred to affectionately as 'Ilyusha' because of its ruggedness: half of all shturmoviks returning safely from missions had combat damage, but most were repairable. Few lasted more than 100 hours-about 50 missions.
The Il-2 on display at the National Air and Space Museum was obtained exchange with Mr. Jeet Mahal. The physical characteristics of the aircraft indicate that it was likely produced at the Zavod 18 facilty in the summer or fall of 1943. It was shot down by German anti-aircraft fire in March 1944 while operating alone near the village of Pustoshka. Here the Il-2 crashed on the ice covering Kryakovsky Lake and then sank. In about 1992, the Il-2 was discovered by a Canadian aircraft broker and removed from the lake. It was sent to an aircraft repair facility in St. Petersburg, where it was restored by Russian aircraft mechanics, some of whom had worked on Il-2s during the War. It was donated to NASM by the U.S. Army Center for Military History on April 3, 1995.
