Quote:
Originally Posted by kurlannaiskos
the Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovik is a ground-attack aircraft ,not a fighter.
I think you have mixed up two different aircraft here.
in the case of the Il-2 the
twin 12.7 mm UBT and twin 23 mm VYa all were in the wings and had long rectangular ammunition loading hatches outboard of the guns/cannons.
and with all that armor (6 mm to 13 mm) up front to protect the engine,oil,radiator and pilot there was no room for guns or ammunition.
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Thanks, until now I did not realize the IL-2's machine guns were carried in the wings. Since I was a teenager, for some reason, I had thought the machine guns were cowling mounted and thought I had read it somewhere. Sorry for propagating this error. BTW, the IL-2's two forward-firing machine guns were 7.62mm, not 12.7mm. I had just read last night that even its successor, the IL-10, had 7.62mm, not 12.7mm, machine guns firing forward. Here's a reference from the Century of Flight website:
http://www.century-of-flight.net/Avi...Shturmovik.htm
I have found that its WWII aircraft references generally seem to be accurate and consistent with the aircraft books I have read. It also confirms that all of the IL-2's forward-firing armament are in the wings and none in the fuselage--again, my error for suggesting so before, especially because I had read this reference previously and missed the gun configuration.
However, I knew/know the IL-2 was a ground attack aircraft, I had mentioned it with the fighters only because I had thought its guns were cowling-mounted and therefore subject to the same synchronization as the cowling-gunned fighters and therefore relevant to this topic.
Kenneth