Il-2 Guards Units/Rastrenin (Osprey)

[Evgeny Velichko]

kurlannaiskos:

we actually dont use "Il-2M","Il-2M2","Il-2M3" or "Il-2 type 3" designations

As I told above, this mistake came long ago, from polish monography about Il-2, and, I beleive, came there from some older book... May be "Il-2 in action"...

[kurlannaiskos]

I got the impression from the post made by "Griffon" that at least one person was using those designations.
my comment was also for 'general purpose' use for anyone out there that was still using those incorrect designations.(irregardless of the source)

[Griffon]

well, I am NO expert in Soviet WW2 aviation, at least I do not know as much about it as I know about LW aircraft.
I mainly got interested in all the Russian "stuff" when I started "flying" the IL-2 simulation some years ago, which stars the Sturmovik of course.
as this sim has been developed by a russian team, led by Oleg Maddox, who always claimed to have access to some supersecret Russian archives to do the necessary research on performance figures and other stuff, associated with flight sim development, I usually accepted many of the figures, depicted in this sim.
the IL-2, as is featured in this sim, bears many designations, following its development history, from the early single seaters, via makeshift reargunner conversions and field mods up to the latest IL-2M3s.
as such designations like M3 subtypes have crept up in many other books, I took that those were subtype designations and was amazed that the new Osprey did not feature them in the profiles.

by the way, I bought the volume in question about an hour ago after having the chance to read a little bit more through it, and I stand corrected and have to apologize for my first rather negative review.
I now recommend this volume as a great introduction to the Sturmovik and the attack aviation units of the VVS.
it seems that only browsing through books shortly can lead to wrong assumptions at first sometimes....

best regards
phil

[LukeFF]

The erroneous "Il-2 M" designation comes from the log books of German pilots who would record victories over two-seat Il-2s as "Il-2 mit heckschütze" (Il-2 with rear gunner). At least, that's what Bergstrom writes in Black Cross, Red Star Vol. 3.

[Franek Grabowski]

Ridiculous claim, as several of the author. Soviet wartime designation system remained unknown for general audience for long years of Cold War, hence several unofficial designations appeared. Those originated among publicists, who somehow had to differentiate various versions.

[Jukka Juutinen]

Kari Lumppio, purge your inbox asap as it is full. Regarding Mark Solonin, contact me at paso.leatiPÖÖpp.inet.fi