The Il-2 role in Eastern Front

[Franek Grabowski]

Well, it seems logical. Most of the losses due to enemy fighters occured when single seaters were in use. Later on, when two seaters entered service, number of victories dropped in favour of Flak. The latter was not particularly dangerous for gunners, it was just deadly dangerous for all Hunchbacks. Unfortunatelly, statistics are not enough detailed to make a clear proportion but for 1942 it was 169/203/1290 (fighters/Flak/missing) and for 1945 369/1048/266.
By the way, I cannot find any reference to Il-2T. What it was supposed to be?

[Dénes Bernád]

Originally Posted by kolya1

The overall numbers of pilots lost are in fact even higher than those of gunners because early in the war only single seat Il-2s were in service and therefore only pilots were lost...

Kolya, obviously, what I've written is valid only to the two-seater Il-2s. It is not based on what I've read, but solely on logic, as detailed in my previous post.

If we take the overall figures, from 1941 to 1941, I agree that probably more Il-2 pilots were lost than gunners, for the simple reason that early in the war only the one-seat aircraft were available.

Franek, the Il-2T was suppose to be a torpedo carrying version, reportedly armed with a Type 45-12 torpedo. I am not aware if this version indeed existed, however. Perhaps someone else could enlighten us about this issue.

[Franek Grabowski]

No mention of torpedo Il-2 in any serious monography. I tend to believe this is an error eg. with torpedo version of Il-4, as I believe Il-2's payload was too small to carry a torpedo.

[Evgeny Velichko]

Originally Posted by Stig Jarlevik

All

According to Yefim Gordon and his book about the Il-2 and Il-10, the Il-2 suffered the following losses
Red Army: 10759 (24% to fighters, 43% to AAA, 32% failed to return, 1% on the ground)
Naval Forces:807

The German overclaiming in relation to Il-2 losses is estimated at appx 2.2.

He also says that SOME Russian researchers state that the Il-2T was in service (even gives the operational Unit) while others state that the type never even existed.

I am not certain how to evaluate Russian research, but such statements reflects rather badly on the research performed and it CAN of course be put in perspective relating to loss research.....

Cheers
Stig

Hi all!

About Il-2 T. This plane WAS NEVER EXIST. I know 1 guy, who had talk about that plane with general engeneer of factory, witch made Il-2 during WWII.

& that engeneer sayd - IL-2 CANT hang sutch weight as torpedo.

[Andrey Dikov]

My two cents. If the aircraft was unrepairable, then the loss was characterized by rather standard "Samolyot razbit, vosstanovlyeniyu ne podlezhit" = "Aircraft is crashed, a repair is impossible".

After that there should be a phrase characterizing whether it was combat or no combat loss: "Ot boyevich povrezhdeniy IA/ZA" ("Combat damage Fighters/Flaks"), "Ot drugikh prichin" ("Another causes") in case of non-combat loss, etc.

To sum up, I don't think that heavily damaged and written off crafts were sumed in non-combat columns of loss tables. And documents I worked with confirms my point of view.