Soviet bloc COIN aircraft

Khanzeer

Banned
It is one weird plane. It's payload is ridiculous compared to a Dauntless (500 kg for the IL2 at max loadout). This clay pigeon was shot down in more numbers than any other plane of which I know. (About 25,000 of them.). What makes it effective, is that there are a lot of them, and their unique "cassette" bomb dispensers that allowed them to make low level horizontal passes and drop lines of top-down HEAT grenades on massed enemy armor. (Means average pilots can use the plane for CAS, no need for fancy dive bomber training.) These grenades were dual purpose as not only could they defeat German armor topsides, but there was a blast frag feature that sprayed and killed panzer grenadier bodyguard troops if the grenades missed the tanks during the pass. Point contact detonators. The guy who came up with the IL2, Sergey Ilyushin, was absolutely brilliant because he thought of everything, as a system of systems guy, except the tail-gunner, who it turns out, was completely useless, so he was right (and Stalin was wrong) about that one, too.
Il-2 was frequently called upon to serve as a fighter. While the Sturmovik had no way of keeping pace with German fighters, it proved deadly in taking down slower German bomber, observation and transport planes, resulting in several Il-2 aces.

^^^ above from article you referenced

Begs the question in a big war soviets probably planned to use ground attack strike aircraft [ mig27 and su17m3] as fighters too against recon aircraft, transports , observation/patrol planes etc ?
 
Il-2 was frequently called upon to serve as a fighter. While the Sturmovik had no way of keeping pace with German fighters, it proved deadly in taking down slower German bomber, observation and transport planes, resulting in several Il-2 aces.

^^^ above from article you referenced

Begs the question in a big war soviets probably planned to use ground attack strike aircraft [ mig27 and su17m3] as fighters too against recon aircraft, transports , observation/patrol planes etc ?

Probably. If they fly, then they die. Note that the IL2 is the most shot down plane in history? I expect that Red Air Force practice (Korean War) would still change as it did. Soviet post war CAS was NTG, so fighter work and battlefield interdiction seems very likely.
 
The Il-10M was a good COIN aircraft. For a post war model, build quality should be decent and the aircraft could last long enough to be used in the 70s.
Cuba could get some Il-10M to chase CIA run motor boats. The aircraft could have been stored, and dusted out for use in the civil war in Angola in the 70s by cuban forces.
 
The Il-10M was a good COIN aircraft. For a post war model, build quality should be decent and the aircraft could last long enough to be used in the 70s.
Cuba could get some Il-10M to chase CIA run motor boats. The aircraft could have been stored, and dusted out for use in the civil war in Angola in the 70s by cuban forces.

If you don't mind the engine catching fire which the Cubans found out the hard way.
 
Probably. If they fly, then they die. Note that the IL2 is the most shot down plane in history? I expect that Red Air Force practice (Korean War) would still change as it did. Soviet post war CAS was NTG, so fighter work and battlefield interdiction seems very likely.
The Il-2 was the most used attack aircraft in history.
Either the B-17 or the Lancaster are the most shot down heavy bomber in history and that doesn't mean they were bad aircraft.
 
The Il-2 was the most used attack aircraft in history.
Either the B-17 or the Lancaster are the most shot down heavy bomber in history and that doesn't mean they were bad aircraft.

I didn't say the IL2 did not fulfill its mission, did I? Funny that the comparison is made to the Lancaster and the Flying Fortress. Turns out that the aircrew killed in them is numerically about the same, too. Lots of dead airmen. Point being that someone should have been looking for a better way to do the missions. How many nations can afford those kinds of losses of the top 5% of their male cohorts? Not many. ~ 12,500 Russians, ~ 3,500 Americans and ~4,000 British PILOTS.
 

Khanzeer

Banned
The Il-10M was a good COIN aircraft. For a post war model, build quality should be decent and the aircraft could last long enough to be used in the 70s.
Cuba could get some Il-10M to chase CIA run motor boats. The aircraft could have been stored, and dusted out for use in the civil war in Angola in the 70s by cuban forces.
Its warload is 2 x 250 pound bombs and 4 x 3 inch rockets ? Isnt that really poor ?
 

Khanzeer

Banned
Probably. If they fly, then they die. Note that the IL2 is the most shot down plane in history? I expect that Red Air Force practice (Korean War) would still change as it did. Soviet post war CAS was NTG, so fighter work and battlefield interdiction seems very likely.
Indeed and as I read more about Soviet doctrine it seems that they had a built in redundancy in most of their weapon systems , given that WVR missile armed strike planes could be used for a variety of counter air missions too ( it seems like it) depending on the circumstances
 
Its warload is 2 x 250 pound bombs and 4 x 3 inch rockets ? Isnt that really poor ?
The primary weapons were the guns. The Il-2 had to lift it's extensive armor reducing it's payload. For COIN, the later Il-10M four 23mm guns and 600 Kg bomload would make it a useful weapon.
If you don't mind the engine catching fire which the Cubans found out the hard way.
In what conditions?
 
The primary weapons were the guns. The Il-2 had to lift it's extensive armor reducing it's payload. For COIN, the later Il-10M four 23mm guns and 600 Kg bomload would make it a useful weapon.

In what conditions?

Since it was fighting CIA cigarette boats in the Caribbean, I would say over water. NTG. Don't know about Angola.
 
skin from the pilot forward was steel armor. Guy in Back did not het his own armor protection till the Il-10.

GIB/Gunner was sometimes a punishment job.
The Il-2 was designed as a single seater to operate under fighter cover. When the Germans proved quite apt at shooting the fighter cover first and then going after the Il-2, a gunner was fitted in. The Il-10 was the first to be designed from the onset as a two seater.
 
skin from the pilot forward was steel armor. Guy in Back did not het his own armor protection till the Il-10.

GIB/Gunner was sometimes a punishment job.

The back end of an IL2 was made out of wood (strategic materials shortages) so forget about anything but level flight in that bird. It did its job, well, which is more than we can say about that rotten mass murdering Stalin.
 
The back end of an IL2 was made out of wood (strategic materials shortages) so forget about anything but level flight in that bird. It did its job, well, which is more than we can say about that rotten mass murdering Stalin.

He did his job fine. His job was getting a knife into anyone threatening Stalin, in fact, fantasy, or make believe. /s
 
He did his job fine. His job was getting a knife into anyone threatening Stalin, in fact, fantasy, or make believe. /s

My metric is a little different. If you are a national leader, you are supposed to save your people. By that metric, I can make a case for Czar Alexander. By that same metric, I can even make a case for Duke Dmitri or Peter the Great, but scum like the Berlin maniac and the Georgian genocidist should have been killed early and often. 1 in 9 Russians died to save the hide of that man, Stalin. That staggering statistic is... is just unbelievable. That does not include the maimed. I saw a film, once, of Eisenhower yawning at a Mayday parade as Stalin tried to show off Russian might and prowess. I wondered why Eisenhower yawned, and then I saw the parade. Women... nothing but women. And then I remembered 9 million combat deaths and as many maimings to render unfit for military service, plus 14 million civilians killed or wounded. Not to mention the 18 million Stalin had murdered or permanently maimed BEFORE his incompetently led war against the other butcher. Those were Russians. The men were gone. Just gone.

Whoever poisoned him at the end probably saved many millions of additional human beings. Just my gut hunch. The evidence is still highly circumstantial that someone finally did the right thing.
 

Khanzeer

Banned
The primary weapons were the guns. The Il-2 had to lift it's extensive armor reducing it's payload. For COIN, the later Il-10M four 23mm guns and 600 Kg bomload would make it a useful weapon.

In what conditions?
600 kg bombload ? 300 under each wing ?
Can it carry any cluster munitions ?
 
600 kg bombload ? 300 under each wing ?
Can it carry any cluster munitions ?

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It could on the inboard hardpoints. It has the same cassette dispenser array as the IL2.
 

Khanzeer

Banned
Yak-11 and Po-2 had potential as well esp given their use in the Korean war
Maybe later versions with more handpoints and greater bombload could have been developed
 
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