The History of the Ilyushin IL-2 Sturmovik │ The Flying Tank │ WW2 Plane History 

Anyone who is interested in the IL-2 and aviation history should read "Red Star Against the Swastika." Written by, Vasily B. Emelianenko, a Sturmovik pilot.

Great video. The pilot that stole the German plane sounds like a movie plot. I like that they cut a hole behind the pilot and stuck a machine gun with a canvas seat! That is on site engineering due to necessity. Al soldiers did and still do. Great job.

Iluyshin , Antonov, Sukhoi and Mikoyan continue to build quality aircraft to this day. While not heard of oftn in the US their planes are popular in some nations on the globe.

Funny enough considering there are flight sims with this plane front and centre, it still somehow got overshadowed by other planes. Underrated really.

Brilliant work, immediately subscribed. Would love to see you do some work on other Soviet aircraft (Yak family in particular).

Great use of game footage here. Great little documentary.

Excellent lesson on an often overlooked tactical terror upon the Nazi advance into Russia...the flanking attacks and zigzag was legend. also, no need to apologize for pointing out Stalin's insanity and the good men who died and never grow old.

Thank you, Leandro Capstick, this is an excellent historical presented video along with its excellent narrative.

This aircraft was used in the Korean War along with other old War birds such as the Yak-9, the Po-2, the P-51, the F4U Corsair, the A-26 Invader, the C-47, the B-29. The Mig-15 and F-86 take all the glory.

of course I made it this far into the video… You did a great job it's a very interesting aircraft and it was excellent learning these new things about it. Thanks a lot

Carefully thought of, very imformative. I enjoyed watching it.

I thought it was 30k subscribers before I realized it was 300. Keep up the good work!

As well as all this info obviously a beautifully designed plane.

Really enjoyed this, knew a bit about the il2 but learned a lot here. Not too long but very informative , and nice clear narrative ,👍

Simple direct low key. Perfect!

you and Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles are amazing, thanks for this informative video

A very informativ and engaging video! As for suggestion for videos on other aircrafts, I will suggest a video on the Bristol Baufighter.

Excellent video! Well researched and produced! Thanks....

Great stuff hope you’ll make more content like this soon

This was really well done man. You got a Sub from me!

Quite well made - good luck with your channel !

I like how if you actually look at Ilyushin's older design of medium DB-3 twin engine bomber,which was later turned into a IL-4 you can actually see many similarities to IL-2 in hull,wings and tail.Literaly,IL-2 is just downscaled DB-3 to single engine configuration.

Shades of Zardoz, excellent video, editing, sound, and narration, so much better than the computer voiceed videos which were endemic previously.

I meet a Russian IL-2 pilot who was my guide at the USSR Air Force Museum at Monino Russia. He claimed he flew an IL-2 in the Korean War.

Looking forward to the next one!

Just got a model of this plane from Revell, and i knew nothing about it so thanks for the history lesson.

Amazing content! Good narating voice, real fottage and game fottage makes for a very nice video! Please make more videoes about other planes too!

It always seems like a professional production when the British narrate.

ROTFLMAO over that BF-109 pilot losing his airplane!! That's damned funny.

Fantastic video. Keep them coming

Well done. I have learned something new and enjoyed it.

Great research work and montage!

Good stuff man! Thanks a lot!

Great video well done and right to the point nothing extra exactly what we needed to know. Thank you so much -subscribing

Great short doc, liked the fact you actually made an effort to pronounce German and Russian things properly.

A rather good documentary on the IL-2 Sturmovik 'Flying Tank'. Perhaps could add a bit more history on Sergey Ilyushin's career at the aeronautics academy and his competition with Yakovlev (Yak) and LaGG planes. Many of the IL-2s that were shot down later and middle of the war were from Messer Bf-109 and Stukas that had to fly high and then swoop down sharply to hit the IL-2s below them. The IL-2s were pounding the Nazi tanks comprising of Panthers, Panzer IV and Tiger 1 tanks that German losses were high and their infantry had to retreat. To counter this, the Soviet Air Force then dispatched their agile and high-flying Yak -9s to escort the IL-2 as cover and interceptor. It was always said that when a German pilot saw a Yak-9, he always tried to avoid an encounter !

Thank you for your efforts.

Lots of problems with kill statistics of many ground attack aircraft being very inflated, particularly with rocket attacks. This also seems to be true of the Tempest ... However, the morale effect on the Germans was significant and they were good at breaking up organised thrusts ... This is not to say that the IL2 was not a good plane for the Russians.

Very well presented vid, tons of good info..

Good job! I've always been interested in the IL-2.

Awesome. Love the use of IL2 BoS for this.

thanks,interesting info.

Really love this video 💯 soviet aircrafts needs more spot light can you do one about the yak-9t or any yak-9s and the pe-8 heavy bomber love those two planes.

Nice one, very balanced and interesting.

Very informative. Thank you.

Fabulous video.

Very nice ! Thank you !

Very good job !! Keep going!!

Highly overlooked awesome Warbirds.

"More IL-2 for the motherland..."

Very nice video- can you do please about La5-7 and Policarpov I16 ?

EXCELLENT VIDEO

Fascinating

Great documentary! Wonder how many people worldwide know it's not the P51 or BF109 that was most mass produced in WW2. Got curious and found a copy of that telegram. Apparently, the engines were very similar but the factory kept making the one not suitable for IL-2.

very good effort,congratulations

Great upload, you have a new subscriber.

Great video

Someone needs to do a similar video on the Su-2 series of ww2 light bombers. It’s like it didn’t exist

Interesting and informative.Excellent photography job making it easier for viewers to better understand what the orator was describing. Historians did a very good job presenting actual facts from fiction. Class A research project!!! Russian pilots slowly gained confidence/experience with fighter flying techniques. Special thanks to those pilots whom fought/perished/survived those missions. Making this documentary possible!!!

Very good and well produced. 5 star

Amazing production.

Some German pilot told his buddy you dont bite a porcupine on the ass after he failed to shoot one down

Excellent presentation! I'm not sure why you don't have more subscribers.

Please can you show us the sources of the gun disigner acessination!

Very well done ! What about a documentary on Pe 2 or Tu 2 ?

Amazing video.

I can't believe you just reached 1340 subscribers with such good contents and very well made vids! I hope you will go on making them! BTW i also appreciate your good pronounciation of french, russian and italian names (not to mention german ones; you're german, aren't you?)...not so common a feature!

Well done.

Loved the video. Subbed. What plane will you do next?

Why did it have an external/bottom-mounted oil cooler?

Bloody kick ass plane 👍😎.

Great

Top-drawer stuff. 👍🇬🇧

You should make more of this dude

This video was made before I started studying history at University and uses poor methodology. Much of it heavily references Wikipedia and a video by Military Aviation History. This video is not a reliable source of historical information.

FYI.. regarding comments on numbers of kills don’t jive with the German reported numbers, is due partially to reporting methods. I’ve read that the Germans report number of operational tanks, and not the number of tanks lost. Therefore would not relate to Reds reported kills. All the statistics are subject to many factors, but “Glantz” has done detailed analysis and investigation and there is good information now on this history.

Future WW2 content idea.. How were these Russian IL planes serviced, their mechanics, repairs, weather, types of facilities? Base and personnel traditions, food etc. Lots of photos of pilots and ground crews please.

Thanks! Subbed.

How would you treat a man that dump you in the middle of the enemy attack, and that got you almost killed? Badly right? So the story with engineer Jacob Taubin is not clear as you think. This guy would be a great showman/PR man, but not a engineer. He was able to convince a lot of high level minister of defence of USSR that he would create best weapons, better and lighter than his competitors, in about 2-3 years (1938-1940) he started to engineer 3 type of aircraft weapons 12.7 mm machine gun, 23 mm cannon and 37 mm cannon. He made good connection with high ministers of USSR and almost stopped design of the competeror Volkov-Yartsev VYa-23 cannon. Because of that, VY-a 23 testing was going slow and not put in the production. All weapons he designed were bad and faulty and after huge modifications of the Kovrov factory engineers team they were able to finally fix it and made it to production. He was lying to Iluishin (IL-2 designer) that his 23 mm cannon would have 2200 kg of fire recoil, So Ilushin design plane wings for that spec. In spring of 1941, couple months before Germany attacks Soviet Union, and Soviet government push every military manufacturers to finish their best products to put in the production. Ilushin finds out that Jacob Taubin lied and canons recoil was 5000 kg. The wings of the Shturmovik would probably would not handle that force. Now Ilushin and others are in bad reputation. The whole Shturmovik program is in jeopardy because of one idiot is trying to show off. Because of this many IL-2 pilots died in their mission because of the faulty canon which was finally replaced soon with VYa-23. He deserved to be punished for all of that, but too cruel to be shot. (Sorry for grammar mistakes) Now compare my story with the author of this video that made Jacob Taubin another innocent victim of the Joseph Stalin's regime.

you know you´re screwed when Stalin sends a letter to you saying "this is my final warning"

I like the video

Il 2 sturmovic is a badass PC sim.

Can someone give me the link to this game?

I wanted to know the HP of the engines and how many were shot down out of the 36000 built...

Amazing

Take close look at the su25 and close look at cockpit very similar. to Il2

Outstanding video here! Never even hear of this plane before watching this.

Love the film clip of "German Advance" at 19:02 showing american troops and equipment.

I felt like getting a mission info from Commandos BEL.

Anna Yegorova- Why why hasn't it been made any movies about this amazing woman..

The German tanks shown were from late in war not 41 42

The stress is on the ending, and the first letter is a sh sound. Shtur-ma-VEEK

Excellent video. My only gripe is some of the footage used is way out of date or off location for the events being described. The bridge at Remagen? Tigers and Panthers in 1941? The average view might not know the difference but for some of us it is rather laughable.

never forget never turn a blind eye

Most of the aircraft Erich Hartmann shot down were the Sturmovik. Its one weakness was an exposed oil cooler on the underbelly. And Hartmann took full advantage of this weakness. The first plane he shot down was a Sturmovik. He ended up with 352 confirmed victories. An incredible number that will never come close to being matched ever again.

Great job. one thing. Plural of Aircraft is Aircraft .

I discovered (through another Il-2 BoS subscription) that the pronunciation is "ill 2". The reason is that it is the first two letters of Ilyushin and not I.L. Perhaps the error is compounded by it being written in capitals rather than the correct capitalised "i" followed by lower case "l". I also think that in "Sturmovik" the emphasis may be on "Sturm" not "o". But thanks anyway for the video.

Also the most produced aircraft of all time.

No mention of the lend-lease P39 Aerocobra the Soviets received from the USA. This cannon equipped close air support aircraft was used extensively in battles in the East.

Is that game footage from the birds of prey series?