Only a small number of Il-2s were deployed to frontline units-notably in the Fourth Aviation Assault Regiment-when the Wehrmacht began its devastating invasion of the Soviet Union on June 1941. Even the canopy averaged six centimeters of armored glass! The Sturmovik’s robust landing gear was also designed to handle rough frontline airstrips. An armored tub five to twelve millimeters thick shielded the cockpit, fuel tanks, AM38 engine and radiators. However, it was slightly faster, at 250 miles per hour, and more heavily armed, with two twenty-millimeter cannons in addition to two machine guns in the wings. After several prototypes, the resulting single-seat Il-2 production aircraft weighed nearly ten thousand pounds, compared to seven thousand for the Stuka, and could carry a similar maximum bomb load of around 1,100 pounds. Ilyushin’s solution was to make the steel armor an integral load-bearing element of the Il-2’s monocoque fuselage-even though the rear of the aircraft and the wings panels were still made of wood. Simply bolting on armor plates is liable to make an airplane fly like a brick.
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