The Il-2 is my favorite and almost only ride, for the last 3 years.
I'll admit to being addicted to this flying tank and Jabo in general.
She is not a glamorous bird by any stretch.. Yes, she is slow and handles like a sofa in many situations. But there is nothing quite as satisfying for me as downing a hot shot p-51 or La that overshoots the surisingly slow Il and ends up in my crosshairs.
Her advantages are the thick armor, tight turning radius and heavy cannons, 6 bomb load out and relatively accurate rockets.
Her disadvantages are her slow speed, weak tail, and poor rear armament
Usually I am the only Il-2 i see in the course of the evening, so I thought It might help to share a few tricks I have picked up to encourage others to fly this armored tub a little more often.
I fly against V bases and GV targets, which will soon up osti's when they realize some nutbar is attacking with an Il. Because of it's very slow, large target, nature, the Il is an osti gunners dream. Conventional dive bombing tactics perfectly suited to most planes are suicide in an Il attacking an osti,so here is a workable and fun alternative.
Defeat the Osti.
Once you have located the osti, fly away from him, making it look like you've gone off someplace else. Once out of visual range, descend to treetop level and use the topography to your advantage to stay out of sight as you work your way back towards to osti. Approach from a different direction than he saw you leave in, as surprise is everything. Even though shes a slow ride, it doesn't seem like it when you are screaming between the trees toward a waiting osti. Often the target is distracted at this point with another plane, so pinpointing its location is even easier. Regardless, come in low, like 5 feet above the ground, just high enough to save the prop and line up on the target. At 600 yards open up with cannons and machine guns. If he hasn't seen you its too late now. Usually you'll get his turret, and can finish him with a bomb a la dive bomber style at your leisure.
I should mention that I set the convergence at about 375 for the cannons when attacking in this style. Extreme range convergence is preferred for engaging air targets, light gvs and base flak, but gives poor results against armored targets.
Using Rockets
The Il has good rocket accuracy in comparison to other planes and the rs-132 warhead will blow up a Pnzr with a dircet hit, or light gv with a close hit.
The reason the rockets are more reliable is the Il's inherently slow speed.
Like all things it take some practice to get it right but heres how I do it.
Switch to outside view and line up on a (preferrably stationary) target. Provided you are traveling in the 150 to 200 speed range wait until the target is in the 800 range and slightly below the nose of the plane, then let fly. Watch the trail of the rocket. At 800 range, 150 to 200 speed the missile will land directly under the nose of the plane. At closer ranges the missle will land either to the left or right of center depending on which side of the plane it was fired from. Fire one rocket at a pass. Watch the arc of the rocket and correct accordingly. The rocket will arc like a 3 point shot from the top of the key, its important to remember this when planning a firing solution.
At greater speeds or angles I wait until within 600-400 and then line up the rocket on the wings with the target on the ground and let fly.
This works well for me, I can usually claim one kill or disable at least for the 4 rockets.
As yet I have not been able to kill a Sherman with rockets or cannon, only track them. But theoretically the Sherman should have thinner armor than the PNZR so I'll keep on trying.
Well there are a few things anyway, I'd love to hear from anybody else who flys this plane and would like to share a few tricks or tactics.
