IL2's are certainly capable of defendng themselves, but not in a conventional sense. You see them upping from capped bases w/o fighter hangars all the time, utilizing the F3 view to time wierd neg-G maneuvers, and maneuver as though they could look through the airframe itself.
IL2s are so absurdly helpless to well flown fighter planes. Or, they should be. The fact that they aren't in the game points more to laziness and terrible ACM on the part of fighter sticks then it does the capability of the IL2. Any maneuver performed in the IL2 can be done in any fighter as well, less the fighter "stick dance". The IL2 doesn't stick dance well, "otherwise known as stick jerking". I have a couple of tricks to evade fighters, "and I assume they did in real life to". But the truth is you might have one tight roll in them and then they are to slow. And you cant fight them to far off the deck because they dont fight in the vertical well at all. When slow they wallow like pigs, which is why I never take internal ords up in them. It makes a bad situation worse.
Boy if your having a hard time fighting IL2s ATA then you seriously need some T/A time. The things are so slow yesterday I pointed one at a GV base, then shaved, downloaded, showered, AND, clipped my nails. Finishing in plenty of time to grab the stick as it puttered in and killed a bunch of GVs.
9 out of 10 fighters I shoot down are done so because "they" choose to HO an armored, heavily armed, attack plane. And no doubt as they fell to cartoon earth they decried the bloody, commie IL2 and its F3 views.
