It should also be pointed out here that AH is pitting a mid-1942 plane against a very late-1944 (December) GV. From the
Soviet Union Factbook page on the Il-2:
The original Il-2 was a single-seater. The forward fuselage around the engine and cockpit was built with 700 kilograms (1,543 pounds) of steel ranging from 5 to 12 millimeters (a fifth to half inch) thick. The engine radiators were placed behind the engine in the armored body, while the air intakes were placed on top of the nose. K-4 armor glass was used in the cockpit, with thicknesses from 55 to 65 millimeters (2.2 to 2.6 inches).
The Il-2 was armed with two ShKAS 7.62 millimeter machine guns and two ShVAK 20 millimeter cannons; rails for eight 82 millimeter RS-82 rockets, making it one of the first attack aircraft to carry rockets; and a bombload of 400 kilograms. There were two small bomb bays in each wing inboard of the landing gear, and there were external racks under the wings as well. Level speed was 470 KPH (300 MPH), and operating altitude was 2,000 meters (6,600 feet).
* * *
However, field experience demonstrated serious deficiencies in the aircraft. While the aircraft was easy to fly and had few vices, the 20 millimeter main cannon didn't have enough killing power, and the aircraft was very vulnerable to fighter attacks from above while it was engaged in low-altitude combat. The Ilyushin design team had a meeting with representative operational pilots in the spring of 1942, and decided on a number of improvements.
The improvements were implemented in two steps, the first being the Il-2M, in which the two 20 millimeter ShVAK cannon were replaced with twin high-velocity 23 millimeter VYa cannon, and which incorporated an upgraded AM-38F engine rated at 1,750 HP.
This was quickly followed by the two-seat Il-2M3, in which the cockpit was lengthened to accommodate a gunner, who manually handled a single 12.7 millimeter UBT machine gun, mounted at the back of the cockpit and directed upward and backward. Armor was increased from 700 kilograms to 950 kilograms (2,100 pounds), partly to protect the back-seater.
Despite the heavier armor, performance hardly suffered. The longer cockpit improved the machine's aerodynamics, a slightly improved AM-38F engine provided incremental horsepower, and structural changes trimmed the weight of other parts of the aircraft, resulting in a net gain of only 100 kilograms (220 pounds). With the aircraft's major defects now corrected, the Shturmovik came into its own.
* * *
The Shturmovik had been an important element in the victory, and as fighting continued into the spring of 1943, so did improvements to this vital Soviet weapon.
Most significantly, in some production, the two 23 millimeter VJa cannon were replaced by a pair of long-barreled 37 millimeter NS-37 cannon, with this variant known as Il-3-37. Each gun had 50 rounds of ammunition. This variant saw service, but it did not prove highly successful as the big guns had a hefty recoil, and also badly affected the aircraft's handling.
The Il-2M3 was also equipped with other ordnance. One was the PTAB anti-tank bomblet, which was a 2.5 kilogram (5.5 pound) hollow-charge munition. Up to a total 192 PTAB bomblets could be loaded into the Shturmovik's four little bomb bays, and could be scattered over enemy armored columns. Another weapon was the DAG-10 grenade launcher, an odd "aerial-mine" device that would eject grenades on little parachutes in the path of a pursuer and which Soviet records say was surprisingly effective. Many Il-2s also began to incorporate all-metal wings and tail surfaces.
* * *
In 1943, Ilyushin and his engineers had considered what they could do to improve on the Il-2 by redesigning it essentially from scratch. The result was the Il-10, which looked very much like a cleaned-up Il-2, but was of all-metal construction, gave the rear gunner a powered turret with a single 20 millimeter gun instead of the flexible 12.7 millimeter gun, and had such aerodynamic features as main wheels that rotated 90 degrees to fit inside the wheel fairings.
There were only two bomb bays instead of four. ... Il-10s began reaching combat units in October 1944, joining the tens of thousands of Il-2s already in service, in preparation for the last drive on Hitler's Reich.
So, in December of 1944, when the Ostwind went into production, the Il-2 had already had two months of its successor being deployed to the front.
It should also be noted that the sheer
number of Ostwinds encountered in AH is
grossly ahistorical; only 43 Ostwinds and 145 Wirbelwinds were ever produced. The most common FlaK defenses were towed 20mm, quad 20mm, and 37mm guns, with self-propelled versions of these guns being almost exclusively unarmored mounts on soft-skin vehicles like the SdKfz 7/1 and 7/2 conversions.
However, heavy losses
is historical:
The Shturmovik's armor made it generally impervious to anything less than 20 millimeter fire. Even that had to be accurate and precise to do the aircraft damage, and an Il-2 moving fast and jinking wildly at low altitude was a difficult target.
Despite their survivability, Shturmovik losses were high, for they fought in the teeth of the worst combat with no place to hide. Soviet factories continued churn out the simple, reliable aircraft, and those that fell were quickly replaced with new aircraft with weaknesses eliminated. Red pilots refined their tactics and training to help reduce the losses.
However, the losses to ground fire is severely distorted by the ahistorical nature of combat in AH. An Il-2 pilot won't find the large formations of ground vehicles that the Germans employed in WWII, nor will they be operating in groups of 12-15 aircraft as the VVS employed them.
One of the things that I have observed from the receiving end is that both the M-16 and Ostwind are extremely vulnerable to groups of two or more aircraft working in concert to take down a GV. The vehicle can only fire in one direction at a time; by focussing the gunner's attention on a plane in one direction, a wingman can dive in and shoot up the GV without being exposed to the return fire.
One-on-one, it's a much more even duel; with only a single opponent to worry about, the contest usually comes down to a question of which person is the better shooter -- and a GV makes for a much more stable firing platform, particularly with the Ostwind, where the gunner can get hits outside the range of the aircraft's guns, and a single 37mm hit can render the plane uncontrollable. The M-16 is more vulnerable, because it has to allow the attacking aircraft into guns range, but its higher ROF enables it to track fire onto the aircraft more quickly than the Ostwind.
I do agree with Kweassa that some of the simplifications in the AH damage model create unrealistically brittle targets. Additionally, the complete absence of the four bomb bays on the Il-2 eliminate many of the weapons options in the actual aircraft -- The KMB cassette that would fit in a single bomb bay which carried 48 PTAB 2.5 anti-tank cluster bombs, the AJ-2 cassette carrying incendiary cluster bombs, either 30 or 50 AO-10 10kg bomblets, and four 50kg or 100kg bombs (in addition to the ones on the external racks).
