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16. The Sturmoviks Master the Battlefield (Part 2)
During the Battle of Stalingrad, Il-2 Sturmoviks helped seal the Soviet victory with a treetop level raid on the main airbase from which supplies were flown to the besieged Germans. They destroyed numerous cargo planes on the ground, shot down others, and damaged many more. That crippled an already struggling resupply operation, and hastened the trapped Germans’ surrender. By the time of the Battle of Kursk in 1943, Stormovik tactics had been further honed, and new ones introduced, such as the “Circle of Death”. That tactic involved groups of 8 or more Sturmoviks flying a circle around a target, each protecting the one ahead with its forward firing machine guns and cannons from enemy fighters. They then took turns to dive and attack the target, before rejoining the circle and allowing another plane to attack.
Sturmovik squadrons by then had also learned to operate in close coordination with ground forces to decimate the Germans, such as a mass Il-2 attack on July 7th, 1943, that was credited with destroying 70 German tanks in 20 minutes. Against soft targets such as supply convoys and troops caught in the open, Sturmoviks were even more murderous. So important was the plane to the Soviet war effort that when production numbers fell below expectations, Stalin wrote those responsible ” Our Red Army now needs IL-2 aircraft like the air it breathes, like the bread it eats. ... I ask you not to try the government’s patience, and demand that you manufacture more ILs. This is my final warning.” Unsurprisingly, production increased sharply soon thereafter.