Word: stormovik
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Finns under arms. They drove back the Russians in a series of savage, no quarter battles, but when the advance stopped at the Svir River, the gamble was lost. After Stalingrad, the Russians came surging back with heavy tanks and Stormovik planes, crippling the Finnish army in its long retreat through the forests and swamps of Karelia...
...vodka, hurtle down the runway, take off simply by hauling up their wheels. In combat, Red flight leaders flew above and behind their men to make sure no one shied away. They were never the finely honed flyers Germany had for her Luftwaffe (the average life of a Stormovik pilot was seven missions), but there were always plenty to take the place of those who died...
...maneuverable, though still second-rate planes by German and U.S. standards. The best ones were derived from Western models. But in tactical air, the defense-conscious Russians took a back seat to no one. One of the best ground attack planes of World War II, the armor-plated Stormovik, came off the drawing board of another Russian, Sergei Iliushin. German Panzer divisions called it "the black death." In one ten-day period, the Stormoviks knocked out over 400 Nazi tanks. The Russians also learned to build planes in a hurry. By 1945, Russia's factories were turning them...
Sergei V. Iliushin, 57, rags-to-riches designer of the legendary IL-2 (Stormovik). A poor peasant's son in Czarist days, he trekked 300 miles to Moscow at the age of 15 to get into aviation. Rose slowly through the ranks, first as mechanic then as chief mechanic. When orders came down for an attack plane, Iliushin's was the only design smaller than a B17. After the war, turned out twin-engine (IL-12) and four-engine (IL-18) transports that look something like U.S. Convairs and Boeing Stratocruisers. Now working on a fast, twin...
...Berlin area are Finow, Oranienburg and Strausberg. Each of these fields and most of those in the southern triangle boast at least a squadron of jets. On all the fields there are also fairly heavy concentrations of Russian fighters of older types, as well as light bombers, Stormovik dive bombers, transports and training planes. Many of the new concrete runways are being built with subsurface layers from 16 to 24 inches deep. The old Luftwaffe runways are to be lengthened to at least 6,500 and usually 8,000 feet, which will be adequate to the needs of the Reds...