Il-2 Shturmovik Poster

The Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovik was a single-seat or double-seat ground attack aircraft used by the Soviet Air Force (WWS) during World War II. Il-2 has no official name, and "Shturmovik" is a Russian generic term for ground attack aircraft. The Il-2 was quite heavily armoured, with the engine and cockpit protected by up to 12mm thick armour plates and 65mm thick bulletproof glass, and could withstand a direct hit from a 20mm cannon, making it almost impossible to shoot down with a machine gun, and so it was called the "concrete attack plane" by the Germans and the "flying tank" by the Soviet Air Force. The aircraft is also known to have been flown by four pilots who were considered heroes of the Soviet Union, including Lieutenant Anna Egorova, a female pilot of the Soviet Air Force who participated in more than 270 missions.