IL-10 carries less payload than the F-51?

[Jorri]

Am I seeing this wrong? I'm sure it's historical but then I'd like to understand better. The IL-10 is a purpose built ground attack aircraft, but it can only carry a maximum load of about 700kg worth of ordnance. Meanwhile, the F-51 is a fighter-bomber (with focus on the fighter bit I'd say), and it can carry over 1100kg worth of payload. 

Is it just a difference of doctrine? Is the IL-10 so heavy as an armoured single engine aircraft that there's no room to carry much weapons? I'm a bit confused, but also bummed out that the Eastern Bloc faction in the game has so few options for ground attack, and even the specialized aircraft is not as effective. 

[robzerg]

Also apparently the F4-U Corsair could carry up to 1,800kg !  That's going to be a real 'beast' when it comes out!

 

[BlitzPig_EL]

*AHEM*  The Skyraider would like a word with you.

The fix for this for the Red forces would be to make the Tu2 flyable.

Edited September 21 by BlitzPig_EL

[AndreiTomescu]

2 hours ago, Jorri said:

bummed out that the Eastern Bloc faction in the game has so few options for ground attack

You are right in your bumming 🙂 , but it's historical facts: the Communist faction was relying mostly on infantry and tanks, while the UN faction praised the close air support and strategic bombing as a major weapon, thus triggering the Soviet response with plenty of the exceptional Mig-15s, thus triggering the Sabre counter actions.

The few ground pounders and bombers the Reds had was nowhere in numbers and volume compared to the aerial onslaught the UN unleashed.

Let's say the Soviets decided to provide more Il-10s and such. Who to pilot them??? The Russian pilots were not there, officially, thus not allowed to go to UN controlled territory. 

The UN attack planes obviously striked upon N Korean territory, thus being intercepted by Mig-15. Any of those Mig pilots bailing out, they would do so in friendly territory.

But if you would have attack planes with Soviet pilots, they would have to go over S Korean soil to attack, obviously, and if shot down they might get captured and thus proving Soviet involvement (that everyone knew, but also everyone denied, to avoid WW3).

So, they are only few because they were only few.

[robzerg]

I suppose the positive is that, flying for the reds, there'll ultimately be plenty of variety of enemies to shoot down!

[belphegor]

Just based on the numbers, I think it's not too surprising.  The Il-10 is roughly the size and weight of a P-47, but with the same engine power as the P-51.

[TheTonester]

Youd think with all that heavy bombing and mud moving firepower it would have been a walkover for the US(UN) but no such luck… just goes to prove its not ‘the dog in the fight’ i suppose…much like vietnam 🤔

[AndreiTomescu]

2 hours ago, TheTonester said:

Youd think with all that heavy bombing and mud moving firepower it would have been a walkover for the US(UN) but no such luck…

Image how they would fare without!

Even now, with high tech, space technology, still the boots are those that do the walking. In Korea, soooo many hills fought over with bayonetts! Like ww1. One more reason for the devs to go there..... 🙂 

[Avimimus]

22 hours ago, Jorri said:

Is it just a difference of doctrine? Is the IL-10 so heavy as an armoured single engine aircraft that there's no room to carry much weapons? I'm a bit confused, but also bummed out that the Eastern Bloc faction in the game has so few options for ground attack, and even the specialized aircraft is not as effective. 

If one compare the two, the Il-10 has

- 4.5% more engine power

- Approximately half the range and 86% of the speed

- 44% greater empty weight 20% greater loaded weight and 38% more wing area

 The difference is a result of:

- 994kg of armour

- The addition of a rear gunner and turret with a heavy machine gun

So, yes, your basic intuition is correct - it is carrying a ton of armour (almost 25% of its empty weight).

There were some light improvised night bombers in Korea, and the Tu-2 was used intermittently as a night bomber... there were also Il-28 in China by the end of the war, but they appear to never have been used in combat operations. So you most likely would desire a flyable Tu-2 or an alternate history scenario which allows use of the Il-28 (both medium bombers).

[Avimimus]

4 hours ago, TheTonester said:

Youd think with all that heavy bombing and mud moving firepower it would have been a walkover for the US(UN) but no such luck… just goes to prove its not ‘the dog in the fight’ i suppose…much like vietnam 🤔

 635,000 tons of bombs and 32,557 tons of napalm. Equivalent to the U.S. 8th Airforce in WWII (and more than was used in the Pacific Theatre during WWII). Between 200,000 and 300,000 dead as a direct result of the bombings. Still not decisive.

[gecko]

Turns out fighting the most populous country in the world with a very high tolerance for massive casualties while trying to keep the war "limited" is a good recipe for a stalemate, even when you bring massive firepower to the table. 

In this context, the Il-10 stands out as something of an anomaly. Designed and fielded in Communist countries quite famous for burning through the lives of their soldiers like straw, and they sacrifice so much payload for crew survivability compared to their western counterparts? I find that interesting. 

[Jaegermeister]

3 hours ago, Avimimus said:

 635,000 tons of bombs and 32,557 tons of napalm. Equivalent to the U.S. 8th Airforce in WWII (and more than was used in the Pacific Theatre during WWII). Between 200,000 and 300,000 dead as a direct result of the bombings. Still not decisive.

It took that much ordnance because the UN had to bomb the same supply lines day after day for an entire year to keep the Red troops from overrunning the south. Without interruption of reinforcements every day, it would have been impossible to stop the advance from the north, where there was no infrastructure to defend.

Part of the reason there are so few good histories on the subject is that it was so repetitive to bomb the same stretch of railway or road over and over every day that no one wanted to write about it… if they could even remember the difference from one day to the next. Dangerous and boring at the same time.

The MiG Alley narrative got all the attention because it was more interesting than bombing a railroad bridge 6 times.

[AndreiTomescu]

24 minutes ago, gecko said:

and they sacrifice so much payload for crew survivability compared to their western counterparts? I find that interesting. 

hmm.....excelent observation. but, I can tell you that for us, in communist countries, despite the fact that the human/pilot was, indeed more expendable, maybe, compared to the western world, the simbols were very much praised. Il-2/I-10 were true symbols of the resilience and bravery in face of the enemy. Their legendary survivability was, actually, very important. it was a symbol.

[belphegor]

3 hours ago, gecko said:

Designed and fielded in Communist countries quite famous for burning through the lives of their soldiers like straw, and they sacrifice so much payload for crew survivability compared to their western counterparts? I find that interesting. 

Is it also interesting that they put armor on their tanks, and give their soldiers helmets?

[Avimimus]

1 hour ago, gecko said:

In this context, the Il-10 stands out as something of an anomaly. Designed and fielded in Communist countries quite famous for burning through the lives of their soldiers like straw, and they sacrifice so much payload for crew survivability compared to their western counterparts? I find that interesting. 

There are a number of possible answers to this.

- The F-51D was originally developed as a long range escort fighter - and thus it wasn't expected to encounter large amounts of low-calibre anti-aircraft fire.

- If armouring the crew and engine causes the aircraft to survive for longer, it may increase the cost effectiveness (as you don't have to replace the aircraft or train new crew as often).

- The designers who were briefed with making the aircraft neither desired nor had an incentive to try to get their compatriots killed.

The Soviet Union had experienced a civil war, three major famines, and a desperate fight on its home soil that saw close to half of their soldiers die, with total casualties perhaps in the order of 25,000,000 when civilians deaths are accounted for. Arguably, the intergenerational trauma for such events continues today in post-Soviet countries as well... and this will impact how people relate to death. If one includes are relatively unaccountable government, hell bent on rapid industrialisation...

...but this doesn't mean that people wanted to die or wanted their fellows to die. I think it is important to remember that.

So it doesn't really surprise me that both engineers and aircraft crews aimed to minimise casualties.

8 minutes ago, belphegor said:

Is it also interesting that they put armor on their tanks, and give their soldiers helmets?

Quite.

[gecko]

1 hour ago, belphegor said:

Is it also interesting that they put armor on their tanks, and give their soldiers helmets?

Helmets were not terribly common for Chinese or North Koreans during the war, so there's that. With aircraft design, much more so than designing almost any other war machine, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Any feature you choose requires you to sacrifice something else. It's true of everything, but to a greater extent with aircraft. What gets chosen reflects operational realities (hopefully), but there is usually more than one way to skin a cat, and the way those operational realities are approached comes from the prevailing culture and philosophies of those at the top. 

So certainly, I'm sure the designers did their very best to make the best aircraft they could. I'm not at all trying to say they wanted the guys on their side to die. But they were not the ones to write the design specifications or sign the procurement orders. And those people, or more likely, the ones giving them orders, often had other priorities, to put it politely, than soldiers' lives. How they chose to fight wars is strong evidence that they considered people to be their most expendable resource. And in that broader context, the Il-10 seems unique.

[Avimimus]

1 hour ago, gecko said:

And in that broader context, the Il-10 seems unique.

I'm not sure that this is actually born out doctrinally. At least where the VVS was concerned.

Arguably Soviet fighters tended to prioritise the ability of the aircraft to survive a dogfight over firepower (for instance). The bombers also usually had lower payloads and strong defensive armaments. So, I'm not certain that the Il-10 really is that unique.

[belphegor]

1 hour ago, gecko said:

Helmets were not terribly common for Chinese or North Koreans during the war, so there's that. With aircraft design, much more so than designing almost any other war machine, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Any feature you choose requires you to sacrifice something else. It's true of everything, but to a greater extent with aircraft. What gets chosen reflects operational realities (hopefully), but there is usually more than one way to skin a cat, and the way those operational realities are approached comes from the prevailing culture and philosophies of those at the top. 

So certainly, I'm sure the designers did their very best to make the best aircraft they could. I'm not at all trying to say they wanted the guys on their side to die. But they were not the ones to write the design specifications or sign the procurement orders. And those people, or more likely, the ones giving them orders, often had other priorities, to put it politely, than soldiers' lives. How they chose to fight wars is strong evidence that they considered people to be their most expendable resource. And in that broader context, the Il-10 seems unique.

Well, the Il-10 is not Korean or Chinese, so there's that too.  And an airplane that can take a hit and continue with the mission and/or come home and be repaired for another mission is a mission that gets accomplished when otherwise it wouldn't be, or an airplane that doesn't have to be replaced.  And trained aircrew represent a significant investment, so even if you look at it from a completely cold and inhuman standpoint, it still makes sense to protect your airplanes' ultimate guidance and targeting systems.  I get what you're saying about what seems to be a general lack of caring about human life on the part of the commies, which extends to the present day, but even that aside, there are rational reasons to put armor on your ground attack planes.  There are also rational reasons to not do so; for instance the reason the USAF used F-51s despite their general unsuitability to ground attack has to do with decisions made after WW2 about what planes to keep in the fleet, what was available at the time, military politics, and other factors; it wasn't generally because the USAF stopped caring about their pilots.

[gecko]

Certainly, though it was made by the people who spearheaded their particular persuasion. To be clear, I'm not surprised that they put armor on it. That's been a given for a ground attack aircraft pretty much anywhere for a while. What surprises me is the amount. Let's leave the F-51 out for now since it was more a convenient stop-gap than an accurate representation of US ground attack design philosophy, but take a look at the Skyraider, a purpose-built ground pounder built around a single piston engine, much like the Il-10. Best I can tell it had 350-400kg of armor, which was a fraction of it's payload. The Il-10 has more armor than payload, and more than twice as much as the heavier, more powerful Skyraider! In the give and take of competing operational requirements and trying to balance them on the airframe and powerplant you have available, they really went all out on armor plate, to what seems like an anomalous degree. That's what I find interesting.

[kev2go]

14 hours ago, TheTonester said:

Youd think with all that heavy bombing and mud moving firepower it would have been a walkover for the US(UN) but no such luck… just goes to prove its not ‘the dog in the fight’ i suppose…much like vietnam 🤔

The Chinese committed 73% of thier entire army into korea.  

I'd say overwhelming un airpower and concentration of heavy artillery proved its worth at halting vastly  numerically superior but underequipped  chinese ground forces.

 

 

[AndreiTomescu]

What was il-2 's nickname? 

The flying tank. 

That was it's supreme quality. Almost indestructible. Remember from il-2 (sic!!) GB: just shooting your hole Bf-109 ammo at one, it wouldn't go down unless you hit something in front, or the tail.

So, with it's final version of this remarkable aircraft, already made obsolete by rapid changes in technology and war doctrine, what would you improve? What would you keep? 

The answer is simple: you improve what keeps the symbol more true. Flying tank it was, well then , you make it more and more of that.

They didn't make the flying tank more effective in its task, they made it more tank.

From an ex-soviet country point of view, it all makes sense, you know?

[kev2go]

8 hours ago, Jaegermeister said:

It took that much ordnance because the UN had to bomb the same supply lines day after day for an entire year to keep the Red troops from overrunning the south. Without interruption of reinforcements every day, it would have been impossible to stop the advance from the north, where there was no infrastructure to defend.

Part of the reason there are so few good histories on the subject is that it was so repetitive to bomb the same stretch of railway or road over and over every day that no one wanted to write about it… if they could even remember the difference from one day to the next. Dangerous and boring at the same time.

The MiG Alley narrative got all the attention because it was more interesting than bombing a railroad bridge 6 times.

The biggest limitation i read about in the interdiction effort was that the communists adapted to moving in logistics and troops at night time. Tactical fighter bombers of the time couldn't just casually patrol supply routes and spot a truck convoy, or marching troops  in pitch black darkness. Technology would eventually adress this problem of  solving night interdiction but not for the korean war. Night vision goggles or infrared targeting pods were still quite many years away. 

 

 

Edited September 22 by kev2go

[MajorMagee]

Ahh, if only the P-47 had been cheaper to operate than the P-51 it might have still been around to help in Korea.

[kev2go]

what is more interesting is the doctrinal difference is that nearly every American fighter even if it was never designed for a ground attack role, has the ability to carry ordinance for ground attack, which is nice for airframe versatility. But yak9& La11  are strict fighters that cannot mount anything. Even some of the Luftwaffe planes from ww2 like the Bf109 could be repurposed for strike.

 

But from my gameplay experience i noticed that American jets are more survivable then F-51 due to their speeds. A fast target is harder for AAA to zero in on. A slow  and low moving target is easier to hit so it better be very well armored for that mission 😁. Ive been shot down multiple times attempting in MP ground attack in the F51 by AAA, but never in the F80 or F84 ( yet). 1 time i got a grazing flak hit damaging my F84's wingtip. thats about it. But funny enough this same debate still occurs in more contemporary times arguing that the A10 was obsolete  the moment it entered service and that F16 or F15 strike eagle are more survivable for that reason.

Edited September 22 by kev2go

[Avimimus]

The A-10 and Su-25 are actually an interesting point of comparison. The Su-25 carries a much smaller payload but is able to maintain a higher speed in the combat area (and sustain high speed turns).

I wonder if a lot of this comes from the experience of 1941/1942 when there was often a shortage of experience pilots, a shortage of equipment, and it was important to maximise whatever bit of performance you could get out of whatever platforms you had? We see the LaGG-3 being designed with a relatively heavy armament and then being stripped down for instance. Similarly, the pace of industrialisation in the Soviet Union was quite impressive - but it started much further behind many Western European countries - so there are areas where it might have been felt necessary to compensate with focusing on superior performance in a few areas at the expense of others. I don't really know though.

It is said, for instance, that German doctrine emphasized heavier armaments for fighters as the war went on - and was driven by the need to counter bombers and the shortage of experienced pilots. In contrast, the Soviet Union settled on two cannons or a cannon and a heavy machine gun... and didn't really change from that (the post-war La-9 and Yak-3P excepted).