Il-2M3 Shturmovik

This model represents the Il-2 flown by Hero of the Soviet Union (HSU) Capt. Aleksandr Nicolayevich Yefimov of 198th ShAP (Assault Air Regiment), 233rd ShAD (Assault Air Division), in March 1945.

Yefimov was, at this time, the squadron commander and flew his 200th mission on the 27th of that month, for which he was awarded the HSU. He flew his 222nd, and last, sortie on the 5th of May and was awarded the HSU for a second time on the 18th of August.

Post war, Yefimov remained in the air force, eventually working his way up to Marshal of Aviation and Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Air Force (1984 to 1990). During this time he supported the development of the Su-25, Russian's modern-day successor to the Il-2.

During the Second World War Yefimov destroyed 126 tanks and had seven ait-to-air kills to his credit. One of two Il-2s restored to flying condition, owned by the Flying Heritage and Combat Armor Museum at Paine Field, Washington, is painted to represent his aircraft, although it is camouflaged in the early green and black colours.

The Il-2 entered production in 1940 and went through a number of major developments from a straight wing, single seater to this two-seat model with the swept outer wings. The latter is often called the Il-2M3 or Il-2 Type3 but had no official designation to differentiate it from the earlier versions.

Three factories manufactured the Il-2, Zavod 18 was the first with Zavod 1 and Zavod 30 following soon after and small, detailed differences, including camouflage and markings, may be used to identify an aircraft's factory of origin.

While the initial Il-2 were all metal, the German invasion caused the rear fuselage and fin to be manufactured from wood to conserve critical materials. Aircraft manufactured at Zavod 18 continued to receive metal wings while those manufactured at Zavod 1 and Zavod 30 were built with wooden wings. Naturally, there were detail differences between these two wing designs.

This difference in wing construction by factory continued into the production of the swept outer-wing Il-2M3 until Zavod 1 and Zavod 30 switched to metal wings in May 1944.

Another key difference is in the tail wheel fairing. Zavod 1 aircraft had a long tail wheel fairing while Zavod 18 and Zavod 30 aircraft had a short, narrow fairing.

The final identifier is the fairing for the wing canon. Both Zavod 1 and Zavod 30 aircraft had squared-off fairings while the Zavod 18 aircraft had a more streamlined, rounded fairing.

The Tamiya Il-2 clearly has the metal wing configuration, the short tail wheel fairing and offers both types of gun fairings making it suitable for either a Zavod 18 or late Zavod 30 built aircraft. However, of the markings offered by Tamiya, only scheme B is a Zavod 18 built aircraft. The other two are Zavod 1 late build aircraft with metal wings, but the kit doesn't include the long tail wheel fairing.

Also, all three schemes are well known and often built, so, I decided to look for an alternative scheme. Yefimov's Il-2 had the characteristics of a Zavod 18 built aircraft and I thought the white tail and blue markings were interesting, so the choice was made.

This is a Tamiya kit and so construction was straight forward and there is not much to report and fit was generally excellent.

I decided not to add the supplied crew and so added a generic looking Airwaves seat harness to the pilot's seat. The interior of the cockpit and wheel wells were painted A-14 Steel Grey (Vallejo Model Air 71.336 A-14 Steel Grey) and details picked out as per the instructions. A light bit of weathering, paint chipping and a wash and the fuselage was put together.

The upper and lower fuselage centreline join needed some work but the fit of the wing to fuselage was great at the wing root and under the nose, with just a little blending required under the rear fuselage. The lower fuselage-wing join is not on a panel line and so needed to be eliminated, but that was not difficult.

Tamiya provides the masks with printed outlines that the modeler has to cut out. This was easier than I expected and they fit beautifully. So, with the canopy pieces and landing light masked off it was time to paint.

This model represents an aircraft of the 198th ShAP which was attached to the 233rd ShAD.

Aircraft of the 233rd ShAD had an oblique white fin tip and, while this aircraft had a white empennage, the original fin tip is in evidence in a photo of the aircraft as a solid white against the worn tail colour. So, after a black pre-shading of the panel lines, I painted and masked-off the fin tip.

198th ShAP, on the other hand identified itself with in the division with a light blue fuselage band and the front half of the spinner. I painted these a medium blue (Gunze H25 Sky Blue) and masked them off as well.

Next, I painted the under-surface AMT-7 Blue (Vallejo Model Air 71.318 AMT-7 Greyish Blue), which is quite a bright colour.

The upper surface was painted in a three-tone camouflage pattern taken from here:

http://massimotessitori.altervista.org/sovietwarplanes/pages/il-2/il2-camo/il-2m3/il2m3-camo.htm

First, AMT-1 Light Brown (Vallejo Model Air 71.320 AMT-1 Light Grey Brown) was sprayed in the designated pattern with a freehand, soft border with the underside. Next, AMT-4 Green (Vallejo Model Air 71.301 AMT-4 Camouflage Green) was sprayed freehand followed by AMT-12 Dark Grey (Vallejo Model Air 71.308 AMT-12 Dark Grey).

This was my first time using these paints and the blue, light brown and dark grey sprayed well but the coverage of the green was very thin. The colours, however, are beautiful and I look forward to using them again.

From photos it is evident that the Black 2 on the tail has a thin white outline. I think it is probable that the aircraft was originally White 1 and, when the entire tail was painted white, the 2 was over painted in black. I cut masks for the '2' using a Cricut machine, basing them on a Black 2 decal from a Yak-1 sheet that was later applied over the painted numeral.

This, and other aircraft from the group had their entire tails over sprayed with what looks light a temporary white. I assume this was an identifier for a late-war operation. So, the tail was lightly over sprayed with white to replicate the worn effect.

A gloss coat was sprayed on and the decals applied, national markings and a few stencils from the kit and the Black 2 from the Yak 1 sheet.

A few washes for the weathering and some silver paint chips were next and then the final flat coat.

Russian bombs were usually painted with a dark grey asphalt coloured lacquer, so I painted these with Tamiya XF-85 Rubber Black, the suspension band in silver and the fuses in gold.

RS 132 were painted AII Aluminium with a black tail, so they were painted with SMS PMT09 Aluminium, the tails Tamiya X-18 Semi-Gloss Black and the fuses silver.

The final step was to add the radio wire using Infini Models Fine 1/48 Aero Black Rigging (0.082mm).

This build was part of a group build here:

https://imodeler.com/groups/work-in-progress-aircraft/forum/topic/combo-build-ilyushin-il-2-stormovik-accurate-miniatures-revell-in-1-48

This is a kit that I have long been looking forward to build and it was good to finally pull it off the stash and get it done. It was a great project and a fun build that didn't disappoint.