Cheating.
Yes. That I why it popped into my mind. These literally armored flying gunships were built and shot
down and crashed in huge numbers by the Russians to stop the German armor. Our P-39s had a 37mm
cannon in the nose, firing through the prop spinner center and would destroy tanks well from top and
rear aspects. The Il-2s had 20 mm or 23 mm cannons, and later they also went up to 37mm cannons in
pods hung under the wings. The entire front section was covered in steel armor plate from 1/4 to 1/2
inch thick protecting the engine, cooling system and pilot from small arms, and to some extent from
heavier calibers if the angle was right to deflect it.
I have seen many of them in museums in Russia, and I visited a town, Krasnoturinsk which is in the middle
of nowhere in Siberia, yet has a huge aluminum smelter, still in operation when I was there. I was surprised
to find that it was not on a great river with a giant hydroelectric dam, as essentially all of our aluminum smelters
have always been, aluminum taking huge amounts of electricity to smelt. The Krasnoturinsk plant was built in
WW2 at a coal mine location with nearby aluminum reserves. They powered the smelters with coal generated
power, a desperate, WW2 move. German prisoners were tasked with building the plant, and there is a relatively
new German-built memorial in the town for the 900+ German POWs who built the plant and never were sent home. Many
blonde people were seen in the tiny city when I was there. I would imagine that a huge portion of their aluminum
was used to make Sturmovicks (Il-2s). If you go to Google Earth, and search on Krasnoturinsk, you can see the
smelter, the cooling lake, power plant cooling towers and the small city. I was told that the cost of their aluminum
was too high due to the amount of coal needed and that the smelter would be closing when I was there about 5 years
ago.
If you zoom in on the dam, on the SE end of the curved lake, you can see the spillway, and next to it, a small peninsula
extending northward into the lake. Look closely and you see a paved area, a walking loop in the grass, and some long
grey objects. This the memorial to the Germans and the grey things are granite tablets with the names
of the German POWs who built the powerplant and town and were never released by the Russians.
Bill
