Russian bloggers are lamenting the loss of a second helicopter in a day. Well, yes, if you send a 16 million euro machine to fire unguided rockets from 6 km away in a climbing maneuver because “we urgently need to, the station is leaving,” that’s how it happens.
Especially against a defense prepared over the winter, with working radars and drones that haven’t been picked apart by missiles because someone really wanted to turn off the heat in Kyiv.
You fire — they fire back at you.
For fans of the slogan “we can repeat,” it’s useful to occasionally look at the real statistics of their “best in the world” Il-2 attacker. They made 36,000 of them, and the breakdown was as follows:
11,000 were shot down in battles and lost on the ground as a result of enemy actions;
11,000 were lost in accidents (inept hands, defects, poorly trained ground services, wild flight schedules).
Every second “grandfather pilot” either burned alive or screamed in a hospital with broken legs. And if he survived and wasn’t finished off in a ditch, the NKVD happily broke his fingers, asking: “why did you lose the expensive machine?” and “are you not a Japanese spy?”.
For every pilot killed, up to 4 gunners were killed. That’s how 27,000 crew members were lost for 22,000 machines.
When you really want to “repeat,” you should at least read about how that Victory was forged and what exactly you intend to cosplay. Preferably not from the “IL-2 Sturmovik” game or from a navigator’s post with a fresh batch of fridge magnets.
Photo: video screenshot
