Original Soviet WWII 20mm 20x99R ShVAK Type BZ Cannon Cartridge for the Ilyushin Il-2 Sturmovik “Tank Killer” - Inert

Original Item. Only One Available. The 20 mm ShVAK was designed sometime between 1935 and 1936 and series production began in 1936. A few months later, production of the 12.7 mm version ceased. Similarly to its predecessors, the 20 mm ShVAK was a gas-operated gun, belt-fed by disintegrating link ammunition. Like all deactivated ordnance, this round is Not Available for Export.

This is a lovely 20mm round for the ShVAK Type BZ Cannon aboard the Ilyushin Il-2 Sturmovik “Tank Killer” ground attack plane. The round measures 6½” and the projectile still comes out of the shell. The bottom of the casing is very faintly stamped 513 / 44, giving a likely manufacture date of 1944.

A very scarce round, ready for further research and display.

The Ilyushin Il-2 is a ground-attack plane that was produced by the Soviet Union in large numbers during the Second World War. The word shturmovík, the generic Russian term for a ground-attack aircraft, became a synecdoche for the Il-2 in English sources, where it is commonly rendered Shturmovik, Stormovik and Sturmovik.

To Il-2 pilots, the aircraft was known by the diminutive "Ilyusha". To the soldiers on the ground, it was called the "Hunchback", the "Flying Tank" or the "Flying Infantryman". Its postwar NATO reporting name was Bark.

During the war, 36,183 units of the Il-2 were produced, and in combination with its successor, the Ilyushin Il-10, a total of 42,330 were built, making it the single most produced military aircraft design in aviation history, as well as one of the most produced piloted aircraft in history along with the American postwar civilian Cessna 172 and the German then-contemporary Messerschmitt Bf 109.