Sukhoi Su-6

The Sukhoi Su-6 was a Soviet armoured ground-attack aircraft developed during the Second World War. The Sukhoi design bureau began work on it in 1939 as a single-seat machine, an order for two prototypes followed in March 1940, and flight testing of the first began on 1 March 1941. Tests showed it superior to the Ilyushin Il-2 in nearly all performance categories, but its Shvetsov M-71 engine was never put into production. A third prototype added a rear gunner at the cost of bomb load and a more powerful M-71F engine, and a later re-engining with the liquid-cooled Mikulin AM-42 left it inferior to the Ilyushin Il-10. The Su-6 never entered production, although Pavel Sukhoi received the Stalin Prize of the 1st Degree in 1943 for developing it. The single-seat airframe was also converted into the mixed-power Su-7 interceptor experiment.