That could be used as a warning of what can happen when the wind changes.
How often do you find an aircaft that might be improved if somebody shot it up?
Ju187, how could it not be an improvement
- Thread starter Gudestein
- Start date
How often do you find an aircaft that might be improved if somebody shot it up?
This idea seems vastly complicated for little retrun - why not just make a better Stuka with, you know, a better engine?
Not sure about that - in a situation of air supremacy (?) AND used in the correct way ( close air support) the Stuka was a good aircraft.
The simplest and best answer was to use the FW190. It could carry a big load, dive bomb, required half the trained aircrew, was much more difficult to intercept, could fight its way out after dropping its bombs on more or less equal terms with enemy fighters, and could operate from almost any rough field.
Dive bombing does seem to have been a niche art with the dedicated dive bombers suffering heavy and unsustainable losses in non permissive air space
By wars end we had fighters re-tasked as fighter bombers dropping napalm and rockets rather than dive bombers
And by 1944 large bombers actually had the accuracy approaching that promised pre-war (but till then not arrived at) and dropping Tallboy, Fritz X and Azon from far safer altitudes
As Oldironside has said above the correct answer is an FW190 fighter bomber and any German designer proposing an improved JU87 - should be given a KAR98 a helmet and sent to the Eastern front
By wars end we had fighters re-tasked as fighter bombers dropping napalm and rockets rather than dive bombers
And by 1944 large bombers actually had the accuracy approaching that promised pre-war (but till then not arrived at) and dropping Tallboy, Fritz X and Azon from far safer altitudes
As Oldironside has said above the correct answer is an FW190 fighter bomber and any German designer proposing an improved JU87 - should be given a KAR98 a helmet and sent to the Eastern front
marathag
Banned
Problem with the FW-190 is too small a wing, and without a bomb release cradle and dive brakes, limited high angle divebombing. But a good basis to start from
The Spitfire could Dive bomb
It carried a 250 pound bomb under each wing and a 500 pound bomb 'between its legs' if it was not carrying a drop tank
The units tasked with the jobs in late 44 found that it was not very good at the task but how much of that was due to the limited training they received, or the 'heath Robinson ' nature of the bomb cradles (aircraft often failed to release 1,2 or all of the bombs) or a combination of both I could not say.
It did not have a bomb release cradle that swung out to avoid the prop etc but equally it did not experience issues with the bombs hitting the prop - generally because the Spits dived very quickly (to the point where they experienced compressibility issues which was poorly understood then).
There was one attempt to drop a 1000 pounder but in the single test drop the bomb when released 'rolled' along the underside of one wing causing some damage before proper separation was achieved.
Needless to say this one test was not repeated but its interesting to see that it could and perhaps with greater practice and testing it might have become a better Dive Bomber
The FW190 could carry a heavy centre line bomb (IIRC up to 500 KGs) and 2 lighter bombs (50 kgs?) under each wing
However I am not as well 'learned' about the ground attack history of the FW190 - but 1000s of the ground attack versions were made in WW2 (slightly more than they made of the Stuka) - so their must have been something going for it as a ground attack plane?
It carried a 250 pound bomb under each wing and a 500 pound bomb 'between its legs' if it was not carrying a drop tank
The units tasked with the jobs in late 44 found that it was not very good at the task but how much of that was due to the limited training they received, or the 'heath Robinson ' nature of the bomb cradles (aircraft often failed to release 1,2 or all of the bombs) or a combination of both I could not say.
It did not have a bomb release cradle that swung out to avoid the prop etc but equally it did not experience issues with the bombs hitting the prop - generally because the Spits dived very quickly (to the point where they experienced compressibility issues which was poorly understood then).
There was one attempt to drop a 1000 pounder but in the single test drop the bomb when released 'rolled' along the underside of one wing causing some damage before proper separation was achieved.
Needless to say this one test was not repeated but its interesting to see that it could and perhaps with greater practice and testing it might have become a better Dive Bomber
The FW190 could carry a heavy centre line bomb (IIRC up to 500 KGs) and 2 lighter bombs (50 kgs?) under each wing
However I am not as well 'learned' about the ground attack history of the FW190 - but 1000s of the ground attack versions were made in WW2 (slightly more than they made of the Stuka) - so their must have been something going for it as a ground attack plane?