I don't, 37mm Cannon are not dive bomber material. To be a dive bomber you have to have bombs, the JU-87G didn't carry bombs (correct me if I am wrong), therefore it is not a dive bomber in my opinion anyway.P38 Pilot said:
Best Dive Bomber of WWII
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P38 Pilot
Tech Sergeant
Oh, whoops! 
carpenoctem1689
Airman 1st Class
- 285
- Sep 10, 2005
Id vote for the val i guess, even though the stuka and the SBD are technically better, but the val just seemed to me the best. I like what it did at pearl, and later on, and they were only butchered the way they were because they were trained to fly in tight formations no matter what, and the cover from the japanese escorts was inadequate to say the least, american aircraft, mainly F4F's at this point, could climb above the bombers and escorts, dive attack, and climb, repeating this until no bombers were left. Alse the vals were shot down in mass numbers by ships because of the new fuses on the AA that the ships were being issued.
carpenoctem1689
Airman 1st Class
- 285
- Sep 10, 2005
Id vote for the val i guess, even though the stuka and the SBD are technically better, but the val just seemed to me the best. I like what it did at pearl, and later on, and they were only butchered the way they were because they were trained to fly in tight formations no matter what, and the cover from the japanese escorts was inadequate to say the least, american aircraft, mainly F4F's at this point, could climb above the bombers and escorts, dive attack, and climb, repeating this until no bombers were left. Alse the vals were shot down in mass numbers by ships because of the new fuses on the AA that the ships were being issued.
carpenoctem1689
Airman 1st Class
- 285
- Sep 10, 2005
sorry for the double post didnt mean to
didnt mean to
P38 Pilot
Tech Sergeant
The Val was a good dive bomber. Like the Stuka, it was dangerous as long as they weren't being attacked by supeior aircraft.
I vote for the A-36 'Apache' because it was a capable and effective dive-bomber that served in Italy and Burma with a good record. It may not have been able to carry as much as those other's mentioned, it was still able to inflict serious damage and was more survivable in the presence of enemy fighters.
syscom3
Pacific Historian
Heres an interesting web site for the "beast". Perhaps its reputation was undeserved for the late model varieties.
http://history1900s.about.com/library/prm/blhelldiver1.htm
http://www.wpafb.af.mil/cgi-bin/quiz.pl/research/attack/a3/a3-27.htm
http://www.acepilots.com/planes/helldiver.html
http://www.sb2chelldiver.org/
http://history1900s.about.com/library/prm/blhelldiver1.htm
http://www.wpafb.af.mil/cgi-bin/quiz.pl/research/attack/a3/a3-27.htm
http://www.acepilots.com/planes/helldiver.html
http://www.sb2chelldiver.org/
FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
About 12 years ago I was heavily involved with Civil Air Patrol. There was mission pilot who lived in Bishop, I think his name was Bob Chinn who flew the SBC-2 in WW2 off several carriers. He had all kinds of memorabilia from his career, we stayed up very late talking about aircraft. I recollect him saying the SBD was a hard aircraft to fly but once mastered was a great plane. He felt Curtiss tried to put too many advances into the aircraft. He was also one of the original members of the now infamous "Tail-hook" association....
parsifal
Colonel
for me the best divebomber of the war was the B-7A Grace. made no impact on the war and yet was easily head and shoulders above any of the contenders mentioned so far
Finnish aviation historian Jukka Raunio wrote: "Whereas our other bombers were the hammer, Ju-88 was the heavy hammer that could send russian tanks flying to treetop level".
(Btw. Soviets wanted all our 1000 kg bombs to be sent to Russia after the armistice.)
Well the word "bomber" can come from the world "bombardment" and you can bombard with artillery or bombs.
Shortround6
Major General
Flying around strafing with a pair of 37mm guns with 12 rounds each is a pretty wasteful way of conducting a "bombardment".
Attacking point targets like tanks, bunkers and small ships/boats is NOT "bombardment".
Attacking point targets like tanks, bunkers and small ships/boats is NOT "bombardment".
pinehilljoe
Senior Airman
- 742
- May 1, 2016
The SB2C is a plane I like, but it seems like it just took too long to be fully operational. In Jocko's Clarke's Carrier Admiral, he writes how he traded his SB2C's for SBDs during the shakedown of Yorktown, and recommended to BuAir to cancel the program. Later accounts I've read seem like it was effective plane.
By the time the plane was operational, the tactical needs may have changed too much. The Order of Battle for Operation Iceberg, in Morrison's last Volume, shows the fleet carriers carrying VBF squadrons with only one 15 plane VB squadron with SB2Cs. The change in mix of VF/VFB and VB was also to combat the Kamikaze, and the F6f and F4U could carry a bombload.
An interesting what if is if the SB2C could have been fully operational and deployed in 43 and taken the lead dive bombing role in the big battles of 44. On paper its performance was better than the SBD.
By the time the plane was operational, the tactical needs may have changed too much. The Order of Battle for Operation Iceberg, in Morrison's last Volume, shows the fleet carriers carrying VBF squadrons with only one 15 plane VB squadron with SB2Cs. The change in mix of VF/VFB and VB was also to combat the Kamikaze, and the F6f and F4U could carry a bombload.
An interesting what if is if the SB2C could have been fully operational and deployed in 43 and taken the lead dive bombing role in the big battles of 44. On paper its performance was better than the SBD.
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
No, but close - it was a bombarder
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
I thought the problem was that the plane had little roll-control at low-speeds and it had excessive buffeting when the dive-brakes were extended.
Actually, the Hs-129 had around 660 pounds of bombs it could carry. I'll concede that the tank-plinking Ju-87 wasn't exactly a dive-bomber, but it was a strafer based on a dive-bomber.
