All points taken, but in the end to say the SBD was the best aircraft of WW2 is a far stretch based on on where the aircraft was prior to Midway and where it went after. Aside from its layout, construction and systems, it left little in longevity or innovation and its ultimately found itself out to pasture as soon as the war ended as its design was reflective as a norm from a bygone era. The C-47 brought things to the table that made it not only the best aircraft of WW2, but probably of all time.
OK, we're on track. Thanks. The SBD had its moment of glory, let's just call it. BTW, FWIW, before I had even dared so much as to open my mouth in this thread, I had read about 40 pages or so back.
Let me just mention this, and I'll fly out of here, for now. Making a dive is a skill. If you consider the Kamikazes, those were in the nature of dive bombers. The only difference was, they had just taught those inexperienced pilots, if you could indeed even call most of them pilots, how to take off, and how to steer the darn things. Those were, to a large extent, Zeroes, although they were other aircraft, too. By that time in the War, Mitsubishi had made hundreds of different models of Zeroes, in a vain effort to gain back their edge against our newer fighters, in particular, the Hellcat. My point is this. While, from an overall strategic standpoint, the philosophy was simple, i.e., just fill the thing with explosives and run it into a warship, from a tactical standpoint, most of those were disasters. When you look at the sinks, they sunk around 50 warships, or so. But, many of the ones that didn't get in, weren't necessarily shot down. They simply couldn't hit their targets. Others dove too steeply, starting those dives from too high up, and literally tore the wings off the frail planes from the acceleration at that steep angle. Many others, of course, came in too "broad," and were sitting ducks for our guns.
My point is, at that time, I don't even think the Japanese had the "Judys," yet. And, the Germans had lacked the machinery and pilot skills to hit moving targets over ocean atmospheric conditions from a 20,000-foot or so descent. From a snapshot- in-time standpoint, those SBDs and those skilled pilots were state-of-the-art, and they did exactly what they had been built and trained to do, in a decisive moment, when they were called upon to do it. And, they were simply the "best" at it. Rating that aircraft on other grounds, most notably, longevity, it can't raise a candle to an aircraft like the C-47, you guys got me, there, unquestionably.