Historical Question Regarding Flight Pattern of JU-87 Stuka

[EnigmaCode]

Hi Gang

I have a question regarding the historical flying practices of the average Stuka while on a bombing run. Were Luftwaffe pilots strictly trained to vertically dive most of the time during a typical bombing run? Or could there have been times (depending upon the circumstances) were they could have flown more or less level?

Thank You .....

 

[alejandro_]

I assume that other tactics/approaches were also trained. Also, later in the war dive bombing became less common, and the Stuka transitioned to night bomber and AT missions. Lack of air superiority made dive bombing dangerous for it's crews.

I think it was Rudel who explained how he would approach Soviet tanks from behind and low altitude. The advantage being that you were flying towards German lines.

IIRC it was mentioned in Beevor's book on Stalingrad, but diving bombing became more dangerous because Soviet AAA would open fire when the Stuka was climbing after dive and when transitioning to level flight. At this point it was more vulnerable because speed was low.

 

[Snautzer01]

I think it was Rudel who explained how he would approach Soviet tanks from behind and low altitude. The advantage being that you were flying towards German lines.

No, the armour on the engine/back part of the tank was far less thick then the front.

 

[EnigmaCode]

Thank You!

 

[elbmc1969]

Were Luftwaffe pilots strictly trained to vertically dive most of the time during a typical bombing run? Or could there have been times (depending upon the circumstances) were they could have flown more or less level?

Are you asking about flight during a single attack on a target, or are you asking whether different types of profiles were flown on different missions?

 

[GrauGeist]

The Ju87 through the D series was designed to dive near vertically to it's target in order to accurately strike it's target.

The modified D and dedicated G ground attack models used shallow dives to train their cannon on their target.

Here's a vintage film showing them in action, diving against targets.

 

[EnigmaCode]

Hello elbmc - Nice to hear from you. It wasn't critical - actually some of the lads provided enough information. The question came up because my sister (an artist) drew a rough sketch of a JU-87 dropping a bomb on a vertical run and it was too complicated to correct. From what I've read it is 'possible' (not totally impossible). This is a great forum - Thank You

 

[parsifal]

Level bombing by stuka units became more prevalent as the war progressed. As a generalisation, good divebombing still required high levels of expertise 9which was eroded as the war progressed within the LW), plus the divebomber became more vulnerable as AA defences were improved. another aspect to this issue is that increasingly, stuka attacks were delivered at night, where divebombing was more or less superfluous.

Most of the later G and d subtypes later in the war had the divebrakes removed completely

 

[vikingBerserker]

On Vertical, I believe it was made at 87 degrees. I know it was an issue early on to where they had to install auto pullout due to pilot blackouts.

 

[Timppa]

Ju-87G was an anti-tank version.
Ju-87D was a dive bomber version. I/SG3 of Gefechtsverband Kuhlmey in 1944 did only dive bombing sorties. When there was low cloud, Stukas were grounded (unlike Fw190F-8 Jabos of 1./SG5)