Junkers Ju88

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Apache and Dauntless both built for the task of dive bombing, both superior to the Stuka. Just to name two.
 
Yeah, I agree, and stand by what I've said about Stukas- They were creamed in the BoB and only useful when escorted, and anything that deliberately bombed strafed civilians as they did, isn't worthy of respect. The Apache , Dauntless, Helldiver did respectable work in their respective theatres....
 
that means B-17's arent respectable and neither are lancs and Mossies (see what I did by only capitalizing Mossies and B-17?) because they killed more German civilians than any German plane against any population (civilians at least)
 
Germans are you trying to say Mosquitos couldn't do a mission unless escorted because if you are, I think you should read about some Mosquito missions.
 
Naw, I just didn't like the Stuka's tactic during the Blitzkrieg of divebombing roads jammed with refugees...they probably did a great job militarily, but once they started bombing England beyond Military targets, the Germans got back 1000 fold what they got...it was afterall the end of Wars of entire trench warfare, and Britain already had a hint of it from the Gotha bombers in the First War bombing England...
 
Lots of planes not built for divebombing were better than the Stuka as well: P-47 Thunderbolt, P-38 Lightning, F4U Corsair, just to name a few.
 
Well, they would still Dive-bomb pretty well. But if we are talking pure dive-bombers, what about the Val? It boasted something like an 85% hit rate in the first year of the war. (And to avoid the reply, yes I know it sucked after that).
 
Because the Val was only effective if it had effective escort. Of course the Battle of Britain proved the same was true of the Stuka. The coolest aspect of the Stuka was that it was a psychological weapon as well. Just thinking about those sirens makes me shiver and I (thankfully) was never on the receiving end.
 
The A-36 didn't need escort, it could handle itself in a dogfight, so its better.
 
Only thing about arguing for the A-36 is that the US abandoned it (plus the A-24 and A-25) when they found out that the P-38, -47, -51 could dive-bomb and do a whole lot of other stuff as well.
 
Essentially though, dive-bombing was more a German tactic [and Jap], the Allies seemed to 'dabble' in it rather than develop specific aircraft to do it. The German divebombers were well-made for it, easy as falling-off a log-type-of-thing...Most of the Allied fighters had a dive-bomb capability, built-in to training...the Ju88 was a well-developed all-round aircraft and as a dive-bomber, quite 'heavy-duty'...I wouldn't have liked being under one...but it's opposite, the Mosquito, did a nice job of bombing , - target-marking and skip-bombing...plus take-care of itself OK...
 
The A-36 wasn't abandoned, only 500 were ever ordered. It had 4 .50 cal in its wings and two under its nose. It could perform better than most dive bombers but we didn't really use them.

The Mosquito was a precision bomber without diving, so it was better.
 
The peformance of the A-36 was much better than the Il-2. It was essentially an Allison-engined Mustang afterall.
 
Oh, no doubt. An Il-2 had heavier guns, rockets, and a fiendish little bomb, the PTAB 2.5 that was dropped in clusters over the tops of German tanks. For the purpose of tank-busting, nothing else came close.
 
I've never seen that much about an Il-2 in air-to-air. I imagine it's low speed would be a liability but it was definitely tough to shoot down and that rear 12.7 mm MG packed a whallop.

Oh course, the ultimate Stuka pilot, Hans Ulrich Rudel, was credited with 11 kills in a Stuka, go figure!
 
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