Ju87 Stuka it seems to be simultaneously the greatest thing since the invention of Beer and a big waste of time
It seems to me that these labels come into play when one attempts to use a device in a way and manner that was never intended. The Stuka is a prime example. In defense of the Stuka, it is an inexcusably ugly aircraft, but like so many
designed-for-a-mission utilitarian airplanes (Consolidated PBY for example), the Ju-87 looks better the longer you consider its rugged lines. That same straightforward ruggedness made the Stuka easy to manufacture, repair and maintain. Let's face it, the Stuka was a bomb truck intended to fly to a target little farther away than its pilot can see, do a job and rumble back home again. Did it really need elliptical wings, or a stylish P-51 radiator doghouse or retractable landing gear to do the
job it was designed for?
The Rolls-Royce Kestral-powered Ju-87 V-1 prototype first flew on September 17, 1935. The Ju-87 was designed to attack and destroy specific military targets supporting the Heer. Nine Ju-87s were used at one time or another during the Spanish Civil War, but they were operated only occasionally and conservatively as they were considered "secret" weapons at the time. Republican anti-aircraft was pretty primitive, so the Stukas bombed at will—as they were intended to—and even the worst drops typically landed within less than 100 feet of the target. Good hits were either on target or no more than 15 feet off-center.
Ernst Udet was a verticalbombing proponent and is often credited as the "father" of the Stuka though in actual fact his one important role in the Stuka's development was that when RLM Technical Director Wolfram von Richthofen canceled the Ju-87 program (Richthofen thought that a slow, cumbersome, diving Stuka would never survive the anti-aircraft guns toward which it was pointed). Udet happened the next day to be given Richthofen's job. His first move was to countermand that order, so the Stuka survived.
The sole benefit of dive bombing is accuracy. If the dive is truly vertical, the flight of the bomb will follow the path of the bomber to wherever the airplane is pointed—at a tank, a ship, a bunker, a building.
The Ju-87 was one of the only dive bombers that could actually perform a vertical dive without surpassing VNE. Most dive bombers couldn't put the nose more than about 70 degrees down (the Vultee Vengeance was also a truly vertical bomber). The Stuka's under-wing dive brakes, a Hugo Junkers invention, were remarkably effective despite their small size and simplicity, and apparently the airplane's bluff chin radiator, large wheel pants, upright greenhouse and general avoidance of drag reduction sufficed to maintain a 375-mph vertical dive speed. (Later models could dive at up to 405 mph.)
British test pilot Eric "Winkle" Brown spent an hour flying a captured Ju-87D and later wrote:
"A dive angle of 90 degrees is a pretty palpitating experience, for it always feels as if the aircraft is over the vertical and is bunting, and all this while terra firma is rushing closer with apparent suicidal rapidity. In fact I have rarely seen a specialist dive bomber put over 70 degrees in a dive, but the Ju-87 was a genuine 90-degree screamer…the Ju-87 felt right standing on its nose, and the acceleration to 335 mph was reached in about 4,500 feet, speed thereafter creeping up slowly to the absolute permitted limit of 375 mph, so that the feeling of being on a runaway roller coaster experienced with most other dive bombers was missing. I must confess that I had a more enjoyable hour's dive-bombing practice than I had ever experienced with any other aircraft of this specialist type."
One of the Ju-87's advanced features, at least for that era, was an automatic pullout mechanism, to avoid the possibility of pilots being overcome by target fixation or rendered unable to fly by the effects of high-G pullouts. The pullout was also the point at which a Stuka was most vulnerable, its speed paying off rapidly as it fought for altitude, following a predictable course and unable to maneuver. Allied pilots who opposed Stukas didn't bother trying to catch them in a dive; they waited until the Germans released their bombs and pulled out. Ju-87s were intended to operate only where the Luftwaffe had complete air superiority and could make bomb runs with impunity. Out of their element, Stukas were a "fighter magnet" and required heavy air cover but again:
nobody ever meant for them to go head-to-head with eight-gun Spitfires and Hurricanes.
When they did as during the Battle of Britain, Stukas were downed by the dozens while trying to do a job—strategic rather than tactical bombing—
for which they were never intended. They were ground- support airplanes, designed to work in tandem with tanks. After their poor performance in the BoB the RAF proclaimed that the Stuka was finished as an offensive weapon, beaten bloody by Spitfires and Hurricanes. That myth has become part of Stuka lore. But the Stuka went on to be a superb anti-shipping weapon sinking hundreds of thousands of tons of merchant shipping and warships. The armored-deck aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious, and its support ships, would soon be battered so badly by Stukas off Malta that it was out of action for nearly a year. Stukas also thoroughly chased the Royal Navy out of Norway's waters. The Ju-87G, one of the most effective Stuka models, was no longer a dive bomber and didn't even have dive brakes. The G was armed with a huge 37mm, 12-round anti-tank cannon under each wing. The top 58 Stuka pilots on the Russian Front eliminated some 3,700 Soviet tanks, the Ju-87 could still get the job done.
Only two intact Stukas remain—one in the Chicago Museum of Industry and the second in the RAF Museum at Hendon. Neither is flyable, though when the 1969 film Battle of Britain was in production, plans were laid to restore the Hendon Ju-87 to flight for use in the movie. A pilot from the film company, Vivian Bellamy, reportedly climbed into the museum Stuka, cranked it through three blades and the Jumo V-12 lit off and idled perfectly. But the project of full restoration proved to be too expensive for the studio and the project was scrapped