Stuka vs. Dauntless vs. Val vs. Skua vs. Il-2?

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Hmm, ya that is interesting...I wonder if the mechanical problems where a factory thing, or if it was a poor training/moral kind of thing?
 
parsifal said:
The SBDs, Vals and Skuas were all used sucessfully as fighters, actually, albeit second line. The Skua in particular was effective at providing fleet defence at a time when officially the FAA air defence fighter was the Gladiator.
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I wonder if this " success" was due as mutch to the opposition as to the merits of the aircraft involved.

THe Skua vrs Gladiator thing being a case in point. Skua used an engine not quite 10% more powerful yet weighed a ton more empty. One book claims the gladiator was over 20mph faster.

Providing "air defence" against flying boats, floatplanes and/or third line fighters (P-26's in he Philipines?) might have been a different enviroment than the Stuka was operating in.

I could be way off on this. Can anybody point to air combats of these aircraft against real fighters (not enemy fighter happened to fly in front of the dive bomber) or their use against 1st line bombers, even Vals intercepting SBDs or vice versa?
 
Hello
Skua was designed as dive bomber/fighter but wasn't good in the latter job. IIRC Sea Gladiators were produced when it was found that Fleet AA wasn't good enough deterrent against bombers and because Skua was so lousy climber.

Val, as fighter, IIRC at least over Ceylon and at Midway. One of US fighter pilots recall that when he and some others attacked a sqn of unescorted Vals that after shooting down one he was surprised to see trackers flowing past his canopy. After a hard turn he noticed that it wasn't unobserved Zero, that was slipped behind him but a Val. F4F pilots later figured out that a couple of Vals had dropped their bombs and had began act as "fighter" escorts for the other Vals.

SBD, it was used as anti torpedoplane misiions at Coral Sea at least, also against Bettys during the attack on Yorktown or Enterprise during which O'Hare claimed 5 Bettys.

Stuka, one must remember that the fist plane shot down during WWII was a Polish P-11 fighter shot down by a Stuka.

Because the name of this tread incl Il-2, in 1942 sometimes some Il-2s were acting as escorts for others, ie they flew misiions without bombs and their main function was to try to protect other Il-2s againsrt Bf 109s.

Juha
 
For a dive bomber the Skua didn't do badly as a fighter. A number of He111's were claimed as well as other aircraft such as the Do 18. Over Norway they claimed I believe nine He111's. No doubt the actual losses were less but unescorted bombing attacks were often driven off with losses.
The first FAA Ace was Lt Bill Lucy flying Skua's.
 
Shortround6 said:
I could be way off on this. Can anybody point to air combats of these aircraft against real fighters (not enemy fighter happened to fly in front of the dive bomber) or their use against 1st line bombers, even Vals intercepting SBDs or vice versa?
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Didn't the TV show 'Dogfights' do an episode on a SBD vs the A6M?
 
Clay_Allison said:
with air superiority, the Ju 87 is an unholy terror. With enemy fighters in the area, that thing is an unmarked grave.
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Replace Ju 87 with any Dive Bomber...

GrauGeist said:
Unlike the Stuka and Val, the Dauntless was capable of turning against it's attackers and while not a gunslinger by a long shot, they at least had a chance where the Stuka or the Val would be dead meat.
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Just because it can do so from time to time, does not mean that it was suited for the task. More times tha not, even a Dauntless is going to end up in the drink if it is facing a real fighter.

Having said that, I think the Dauntless was the overall better aircraft. The Stuka however was 2nd to no one when it came to dive bombing.

Marcel said:
Actually after the first few years, the Stuka's mission of divebombing was obsolete, not the aircraft itself. This role was taken over by fighterbombers.
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+1
 
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davebender said:
I don't think so. You still need a way to place heavy bombs on relatively small targets. But we've had that discussion before....
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Don't know where that discussion was or how it went, but I think the fact that dive-bombers were quickly replaced after (and even during) WWII speaks for itself, I think. Close air-support was beter done with fighter-bombers, aiming aids for level-bombers became better, torpedo's improved and they became the preferred way to attack ships. Overall I think the concept of dive-bombing became obsolete.
 
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What's wrong with the Me-410 dive bomber? The aircraft enters service during early 1943. Max speed (without bombs) of about 385 mph makes it difficult to intercept. It's even quite fast when carrying a 1,000kg payload in the bomb bay.

Obviously you need to make different decisions so most of the production doesn't get diverted to bomber interception.
 

Many dive-bombers became easy prey for AA when attacking. Especially a big aircraft like the Ju87 or the Me410. There are many stories of Dutch AA gunners shooting down Ju87 after the first initial horror was over in 1940. They simply waited for the aircraft to pull out the dive and show their big wings. It was usually easy to predict where it would be and when.
 
Hello Glider
I'm aware the successes of Skua during the Norwegian Campaign but as it's specifications included the secondary fighter role, IMHO it wasn't good at that notwitstanding what Lucy and co achieved. I think that pure dive bomber SBD would have been as effective fighter as Skua in same situation. IIRC Kates were too fast for SBD to be effectively intercepted but they got or at least finished off a couple Bettys and IIRC some of them at least gave as good as they got against Zeros at least once.

Juha
 
I agree. An aircraft in a 90 degree dive is an easy target for light flak. However I suspect an aircraft flying at an angle of 45 to 60 degrees is a much more difficult target for flak while still retaining decent bomb accuracy.
 

I think that all it proves, is that a fighter has to be designed as a fighter to be any good for all the obvious reasons. The Skua was first and foremost a dive bomber and it that role it was as good as most pre war designs. As a fighter is was as you rightly say it wouldn't last long against a modern single engined fighter
 
There is/was a school of thought disagreeing with that assessment. A well placed 500 pound bomb can do so much more to a high priority target than a few scattered ones and some strafing.
 
According to the Navel Aviation Combat Statistics of WW2 page 22. the SBD shot down 31 bombers and 107 fighters with a kill ratio of around 1 - 1.7 - I never had any idea.

Over all I'd have to go with the SBD, but there is just something about the Stuke that just looks like a bad*** to me.
 
The Ju-87 Stuka was operational during the late 1930s when it was badly needed for service in Spain, Poland, Norway, France, Greece and Crete. Being available when needed counts for a lot.
 
Another question for me is which of the dedicated divebombers was the most accurate. The French LN 40 series for example were reportedly poor in their stability, which affected their accuracy. I believe the Skua also suffered from this problem. I have reaqd areports that the accuracy of the D3A was as high as 80% with a trained pilot (against a moving target)....this was the hit ratio, apparently, achieved against the Cornwall and Dorsetshire.

I suspect the Stuka was the most accurate of the Divebombers. I have read it possessed special equipment to assist in bombing accuracy.
 
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