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Skua is the best known dive bomber in British service, but IMO the best performing is the Vultee Vengeance.@SaparotRob Also, if you're interested in dive bombers, read up on the Blackburn Skua.
If that's our measure, I choose Typhoon or Sturmovik.Someone on this forum wrote that the Ju87 spent most of its wartime career not dive-bombing at all but instead attacked at treetop level or in a shallow dive.
According to this site, Brown also flew the Vultee Vengeance, Curtiss Helldiver and Vought SB2U Vindicator.Well there might be only one man that flew all three and Eric Brown ranked them:
- Ju 87
- Val
- Dauntless
USS Princeton was sunk by a D4Y.The D4Y may have damaged U.S. warships both in conventional attacks and as Kamikaze, but they didn't sink any.
The D3A, on the otherhand, contributed to the sinking of the Lexington, Yorktown and Hornet plus the long list of ships Darren posted earlier.
The Indianapolis was sunk by two torpedoes from Commander Hashimoto's submarine, I-58.
Skua is the best known dive bomber in British service, but IMO the best performing is the Vultee Venge
Which ship was that? That is an impressive feat.Don't forget the Ju87 also sank ships plenty of Royal Navy and Soviet navy vessels at the bottom of the sea because of the Stuka. The Ju87 also did something that the Japanese never did they put an armoured deck carrier out of action.
German and Italian Stukas thrashed HMS Illustrious near Malta, 10 January 1941.Which ship was that? That is an impressive feat.
In the case of the SBD, it is the only dive-bomber that has a plus kill ratio in aerial engagements.
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I think one would have to divide combat sorties by damage inflicted but we also have to consider whether or not they had a target rich environment.
I looked carefully at that claim and in 1942 at least, the SBD did not not have a plus kill ratio as most of it's air to air kills claims were not verified by IJN/A records.
A very interesting link. I'm going to be looking at it a bit more thoroughly later.War damage reports for U.S. ships...Summary of War Damage to U. S. Battleships, Carriers, Cruisers and Destroyers 17 October, 1941 to 7 December, 1942
War Damage Reports
Found this diagram
Japan aside, their originating countries saw at least potential interchangeability.This is another one of those threads that compare planes designed for different roles, the Stuka was a land based dive/ground attack aircraft, the SBD a dive/recon aircraft, the Val a dive bomber, trying to find out which was the best is not going to work because the roles aren't interchangeable.
Both the SBD and Val operated from land bases in addition to carriers.
The Luftwaffe's Stuka became the RLM's Ju 87C