Best Dive Bomber of WWII

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Id vote for the val i guess, even though the stuka and the SBD are technically better, but the val just seemed to me the best. I like what it did at pearl, and later on, and they were only butchered the way they were because they were trained to fly in tight formations no matter what, and the cover from the japanese escorts was inadequate to say the least, american aircraft, mainly F4F's at this point, could climb above the bombers and escorts, dive attack, and climb, repeating this until no bombers were left. Alse the vals were shot down in mass numbers by ships because of the new fuses on the AA that the ships were being issued.
 
Id vote for the val i guess, even though the stuka and the SBD are technically better, but the val just seemed to me the best. I like what it did at pearl, and later on, and they were only butchered the way they were because they were trained to fly in tight formations no matter what, and the cover from the japanese escorts was inadequate to say the least, american aircraft, mainly F4F's at this point, could climb above the bombers and escorts, dive attack, and climb, repeating this until no bombers were left. Alse the vals were shot down in mass numbers by ships because of the new fuses on the AA that the ships were being issued.
 
I vote for the A-36 'Apache' because it was a capable and effective dive-bomber that served in Italy and Burma with a good record. It may not have been able to carry as much as those other's mentioned, it was still able to inflict serious damage and was more survivable in the presence of enemy fighters.
 
About 12 years ago I was heavily involved with Civil Air Patrol. There was mission pilot who lived in Bishop, I think his name was Bob Chinn who flew the SBC-2 in WW2 off several carriers. He had all kinds of memorabilia from his career, we stayed up very late talking about aircraft. I recollect him saying the SBD was a hard aircraft to fly but once mastered was a great plane. He felt Curtiss tried to put too many advances into the aircraft. He was also one of the original members of the now infamous "Tail-hook" association....
 
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Ju-88. In the picture with two 1,000 kg (2,200 lb) bombs.

Finnish aviation historian Jukka Raunio wrote: "Whereas our other bombers were the hammer, Ju-88 was the heavy hammer that could send russian tanks flying to treetop level".

(Btw. Soviets wanted all our 1000 kg bombs to be sent to Russia after the armistice.)
 
I don't, 37mm Cannon are not dive bomber material. To be a dive bomber you have to have bombs, the JU-87G didn't carry bombs (correct me if I am wrong), therefore it is not a dive bomber in my opinion anyway.
Well the word "bomber" can come from the world "bombardment" and you can bombard with artillery or bombs.
 
Good point, though it probably would feel like a bombardment if you were under the gun :p

It's really more of a strafer
 
The SB2C is a plane I like, but it seems like it just took too long to be fully operational. In Jocko's Clarke's Carrier Admiral, he writes how he traded his SB2C's for SBDs during the shakedown of Yorktown, and recommended to BuAir to cancel the program. Later accounts I've read seem like it was effective plane.

By the time the plane was operational, the tactical needs may have changed too much. The Order of Battle for Operation Iceberg, in Morrison's last Volume, shows the fleet carriers carrying VBF squadrons with only one 15 plane VB squadron with SB2Cs. The change in mix of VF/VFB and VB was also to combat the Kamikaze, and the F6f and F4U could carry a bombload.

An interesting what if is if the SB2C could have been fully operational and deployed in 43 and taken the lead dive bombing role in the big battles of 44. On paper its performance was better than the SBD.
 
The SB2C is a plane I like, but it seems like it just took too long to be fully operational. In Jocko's Clarke's Carrier Admiral, he writes how he traded his SB2C's for SBDs during the shakedown of Yorktown, and recommended to BuAir to cancel the program. Later accounts I've read seem like it was effective plane.
I thought the problem was that the plane had little roll-control at low-speeds and it had excessive buffeting when the dive-brakes were extended.

So by that definition, this was a bomber... :lol:

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Actually, the Hs-129 had around 660 pounds of bombs it could carry. I'll concede that the tank-plinking Ju-87 wasn't exactly a dive-bomber, but it was a strafer based on a dive-bomber.
 

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