Ju-87 Stuka vulnerability to fighter attack

[Soren]

Hear yay hear yay FLYBOYJ !

[Erich]

ok back on topic then ......

Njaco well there is going to be a book on at least 3 NSGr units in the future, have added a bit from the files to the German author whose relative was in one unit on the Ost front but sadly was KIA. The BA/MA files in Freiburg are really full of information and it is one source which should be researched into further where most western authors dread it appears to go in and retrieve the necessary documentation to bring out the truth instead of the supposed details.

Point is the night units did lose to many Ju's and crews to Allied AA and Mossie nf's. A few and mean only a few fell to P-61's........

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Originally Posted by B-17engineer

Okay sorry i apologize, I dont know why i said it and it will never heppen again..........:'(

How old are you?

[Soren]

Anyone want to start a bet ??

[lesofprimus]

By my account, he's a teat-sucking numbnut who needs more attention from his Father.... I just got home and have to read this bullsh!t, along with his apology post....

I'd rather have bamboo shoots rammed under my toenails....

Kid, take the advice from the others and zip ur freakin mouth and use ur eyes to educate urself here... Speak up when u have a question or something u think might encourage a good discussion....

USE THE SEARCH BUTTON UP ABOVE!!!!

Liars get nowhere in life.... Trust me and all the others here, its a fact.... Liars are scumbags; dont be one....

[Crumpp]

How old are you?

Ahh the Yewwts...Wadda ya dew?

[Njaco]

You callin me funny?!!

Erich and Nik, I must submit to your far superior resources than mine. My only take on the Stuka is that if the plane was so bad, the design poor, the power awful, why was it kept on operations throughout the war? It had to have some redeeming value about it. Yes there were "Stuka parties" and it was at times, meat for the butcher but there just was something that kept it flying (besides engines ).

I think it did well, considering.

[wilbur1]

Well i dont know enough about the plane but i will tell you that when a person spouts crap then it must be crap, now im willin to give the guy the benifit of the doubt,but at the same time it still churns to be sh** but i say to hell with it! i read his post on apology, so hes makin amends give him that chance fellas,.........but if he screws up again.......feed him to lesbride she will take care of it

[Konigstiger205]

Well Stuka was made to operate under total air domination from the Luftwaffe and when the situation changed...well we all know the results...

[renrich]

Well, I have the movie, BOB, on DVD and tape and those JU 87s sure looked vulnerable. Kidding aside I have read in many places where the Stukas did not do well when enemy fighters were present. The Dauntless was used by the USN as a CAP against enemy torpedo planes on a couple of occasions when their carriers were short of VFs.

[V-1710]

As some of the earlier posts pointed out, I don't think it was a case of the Stuka being vunerable to enemy fire. On the contrary, I think it was a particularly rugged aircraft. However, I have read on many occasions that it was not a pleasent aircraft to fly. Terms like slow, ungainly, difficult to handle, and poor in turns are common in Stuka reports. Those are characteristics that make a plane a good target. Though well armoured, it was still an aircraft, not a tank. 8 .303 Brownings, 20mm cannon fire, or 6 .50's will tear a Stuka up. So, I think it is accurate to say that a Stuka was one of the easier planes to take down. I think the Dauntless was not a good target, as it was small and handled well.

[Nikademus]

Originally Posted by Njaco

You callin me funny?!!

Erich and Nik, I must submit to your far superior resources than mine. My only take on the Stuka is that if the plane was so bad, the design poor, the power awful, why was it kept on operations throughout the war? It had to have some redeeming value about it. Yes there were "Stuka parties" and it was at times, meat for the butcher but there just was something that kept it flying (besides engines ).

I think it did well, considering.

I agree. It did have value....and it was vulnerable too. After tossing the idea around here or there and browsing a few sources for more tidbits.... The below passage helped me put it into more perspective as well as provide a last piece that also helps answer your question of why they were kept around;

"Goring's unwavering belief in the Stuka troubled his commanders, too. Unrivaled in precision-bombing and close infantry support when the Luftwaffe held the sky, they now made up one third of the Luftwaffe's bomber force.-for maximum success at minimum cost of material, [my italics] the Reichsmarschall saw them as unbeatable. Yet to most, heavy losses of August 8 presaged the shape of things to come."
-Collier, Eagle Day, The Battle of Britian

So in conclusion, I personally feel that both viewpoints are essentially correct. Yes, the Stuka was probably more vulnerable than an SBD....or put another way, as vulnerable as often described. However, in terms of the "big picture", its also to a degree irrelevent as any land power that employs a 1E precision weapon as 1/3 of their striking power is going to suffer heavier losses vs. a power that relies fully on 2E light and medium bombers (as well as 4E "heavies") in the absence of complete air control.

The above passage helps to also spread more light on why Germany embraced the DB as a primary component of their airforce while other nations did not. It was seen as a means of delivering maximum success at minimal cost in economic terms. It could also be built up rather quickly as well. Other nations, less bent on an offensive posture, but also not surrounded by landbased enemies, embraced the bomber concept from a more strategic angle, thus invested in 2E and 4E designs. While not as accurate, and in some cases, not all that much protection without good fighter protection, ultimately the type could be developed and woven into a doctrine of operational and tactical support of the land battlefield without sacrificing survivability on the modern battlefield. Plane for plane it might not be as accurate as a Stuka, but numbers and repeated attacks can make up for it and more trained men get home at the end of the day. The portents were there, but like with the Bf-110, it would take actual combat to make all realize this truth. Even after that however, with 1/3 of your airforce made up of these dive bombers....you can't simply stop using them. You work with what you have. Thus, the Stuka went to war in the Balkans, Russia and the Western Desert. When the Luftwaffe could dominate the air, the Stuka could regain some of it's early success, but faced with any decent fighter defense such as with the WDAF at times....the result was "Stuka-Parties"

SBD's would probably have fared better, but losses would still have been higher vs. the employment of 2E's.

[HoHun]

Hi Nikademus,

>Yes, the Stuka was probably more vulnerable than an SBD....

Hm, I don't see how you concluded that. In your last post, you seemed to leave that question entirely open ...

With regard to the SBD's success, note that the Spitfire VB used in the desert had two times the firepower of the A6M2, and the cannon-armed Hurricane had four times the firepower. Additionally, the western fighters were armoured, had protected tanks and featured a bullet-resistant wind screen, factors reducing the effect of the Stukas' return fire.

The firepower factor alone can easily account for any perceived differences in Stuka and SBD vulnerability.

However, if we don't know the number of opportunities for large-scale dive bomber slaughter both in the desert and in the Pacific theatre, there is actually nothing we can learn from the number of Stukas shot down on such occasions anyway.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

[Soundbreaker Welch?]

The firepower factor alone can easily account for any perceived differences in Stuka and SBD vulnerability.

Interesting point.......

[JoeB]

Originally Posted by HoHun

Hm, I don't see how you concluded that. In your last post, you seemed to leave that question entirely open ...

With regard to the SBD's success, note that the Spitfire VB used in the desert had two times the firepower of the A6M2, and the cannon-armed Hurricane had four times the firepower. Additionally, the western fighters were armoured, had protected tanks and featured a bullet-resistant wind screen, factors reducing the effect of the Stukas' return fire.

I mainly agree, this situation somewhat resembles 'Spit outclassed Zero' in that there might be a general tendency to conclude something based on general reputation of each plane in different theaters. But in Spit v Zero case there were real meetings showing a surprisingly different result than the standard reputations would imply; whereas here we just can't say for sure.

The SBD had somewhat of a reputation for being able to take care of itself against fighters at least in USN, while Ju-87 had the opposite reputation, as least in West. But not only did they face different fighter opponents, but SBD's just didn't come under heavy fighter attack all that many times. In most of the 1942 carrier battles the Japanese carriers' CAP system failed to bring heavy attacks to bear on divebombers; one exception was the Marine SBD's at Midway which suffered pretty heavily, and another was Santa Cruz were VB-8/VS-8 came under heavy attack unescorted, and suffered several losses though did actually down a couple of Zeroes (the only Zeroes downed by SBD's in 1942 per Japanese accounts AFAIK; some other claims by SBD's to have downed Zeroes, as at Coral Sea are still celebrated even on TV shows etc. though it's long been known they aren't confirmed as losses in Japanese accounts). In the Guadalcanal campaign SBD's rarely came under landplane Zero attack, one notable exception being the day of the landing when an SBD gunner wounded Saburo Sakai. And after 1942 the losses of all USN attack types to enemy fighters were pretty limited, and almost non-existent from 1944, because of USN fighters.

The SBD didn't have a good reputation v fighters in the USAAF though. In New Guinea Zero's (also including Sakai it so happened) almost wiped out a small formation of A-24's (SBD's) July 26 1942, after which the USAAF made a point of keeping A-24's away from enemy fighters: that one incident cemented a pretty different reputation about its survivability.

I agree we might not find much to choose among planes like Ju-87, SBD, Type 99 Carrier Bomber (Val) in the same circumstances, though couldn't rule out that the greater manueverability of SBD and Type 99 might bail them out sometimes.

Joe