I have just entered this thread for another reason than this reply, which I shall deal with separately, but in the meantime cannot let your somewhat blinkered comments pass without a response.
Yours is obviously a typical and un-informed North American view of the timetable of WW2. That war started in 1939 and finished in 1945.
The Stuka was a very capable machine providing that air supremacy was in German hands. Many contributions to this thread have commented on its successes and failures and I shall briefly reiterate.
The Stuka was supreme during the German conquering and occupation of mainland European countries during 1939 & 1940. However, it received its first and very bloody nose from the RAF when attacking Britain in 1940 to the extent that it was withdrawn from that battle.
It was then deployed in force on the Eastern Front and again was a great success until the Soviet air force became modernised and numerically superior, when it again received a bloody nose.
Although getting a bit long in the tooth by the latter years of the war, it was deployed successfully in Libya, the Eastern Mediteranean and Caucasus campaigns, despite suffering heavy losses.
Only Allied air supremacy over most of Europe in the final years of the war rendered the Stuka virtually useless.
Your statement, referring to the Pacific and 2nd Front campaigns as sideshows and that WW2 was lost and won on the Eastern front, that being the main event and that everything else was a prequal or postscript, is entirely misguided, an afront to those who took part and historically flawed.
I have read this thread with great interest and enjoyment of all (well almost all) subscribers. My purpose of posting is that I am carrying out research for my forthcoming website about aviation history. This will be a membership site, but will also have much free content.
I have been searching in this instance for photos of the Ju87 Stuka and noticed that some of those I have found elsewhere also appear on this thread. I would like to know if anyone wishes:
a) to submit their photos for public use on my website (with acknowledgements of course) or
b) direct me to sources of good quality photos of the Stuka
I would also like to hear from anyone who might wish to submit articles about WW2 aircraft or associated subjects. There are lots of subscribers here who obviously have wide knowledge of their particular subjects and my aim is to encourage a sharing of knowledge to as wide an audience as possible. The historic aviation fraternity benefits greatly from websites such as ww2incolor and therefore its promotion is also to be encouraged.
Stuka didn’t recieve a bloody nose at the hands of the RAF , they suffered 67 kills over June- July 1940 and 11 in Oct 1940, with total 128 lost in combat from Aug 1940-Mar 1941.[Germany and the Second World War vol II]. Their fleet numbers hovered around 400 during this time period, so these losses were much less than 10% per month average. At the height of the BoB, the LW losses were ~ 20% per month on the main bomber types.
So what “bloody nose” was it that the Stuka suffered? Or are you miss interpreting their withdrawl in preperation for invasion, as equalling battered ?
BTW if this uninformed north american poster is wrong and WW-II didn’t start in 1939 and end in 1945 , when did it start and end? :shock:
I have read this thread with great interest and enjoyment of all (well almost all) subscribers. My purpose of posting is that I am carrying out research for my forthcoming website about aviation history. This will be a membership site, but will also have much free content.
I have been searching in this instance for photos of the Ju87 Stuka and noticed that some of those I have found elsewhere also appear on this thread. I would like to know if anyone wishes:
a) to submit their photos for public use on my website (with acknowledgements of course) or
b) direct me to sources of good quality photos of the Stuka
I would also like to hear from anyone who might wish to submit articles about WW2 aircraft or associated subjects. There are lots of subscribers here who obviously have wide knowledge of their particular subjects and my aim is to encourage a sharing of knowledge to as wide an audience as possible. The historic aviation fraternity benefits greatly from websites such as ww2incolor and therefore its promotion is also to be encouraged.
Hello. I would not get to busy trying to find out copyright issues on Stuka photos, the mother of all is the Bundesarchiv and it allows the publication of any of its large collection as long you mentioned the source. The rest are personal pics but relatively few and in fact the original owners of those are 99.99 % already dead so why bother.
Count me for your website if you need some article on aircraft armament.
At the same end Ward John, author of Hitler’s Stuka Squadrons: The Ju 87 at war, 1936–1945 said that between 8 and 18 August 1940 Lutwaffe lost 20% of his Stuka. I suppose that lose 20% of your forces in just 10 days it’s a bloody nose if we trust Ward John.
Forgive me, but i repeat again: we can talk a lot of theory, saying what book is true and what is inaccurate, but fact are the only true. The fact is that majority of jug commander chose to use FW-190 or HS-129 instead of Ju-87. Only few of them, like well-know ace Rudel, choose to keep Ju-87. They risk their life and the life of their man making this choise, so i think they are the only one to have the right to say something about it.
I suppose that northamerican guy omiss to say that is for US the war start in 1941.
just what i was thinking, germany didn’t had replacement for t stuka (He111, Bf109, a.o.) apparently they thought t war was won so why make new designs, costly fault they made (the order to stop working on designs that couldn’t be flying within one year is famously erroneous) just as t lack of strategic bomber also a strange “mistake”, although that wasn’t voluntary, it had to do with the lack of raw materials. But they could and should have done more with the big bomber designs they had.
btw another nice job panzerknacker, librarian (a.o.)u seem to have lots of knowledge bout t luftwaffe, tanks again
Your post, are very nice and r deeply appreciated .
But about Jakub’s drawing of g2 kannonevogel: looks scrary for t pilot (and reargunner) too, for they don’t have divebrakes, i can hear reargunner shout: “aufsteigen Heinrich!” (pull up Heinrich!) and another thing about t drawing is the tail, it has two struts supporting t elevatorwings (those small ones -in dutch its called tailwings-) but shouldn’t that be one bigger strut per side???, anyho i couldn’t draw it better myself btw, many more tanks and greetings stano666
I read that that Ju 87 development was actually based on visits of German Airforce officers to US operations in Honduras in the late 1920s.
The JU87 was noted as an extremely effective weapon system, if they enjoyed air superiority. In the hands of the skilled pilots developed in the early part of the war, they could place bombs with almost pin point accuracy. Their major problem was air speed, the design was from the mid 1930s, and they were simply outclassed by the later fighter designs. They suffered major losses in the Battle of Britain, the British fighters liked to hit them just after they pulled out of their dives.
They saw some use in North Africa but there they could be felled by even the relatively poor performing P40/Tomahawk.
The air superiority achieved during the early phase of the Eastern front was custom made for the aircraft. But increased Russian aircraft doomed it to a secondary role midway through the campaign. In addition, due to the fact they used liquid cooling, they did not fair well in the brutal winter conditions.
I don’t agree with it. More armor means an airplane less agile. The firepower of Stuka is perfectly fitted for his duty, with one bomb it can sink battleships, and with under-wings 37mm guns is able to destroy every type of Allied tank. The rear mg is already an updated high fire rate.
