Historic Aviation > Warbirds

Fleet of Stutkas vs Fleet of Flying Fortresses

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alyster:
Durning the WW2 German most famous bomber was Ju-87 Stutka(and most of their bomber fleet used similar dive bombing). Usually the bombers were small, light weight, carring small payloads, but bretty accurate.
Their oponents from west used totaly difrent aproach on bombing. Huge bombers, flying high and droping bombs bretty randomly somewhere above the target. (Planes like B-17, Lancester).
Now both of them had similar task: destroy the enemy country from air(germans in battle of Britain, allies in 1943-44).  What do you guys think, which fleet was better for this sort of task? Or did both made the right pick?


***
Just wanted to add, that allies damage from the air in 1943-44 wasn't that big as many would like it to be. German factories were able to build as many new machinery as needed, but germans just didn't have the feul to use them.

alyster:
BTW, does any bomber still use diving to bomb nowdays or do they all use the smart bombs now?

RecceJet:
General Purpose (GP) bombs do not have guidance, so they are not smart bombs. They still get the most accuracy if they are released in a dive, though it won't be a vertical dive! :P

As for your previous question, I think the Ju-87 had the potential to be a far more effective bomber if it had the necessary fighter escorts. It was poorly defended, and therefore it was only really useful early in the war against countries with poorly equiped airforces. It was more accurate, so it needed fewer sorties to meet mission objectives. The Allied bombers mentioned above flew very high and in great numbers, but even so their accuracy was shockingly poor and very few bombs actually hit their targets. They didn't go out of their way to avoid collateral damage in those days as we do now :-\

alyster:
Yup, but if talking about Ju-87 itself, then not only limeted fighter escort wasn't the problem, but also the AA guns. France, Poland and Russia just didn't have enough of them, which was the resons Stutka loses weren't so high there, but got higher in Battle of Britan. But the German Flak88  guns weren't so efective against US bombers.
But Stutka had another good side. When going into the dive, it made an awful noise. Frenchmen basicly shit their pants at the time of Blitzkrieg when Stutka went into a dive.:-X   - how could they still wanna be a world power?:-[

RecceJet:
apples and oranges. You cannot compare a Junkers Ju-87 Stuka to a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, they are totally different airframes. The only real thing they had in common was that they flew and dropped bombs. Their uses were too different from each other to select a winner.

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