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6-03-2015, 08:00

The Dive Bomber

The ordinary method of dropping bombs from aircraft was as much a matter of luck as of skill. A bomb dropped from an aircraft continues on the same course as the airplane while dropping toward the ground. Unless the aircraft is exactly in line with the target, the bomb will miss to either side. In addition, since the aircraft would be traveling at 4 miles a minute, estimation of the target’s distance was crucial. The wind, which might vary at lower levels and come in gusts would also affect the fall of the bomb. And this is without considering the effect of changing winds upon the track of the aircraft or of enemy action. An airplane moves slightly crabwise in wind so that it is useless for the pilot to aim the nose of the aircraft at the target.

Although bomb aimers were provided with slide rules and sights on which estimated wind strength and direction could be applied to their view of the target, level bombing remained a crude weapon, suitable for large targets but not sufficiently accurate for pinpoint targets such as strong points, ships, and bridges.

Bombs dropped from aircraft as they dived upon the target had far greater accuracy than the bombs dropped from aircraft flying straight and level. The United States Army and Navy—there was no independent air force—were both interested in this technique. It was, however, the Curtiss F8C, developed for the U. S. Marines, that first earned the name “Helldiver.” It became a name for all subsequent dive bombers made by Curtiss-Wright.

It was a Curtiss dive bomber that Ernst Udet, a German air ace of the First World War, saw demonstrated in America in September 1933. It was largely due to Udet’s enthusiasm for the dive bomber that German manufacturers were invited to submit prototypes for testing by the Luftwaffe.

Like all the other equipment of the blitzkrieg, the dive bomber was cheap; a small aircraft with two crewmen, its loss was calculated as a small price to pay for the elimination of a strong point that was delaying an advance.

It was the Junkers Ju 87, with its massively thick wing-roots and clumsy-looking, fixed undercarriage making it so easy to identify, which became known as the Stuka, although the word “Stuka”— derived from Sturzkampfflugzeug—simply meant “dive bomber.” These aircraft—and the twin-engined Ju 88s that soon followed them into squadron service—were able to carry the dive-bomb attack to its extreme efficiency. Dive brakes were used to slow the speed of the

FIGURE 17 Junkers 87 Stuka dive bomber.


Dive, thus putting less strain on the wing-roots during the pullout. Stuka pilots would typically dive at 70 or 80 degrees starting from an altitude of 10,000 feet and often puUing out lower than the 3,000 feet that regulations said would save them from the blast of their own bombs. Sirens were fitted to such aircraft to produce a terrifying, high-pitched scream.

If the dive bomber symbolized the blitzkrieg’s air weapon, it by no means dominated it. Of nearly 2,000 bombers in the Luftwaffe’s strength in September 1939, there were less than 350 Ju 87s. There were at that time nearly twice this number of aircraft earmarked for reconnaissance duties. Such a comparison reveals the way in which a blitzkrieg was designed to avoid centers of enemy resistance rather than hit them.



 

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