An unusual Stuka

[Guest tony.osborne]

The Ju 87 C was a version of the famous dive bomber Stuka proposal to operate with German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin. The link below provides more information and pictures of this uncommon version of the Ju 87 Stuka. Hope you enjoy and I count on your visit.

 

http://aviacaoemfloripa.blogspot.com.br/2011/02/stuka-naval.html

 

Cheers.

 

Anthony

 

 

[old man emu]

Would have flown rings around a Swordfish - 210 kts vs 120 kts for the Stringbag, and I suspect that a dive bomber would be more effective than a torpedo bomber against most targets.

 

Hey, http://aviacaoemfloripa.blogspot.com.br is a very good blog to look at.

 

OME

 

 

[nomis]

Tell that to to the Italian navy!!

 

 

[old man emu]

Tell that to to the Italian navy!!

I was thinking more of moving targets. The Italians were hit whilst in harbour, basically sitting ducks. The hit on the Bismark must be considered as a lucky one, as the torpedo hit the rudder section - a moment or two later and it would have missed.

If you look at the diving flight path:

 

 

you can see that the pilot would have more chance to adjust for the movement of its target during aiming.

 

The advantage the torpedo airplane has is that it can fly very low on approach and the target's anti-aircraft guns often can't be depressed enough to fire at low flying targets. That's what gave the Swordfish an advantage in the attack on the Bismark.

 

OME

 

 

[Guernsey]

I could write ten pages on the skills required having conducted many 'Flour Bombing' raids in light aircraft. .

 

Alan.

 

 

[Ron5335]

I saw a doco about the sinking of the Bismarck from a German Naval Officer who was on board.

 

He said they scoffed when they saw the fairy swordfish approaching, thinking it was an insult to take on the most advanced warship with antiquated equipment.

 

The Bismarck had the latest in range finding equipment and quickly determined the range of the aircraft, but as it was the latest most modern equipment, the minimum closing speed that could be entered in was 130knts

 

and the poor old fairy's could only get 75knts. (on a good day)

 

This caused all the flak to explode well short of the planes, and as the machine gunners had very restricted target view through their sights , the exploding flak blocked their view of the approaching targets.

 

In all of the attacks, not 1 plane was lost.