Were JU88's ever equipped as anti-tank aircraft?

Specifically, were any Ju88s ever equipped with the cannon as seen below on an HS219?

 

yes the very limited Ju 88P series of armor destroyers, equipped with the 7,5cm pak gun. the long barrel threw off the aerodynamic and sighting the unit was very tough on a flat dive the firing of the gun shook the a/c to the point of cracking the support system to the belly of the Ju 88 and soon it was withdrawn from the test unit, not sure if it even saw action in battle though some sources state yes.

 

Hmmm, interesting. Thanks for that tidbit, Erich.

 

I confirm. Dragon models has even released a great model of this Pak equipped Junker in 2007. There is a picture on their site. I have always wondered how it must have felt when they shot with those monster guns.

 

Found one! I don't know if this is the Dragon kit, but after Erich gave me the "P" suffix I found quite a few using Google....here is a good one, very nasty looking

 

did a little snooping in the files. Ju 88P-1's joined up in III./KG 1 Hindenburg in their Panzerstaffel for ops against Soviet armor as more of an evaluational effort than any real seriousness, the Ju 88C train buster had already proved itself as a great contender but that is another story

 

picture of the Dragon model Ju88 P-1 tank buster here:

Dragon 5543 1/48 Ju88P-1 "Tank Buster", Dragon 1/48, Dragon 1/48 Aircraft Kits, Dragon 1/48 Model Kit, Dragon 1/48 Model Aircraft, Dragon 1/48 Plastic Aircraft Model, Search engine optimisation

 

This is what Dragon says about the P-1

"Fitted with an impressive 75mm PaK 40 tank cannon with a large muzzle brake, the production plane required a reinforced unglazed nose. The plane was tested operationally in 1943 but proved unwieldy and vulnerable to enemy aircraft. The prototype version, known as Ju 88P V1, was fitted with a 75mm Kwk 39 anti-tank cannon and was basically a modified A-4 version".

 

Again....nice info gents, thanks for it all on this interesting topic!

 

guys there was also a P-2 tested as well as a future P-3 with subtle changes to the nose and the way the undermount was located, the 7.5cm was moved over to the left side underneath the fuselage

 

I read the first nose was too heavy because of the extra protection and it caused stability problems. So the problem was finding a solution which included stability without creating too much vulnerabilty. This was never found, so the project was abandonned.

 

additional weighting at the rear of the weapon, heck the Ju was so overloaded and heavy and slow as it was it became a perfect pig for Soviet AA. A newer blast out muzzle brake was also added in future examples to dampen the terrible vibration during the firing of this hog

 

I can imagine the wings breaking off with such firing power!

 

There were two Ju 88P models equipped for ground attack. The P-1 had a 7.5cm cannon mounted. The aircraft was badly overloaded and as already stated firing was a severe strain on the airframe.
The P-2 mounted two 3.7cm cannon in a ventral fairing. It was intended more as a bomber buster than a tank buster but it too was overloaded and too slow for its intended purpose.

What surprises me (or maybe not) is that the Germans didn't come up with a solution similar to the US one for mounting a large cannon on an aircraft. In the German case they could have mounted a modified 7.5cm leIG 18 on even a Ju 88 within the existing fuselage and used this with HE and HEAT to achieve a worthwhile tank buster. The gun would have been far lighter, had far lower firing stresses involved and would have been more flexible in the type of targets it could have engaged.

 

They used 75mm cannon on some B-25's in the Pacific but these were for anti shipping and I read they still were alot of stress on the aircraft with popping rivets and cracks to the airframe. It would be easier to hit a ship than a tank I would think.

Also they experimented with a 102mm gun on the Italian four engine bomber the Piaggio P.108B for anti shipping.

 

a 102mm gun! Wow I thought 75mm was huge. I bet the Italians stopped the experience because of the vibrations.

 

Now US Airforce has AC-130U "Spooky" Gunship

Armanent :

• 1× 25 mm (0.984 in) gatling gun
• 1× 40 mm L60 Bofors cannon
• 1× 105 mm M102 howitzer

EDIT
You can see it in action in movie "Transformers"
Or even try to be in one in CoD4 (one of the missions )

 

Ahh, but thats a modern, highly engineered, no-cost-spared-cos-it-was-built-in-peacetime, very large aircraft. Not a small medium bomber built by the Germans a few decades ago.

 

Thank you Captain Obvious!

 

The pic below, from the article on Tankbusters on my website, shows the relative sizes of the ammo fired by German ground-attack planes. The 75mm round is about one metre long.