JU-87 Stuka, Hawker Typhoon, P-47 Fighter bombers

Looking at the stats of Pz IV at Panzer IV - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
It looks like the side area is only about 10% less than the top and as you suggest about three times that of the front.
looking at the T-34 at T-34 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia it's about 20% and 2.75 of course that's treating the vehicle as a rectangle.

A pilot once mentioned in another context: "The pk of the ground is 1". It's easier to spot a plane against the sky than a vehicle possibly in trees and you also have to worry about the trees and the ground. Less so about running into another plane. It's also easier to surprise another plane. It's been stated that a significant number of those shot down never saw the plane that shot them down.

 

LWD has pretty much covered point 1.

2. This of course depends on the type of war you are fighting, if the enemy are using fighter bombers to support a rapid advance and you are falling back, a mobility kill on one of your tanks effectively takes it out of the fight permanantly. It is only a temporary kill if you have the time and resources to recover it. Of course doctrine now is for another vehicle to stop, hitch up to the damaged vehicle and either pull or push it out of the contact, however I would imagine this could be a very interesting experience if you are being straffed at the same time.

3. Of course fighters can hit other fighters, however I am led to believe the majority of kills were either flukes/lucky shots from the side/top/bottom or carefully aimed shots from either above or below and to the rear. Assuming two fighters are moving at similar speeds and you are relatively close (which is pretty essential to accurate shooting) you would logically have a larger window in which to fire than if you were firing at a static vehicle which is moving towards you at speeds in excess of 200mph.

 

The distinction between fighter-bombers and dive bombers is made due to Wehrmacht tactical emphasis on strategic doctrine, which never existed amongst the Allies.
The deployment options are: schlachtgeschwader, schnellbomber, jadgbomber, zerst'rergeschwader, sturzkampfflueugzug.

The Typhoon fits into the roles of schnellbomber, jagdbomber, zerst'rerfleugzug or schlachtfleugzug, not sturzkampffleugzug. They are simply in a different class, their roles do not interdict and their deployment is under entirely different procedure and logistics.

The statement "fighter-bombers won in the end" is very limited and subjective and does not address any thread contention directly.

"Less accurate" using an aerial bomb to hit a small target (said to be a few square metres CEP for the Ju87B), for a fighter-bomber using reflector sights and no dive brakes is an understatement to say the least. Lucky to get anywhere near the target would be more commonly referred, very lucky indeed.
Rocket attacks are a different story, largely dependent upon the type.

 

I disagree, the distinction is made because they are entirely different aircraft which perform the same task in different ways, you seem to be suggesting that only the Germans came up with different categories of aircraft type which simply isn't the case, even the Allies knew the difference between a dive bomber and a fighter-bomber. That said, they were simply different means of achieving the same task be it infantry support or attacks on static installations. The Germans had different doctrine to the Allies, all this means is that they had different methods of accomplishing the same tasks and so comparison between the equipment used by each side to achieve these tasks remains valid.

I'm not sure how it is limited (if anything I would say it is a bit too sweeping and general to be honest) and as for subjective, the fighter-bomber has stood the test of time, the dive bomber has not. However much this may be down to the advent of smart-munitions (though arguably the battlefield record of aircraft like the A10 shows that ground attack performed in the same style as WW2 era fighter-bombers is more economical and effective than smart bombs) in part it must be recognised that the vulnerability of dive bombers to attack by fighters must be a factor. Fighter-bombers are more versatile and less vulnerable, this made them a significantly better option when it came to providing a weapon to perform ground attack operations on the battlefield.

I appreciate that maybe I was a bit unclear here, however I was referring to the accuracy of an attack in a more general sense, i.e. in the case of a fighter bomber an attack with rockets (which we can probably assume to be the most accurate munition they had available), cannon and so on. Basically what I meant was that even the most accurate attack with the most accurate kit available would be less accurate than that of a dive bomber, I do not however feel that with this qualification it remains an understatement.

On the other hand, as I said, however accurate a Stuka may be is irrelevant when it is sitting burning in a field near the target.

 

It should also be considered that the quantity, flexability, and speed with which the US and British armies could bring artillery fire support into play meant that they had far less need for direct support aircraft. The US Marine Corp on the other hand had one if not the most advanced doctines in regards to close support by aircraft in the world from the 30s on. So in essence the British and US artillery freed up their tactical aircraft to fly interdiction missions further back. This required different aircraft or at least had enough different requirements to favor different aircraft.

Again as has been noted earlier the dive bomber required at least contested air space to be able to perform it's mission and to be very successful needed air superiority.

 

I dont know why were are talking about bombs on the Ju 87, the cannons are what did the most killing and as mentioned were much more accurate.

 

Stefan, the tactical emphasis on strategic doctrine was never practised by the Allies.
Ground attack was only even assigned in conjunction with army planning officially from 1943, a short period in North Africa during 42 excepted. Even the US designation of tactical air forces did not describe a doctrine which stressed tactical means to achieve strategic objectives. Not at all. And I don't think at any time any Allied air force unit was actually assigned to army field commands or even in direct communication with them, excepting Soviet air armies from 1943.

Dive bombers and fighter-bombers do not perform the same task. A fighter-bomber is a fast bomber and attack model and is ideally suited to operating independently in contested air space. An excellent technological comparison is the Fw-190F and the Ju-87D, the first is faster at sea level with a ton of bombs than a P-47D flying clean, the second might get chased down by a Gloster Gladiator.
Tactical dive bombing and fighter-bomber operations cannot in fact be simplified to just tactical bombing, that's Allied doctrine, like an afterthought to strategic operations "Oh yeah, and let's make um, tactical air forces, you know for all the small stuff that flies." This doctrine was even abandoned by the Soviets, who went over to a more German style of independent series of fully comprehensive air army attachments directly to ground units in late 42.
Indeed however naval air forces tend to attempt making much more detailed use and classification of doctrine by Wing, with torpedo/level bombers, fighter/fighter-bombers and dive bombers specific technologies for specific deployment roles, though even here they are nowhere near as detailed in the sheer classification of roles as the Luftwaffe. No air force in the world was.

You have medium bomber formations, special purpose (transport) formations, interceptor-destroyer formations, close army support formations, short range fighter formations, fast bomber formations, ground attack formations (with anti-armour specialist squadrons), night fighter formations, intruder formations and special tactical development formations. And these are all just at the Geschwader level, each using unique engineering specifications and deployment strategum.
It is roughly concordant with the early Soviet doctrine of a strategic air force (transport), a long range bomber air force, a medium range bomber air force, a reconnaissance air force and a short range fighter and attack-bomber air force, in addition to naval aviation regiments (all changed in late 42 for being too unwieldy and centralised for adaptive tactical deployment...Luftwaffe doctrine maintained tactical emphasis by grouping Wings under Fliegerführer and thus forming indpendent air forces as needed).
The US had the Army Air Corps at the time, though developed the strategic and tactical air forces through the war. The RAAF had bomber command and fighter command (broken into wings or detachments for regional deployment), and of course ubiquitous units, a night fighter force and the Fleet Air Arm.
You see here the strategic doctrines begin to influence technological engineering requirements for specific deployment, and the kinds of roles which can be immediately undertaken and well. Allied doctrine is more ubiquitous at the Group level where German tends to be far more specialised.

The engineering requirements of a dive bomber is entirely different to a fighter-bomber. They are not the same class of aircraft and cannot be compared for technological superiority.

You may feel tactical dive bombing was superseded on the battlefield by fast bombers and attack aircraft and indeed this was the case for the most part in WW2.
In one sense this is like suggesting the cavalry charge was superseded by armoured warfare...but there's the odd thing. In Operation Saturn for example Red Army mounted cavalry units were used to great effect for trench clearing in mopping up exercises behind the main attack, since the tanks tended to leave numbers of enemy entrenched that they couldn't get to and move on.

What we're talking about is a specific tool and I repeatedly stress it is a tactical tool moreso than a technological one. It's a wrench you're trying to compare to a screwdriver and say one is better than the other. Well then it rather depends on the specific instance at hand. As mentioned tactical dive bombers absolutely require air superiority to act effectively, because they're sluggish and heavy compared to fighters. But they're also reliable as a swiss watch and have a high combat turnaround. During France Ju87 squadrons operated non stop from just before dawn to just after dusk, only 200 of the type fought in the campaigns from Poland to France and they had an impact well out of proportion to their number.

 

Another way of looking at it is that dive bombers are "heavy" artillery ideally suited for counterbattery and knocking out hard targets like fortifications, bridges or ships, in German doctrine a Stuka was a 420mm "Big Berta" with the mobility to keep up with the panzers. Fighter bombers, if trained to operate in conjuction with ground trops, are "light" artillery more effective against "soft" targets. Let's not forget the Germans also had specialized non dive bombers such as Hs123 and Hs126 in the ground attack role as well as the Stuka. And the Germans had splecialized ground support planes and units since WW1, even the Fw190F and Fw190G were not meant to be used as fighters but as pure attck planes with a self defence capability.
To knock out tanks you need a specialized plane, neither the bomb armed Stuka nor the allied fighter bombers were very good at it. Strangely enough the British abandoned the heavy cannon armed tank hunters after building the Hurricane IID an IV.
AFAIK the British dropped the specialized close support plane concept after the Fairey Battle disasters and the USAAF "A class" planes that did get mass produced (A20, A22, A26) were really light bombers, not true precision bombers like the navy ones, so the allied air forces ended up enphasizing tonnage dropped over precision even for tactical roles.

 

If I am not mistaken, weren't the Germans afraid of the Hawker Typhoons for the sheer amount of devastation that one of them could do? Especially since a single squadron catching a tank convoy in the open could wreck havoc on the entire line.

 

It's not at all clear to me what you mean by this. However as I have mentioned the USMC had probably the most advanced tactical air support doctrine in the world during the 30s and early 40s. As far as the US and British armies go they had the same needs as the German army however they found that flexible artillery did a better job of supporting front line troops than tac air did. The result was they saw little reason to use it to any great extent on the front line except perhaps in emergencies. Better to use it's longer range in the enemies rear.

 

They perform exactly the same task, they go out and destroy enemy equipment, vehicles or static locations by attacking them from the air, they are different ways of achieving this and so can be compared. To sit there and say 'you can't compare a Typhoon to a Stuka because they didn't do the same thing' is simply nonsense, Typhoons killed tanks, Stukas killed tanks, you compare how they performed at killing tanks. Typhoons had to defend themselves against other fighters, Stukas had to defend themselves against fighters, you can compare how they did. Just because they are different ways of destroying things on the battlefield and were coordinated in different ways, doesn't mean you can't compare them, that is like saying you can't compare say battleships and submarines as methods of attacking and destroying convoys.

Right, what you seem to be saying is that the allies and the axis hat different doctrine and so can't be compared. Well by that logic you can't compare allied and axis AFV's (for example) because they had different classes and different doctrines. Sorry for repeating myself but to say 'the Germans had a different way of deploying aircraft to destroy 'things' on the battlefield therefore you can't compare them to the allied equipment and tactics' is simply wrong.

Right, just for kicks I'll say it one more time, they are different ways of achieving exactly the same task, they can be compared in exactly the way you can compare any different technologies and their effectiveness. Submarines and Destroyers are different classes of ship entirely, I can still discuss which was better at destroying ships though.

Which is why all the armies of the world have maintained massive cavalry formations, or not as the case may be. Sure, Soviet cavalry showed that in certain situations it can be useful, it also showed itself to be incredibly vulnerable much of the time and so practically, in most battlefield situation is obsolete (and I am a cavalryman saying that). The RKKA, like most other armies, adapted it's doctrine to cope, cavalry was ditched because it was a less effective way of killing the enemy, the dive bomber was ditched for exactly the same reason. Both cavalry and dive bombers were excellent at achieving specific tasks under very specific circumstances and in excellent conditions, to my mind that is not a quality that makes something worth keeping if there is an alternative that is good most of the time.

Actually it is far more like comparing a screw and screwdriver to a hammer and nails and discussing which is the better method of fixing two bits of wood together, of course they have their advantages and disadvantages, are technologically different and have different 'doctrine' behind them, however ultimately if what you want is two pieces of wood fixed securely together you are best off with a screw.

'Dive bombers absolutely require air superiority,' do you realise how significant that means? Your reliable swiss watch means of destroying the enemy on the battlefield requires that the enemy has next to zero means of fighting back! That is like saying that your swiss watch is always 100% reliable as long as it always remains in its box.

It is very simple, if you want to destroy enemy vehicles on a battlefield using air power, you have a choice between a slow, hardly defended dive bomber which probably won't make it to the target if the enemy have fighters out but can be expected to destroy the target if[/if] it makes it there or you have a fast fighter which can look after itself, get to the target, have a bash at destroying it, get back and if it hasn't succeeded have another go because unlike the Stuka it hasn't been blown out of the sky on its first trip. I know which one I'd go for.

Honestly, I think our major stumbling block is what we see as the 'job' of these aircraft, ultimately it is to destroy enemy in the battle space by means of air attack, you can easily compare which is better at achieving this and I would argue that under the majority of conditions fighter bombers were better at this and that is why they remained when dive bombers were phased out.

 

IMO dive bombing was phased out because it's horribly vulnerable to AA not fighters, you can build a dive bomber that can defend itself but not if you use a less powerful engine compared to what you put in a fighter and then stick non fully retractable airbrakes, a fixed undercarriage and a ton of bombs to it, but that was a limitation of the Ju87 not of the dive bomber concept. SBDs that used basically the same engine as the USN fighter of the time, were more than capable in air to air combat, unloaded SBD were perfectly capable of intercepting the hopelessly underpowered Val.
What you cannot do is remove the vulnerability to AA in the dive phase that's inherrent in the dive bomber mode of operations, the German switch to low level ops in 1943 makes the point. Had the Germans built a second generation dive bomber around a BMW 801 the comparison would be easier, they chose to build the Fw190G that is not a fighter bomber in allied sense but an attack plane and would be classed A under the USAAF scheme.
A specialized plane and crew will be more effective, and for hitting point targets you need to be very effective, so I would pick the German or post war USN doctrine of specialized planes and squadrons over the USAF/RAF one of jack of all trades and masters of none. IMO the current doctrine with pilots taking multiple years to train is good for today's limited duration conflicts but cannot scale to a large conflict with high attrition rates, let's just hope it's never put to the test.

 

Allow me to extrapolate.

Hope that helps

You must understand Stefan that upon this point we have firmly differing contentions and therefore could only argue with continued discussion, which is unproductive.
I say apple, you say orange and that is that. You are wrong. You are saying this, and I am saying this and it is the only thing we agree upon. Let's call it a day

You see, I say German AFV's and Allied AFV's cannot be compared either (feller you really need to read up on early war British, French, Soviet, German and mid-war American armoured fighting doctrine). And it is entirely because of tactical and strategic doctrine, which dictates engineering requirements. It is not a matter of technology but a matter of desired technology and it is not that one technology is better than another but that an enviornment is more appropriate than another (ie. that a tactical doctrine worked out better than another once the environment changed). The rules changed for Germany several times, and Allied equipment was less a factor technologically than industrially, those are the realities.
Let the arguing begin, but I'd really rather not.

 

You are quite right, you seem to have this ridiculous idea that because two things are different you can't compare them which frankly makes no sense. By your logic you can't compare allied dive bombers to axis ones or indeed anything to anything else. You can't compare a German Mauser to a British Enfield because they are different weapons, were designed for different reasons and to be used with different doctrines.

This is a clearly false notion.

You rely too much on grand strategic and tactical aspects to such an extent that you ignore the basic purpose and function. The end goal is the same, there is nothing wrong with comparing different means of achieving it.

 

Extrapolate as in project past the data you have to support?

Not at all. It's gibberish as far as I'm concerned. Strategy and tactics are at two opposite ends of a spectrum. If strategy concentrates on tactics it isn't strategy. So it's still not clear what if anything this means.

 

There are several reasons dedicated dive bombers were phased out of service by land air forces, not just one.

1. The size of a dive bomber was necessarily limited. Yes, the He 177 was supposed to be capable of this but that feature was never used in operational service and likely would have been found dangerous to the crew and aircraft if repeatedly used.

2. Dive bombers have to be built to take the stresses involved in making a steep dive and the associated pullout. This restricts the airframe and increases its weight. The trade off is generally not worth the result.

3. Because dive bombers were limited in size (Ju 87, A-24/SBD, SB2C, etc.) they had limited payloads (typically just one large bomb and maybe a few small ones) and limited operational range. Everybody quickly found out that this was a massively bad combination of tactical limitations that made dive bombers of very limited value in land warfare. Essentially they were little more than tactical aircraft an largely, if not totally, worthless as offensive bombers as part of a strategic campaign.
The Germans discovered this with the Battle of Britain and then in North Africa and Russia. In each case the Ju 87 just didn't have the range to regularly carry the fight to the enemy. The USAAF dumped the A-24 for the same reason. A group in the SWPA proved so worthless it was quickly converted to other aircraft. A second group in North Africa went completely unused due to its short range.

4. The tactical advantages of increased accuracy were a trade off against the decreased utility of the dive bomber as a specialist aircraft. Fighter bombers like the Thunderbolt, Typhoon or, Fw 190F/G were a better buy. These were far more tactically flexible. They could act as first line fighters and defend themselves or operate as other fighters might (escort bombers, intercept, act as CAP etc.). They could deliver as much or more ordinance as a dive bomber even if not as accurately. They could perform dive bombing almost as well as a dedicated dive bomber when necessary. So, the specialist dive bomber had little value over these aircraft, if any.
In the naval realm, dive bombing remained a necessary function only because of the nature of the target to be engaged: Ships. These required pinpoint accuracy of bomb delivery so dive bombers were required to perform the mission.

Much of the German penchant for dive bombing came from a combination of factors. The precison of deliver appealed to the German mind apparently. It would have been seen as the "elegant" engineering solution to a problem. The aircraft were relatively cheap to produce so there could be alot of them in service. This appealed to Göring and the top Luftwaffe command who were more concerned about the size of their empire than its actual usefulness.
For everybody else, the dive bomber proved a limited, short lived specialist weapon that saw limited service. Even the Germans came to realize that dive bombing had its limitations even if it took them awhile to figure it out.

 

Gentelman:

As a supported person by P 47 in Holland. If you are light troops and thwe enemy is trying to locate you with light recon assets a P-47 covering foce is an asset beyou value. Their eight (8) .50 caliber machineguns were lethal to German Recon Vehicles by September 18 we a decent collection of destroyed armored cars and half tracks.

We owe the flyboys on this one.

As Ever,

Walter L. Marlowe

Airborne All the Way)

 

Thanks for sharing, Mr. Marlowe. I have a dramatic image in my head now