Junkers Ju 87 B-2 Stuka

The idea of the steep dive

In the early 1930s the most reliable way to hit a small target was to dive at it almost vertically and release the bomb low. Ernst Udet watched Curtiss dive bombers being demonstrated in the United States in 1933 and had two bought; the idea found supporters in the German Air Ministry.

The aircraft Hermann Pohlmann drew at Junkers had an inverted gull wing, which allowed a short, strong undercarriage and gave a good view downwards, fixed spatted wheels, and dive brakes under the wings. The first prototype flew in 1935 with a British Rolls-Royce Kestrel engine; in January 1936 its twin tail failed in a dive and the aircraft crashed. Production aircraft got a single, large fin.

How a Stuka dived

Over the target the pilot rolled the aircraft over, put the nose down, opened the dive brakes and dived at between 60 and 90 degrees; lines on the side of the canopy showed the dive angle. The bomb hung under the fuselage on a crutch that swung it down and clear of the propeller.

Once the bomb was released a few hundred metres up, an automatic pull-out system brought the aircraft out of the dive by itself, so it recovered even if the pilot briefly blacked out under the high g. Small propeller-driven sirens on the undercarriage legs, the “Jericho trumpets”, rose to a scream during the dive and terrified those on the ground.

Blitzkrieg and Britain

The Stuka was tried out in the Spanish Civil War. In Poland in 1939 and France in 1940, with the Luftwaffe in control of the sky, it was very effective in close support of the ground forces and became the symbol of the Blitzkrieg.

The Battle of Britain showed the other side: against Hurricanes and Spitfires the slow Stukas were very vulnerable, above all as they pulled out of their dives. After heavy losses in August 1940 they were withdrawn from attacks on Britain.

The Eastern Front and after

The Stuka served until the end of the war. The more powerful, more heavily armoured D version bore the brunt of ground support on the Eastern Front, and the G version, with two 37 mm cannon under the wings, became a tank hunter. Where air superiority was lost, it was used more and more for night attacks. Italy, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria also flew Stukas.