We have all seen those documentaries and videos of Stuka’s attacking
to the narrator talking about pinpoint accuracy and so on.
This has led to the belief that the Stuka was a very precise tool, able to consistently lob
bombs right into the target but there is never any data shown to you, the audience that proofs this.
Luckily for us, I go to the German military archives, I can read German and I have data.
There are two things they won’t tell you in those documentaries regarding the Ju 87.
First, the footage is original propaganda footage – it’s curated
by the German propaganda ministry to give the audience a specific image of the plane. Yes,
that includes the footage in the background – keep this in mind as you are watching it. This
is what German propaganda wanted the audience to see. Too many documentaries or YT videos do not
critically evaluate this or the effect such images have in our conception and memory of the war.
Second, and this is my pet peeve - they keep showing you that famous half-roll-inverted
backflip of the Ju 87, yes, this thing – it’s even on Wikipedia! Evidence suggests
that this is basically for display purposes only, it is not practical. The dive-bombing
manual even advises against it. Also, a half roll forces the pilot
to fight against the automatic trim setting of the dive recovery system that activates
as the dive-breaks extend, making it even less practical as I have shown in a previous video.
In short, forget about the History Channel and let’s get hands on with
the real primary sources. And I know you love them because……all of you glorious supporters made our
last crowdfunder for the Stukabook happen! …all of you glorious supporters made our last
crowdfunder for the Stukabook happen! The book is bursting from the seams with
primary data and exactly to the day one year ago we signed off on the final manuscript,
sent the book to print and then to all of you! To celebrate this, we have a 25% discount on
our standard copy until the 20th March if you buy directly via the link in the description.
If you ever want to pick up a book about the Ju 87 dive-bomber, get this one.
There are many aspects that influence accuracy. Next to the pilots training,
there is experience and intuition, the planning as well as reconnaissance of the target before
the attack, the tactics used during the attack, the intensity of AA fire from enemy defenses,
metrological conditions like clouds and wind, and also the pilots morale.
Since it is heavily dependent on individual circumstance and context, it is impossible to
get a clean average on this – but we have clean data that deals with accuracy requirements to
check out as a Stuka pilot. Arguably training is the most important element as it sets the
foundation for everything else and because we have data, it can also be qualified accordingly.
Let’s grab our book and there we see on page 118 – 120 that Ju 87 pilots had to check out
in three different training exercise with accuracy requirements. Actually,
y’all take a piece of paper and write down what you think was the maximum distance a Stuka pilot
was allowed to be from a target center, and the average distance he was supposed
to achieve. And then we compare at the end. These are the Preliminary, Main and Unit exercises
(Vorübungen, Hauptübungen and Übungen im Verband). The exercise got progressively more difficult.
Students were partitioned into II. Instruction group and I. Instruction group (II. Wurfklasse
/ I. Wurfklasse), needing to check out from the II. Group in his first training
year [October to September] to pass into the I. Group, where he finally graduated
when fulfilling the accuracy requirements. Attack altitude was usually around 3000m or
more and bomb release was usually around 700m. These are generally flown at an
angle of 70°. This was deemed as the best attack angle for the Ju 87 – yes,
not 90° but 70° - as it balanced out accuracy, speed and survivability for the dive-bomber.
Attacks were carried out against a target cross with a center or a 50*50m target square.
The following are the accuracy results required by both instruction groups for the eight preliminary
exercises. For II. Group, depending on the task, the practice bomb is not to impact
further from the target center than 100-80m, with the average not above 55-40m. For the I. Group,
this drops to a maximum distance of 75-70m, with an average distance of 45-30m. As you can see,
the main concern is to decrease the maximum distance to the target.
For the main exercises, the respective requirements were 80-70m max distance
and an average of 50-40m, and 70m max with an average of 40-30m respectively.
On attacks against a target square of 50*50m, the requirements were 80m or 70-60m max respectively,
with one hit on the target with any of the three carried bombs.
The attacks against the target square are the only ones with live bombs.
The unit exercises are the most complex but focus more on unit cohesion during the attack,
rather than honing the skill of the pilot in terms of accuracy. Here the requirements for
a unit of usually three Ju 87s is a max distance of 80-70m on any bomb, with an average of 50-45m.
The maximum elapsed time of impact between the first and the last bomb is 30-25sec. One of these
exercises is to be flown with live bombs. On attacks against a 50*50m target square,
the max distance is 70m with one hit on target by the unit.
To sum this up, as a rule of thumb, to graduate a Ju 87 pilot should never
throw further than 70m from the target centre and on average be within 40m,
plus be able to maintain unit cohesion. Let me know how close you were in the comments below.
Depending on what you thought the accuracy was, you may now consider the Ju 87 crew
requirements to be a lot more accurate, or a lot less accurate than anticipated.
Of course, there will be cases where Ju 87s were able to destroy a pinpoint target like a tank or a
small bunker with a dive-bombing attack – but the German conception of the Ju 87 in the early war
was not at all concerned with such small targets. Instead, the Ju 87 was conceptualized as simply
a more accurate bomber – so traditional bomber aircraft dropping ordinance from the horizontal.
Nothing explains this better than a single line in the main instructional file for the Ju 87, where
it calls the Ju 87 the ‘Scharfschütze unter den Kampffliegern’ – the sniper amongst the bombers.
We can also see this clearly in the intended targets for the plane. Te main list includes
static or area targets as part of interdiction or even strategic efforts, albeit that they are
smaller than what could be reliably destroyed by traditional bombers without the use of
extensive resources. Only in the extended list do moving targets start to appear.
With this fixation on relatively small, fixed targets – the accuracy requirements make sense.
If we have a single bomb consistently within a 50x50m square and not beyond 70m from the target,
you can see how this enables the Ju 87 to fulfill its task -especially once you factor in multiple
aircraft. At the same time, soft area targets like artillery positions or convoys would be
endangered through bomb blast and shrapnel, even if you can’t achieve a direct hit.
At the same time it also demonstrates that the Luftwaffe understood that hitting small,
nimble targets like tanks was exceedingly difficult. Not just because their comparatively
small size but they are also more difficult to visually acquire at altitudes above 3000m than
static targets – crews tended to look out more for track marks than trying to spot the physical tank.
Of course we can factor in damage or morale, and the later low-altitude sorties that Ju 87s
flew first with bombs as Schlachtflieger, and then transitioning to cannon pods,
but I don’t want to get too sidetracked here because there is little data on that.
One caveat I want to add is ships. Ships are fairly large and fit reasonably well
within the accuracy requirements of a Ju 87. Sturzkampfgeschwader consistently claimed high
tonnage figures for sunk ships. However, at least from my examination of this – cross referencing
specific Ju 87 claims vs actual ship sunk figures in German and British primary sources,
the success appears far more limited than commonly claimed. You’ll find more of that
and many other things in the book – perhaps I’ll make a follow up video at some point.
The effect of the Ju 87 was to combine a, for the time, reasonably high degree of
accuracy with a significant enough payload and bomb saturation, sometimes paired with
the element of surprise to then deliver results that other platforms could not deliver at the
time with the same investment of resources. In that sense, it was accurate and fulfilled
the intended role – but that doesn’t mean that it was the precursor of a maverick missile.
When attacking fixed targets the results of the Ju 87 tended to be enough to heavily
damage or outright destroy the target. Even if the target was not destroyed,
the damage would necessitate repairs on the ground, seriously impairing the movement of
units or supplies, while ground units may be injured or have their morale shattered.
These effects tend to be more common than outright destruction of individual bunkers,
tanks or trenches, though they are also much harder to quantify and qualify which is why
they are often forgotten in a media world where YT videos, newspapers, media channels,
documentaries, movies, series and videogames focus mainly on the pure numbers game.
Big thank you to all the people that made this book a reality, we are really happy with the
feedback we got and it is really satisfying to know there is so much interest out there
for new research putting those primary sources front and center. If you want to pick it up,
remember 25% off directly via the link in the description – no not on Amazon – directly via
the link until March 20. Let us know what you think of the book, thank you to RealTimehistory
for their support with providing footage for this video, have a great day and see you in the sky.