STUKA - THE LUFTWAFFE'S TRUE DIVE BOMBER

摘要

The Stuka flew operationally with the Luftwaffe as far north as Norway, as far south as North Africa, as far east as the Soviet Union and as far west as Spain and flew with Germany's allies namely Italy, Romania and Bulgaria. It was the brainchild of Karl Plauth, who was killed in an accident in 1927, and Hermann Pohlmann. Initially they designed a dive bomber that was both simple and robust, the Junkers A 48 which first underwent testing as early as September 1928. With the rise of the Nazis the idea of dive bombers began to gather pace, with Henschel producing the Hs 123 in competition to Junkers. However, the one-man Hs 123 was all but obsolete by 1940. Junkers then further modified its design with double vertical stabilisers and a double spar inverted gull wing, something that made the eventual Ju 87 so distinctive, albeit the Ju A 48, intended for civil use, and the military Ju K 47, bore little resemblance to Junkers' final Stuka.