The Junkers Ju 87, popularly known as the “Stuka”, is a German dive bomber and ground-attack aircraft. Designed by Hermann Pohlmann, it first flew in 1935. The Ju 87 made its combat debut in 1937 with the Luftwaffe’s Condor Legion during the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939 and served the Axis in World War II from beginning to end (1939–1945).
The aircraft is easily recognisable by its inverted gull wings and fixed spatted undercarriage. Upon the leading edges of its faired main gear legs were mounted ram-air sirens known as Jericho trumpets, which became a propaganda symbol of German air power and of the so-called Blitzkrieg victories of 1939–1942, as well as providing Stuka pilots with audible feedback as to speed. The Stuka’s design included several innovations, including automatic pull-up dive brakes under both wings to ensure that the aircraft recovered from its attack dive even if the pilot blacked out from the high g-forces, or suffered from target fixation.
The Ju 87 operated with considerable success in close air support and anti-shipping roles at the outbreak of World War II. It led air assaults during the Invasion of Poland in September 1939. Stukas proved critical to the rapid conquest of Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France in 1940. Though sturdy, accurate, and very effective against ground targets, the Stuka was, like many other dive bombers of the period, vulnerable to fighter aircraft. During the Battle of Britain of 1940–1941, its lack of manoeuvrability, speed, or defensive armament meant that it required a heavy fighter escort to operate effectively.
After the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe deployed Stuka units in the Balkans Campaign, the African and the Mediterranean theatres and in the early stages of the Eastern Front war, where it was used for general ground support, as an effective specialised anti-tank aircraft and in an anti-shipping role. Once the Luftwaffe lost air superiority, the Stuka became an easy target for enemy fighters, but it continued being produced until 1944 for lack of a better replacement. By 1945 ground-attack versions of the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 had largely replaced the Ju 87, but it remained in service until the end of the war in 1945.
Germany built an estimated 6,000 Ju 87s of all versions between 1936 and August 1944.
Hans-Ulrich Rudel’s Ju 87 G-1 in May 1944
The Ju 87’s principal designer, Hermann Pohlmann, held the opinion that any dive-bomber design needed to be simple and robust. This led to many technical innovations, such as the retractable undercarriage being discarded in favor of one of the Stuka’s distinctive features, it’s fixed and “spatted” undercarriage. Pohlmann continued to carry on developing and adding to his ideas and those of Dipl Ing Karl Plauth (Plauth was killed in a flying accident in November 1927) and produced the Ju A 48, which underwent testing on 29 September 1928. The military version of the Ju A 48 was designated the Ju K 47.
General Characteristics
Crew: 2
Length: 11.10 m (36 ft 5 in)
Wingspan: 13.805 m (45 ft 3.5 in)
Height: 4.01 m (13 ft 2 in)
Wing area: 31.900 m2 (343.37 sq ft)
Airfoil: Göttingen 256
Empty weight: 2,712 kg (5,980 lb)
Empty equipped weight: 2,760 kg (6,090 lb)
Max takeoff weight: 4,336 kg (9,560 lb)
Powerplant: 1 × Junkers Jumo 211Da V-12 inverted liquid-cooled piston engine, 890 kW (1,200 hp) for take-off
820 kW (1,100 hp) at 1,500 m (4,920 ft)
Propellers: 3-bladed Junkers constant-speed propeller
Performance
Maximum speed: 339.6 km/h (211.0 mph, 183.4 kn) at sea level
383 km/h (238 mph; 207 kn) at 4,087 m (13,410 ft)
Cruise speed: 209 km/h (130 mph, 113 kn) at 4,572 m (15,000 ft)
Range: 595.5 km (370.0 mi, 321.5 nmi) with 500 kg (1,102 lb) bomb
789 km (490 mi; 426 nmi) without bomb load
Rate of climb: 2.3 m/s (450 ft/min)
Time to altitude: 1,000 m (3,281 ft) in 2 minutes
2,000 m (6,562 ft) in 4 minutes 18 seconds
3,716 m (12,190 ft) in 12 minutes
Armament
Guns: 2× 7.92 mm (0.31 in) MG 17 machine gun forward, 1× 7.92 mm (0.31 in) MG 15 machine gun to rear
Bombs: 1× 250 kg (550 lb) bomb beneath the fuselage and 4× 50 kg (110 lb) under-wing.
Top Photo: Ju 87 Bs over Poland, September/October 1939; Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-1987-1210-502 / Hoffmann, Heinrich / CC-BY-SA 3.0
Sources: Wikipedia; YouTube