WIX Archives
Re: Not True!
Posted by JDK on Sat Nov 08, 2003 01:18:02 PM
In reply top Not True! posted by Joe Scheil on Sat Nov 08, 2003 12:13:49 AM
Hi Joe and Jeff,
I don't think we disagree, but you've misunderstood what I was trying to say.
If the Germans had won, the Stuka would have been better preserved (not the best, but it compares to, say, the Hurricane in it's preservation cycle). That's all; not why, how or who, or even if that's a good idea!
I wasn't saying anything about Allied dive bomber survivors - I was saying that the Allies (apart from the USN) decided that dive bombers were a bad idea - and they were wrong.
Why? ALL 'bomber / attack' aircraft are vulnerable to fighters (noteable exception being the Mozzie, but even that was caught eventually) What is almost always overlooked was the effect that Stukas had in the Med on the Royal Navy and merchant shipping.
More importantly, as a unique type, the Stuka (both machine and concept) were the fundimental part of Blizkrieg from Spain, through Poland, France and on the eastern front. Sure, they needed air superiority - but who doesn't? The air superiority lesson goes back to 1916 - the pinpoint dive bomer strike was a (new) Blitzkrieg and navy concept, and I stand by my point - for that reason alone, the Stuka is one of W.W.II's most important aircraft, and often overlooked.
Just another one - anyone turning up at a W.W.II airshow with a Stuka and screaming down to the show from Stuka attack pattern would get a lot more attention than another flight of P-51s, though I agree it's a truck! So's the Spad!
Please bear in mind I'm trying to sumarise a book length argument, so I'm aware of exceptions, caviats etc - just take a moment to think about what a/c were vital to the prosecution of war in 1940. (All the fighters could be replaced by another type of good fighter) - only the Stuka had no peer - only another (indeed, the SBD perhaps) dive bombr would do. That's Peter C Smith's case and mine!
Thanks for listening,
Cheers
James