Junkers JU87 "STUKA"



The Junker 87 Stuka is a flying legend, both because she was a real weapon of the Blitzkrieg and also due to the legend around this plane... When you read book's or stories about the WWII you can have a strange feeling, and you can pose the question Is the JU87 the sole german plane???
If you talk with people wich have living during the war all say the word " Stuka " with a sort of frighten.

The reality was certainly between these attitude.. Yes the " Stuka " was an important plane for the history of WWII but it's not so important!

Developped during 1935 in fact the JU87 is near to be obsolete when the war began. After the success during the Spanish War , she take part ath the battle of Polland and overtook the valliant polish army rapidly outnumbered without reaction of other european nation
Again in the Nederland Campaign and Belgium campaign the " Stuka " eradicate the strong points.

Things began to change during the French campaign during may/june 1940, english and french fighters are serious adversairs but once again the germans wins, but the Stuka have succeed only because the german fighters are omnipresents in sky.

During the battle of brittain the " Stuka " succeed in naval interdiction in the Channel, but soon the targets are inside the lands of Great Brittain things change, front of Hurricane and Spitfire and with a fighter escort which can stay no longer than 20 minutes over the Great Britain, the " Stuka " is an easy target, slow and wekly armed .
The Luftwaffe loss so many JU87 during early weeks of the Battle of Brittain that she was simply put off the first line.Golden age of " Stuka " is at his end

Against URSS in the Balkans or in Crete the " Stuka " know again real succes, but never she was the winner of great battles.

Technically the " Stuka " have been especially designed for dive-bombing purpose, this bombing technic was very polpular just before war and seem to give very good results.

She's a low wing monoplane with a particular " W " shaped wings, this shape was used to have space under the belly to fit heavy bombs, and keep a reasonable under-gear high, also the shape increased the lateral stability of plane.


As she was a dive bomber and one engine plane the " Stuka " must have special equipment, like the forks which lead the bomb out the propeller circle during the drop of the bomb.
After the Spanish war and several accident an automatic system pull back the stick without pilot intervention.The acceleration created by dive at angle between 70 and 80 ° are really awfull for the pilots .

The early model of JU87 receive the Rolls Royce Kestrel Engine, quicly replaced by the Junkers Jumo 210, later the model B was fitted with the Jumo 211 Da direct fuel injection wich is less sensible to the acceleration during dive.
At the beginning of war 9 " StukaGruppen " was equipped with the JU87B-1, the RLM want to stop the production of JU87 but there's no replacement plane so the production go on, and several times during the war the end of production was decided but always be maintened facing the lack of replacement plane. This erratic sheme of production don't let time for Junkers to finish the project JU187 .

Many improvments was introduced during the production of the JU87 most of time to increase armament and load of bombs.

The model B-1 carries 1 x 500kg on center rack and 4 x 50kg under wings; fixed guns are 2 x 7,92mm MG17 in wings and 1 x 7,92mm MG15 in rear cockpit.


The models D-1, D-5 have a twin 7,92mm MG81 in rear place, the load of bomb was up to 1800kg

The model G-1 " tank buster " was designed with the help of one of the best Stuka's pilot Hans Ruedel. This model was fitted with 2 X 37mm BK 3.7 (Flak 18 or Flak 36) carried under wing each gun have 15 shots to fire.
With this model of Stuka Hans Ruedel score 2000 kill of russian tanks. ( and also the cruiser " Marat " but with a 1000kg bomb)


The model D-4 have 2 battery of 6 7,92mm MG81 under wings

The total number of " Stuka " built was 5709 units of all type