[Juha]

Hello Tony
Quote:” “could place their 500-lb bombs within 15 yds of the target”. (Peter C Smith, “Vengeance”, page 75). This was because the Vengeance dived at 90 degrees with nil angle of incidence at a terminal velocity of 320 mph. Spitfire fighter-bombers, Bombphoons and Typhoons firing RPs could not achieve anything like this accuracy, as Fighter Command had discovered in January 1943 when Mustangs and Typhoons were sent against a mockup of a German divisional artillery of 48 guns and inflicted only 'negligible damage', …”

What was mean accuracy of the fighter-bombers in Jan 43 test? After all, Finns with limited experience with Stukas, in 41 while attacking with their support and in late 44 as their targets, seems to have concluded that Stuka was mostly a moral weapon, when used against troops, in fact that was also what Heer told them. Ju-87s didn’t do so much material damage but terrorised effectively troops unused to them. During summer 44 Gruppe sized attacks of Stukas were clearly better moral-risers to defending Finnish troops than Staffel sized attacks made by Fw 190 fighter-bombers, mostly because much higher flying slower Ju 87s were seen by much larger number of Finns and Soviets were probably able to put more AA against them than against lower flying much faster Fw 190s. But both were able to knock-out bridges.

Dive-bombers with well trained crews were effective against ships but tanks were generally too small and hard targets even for them, that’s why LW went to Ju-87G. Maybe RAF did a mistake that it didn’t employ some sqns of Typhoons with Vickers 40mm “S” guns, they could have handled vast majority of German AFVs. Only Tigers and Jagdpanthers would have been too thick skinned for them during Normandy fighting. “S” gun was much more accurate than RP and Typhoon would have been able to carry some extra armour while carrying two “S” guns.

Juha