Stukas and HMS Illustrious.

[Graham Boak]

This would depend upon whether the bomb had enough time to reach its terminal velocity. Dropped from medium altitude, level bombers presumed, this would be so. Dropped from lower altitudes, it might not. For a given lower altitude, the bomb dropped from a Stuka would initially have a greater speed than one dropped from a Swordfish, so from very low altitudes it would have greater penetrating power from a Stuka than a Swordfish, but still less than from a bomb that had reached its terminal velocity. However, the whole point of the dive brakes on a Stuka is to maintain a slow speed in a dive: the actual difference may be less than we would assume.

Bearing in mind that the RN's expected dive bomber was not the Swordfish but the Skua, I doubt that there would be any difference in the release speed achieved or assumed.

So is the ideal release height for a divebomber judged on maximum penetration, or maximum accuracy? I presume the latter. In which case the energy on impact would be less than that dropped from a medium altitude bomber, but the chances of a hit that much greater. As demonstrated.