Eagle Days: Life and Death for the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Larry

Out of interest when was the first use of the Ju 87 Stuka over the UK in WW2. Somewhere I had seen rumours that Stukas attacked HMS Nelson in Scapa Flow, without result in Sptember 1939, as if the Luftwaffe was doing the same thing to our shipping as Bomber Command tried to do on Northern German ports in Sept 1939. Where would these Stukas fly from, for an attack on Orkney?

A Ju 87 B with a 500 kg bombload had a radius of action of 250 km. Per Google Earth, it's 500 km from Stavanger in Norway to Scapa Flow which is the closest point but the Germans didn't get there until April 1940.

P.S. A Ju 87 R (which I don't think was available until early 1940) had a range of 1180–1320 km with a 500 kg bomb and two droptanks, depending on altitude and engine settings. To get a radius of action, the practice was to divide the max. range by three, so we're talking about 400–440 km., still not enough.