Response to Glider and Juha.

[glider1]

Originally Posted by Kurfürst

And why is that? The problem with the 2nd TAF's fighter bombers were three-fold:

1, Complete lack of armor protection making their operations highly risky
2, Lack of accurate delivery of ordonance to target
3, Lack of the ability to carry suitable ordonance

None of these above problems exists in the case of dive bombing, armored Stukas dropping 1800 kg bombs, for example. FBs could fire up trucks and other soft targets on the roads, but there was a clear gap in ability in the West between shooting up things that couldn't shoot back, and and smashing big targets like marshalling yards and railroad junctions.

1, The Typhoon did carry a respectable amount of armour. There are photos in the 2TAF of Typhoons with the armoured sides, one after crash landing
2 Comments have been made about the failure of the JU87 when attacking bridges
3 The 2TAF had the ability to deliver any weapons needed and those it didn’t have the ability to destroy could be given to the Heavies to carry out up to and including the Tallboys

If you mean from interception, it's true - but it's also true for bomb-laden Typhons or any other fighter bombers, they are easy targets for opposing fighters, being both slow and unmanouverable and if they drop their bombs to engage, its a mission kill.

I certainly agree that intercepting the Typhoon would be a mission kill, the difference of course is that the Ju87 or IL2 when intercepted had a significant chance of being an aircraft kill, not just a mission kill

But, appearantly every air force in the world in convinced that speed does not make up for the lack of armor - a few hits will be always scored. The Soviets had their Sturmoviks, the Germans choose to up armor their Stukas, Hs 129s and Fw 190s for ground attack task, and the trend is still present today - see the massively armored A-10 and Su 25

When was the last time you saw an A10 or Su25 being operated where they didn’t have control of the air? Also, when I last counted it was ONE western air arm (hardly every airforce in the world) that went down this route and even here, the US Marines who know a thing or two about Ground Attack, went for the Harrier not a naval version of the A10.