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.

[Jim Oxley]

Originally Posted by Graham Boak

So is the ideal release height for a divebomber judged on maximum penetration, or maximum accuracy?

That really is a very interesting question Graham that you have posed. Another might be did the drop height vary depending on the type of bomb load carried?

I have a number of books on dive bombers - Vultee, Ju87, SBD, D3A etc, but none of them actually address your question.

I wonder if anyone knows the answer?

[Juha]

Hello Jim
in the end it was up to pilot. When Barracudas dive bombed Tirpitz in 44, they used 1600 lb AP bombs, they were ordered to drop at certain height so that bombs could get enough speed before hitting and so be able to penetrate the armoured deck of Tirpitz but pilots dropped their bombs lower than ordered in order to max the number of hits, they got some hits but impact velocities were too low to armour deck penetrations so bombs exploded on armoured deck, some might even exploded before the armoured deck but of course inside Tirpitz. Not time to check exact number of hits and where they exploded but that info should be available in any good books on Tirpitz.

Juha

[Jim Oxley]

Thanks for that info Juha. So are you saying that there was no 'doctrine' as such for dropping bombs? Rather just advice or directions?

[Juha]

Hello Jim
No, what I’m saying is that the info on target specified the load and release height but in the end it’s up to pilots. They seemed to prefer maximum accuracy. Why, you guess is as good as mine. Possibilities: the reason of attack is getting hits, it’s frustrating to risk one life in attack and miss, it’s more macho to release at low level than at high level. See British comments on 10 Jan attack against Illustrious, all seem to admire the low height releases by Stuka pilots, they dived so low. It is part of military ethos to take risks to achieve results, dropping bombs higher is safer and so also less admired among pilots, whatever higher hierarchy says. That’s true also generally among young men, one of the reasons why more young men die in traffic accidents than young women.

Juha