Jabos vs true dive bombers

[simshell]

i dont know much about this subject but in WW2 they had squads flying JU87s and SBDs just for dive bombing and they were i would think be alot better

but in AH Jabos can almost do as better with way more bombs was this true in RL?

could a P51D do near as good as a SBD? in RL  or just cause way more damg

[VO101_Isegrim]

IMHO the greatest difference was pilot experience and training. 'Jabo' pilots themselves seldom received any serious bombing training, or bombed enemy ground units on regular manner. Their true bomber comrades did all that.

But in the game, with some time everyone can learn quite enough in the art of bombing, so player who fly fighters are not lacking bombing experience, like their real world counterparts.

[ra]

Whatever the difference in accuracy may have been, by the end of the war the dive-bomber had been pretty much replaced by the fighter-bomber.   The dive-bomber was a pre-war idea that prooved to be unnecessarily specialized.

[Sikboy]

Originally posted by simshell
i dont know much about this subject but in WW2 they had squads flying JU87s and SBDs just for dive bombing and they were i would think be alot better

but in AH Jabos can almost do as better with way more bombs was this true in RL?

could a P51D do near as good as a SBD? in RL  or just cause way more damg

In order to understand the utility of divebombers, you kind of have to look at the early war. When SBDs and Ju87s were making a big impact on the battlefield, fighters were (generally) unable to carry the same bombload. Compare the 109e to the Ju87 or F4F to SBD.

As the war progressed the role of the divebomber lessened. By wars end, divebombers didn't have much of a role, since their function could be carried out by fighter/bombers.

I also think that the specilization in training for ground attack versus air combat helped solidify bomber units, and keep planes like the Helldiver in business all the way to wars end.

-Sik

[Tony Williams]

Dive bombers were inherently more accurate, because the steeper your dive, the more precisely you can place the bomb (especially when given a proper dive-bomb sight rather than just a gunsight).

Ju 87 Stuka crews could place bombs with an average miss distance of only 30 metres. Hawker Typhoon fighter-bombers could only achieve an average miss distance of 120 metres, and other fighter-bombers would probably have been much the same.

Fighter-bombers took over because they were more versatile and could defend themselves against enemy fighters - and air forces love versatility. Exactly the same argument is going on at present within the US armed forces between the USAF - which has long wanted to scrap the A-10 'Tankbuster' and replace it with multipurpose F-16s - and the Army, which points out that the A-10 can do the close support job far better than any F-16.

Dive bombers remained important in navies during WW2 because their ability to drop one very heavy bomb with great precision was needed in the anti-shipping role.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion
forum