No, the Luftwaffe never used Ju87s to attack B-17s. There is absolutely no evidence or record of Ju87s being used to intercept B-17s over Germany other than some comment from a B-17 radio operator that claimed he saw a "Ju87 Stacey" drop bombs during a bomber raid.
Yet another myth created by Martin Caiden. "Black Thursday" has reference to Ju-87s opposing the October 1943 Schweinfurt raid. One of those "they were throwing the kitchen sink at us" things that intrigued the man.Not surprising that it has become accepted lore.- oldman
I believe "Gabelschwanzteufel" can't be pinned on Caiden, either. Have seen reference to it (or to "fork-tailed devil", cant remember which) in the P-38 handbook of August '45.
FLOOB,Some years back someone posted info from an FW190 A8 pilot's memoirs. I followed the link to read it. I think there was maybe two full time A8 groups with the MK108 wing mounted who fought the bomber streams. From what I remember, the pilot said his group would stand off about 1100m and a bit high. Then fire their MK108 at the bombers outside of the tail gunners range. Their goal was to have the self destruct fuse detonate the round near the bombers. The self destruct fuse for the Mine shell was an 1100m fuse.As for the mentioning of four engine aircraft standing off from the black Thursday raid. I read years ago from a luft memoir that FW200 stood off to lob their front facing 20mm at the bombers. Chemical potential rounds are pretty much range insensitive versus kinetic potential rounds. Even the MG FF had about a 1000m range.
Bustr chimed in over in the other thread...
And germans 80 years old don't have as bad of memories as americans?? We may need to start a thread that collects WW2 memoirs and debunks them. I had no reason not to believe what I read. Maybe we should just begin saying all of the pilots from ww2 fudged their memoirs for reasons unspecified. That seems to be what this is boiling down to.
USAAF bombers wouldn't always fly above 20,000 feet. Against some targets they would fly as low as 15,000 feet for better accuracy. Usually on shorter missions over France or the Low Countries though, not Germany.