Agreed. Howintheheck did Rudel fly over 2000 sorties? How? To me it is just amazing. Beyond the ken of human understanding.

Really, folks. To read his record is to know you are perusing the record of the greatest, most unusual and amazing combat pilot of all time. And he flew a STUKA? How did he do it?

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Rick "Slick" Land

As I said, there were a couple of pilots who nearly approached Rudel's record of missions flown, but most changed to Fw 190F in 1943.
My personal favorite is Ernst Druschel, who flew Hs 123 biplanes until 1943 and changed to Fw 190F then. He was killed by german flak during Operation Bodenplatte.
Druschel not only flew a thousand sorties in an open Biplane, but also shot down six soviet fighters with it...

From the excerpt included above, I gather that the pilots intended to increase their speed by an early jettisoning of their landing gear. Would be a nice feature in IL-2 as long as the appropriate model of Stuka is used.

i have that same book.. Aces Against Germany.. and its great. lots of true action and excitement in it. thanks, Dbond for reminding me of it, i got it out and re-read it. good stuff.

beowolff

[QUOTE]Originally posted by beowolff29:
[B]i have that same book.. Aces Against Germany.. and its great. lots of true action and excitement in it. thanks, Dbond for reminding me of it, i got it out and re-read it. good stuff.


You re-read it in a day?

Hey HD, do you have the book? It's pretty good. If you do, then remember that it is in a series of like, chapters, covering guys as the war progressed. Lots of good stuff on Big Week and the uselessness of Fighter Sweeps in getting the Jerries to come up and fight.

If you don't, then get it. Really good. Anyway, it lends itself to just reading a chapter or two, and doesn't need to be read sequentially.

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Rick "Slick" Land

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[This message has been edited by DBond (edited 09-07-2002).]

exactly, Slick... i read that chapter over that Dbond was referring to.. real good stuff. but since he (Dbond) reminded me of the book, i'm going to keep it out and go back over the whole thing.

also, i know this isn't IL2 related, but there is another book, "American Aces Against Japan" that I believe is from the same guy...oh yeah, its good too!

Beowolff

I must get reading again (a visit to Beer's Books, a used book shop here is a must for today).

I am getting curious (cuz we will have a flyable Stuka) about evasive tactics.. those I have seen offline (only place I fly) seem to have a very gutsy commitment to keeping formation, at least until the dive. Perhaps there is more information in the references above.. I will look for them.

One action in offline flying that amazed me (for it was outside my knowledge) was to see a flight of Ju 88s dive on a bridge. I had thought of it as only a level bomber. Was this a strategy developed due to circumstance or a consideration of the original design?

I guess more reading will determine.

Thanks for the references.

Corvid

The Ju 88 was designed as a dive bomber from the start. In some ways, it was a more effective Stuka than the Ju 87. It was more stable in a dive and much better protected. It also had automatic dive recovery, while in the Stuka the pilot had to pull out himself (the Stuka originally had automatic recovery, too, but the pilots overrode it so regularly it was finally left out).
In the first years, the Ju-88s attacked mostly in a dive. But unlike in Il2, it could not use its internal bomb bay while dive bombing.