Originally posted by Corvid:
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?
Ju-88 indeed was designed to be able to dive bomb from the prototype V-3 onwards. If you follow the Ju-88's from the outside view when they dive bomb you can see the dive breaks extending (in the lower surface of the wing, on the far side of the engines. And it can be said that Ju-88 was a better dive bomber than stuka, already on the basis of the payload (for example 2x1000kg bombs) and range, not to mention better survivability.
What comes to the automatic pull out feature, I think people have a bit wrong idea of it. First of all, both 87 and 88 had the excatly same system. In short, it works like this: Pilot presses the Sturtzflugautomatik (diving automatic) button which lowers the dive-breaks sets the trim and limits stick pull to 5'. When bomb is released everything is restored to what it was, causing the nose to rise into normal attitude (with the help of the pilot).
-jippo