Mixing the Stuka with scenes from Flying High was genius. It is interesting how the pilot/rear gunner team was so prevalent in pre war combat aircraft design but proved so ineffective defending itself in actual combat.
Tbf the gunner pilot combo proved very effective in ww1 when aircraft were still nothing but wings of canvas and wood strapped to an engine and the close engagement ranges and much longer engagement times in ww1. The designers just never thought it would be obsolete in ww2
@@JohnnyJohnsonEsq surely not.?..just don,t call me Shirley....apols for the Airplane reference.....good vid..maybe some SOE/ WW2 resistance stuff down the line with a smidgen Allo Allo....keep up with the great work that you do sir...best wishes from the wirral...E
@@JohnnyJohnsonEsq surely not.?..just don,t call me Shirley....apols for the Airplane reference.....good vid..maybe some SOE/ WW2 resistance stuff down the line with a smidgen Allo Allo....keep up with the great work that you do sir...best wishes from the wirral...E
I actually think US Navy dive bombers were effective with rear gunners. Remember that bombers like the B-17 and B-24 shot down more fighters than actual fighters.
It,a the planes you don't hear, like the Beaufighter...which decimated German ,Italian and Japanese shipping, sometimes overshadowed by the De Haviland Mosquito..
World war II classic vintage airplanes that would be good in the Ukrainian conflict the stucca would be one of them you can add flares in other kind of measures against missiles you can maybe add former sensor pods you can use it link that to a tablet in the in in for cow pit like GPS like how they have the GPS mounts and modern cars think that would work trying to rewire the whole advantage aircraft you could use the tablet as your computer screen they light enough and small enough you can fit in a small world to airplane cow pit just with a special mount on the internet so you can see you do a lot of things with a modern tablet anyway so why not sensors onto a vintage classic world war II plane I don't know how successful to integration would be on that but I think you could get pretty good assess there's a few sturdy old birds that can carry modern armament that drones used today and I think they could be pretty deadly I think a mosquito The genome in mosquito can carry a lot of glider bombs a B-17 can carry a whole button and drones maybe you can carry a butt ton of that stuff occurs the Coursera can carry hellfires quite easy I know for a fact could carry hellfires rather quite easy
@@eamonnclabby7067 don't you think so world war II planes with a little modifications of some modern technology could be deadly in the conflict against Russia and Ukraine you know give him some modern missile and ordinance by the way you know he made a movie discussing this with it was one of the lesser sequels to are an iron eagle poets from a air show took old fashioned world war II planes and retro set them with hellfires and they did a lot of damage to a bad guy Air Base it shot down a lot of mix I can see world war two planes kicking the butt of some of the Russian airplanes if they had guided missiles and some of the same armament that attack helicopter is carry don't want your planes could be pretty dangerously formidable if you give them up with some of the modern weapons even in their time period and even today they could be nasty I know the c for Corsair can carry I'll leave you 16 hellfires easily even more maybe I think the bearcat can even carry about 20 hellfires some crazy amount of missiles and add some modern sensor pods to them you really really would increase their lethality even ways that their original engineers and designers and p
the Stuka is a weird one, you'd think it was more of a gimmick of the time that never really made it anywhere, the whole idea of having a plane fly down into the target only to drop a bomb last minute, where it is at risk of impacting the ground or being picked off by enemy aircraft. you'd think that be a stupid idea. instead, it's one of the most feared aircraft of its time, the first to drop a bomb in ww2, the first to shoot down another plane in ww2, the favorite plane of the most decorated pilot in history, and its sirens are to this day used to invoke fear in the audience.
The Stuka has fallen into the same Category as the A10 in that it has become Iconic to the point its use is overrated. Great when you have an ill prepared enemy and air superiority but an easy target for a well prepared enemy.
@@MikeJBeebe at the very least, the A10 can be called a spiritual successor of the Stuka. I doubt that Rudel story since he wasn't that well liked after the war.
@SAMRAAM You write as if the Stukas were just sent haphazardly at the enemy. Stuka doctrine and training clearly said there was to be reconnaissance and fighters escorts on a mission. You didn’t need air superiority to use Stukas, but planning and fighters that would deal with enemy counter-measures. The Luftwaffes doctrine and training of pilots, with emphasis on recon photos and planing, should also dispell this modern idea that the Stuka was a Close Air Support (despit Wikipedia) plane a lá the A-10 Warthog. I’m not saying the JU-87 wasn’t obsolete and thus incurred ever more casualties on that account, but that is not the same as saying it was useless unless there was complete German air-superiority.
@@TommyGlint thanks, my point was more steered towards the point that Hollywood etc has made the a10 and Stuka seem like this super deadly weapon of war and they become overrated. But thanks for the information regarding planning etc
Fun Fact: The accident at the Neuhammer training grounds near Sagen, Germany in 1939 resulted in 13 Ju 87 planes lost when all of them crashed into the ground simultaneously due to miscalculations of their diving height as the result of rolling fog obscuring the ground.
Like the Heinkel He-111 the Junkers Ju-87 was to become obsolescent long before the war ended. Whatever its effects on ground targets it was no match against fighter aircraft. British Spitfire pilots had what they called Stuka Parties, whereby as each Stuka went into a dive a Spitfire would follow it. Sometimes all six Stikas would be shot down in the same attack. Though there was the odd occasion when a Stuka pilot got lucky and shot down the Spitfire in front of him, such as happened once at Malta. The Spitfire pilot was so intent on shooting down the Stuka in front of him he forgot about the one behind. He survived being shot down though the wrath of his commanding officer at losing a valuable aircraft, they were very much in short supply at the time, was probably worse than being shot at by the enemy. Though many of them gave excellent service they were out of date by the end of the war. The most decorated Luftwaffe pilot was Hans-Ulrich Rudel who flew the Stuka and was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds. The reputation of the Stuka was such that German S Boats, or E Boats as we called them, were referred by the Germans as the Stuka of the sea. Interestingly the British Motor Torpedo Boats which would face them were known as the Spitfire of the sea. Later in the war radar stations would be set up to detect when the S Boats went to sea and if they did so during the hours of daylight would come under attack from real Spitfires.
@@JohnnyJohnsonEsq Oh gawd! That’ll be a bun fight in a cake shop with opinions flying everywhere. Battle of Britain is a corker, though. In the ‘Help yourself everybody - there’s no escort’ scene when the HE111 hits the North Sea Splat and the music kicks in I get goosebumps - every single time. I’m gonna watch it now just to prove to myself. And that’s not even my favourite scene. (Fave scene clue……….repeat please. ……)
It was great you included Flying High, being the best Airplane! doco ever, so you probably didn't need to feature anything else. Seriously though, good stuff as always.
The siren noise has been a dead horse trope in Hollywood. There should be a scene in a movie where a plane is diving or crashing and then the camera pans over to the co-pilot or passenger who is holding their phone up and the phone is playing a Stuka sound. Then the pilot yells at them to turn the sound off. So they do and then reply that they thought it might be fun.
One of the best anti-shipping aircraft of the Second World War. Used by Fleigerkorp X initially against the East coast convoys and poor ‘Dirty British Coasters’ (with a salt caked smoke stack) taking coal to London then against (and nearly closing) the ‘Narrow Seas’ of the English Channel. These merchant marine ships only had light armament - usually Great War Lewis, Savage and Marlin MGs welded onto the rails on the poop or f’castle as the bloody RAF was hiding as usual. Many Ju87’s of FC X were earmarked for the Graf Zeppelin. Navalised Stukas would have made excellent carrier planes. Sturdy under carriage and ability to fit long range fuel tanks plus it was just a very good dive bomber against shipping. As next demonstrated against the RN around Crete and Malta (inc bending HMS’ Lusty Formidable and Indom badly out of shape) and the Med in general. Stukas Could even carry a 2200lbs bomb but had to leave the gunner at home to do it. Prior to the start of the war a demonstration of the Ju87’s efficacy went a bit wrong when low clouds caused them to dive blind and most of them went straight into the deck. So at least there was a a happy ending in that one. One Stuka pilot ended up winning the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords, Diamonds, Rubies, Unicorn Horns, Dark Matter and extra Fudge. Lucky him. Extra 5 bonus points for getting the literary reference.
@@geordiedog1749 totally agree, off to paddle my quinquerime to Nineveh, if I can remember where I left the paddle... recommend the King in the North by Max Adam's another Geordie ,about King /Saint Oswald, who JRR Tolkein based Aragorn on...best wishes from the wirral, site of the great battle of Brunanburh/Bromborough 937AD,Wirral,namechecked albeit in Welsh in the medieval poem of sir Gawain and the green knight...E
Thanks for posting this. There is a Stuka and many other famous planes at the RAF Museum near London (you can get there by train) and I recommend anyone that loves aviation history check it out. Also, the British War Museum and the Churchill War Rooms are great too. All in London.
@@JohnnyJohnsonEsq I forgot to mention that-The Belfast was great and there is a very good restaurant/Bistro almost next door-great burgers and other pub food with a view of the river.
A Stuka appeared in First Squad: The Moment of Truth (2009), a Russian-Japanese-Canadian anime. It is a D model, but has the landing gear of the early war A variant.
I dont know what is is, but hearing that siren sends chills down my spine... it's like its passed on through the generations who experienced it first-hand. My great-grandparents and grandparents lived through the Blitz.
I’m just saying, whose ever idea it was to slap sirens on this bad boy was a fucking genius. I read in “With the Old Breed”, apparent the US tested blaring ground based sirens towards Japanese positions to see if it prompted surrender, but of course all it did was deprive Marines of sleep. I wonder if the Stuka was the inspiration for that idea lol
Well, German pilots clearly disagree with you about the Sirens being a “genius” idea - starting in 1941, and certainly by ‘42, they had them removed from the planes. They impacted flight performance and gave the enemy on the ground a warning to look up. It might just be a 10-15 sec warning, but there’s absolutely no reason to give them even that. Imagine diving on artillery postions with half deaf gunners, only a 4,000 ft to see them scatter and AA traversing in your direction, because you blew a warning siren… Undoubtedly every single WW2 documentary has had them added to all Stuka scenes by producers and sound technicians, because…. well, it’s a Stuka. But no, the pilots hated them, and took them off.
Well, I was just saying how scary the sirens were. They were undoubtedly effective at negatively impacting enemy morale. I didn’t mean they were “genius” performance wise, but thx for the extra info A-hole
The scene from 2:51 looked like a gag from the old time kiddy comic; a man clinging to the flying plane. Looks so unreal. And the pilot 2:53 looked as if he is Mr. Bean in his show LOL.
To be fair, a Stuka was also the first German aircraft to be shot down in WW2 - the Stuka that shot down a Polish PZL P11c, was in turn shot down by the Pole's wing-man. This happened early on September 1st 1939.
Theres a good Stuka scene in the Original Dunkirk film ( Richard Attenborough and John Mills) from 1958. Its blackcand white but uses actual stuka footage.
From a ballistic point of view, the Ju 87 was truly the pinnacle of power projection, comparable at the time only to the naval guns of battleships. Being able to use a 500 kg bomb against a target with an accuracy of 10-20 metres meant that point targets could be destroyed with unprecedented reliability. In conjunction with the Me109, the Ju 87 was the guarantor of the early successes of the Wehrmacht, even if the army or navy as a whole were only mediocre.
There's a great Stuka scene in "Pink Floyd: The Wall" in which Roger Waters's father is killed by one at the Anzio Bridgehead. The scene is short because both Stuka models almost instantly crashed as soon as they were airborne.
I have the siren as my ring tone, im kind of hard of hearing, so its kinda loud. Once it went off as we were eating in a kosher deli, and once, at work, next to a guy whose father fled poland in 1939, he jumped under the table.... Must be carried in the genes???? 😉😁
The thing that happened in 1943 - was the American 8th Air Force had begun to seriously attack German cities. Because of that - the German fighter planes that would have maintained German Air Superiority, allowing the Luftwaffe to devastate their enemies on the ground - were now back in Germany trying to protect their cities. The Luftwaffe - which had been designed to support the Heer (the German Army) - had not in 1940 - been up to conducting strategic bombing against another first rate air force. It was then also unable to protect Germany from a first rate air force. As the numbers of Soviet Aircraft grew - the Luftwaffe was also unable to protect German Ground Forces from Soviet Aviation. In 1940 the Germans were still winning the war despite Strategic Bombing Campaigns not being as easy as the Air Power Advocates had thought things like that would be in the '30's. In 1941 though, they went to war with the Soviet Union and the United States - after which they were doomed. If they did things right - they could prolong the war. If they did things wrong - they could shorten it but they were doomed to losing the war and ultimately, no matter what they did - that was what was going to happen. .
Would be cool to see you do a video like this on the Vought F-8 Crusader, and Northrop F-5E Tiger II. A decent war anime, called Area 88, used both aircraft.
I expected the " In The Movies" to be more about the usage of weapons/gear in movies. If they do it right, if they use it correctly, which movie does it better, stuff like that.
Only A-B model had the siren then its not was to alert the enemy after a time nigth etc Norway ws from guns at navarone in Krete and spain was sometimes in spain and we did get some spain 37 even before spain lol
An interesting fact about this plane its with one of THE aces of ww2, wich was a really convinced nazi on the other hand and after the nuremberg trials declared innocent, his name was Hans Ulrich Rudel who destroyed 519 tanks, majority of them soviet in origin and he flew in over 2530 missions, and thr fun part its the fact that Hitler himself wanted to give the man a "peaceful life" letting him to be a pilot trainer rather than being in the front but he refused every single time. He its an interesting character I would recommend to read about him to whom its interested, yep he was a convinced nazi, but he was am awesome pilot, and after the trials no kind of warcrime could be found that he could made against for example civilians and stuff like that, in fact he roasted everyone on the trials when they show him pictures of the concentration camps and he sayed: Yep this is pretty horrible but what about allied bombings of cities day after day? Ironically enough after the war he come to live to Argentina BUT the US government maintained contact with him and asked for ideas in the 70,s for creating the basis of the A 10 thunderbolt wich the designer Pierre sprey according to his notes after reading the book of hans ulrich rudel about the stuka.
Stukas weren't the easy prey shown in the movies. The losses in the Battle of Britain make it seem like the Stuka was easily wiped out when facing fighters while it was the radar (the stukas' targets) giving early warning and being attacking during bombing that left the Stukas as sitting ducks. The Stuka was actually manueverable given its role and its low speed made it difficult for fighters to engage particularly at low altitude. The rear gunner gave the pilot warning of attacks from the rear and a quick turn under the attacker often saved the Stuka. Once the 20mm canon replace the MGs in the wing the Stuka became a threat to other attack aircraft like the IL-2 and light bombers (just as the IL-2 was a threat to Stukas and light bombers). The real probem was the increasing numbers of enemy aircraft coupled with the loss of experienced crews. Once most of the fighters were withdrawn for home defense of Germany enemy fighters were free to focus on German stike aircraft and quickly anything not a FW-190 went extinct. Even so pilots like Rudel kept flying and proved that a competent aircrew in a Stuka were nearly impossible to shoot down (Rudel was never shot down by an emeny aircraft and instead shot down many enemy aircraft). But by 1943 experienced pilots were being moved to to the fighters leaving inexperienced crews to fly to their deaths.
The Stuka was also used as a tank killer on the Eastern Front. Some models had 37mm autocannon for this task. The highest decorated German air Ace was Hans-Ulrich Rudel who destroyed nearly 500 tanks and lived to a ripe old age.
Claimed 500 tank destroyed. Aces on both sides vastly overstated their kill claims, and as far as I know Rudels claims have never been properly compared to soviet records. The total tank kills claimed by the luftwaffe has been compared to soviet records though, and it is clear that german kill claimes outnumber actual tanks destroyed by air power by a factor of about 10 (i'm not taking the time here to look up the source again, but it's easy enough to find if you google it). I don't blame the aces for this, unless the tank explodes or burns, it's very hard to see if you actually destroyed a tank or just hit it, this can clearly be seen on some gun camera footage that is available on youtube. Anyway, I'm doubtfull of the 500 tanks, that would mean Rudel is responsible for destroying about 0.6% of all tanks the soviets lost on the eastern front.
@@slome815 Tanks destroyed is always a propaganda figure. The range is mobility kill to explosive disassembly, and everything in-between. Israel made this clear with the admission of single-digit tank losses in the 2006 war compared to many dozens if not hundreds of tanks removed from battle. Anyway, Chris from military aviation history covers all this for the Stuka at ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-tiFBs4PW6pE.html
@@slome815 I think Rudel was a egregious self promoter. He claimed to have shot down half the red army airforce and sunk the navy, too. No doubt he was decent at his job but 500 tanks…..? Nope.
You forgot to mention the 2000 ground targets as well. I tend to agree with the other comments on the 500 tanks that they probably disabled or knocked out but then largely repaired or salvaged. His skill and legend still should not be scoffed either, he had Stalin personally order a 100,000 rouble ransom on his head. He sank the battleship Marat and a few other lesser ships during his 2500 flights during the war. This is very well documented by many sources so I question why his record is questioned. He was a very lucky man to had survived the war and his book is well worth the read.
@@ianmclaughlin8987 I don't doubt his skill, I do doubt his claims. In the case of Rudel cited sources are almost invariably Rudel himself, and sometimes his colleagues. Case in point is the 100 000 ruble bounty. This is copied so often on the internet that it is assumed to be true by most, yet the only sources for this are Rudel and Hartmann. Not a single soviet source. The soviets did have a system of rewards for pilots (Order of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR No.299 of 19 August 1941), but this was all generic, not targeting specific aces. The battleship Marat was attacked by a flight of 30 stukas, at least two of which scored a hit. It does seem likely that Rudel's bomb was the one that hit the magazine and sank the ship. Not to mention all sides are well documented to have constantly overclaimed when it comes to aircraft downed, and tanks destroyed as well. Why would Rudel be an exeption? By 1943 even the german high command reduced claimed tank kills by 50% as a rule, just because overclaiming and double claimes were so common. Even then the they still estimated way to high. Just to give an example: from 5 july to 31 august 1943 (Kursk) the entire german tank kills claimed on the eastern front were 16 251. The soviet tank losses during this period were 6064 tanks.
My favorite airplane is definitely the stuka. It's just so rugged, mechanical and purpose driven. The sirens are what I would consider It's most distinctive feature....perfect for creating confusion in It's ground support role.
The Stuka’s Jericho siren sound also makes an appearance in the Star Wars universe In season 2, Episode 5 of The Clone Wars, there’s a scene where Republic Y wings are conducting a dive-bombing run on Separatist AA positions, and you can hear a modified Jericho siren sound
my great uncle was a plane mechanic in the war he said the stuka was the easiest and most liked platform they had if they didnt have the parts for it it was so simple that they could just manufacture them themselves or use parts from different planes and altere them
When I first watched Tali-Ihantala 1944, the Fw 190 at 1:14 looked slightly bigger than normal. Movie replica makes it look more like medium size bomber than fighter aircraft. Great research as always Johnny!
3:40, I have never seen this kind of view done in a ww2 movie, yes top down is popular but the detail of this is insane! The shingles all ripping off, and the way the environment reacts to the explosions is just beautiful
I think the only time a real Stuka has come close to appearing in a post war movie is when the RAFMuseums example was brought up to ground running condition. Ultimately neither it nor the two scaled replicas created for the film made it to the final cut. Its a shame that the FHC's 37mm canon armed restoration of a Stuka will never be competed unless another party takes on the task of finishing and flying it. It would be something to see!
Fun fact: In the Battle of Britain (1969) film, the producers were planning to use a real surviving museum Stuka for the movie. It was too expensive to return the plane to airworthiness so they modified some Percival Proctors. They weren’t used in the film as scale models were used instead.
When the producers got their hands on that Model-G Stuka. They said it was easy to get the engine running. It was even painted in the movie colours (I have a picture). Wooden dive brakes and underslung bomb were added. As you say. The airframe was too expensive to repair and make airworthy.
Not a single Stuka remains airworthy, very few of the type remain at all. But the one at the RAF museum in Cosford had its engine restored to running order to provide sounds for Battle of Britain.
The diving noise from Dunkirk 2017 is an audio masterpiece that shows just how terrifying the Jericho trumpet and the Stuka was for anyone who faced it shoutout to the audio and design team of Dunkirk
Oh man ! Excellent vid as always, though I’m so disappointed that you didn’t use the Stuka scenes from “ Pink Floyd The Wall “. That’s a movie that managed to portray the Stuka in a very intimidating, almost scary light. You only get a “ soldier’s eye view “ of it, looking like a weird bird of prey when viewing it from the front and flashing big black crosses under its wings as it passes over…. I guess I can say that those scenes made an impression on me ! 🙂
Johnny Johnson 37.3K subscribers Nice to know that you included footage from "Star Trek: Enterprise" Season 4 Episode 2 "Stormfront Part II". It not every day we see a bunch of German Junker Ju 87 Stuka Dive Bombers outfitted with Plasma Laser weaponry..... going up against the 22nd Century Earth starship Enterprise NX-01... an NX Class Exploratory Cruiser armed with state of the art Phase Cannons and Photonic Torpedoes.
@@JohnnyJohnsonEsq Thank you. The NX class Exploratory Cruiser is one of those awesome ships that sadly gets A LOT of hate. Which is a shame... but I'm glad the Enterprise NX-01 got equipped with state of the art Photonic Torpedoes (called Anti-Matter Warheads by the Klingons) which proved to be very very VERY useful in a fight against bigger and better armed opponents such as a 22nd Century Era Klingon Bird of Prey captained by Duras (as you can see here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Y0bcFmRl1l4.html )
I can't think of a more terrifying experience than being in the basement of your home hearing that horrible high pitched sound of a Stuka diving down somewhere next to your location. it's the stuff of nightmares.
Good to see a sense of humour. These vids include a plethora of movies that I don't remember seeing. I'm going to have to go back and look them up. The Ju.87 and Corsair had an inverted gull wing by the way and for similar reasons. That being to keep the under cart from being too long. For the Ju.87, it was to make room for the bomb, for the Corsair, to make clearance for the massive 13' 4" propeller. For a true gull wing configuration look to the Polish PZ-11, or the French Loire 46.
Dropped what I was doing to watch this like a Stuka dropping its bombs *also some more elaboration on the Stuka's features from what I've read from Dunkirk: the inability to stop the wailing of the sirens really irritated Stuka pilots ('drove them mad' in the book), and iirc the Stuka also had some sort of button the automatically pull Stukas out of their dives so that pilots wouldn't crashed if they blacked out
You could set the altitude you wish the plane to level itself, before a dive. If the plane reached the set altitude, it recovered automatically. There is an interview with a Stuka pilot on youtube, he explains how he used that feature to escape a few Spitfires who followed him into a dive, but could not recover.
@1:18 the size of that FW190... almost the size of a HE111 🤪 @3:10, you are right to a degree... I believe there was an auto pilot of sorts that automatically pulled the plane out of the dive once the bomb had been released due to pilots having target fixation and following the bombs down until it was too late
There's a scene in the Hannibal Rising movie (of Lecter fame) in which some Stukas bomb some things (memory is foggy right now) and you actually see one with AT cannons crashing down. And the best thing is that all that is in the beginning of the movie, so you don't have to endure the whole Hannibal origins arc if you don't like it. Cheers!
the stuka was a badass dive bomber to be sure but there were 2 others that dont get the recognition they deserve and they were just as good if not better then the stuka. and those were the us navies dauntless divebomber and the curtiss sb2c hell diver which was nicknamed son of a bitch second class.
