The Ju 87’s story begins in 1935 when engineer Hermann Pohlmann at Junkers took the passions of dive bombing from paper to practice. His prototype—sporting inverted gull wings, fixed spatted gear and automatic dive brakes—first took flight that year, promising precise strikes from steep angles few other planes could match.By 1937 the Stuka saw its baptism of fire with the Condor Legion over Spain, where its wailing sirens and pinpoint attacks won both terror and tactical praise. When war broke out in September 1939, Ju 87s led the Luftwaffe’s Blitzkrieg spearhead over Poland, then again over Norway, the Low Countries and France in 1940—each dive unleashing bombs with uncanny accuracy and helping German panzers sweep forward.But its strengths carried a price. The Stuka’s slow speed, lack of agility and thin defensive armament made it helpless without fighter cover. During the Battle of Britain its losses mounted, and by mid-1941 it shifted eastward to support troops in the Soviet Union, then southward to North Africa and the Mediterranean, where it excelled in anti-tank and anti-shipping roles as long as the skies stayed German.As Allies gained air superiority, the Ju 87’s vulnerabilities showed—and despite continuous tweaks and new variants, it remained dangerously exposed. Production finally ceased in 1944, and by 1945 Focke-Wulf Fw 190 ground-attack versions had largely taken over its duties. Yet until the last days of the war, the Stuka continued to dive into battle, its legacy etched into the annals of close-air support as both a weapon of precision and a reminder that air power lives or dies on speed and protection.

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Ju87 Stuka