Ju 87 Stuka Dive Attack Tutorial

Discussion in 'War Thunder' started by Deathwatch050, Jan 11, 2014.

  1. Deathwatch050

    Deathwatch050 Well Liked Thrall

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    Pilots of SG.2!

    This thread is meant to provide an easy to find place for my tutorial for divebombing in a Ju 87 Stuka. I wrote it a while ago and have posted it here in its entirety, unedited save for the removal of the final section on "if you are attacked by an enemy" since it's not directly relevant to divebombing. I have also included a video at the bottom demonstrating the entire maneuver. I hope you find it useful.

    [​IMG]

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    How to perform a divebombing attack in a Stuka:

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    This guide is intended for use with the Ju-87 Stuka (models B-2, R-2, D-3 and D-5 only) in a divebombing role in War Thunder. It is, as far as I know, as close as possible in War Thunder to the correct, historically accurate taught procedure for divebombing in a Stuka during World War 2. Obviously in real life, alterations would have to be made on-the-fly as the situation demanded, so do not feel compelled to follow this guide exactly in every single sortie. It is, however, in my experience, the easiest and most enjoyable method of divebombing in this wonderful plane.

    I use a joystick to fly my plane and cockpit view. You do not have to do the same to be effective. It is entirely possible to do the maneuver in any view and with a mouse if you so choose.

    I wish you the best of luck.

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    Optimum start altitude should be 4600 meters (you can perform it with less altitude but this means less time to adjust your trajectory on the way down; more altitude than that and you risk veering off-course due to compression and wind factors).

    Start speed can be anything above 200 kilometers per hour but you will find it easier to perform the maneuver with minimal adjustments if you are going faster than this. 250kph is good, 300kph is perfect.

    Make sure flaps are set to Raised position throughout the entire maneuver and airbrake is OFF at the beginning.

    -------PROCEDURE-------

    Target the ground installation you're going for. I find it helpful to switch to Virtual Cockpit mode and use the mouselook to centre your view on the target then press the target button to lock on long before you reach the target. That way you will have an arrow indicator at the bottom of your screen when you switch back to cockpit view that shows you if you're on-course or not.

    Align yourself with your target so that your flightpath would take you directly over it if you were to carry on past.

    Use your map to judge when you are directly over your target (locked targets will have a thin yellow outline on your minimap).

    When you are directly over your target, check your speed. As a general rule, wait a short period of time after passing your target so your dive angle is slightly less than 90 degrees. You can do perfectly vertical dives in a Stuka but it's more difficult than a slightly shallower dive angle. If you try for a vertical dive you also risk mis-timing and diving too early, giving you a dive angle of greater than 90 degrees which is much more difficult to pull off.

    I use the following guideline:

    200kph: Wait 3 seconds
    250kph: Wait 2 seconds
    300kph: Wait 1 second

    This gives me a dive angle of between 80 and 90 degrees.

    As soon as this time has elapsed, you must perform a set of actions in very quick succession to avoid fouling the maneuver:

    Throttle back to 30%
    Extend Airbrakes
    Roll the plane so it is upside down
    Pull up gently on the stick so the Stuka is pointing at the ground and begins to dive as naturally as possible.

    Keen vision is helpful here: use gentle stick movements to align yourself with the target; you want your gunsight pointing just below it in order to give you space to pull up later in the dive so you are dead-on with your target. Your Stuka will have started diving by now and it is important not to panic as your airspeed increases. With airbrakes extended and throttle below 30%, you will not exceed your VNE (Never Exceed Speed).

    Once you are aligned with your target (this should be, preferably, within 3-5 seconds of beginning the dive), cut your throttle to 0%.

    You now begin the struggle to stay on course. Wind conditions will never be perfect and your plane, while an incredible piece of engineering, is not perfect either, so you will have to correct for drift away from the target. BE GENTLE WITH YOUR CORRECTIONS. I cannot stress this enough. There are three types of corrections to be made:

    Roll correction:

    In a perfect divebomb you will be pulling up at the end of the dive to face precisely the opposite way you were facing when you began your dive. In practice this never happens, so you may need to apply very slight aileron correction using the stick to get closer to that 'perfect' return vector. You will also find that you will be pulled off-target more in a lateral direction if you do not do this. This is also why speed at the start of the maneuver is important; the longer rolling the aircraft over at the start of the process takes, the more correction will be required, and it is easier to roll over at higher speeds.

    Pitch correction:

    This is simply making sure you are pointing your aircraft's nose just below the target until you reach 1000 meters altitude (more on that later).

    Yaw correction:

    This is the hardest to get right. As a rule of thumb, apply roll correction for the first 1000 meters of the dive then stop that and start using your rudder to shift your nose onto the target and correct for lateral drift away for the rest of the dive. It bears repeating again; be gentle! There is only so much the rudder can do for a plane streaking directly towards the ground at rapidly increasing speed. You must avoid overcorrection at all costs.

    Your siren (if your plane is so equipped) will have started up at some point; enjoy it. The siren should bolster your confidence and give you the feeling of an angel of death descending from above. You may feel the need to giggle or laugh with the excitement; there is no need to engage the R/T to share this with the rest of the wing.

    Keep an eye on your altitude throughout the dive. As you reach 1000m altitude you should, if all has gone well, have just two more corrections to make: pitch up slightly so you are pointing directly at your target now (slightly ahead if your dive is shallow) and make any necessary last yaw adjustments to correct any lateral drift still remaining.

    As you hit 450m altitude, perform the following sequence of actions quickly, smartly and efficiently:

    -Hit your bomb release button to drop your bomb.
    -Disengage your airbrake
    -Throttle up to 100%
    -Pull up to level!

    As you level out, you may wish to push and hold your Follow Camera: Bomb button to watch your bomb finish its journey and (hopefully) hit your target. With luck and skill, you will be rewarded with a big fat explosion and a healthy heaping of XP.

    Congratulations! You have completed your maneuver. You may now either continue to strafe ground targets with your machine guns or cannon (don't forget to use your rear gunner for this as well! Angle your plane up, switch to rear gunner control and let rip at the target you just passed) or head straight for home, depending on the situation. Usually in Historical battles I only have time for one sortie, but I have had games where I have done two divebombing runs (bomb, return to base, land, rearm, take off and bomb again).

    If you are carrying more than one bomb, you can do low-level bombing attacks at your discretion after the initial maneuver. I advise against attempting to gain height and performing the full divebomb maneuver again unless you have as much time as you will need. A simple gain in altitude to 1000m (or so, up to you to pick whatever height feels appropriate) then a quick and dirty nose-down, shallow divebomb should do the trick for most targets with a bit of luck.

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    Video demonstration:



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    GK Deathwatch, signing off~
     
  2. Skwisgaar

    Skwisgaar XO Thrall

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    Wunderbar! I shall make good use of this.
     
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  3. Wargtass

    Wargtass New Guy Thrall

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    A whole lot of stuff in here that even I haven't thought about, so a really good read!
     
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  4. Watchit

    Watchit Well Liked Thrall

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    Deathwatch your diving technique is a work of art in itself. Simply beautiful.
     
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  5. Skwisgaar

    Skwisgaar XO Thrall

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    Is there a preferred order of targets based on your bomb load? With the D5 at least having the cannons I can see a need to prioritize bomb targets over lighter ones that can be strafed with guns effectively.

    Say 500kg = Pillbox-->Light pillbox-->Heavy tank-->Medium tank-->Artillery-->AA-->Light tank-->Vehicle?
     
  6. Deathwatch050

    Deathwatch050 Well Liked Thrall

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    If you're carrying a bomb, you should be prioritizing a target as "heavy" (as difficult to crack and rewarding) as possible (given your distance to target and likelihood of interception) to take out with that bomb. Maximum efficiency for weight, as it were. I can't seem to find the chart I remember seeing a while ago explaining what weight of bombs could take out what targets, but I believe a 500kg bomb is sufficient to take out any ground target save perhaps a Heavy Tank (maybe a direct hit would do one of those; I usually don't try and go for a medium tank or pillbox instead). A 250kg can take out medium tanks with a very close or direct hit; I am unsure how well they do against pillboxes now. I almost always carry a 500kg bomb.

    Remember also that wing-mounted bombs are dropped first, in order of wingtip->fuselage while maintaining equal weight on both wings. This means that if you're carrying a 500kg fuselage-mounted bomb and two 250kg wing-mounted bombs the two 250kg bombs will be dropped with the first button press and the 500kg with the second. I honestly never bother with more than one bomb; 50kg aren't much extra weight but are also itsy-bitsy and not likely to do much. 250kg wing-mounters are too damn heavy. You'd also have to drop them at some point in the initial dive before the main, bigger bomb if you want to get that to hit your dive target without resorting to low-level shallow-dive bombing after the dive (unless you have enough time to regain altitude for a proper dive, which is incredibly unlikely under normal circumstances).

    For this reason, save your bombs for heavier targets your guns cannot crack, then after your dive, if you have time and space to do it, start strafing lighter ground targets with your guns. The D-5 with its 20mm cannons is excellent for this, but the other Stukas can do well too. Given a bit of accuracy you can take out a lot of AAA and Artillery installations with even the early B-2 or R-2's machineguns, and if your forward firing guns don't quite manage it don't forget you can pull up sharply as you pass, switch to manual control of your rear gunner and hose them down with his gun too! Also, the D and G variants have twin, faster firing rear MGs rather than the single rear gun on the B-2 and R-2.

    While we're at it, I found it a good idea to grind out the Offensive 37mm upgrade (that will let you select solely anti-tank rounds rather than a 50:50 mix of anti-tank and fragmentation rounds that comes standard on the G variants) by shooting at light ground installations and soft-skinned vehicles. Once you have that upgrade you can tankhunt properly.

    Thank you. Very much.
     
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  7. Skwisgaar

    Skwisgaar XO Thrall

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    250kg will take out pillboxes and medium tanks, I do know that.

    Thanks for the explanations, pretty much confirmed what I suspected.
     
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  8. Deathwatch050

    Deathwatch050 Well Liked Thrall

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    Unless they've changed the lethal radius of 250kg bombs again (it used to be more generous; partly why I switched to 500kg bombs) you'll need a very close or preferably direct hit to take out a Medium tank. I've also heard talk of bombs hitting tanks directly and just phasing through them or something and doing no damage, which is a little disheartening. Hasn't happened to me though, as far as I'm aware, though I do sometimes miss the chance to push the bomb-follow camera so it might have happened and I assumed I just missed.
     
  9. Wargtass

    Wargtass New Guy Thrall

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    Very close and direct hits with 250's are left for the Fw 190's to carry out. ;P

    I think it's pretty much the rule with any German ground attacker to not carry more than one large bomb. While a Thunderbolt makes it look easy (built for purpose and all) and the US divers have their internal compartments, the Germans don't have that luxury. It's just how we as Germans do it I guess. Or, you know, take Knacker and shoot 13 tanks to smithereens before be return home. :p
     
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  10. Tuonela

    Tuonela Well Liked Berserker

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    Just to note there is a tutorial within Warthunder specifically for dive bombing. Granted it does use the American naval diverbomber but it gives you good practice.

    The technique in the tutorial is very similar, only real differences are that they advise a dive angle of about 60 degrees, which is what I've been using at divebombing. If you're using mouse aim 2k altitude is enough to pull off the maneuver, although 3-4 is nice because it gives you more time. Usually at that angle, if you've built some good speed you can pretty much nail any immobile target from about 1k out. Essentially I just go over the target, when its basically under me I do the same as Deathwatch where I nose down and hit flaps and cut throttle, depending on the plane air brakes are also useful (more useful if using joystick). At about 1k altitude in the dive I nose up a smidgen above the target and let loose and pull up.

    One thing to note on the pull up, don't pull up as hard as you can, it'll waste your energy. Do a smooth shallow pull to conserve your energy more.

    Deathwatch you also go reeaaally low for comfort on that pull up, but thats just personal style.
     
  11. Skwisgaar

    Skwisgaar XO Thrall

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    I somewhat remember doing that tutorial. I think the main reason for the 60 degree attack was because that's what that plane was designed for, the Stuka was specifically designed to do near vertical attacks. I think for any other plane 60 would probably be ideal.
     
  12. Deathwatch050

    Deathwatch050 Well Liked Thrall

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    Bingo. The Stuka was the most accurate dive bomber of the war because it could do near-vertical dives without ripping itself apart, and from a relatively safe altitude too. Very little exposure to flak on the way down due to the rapidly decreasing altitude as a bonus.

    I have never ever damaged myself in the pullup, from bombs or otherwise. :p

    On a related note, historically Stuka pilots would often disable the automatic 6G pullup at 450m post-bomb drop mechanism and do it themselves to make their path more unpredictable and so making them harder to hit by enemy flak.