Was stuka really that tough?

[Sapper-FIN]

Has anyone read Hans-Ulrich Rudel´s book? The German name for the book is Mein Kriegstanagenbuch In Finnish it´s translated as The Stuka pilot Dunno, if it´s been translated to English...

I´m currently reading it, and he wrote that once his Stuka got 8 hits from Airacobra´s 37mm cannon, and he made it easily back to the base... Sounds pretty amazing..

It´s funny how everybody knows the fighter aces, but not so many know Rudel... Some people think he´s the most succesfull combat pilot ever lived... Well, his results were pretty convincing...

[:FI:Falcon]

I know that back in the V3.something days I noticed that I had a very hard time sinkin' Stukas. I made a few off-line scenarios with friendly Stukas and flew right behind them and let them have it. Too many times (I thought) I'd use up all my ammo and the bugger would still be flying! I read in the Ubi forums that many had the same experience. I think the general consensus was that you need to hit it at a wee angle from behind because of propitiously placed rear armor.

Here's a good quick link about Rudel:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Rudel" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Those 500+ tanks represent at least two tank brigades!


Falcon

[:FI:Macca]

Yeah, i did readthis book( I think it is the one). Not only the stuka could get a severe punishment, in one chapter Rudel writes how he couhght some small trees in one of thewings and he flew with them....

S!

Macca

[Salahdin]

Seems like any aircraft Rudel flew could take alot of punishment (even if he was shot down 30 times). I don't think it was actually possible to kill that man. I also read an account where he was flying an fw 190 and the engine failed, forcing him to glide back to his own lines, dodging church towers and high buildings. What a legend

Meas Mór

Salah

[:FI:Macca]

Yeah...Sometimes I'm thinking what part of his stories was made up. Or was he just a lucky boy? The Luftwaffe lost lots of Stukas during BoB, maybe the skill level of Soviet pilots was much lower (It was for sure) and here the Stuka could prove its value once more.


S!

Macca

[:FI:IceFrog]

I was just reading an article on Germany’s ace Hartmann, and the author mention that is was very hard to validate every kill a pilot was given credit for but in 1944 German fighters claimed to down 8,501 Soviets and that the Soviets themselves show a loss of 10,400 aircraft in that same year

[Sapper-FIN]

maybe the skill level of Soviet pilots was much lower

That could be a one reason... Or maybe it was just bad tactics... hard to say. For example, success ratio of Finnish fighter pilots in ww2 was unbelievable...
With Messerschmitt they achieved an exchange ratio of 25:1 and with Brewsters it was 32:1... These statistics show that there was something seriously wrong, in soviet air forces...

The Luftwaffe lost lots of Stukas during BoB

Yes, but i think that bob was pretty much different than the eastern front. In bob, British fighter control centers got information from their radars almost as soon as luftwaffe took off from their bases in France, and could guide RAF in the right location to wait for them.

Russians had no such system, and the battlefield was far more bigger than just an English channel. I just read an exellent book "the hardest day", which is about 18th of august 1940, the day which was the bloodiest in bob... It describes the way fighter controllers worked and how and why did stukas perform so badly in bob...

But i does sound sound amazing, how couldn´t all those Russian fighters shoot him down for good... It´s not like they didn´t have changes for that...

[:FI:Igor]

I read the book years ago, great book. I fly the JU-87 alot online. It is very surviveable. Come in high, avoid contact/detection, dive bomb, stay low returning to base. The AI gunner is a better shot than i am.


Igor