Thread 64463934

I guess I'd have to rate this as GOAT weapon.

1)weapon used by most decorated soldier of all time.
2)sure there might be weapons with more history in more campaigns like Brown Bess, but I'd guess others like Frogs and Krauts had nearly same thing.
3)Plus something like Brown Bess doesn't really "stand for" any particular cause, and that counts.
4)Most iconic symbol of most iconic military of most iconic "movement".
5)Sure like B-52 is longer lived, can drop big H-Bomb, but WTF does it stand for? Viet Nam, Cold War SAC, GWOT??? Plus, its really just like an airliner with a nuke, not much of a "weapon" itself.
6)Unlike propaganda, Stuka not used to terrorize peasant women running across open fields, but was an unparalleled precision strike of most critical targets, and that counts.
7)One of the few, if not only, weapons in front line service all during the biggest war in history. (if you don't count the tail end of WW2 against the Japs).

Not even the best axis dive bomber, D3A mogs it
>sank more shipping
>can outmaneuver enemy fighters (lifesaving quality when your air force is reduced to 5 hour shitters)
>ones that participated in Pearl Harbor were still in service by wars end proving point 2

>>64464059
D3A is also German tho. It was designed by Heinkel engineers like Fred David. Nonetheless both a mogged by the Fw 190.

OP is megafagtarded and probably underaged.

THIS is the GOAT weapon. Some form of pointy stick was the most relevant and important weapon from prehistory up until the last 200 years (99% of human history) and is still relevant as bayonets and Punji stick traps. All modern weapons are based on it.

A sword is just a pointy metal stick with more point. A gun is a device that fires small pointy sticks. A nuclear bomb radiates pointy sticks made of energy.

Anyway the Stuka is gay as fuck and was probably the shittiest dive bomber in the war other than the TBD Devastator. The only saving grace was air scoop meme magic. Like anything built by krauts, good for a laugh and a little good natured trolling but no strategic vision whatsoever.

>>64464414
but which came first, the stick or the rock?

>>64464423
The rock. Can be thrown easily, usually sharper. Proper use of the stick requires a proper thumb

F4U-7 is better, as is the Yak-9K

>>64464414
Don't even need to sharpen the stick, the stick mogs all other weapons. Break the stick? Great now you have two weapons. It can bludgeon, it can stab, with a certain amount of effort it can slash, you can use it to control animals and have them fight for you, place it in the ground and use it for ambushing, pick the right stick and it can poison, you can set the stick on fire and burn your enemy's way of life to ashes.

The stick is the platonic ideal of all forms of weapons.

>>64464475
>Break the stick? Great now you have two weapons
Stick win every time.

>>64463934 (OP)
>Perfect CAS craft for the mid 1930s
>dive bombing is entirely automated, the pilot just has to see the target through his floor window at the correct altitude, spin into a dive , the bomb is released automatically at a predetermined altitude, dive brakes engage and the plane automatically climbs in case the pilot blacks out
>unfortunately, after an interceptor pilot or AA crew has seen one Stuka dive bombing run, they will be able to calculate its exact recovery climb because its altitude and climbing speed are preset
>are thus almost immediately made obsolete anywhere that the enemy has air or AA support
>the only Stuka aces just strafed Soviet supply columns and completely ignored their automated recovery system, to the point of breaking their wrists wrestling with the controls while literally blind from their blood leaving their skull at such high Gs

>>64464957
>>unfortunately, after an interceptor pilot or AA crew has seen one Stuka dive bombing run, they will be able to calculate its exact recovery climb because its altitude and climbing speed are preset
I heard they modded the post-dive auto-pilot to have some slop so it would wobble randomly, to both evade AAA and jostle the pilot awake.

>>64464457
>F4U-7 is better, as is the Yak-9K
nobody except a war-nerd would have a clue WTF those are, or even know WTF nation (or even war era) they are from if show without markings.

Every 1st grade teacher knows what "Stuka" means and could ID it from silhouette and it has a particular emotional impact.

>>64463934 (OP)
>it "stood for" something
>it wasn't for murdering subhuman peasants, just a precision strike mechanism bro!
Make up your mind Hellmut, you can't have it both ways.

>>64466828
>I want to out myself as a wehraboo tourist even more than I already have
Strange flex

>>64466828
>nobody except a war-nerd would have a clue WTF those are
They're famously toxic planes in War Thunder ground battles. That's the joke

It was a 'goat' weapon in the Wehrmacht's mind 1939. As it turned out in practice it was a mere accessory to offensive mechanized panzer operations (and even then only when air superiority was in effect).

>>64466828
>emotional impact
This is the totality of the Stuka that lasted its 15 minutes in historical retrospect.

>OP 'few if only in front line service during entire war'
P-38 Lightning satisfies that for the USAAF : was still in full production and on par with its corresponding direct adversary airframes in Sept 1945.
Stuka was not a "front line" airframe during the last year of the war, it was being used for night bombing and last ditch Reich defense <--as were many obsolete airframes predating the Ju 87: it's called the kitchen sink. It had been declared unfit for combat operations in October 1943 and production + factory parts support ceased after mid-1944

>>64463934 (OP)
You have to be 18 to post here.
>In 1940 I could at least fly as far as Glasgow in most of my aircraft, but not now!
>It makes me furious when I see the Mosquito!
>I turn green and yellow with envy!
>The British, who can afford aluminium better than we can, knock together a beautiful wooden aircraft that every piano factory over there is building
>and they give it a speed which they have now increased yet again!
>What do you make of that?
>There is nothing the British do not have!
>They have the geniuses and we have the nincompoops!
>After the war is over I'm going to buy a British radio set
>Then at least I'll own something that will always work!