Two Luftwaffe aircraft were specifically modified for anti-armor work: the Hs-129 and the Ju-87. Except for the Messerschmitt Bf-109, the Ju-87, popularly known as the
Stuka, is perhaps the most familiar German aircraft of the Second World War. Photographs of this crank-winged dive bomber in operation over Poland, the Netherlands, and England are common. Also well known is that the aircraft was removed from bomber operations over England in early September 1940 during the Battle of Britain. Its later history is less well known.
The Ju-87B was used extensively on the Eastern Front during Operation Barbarossa, the attack against the Soviet Union in June 1941, although it was acknowledged to be obsolescent at this time. Work had already begun on an updated version of the venerable aircraft, but problems with the replacement engine delayed its introduction into service.
The Ju-87D entered service on the northern, Leningrad, sector of the Russian Front and, by the spring of 1942 increased numbers of the model arrived. This aircraft was capable of dropping a 1,000 kilogram armor piercing bomb, which also experienced teething problems. A modification of the Ju-87 D resulted in the Ju-87G. Armed with a 37mm cannon under each outer wing panel just outboard of the bend in the inverted gull wing, this aircraft was first tested operationally in the summer of 1942 by Oberleutnant Hans-Ulrich Rudel, author of Stuka Pilot. Rudel became a tank busting specialist, eventually credited with destroying 519 Soviet tanks.
During the Battle for the Kursk Salient small numbers of the Ju-87G were used alongside the Ju-87D against Soviet massed armor. On July 5, 1943, the first day of the battle, Rudel destroyed 12 Soviet tanks near Belgorod. As the battle progressed over the next week casualties among the Stuka units accumulated and, as a result, the career of the Ju-87 as a daylight dive bomber was ended. It was eventually relegated to glider towing, night bombing, and the duties of a unit hack.
Sources: Warplanes of the Third Reich, William Green, Doubleday and Company, Inc., Garden City, New York, 1970
Profile 211: Junkers Ju 87D, Richard P. Bateson, Profile Publications Ltd., Windsor, England
Jack Kruse, Author 