Dive Bomber

A dive bomber is a bomber aircraft that dives directly at its targets in order to provide greater accuracy for the bomb it drops. Diving towards the target reduces the distance the bomb has to fall, which is the primary factor in determining the accuracy of the drop. Additionally, as the bomb's motion is primarily vertical, the complex parabolic trajectory is reduced to one that is much straighter and easy to calculate - even by eye. The rapid vertical motion of the aircraft also aids it in avoiding fire from anti-aircraft artillery, although diving to low altitude offsets this advantage as it brings the aircraft into range of smaller weapons.

A true dive bomber dives at a steep angle, normally between 45 and 90 degrees, and thus requires a very short pull-up after dropping its bombs. This demands an aircraft of extremely strong construction, and generally limited the class to light bomber designs with ordnance loads in the range of 1,000 lbs. This type of aircraft was most widely used before and during World War II; its use fell into decline shortly afterwards. The most famous examples are the Aichi D3A "Val" dive bomber which sank more allied warships during WWII than any other axis aircraft and the Junkers Ju 87 Stuka which was widely used during the opening stages of the war. During pullout, the forces were so great that the crew would often suffer G-LOC, and the controls were automated to avoid loss of the aircraft. Another famous design of the war is the Douglas SBD Dauntless, whose actions during the Battle of Midway changed the course of the Pacific War in favour of the US over a period of minutes.

It is also possible to bomb from a much shallower dive angle, which is sometimes described as dive bombing, but more generally known as glide bombing. Shallower diving angles reduces the benefits in terms of accuracy, but still serves as an aid in keeping the target visible during the bomb run and helping avoiding anti-aircraft fire. The Junkers Ju 88 was widely employed in glide bombing and was equipped with special bombsights operated by the pilot for this task. Likewise, the Heinkel He 177 is often mentioned as having its development upset by the demand for it to dive bomb, although this too was an example of glide bombing. Contrast glide bombing with the glide bomb, where the aircraft remains level and the bomb glides towards its target. Attachments for this sort of bombing were fitted to examples of the famous Norden bombsight, but in practice this concept proved unworkable.