Dive or level bombing against sea targets using Ju-88(1940)

[PreußensGlanz]

Hi
as the Ju-88 had the capability to dive bomb I would like to know if this was used against sea targets or if level bombing was performed in 1940(to be precise at the time of Operation Weserübung).

[phylo_roadking]

It should be relatively easy to find out....for only ONE Luftwaffe unit was equiped with Ju88s in Norway, specifically KG30 flying A and Cs. Obviously it won't be Z/KG30's C-model fighters, so it has to be their Stab., I, II or III.

Coming at it from the other way....if they did so, they weren't very good at it! For one of the notable facets of Weserubung was the HUGE number of sorties per hit on ships it took to get any ordnance at all on target! HMS Suffolk, for instance, running out from its dawn shelling of Stavanger-Sola took only TWO hits from 82 sorties!

[PreußensGlanz]

Thanks
TWO hits from 82 sorties... well if the rest went a similar way they indeed weren't very successful.

Is it possible that the III/KG 4 also had some Ju 88?
And do you know when the Z/III/KG 30 got there nightfighter version of the Ju 88? Did they have normal Ju 88 before?

[phylo_roadking]

And do you know when the Z/III/KG 30 got there nightfighter version of the Ju 88? Did they have normal Ju 88 before?

This I can't say - for Norway I was working from comments in E.R. Hooton's Phoenix Triumphant. The OOB for Weserubung in the Appendieces there list only 88A's and zerstorer 88C's in April/May 1940.

Is it possible that the III/KG 4 also had some Ju 88?

Not at that time, no. KG 4 was spilt between Fassberg, Luneberg and Perleberg at the start of the campaign and seems to have been equiped with He111Ps.

well if the rest went a similar way they indeed weren't very successful.

The best way to describe it is..."variable" On 1st May it took 49 sorties to sink the French destroyer Bison and HMS Afridi. But at the end of May it took over 380 sorties across a number of days to get ONE hit on Resolution, and to sink the AA cruiser HMS Curlew. (it was made vulnerable by being tied to staying close to shore to cover the construction of an airstrip at Skanland north-west of Narvik)

[PreußensGlanz]

Thanks for the info.

[PreußensGlanz]

Do you have info about what action Z/III/KG 30 saw?
Air combat, ground support or ship attacks?
Should all have been possible as the C-2 seems first be have been intended as fighter bomber and was later used as night fighter.

[phylo_roadking]

Air combat, ground support or ship attacks?

Mostly air combat, they most often acted as escorts for flights of troopcarrying Ju52s or Ju52 wasser or other floatplanes.