page_title: Attack aircraft
section_title: World War II
hierarchical_section_title: Attack aircraft / History / World War II
caption_attribution_description: English: A German Junkers Ju 87B Stuka (TD+AY) dropping bombs. This photo shows an aircraft assigned to the Sturzkampffliegerschule 1 training unit. Français&#160;: Un bombardier Ju 87B Stuka allemand (TD+AY) larguant ses bombes. Cet appareil est affecté à une unité d'entraînement, le Sturzkampffliegerschule 1.
context_page_description: An attack aircraft, strike aircraft, or attack bomber, is a tactical military aircraft that has a primary role of carrying out airstrikes with greater precision than bombers, and is prepared to encounter strong low-level air defenses while pressing the attack. This class of aircraft is designed mostly for close air support and naval air-to-surface missions, overlapping the tactical bomber mission. Designs dedicated to non-naval roles are often known as ground-attack aircraft.
  Fighter aircraft often carry out the attack role, although they would not be considered attack aircraft per se, although fighter-bomber conversions of those same aircraft would be considered part of the class. Strike fighters, which have effectively replaced the fighter-bomber and light bomber concepts, also differ little from the broad concept of an attack aircraft.
  The dedicated attack aircraft as a separate class existed primarily during and after World War II. The precise implementation varied from country to country, and was handled by a wide variety of designs.
context_section_description: The Junkers Ju 87s of the German Luftwaffe became virtually synonymous with close air support during the early months of World War II. The British Commonwealth's Desert Air Force, led by Arthur Tedder, became the first Allied tactical formation to emphasise the attack role, usually in the form of single-engine Hawker Hurricane and Curtiss P-40 fighter-bombers or specialized  "tank-busters", such as the Hurricane Mk IID, armed with two 40 mm Vickers S guns (notably No. 6 Squadron RAF).
  At around the same time, a massive invasion by Axis forces had forced the Soviet air forces to quickly expand their army support capacity, such as the Ilyushin Il-2 Sturmovik. The women pilots known as the "Night Witches" utilised an obsolescent, wooden light trainer biplane type, the Polikarpov Po-2 and small anti-personnel bombs in "harassment bombing" attacks that proved difficult to counter.
  Wartime experience showed that poorly armored and/or lightly built, pre-war types were unacceptably vulnerable, especially to fighters. Nevertheless, skilled crews could be highly successful in those types, such as the leading Stuka ace, Hans-Ulrich Rudel, who claimed 500 tanks, a battleship, a cruiser, and two destroyers in 2,300 combat missions.
  The Bristol Beaufighter, based on an obsolescent RAF bomber, became a versatile twin-engine attack aircraft and served in almost every theatre of the war, in the maritime strike and ground attack roles as well as that of night fighter.
  Conversely, some mid-war attack types emerged as adaptations of fighters, including several versions of the German Focke-Wulf Fw 190, the British Hawker Typhoon and the US Republic P-47 Thunderbolt. The Typhoon, which was disappointing as a fighter, due to poor high altitude performance, was very fast at low altitudes and thus became the RAF's premier ground attack fighter.  It was armed with four 20mm cannon, augmented first with bombs, then rockets. Likewise the P-47 was designed and intended for use as a high altitude bomber 
   escort, but gradually found that role filled by the North American P-51 Mustang (because of its much longer range and greater manoeuvrability). The P-47 was also heavier and more robust than the P-51 and regarded therefore, as an "energy fighter": ideal for high-speed dive-and-climb tactics, including strafing attacks. Its armament of eight 0.50 caliber machine guns was effective against Axis infantry and light vehicles in both Europe and the Pacific.
  While machine guns and cannon were initially sufficient, the evolution of well-armored tanks required heavier weapons. To augment bombs, high explosive rockets were introduced,  although these unguided projectiles were still "barely adequate" because of their inaccuracy. For the British RP3, one hit per sortie was considered acceptable. However, even a near miss with rockets could cause damage or injuries to "soft targets" and patrols by Allied rocket-armed aircraft over Normandy disrupted or even completely paralyzed German road traffic. They also affected morale, because even the prospect of a rocket attack was unnerving.
  The ultimate development of the cannon-armed light attack aircraft was the small production run in 1944 of the Henschel Hs 129B-3, armed with a modified PAK 40 75 mm anti-tank gun. This weapon, the Bordkanone BK 7,5, was the most powerful forward-firing weapon fitted to a production military aircraft during World War II. The only other aircraft to be factory-equipped with similar guns were the 1,420 maritime strike variants of the North American B-25 MitchellG/H, which mounted either a M4 cannon, or light-weight T13E1 or M5 versions of the same gun. These weapons, however, were hand-loaded, had shorter barrels and/or a lower muzzle velocity than the BK 7,5 and, therefore, poorer armor penetration, accuracy and rate of fire. (Except for versions of the Piaggio P.108 armed with a 102mm anti-ship cannon, The BK 7,5 was unsurpassed as an aircraft-fitted gun until 1971, when the four-engine Lockheed AC-130E Spectre; equipped with a 105 mm M102 howitzer – entered service with the US Air F
caption: Junkers Ju 87B dropping bombs
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