Junkers Ju 87 It was produced until 1944 for lack of a better replacement. By then ground-attack versions of the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 had largely replaced the Stuka, but Stukas remained in service until the end of the war. An estimated 6,500 Ju 87s of all versions were built between 1936 and August 1944. "Oberst" Hans-Ulrich Rudel was the most successful Stuka ace and the most highly decorated German serviceman of the Second World War. The Ju 87's principal designer, Hermann Pohlmann, held the opinion that any dive-bomber design needed to be simple and robust. This led to many technical innovations, such as
Junkers J 2 fuselage framing, primarily as an engineering exercise, were finished shortly before the end of 1916. It is also thought that the contrasting promise of the advanced, low drag features of the Junkers monoplane aircraft designs, versus the Junkers firm's usage of experimental non-traditional sheet metal materials, and the firm's habit of almost constant experimentation obstructing any future hope of producing its advanced designs for the "Luftstreitkräfte", compelled "IdFlieg" to create the "Junkers-Fokker Aktiengesellschaft", abbreviated as "Jfa" and pronounced as if spelled "iefa" in German, on 20 October 1917, to allow Anthony Fokker, who even flew one of the J 2