Junkers Ju 87 Josef Stalin decreed that no more ships were to pass within range of German aircraft without his personal permission. Towards the end of the war, as the Allies gained air supremacy, the Stuka was being replaced by ground-attack versions of the Fw 190. By early 1944, the number of Ju 87 units and operational aircraft terminally declined. For the Soviet summer offensive, Operation Bagration, 12 Ju 87 groups and five mixed groups (including Fw 190s) were on the Luftwaffe's order of battle on 26 June 1944. Gefechtsverband Kuhlmey, a mixed aircraft unit, which included large numbers of Stuka dive bombers,
Junkers T 29 L1a inline engine cowled with its cylinder heads slightly exposed. Pilot and passenger sat side by side over the wing in a cockpit open apart from a longitudinal arch over their heads to protect them like a roll bar, set perpendicularly to the similar cross-fuselage device only used directly "behind" the cockpit on the Junkers J 2, the Junkers J 7 experimental duralumin-structure monoplane and production Junkers D.I fighter of the late World War I years. This unusual feature reminded observers of a handle and earned the J 29 the nickname "Bügeleisen" (en: flat iron). The fuselage tapered to the