Junkers Ju 187 Junkers Ju 187 The Junkers Ju 187 was a projected dive bomber designed to replace the ageing Junkers Ju 87 "Stuka". It was cancelled in 1943. By the time of the Battle of Britain the Junkers Ju 87 "Stuka" had proved very vulnerable to enemy fighters and needed replacement, so after rejection of the Ju 87F proposal a new dive bomber was designed under the designation Ju 187. The projected aircraft kept some of the features of the earlier Ju 87, such as the inverted gull wing and two man crew. It would have added retractable landing gear, as well
Junkers Ju 87 Secretary of State for Aviation Erhard Milch, feared that such high-level nerves and skill could not be expected of "average pilots" in the "Luftwaffe". Nevertheless, development continued at Junkers. Udet's "growing love affair" with the dive bomber pushed it to the forefront of German aviation development. Udet went so far as to advocate that all medium bombers should have dive-bombing capabilities, which initially doomed the only dedicated, strategic heavy bomber design to enter German front-line service during the war years — the 30-metre wingspan He 177A — into having an airframe design (due to Udet examining its design details in