Junkers Ju 87 and D-3 variants operated in combat with the BK 37 cannon in 1943. Known prototypes With the G variant, the ageing airframe of the Ju 87 found new life as an anti-tank aircraft. This was the final operational version of the Stuka, and was deployed on the Eastern Front. The reverse in German military fortunes after 1943 and the appearance of huge numbers of well-armoured Soviet tanks caused Junkers to adapt the existing design to combat this new threat. The Henschel Hs 129B had proved a potent ground attack weapon, but its large fuel tanks made it vulnerable to enemy
Hugo Junkers in Dessau. The iron wings were patented one year later. Junkers had a wind tunnel built and invented a hydraulic brake. He had far-sighted ideas of metal aeroplanes and flying wings, but the necessities of the war held him back. During World War I, the government forced him to focus on aircraft production. In 1915, he developed the world's first practical all-metal aircraft design, the Junkers J 1 "Blechesel" (Sheetmetal Donkey), which survived on display in Deutsches Museum in Munich until World War II. His firm's first military production design in 1916–17 was the armored-fuselage, two-seat, all-metal sesquiplane known by