The German obsession with dive bombing after the success of the Ju87 in the Blitzkrieg era led the Luftwaffe to specify that the Heinkel 177 should be capable of dive bombing
The Germans were obsessed with dive bombing from quite an early time, certainly well before the start of WW2. Len Deighton's book - I can't remember if it was Fighter or Blitzkgreig covered the development of diver bomber TTPs in the 30s. But as well as the Ju-87 and He-177, the Ju-88 was also designated as a dive bomber as far back as 1937. Apparently, it took them until 1943 to realise that the airframe couldn't take the stresses of the pullout at the bottom of the dive, so restricted the dive angle to 45 degrees.
However, one source talks of one airframe being seen with dive angles marked up on the canopy in 10 degree increments from 40-70 degrees of dive
1940 | 3422 | Flight Archive