Junkers Ju 187

The Junkers Ju 187 was a projected German dive bomber designed to replace the aging Junkers Ju 87 Stuka, which had proved very vulnerable to enemy fighters by the time of the Battle of Britain. After the rejection of the Ju 87F proposal a new design was drawn up under the designation Ju 187. It kept features of the Ju 87 such as the inverted gull wing and a two-man crew, and would have added retractable landing gear, a lengthened nose for a better view for the pilot, and improved armour and armament. Most notably it incorporated a rotating vertical tail that, turned down, would give the air gunner with a rear turret an unobstructed field of fire. The estimated powerplant was one Junkers Jumo 213A inverted V-12 liquid-cooled piston engine. The Reich Air Ministry cancelled the project in the autumn of 1943 because its projected performance, fully loaded, was estimated to be no better than the latest Ju 87D variant.