In this video, we talk about the Junkers Ju 88, a bomber and multi-role aircraft from Germany in World War II. We first talk about its origins back in 1935, in a search for a new schnellbomber (fast bomber) design, and how that original intent snowballed. We talk about how the testing expanded into it being a dive bomber, heavy fighter, and recon plane. We talk about the major expectations at the beginning of production, and how Junkers utterly failed to meet those expectations due to reasons largely out of their control.
We then talk about its relatively minimal role early in WW2, due to various production issues, and its relative poor performance in the Battle of Britain. We look at how that performance led to Germany and Junkers moving away from the original fast bomber concept, and towards a more generalized multi-role aircraft that could be a bomber, dive bomber, torpedo bomber, heavy fighter, night fighter, ground attacker, and reconnaissance. We talk about the incredible acceleration in production, and how that, along with improved performance, led to the Ju 88 being one of the most prevalent and important planes Germany had in WW2. We end by looking at its decline towards the end of the war, and how Germany attempted to keep the design successful.
