Junkers 88 tactical or strategic?

[Lokesz]

In the winter war the Junkers 88 is a tactical bomber. In blitzkrieg the same airplane is a strategic bomber. The stats look the same. Is there a difference because of the category in which I purchase the plane?

[kondi754]

It seems to me it doesn't matter if the statistics are identical.

Germany generally didn't produce strategic bombers like Americans and British. I talk about B-17, B-24, B-29, Lancaster or Wellington.
Ju-88, He-111 or Do-17/217 are medium bombers like Blenheim, Mitchell or Marauder. Can we call them tactical? I don't think so.
Tactical bombers are battlefield direct support aircraft as Ju-87 Stuka, Il-2m3 Shturmovik, Hawker Typhoon or P-47 Thunderbolt (the last two are fighter-bomber aircrafts).

[Lokesz]

It seems to me it doesn't matter if the statistics are identical.

According to the manual strategic bombers can damage supply sources. I noticed that the Finish JU88 does damage to supply, so I assume it is misplaced as a tactical bomber and should have been listed under strategic.

[Horst]

That's correct that the German Ju-88 in Blitzkrieg is a strategic bomber, but the Finnish in Winter War is a tactical bomber in vanilla OOB.
There is unfortunately no role-switch for this in the game, so the game designer has made his choice of type there for this multirole bomber. If you don't like it, mod it like me!

[GiveWarAchance]

okay

[kondi754]

Historically the Junkers 88 must have been both tactical and strategic cause it was very versatile.
In HOI4 (hearts of iron IV), Junkers 88 is a tactical bomber while the beautiful Stukas are classed as close air support and combat support. Strategic bombers are like the larger Heinkel and Dornier bombers.
Panzer Corp game has Junkers 88 set up as a strat bomber along with Heinkel and Dornier, while the beloved Stuka is set as a tactical bomber and no close combat category is in that game.
Seems like Junkers is on the fence between strat and tactical because it did both roles.

Tactical bomber = close air support and combat support aircraft
Close air support and combat support aircraft > tactical bomber
Ju 88, He 111 and Do 17/217 - medium bombers used for strategic tasks because of the lack of a better aircrafts.

[kondi754]

GiveWarAchance wrote:
Historically the Junkers 88 must have been both tactical and strategic cause it was very versatile. (...)
Strategic bombers are like the larger Heinkel and Dornier bombers. (...) Seems like Junkers is on the fence between strat and tactical because it did both roles.

The parameters of these 3 German medium bombers (span/lenght/height):

Do 17Z - 18 / 15,8 /4,6
He 111H - 22,6 / 16,4 / 4
Ju 88A - 20,1 / 14,4 / 4,8

This parameters show that Do 17 and the He 111 weren't significantly larger. Heinkel was bigger, Dornier had a similar size.
The thesis that the Ju 88 was on the fence between categories but Dornier and Heinkel was strategic is highly questionable
Bomb capacity is the most important for the strategic bomber - Ju 88 (3000 kg) took more bombs than Do 17 (1000 kg) and He 111 (2000 kg).
I agree that Ju 88 was more versatile aircraft, some versions were rebuilt and used later as a night fighter.

[GiveWarAchance]

okay

[kondi754]

If you read the historical info on Junkers 88, they used that bomber quite literally for every possible bombing mission type there was.
And they altered the build of them to match the missions. That's why it's so hard for games to tie it down to one bomber class.

It would have been nice if Germany had made a large dedicated strat bomber, especially for the Battle of Britain. They could have suppressed British airfields so much better and not worried about range restrictions as much. But it would have had a hard time with the British fighters cause the Germans also needed a good long-range fighter smaller than the 110.

So none of the German bombers was strategic, was ONLY used for such tasks - just what I meant.
Thank you, that you finally admitted I was right.