The True History of the Ju-187/287.

WARNING, LONG POST.

When researching anything, you should always look at more than one source to do cross checking of information. Because even for primary sources there can be quite a few inaccuracies. Lets take a look at one particular source that is probably to blame for a lot of mis-information out there, www.luft46.com.
Now don't get me wrong, this is a great website if you want a look into how crazy Germany's wonderwaffe was getting. However it is still not immune to inaccuracies. In the case of the super stuka, much of the inaccuracies probably come down to things either being mis-translated or lost in translation entirely. Lets take this one step at a time to try and figure out what went wrong.

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"By the time of the Battle of Britain, the venerable Junkers Ju 87 design was beginning to show some of its shortcomings. A new, faster, better armed and better armored replacement was needed, so work was begun on the Ju 187 design."

Luft46 is mostly right here, however they seemed to have skipped a few steps. According to this Russian source, in between the Ju-87D (which was just coming into service) and the 187 there was the Ju-87F variant. According to the Russian source this "F" variant was to have a strengthened airframe, larger wheels, and longer wingspan. To power all this extra weight the 87F was to be fitted with the (at the time) experimental Junkers Jumo 213A inverted V12 engine. This design was immediately rejected as predicted performance was to be no better then the aforementioned Ju-87D.

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Now we get to the actual Ju-187 design

"It kept some of the features of the earlier Ju 87, such as the cranked (gull) wing and two man crew, but added retractable landing gear and a very novel reversible vertical tail."

Both sites seem to agree that this design existed, but differ as to the technical specifications. The Russian article seems to be under the impression the the 187 had an inverted tail, not one that was reversible. This conflicting information could just be down to translation issues as the Russian article is, surprise surprise, Russian so I am relying heavily on Google Translate. One of the pictures on luft46 supposedly depicts the Ju-187 windtunnel model, but the picture seems to indicated the the translated Russian Article is correct that the tail was not reversible

Junkers Ju-187 windtunnel model. Note how the tail does not appear to be reversible.

Even though both sites say nearly the same thing I am still somewhat doubtful that the designation 187 was meant for a fullscale production aircraft and instead was just meant to name the windtunnel model used to test the inverted tail.
During tests it was found that this windtunnel model would top out at around 400kph even with the Improved Jumo 213. This is often given as the reason that the project was cancelled in autumn of '43, however the buck did not stop there.
Junkers went again to the drawing board and came up with the Ju-287, now a completely different design from the 187. Junkers Finally got rid of the gull wing, Junkers double wing, as well as further aerodynamic refinement. This is what you see in the wartime photos of the fullscale wooden mockup and scale model.

Junkers Ju-287 scale model

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Now all the different versions are sorted out, lets look at the technical aspects of the design.
According to Luft46:

"The wing was tapered and featured both dihedral and anhedral."

We've already dicussed how this might have been true for the earlier Ju-187, but was eventually dropped on the 287.

"Slatted dive brakes were fitted near the trailing edge of the landing flaps."

This seems to be an often ignored part of the design. Typically the 187 is modeled as having the dive brakes slung under the wings like on the Ju-88 and Ju-87. The 187 would not have have been able to have flaps as described above, meaning luft46 is certainly describing the features of the 287. Now what would these trailing edge brakes have looked like? And how would they function? For that we need to look no further then another junkers aircraft- the Ju-288 which employs some similarly styled flaps.

Ju-288C with flaps and airbrakes deployed

My guess as to how the flaps on the may have looked and functioned.

"The main landing gear was housed in a bulge at the junction of the wing where the angle of the wing changed, and retracted to the rear (also rotating 90 degrees to lay flat under the wings)."

Again part of the confusion between the 187/287.

"Power was to be supplied by a Jumo 213A 12-cylinder liquid-cooled engine, which was also used in the Fw 190D and Ju 88G-6), and developed 1750 horsepower at takeoff."

Probably the Most accurate sentence in the whole article. No complaints here :)

"One of the most unusual features was the movable vertical tail fin, which could be moved 180 degrees in flight, thus clearing the field of fire for the rear gunner."

Alright heres perhaps the biggest misconception with the whole project. There is NO WAY for the tail to rotate 180 degrees in flight. There is just no way that would work. As I have said for the 187 windtunnel model the tail might not have even been movable. However if we look at the scale model of the 287 we can see that while the vertical stabilizer does in fact rotate, it does not go through a whole 180 degree rotation. I cant say what exact amount the tail rotated, on my latest version (which I hope you've already checked out) it rotates about 50 degrees perpendicularly to the fuselage. Ive also seen some people seem to think that the tail moved independently of the landing gear, however I am pretty sure the tail rotates to the down position upon the retraction the the landing gear.

"Two men sat back-to-back in a pressurized cockpit."

The cockpit looks kinda difficult to pressurize, but at this point in time EVERY luftwaffle project was planned to have a pressurized cabin so its very possible the 187/287 would have had one too.
But While we are on the subject of the cockpit, lets take a look at that cockpit canopy.

How many differences can you spot??

All the models you will see have the canopy glass take up part of the fuselage. This is obviously incorrect, the base of the canopy should just be one flat line that never dips below the level of the front windscreen.

"Defensive armament was located in a remote-controlled rear turret, consisting of one 151/20 20 mm cannon and one MG 131 13mm machine gun."

Another really big misconception that is kinda stupid. its likely that the rear mounted turret was never meant to have a 20mm cannon and 13mm MG at the same time, much less one on top of the other. First problem you run onto is putting one gun on top of the other makes the turret really tall and un-aerodynamic. Second problem is the ballistics of each gun. Having two different trajectories means that you can only really aim one gun at a time. You can even see from the scale model of the 287 that the guns in the turret were in fact side by side and of the same weapon type. As for the forward firing weopnry its possibly that it could have had 20mm cannons as they were mounted on some other the regular variants of the Ju-87 that actually saw service, although the scource below says that they are actually 13mm machine guns.

Page from the book "Schlachflugzeuge und Kampfzerstörer 1935-1945" Band III by Dieter Herwig and Heinz Rode showing armament to be twin 20mm cannons in the turret and twin 13mm MG's in the wing roots

"The bomb load was composed of one 500 kg (1102 lbs) bomb under the fuselage, and two 50 kg (110 lbs) bombs under each wing on either side of the landing gear bulges."

Again with the landing gear bulges! This may have bee true for the earlier 187, but we can clearly see two bomb hard-points outboard of the landing gear on the scale model of the 287. As for the weight of bombs it could carry, seems pretty legit to me.

"Although windtunnel models and even a full-sized mock-up was built, the project was canceled due to the fact that the projected performance was not that much of an improvement from the older Ju 87, and also that fighter-bombers such as the Fw 190F series could do the job as well as specialized dive bombers."

Its true that the Ju-187 had just a small improvement in performance over the Ju-87, but the Ju-287 would almost certainly had far more performance than that. Look at the Yokosuka D4Y2 for example. Powered by a Japanese copy of a German inverted V12 it could reach speeds of up to 340mph (547kph). While I dont think the 287 would have been able to surpass that, I certainly think it would have come close to that with a top speed probably nearing 320-330mph (515-531kph).

Despite all this after the initial dissapointment with the 187's performance, the whole shebang was completely wrapped up by autumn of 1943, whereupon the Ju-287 designation was passed on to the forward swept wing bomber.

What about all the models you see plastered all over the internet? Its simple really. They are all wrong. While they may be trying to depict the Ju-187 and not the 287, there are still many basic elements that they have gotten wrong. For example you will find that the majority of models or depictions of the 187 place the air intake the the supercharger on the left side of the aircraft

Jumo 213 inverted V12. Photo clearly shows supercharger on the RIGHT side of the engine.

It is really unfortunate that no actual legitimate blueprints survive of the the Ju-187/287. Its a bigger shame, however, that people are unintentionally spreading all the wrong facts.

So to sum up the wall of text, every model or picture you see of a Ju-187 that is not of WWII vintage is WRONG. The whole project started out as just another Ju-87 variant (Ju-87F), evolved into the Ju-187, which eventually birthed the second generation of stuka (Ju-287).
Always be a little skeptical of what you read, and don't forget to do some cross checking of the facts.

A perfect example of everything wrong with every model you've ever seen of this aircraft.