I have seen the forum history and there are a number of fast Ju88 as a level bomber only (no divebombing capability) threads and the Germans usually do better in these TLs (its so fast, Hurricanes can't catch it, has longer range, availiable in numbers earlier etc.).
I am questioning if removing the dive bombing requirement from that plane would have really helped Germany much (same as with the HE177 for that matter).
Questions about this:
1) Did the German use the Ju88 much as a long range precision accuracy dive bomber????, (I know it was used bombing ships but what about land tragets?), It seems this capability would be missed in Russia especially?
2) I have also read about Ju88s escaping in the BoB doing these long shallow dives, would that kind of capability be worse if the airframe wasn't strenghtened for dive bombing? (the dive bombing strengthened HE177 also did this in the baby blitz, another oftened ATL plane). Perhaps your just fast enough you don't have to worry about doing that?
3) Wasn't the Ju88 kind of expensive compared to a HE111 or purpose built level bomber. Why would you build such an expensive plane if it wasn't going to have these extra capabilities like dive bombing?
4) Being in engineering work, we are often relieved when some other component group has a problem forcing a delay and we won't have to admit to our own delays, how much of the Ju88 (or HE177) production delays would have happened anyway because there are other problems and production would be late just the same?