What is Dive bomber?
[[Image:Douglas SBD Dauntless dropping a bomb, circa in 1942.jpg|thumb|right|250px|An [[SBD Dauntless]], a dive bomber from World War II, drops a bomb]] A '''dive bomber''' is a [[bomber aircraft]] that [[:wikt:dive|dives]] towards the ground so it can get very close to its [[:wikt:target|targets]] so that it is more likely to hit them. This can also limit the chance of [[Anti-aircraft warfare|anti-aircraft]] fire hitting the plane. Diving nearly [[vertical]]ly at the target, the aircraft will release the bombs very close to the target at high speed. This allows a dive bomber to drop bombs accurately on a relatively small target, or a moving target quite easily. Dive bombers were widely used to attack high value targets such as [[ship]]s and [[bridge]]s. This also had the advantage of attacking [[ship]]s at a weak spot. A ship's armour was heaviest near the water. On the top of the ship, however, either the armour was very thin, or there was no armour at all. Also, dive bombing allowed relatively small aeroplanes carrying a limited bomb load to do more damage than usual. Because of better bombsights and better [[anti-aircraft warfare]] after [[World War II]], dive bombers were replaced by [[attack aircraft]]. {{Military-stub}} [[Category:Military aircraft]]