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Germany could have had a war-winning fighter in 1942.

Discussion in 'Aircraft' started by harolds, Jan 4, 2012.

  1. phylo_roadking

    phylo_roadking Member

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    Yes....and the claims made ;) The tactics were the same as the RAF employed over London - exercising with searchlight batteries etc. to be vectored onto illuminated targets....the problem for the Germans was however that they had a multiplicity of possible targets that might be hit!

    Interestingly - they ran and suffered from the same risks as the RAF had - friendly fire, landing accidents, all sorts. I've yet to see if, net, they brought down more bombers than they suffered losses or aircraft U/S themselves....
     
  2. harolds

    harolds Member

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    From what I've read, they did well--at first. This was because they used bomber pilots who were had lots of experience and were well trained in night/blind flying. As they increased the number of Wild Sau units they had to draw on less experienced and trained pilots. Eventually, the units were disbanded but by that time the Germans had a radar that wasn't so jammable.
     
  3. phylo_roadking

    phylo_roadking Member

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    The question is - were those claims ever matched after the war with Bomber Command losses? Thinking here of the example of the Mosquito NF losses that the Luftwaffe claimed for the preproduction He219s...which were never matched up/substantiated.
     
  4. harolds

    harolds Member

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    I don't have that but I do have some Wilde Sau claims for two nights that could be checked against RAF official losses. The first is 12 July, 1943 where 12 claimes were made by WS pilots over Cologne. The second was on 17 August 1943 over Peenemunde where 40 bombers were said to have been destroyed. (Martin Middlebrook, "The Berlin Raids")
     
  5. Vanir

    Vanir Member

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    I'm not trying to waltz in sounding like any particular great authority, but just going by my own library and research here,

    The thread title is a little fallacious. To prototype a fighter with an engine that you aren't already mass producing and have sorted teething, you're looking at a 1944 production proposal for this aircraft, minimum. So the contemporary engines are 605DB/ASB, 603G/E/L, Jumo 213A/E/F, BMW 801S, which were all beginning development in 42.

    The aircraft, which did enter mass production that you should be comparing it to are the Dora and G10/K4. It has no significant performance gains on them (G10 is a 440mph+ fighter) and quite a bit more expense and complication to mass produce. Most likely prohibitively so with Germany's already overstretched small-medium nation industry. Keep in mind the main reason behind the Messer 109 was cheap and easy mass production for a competitive fighter type. Have a look at the numbers of FW produced by comparison. Or production cost per unit. Or man hours to produce per unit. Compare the figures to Allied types as the war progressed.

    Maybe if it was the United States or Soviet Union you could try this. But cutting production of fighters by 70% and making them three times more expensive is not something Germany wants to even consider in 1942...and then you've got the transitional shortfall whenever switching to a new fighter type. On top of everything else that can cut field strength for a couple of months by as much as two-thirds. When might be a good time to do that?
    When you think about it the whole thing is utterly superfluous and ridiculously costly. Not to mention this would almost certainly lose you the war, just trying it.

    You know and plus all the other points already brought up: calculated is not field performance, serviceability in early models of new aircraft types is poor, producing non-indigenous models is inherently limited in development potential, listed maximum performance never reflects the actual performance envelope of an aircraft, there is no such thing as a superweapon or war winning fighter type (only a war winning circumstance which may coincide a new fighter type), etc.
     
  6. Vanir

    Vanir Member

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    I heard this a lot many years ago but these kind of assertions were challenged with extreme prejudice by my elderly German relatives as Allied propaganda, plus the thought that an entire aero industry and the RLM themselves were so intellectually deficit as to decide a fighter type by sheer politics just didn't gel with me, it's like the Monty Python suicide protest squad in Life of Brian, just comedic, just satirical, even morons aren't that dumb. So I scoured references for background. Here's what I turned up in a nutshell (wasn't that hard to find passing references but finding detail and documents is harder, most were destroyed):

    The evaporative radiator system didn't work. It had to be removed from the final production proposal. They put the He-112 retractable radiator in (a bigger version). Even retracted this reduced maximum speed to under 650km/h with the best engine available, under 645 with the 601Aa export motor that wound up being fitted.

    And here's the thing, that retractable radiator is what lost the He-112b the competition against the 109. Paraphrasing the Condor reports, the Heinkel has superior speed performance to the 109 only for a very short time before the radiator must be extended, after this the 109 is superior. Under any flight condition the 109 has superior manoeuvrability and climb. Add to this the fact the 109 uses no experimental technologies, is a simple, cheap and easy to produce design based upon a model already in limited production commercially, there is no question as to a logical conclusion.

    So the Heinkels, both the He-112b and the He-100D lost against the 109 completely legitimately and for engineering, serviceability, production, piloting and performance reasons.
     
  7. stano666

    stano666 Member

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    What kind of fuel did the engine use, was it high octane (wich Germany didn't have much), was the engine reliable ?1 prototype doesn't say much, in order to be successful as a army plane it needs to be user friendly (the Bf 109 was just that, very 'easy' to fix in the field, and production wasn't hard either - compared to others, it was (one of) the most easy to produce & maintain fighter's ever !!!)There are many : if's, what's, buts, etc. to this story. So i wonder what would/could be true about it ? Is there more info about it ? Anyone know's reference's ?I gladly read more about this engine and plane, aswel as it's 'adventures', inventors, test pilots and everything else. (Even if they where "French".., hel for all i care they come from mars ! and speaking about the French: they make the best automobiles (PSA) money can buy!!! But i don't want to go of topic, i laughed at it as it is funy i guess, and off topic -LOL-)I thankfully awaits to hear (read) more from you all (on a wide scale of subjects -but German (or axis) WW I & II plane in particular-) and wish you'll the best for 2012.Greetings stano666 :)
     
  8. Carronade

    Carronade Ace

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    Originally Posted by brndirt1 [​IMG] Didn't the Luftwaffe use the French radial Gnome-Rhone engines as powerplants for the Me 323's when it became obvious that an unpowered glider of that size was a "death trap"? Even with the engines, they were still nasty pieces of work for anyone boarding them.
    Clint,

    The engines used in the ME 323 Gigant were the Gnome-Rhone engines that developed around only 1100 to 1200HP. These were the 14N 48/49 and the 14R models. The Hs 129 also had Gnome-Rhone engines but they only were good for 700HP and were very unreliable.


    These were engines that were already established in service with the French and which were acquired in significant numbers after 1940. The 14R used in the prototype Bloch 157 was itself a prototype whose development was cut short by the armistice; it did not actually become operational in the Me323 either.

    As I understand it the French engines were not so much unreliable as underpowered for the aircraft in which the Germans used them. The RLM was basically trying to get "something for nothing" by using available engines rather than their current production models; lower performance was an easily anticipated consequence.
     
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  9. harolds

    harolds Member

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    Carronade,

    I was using Wm. Green and also Smith and Kay's "German Aircraft of the Second World War". I quote from Smith and Kay, "The Gnome/Rhone engines were found to seize at the slightest proocation and were extremely vulnerable to even the slightest battle damage." However this reliablility problem seemed to be only with the 700hp 14m 4/5 engines in the Hs 129.
     
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  10. Carronade

    Carronade Ace

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    harolds, thanks for the clarification.

    extremely vulnerable to even the slightest battle damage - rather disappointing in a ground attack aircraft..... In theory two radials would be about the best combination for survivability. Part of that would be the ability to continue flying, at least get home, on one engine, but I don't suppose the low power was helpful in that regard.
     
  11. FalkeEins

    FalkeEins Member

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    I am fortunate enough to have Serge Joanne's huge 600 page hardback devoted to the Bloch 152 on my shelves. (published by Lela Presse) He also quotes the story of the unarmed, unarmoured Bloch 157's flight to Orly. Strangely for such a highly specialised work and a potential 'war-winning' development of the basic Bloch 152 there is less than one page of coverage of the Bloch 157 in this monster work. And that's it. Nothing else.
     
  12. phylo_roadking

    phylo_roadking Member

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    The Germans' attempts to use evaporative cooling so "late" in the decade is symptomatic of all the post-Versailles issues with the German aviation industry as a whole - the years of lost systems and engine development the Treaty's proscriptions meant...

    ...for the British had experimented with the technology right at the start of the 1930s...1930-31 IIRC...and found it wanting, long since! :p There just wasn't enough time left in the 1930s for the Germans to successfully leapfrog or to telescope all that missed aircraft-on-aircraft development time.
     
  13. CTBurke

    CTBurke Member

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    I readily admit to having quite a fondness for the He-100 (have made several models of them, and my own extrapolations), but it was not QUITE the fighter it needed to be at the time it might have been chosen for production in lieu of the Bf-109. However, I think Heinkel was on to something, and a larger and more capable fighter similar to the He-100 (maybe now a "true" He-113) COULD have been DEVELOPED to "challenge" Messerschmitt's grip on fighters to equip the Luftwaffe. The trouble is that Heinkel was not given a chance. So sayeth the Fuhrer: "Heinkel will build bombers; Messerschmitt will build fighters." Period. End of argument.
     

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