Heavy bombers are not fully invested into.

One thing first this is not my area of expertise so please throw me a bone although I still would like somebody to tell me how this would likely work out.

I was wondering: before the Battle of Britain and the Blitz started Goering and other Luftwaffe leaders had reconsidered investing much of their resources into heavy bombers but instead make twice the number of fighters! If the Germans had a better idea of Air superiority around that time and merely shot down British planes as they left their fields, strafed fishing boats, hit the radar towers, just to annoy the Tommys into sending up more planes to be shot down. But mind that if only the Luftwaffe would have invested resources into many more Fighter&Fighter/Divebombers. Having total air superiority over Britain would have gave them a licking they could never recover from.

Auf Weidersehen and good night to you all.
-Death's Head

 

Just to point out that the JU-88,DO-17 and HE-111 weren't heavy bombers. They were medium bombers. The Luftwaffe only had the HE-177 basically for a heavy bomber and that was later. Also the Luftwaffe did not have any air superiority of Great Britain due to the short range of thier fighters they had a very limited time in which to fight.

 

The JU-88 Was a dive bomber

I think it might of maybe hurt Britians production but Americas production would not be affect. America would defend britian. Maybe the end of the war would be a little later but it would not affect much.

 

If i am not mistaken, General Wever RLM Commander in Chief had begun to investigate as early as 1934/35 to develop a strategic bomber programme with four engined heavy bombers. But with his death also went the strategic bomber programme. Udet/Jeschonnek/Kesserling advocated tatical medium bombers and dive bombers to support the Army. The Luftwaffe was therefore developed into a air force to act as medium and long range flying artillery to supress the other sides Armed forces. It became subserviant to the Army and never really changed throughout the war until it was to late.

v.R

 

The problem here is that the Germans have no really good long ranged offensive fighters. Their mainstay, the Me 109 is a short ranged interceptor. That's good defensively but bad when you are attacking.

 

T.A

Totally agree with you on this, the BoB should have been a massive wake up call for the leaders of the Luftwaffe, but politics played a vital role in the retention of the Bf-109 throughout the war.

v.R

 

"The JU-88 Was a dive bomber"

The JU-88 was designed as a highspeed medium bomber. It also preformed these roles in addition to being a bomber,

Dive Bomber,Nightfighter,Recon,Torpedo bomber,Flying bomb (mistel),Heavy dayfighter,Train-buster in Russia,Long-Range ocean patroller,Long-range Pathfinder,Panzerjager/anti-tank, Night intruder, Weapons Test platform ,mine layer ,radio communication aircraft,liason transport,Research aircraft,Missile launcher,Close air support, trainer.

 

Yes i know it was used for those roles but the basic design and profile of the plane was a dive bomber. It was one of the best dive bombers ever built in my oponion. It also one of the most famous aircraft of the war.

 

It was designed as a "Fast Bomber" first.

"Like the Mosquito, the Ju 88 originated as a fast bomber. In 1935 the Luftwaffe had a requirement for a so-called Schnellbomber, which should have a speed of 500km/h with 800kg of bombs."
uboat.net - Technical pages

"The Ju 88 was designed in response to an RLM requirement for a fast medium bomber. When first issued, this called for a twin engined bomber capable of a top speed of 310mph, and with a bomb load of 1,765lb"
Junkers Ju 88

"Considered by many to be the most versatile German aircraft in World War II, the Ju88 grew out of a requirement in 1935 for a three-seat high-speed bomber to be capable of more than 298mph / 480kph and remained in production until the end of the war."
Junkers Ju 88

"The Ju 88 is a cantilever low-wing, twin-engine monoplane, which was primarily designed as a bomber."
http://www.lonesentry.com/articles/ju88/index.html

The Ju 88 is the most important German bomber of World War 2. In fact it was much more than just a bomber; this family of planes has seen more different duties than any other (but maybe the English Mosquito): first designed as a Schnellbomber (fast bomber), it was developped into a conventional level-bomber, dive-bomber, torpedo bomber, heavy fighter, nightfighter, close support plane, recon plane, and even, in its Mistel form, as an air-to-ground flying bomb !
http://pagesperso-orange.fr/christophe.arribat/stofju88.html

In August 1935 the Reichsluftfahrtministerium submitted its requirements for an unarmed, three seat, high-speed bomber, with a payload of 800-1,000 kg.[2] Junkers presented their initial design in June 1936, and were given clearance to build two prototypes (Wk Nr 4941 and 4942).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Ju_88

 

You might want to check this thread .

http://www.ww2f.com/weapons-wwii/21693-best-multi-purpose-aircraft.html

 

the germans should have bought zeros from japan.

 

And how would they have done that when the Zero wasn't introduced to Japanese service until Jun 1940 and did not fly its first mission until Aug of 1940? The Zero flew its first mission on 19 August 1940, escorting a bomb raid on Chungking, but encountered no aerial opposition. The Japanese certainly would not have had enough to sell to the Germans and supply their own navy at the same time even if the Germans had wanted them.

 

Problem there is that the first Zero didn't fly until 14 September 1939, ten days after Germany was at war. The second prototype flew a month later and the third a month after that. It wasn't until July 1940 that the first operational unit using Zeros was flying them in China for service testing and almost two months passed before the Zero saw its first combat on 13 September 1940 almost a year to the day after the first one flew.

I doubt that the Zero would help the Germans with the BoB given that it would have been over before the first one was delivered.

 

T.A

Also agree, and to add one small problem, the Zero lacked self sealing fuel tanks and one hit they went up like a roman candle. Imagine the death toll for the Germans during the BoB.

v.R

 

I agree with the other posts in response to this suggestion. There would not have been enough Zeros to both equip the IJN and be exported to Germany; in the first three years of "volume" production, from March, 1939, to March, 1942, Mitsubishi and Nakajima combined managed to produce just 837 examples of this aircraft. The IJN was always chronically short of Zeros and that is why, at Coral Sea in May, 1942, when the Shoho was sunk, she was carrying mostly second-line A5M "Claude" fighters for air defense.

Besides the inability to produce sufficient numbers of the Zero, Japan was saddled with a fighter designed for combat against the Chinese Air Force. In combat against modern US and European fighters, flown by well trained pilots, the Zero proved to be a death-trap for it's unfortunate pilots. The Zero was an excellent dog fighter, but Allied pilots soon learned how to take that option away from their Japanese opponents. Jimmy Thach, the USN fighter pilot who developed the famous "Thach Weave" maneuver, said that a pilot would have to be insane, or suicidal, or both to climb into the cockpit of a Zero.

 

Mike, Zeros for Germany?
Now we all agree that it's highly unlikely if not impossible for Japan to manufacture enough Zeros to meet the demand of both Germany and Japan. But what if Germany took the Zero design and manufactured it on their own? German engineers would likely tinker with the design and introduce changes. What would the probable result be?
First off, self sealing tanks and some armor. That would lessen some of the Zero's performance. A change in the engine perhaps? Some of you guys here are better at the engineering and mechanical aspect so I think you guys could answer this best. Now the question that crops up in my mind would be how this modified Zero piloted with German pilots and using Luftwaffe tactics fair against Allied aircraft.

 

I personally think the me-109 could of killed the zero without a problem.

 

i sayed in my personal oponion. Im gonna study both planes to find out however. However the me-109 was known to have more armor then the zero.

 

OK, I think a Stuka was better then a spirfire in a combat role, I don't have any facts but there you go