Luftwaffe in 1936-41 improvements?

[Shortround6]

Drop tanks shouldn't be necessary for anything but extreme long range work, and should not be necessary for short flights from the French coast to Britain and back.

To that point, the Germans are better off designing a single engine, single seat fighter with sufficient internal fuel. The P-51B carried 696 L (184 US Gallons) of internal fuel. The Bf 109E carried only 333 L (88 US Gallons) internally for a paltry cruise range of 700 km (435 miles). Considering the Nazi plan was always to fight across the vast spaces of the Russian steppe why did they make their primary fighter so short legged as to be unable to conduct simple internal flights from, for example the primary Bf 109 factory in Augsburg to Königsberg on the Polish border?

The Bf 109E and P-51B had similar engine power and performance. The Bf 109 should have been made with twice its internal fuel plus provisions for drop tanks, allowing the fighter to escort and fight over Moscow, let along Coventry.

Uh, you do know the history of the 109 don't you ?



First flight 28 May 1935 with a RR Kestrel engine and a fixed pitch two blade propeller.

Fuel was 235 or 270 liters.

Explains a lot about later models. Not so much about Luftwaffe thinking.

 

[GrauGeist]

Drop tanks shouldn't be necessary for anything but extreme long range work, and should not be necessary for short flights from the French coast to Britain and back.

To that point, the Germans are better off designing a single engine, single seat fighter with sufficient internal fuel. The P-51B carried 696 L (184 US Gallons) of internal fuel. The Bf 109E carried only 333 L (88 US Gallons) internally for a paltry cruise range of 700 km (435 miles). Considering the Nazi plan was always to fight across the vast spaces of the Russian steppe why did they make their primary fighter so short legged as to be unable to conduct simple internal flights from, for example the primary Bf 109 factory in Augsburg to Königsberg on the Polish border?

The Bf 109E and P-51B had similar engine power and performance. The Bf 109 should have been made with twice its internal fuel plus provisions for drop tanks, allowing the fighter to escort and fight over Moscow, let along Coventry.

Granted the Bf109's combat radius was short-legged (275-350 miles) but it's ferry range was over 700 miles on internal fuel, about 1,200 miles with a drop-tank.

As far as deployment in the Soviet Union, it was assumed that the front lines would be ever expanding eastward and thus, the Luftwaffe's operational range would never be far.
Of course, this didn't happen because those pesky Soviets didn't go along with the plan...

 

[Akuma]

Considering the Nazi plan was always to fight across the vast spaces of the Russian steppe why did they make their primary fighter so short legged as to be unable to conduct simple internal flights from, for example the primary Bf 109 factory in Augsburg to Königsberg on the Polish border?

Aside from the German Military doctrine that aircraft were to support ground forces from forward airfields, the C-amt, like many other similar organizations around the world, saw single engine fighters filling a defensive role while twin engine fighters were viewed as necessary for offense capabilities. Except for discussing the USSR as a possible future enemy AH kept any personal ideas on an invasion of the USSR, in the short term, under wraps. With the cordial relations that existed between Germany and the USSR during the twenties and continued through the thirties culminating in the Non-Aggression Pact and with the exception of the Bf-110, no thought was given by the C-amt for aircraft designed to cover long distances.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Aside from the German Military doctrine that aircraft were to support ground forces from forward airfields, the C-amt, like many other similar organizations around the world, saw single engine fighters filling a defensive role

Considering that most Soviet single engined fighters suffered from very short endurance, this is a fair point.

 

[Gixxerman]

My ideas if I ruled the 3rd R?
Ditch the racist nonsense that deprived Germany of some of its best scientists (& gave them to the allies).
As said much earlier take the war seriously & move to a 'total war' footing from the start (& attempt to delay the start of the war for at least 1yr....the USSR ought to be helping that with their shipments of resources to Germany thanks to the non-agg pact).
I'd also take signals security much more seriously & take measures to stop the lazy use of coding that helped lead to the early breaking of enigma.

I'd undertake a serious rationalisation of production concentrating on a much reduced number of types.
On the more peripheral requirements I'd go for things like a single type for initial training & another for advanced training, a fewer seaplanes etc.

I'd push far more resources, earlier, into jet engine development (& insist on the centrifugal path being researched more with a view to using the centrifugal type earlier & the axial later seeing as it is the more difficult method).
I'd insist on a system of sharing R&D & controlling prototype design & production between the various primary companies to stop some of the absurd amount of duplicated effort that went on in the 3rd R.

I'd get some of my material resources from abandoning much of the proposed Kriegsmarine surface fleet (excepting cruisers & destroyers), concentrating mainly on a Type 21 style U-boat (the technology was nothing special & could have come about even during WW1).

Arado would be pushed to sub-contract more but put more of their resources into the Ar234 earlier with production as soon as practicable.

I'd kill the Me110 & instead push Dornier to create the more capable, albeit an initially lighter version of the Do335, a lot earlier (& why not, they were already thinking about it afaik) with the freed up DB601s with the possibility to grow it & expand it to the historic DB603 version later.

(btw I'm no Me110 hater, as a fighter-bomber it was very good, I just think a Dornier push-pull aircraft would have been better)

Junkers keep the Ju52, Ju87 & the Ju88 - with additional resources put into the Ju87 & Ju88 (I have read that the Luftwaffe never had more than 500 Ju87s available at any 1 time across all fronts...something like the D model earlier & in more numbers would be very useful to them & ditto for better Ju88s in more numbers).

Messerschmitt keep the Me109 - but equipped with drop tanks much earlier, the Me210 is cancelled (the earlier Dornier Pfiel outperforms it massively anyway) & added resources are put into the Me262 earlier. The Me109 is stopped once the Fw190 production is ramped up to take over the role.

Focke Wulf (& sub-contractors) make both the radial 190 & the in-line version (perhaps with an initial DB601 version?) as the sole LW front-line fighter (the in-line being favoured for the purer fighter with the radial more used as fighter-bomber as soon as possible & as much as possible.

Heinkel lose the He111 but those resources go into a separately installed 4 engine He177.

I think this is all feasible (with that wonderful benefit of hindsight) but unless they get incredibly lucky & change their obvious & disastrous habits they still lose as, no matter how much 'will' you might have, a medium sized European nation, particularly one operating under the absurd system that they did (with all its encouraging of those empire building, back-biting & uncooperative - not to mention criminal - individuals) is never going to take on almost all of the modern world & win.

 

[swampyankee]

My ideas if I ruled the 3rd R?
Ditch the racist nonsense that deprived Germany of some of its best scientists (& gave them to the allies).

That racist nonsense was the main attraction of the nazis and comparable movements in many of Germany's allies. The antisemitism, in particular, did not start with the nazis; it started during WW1 by jingoistic elements within the German government. Indeed, that racist nonsense was key to the nazis rise to power. In other words, no racist nonsense, no nazi rise to power, and no WW2.

 

[Gixxerman]

That racist nonsense was the main attraction of the nazis and comparable movements in many of Germany's allies. The antisemitism, in particular, did not start with the nazis; it started during WW1 by jingoistic elements within the German government. Indeed, that racist nonsense was key to the nazis rise to power. In other words, no racist nonsense, no nazi rise to power, and no WW2.

Well yes Swampy, I do know, but then we are in the land of the 'what if...?' are we not? ;¬)

 

[strider190]

Drop tanks on the Me109 before BoB

(BF) 109 E - BoB - had no provision for drop tanks. The plane was relettered in 1942(?) ish as the Me 109 in keeping the the LW new practice of Identifying planes by the mfg.

 

[SaparotRob]

I agree with Gixxerman. The Luftwaffe would have been improved by ditching Nazism.

 

[swampyankee]

Well yes Swampy, I do know, but then we are in the land of the 'what if...?' are we not? ;¬)

I was thinking we were in the realm of "what-if" with the constraint that the nazis still ruled Germany. Anti-bolshevism and antisemitism were very tightly linked in the German right, as they were (and are) with many current right-wing ideologies[1]; given the antipathy of the German armed forces and police to anything other than extreme right movements, I doubt if any political organization which wasn't far right could not form a viable government (the Weimar Republic lasted for only about a decade and could not rely on its police or security services to deal with right-wing violence).

Returning to "making the Luftwaffe better," and maintaining the constraint that the nazis[2] are in power, the two things would be to remove the politics from procurement that gave preference to manufacturers who may have been inferior and reducing the authority of the RLM and parts of the Luftwaffe that were excessively doctrinaire, such as requiring the He177 to be capable of dive bombing.

[1] Of course, fascism is not intrinsically antisemitic, as there were Italian Jews on the fascist councils in Italy up to the mid-1930s (also, arguably, Meyer Kahane was fascist), but it almost inevitably has to be anti-someone, usually somebody loosely defined as an outsider or a foreigner.

 

[Guchi]

Similar as with other threads - improve the Luftwaffe capabilities and achievements in the specified time period, using technology of the day (no jets, fancy rockets or revolver guns). Thinkering starts in early 1936, 1st results of changes should be seen by 1939 at least, while most of benefits materializing in 1940-41. WW2 campaigns start more or less as historically.
Note that anti-aircraft forces are also mostly under Luftwaffe, especially heavy guns, sound detectors and searchlights.

 

[Gixxerman]

(BF) 109 E - BoB - had no provision for drop tanks. The plane was relettered in 1942(?) ish as the Me 109 in keeping the the LW new practice of Identifying planes by the mfg.

Oh come on strider 190, we're not going to rerun that tired old Me/BF stuff are we?
Will my apologies & the term Me (Bf) 109 do? :¬)

...& besides I'm sure I have read that 109E7's (with drop tank provision) were operational at the very tail end of the BoB, no?

 

[Gixxerman]

I was thinking we were in the realm of "what-if"....etc

I understand swampy, I'm just giving my opinion as to what might - might - have led to a possibly 'better' outcome for Germany (& possibly a cold-war with at least some of the territorial gains held), it's just hard to see any of it under the crazy system they had, so, in my mind, that has to go (& ultimately as I said I still think the balance of probabilities is that they end up losing anyway).

But, aside from that, any comments on the alternatives I proposed?
For instance, the swapping the historic Me110 for an early DB601 Pfiel (to later grow into the historic DB603 model) is one I've pondered for a while, I can't see any technical reasons why not (& Dornier were well experience in the pull-push method) & the historic Do335 shows the potential of such an aircraft.

 

[The Basket]

The good ol Bf/Me 110 gets always a kicking. But it did fine.

By the standards of 1939 it was rock solid rocket ship to the moon.

Absolute super star.

To say it was rubbish in a 1939 context is simply untrue.

It had it's strength and weakness just like any man but overall it was rock solid.

I see no reason by any standard in 1939 to think otherwise.

To say Do 335 should replace it makes no sense as the Do 335 was always a Cinderella and what was needed was a ugly sister.

 

[swampyankee]

I understand swampy, I'm just giving my opinion as to what might - might - have led to a possibly 'better' outcome for Germany (& possibly a cold-war with at least some of the territorial gains held), it's just hard to see any of it under the crazy system they had, so, in my mind, that has to go (& ultimately as I said I still think the balance of probabilities is that they end up losing anyway).

But, aside from that, any comments on the alternatives I proposed?
For instance, the swapping the historic Me110 for an early DB601 Pfiel (to later grow into the historic DB603 model) is one I've pondered for a while, I can't see any technical reasons why not (& Dornier were well experience in the pull-push method) & the historic Do335 shows the potential of such an aircraft.

The main problem the Luftwaffe faced in 1939-1941 (other than the RAF....) was that it had an overly doctrinaire purchasing system, which led to such oddities as dive-bombing requirements for heavy bombers. It also had problems with excessive political influence in its purchasing system. Reducing those would have improved the Luftwaffe's in ways that are difficult to quantify. I also suspect that these failure modes are intrinsic to any military procurement in a militaristic dictatorship.

 

[The Basket]

Why would they be issue in a procurement over a democracy over the Nazi regime?

The British flew plenty garbage.

 

[GrauGeist]

The USAAC/USAAF was almost as bad as the RLM in many respects.
In-fighting, politics and wanting to put a 37mm cannon on everything just to name a few.

 

[Shortround6]

For instance, the swapping the historic Me110 for an early DB601 Pfiel (to later grow into the historic DB603 model) is one I've pondered for a while, I can't see any technical reasons why not (& Dornier were well experience in the pull-push method) & the historic Do335 shows the potential of such an aircraft.

two different aircraft.

Trying to switch from two 1300lbs engines to two 2000lb engines with the associated changes in radiators, oil coolers, props (and drive systems) means you have way too much airplane for the available engines early on or not enough airplane for the DB 603 engines if you start smaller.

You also have to consider "systems"

110 had to have a dedicated radio operator to handle the radios used in 1938-40?
Radios got better (or range requirement decreased?) in 1944?

Did crew need to access recon cameras in 1938-40 in flight?
Changes in cameras, film systems in 1944?

Guns?
Radio man in the 110 was part of the 20mm feed system. He changed the drums on the 20mm cannon.
Do 335 with MG/FF cannon?

 

[The Basket]

Bribery is totally unacceptable in military procurement.

Never happens. But if I got free hotels and drinks and meals and all expensive paid trips then that's not bribes. Just business.

 

[swampyankee]

Bribery is totally unacceptable in military procurement.

Never happens. But if I got free hotels and drinks and meals and all expensive paid trips then that's not bribes. Just business.

When I worked at <name redacted>, rumor was that the marketing department was nonplussed when the DoD sent a woman in charge of a purchasing group. The marketeers couldn't figure out a replacement for the women of negotiable virtue that were "accidentally" meeting the government employees....