# Dec 1941 RLM decision. Produce BMW 801. Cancel Jumo 222.



## davebender (Jan 30, 2012)

1,088kg. BMW801 engine. Dry weight.
1,084kg. Jumo222 engine. Dry weight.
…..Dry weight was almost identical.

1,677hp. BMW801 engine. C3 fuel.
2,500hp. Jumo 222 engine design power. B4 fuel.
…..You could derate early production Jumo 222 engines all the way down to 1,700 hp and they would still be as powerful as the BMW 801.

End of March 1942. 
Ostmark Engine Plant stage 1 construction completed.
Designed to produce 500 Jumo 222A engines per month.
A possible future expansion (stage 2) would have doubled production to 1,000 Jumo 222 engines per month.

IMO the 24 Dec 1941 RLM decision to cancel Jumo 222A engine production was one of the most bizarre of the war. Every aircraft powered by the BMW801 engine would have performed better powered by the Jumo 222A even if early production Jumo 222 engines had to be derated. The brand new Ostmark engine plant could have been producing 500 Jumo 222 engines per month by the end of 1942 with plans for future expansion.


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## Tante Ju (Jan 30, 2012)

On a liquid cooled engine you also have serious amount of weight from coolant liquid and raditors, piping, and more drag from these installations.. on a radial like BMW 801, none... so dry weight alone is a bit misleading.


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## davebender (Jan 30, 2012)

So is the argument that radial engines don't require weight for a cooling system. 

The Fw-190A had the nose extended twice (once prior to mass production) in order to provide adequate cooling for the BMW801 engine. Each nose extension added weight to the aircraft and affected aircraft handling.


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## Shortround6 (Jan 30, 2012)

The Jumo 222 was a rathole project. All the time and money failed to produce a useable engine out of nearly 300 made. Part of this was due to constantly changing requirements but part was due to an overly ambitious basis. Germans would have dome better to use the factory at Ostmark to make Jumo 211s or 213s and take the spent on the 222 to develop that series of engines.

The US had it's share of rathole engines. Both the US and the British introduced several engines into service that were "READY" that turned out to be nothing of the sort. 
Germans mass producing Jumo 222s might have been a real benefit to the Allied war effort.


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## Shortround6 (Jan 30, 2012)

davebender said:


> So is the argument that radial engines don't require weight for a cooling system.
> 
> The Fw-190A had the nose extended twice (once prior to mass production) in order to provide adequate cooling for the BMW801 engine. Each nose extension added weight to the aircraft and affected aircraft handling.



The cooling system for a Merlin or Allison started at 300lbs for the low powered ones and went up. Cooling system for a 222 could run 500-600 pounds. The entire fuselage of the Fw 190 might not have weighed 600pounds.


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## DonL (Jan 30, 2012)

I have a significant problem with this headline and the suggestion!

The development of the BMW 801 and the development of the FW 190 both since 1938 had no single influence of other RLM projects and absolutley no influence of the Ostmark engine factory!

The BMW 801 with the FW 190A was a project to get the BMW and FW company in production (major) and the decision was made 1938!

1938: Production and development:
Messerschmitt had the Bf 109/Bf 110 and was developing the Bf 210 since 1937 / Bf 109 and Bf 110 major production
Junkers had the Ju 87, Ju88, Ju 288 (Bomber B), Ju 90 and the Jumo 211 and the Jumo 222 (BomberB)/ Ju87, Ju88, Jumo211 major production
Heinkel had the He 112, He 100, He 111 and the He 177 (Bomber A)/ He 111 major production
Dornier had the Do17, Do 215 and Do 217 / Do 17 and Do 215 major production
DB had the DB 601, DB 606 (BomberA) and DB 604 (BomberB)/ DB 601 major production

FW had the FW 187, FW 200, FW 191(BomberB), FW 189 but no major production
BMW had only the BMW 132 engine in production

The decision was absolutely ok to bring both companys in the production game

Both the advertisement of the Bomber B ( Jumo 222, DB 604) and the advertisement of the Bomber A with coupled engines (DB 606) were binding major development capacity of both engine companys, this development capacity was lost in the development time of the Jumo 213 and the DB 603. Also the abrupt change of the the Jumo 222 to the DB 603 at the engine factory ostmark was controprodctive but all this had nothing to do with the BMW 801 (resources, production and development capacity)

So there was in fact and reality no choose between the BMW 801 and the Jumo 222!


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## Siegfried (Jan 30, 2012)

Tante Ju said:


> On a liquid cooled engine you also have serious amount of weight from coolant liquid and raditors, piping, and more drag from these installations.. on a radial like BMW 801, none... so dry weight alone is a bit misleading.



The use of an integral radiator as was common on Jumo engines would seem to minimise these weight costs: for instance there are no bulky pipes running through the fueselage into the wings. Furthermore, AFAIKT Jumo engines used a warmtauscher (heat exchanger) which provided oil cooling (and intercooling) through the one radiator. Finally the wet weight of an radial (with oil and oil cooler) I belive is also considerable. As much as 50% of the heat of a radial engine can come out of the oil cooler. They might be best called 'oil cooled' engines.


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## Siegfried (Jan 30, 2012)

Shortround6 said:


> The cooling system for a Merlin or Allison started at 300lbs for the low powered ones and went up. Cooling system for a 222 could run 500-600 pounds. The entire fuselage of the Fw 190 might not have weighed 600pounds.



Assumming a 250kg then the wet weight of the Jumo could be 1330kg versus 1080kg dry for the BMW. 
This means the Jumo 222 would need to develop 1460/1080 or 1.23 times the power; about 2090hp to match the radial power to weight ratio.

Add in oil and oil coolers to both engines and the gap closes somewhat so the jumo 222 could be derated to less than 2000hp and still be competitive in terms
of power to weight ratio; all on 87 octane and less drag and more power. I am not sure of what weight needs to be factored in for oil and oil coolers.


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## davebender (Jan 30, 2012)

I don't have a problem with continuing development of the BMW801 radial engine. But if RLM must retool a factory for DB603 engine production it should be something other then the Ostmark Jumo 222 plant.


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## DonL (Jan 30, 2012)

> I don't have a problem with continuing development of the BMW801 radial engine. But if RLM must retool a factory for DB603 engine production it should be something other then the Ostmark Jumo 222 plant.



You are know in a dead circle!
The production of the BMW 801 had started in spring/summer 1941, what do you think will happen if you retool the BMW company from radial to inline engines at autum/winter 1941?

The german aircraft industry had not the capacity to all this projects.
If you want to have the DB 603 and Jumo 213 ealier you must cancel or have no advertisement of the Bomber B (Ju 288, Jumo 222, DB 604) and the advertisement of the Bomber A should be with normal engines.

All this saved money and the development time you can fund in a extra engine factory (an other one extra to ostmark) and you can produce an develop the DB 603 and Jumo 213 ealier and faster.

But the Bomber B, Jumo, 222/DB 604 and the DB 603/Jumo 213 are in direct dependence, you can't have it both from money, production capacity and development capacity!


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## davebender (Jan 30, 2012)

Not exactly. The BMW 801 engine was produced in three large plants.
U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey Aircraft Division Industry Report
Allach-Munich. Mass production from fall 1940.
Klockner. Mass production from Jan 1942.
Spandau. Mass production from Jan 1942.
One of the BMW plants (either Klockner or Spandau) could be converted to DB603 production during 1942.

The Jumo 211 engine was also produced in three large plants.
Junkers Engines - Jumo 211
Magdeburg. From July 1937.
Kothen. From 1938.
Leipzig. From 1942.
Germany had a surplus of Jumo 211 engines by 1943. So the Leipzig plant probably wasn't needed and could have been retooled for DB603 production.

Now we've got two large plants retooling for DB603 engine production during 1942. And Jumo 222 engine production still begins at Ostmark on schedule during March 1942.


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## wuzak (Jan 30, 2012)

As far as I am aware the Jumo 222 was a troublesome engine which needed a lot of work before it was ready for production.

Detuning early series to overcome reliability issues sounds a lot like what heppened to the Vulture.

The Daimler-Benz DB604 was cancelled in 1942 IIRC. Does anybody know the reason why?

Was it unreliable? Fell foul of production priorities?

The DB604 was only a little bigger in capacity than the DB603 (46.3l vs 44.5l) but was more powerful. It did weigh about 160kg more.


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## wuzak (Jan 30, 2012)

Tante Ju said:


> On a liquid cooled engine you also have serious amount of weight from coolant liquid and raditors, piping, and more drag from these installations.. on a radial like BMW 801, none... so dry weight alone is a bit misleading.



The only thing I would say here is that aircraft with liquid cooled engines tended to be faster even with less power (assuming a design optimised for the engine).


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## davebender (Jan 30, 2012)

Jumo 222 and DB604 were competing for the same engine contract. I'm under the impression the Jumo 222 won the competition, which is why the new Ostmark engine plant was tooled for the Jumo 222 rather then the DB604. 

For all practical purposes the DB604 engine program ended when Ostmark was tooled for the Jumo 222. Just as the Jumo 222 program ended for all practical purposes when Ostmark was retooled for the DB603 engine.


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## Shortround6 (Jan 30, 2012)

davebender said:


> I don't have a problem with continuing development of the BMW801 radial engine. But if RLM must retool a factory for DB603 engine production it should be something other then the Ostmark Jumo 222 plant.



No, even if the Ostmark plant was retooled for Hirth 4 cylinder air cooled trainer the engines the Germany would have come out ahead. 

For the number of engines made compared to the number of air frames flown flown with them the Jumo 222 has got to be near the top of the list in most engines made per air frame flown. This should tell us something. With 270-289 made (depending on source) how many airframes actually made it into the air powered by Jumo 222s even as testbeds? 

I am not trying to pick on the Germans here, the Americans built a factory to make the Continental 1430 engine, it wound up making radials and finally a few hundred Merlins despite the 1430 engine going through some 15 or 16 variations including flat (opposed), up right V and inverted V. It only ever powered a few prototypes but I doubt that the US built almost 300 of them. I feel that somewhere there is/was somebody who claimed it was canceled "just when ready for production"


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## davebender (Jan 31, 2012)

> how many airframes actually made it into the air powered by Jumo 222s


Retooling the Ostmark engine plant to produce DB603s destroyed several promising German aircraft programs.

Bomber B program aircraft.
Do-317.
Ju-288.
Fw-191.

Do-435 night fighter.
He-219 night fighter.

Dr. Tank was designing a Fw-190 variant powered by the Jumo-222.

Ju-488 heavy bomber.
One of the He-177B prototypes was supposedly fitted with Jumo 222 engines.

There are probably more if you want to spend time searching.


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## Siegfried (Jan 31, 2012)

wuzak said:


> As far as I am aware the Jumo 222 was a troublesome engine which needed a lot of work before it was ready for production.
> 
> Detuning early series to overcome reliability issues sounds a lot like what heppened to the Vulture.
> 
> ...



The DB604 had inferior cruising power to the Jumo 222, apparently this was its only downside. The engine actually developed a lot of technology that served Daimler Benz well in the post war periode (in piston design)


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## davebender (Jan 31, 2012)

Daimler-Benz in the Third Reich - Neil Gregor - Google Books
Daimler-Benz management placed great emphasis on positioning the company so it would remain profitable in the post-war world no matter which side won. That attitude was a major cause of friction between Daimler-Benz and RLM.


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## Jabberwocky (Jan 31, 2012)

BMW 801 'power egg' weight: 1140 to 1250 kg, depending on aircraft installation. 

Jumo 222A Series I 'power egg' weight: 1830 kg. Later installations with more complicated supercharger set-ups were probably heavier.


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## Jabberwocky (Jan 31, 2012)

davebender said:


> Retooling the Ostmark engine plant to produce DB603s destroyed several promising German aircraft programs.



It was more the major problems with the Jumo 222 engine itself and various political machinations and swings in priority/development focus that doomed these aircraft. 

Until 1944, the Jumo 222 was highly unreliable and especially troublesome when fitted to flying airframes. Ju-52s for the initial engine versions required engine swaps in as little as 20 hours, despite the engine passing its 100 hour bench test. 

There were all sorts of problems with stress fracturing, lubrication, cooling and vibration that needed to be sorted. 

The engine went through four major design iterations. Some major changes too: bore, piston stroke, timing, compression ratio, swept volume ect. All these development efforts only produced something satisfactorily reliable in the second half of 1944, provided it wasn’t pushed too hard. 

Supercharger development for the engine was slow as well, hampering the Bomber B program requirements in 1941-1942.

In addition, the shifting requirements of the Bomber B program aircraft meant that the engines not only had to be re-designed for reliability but also for more power, hampering things further.




> Bomber B program aircraft.
> Do-317. * The Do-317 design was never considered that promising, dropped down the priority lists and showed little improvement over the Do-217 when it did fly*
> Ju-288. *Doomed by the combination of the unreliable Jumo 222 and the aircraft’s own complexity *
> Fw-191. * Flight testing of first four aircraft showed the Fw-191 was so poor that the project was abandoned before the flight test program was even finished *
> ...


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## Denniss (Jan 31, 2012)

The Jumo 222 should have been dropped far earlier to free up money and manpower for Jumo 211/213 and 004 development.
To many highly complicated multibank engines were developed but not worth the money wasted there. It would have been easier to use the 211 and gor the 213 route with more RPM or go the DB601->603 route with larger displacement.


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## wuzak (Jan 31, 2012)

Jabberwocky said:


> He-219 night fighter. Flew fine with DB 610s, if a little underpowered. Follow on 219B was to have 222s, but only a handful of aircraft were made, and the unreliability of the 222 reared its head again



You mean DB603s? 

If it had been fitted with DB610s I'm sure it woudln't have been underpowered.


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## davebender (Jan 31, 2012)

I disagree. During 1942 no German aircraft engine produced more then 1,750 hp. Even late war German engines stopped at about 2,000 hp. A Jumo 222 engine which produced 2,000 hp during 1942 and 2,500 hp during 1945 would have been outstanding. 

Dr. Tank would have been thrilled to have Jumo 222A engines for the Fw-190 program. So would Dornier for the Do-217 bomber (which becomes a Do-317 with Jumo 222 engines). Heinkel would have done backflips if RLM had provided him with Jumo 222A engines for the He-177B heavy bomber and He-219 night fighter.

Demanding even more power from the Jumo 222 was just one of many strange RLM engine decisions.


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## johnbr (Jan 31, 2012)

What about putting people on the BMW 802 and axing the BMW 803.


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## Jabberwocky (Feb 1, 2012)

davebender said:


> *Jumo 222 had to be re-designed for more power.*
> 
> I disagree. During 1942 no German aircraft engine produced more then 1,750 hp. Even late war German engines stopped at about 2,000 hp. A Jumo 222 engine which produced 2,000 hp during 1942 and 2,500 hp during 1945 would have been outstanding.



No German SERVICE engine in 1942. However, there were a number of experimental/prototype designs that were producing more than 2000 PS, including the DB 604 (cancelled during 1942), DB 606 and Jumo 213B, as well as the various twinned DB 603 designs, most of which ended up being abandoned in late 1942/early 1943. The DB 604 was producing better than 2000 PS in 1939. 



> Dr. Tank would have been thrilled to have Jumo 222A engines for the Fw-190 program. So would Dornier for the Do-217 bomber (which becomes a Do-317 with Jumo 222 engines). Heinkel would have done backflips if RLM had provided him with Jumo 222A engines for the He-177B heavy bomber and He-219 night fighter.



And then they would have started tearing their hair out once they got the engine installed and running on the aircraft. Even the early operations with the 801A/B or the Napier Sabre weren't as unreliable. 

222 development started in 1937. By mid 1941 even the derated versions of the engine were still unacceptable in terms of reliability. A whole list of problems with the engine is given: fractures due to vibration, piston seizure, casing corrosion and bearing failures. These were related to poor quality materials in the engine (notably a lack of tin) and problems with the synthetic lubricants.

Put the 222A-1 into service in 1942 and you're probably going to get a repeat of the He-177's early service life, which was a debacle.



> Demanding even more power from the Jumo 222 was just one of many strange RLM engine decisions.


 
The first demand for more power from the Jumo 222 was a result of the changing Bomber B program requirements, notably a higher take-off weight/bomb-load for the Ju-288. It was deemed necessary for the 'B' bombers to have 2500 hp per engine to help with take-off, thus the redesign to produce the 222A-2. Even with the redesign, the engine was still hampered by reliability problems and 2500 PS bench test wasn't passed until the end of 1942.

Remember that the initial Bomber B program specifications were written shortly before the outbreak of war. Combat experience meant that Germany wanted more from its next generation of bombers.

The 3000 hp requirement resulted in another redesign, but this didn't happen until (I think) 1944.


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## Jabberwocky (Feb 1, 2012)

wuzak said:


> You mean DB603s?
> 
> If it had been fitted with DB610s I'm sure it woudln't have been underpowered.



Yes, DB 603s of course. You are correct. 

610s were planned for the P.1055 aircraft, which was the older brother of the He-219 design.


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## wuzak (Feb 1, 2012)

Comparison of the DB604 and the Jumo 222

DB604
Takeoff - 2660hp @ 3200rpm and 1.42ata
Max (emrgency I guess) - 2470 @ 3200rpm, 1.42ata, 20,600ft.
Climb and Combat - 2270hp @ 3000rpm, 1.30ata, SL
Climb and Combat - 2120hp @ 3000rpm, 1.30ata, 21,000ft
Max Cruise - 1830hp @ 2800rpm, 1.15ata, SL
Max Cruise - 1860hp @ 2800rpm, 1.15ata, 20,000ft.

Jumo 222A-1/B-1
Takeoff - 2500hp @ 3200rpm 
Max (emrgency I guess) - 2200 @ 3200rpm, 16,400ft.
Climb and Combat - 2240hp @ 2900rpm, SL
Climb and Combat - 2060hp @ 2900rpm, 16,500ft
Max Cruise - 1900hp @ 2700rpm, SL
Max Cruise - 2700hp @ 2700rpm, 16,500ft.

Data from GED0109
GED0116

Anybody got better sources - particularly for the DB604?


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## davebender (Feb 1, 2012)

> By mid 1941 even the derated versions of the engine were still unacceptable in terms of reliability


Do you have data to support this statement?

Mid 1941 BMW801C engines produced 1,539hp with a service life of about 25 hours. I think even early model Jumo 222A engines could exceed that level of performance.


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## Milosh (Feb 1, 2012)

davebender said:


> Do you have data to support this statement?



_Finally the Jumo 222 did not reach a real production status. Technical problems remained until the end of WWII. A total of 289 engines were built until the end of the war. The Jumo 222 was the standard engine of the Bomber B program of the RLM. Due to the intensive development problems of this engine, finally the complete Bomber B program came to an unsuccessfull end._ 

Junkers Engines - Jumo 222

Then there is Wiki.


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## davebender (Feb 1, 2012)

That doesn't tell us anything as most aircraft engines have some technical problems.


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## Shortround6 (Feb 1, 2012)

The British built just over 300 Perigrine engines and that number managed to keep two squadrons of twin engined fighters in service for over two years. Nearly the same number of Jumo 222s kept zero number of combat aircraft in front line service for even few days.

High powered aircraft engines are very complicated beasts and the rapid progress of the 30's when engines gainied 50% in power in just a few years without a whole lot of trouble fooled a lot of people into thinking that that rate of progress would continue. While progress continued to be made it came at ever increasing costs in complication, engineering and test time. with so many of the German records lost or not easily available we are left looking at American and British programs to draw comparisons from. P&W took about 4 years to go from initial concept to first production engine of the R-2800. On the same day in 1940 they started on two replacement projects. The R-2800 "B" series ( a low risk, minor modification engine of around 150 more HP) and the R-2800 "C" series ( an engine that required new manufacturing and fabrication techniques and that would wind up powering the P-47M&N and others). At about the same in 1940 they started work on the 28 cylinder R-4360 which used the same ( in size anyway) cylinders as the R-2800. The initial R-2800 had used 5 to 7 test engines (including 1 nine cylinder test rig) before production was authorized to start. The R-4360 went through over 50 test engines and, IRMC, well over tens times the amount of money before it iwas OKed for production. While the "B" series R-2800 went into production in under two years it took almost 4 years to get the "C"series into production and close to 5 years to get the R-4360 into production. And basically, what was a R-4360? A pair of R-2000s stuck together with a 1/2in stroke job. Apparently it was all the little details that held things up.
P&W was one of the largest aircraft engine makers in the world in the late 1930s and ended WW II not only in a dominating position but not content to rest on it's laurels (like Wright) and was investing in the jet age with research and development.


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## Siegfried (Feb 1, 2012)

johnbr said:


> What about putting people on the BMW 802 and axing the BMW 803.




BMW 803 came out of the Bramo (BRandenberg MOtor) works near Berlin, once Siemens and Halske (where the single throttle Kommandogeraet came from) while the 801 and likely the 802as Bravarian. IE different team. The Bramo team actually produced the 003 jet engine.

So you would need to split the team.

The 802 was a radically different engine to the BMW 801
1 More cylinders
2 Same bore but much longer stroked.
3 Valves placed in line for better cooling airflow
4 Varable valve timming for exahusts to allow tuned scavenging.

To have any chance to win or stablemate the war the Germans needed the BMW 802, DB604 or Jumo 222 engine by 1943 this is because
1 They could not afford a large bomber fleet with escorts.
2 fast aircraft like the Mosquite lack punch to inflict damage upon the enemy and can be countered by lightened fighters (except at night)
3 They needed a large bomber, driven to the same speed limits as fighters but with an armament and heavier bomb load

A Ju 88 with Jumo 222E/F engines (known as a Ju 388) was estimated to be capable of 440 mph for instance about 408 with the Jumo 222A/B


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## davebender (Feb 1, 2012)

> Nearly the same number of Jumo 222s kept zero number of combat aircraft in front line service for even few days.


60 Jumo 222A engines and 21 Ju-288 airframes were under construction during December 1941 when Milch pulled the plug on the program. Only two of the 21 Ju-288s were allowed to complete construction. It's almost as if Milch wanted to prevent the Ju-288 and Jumo 222 engine from proving itself in combat.


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## Jabberwocky (Feb 1, 2012)

davebender said:


> Do you have data to support this statement?


 
On Jumo 222 reliability? 

Apart from the facts that the engine was never approved for serial production, the larger volume/lower RPM Series II engines were still plagued with ignition issues and that the bearing, piston and vibration issues weren't solved until another major redesign in late 1943 and the fact that even the slightly more reliable Series II engines were cancelled.

Then there is the fact that while the Ju-288 was originally scheduled to fly in October 1940 with Jumo 222s, it didn't actually make its maiden flight until June 1942, with BMW 801s, *owing to the continuing problems with the 222*.


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## Siegfried (Feb 2, 2012)

Jabberwocky said:


> On Jumo 222 reliability?
> 
> Apart from the facts that the engine was never approved for serial production, the larger volume/lower RPM Series II engines were still plagued with ignition issues and that the bearing, piston and vibration issues weren't solved until another major redesign in late 1943 and the fact that even the slightly more reliable Series II engines were cancelled.
> QUOTE]
> ...


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## wuzak (Feb 2, 2012)

Siegfried said:


> Piston engines took 6 years to develop and get into production, in this regard the Jumo 222 was doing quite well progress wise for an engine initiated in 38/39 for instance compare the CW R-3350 which first ran in 1937 but still gave interminable problems in 1943 and early 1944. I doubt the Jumo 222 would have been any more troublesome than the Napier Sabre.



I think the difference here is that the Sabre had difficulties in production (out of round sleeves, made, in part, on Victorian era machinery, with poor quality control) and maintenance. The Jumo 222, it would seem, had some serious design flaws that needed redesigning a couple of times to make them barely adequate. It is similar in that regard to the Rolls-Royce Vulture. In the case of the Vulture the, not unreasonable, decision was taken to stop development so they could concentrate on the Merlin and the new Griffon (other projects were dumped too). The situation of the war very much dictated the move.




Siegfried said:


> But I digresss, perhaps therse was simply too much expectation of the Jumo 222, it could likely have entered production in 1943 in derated form. (about 2200).



The Vulture II had no end of trouble in the Manchester despite it being detuned. Why would we expect that not to be true of the Jumo 222 also?

The Vulture ran several times at 2500hp before its cancellation. And Rolls-Royce would have, no doubt, solved its issues before long - given the time and resources required (they did it with the Merlin). However, by 1941 Rolls-Royce had the luxury of neither.

Did Junkers have sufficient resources to concentrate on their production engines and continue to debug the 222?




Siegfried said:


> The bearing problems were solved but apparently required many strategic materials for the bushings. (the orbital mossion tends to squeeze out the oil from a bearing of a radial like engine)



I don't think that the motion had much to do with the problem. More likely the loads. All cranks have essentially the same motion, the difference being how many loads that are being fed into them. 

Radial engines had cranks, and I presume bearings, which were more highly loaded than a V12.




Siegfried said:


> The Germans were left with the Jumo 213A and DB603A from late 1942 which though good were not in the same class as the Jumo 222. These engines only really began to mature into 2000+ hp engines in late 1944 though they might have made 1900 with C3 fuel as the Jumo 213C and DB603G



I stil wonder about why the DB604 was cancelled, and how close to being production ready it was.


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## jim (Feb 2, 2012)

BMW801 did not recieve 2 stage 4 speed supercharger because it was very expensive
Fw 190c turbosupercharger did not enter production due to lack of materials to form heat resistant alloys
Jumo 222 could not solve its problems because no raw materials avalable
Jumo 004A(relatively reliable) was rejected because needed raw materials
DB 603 and Jumo 213 were denied use of C3 fuel (while 801 took priority despite the fact it was clearly of inferior potentional.) .
DB 605 had very limited acces to C3 
Germans were expecting to construct high performance aero engines with what? Wood and steel? And using diesel fuel?
If no raw materials were available ,perhaps it would be a good idea not to cancel just Jumo 222 but the plans to risk a war as well
It appears to me that the only real failures of theengines industry was the (disastrous) DB 605 lubrications problems in 42/43 and the in time development of 2 stage superchargers.


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## Shortround6 (Feb 2, 2012)

There seems to have been an almost exponential rise in problems with the really big engines. Depending on wither you call the P&W R-4360 a radial (the only successful radial with more than 2 rows) or a multi-bank engine, nobody developed a successful multi-bank engine of over 3 banks. Nobody developed a successful radial with more than 9 cylinders per row ( Wright tried with a 22 cylinder engine using R-3350 cylinders for a 67liter engine). All of the successful 24 cylinder engines used two 12 cylinder crankshafts geared together. Given that there are practical limits on how big you can make each cylinder for a gasoline powered engine, they were bumping up against those limits and trying to get around them using mechanical complication. The only other solution was to use better fuel which allowed higher boost. With enough time and money perhaps the mechanical complications could have been solved (the P&W R-4360 even as much as it was used was NOT a trouble free or low maintenance engine) but really large engines turned out to be useful only when the alternative was multiple engines on what were already multi engine planes.


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## Siegfried (Feb 2, 2012)

Ferdinand Brandner, the lead engineer, did write memoirs after the war. In the "Black Cross Ju 288/388/488" he is quoted as saying the engine was essentially developed to death due to 5 stroke and 3 bore changes designed to quickly achieve demands for increased power. The Jumo 222A/B series were essentially around 46 Litres (even they varied within that), the Jumo 222C/D was a radicall increase in swept volume to 55L designed to achieve power goals while the final Jumo 222A-3/B-3 and Jumo E/F returned to the orginal volume at the end of the war when the engine (which remained in development at a low priority) was back on the production program.

The Ju 288 had essentially started out as a 2 x 2000hp three seater designed to be 33% heavier but twice as powerfull as contemporary Ju 88 whereas after the BoB a 4th crew member, thickened fueselage added weight and required 2500hp immediatly.

These two web pages in German explain a fair bit, you could use google translate etc.

FlugzeugLorenz: Junkers Ju 288
http://www.flugzeug-lorenz.de/fileadmin/user_upload/PDF-Junkersbuch/Junkers_166-171.pdf

Otto Marder, who famously headed the Jumo engine development department noted that the Jumo 222 jumped a generation of technology not even proven in the Jumo 213; the specific power output of over 50hp/L was apparently quite challenging.

The second link notes the bearing problems caused by the orbital motion squeezing the oil out (I think of the big end bearings not the crank bearings)
It also mentions gas errosion (dampfgasblasen) and that it was solved.

The absence of the Jumo 222/BMW 802 and DB604 left a hole in the German engine development program compunded by the DB606/DB610 (coupled engines) failures being unable to provide a backup (at the cost of inferior range though at higher speed)

This left the Luftwaffe with 3 engines of about the same power: BMW 801D (C3) at 1700, DB603A at 1750 and Jumo 213A at 1770. (NB the BMW 801 was producing more with C3 einspritzung ie rich mixture injection: I believe 1850 to 1950 hp). The power levels began to rise in 1944 beyond 2100hp and were heading towards 2700hp.

In a way they did gamble correctly but I still think they could have managed the effort much better and had at least one hyper engine going by 43


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## Gixxerman (Feb 2, 2012)

Great links Siegfried (even with the translate function).

I can't help noticing the mention of bearing failures and it keeps coming back, as far as I can see, to the central issues Germany had with so many projects during the war.
Limited resources, in this case in materials as well as fuels lubricants.

Germany undoubtedly had many brilliant engineers designers but between having to make choices of priority in production (where even very promising designs must be shelved or cancelled outright due to the disruption trying to introduce them to mass-production would inevitably bring) to the limitations of their raw materials situation it seems to me to be no surprise that their aviation history in WW2 has several 'what ifs'.
This seems to me to be perfectly natural and to be expected.

(and so too are the tales of stupidity/blindness/petty officialdom and all the other complaints those on the receiving end of decisions they did not like/agree with made.....although it also has to be said that the nazi state was especially affected by political in-fighting personalities clashing)

Nevertheless, despite all of the interesting and very impressive projects, the fact remains, a medium sized country just cannot hope to win a world war, given the allies she has verses those that ended up allied against her.
(as the 1st link mentions clearly)

I think that if Germany could have had the Jumo 222 in 1942 the outcome of the war, at least for Germany if not western Europe would have been little different.
It's much the same as with the idea of the Me262 a year or so earlier than it managed - Galland quite rightly said he thought, at best, it would only have led to western Europe in Russian hands.

The world suffers a longer war......and given the historical fact of the enormously increased scale of German losses in the final year of the war most probably a much worse situation for the German people Germany after 
(and not let's not forget the additional time this would have given the nazi state to murder many more people from all over Europe the east in the death camps etc etc).

Their only hope for a true game-changer was the atomic bomb one way or another they came nowhere close to it.

Thank God.


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## davebender (Feb 2, 2012)

> Ju-288 was originally scheduled to fly in October 1940 with Jumo 222s, it didn't actually make its maiden flight until June 1942


Where are you getting this information?

April 1937. 
Jumo 222 engine program begins.
…..Original specification required 2,000 hp.

4 April 1938. 
RLM assigns Jumo 222 designation to the new Junkers engine.

24 April 1939. 
Jumo 222 prototype first run.

2 Nov 1940. 
Jumo 222 first test flight. In nose of Ju-52 transport aircraft.

November 1940. 
Goering personally approves mass production of the Jumo 222A engine.

2 April 1941. 
Ostmark company established to build the Jumo 222A engine. HQ in Vienna.

April 1941. 
Jumo 222A passes 100 hour test. Operating at 2,000 hp (i.e. the original design specification).

25 July 1941. 
Construction begins on FMO-Flugmotorenwerke Ost engine factory.
…..Stage 1. Produce 500 engines per month.
…..Subsidiary factory at Brno, Moravia to produce Bosch fuel injection system.
…..Subsidiary factory at Marburg, Slovenia to produce propellers.
…..393 million RM total construction cost.

1 Aug 1941. 
Focke-Wulf proposal for Fw-190 powered by Jumo 222 engine.

October 1941. 
RLM orders the Ju-288B into mass production.
…..8 Ju-288A prototypes were produced. The Ju-288B had several airframe modifications.

28 Oct 1941. 
Junkers orders tooling for the new engine factory.
…..Ju-288 prototypes powered by Ju-222A during this time frame required engine changes every 20 to 50 hours. Reliability as good or better then BMW801 engines during the same time frame.
…..2,000 hp @ 2,900 rpm @ SL. 2,200hp @ 16,400 feet.

1 Nov 1941. 
RLM cancels mass production of Ju-288B. Instead they give Junkers an order for 35 aircraft.

17 Nov 1941. 
Ernst Udet commits suicide.
…..Udet was a major proponent of the Jumo 222 engine and Bomber B. Some think his death cleared the way for Milch to derail these programs.

24 Dec 1941. 
Milch makes decision to retool Ostmark plant for the DB603 engine.
…..RLM did not completely cancel the Jumo 222. It remained a low development priority into 1944. However without a production facility the program ended for all practical purposes during December 1941.
…..60 Jumo 222A engines and 21 Ju-288 aircraft were under construction at the time RLM halted both programs. Only two of the Ju-288s were allowed to complete construction.

Dec 1942. 
2,500 hp version of Jumo 222 engine passes 100 hour test.
.....Even with low development priority the Jumo 222 engine was producing 2,500 hp with adequate reliability by the end of 1942.


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## wuzak (Feb 2, 2012)

Siegfried said:


> the specific power output of over 50hp/L was apparently quite challenging.



50hp/l - I suppose that is challenging.

I mean the Merlin didn't get to 50hp/l (1350hp) until...1940. By the end of teh war the Merlin was just about continuouslyrated at 50hp/l.
The Griffon struggled to get 50hp/l - actually, no it didn't. It entered service rated about 50hp/l.
The R-2800 got there in the end (2300hp).
The Vulture wasn't short of the mark (2100hp for 50hp/l) in the Mk V version.
The Sabre started life at about 54hp/l (on 87 octane fuel)- and went up.


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## Shortround6 (Feb 2, 2012)

Actually it is a bit challenging depending on the fuel used. Power is dependent on the pressure in the cylinders ( most accurately IMEP but often compared using BMEP) and the displacement and the rpm. The maximum cylinder pressure is dependent on the fuel, for given fuel like 87 octane there is a definite limit on the useable pressure so any increase in power has to come from increased displacement or RPM. With a practical limit on cylinder diameter and a practical limit on cylinder stroke that means displacement can only be increased by using more cylinders. The RPM is limited by the stroke in that a piston speed of 3000 ft per minute was the practical limit for a WW II engine, some did exceed it by a few percent with the Jumo 213 being the highest "speed" engine. increasing the rpm means increasing the stress on the crank, rods, pistons and crank case with the square of the speed. 10% increase in RPM means a 21% increase in stress loads. Even changes of just a few hundred RPM often meant either new crankcases or modified ones and/ or new crankshafts.


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## davparlr (Feb 2, 2012)

wuzak said:


> 50hp/l - I suppose that is challenging.
> 
> The R-2800 got there in the end (2300hp).


The P-47D-5 with water was generating 2300 hp in 1943. In the end, it was generating 2800 hp (61hp/ltr)


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## johnbr (Feb 2, 2012)

What about the 18-cl Bramo or the Deurz Dz 710.


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## Shortround6 (Feb 2, 2012)

davparlr said:


> The P-47D-5 with water was generating 2300 hp in 1943. In the end, it was generating 2800 hp (61hp/ltr)



To be fair the 2300hp was with 100/130 fuel which allows a cylinder pressure roughly 80% higher than 87 octane. 87 octane has a performance number of 68.29 so even 100 octane allows about a 45% increase in pressure. Going to 130 PN means another 30% increase so depending on wither you add or multiply??? either way a big increase and even if different engines respond differently to the same fuel there is still going to be a big difference. using water means that teh R-2800 was using the same thing as MW-50 on top of the 100/130 fuel. 

In the end the the R-2800 that gave 2800hp in the M&N Thunderbolts was an entirely new engine that, while interchangeable in installations actually shared NO parts at all with ANY previous R-2800 except for perhaps the starter dog. it may have required both 150 PN or 115/145Pn fuel and water injection to reach the 2800hp. It also used a bigger/higher performance turbo than previous P-47s. 
Military power without water and WER settings was 2100hp.


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## Siegfried (Feb 3, 2012)

Shortround6 said:


> To be fair the 2300hp was with 100/130 fuel which allows a cylinder pressure roughly 80% higher than 87 octane. 87 octane has a performance number of 68.29 so even 100 octane allows about a 45% increase in pressure. Going to 130 PN means another 30% increase so depending on wither you add or multiply??? either way a big increase and even if different engines respond differently to the same fuel there is still going to be a big difference. using water means that teh R-2800 was using the same thing as MW-50 on top of the 100/130 fuel.
> 
> In the end the the R-2800 that gave 2800hp in the M&N Thunderbolts was an entirely new engine that, while interchangeable in installations actually shared NO parts at all with ANY previous R-2800 except for perhaps the starter dog. it may have required both 150 PN or 115/145Pn fuel and water injection to reach the 2800hp. It also used a bigger/higher performance turbo than previous P-47s.
> Military power without water and WER settings was 2100hp.



Good information; where did you get the PN numbers for octane ratings below 100?

The BMW 801F, delayed by tooling issues, was to produce 2600hp in service (presumably on C3 + MW50) this is comparable to the R-2800 and respectable considering that the 801 was an "R-2600"


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## davebender (Feb 3, 2012)

If RLM held BMW to the same standards as Junkers the 1941 BMW 801 engine would have been required to produce almost this much power while running on B4 fuel and with an operational service life better then 50 hours.


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## Siegfried (Feb 3, 2012)

wuzak said:


> I think the difference here is that the Sabre had difficulties in production (out of round sleeves, made, in part, on Victorian era machinery, with poor quality control) and maintenance. The Jumo 222, it would seem, had some serious design flaws that needed redesigning a couple of times to make them barely adequate. It is similar in that regard to the Rolls-Royce Vulture. In the case of the Vulture the, not unreasonable, decision was taken to stop development so they could concentrate on the Merlin and the new Griffon (other projects were dumped too). The situation of the war very much dictated the move.
> 
> The Vulture II had no end of trouble in the Manchester despite it being detuned. Why would we expect that not to be true of the Jumo 222 also?
> 
> ...



I don't think the vulture was a bad engine: too much of it was demanded of it too quickly as a result of Manchesters uncontrolled wieght growth, it peformed reliably in the Tornado and its problems (it needed enlarged big end bearings) to handle the sustained high power levels of bomber climb out. Vulture was a good engine that was dropped because Merlin and Griffon was an altermative. The Sabre was not that important nor was a Vulture altermantive while Lancaster was not better than Manchester in terms of speed. It was dropped for economic reasons.

However the Jumo 222 Ju 288 combo was a monster.

I can't see any insupperable problems with the Jumo 222; the 6 cyclinder radial is a stable balanced arrangment. Stacking 4 behined each other adds only torsional vibration issues in the long (but not too long) shaft. There are no silly sleeve valves that need special machining, alloys etc. The issues of the Jumo 222 came from high stresses and specific power levels.

Lutz Budrass puts the death of the Jumo 222 due to a RLM (Milch) strategy to breakdown the Junkers concerns by splitting the airframe and engine division. Milch consistantly showed a preferance for high production volumes.

What actually at up development capabillity was the Jumo 004 turbojet


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## Siegfried (Feb 3, 2012)

wuzak said:


> 50hp/l - I suppose that is challenging.
> 
> I mean the Merlin didn't get to 50hp/l (1350hp) until...1940. By the end of teh war the Merlin was just about continuouslyrated at 50hp/l.
> The Griffon struggled to get 50hp/l - actually, no it didn't. It entered service rated about 50hp/l.
> ...



The 50hp/L figure is only a relative bench mark: what matters is power to weigh ratio and of course ask you acknowlege it is on 87 octane.

The Jumo high RPM is not extraordinary: A higher power engine will be stressed either by high boost or high RPM. Piston velocity is a better figure of merrit in anycase.


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## Shortround6 (Feb 3, 2012)

Siegfried said:


> Good information; where did you get the PN numbers for octane ratings below 100?



From a book called " Aviation Fuels and their effect on aircraft performance" prepared by the Ethyl Corporation For the USAAF and US Navy. I believe to was prepared with the help of Sam Heron


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## wuzak (Feb 4, 2012)

Siegfried said:


> I don't think the vulture was a bad engine: too much of it was demanded of it too quickly as a result of Manchesters uncontrolled wieght growth, it peformed reliably in the Tornado and its problems (it needed enlarged big end bearings) to handle the sustained high power levels of bomber climb out. Vulture was a good engine that was dropped because Merlin and Griffon was an altermative. The Sabre was not that important nor was a Vulture altermantive while Lancaster was not better than Manchester in terms of speed. It was dropped for economic reasons.



The Vulture big end bearing problems were largely a result of poor connecting rod design - and con rod bolt failures. The two pieces could move relative to each other, and thus caused the bearing to fail.

A similar situation occured with the main bearings, with tehtwo crancase halves moving relative to each other. This was solved with dowel pins to prevent the motion.


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## wuzak (Feb 4, 2012)

Siegfried said:


> I don't think the vulture was a bad engine: too much of it was demanded of it too quickly as a result of Manchesters uncontrolled wieght growth, it peformed reliably in the Tornado and its problems (it needed enlarged big end bearings) to handle the sustained high power levels of bomber climb out. Vulture was a good engine that was dropped because Merlin and Griffon was an altermative. The Sabre was not that important nor was a Vulture altermantive while Lancaster was not better than Manchester in terms of speed. It was dropped for economic reasons.



The Vulture big end bearing problems were largely a result of poor connecting rod design - and con rod bolt failures. The two pieces could move relative to each other, and thus caused the bearing to fail.

A similar situation occured with the main bearings, with tehtwo crancase halves moving relative to each other. This was solved with dowel pins to prevent the motion.


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## davparlr (Feb 4, 2012)

Shortround6 said:


> To be fair the 2300hp was with 100/130 fuel which allows a cylinder pressure roughly 80% higher than 87 octane. 87 octane has a performance number of 68.29 so even 100 octane allows about a 45% increase in pressure. Going to 130 PN means another 30% increase so depending on wither you add or multiply??? either way a big increase and even if different engines respond differently to the same fuel there is still going to be a big difference. using water means that teh R-2800 was using the same thing as MW-50 on top of the 100/130 fuel.
> 
> In the end the the R-2800 that gave 2800hp in the M&N Thunderbolts was an entirely new engine that, while interchangeable in installations actually shared NO parts at all with ANY previous R-2800 except for perhaps the starter dog. it may have required both 150 PN or 115/145Pn fuel and water injection to reach the 2800hp. It also used a bigger/higher performance turbo than previous P-47s.
> Military power without water and WER settings was 2100hp.


Isn't that like saying the P-51H is not a real P-51? In both cases, the lineage is certainly there. What dash number did the "C" engine start? The dash 59 on the P-47D-27 generated 2600 hp.


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## davebender (Feb 4, 2012)

U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey Aircraft Division Industry Report
With a planned production of 500 Jumo 222s per month Ostmark would have been the second largest German aircraft engine factory (Genshagen DB605 factory was largest).

Why would someone interested in high production volumes derail Jumo 222 engine production?


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## Shortround6 (Feb 4, 2012)

davparlr said:


> Isn't that like saying the P-51H is not a real P-51? In both cases, the lineage is certainly there. What dash number did the "C" engine start? The dash 59 on the P-47D-27 generated 2600 hp.



The dash numbers overlap. For example the Army Air Force -57 is a "C" series engine but the -59 and -63 are "B" series engines. The Army and Navy dash numbers are completely out of whack, Navy "C" series engines can be as low as -14 while the last dash number for an Army "A" series engine is -39. 

As far as the P-51H not being a real P-51?? the lineage is there but you can't make a P-51H airframe out of P-51D parts can you? A bit like the old 351 Ford V-8s. Saying you can get a certain power level out of a 351 Cleveland doesn't mean you can get that power level out of a 351 Windsor even though they are both small block Fords with the same bore and stroke 

The "C" series R-2800 used steel cylinder liners in an aluminium "muff" that had the cooling fins instead of an all steel cylinder with machined in fins. The Cylinder head was forged instead of cast to allow for more/deeper fins. Both aided cooling for the higher powers desired. A new crankshaft and crankcase allowed for more power and higher rpm. New pistons and connecting rods and so on. While a certain "B" engine went to well over 3000hp on the test stand at the factory (using phenomenal amounts of boost and water injection) and survived P&W felt the "C" series was needed to get the power at the reliability and durability levels they wanted. 
How much was needed just to get extra power and how much was needed to get more reliability and longer life at the same or higher powers I don't know. The postwar "CB" series was good for 2300hp take-off without water injection in airline service. That is something to be remembered about some of these WER ratings, especially the ones using early water injection or MW/50. Every single use had to be noted in the engine log books and extra maintenance procedures were _supposed_ to be followed. Each use sometimes took hours off the engine life to scheduled overhaul and also required more frequent spark plug changes or inspection.


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## Milosh (Feb 4, 2012)

davebender said:


> U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey Aircraft Division Industry Report
> With a planned production of 500 Jumo 222s per month Ostmark would have been the second largest German aircraft engine factory (Genshagen DB605 factory was largest).
> 
> Why would someone interested in high production volumes derail Jumo 222 engine production?



Because that meant more of the other engines could be built.


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## Siegfried (Feb 4, 2012)

davebender said:


> U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey Aircraft Division Industry Report
> With a planned production of 500 Jumo 222s per month Ostmark would have been the second largest German aircraft engine factory (Genshagen DB605 factory was largest).
> 
> Why would someone interested in high production volumes derail Jumo 222 engine production?



It's hard to tell. Perhaps he had seen too many high tech disasters (Me 410 and He 177) and just wanted dependable mass production. In my view these programs were simply mismanaged: the He 177 could have been built as propossed as a 4 engined version while the Me 210 could have been better risk managed. Milch thought that German could wind the war only if the Me 262 got into mass production in 1943. Perhaps he was an egoist, or was it politics. He was rather taken aback wehn his nominal subordinate Kammhuber (head of the night fighter force) bypassed him and got the He 219 into production (instead of his pet project the Ta 154) 

The Ju 288 itself was to be a masterpiece of production engineering. The 4 wing spars were pressed out in one opperation by a 30,000 ton press and so were perfectly tapered and shaped for optimal strength and each point even the attachment bolts were produced in the press and only received final threading and machining. This made the spars faster and cheaper to produce. The entire fueselage and wings were built to high tollerances of smoothness. The pressurised crew cabin could be detached by exposlive bolt to rescue the crew. Wing skins could be removed to service damaged fuel cells. This is the kind of technology one would see in an F-111.

The Jumo 222 would have been built for mass production in a similar way.

The idea was that the Ju 288 was cheap and fast to produce.


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## davebender (Feb 4, 2012)

How do you figure that? 

Ostmark was built to produce Jumo 222A engines. You cannot change tooling and retrain workers for Daimler-Benz production simply by signing an order. You will lose an entire year of production (about 6,000 Jumo 222A engines) during the conversion process.


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## davebender (Feb 4, 2012)

Then why didn't he make it happen? The Me-262 airframe was ready (or ready enough). So was the Jumo 004A engine.


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## Shortround6 (Feb 4, 2012)

davebender said:


> How do you figure that?
> 
> Ostmark was built to produce Jumo 222A engines. You cannot change tooling and retrain workers for Daimler-Benz production simply by signing an order. You will lose an entire year of production (about 6,000 Jumo 222A engines) during the conversion process.



Except there was no work force trained to produce 500 Jumo 222s a month. How much specialized tooling actually existed? 

It took American Factories anywhere from 5 months to over a year from start of production to reach 500 a month and a lot of those factories hit 1000 a month just 3-6 months later. 

If you are building similar engines ( changing from one water cooled engine to another or from one air-cooled engine to another) the time to change over is much shorter. This assumes you are actually building engines in quantity already. If you have people trained to machine pistons they don't need a year of retraining to machine a different piston. 

Installing the machinery takes time, making jigs and fixtures takes time, but many factories that made large numbers of engines operated many machines in parallel, dozens of machines doing the same operation. It may take time to fit them ALL with new jigs or fixtures but some production can start fairly soon. It also ridiculous to believe that the Ostmark was fully tooled up (jigs and fixtures included) before they produced the first few dozen engines. That would have been a waste of resources, having vast numbers of machine tools sitting idle until every single machine was in place and fitted with it's own particular jig or fixture.


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## DonL (Feb 4, 2012)

> So was the Jumo 004A engine.



It is correct that the Jumo 004*A* engine was ready and could go in production, but germany had not enough special alloys/materials/substances to built it at mass production.

So the Jumo 004*B* engine was developed with "save" materials/substances/alloys, with all it's problems.


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## davebender (Feb 4, 2012)

Per Albert Speer chromium was the only alloy metal in short supply during 1943.

*Chromium requirements per engine during 1943.*
27.4kg. DB605
9.5kg. Jumo 004A.

Historical Ostmark factory engine production during 1943.
U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey Aircraft Division Industry Report
4. May 1943
3. June 1943
0. July 1943
.....1943 production at Ostmark was delayed by U.S. bombing raids.
83. August 1943
40. September 1943
100. October 1943
120. November 1943.
165. December 1943
.....495 total engines produced during 1943 at Ostmark.

Doesn't look like a lot but consider historical Me-262 production with Jumo 004B engines. 
July 1944. 60 Me-262s produced.
Sept 1944. 90 Me-262s produced.
.....A total of 315 production model Me-262s were delivered by the end of October 1944. 
.....Historically RLM purchased a total of 80 Jumo 004A engines during 1942. These were hand built (i.e. not mass produced).

So let's kill two birds with one stone. If Milch was determined to kill the Jumo 222 program and if Milch was determined to build the Me-262 during 1943 then why not convert the Ostmark factory to Jumo 004A production? Start the conversion 24 December 1941 and Ostmark should be churning out Jumo 004A engines during 1943. By December 1943 Me-262 production (with Jumo 004A engines) should be similiar to the historical September 1944 level. A 9 month head start compared to what happened historically and you get more reliable engines.


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## Milosh (Feb 4, 2012)

Chromium was *only* used in airplane engines?


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## Jugman (Feb 5, 2012)

Shortround6 said:


> The "C" series R-2800 used steel cylinder liners in an aluminium "muff" that had the cooling fins instead of an all steel cylinder with machined in fins.



As far as I'm aware *All* R-2800s have forged aluminum cooling muffs shrunk on to a nitralloy (early) or chrome-molybdenum (later) cylinder barrel. 

The contemporary R-2000 has the same bore but fins integral with the cylinder barrel. Note the clear difference in depth, pitch and uniformity of the fins.

R-2000 cylinder.

R-2800-B cylinder (with aftercooler).


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## Siegfried (Feb 5, 2012)

Nickel seems to have been a far more difficult, and important material for Jumo 004 production. I wouldn't say the Jumo 004A was ready for production but versions with more refractories were more reliable in bench tests. Hand built Jumo 004B-0 were more reliable than mass produced Jumo 004B-1 and in fact Arado 234 prototype recons sent to photograph the Normandy Beachhead seem to work trouble free over the Cherburg Peninsula.

The alloy used for the turbine blades was 'tinidur' from Krupp of about 6% titanium, 15% chromium, 30% Nickel and balance Iron. This was an austinitic alloy that could not be welded as it lost its grain structure so it was (forged in the solid blades of the 004A and 004B1) and in the hollow aircooled blades of the Jumo 004B-4 it was 'deep drawn' starting out as a disk and progressively punched into a hollow blade by a series of male/female dies. Nickel became so scarce (I think after Finland was lost to the Soviets) that Krupps "Chromidur" was used on the Jumo 004B4 from Feb 1945 onwards; this substituted the scarce nickel with manganese and was nominally inferior but it could be welded so was made out of folded sheet metal welded at the trailing edge and was more reliable in practice due to simpler quality control.

These alloys were inferior to the British nimonic which had 80% nickel, 20% chromium with traces of zirconium. The British engines had their blades cast and individuall machined with 'fir tree roots' for attachment to the rotor disk. The German ones were pined through a loop and silver soldered: its obvious the British engines put much more effort in. Nickel is critical in that it provides unique creep resistance. Nickel doesn't stretch under heat and stress. 
Under the conditions of the war and due to inexperience the engine components did sometimes get proper anealing and tempering.

It should be noted that many sections of the German engines such as the combustion chambers, exhaust lining and translating exahust nozzle were made of plane mild carbon steel and gave quite a deal of trouble: even plane stainless steel would have been much better.

I think more critical was the primitve fuel control system which used a centrifugal governor only and could easily overdose or underdose fuel leading to burnouts and flameouts.

To solve this the piloits throttle effect on the governor needs to be moderated or airflow estimated by say an aneroid capsule across the cmpressor so that not only engine rpm and throttle position but air fuel ratio or contolled. The BMW 003 got this 'beschleuniguns ventile'. The allied fuel control systems were no better but they could more afford the temperature fluctutations. This was an oversight, simple adaptions of the fuel control injection systems, long in use in German piston engines, were found to be capable of doing the job!

The short life of the turbines (to be replaced every 25-37.5 hours) was not an issue. The pilot gets 25 hour in the air while the pair of engine receives about 8 hours service on the ground however reliabilly was more important. The BMW 003 only needed 2 hours service to relace the turbines. They key was that it needed to be reliable. I sincerly believe that a few more months of effort would have gotten these issues under control in fact the engineers at bmw realised they had underestimated the requirements for fuel control

I rather tend to think the Jumo 222 might have been a safer bet though the advantage of success less.


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## davebender (Feb 5, 2012)

Finland was mining nickel ore faster then Germany was hauling it away. Albert Speer personally intervened during December 1943 to have stockpiled nickel ore transported to Germany before Finland quit the war.


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## Siegfried (Feb 6, 2012)

davebender said:


> Finland was mining nickel ore faster then Germany was hauling it away. Albert Speer personally intervened during December 1943 to have stockpiled nickel ore transported to Germany before Finland quit the war.



In 1918 Germany had helped Finland obtain independance and had maintained cordial relations. Stalins agression against Finland, a violation of the spirit of the German-Soviet non agression pact, a threat to Germany's strategic interests, especially raw materrials supply (nickel) and an attack on a friendly nation almost certainly convinced Hitler that Stalin could not be trusted and had to be dealt with; better sooner rather than latter.

minimising use of strategic materials was an obsession, for whatever reason the Jumo 004 was favoured for its minimal use of these materials over competing designs such as those from heinkel.


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## tyrodtom (Feb 7, 2012)

Siegfried said:


> In 1918 Germany had helped Finland obtain independance and had maintained cordial relations. Stalins agression against Finland, a violation of the spirit of the German-Soviet non agression pact, a threat to Germany's strategic interests, especially raw materrials supply (nickel) and an attack on a friendly nation almost certainly convinced Hitler that Stalin could not be trusted and had to be dealt with; better sooner rather than latter.
> 
> .


 That is the biggest crock of nonsense I think i've read on this forum in a long, long, time. So Hitler was just trying to save the rest of the world from the untrustworthy Stalin ? After Hitler had already invaded and took over how much territory himself?


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## jim (Feb 7, 2012)

tyrodtom said:


> That is the biggest crock of nonsense I think i've read on this forum in a long, long, time. So Hitler was just trying to save the rest of the world from the untrustworthy Stalin ? After Hitler had already invaded and took over how much territory himself?


 
Mr Tyrodtom
Hitlers general aggression politics was not generated by Stalin politics. But today we know Stalin had equally agressive intentions(Finland,Poland,the 3 small baltic countries are early examples) and was preparing for general war regadless of the german invation. So Hitler attacked first believing it was the proper time for Germany. Personally i believe if Germany did not attack, Stalin eventually would. I would also like to remind that -technically- France and Britain declared war to Germany and the french army invated germany in September 1939


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## Juha (Feb 7, 2012)

Siegfried said:


> In 1918 Germany had helped Finland obtain independance and had maintained cordial relations.



That's true.



Siegfried said:


> Stalins agression against Finland, a violation of the spirit of the German-Soviet non agression pact, a threat to Germany's strategic interests, especially raw materrials supply (nickel) and an attack on a friendly nation almost certainly convinced Hitler that Stalin could not be trusted and had to be dealt with; better sooner rather than latter.



Now that is rubbish. Nazi-Germany "sold" Baltic states and Finland to SU in Aug 39 and gave a free hand to Stalin to dealt with them as he wished. So Soviet attack to Finland wasn't "a violation of the spirit of the German-Soviet non agression pact", it was just what one could expect if Finland didn't give in to Soviet demands. Most of Nazi hierarcy didn't give damm to Finns, we were counted as sub-humans, who cares. Only because we fought so well during the Winter War, Nazis began to rethink of the racial category of Finns and surprisingly noticed that many Finnish children were fair and had blue eyes. The effect of the Winter War on German thinking was that because we did so well Germans began to underestimate the Red Army. On Germany's attitude toward Finland during the Winter War:

_“Finnish military named Flak 30 as 20 ItK/30. Finland had managed to order 134 of these guns in October of 1939 (just few weeks before Winter War). The first shipment of 30 guns also arrived just days before starting of Winter War. The treaties Germany had made with Soviet Union forbid it selling war-materials to enemies of the Soviets or assisting them otherwise - and at that time Hitler's German followed this treaty. So, when Winter War started the Germans ended the shipments of these guns after that first delivery. To the Finns the situation was terrible: They had large number of antiaircraft-artillery units without weapons and when European armies were arming themselves getting effective weaponry from elsewhere was almost impossible. As the official channels of delivery were closed decision was made to try getting the undelivered guns by using more covert methods: Dummy company "Ab Svenska Castra" with friendly Swedes seated to its leadership was swiftly established to Stockholm (Sweden). Negotiations were also started covertly with the Germans. During first days of December 1939 Finns secretly negotiated with the Germans in Berlin. These negotiations lead to result - the Germans accepted to deliver more guns if Sweden would be portrayed as customer country buying them and if the Finns would pay the weapons with wood and copper, which German war-industry needed. This covert deal wasn't long lasting because the information about the deliveries of Italian Fiat G.50 fighter aircraft through German territory soon leaked to Swedish press, as the matter got to Swedish newspapers soon also the Soviets got alarmed that the Germans were not strictly following German - Soviet treaty. 9th of December Germany received note of protest from Soviet Union and this ended the whole Finnish-German covert arrangement. While the Germans replied the note of protest by denying its allegations, they also were unwilling to risk matters further and stopped the deliveries again - this time for good. Equipment that the Finns had succeeded convincing the Germans to send forward during those few days of early December included the second shipment of 20 guns. But after this the deliveries ended for duration of Winter War.”_

Source: FINNISH ARMY 1918 - 1945: ANTIAIRCRAFT GUNS PART 1

Germans offered to fuel and supply Soviet subs from German ships during the war but Soviet navy declined the offer.

After Hitler had decided to attack SU Germany's attitude towards Finland changed and in Autumn 40 during Molotov's Berlin visit Hitler didn't give "free hands in Finland" to SU when Molotov asked them for "permanent solution of Finnish question."

Juha


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## davebender (Feb 7, 2012)

*Historical Events.*

November 1940. 
Goering personally approves production of the Jumo 222A engine.

April 1941. 
Jumo 222A passes 100 hour test. Operating at 2,000 hp.

25 July 1941. 
Construction begins on FMO-Flugmotorenwerke Ost engine factory.
…..Stage 1. Produce 500 engines per month.
…..Subsidiary factory at Brno, Moravia to produce Bosch fuel injection system.
…..Subsidiary factory at Marburg, Slovenia to produce propellers.
…..393 million RM total construction cost.

1 Aug 1941. 
Focke-Wulf proposal for Fw-190 powered by Jumo 222 engine.

28 Oct 1941. 
Junkers orders tooling for the new engine factory.
…..Ju-288 prototypes during this time frame required engine changes every 20 to 50 hours.
…..Early Jumo 222A engines produce 2,000 hp @ 2,900 rpm @ SL. 2,200hp @ 16,400 feet.

24 Dec 1941. 
Milch orders Ostmark plant to retool for production of Daimler-Benz engines.

Dec 1942. 
2,500 hp version of Jumo 222 engine passes 100 hour test.

*Fall 1941. Point of Departure.*
A year earlier Goering personally ordered the Jumo 222 engine into production. In this scenario he takes a break from art collecting to push his expensive and very important project to a successful conclusion. When Milch attempts to derail the Jumo 222 engine and Bomber B programs Goering has Milch transferred command of Luftwaffe units in North Africa. The man who replaces Milch at RLM will insure the Jumo 222 engine program continues to receive top priority, including phase II expansion to produce 1,000 engines per month.

March 1942. 
Completion of Ostmark factory phase I construction.
…..Assumption. Tooling ordered by Junkers during October 1941 has arrived.
…..Assumption. Workforce for this high priority factory is at full strength.
…..Assumption. Construction for Phase II expansion begins during April 1942.

Summer 1942.
Several Fw-190 ausf ?? prototypes powered by Jumo 222 engines are flying.

Goering personally approves Dr. Tank’s Fw-190 ausf ?? design. It will enter production during January 1943 powered by the Jumo 222 engine. By that date Ostmark engine production will be sufficient to free up a few for the new Focke Wulf fighter aircraft.

December 1942.
The Jumo 222 engine will be cleared for 2,500 hp after passing the 100 hour endurance test. A lucky break for Dr. Tank.

What will the 1943 Fw-190 mit 2,500 hp Jumo 222 engine look like? What sort of performance would it have?


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## tyrodtom (Feb 7, 2012)

Davebender, it seems like most of your post concerns how Germany could have done things better. From where does you dream/wish stem?


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## rank amateur (Feb 7, 2012)

Maybe we can interest Tomo Pauk in to making a scetch? Could be interesting.


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## Shortround6 (Feb 7, 2012)

davebender said:


> *Historical Events.*
> 
> November 1940.
> Goering personally approves production of the Jumo 222A engine.
> ...



And we have problem, or an indication of what went wrong right there. Approving production of an engine 6 months before it passes a type test is plain stupid.

Merlin passed a type test with the ramp heads. That needed a redisgn before it was actually acceptable.
The Vulture passed a type test and we know how that turned out. 
Allison passed a type test in 1937 but the 1939 production engnes had to be de rated and modified at factory expense to meet rated power.
The Continental IV-1430 passed a type test in 1940 or 41 and yet never made rated power when installed ian aircraft and actually managed to set fire to one of the two or three airframe it was ever installed in seveal years later.
That's off the top my head, I am sure with a bit of research even more engines that passed type test could be found ( like the Sabre?) that need plenty of work before they were really production ready. Approving an engine before it even passes a type test sonds like just the sort of stunt the Fat man would pull and screw things up.


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## Matt308 (Feb 7, 2012)

Folks, just a gentle reminder to keep your sarcasm in check. We don't want this thread to enter a flat spin.


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## davebender (Feb 7, 2012)

The U.S. AAF approved the B-29 bomber for mass production before it was proven reliable. The F4U fighter entered mass production before it was certified safe for CV operations.

The 2,000hp Jumo 222 engine passed a 100 hour test a full year before mass production was due to begin at the Ostmarck factory. An improved 2,500 hp version should have been available during January 1943.
Wartime gambles sometimes pay off.

On the other hand...
U.S. submarine torpedoes were unreliable before mid 1943. 
B-17 bombers weren't effective at sinking ships. 
These two weapon systems were the backbone of American defense of the Philippines during December 1941. When both weapon systems failed it was impossible to prevent large scale IJA amphibious landings.


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## tyrodtom (Feb 7, 2012)

davebender said:


> On the other hand...
> U.S. submarine torpedoes were unreliable before mid 1943.
> B-17 bombers weren't effective at sinking ships.
> These two weapon systems were the backbone of American defense of the Philippines during December 1941. When both weapon systems failed it was impossible to prevent large scale IJA amphibious landings.



Those are perfect examples of depending on untested weapons, or a untested theory, and having it come back and bite you in the butt.
The USN only tested a few torpedoes, very expensive weapons, and under ideal conditions. Very little money from congress in the late 30s meant just not enough money for extensive test.
The same with hitting moving ships from high altitude. A untested theory.

Every country in WW2 made a bunch of stupid mistakes, But one side made fewer.


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## tomo pauk (Feb 7, 2012)

It was about the level of the mistakes (were those made at 'grand strategy' - like attacking Soviet Union, or at tactical, even technical level - choosing 3-ship formation of fighters vs. 4-ship, or what kind of SMG or rifle to choose), too. Then, what are capabilities, or circumstances, to shrug off the consequences of early mistakes (vast land to fall back, or island nation, or great industrial capacity etc).


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## Siegfried (Feb 7, 2012)

Juha said:


> That's true.
> 
> Now that is rubbish. Nazi-Germany "sold" Baltic states and Finland to SU in Aug 39 and gave a free hand to Stalin to dealt with them as he wished.



A baloney to your rubbish. A lot of hot air has been babbled about the non agresson pact by people regurgitating a particular political line, a line that is
hypocritical for it assignes the blame to the Nazis and Germans when it was the Soviets that carried out these invasions and one that also turns a blind eye to the Soviet genocides while focusing on the Nazis.

The German-Soviet non-agression pact was about
1 ensuring peace and normalised relations between two powerfull nations.
2 developing trade of critical raw materials for economic reasons and to bypass possible British and Fench blockades
3 developing buffer states between these potentially dangerous adversaries.
4 dividing areas into spheres of influence to diffuse tensions.
5 Allowing room for border disputes

It was a way for Nazi Germany to restore the land and ethnic minorities lost to Poland under the treaty of Versailes after negotiations for German acess to the German city of Danzig via rail and autobahn failed.

This is the link to the treaty, including the secret portions:
Molotov-Ribbentrop Treaty, 1939
*
Secret Additional Protocol.

Article I. 

In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement in the areas belonging to the Baltic States (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), the northern boundary of Lithuania shall represent the boundary of the spheres of influence of Germany and U.S.S.R. In this connection the interest of Lithuania in the Vilna area is recognized by each party.

Article II. 

In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement of the areas belonging to the Polish state, the spheres of influence of Germany and the U.S.S.R. shall be bounded approximately by the line of the rivers Narev, Vistula and San.

The question of whether the interests of both parties make desirable the maintenance of an independent Polish States and how such a state should be bounded can only be definitely determined in the course of further political developments.

In any event both Governments will resolve this question by means of a friendly agreement.*


You will note the treaty 1 talks of 'spheres of influence' not annexations (as the Soviets tried) and that 'spheres of influence' is not code for invasion and annexation: for instance
*"the northern boundary of Lithuania shall represent the boundary of the spheres of influence of Germany and U.S.S.R. In this connection the interest of Lithuania in the Vilna area is recognized by each party."*

Which indicates that the Nazis were *explicitly* expecting at least Lithunia to remain independant.

The Nazi government certainly kept to its treaty obligations 100%. It may not have completed its weapons supplies to Finland. But Germany also removed two very sophisticated triaxial FLAK directors from Bismark (and Prinz Eugen) to supply to the Soviet union as part of treaty obligations: which meant that Bismark wen to sea with second rate gun directors for the rear two. It did not supply weapons to a country with which the Soviets were at war according to its treaty. As far as selling the Baltic states down the river, to an extent this is true but only to the extent of territorial realignments. The attack on Finland was the final irritation and warning. 

When it was obvious that Stalins Russia could not be trusted to even comply with the spirit of the treaty the Germans invaded. Invading immediatly would not be possible, in part due to inevitalbe British and French opportunism.

As far as Finns being classed as 'subhumans'; by the Nazis: here is further exaggeration and myth. It was possible however to find some extraordinarily drunkard characters in Finland, it has a rather unique drinking problem often seen in parts of Scandinavia. Presumably if a German observed this that would constitute Nazi racial theory declaring Finns as sub-human.


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## davebender (Feb 7, 2012)

U.S. submarine torpedoes were unreliable before mid 1943. 
B-17 bombers weren't effective at sinking ships.

These two mistakes are about as significant as they get. Defeating IJA amphibious landings during December 1941 would have led to Japanese defeat in a few months instead of four years.


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## tomo pauk (Feb 7, 2012)

My point was that UK, USSR USA were able, despite early mistakes (mainly on technical tactical sides, but also some very high-up ones), to win the war. The Axis countries were not.


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## Juha (Feb 7, 2012)

Hello Siegfried
this is way oT so a few short remarks



Siegfried said:


> The German-Soviet non-agression pact was about
> 1 ensuring peace and normalised relations between two powerfull nations.
> 2 developing trade of critical raw materials for economic reasons and to bypass possible British and Fench blockades
> 3 developing buffer states between these potentially dangerous adversaries.
> ...



In fact it was mostly a try by Nazi-Germany to accomplish the partition of Poland so that France and GB would not come to help Poland and quarantee that SU would stay friendly. To SU it was a tool to get back most of territories lost in 1917-21.



Siegfried said:


> You will note the treaty 1 talks of 'spheres of influence' not annexations (as the Soviets tried) and that 'spheres of influence' is not code for invasion and annexation: for instance
> *"the northern boundary of Lithuania shall represent the boundary of the spheres of influence of Germany and U.S.S.R. In this connection the interest of Lithuania in the Vilna area is recognized by each party."*
> 
> Which indicates that the Nazis were *explicitly* expecting at least Lithunia to remain independant.



Now what happened to Poland showed clearly that for the both treaty partners saw the "sphere of influences" mentioned in secret protocol as areas to be annexed or occupied. And in late Sep39 the secret protocol was changed so tat Lithuenia was transferred to SU's "sphere of influence", and Germany got more of Poland as compensation.



Siegfried said:


> The Nazi government certainly kept to its treaty obligations 100%... As far as selling the Baltic states down the river, to an extent this is true but only to the extent of territorial realignments. The attack on Finland was the final irritation and warning.
> 
> When it was obvious that Stalins Russia could not be trusted to even comply with the spirit of the treaty the Germans invaded. Invading immediatly would not be possible, in part due to inevitalbe British and French opportunism.



Winter War had nothing to do with that, the SU actions in Rumania were the key



Siegfried said:


> As far as Finns being classed as 'subhumans'; by the Nazis: here is further exaggeration and myth. It was possible however to find some extraordinarily drunkard characters in Finland, it has a rather unique drinking problem often seen in parts of Scandinavia. Presumably if a German observed this that would constitute Nazi racial theory declaring Finns as sub-human.



IIRC the reason was a simple fact that Finns were not Germanic people, only those Swedish speaking Finns living parts of the Finland's coastline were counted as Germanic/Aryans and so first class humans.

Juha


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## Juha (Feb 7, 2012)

davebender said:


> U.S. submarine torpedoes were unreliable before mid 1943.
> B-17 bombers weren't effective at sinking ships.
> 
> These two mistakes are about as significant as they get. Defeating IJA amphibious landings during December 1941 would have led to Japanese defeat in a few months instead of four years.



IMHO US didn't have enough subs or B-17s in the area to defeat the Japanese landings, they might have been able to make them more costly but many of the B-17s were destroyed on the ground and Japanese bombers wrecked the sub base at Cavite and so made sub activities more difficult. IIRC US planing presumed that Japanese succeeded to land on Luzon and would be able to push inlands but they counted that the Pacific Fleet would be able to come into rescue.

Juha


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## wuzak (Feb 7, 2012)

davebender said:


> *Historical Events.*
> 
> What will the 1943 Fw-190 mit 2,500 hp Jumo 222 engine look like? What sort of performance would it have?




I should imaginbe it would look very similar to a Fw190D-9 - but maybe with a slightly larger cowl (though the 22 is still smaller in diameter than the BMW 801).

As for performance:

PR Mosquito Pilot Report:

Encountered several Fw190As, who attempted interception but gave up when they could not close.

A new Fw190 version was spotted, with longer nose. Put the engines to the firewall but Fw190 closed quickly. He was about to get within firing range when flames erupted from engine compartment. Assume engine failure.


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## davebender (Feb 7, 2012)

Don't know how accurate this is but the design timeframe is right. Jumo 222 engine mounted behind the pilot driving an extension shaft similiar to the U.S. P-39.


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## wuzak (Feb 7, 2012)

davebender said:


> *Historical Events.*
> 
> November 1940.
> Goering personally approves production of the Jumo 222A engine.
> ...



Point of departure....

Milch orders the Jumo 222 to be dropped, and orders Daimler-Benz to hand over to Jumo the DB604 design - as Daimler-Benz are too busy with the 601, 603 605 to persue development - and unlike the 222 it works.

Ostmark factory is tooled for DB603, but tooling is being readied for the DB604 so production may commence once it has been deemed ready.


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## davebender (Feb 7, 2012)

I think something like this Fw-190 proposal would be more likely. Front mounted engine. Cockpit located towards the rear to balance weight.

Focke-Wulf FW Fighter Project w/ BMW 802 engine Luft '46 entry


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## Siegfried (Feb 8, 2012)

wuzak said:


> I should imaginbe it would look very similar to a Fw190D-9 - but maybe with a slightly larger cowl (though the 22 is still smaller in diameter than the BMW 801).
> 
> As for performance:
> 
> ...



There is an artists impression of a FW 190"D" installed
with a Jumo 222 in the "Luftwaffe Secret Projects series.
It was planned and I immagine a rather straighforward
adaptation as the Jumo 222 was of lesser diameter than 
the BMW 801 and I expect actually slightly shorter than the
Jumo 213.

It seems at least 1 FW 190D-9 was fitted with the plumbing that allowed its MW50 tank to be used for GM-1 (cryogenic Nitrous Oxide) however the proper anawer to high altitude performance was the FW 190D-13 with its two stage supercharger, a handfull of which entered service, Goetz's "Yellow 12" surviving to this day.

The Jumo 222, even without the Ju 288 might have added extrordinary performance to aircraft such as the Ju 188, Ju 88S, FW 190, He 219 ans likely Do 217. I see it as a sort of
equal to the Sabre/Vulture.


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## wuzak (Feb 8, 2012)

I have _Luftwaffe Secret Projects, Fighters 1939-1945_ which has an entry descibed as "Focke-Wulf Ta152 high altitude fighter with Jumo 222E and laminar wing", the performance estimate for which was max speed 459mpg @ 39,500ft, service ceiling 49,200ft, initial rate of climb 4320ft/min, range 1200km/801miles.

A Jumo 222 powered Fw190 project was mentioned in the page shown by davebender.


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## davebender (Feb 8, 2012)

If Germany doesn't produce the Ju-288 they would probably produce the Do-317, which is essentially just a Do-217 powered by Jumo 222 engines. IMO that would make a lot of sense as the Do-217 was already in production and combat proven. No need to tool a factory for the entirely new Ju-288 design. It also fullfills Milch's desire to spread German aircraft production among more companies rather then allowing Junkers to dominate both engine production and airframe production.


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## Shortround6 (Feb 8, 2012)

davebender said:


> U.S. submarine torpedoes were unreliable before mid 1943.
> 
> 
> > This is quite true but has little to do with aircraft.
> ...


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## davebender (Feb 8, 2012)

> NOBODY'S medium to high altitude bombers turned out to be effective at sinking moving ships


It wouldn't be a problem if the U.S. Army Air Corps recognized the issue during the 1930s as the Luftwaffe did. Then some other U.S. aircraft type(s) such as the A-20 and B-25 would have gotten the maritime bomber mission. 

Gen. MacArthur expected B-17s to sink Japanese ships, burn Japanese cities to the ground, shoot down all Japanese aircraft encountered and still make it back to the Clark Army Airfield club in time for happy hour. The 29 modern long range USN submarines based at Manila were expected to mop up any Japanese ships that survived the B-17 onslaught.


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## Juha (Feb 8, 2012)

davebender said:


> It wouldn't be a problem if the U.S. Army Air Corps recognized the issue during the 1930s as the Luftwaffe did. Then some other U.S. aircraft type(s) such as the A-20 and B-25 would have gotten the maritime bomber mission.



Also LW used level bombers against surface ships, one of the "most successful" attacks of them was when one He 111 sank 2 KM DDs (or sunk one and the other ran onto mines while taking evasive actions)



davebender said:


> Gen. MacArthur expected B-17s to sink Japanese ships, burn Japanese cities to the ground, shoot down all Japanese aircraft encountered and still make it back to the Clark Army Airfield club in time for happy hour. The 29 modern long range USN submarines based at Manila were expected to mop up any Japanese ships that survived the B-17 onslaught.



Now the Sargo class subs were OK but 6 of the subs were S-class, in essence WWI type, and 7 were Porpoise class, which had its share of problems, especially with its powerplant.

Juha


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## wuzak (Feb 8, 2012)

davebender said:


> It wouldn't be a problem if the U.S. Army Air Corps recognized the issue during the 1930s as the Luftwaffe did. Then some other U.S. aircraft type(s) such as the A-20 and B-25 would have gotten the maritime bomber mission.



The whole premise of the original B-17 purchase was as a coastal defence aircraft, which could attack and sink ships at sea.

If the USAAC said that the B-17 couldn't do that and was required for other purposes the funding may have not been forthcoming.


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## Siegfried (Feb 8, 2012)

Juha said:


> Hello Siegfried
> this is way oT so a few short remarks
> In fact it was mostly a try by Nazi-Germany to accomplish the partition of Poland so that France and GB would not come to help Poland and quarantee that SU would stay friendly. To SU it was a tool to get back most of territories lost in 1917-21.



This is the only correct and logical assertion you make. After the failure of negotiations for access to Danzig, minority rights and offers of a Polish-German anti soviet pact Hitler went with Plan-B.



Juha said:


> Now what happened to Poland showed clearly that for the both treaty partners saw the "sphere of influences" mentioned in secret protocol as areas to be annexed or occupied. And in late Sep39 the secret protocol was changed so tat Lithuenia was transferred to SU's "sphere of influence", and Germany got more of Poland as compensation.



This statement is a logical fallacy. The treaty explicitly refers to the repartition of Poland. This was a major objective of the treaty. Not only does it not refer to annexations or partitions of the Baltic states it explicitly refers to respect for the rights of Lithuania in-Vilnius. Berlin knew that the Soviet Union had territorial disputes with the Baltic states and expected some realignments of borders not several wholesale annexations. Berlin had no interest in seeing the Baltic states disappear, it had ancient and affectionate links with all the Baltic states through the Hanseatic league: Memmel was German in character. However the treaty guaranteed essential trade as well as military security,



Juha said:


> IIRC the reason was a simple fact that Finns were not Germanic people, only those Swedish speaking Finns living parts of the Finland's coastline were counted as Germanic/Aryans and so first class humans.
> Juha



You have accepted melodramatic Hollywood fantasy version or perhaps seek to access the proceeds of being a member of a victim group.


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## Siegfried (Feb 8, 2012)

wuzak said:


> I have _Luftwaffe Secret Projects, Fighters 1939-1945_ which has an entry descibed as "Focke-Wulf Ta152 high altitude fighter with Jumo 222E and laminar wing", the performance estimate for which was max speed 459mpg @ 39,500ft, service ceiling 49,200ft, initial rate of climb 4320ft/min, range 1200km/801miles.
> 
> A Jumo 222 powered Fw190 project was mentioned in the page shown by davebender.



Yes, this is what I was thinking off. The first laminar profile wing I recall the Germans using was for the Me 309 fighter which flew in June 1942. It was their own work. I believe the Jumo 222 was expected to grow to 3500-4000hp; it was simply a bigger engine than the Jumo 213/DB603


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## Shortround6 (Feb 8, 2012)

davebender said:


> It wouldn't be a problem if the U.S. Army Air Corps recognized the issue during the 1930s as the Luftwaffe did. Then some other U.S. aircraft type(s) such as the A-20 and B-25 would have gotten the maritime bomber mission.



The US coast line was (is) thousands of miles long, not including the US possessions of the time, the A-20 was too short ranged to provide the needed coverage. The B-25 is better but it is later in timing and not at all a competitor in the 1930s. 


davebender said:


> Gen. MacArthur expected B-17s to sink Japanese ships, burn Japanese cities to the ground, shoot down all Japanese aircraft encountered and still make it back to the Clark Army Airfield club in time for happy hour. The 29 modern long range USN submarines based at Manila were expected to mop up any Japanese ships that survived the B-17 onslaught.



Do you have an actual source for this??

If it is true the Doug must have been a bigger idiot than he is usually credited with even by his most strident critics. 

The First B-17s don't make it to the Philippines until Oct of 1941, about a year after the daylight part of the BoB ends. Any general that believed that 30-50 4 engine bombers could do what you claim not only hadn't been paying attention, they were living in a complete fantasy land. many of the B-17s in the Philippines were the C/D model with NO power turrets and 4-6 .50 cal guns and a single .30. Again, anybody who believed that was a good defensive armament for a bomber had been studiously avoiding the combat reports from Europe and would have grossly misused ANY type of bomber they were given.


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## Juha (Feb 9, 2012)

Siegfried said:


> ...This statement is a logical fallacy. The treaty explicitly refers to the repartition of Poland. This was a major objective of the treaty. Not only does it not refer to annexations or partitions of the Baltic states it explicitly refers to respect for the rights of Lithuania in-Vilnius. Berlin knew that the Soviet Union had territorial disputes with the Baltic states and expected some realignments of borders not several wholesale annexations. Berlin had no interest in seeing the Baltic states disappear, it had ancient and affectionate links with all the Baltic states through the Hanseatic league: Memmel was German in character. However the treaty guaranteed essential trade as well as military security,...



Now as I wrote this is ot but have you really not heard the resetlement of Baltic Germans in late 39-early 40? Germany sent ships to Baltic States to evacuate Baltic Germans, a significant minority there, and to resettle them into annexed areas of Poland. IIRC this evacuation/resettlement began already in Oct 39 . One wonder why???? Why agree this with SU if eHitler and co didn't know what would be the destiny of Baltic States. Maybe Hitler and co were less sentimental and much more cynical than you think and gave a damm to those "ancient and affectionate links with all the Baltic states through the Hanseatic league".

Juha


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## Tante Ju (Feb 9, 2012)

Juha said:


> Now as I wrote this is ot but have you really not heard the resetlement of Baltic Germans in late 39-early 40? Germany sent ships to Baltic States to evacuate Baltic Germans, a significant minority there, and to resettle them into annexed areas of Poland. IIRC this evacuation/resettlement began already in Oct 39 . One wonder why???? Why agree this with SU if eHitler and co didn't know what would be the destiny of Baltic States. Maybe Hitler and co were less sentimental and much more cynical than you think and gave a damm to those "ancient and affectionate links with all the Baltic states through the Hanseatic league".
> 
> Juha



This is typical of European left arguement I must say, for some reason, no bad things about communism can be said, like it occupied a good number of countries while Hitler was doing same at same time. The old communist arguement was, that was only to "protect" these poor states, Finnland was only attacked to "secure" Leningrad, from Hitlerist aggression.. I may be wrong, but you seem to argue along these lines. It seems you wish to push the blame from communist Stalin to nazi Hitler for what happened to Baltic states. This is wrong, what happened to the Baltic states, Finland, Rumania was 100% the SU's doing, and long term goal. Hitler have turned a blind eye for it, for practical politics (secure two front war, strategic supplies), but this does not change the fact.

I don't quite see how resetlement of Baltic Germans plays a role here - ethnic Germans were resettled along whole Europe, I think several hundred thousend were resettled from otherwise friendly Rumania at same time, for example.

Regard your discussion on the move to against the SU, I think there was some failure of communication between you and Siegfried. Essential Siegfrid says SU move aagainst Finnland was major decision faktor in invasion of USSR, you say Winter War was not important in this decision, SU intentions with Rumania was.

I think you are both correct. The SU and Hitler Germany declaed their spheres of influence in Eastern Europe, ie. parts they will not step on each other toes. However, SU increasingly violated that pact, or at the very least, showed intention to do so. In July 1940 they took much of Rumania, beyond what was agreed as acceptable terriotorial "fixing". 

Worse, Molotov went to Berlin in November 1940 to further negotiate. The Soviet Union demanded free hand in Rumania, Bulgaria,Finnland and Turkey - it not very hard to figure out what this would mean. For Germans, it also would mean that they would loose oil (Romania), chromium (Turkey) and nickel (Finn) supply. This convinced Hitler and was decisive factor that he has to move against the SU asap.


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## Juha (Feb 9, 2012)

Tante Ju said:


> This is typical of European left arguement I must say, for some reason, no bad things about communism can be said, like it occupied a good number of countries while Hitler was doing same at same time. The old communist arguement was, that was only to "protect" these poor states, Finnland was only attacked to "secure" Leningrad, from Hitlerist aggression.. I may be wrong, but you seem to argue along these lines It seems you wish to push the blame from communist Stalin to nazi Hitler for what happened to Baltic states....



Oh God, that's funny. Now this is ot subject so I wanted to keep it short and only wanted to show that Siegfried's argument, that Hitler and co were surprised by the annexion of Baltic States to SU, was errorous. So there was no need to write an essey on the history of Baltic States in 30s.



Tante Ju said:


> I don't quite see how resetlement of Baltic Germans plays a role here - ethnic Germans were resettled along whole Europe, I think several hundred thousend were resettled from otherwise friendly Rumania at same time, for example...



Yes, but only areas more or less emptied from etnic Germans were Baltic States and later in 40 those areas of Rumania which were annexed by SU. Every one who had read memoirs of the pilots of JG 52 has noticed that even in 44 there were areas inhabitated by ethnic Germans in Rumania proper.

Juha


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## davebender (Feb 9, 2012)

Four heavy bomber groups were scheduled for deployment to the Philippines. 

19th Group was in the Philippines during December 1941 with a total of 33 B-17s.

7th Group was enroute to the Philippines during December 1941 aboard Convoy 4002. Some of their B-17s were destroyed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

I don't know who the other two heavy bomber groups were. However 35 additional B-17s and 35 B-24s were in the pipleline, approved for deployment to the Philippines. Perhaps the final talley would have been three B-17 groups plus one group equppped with the new B-24.

Heavy bomber units are logistical hogs and Big Mac gave them priority during the U.S. military buildup which began 26 July, 1941. This decision was partially responsible for the extremely slow mobilization of Philippine Army reserve infantry divisions during August to December 1941.


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## davparlr (Feb 9, 2012)

davebender said:


> It wouldn't be a problem if the U.S. Army Air Corps recognized the issue during the 1930s as the Luftwaffe did. Then some other U.S. aircraft type(s) such as the A-20 and B-25 would have gotten the maritime bomber mission.


Very good comment.

Early in the morning June 4th, 1941, a combined force of TBFs, SBDs, and B-26s from Midway attacked the main battle fleet of the Japanese. The four B-26s carried torpedoes. Of these four bombers, three made it to within torpedo release distance, one flew over the deck of the Akagi strafing the ship as it went by and another crashed after trying to ram the Akagi bridge. Two made it back to Midway. One could imagine what could have happened had there been twenty B-26s, with torpedoes that worked and crews properly trained (maybe Navy?), if 75% been able to launch their torpedoes in range. The Japanese may have been decimated, certainly crippled, and the battle may have ended at that point with only clean up required. Unfortunately, the war gaming and testing that would have allowed this philosophy to mature and the required teaming between the AAF and Navy did not happen.


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## davparlr (Feb 9, 2012)

Shortround6 said:


> The US coast line was (is) thousands of miles long, not including the US possessions of the time, the A-20 was too short ranged to provide the needed coverage. The B-25 is better but it is later in timing and not at all a competitor in the 1930s.



The problem was the tactics. AAF considered high altitude bombing sufficient. However, high altitude bombing was ineffectual against moving ships. Low altitude attacks with bombs and torpedoes, if they worked, could be very effective. If used in this manner the B-17 may have indeed been able to protect the coast, at considerable risk. It certainly was faster than the TBDs and most likely the TBFs. If used as a torpedo bomber it would have needed better ones that could be dropped higher and faster and worked. B-23 could probably be effective and so would the A-20 to a lesser extent.






> If it is true the Doug must have been a bigger idiot than he is usually credited with even by his most strident critics.
> 
> The First B-17s don't make it to the Philippines until Oct of 1941, about a year after the daylight part of the BoB ends. Any general that believed that 30-50 4 engine bombers could do what you claim not only hadn't been paying attention, they were living in a complete fantasy land. many of the B-17s in the Philippines were the C/D model with NO power turrets and 4-6 .50 cal guns and a single .30. Again, anybody who believed that was a good defensive armament for a bomber had been studiously avoiding the combat reports from Europe and would have grossly misused ANY type of bomber they were given.


Yeah, but everyone knew the Japanese were buck toothed with thick glasses and built cheap toys. What chance would they have against a modern American bomber, even a lesser armed one.


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## Siegfried (Feb 9, 2012)

davparlr said:


> The problem was the tactics. .


I would suggest the problem was technology: they needed something like Fritz-X, which clearly could do an excellent job of it.


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## Siegfried (Feb 9, 2012)

Juha said:


> Now as I wrote this is ot but have you really not heard the resetlement of Baltic Germans in late 39-early 40? Germany sent ships to Baltic States to evacuate Baltic Germans, a significant minority there, and to resettle them into annexed areas of Poland. IIRC this evacuation/resettlement began already in Oct 39 . One wonder why???? Why agree this with SU if eHitler and co didn't know what would be the destiny of Baltic States. Maybe Hitler and co were less sentimental and much more cynical than you think and gave a damm to those "ancient and affectionate links with all the Baltic states through the Hanseatic league".
> 
> Juha



This is a case of wearing filtered googles. Berlin was developing as much of an intelligence network into the Soviet Government as it could, it knew what was comming and acted to protect its folk, the Nazis took a profound interest in the wellbeing of Germans, that was what the ideology was about afterall. Secondly there is the often neglected evolving tendancy of persecution of ethnic Germans by a surging Baltic nationalism. The ethnic Germans in these countries, whicle few, tended to dervive from the classic german city state: ie a town with an elected burgermeister (due to their orgin as tradesman and traders) and were in that respect 'priveledged' in that they did not have a history of sefdom typical of the Russian empire. The supposed 'priveledged status' caused some resentment. The threat against ethnic germans was not just from the Soviets.


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## tyrodtom (Feb 9, 2012)

And I thought the reichs ministry of propaganda died with Goebbels ,LOL.


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## davebender (Feb 9, 2012)

That's true to a point. The B-17 would have been effective against maritime targets if pilots had been taught to use the Swedish Turnip Method (i.e. German skip bombing technique). However it's also a large, slow target for enemy light flak. 

IMO the fast and inexpensive A-20 would have been ideal for short range maritime attack. Use the B-25 for longer range missions. Acquisition of British made Mk XII aerial torpedoes would have made them even more effective. 

The B-26 might work but it had a bad reputation early on. Work the bugs out over land before performing combat missions over the Pacific.


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## Shortround6 (Feb 9, 2012)

Very short ranged maritime attack.

B-17C could carry 4000lbs 2400 miles, that is going to be a bit shorter with combat allowances, forming up and formation flying. An A20-A was good for 1200lb bomb load over 675 miles. now apply combat allowances, forming up and formation flying and see how far you go. Needing 3 times the number of A-20s to carry the same bomb load kind of takes them out of the "inexpensive" category.


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## Juha (Feb 9, 2012)

Hello Siegfried
Partly the Baltic Germans were descents of urban traders but partly descents of knights and soldiers of the Brothers of the Sword/the Teutonic Order which had conquered the area of present-day Baltic States in 13rd century and subdued the natives to serfdom and the resentment towards Baltic Germans was mostly consequence of that, Germans remained privileged and lords of the manors straight up to the independence of Baltic States in 1918-19. But that resentment settled down, at least amongst the Baltic people, when after independence most of the lands of manors were confiscated and distributed to the farmers. After that IIRC there were not much problems between Baltic Germans and Balts/Estonians, It might be better that we concentrate to planes and aero-engines.

Juha


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## davparlr (Feb 9, 2012)

davebender said:


> That's true to a point. The B-17 would have been effective against maritime targets if pilots had been taught to use the Swedish Turnip Method (i.e. German skip bombing technique). However it's also a large, slow target for enemy light flak.


A descending approach could be used to keep the speed up but it would still be a large and slow target, but not as bad as the Devastator, who flew at around 100 kts. I believe the B-25 used skip bombing to great effect in the Pacific.



> The B-26 might work but it had a bad reputation early on. Work the bugs out over land before performing combat missions over the Pacific.


 
The only real bug the B-26 had was that it was slightly ahead of its time and had a feature that all military pilots soon had to learn to cope with successfully, high wing loading. This should have been solved by training and not by rebuilding the wing.



Shortround6 said:


> B-17C could carry 4000lbs 2400 miles, that is going to be a bit shorter with combat allowances, forming up and formation flying. An A20-A was good for 1200lb bomb load over 675 miles. now apply combat allowances, forming up and formation flying and see how far you go. Needing 3 times the number of A-20s to carry the same bomb load kind of takes them out of the "inexpensive" category.



No less capable than the TBF and a whole lot faster. Does any one know if the Navy ever showed any interest in navalizing the A-20? It was heavier than the TBF by about 5000 lbs., but certainly would have added punch to the carrier. At 347 mph, it was faster than the Zero and cruised at a speed, 295 mph, much faster than where the zero began to be difficult to maneuver.


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## Shortround6 (Feb 10, 2012)

davparlr said:


> No less capable than the TBF and a whole lot faster. Does any one know if the Navy ever showed any interest in navalizing the A-20? It was heavier than the TBF by about 5000 lbs., but certainly would have added punch to the carrier. At 347 mph, it was faster than the Zero and cruised at a speed, 295 mph, much faster than where the zero began to be difficult to maneuver.



A carrier plane has to take off from and land on the carrier. The A-20 actually had less sq footage of wing area than a TBF, meaning stall speeds are going to be higher. Higher take-off speed and higher landing speed. landing speed is important not only for the safty of the crew and aircraft but affects impact loads on the deck and affects the ability of the arresting system to stop the aircraft. With the non folding wing and 17ft 7in high tail the A-20 had a couple of strikes against it just fitting on a carrier. While you could speed time and effort designing folding wings, a folding tail, special flaps and other items needed to "navalize" it ( or build bigger carriers) you might as well design new aircraft.


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## davebender (Feb 10, 2012)

Exactly what the U.S. needed for sinking IJA troop transports when they entered Philippine coastal waters. The A-20 would have worked equally well on Guadalcanal ILO short range SBDs and TBFs.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Feb 10, 2012)

Just a reminder everyone, play nice. This thread has the typical makings of a playground fight.


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## tomo pauk (Feb 10, 2012)

Good call about A-20s (or, even better, the B-25s) in the Philippines Guadacanal. Or Beaufighters in Malaya? Unless they got caught on the ground, but even the Me-262 was not immune at that.


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## davparlr (Feb 10, 2012)

Shortround6 said:


> A carrier plane has to take off from and land on the carrier. The A-20 actually had less sq footage of wing area than a TBF, meaning stall speeds are going to be higher. Higher take-off speed


I don't see this as a particular problem. The A-20A has about 30% better power to loaded weight ratio over the TBF. If the TBF could operate off a light carrier, the A-20 should be able to operate off a fleet carrier.



> and higher landing speed. landing speed is important not only for the safty of the crew and aircraft but affects impact loads on the deck and affects the ability of the arresting system to stop the aircraft.


I do see this as a problem that would have to be addressed.



> With the non folding wing and 17ft 7in high tail the A-20 had a couple of strikes against it just fitting on a carrier. While you could speed time and effort designing folding wings, a folding tail, special flaps and other items needed to "navalize" it ( or build bigger carriers) you might as well design new aircraft.


 
In 1939, I don't think a whole new plane would provide any improved performance over the A-20 and navalizing, as you well defined it, may have been quicker and cheaper. A trade-off would have to be made. The performance capability of the A-20 over contemporary Navy planes was significant. If you look at it, the A-20 was almost a 1939 version of the F7F. In fact, it was faster than the F4F-3/4, and had about the same power to loaded weight ratio and probably would have out-climbed it if configured as a fighter. Speaking of a new aircraft, if we took the A-20 and slimmed down the fuselage, made it a single seater thus lightening it up, installed six 50s in the nose with plenty of ammo, boost the engines to raise critical altitude and you get a heavy fighter with 350 mph +, which walk away from and out climb the front line Navy fighter and have good range, all being delivered in 1941! Interesting thought.


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## davebender (Feb 10, 2012)

Consider availability. 

The U.S. was awash in A-20s by 1941. That's why hundreds were being exported to nations such as France and the Netherlands. I assume the USAAF had priority so acquiring 100 or more A-20 maritime attack aircraft for USAFFE (U.S. Armed Forces Far East) shouldn't have been difficult.

The B-25 didn't enter large scale production until January 1942. Too late for the Philippine military build up during the fall of 1941.


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## davparlr (Feb 10, 2012)

A little aside from this thread but this is an interesting interview with some B-26 crew members that were involved in the Battle of Midway.


_View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSm055a0394_


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## davebender (Feb 10, 2012)

Could the B-26 operate from forward area airfields with grass or dirt runways? In the Philippines that would have been a normal runway.


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## davparlr (Feb 10, 2012)

davebender said:


> Could the B-26 operate from forward area airfields with grass or dirt runways? In the Philippines that would have been a normal runway.


I think the B-25 was better suited for this environment. I think the interview does support the fact that the B-26 was a tough old bird. What did the guy say, every prop blade had bullet holes in them.


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## Shortround6 (Feb 10, 2012)

davebender said:


> Consider availability.
> 
> The U.S. was awash in A-20s by 1941. That's why hundreds were being exported to nations such as France and the Netherlands. I assume the USAAF had priority so acquiring 100 or more A-20 maritime attack aircraft for USAFFE (U.S. Armed Forces Far East) shouldn't have been difficult.




Only if you consider that reneging on signed contracts more than was done to be no problem. 

"French Purchasing Commission was sufficiently impressed by the Model 7B that they ordered one hundred examples on February 15, 1939. This was the first solid order for the Douglas design, since the USAAC had yet to place any firm order. 170 more examples were added to the order in October, following the outbreak of war in Europe." These had P&W R-1800 engines and around 1/2-2/3 of the order was taken over by the British. These were followed by 200 DB-7A powered by Wright R-2600s and this French order (placed Oct 20, 1939) was also taken over by the British. Further contracts followed which included contracts for under 200 A-20s and A-20As for the USAAF. the Second US contract was placed on Oct 2 1940 for 999 A-20Bs, the first of which was delivered in Dec of 1941 (once again, it takes time from placement of orders till delivery of aircraft.) There were _three_ production lines making DB-7/A-20s. Douglas-Santa Monica. Douglas-Long Beach and Boeing-Seattle (under licence, The US not placing large orders for B-17s at this time).

As far as seizing the French and British paid for planes went "Some 162 Douglas-built and 194 Boeing-built Bostons ended up being seized by the USAAF" after Pearl Harbor. You are suggesting seizing them in the spring/summer of 1941? 

Which versions? 


Edit> There was also a production line at Douglas- El Segundo. The US was _NOT_ awash in A-20s as these were, as previously stated, mostly contracted for aircraft that were being delivered as fast as possible and _NOT_ planes built on speculation sitting around on lots waiting for buyers like a big car lot. The best that might be done would be to defer deliveries on currant production for more aircraft to be delivered later. 

One reason for the US not using the A-20 a great deal was it's short range. See the following,

http://www.zenoswarbirdvideos.com/Images/A20/A20FOICa.pdf

And please note that normal fuel capacity for an A-20 was 400 US gallons or very close to it. Depending on model there were auxiliary tanks above the bomb bay and for ferry flights a tank that would fit in the bomb bay. Use of the auxiliary tanks requires overload take off or reduced bomb load or both. 

Also note that even 340 gallons of fuel (after allowing for warm up and take off) is only good for 710 miles range at just under 170mph true airspeed under 10,000ft. and that use of maximum continuous power (not even military power) more the quadruples the fuel consumption per minute. 5 minutes at maximum continuous is worth 55-60 miles of slow speed cruise. Military power could be 6.5 gallons a Minute? or 5 minutes equaling a 1/2 hour or just under of low speed cruise depending on altitude? 

Basically, the A-20, while able to perform some roles very well is also limited to a combat radius (without the use of the auxiliary tanks) shorter than a P-47 without drop tanks. 

It is around 250 miles from Clark Field to the Northern tip of Luzon and around 600 miles from Davao to Manila.


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