# About German long range bombers....



## Beni (Jun 19, 2005)

Why do you think germany didnt make bigger efforts to get effective long range bombers, and what would have changed if they had a good number of them??

I think that He177 and Condor were very good planes,but worse than lancasters,b17 or Libs...

Maybe it was a lack of good strategy of war, or perhaps they though it was better to keep the war only in europe???


----------



## Smokey (Jun 19, 2005)

I know that Goering was against four engined long ragne heavy bombers, and if the chief of the luftwaffe is so stupid, then the whole luftwaffe is effectively fubared when it comes to long range bombers.
There was at least one luftwaffe general, Walther Wever, who was in charge of a 4-engined long range heavy bomber project, but he died, ironically, in an air crash before the war and his heavy bomber program was stopped.

http://www.warbirdsresourcegroup.org/LRG/do19.html

Along with the Junkers Ju 89, the Do 19 was developed as part of the "Ural Bomber" program championed by Gen. Walther Wever who forsaw the need for long range strategic bombing capability. When Gen. Wever was killed in April of 1936, the goal of a strategic bombing capability died with him. On April 29, 1937, the Ural-Bomber bomber program was cancelled by Kesselring in spite of protests. Kesselring felt the production and development resources would be better used to develop and build tactical bombers such as the Do 17 and He 111. This philosophy would later haunt and severely handicap the Luftwaffes ability to strike at Russia's production capabilities.


----------



## Beni (Jun 19, 2005)

You are right, Smokey, I knew the history of Wever and Kesserling, and the diferent points of view they had, due to their diferent military education. I try to mean some kin of "What if..." They would had an operative/efective long range bomber...What would have changed??


----------



## the lancaster kicks ass (Jun 19, 2005)

well firstly would they have an effective long range escort??


----------



## plan_D (Jun 19, 2005)

Without long range escort the Luftwaffe heavy bombers would fall easy prey to VVS, RAF or USAAF interceptors just like RAF and USAAF heavy bombers suffered heavy defeats in daylight in 1941 and 1943 respectively. (1942 saw little daylight action from either nation). 

If the Luftwaffe developed a long range escort to accompany the heavy bombers on their raids it would have put Soviet production in constant threat and would have seriously hampered their production. 

I doubt they would have been as efficient as the Germans as recovering from raids however I do think they would be capable. The Soviet Union managed to dismantle almost all it's industry in 1942 and move it beyond the reach of the advancing Wehrmacht. An achievement by any nations standards.


----------



## Smokey (Jun 19, 2005)

If they had long range bombers before the war then they probaly would have developed a special long range escort fighter, or put more fuel tanks and lines on the BF109, or used the BF110.
The air fighting over the UK in 1940 would have been more like the air fighting over europe in 1942 - 1945 but with role reversal.

If Heinkel had used 4 seperate engines on their He177 instead of coupling the engines, then that would probably have been an aircraft in the B17/B24/Lancaster/Halifax/Sterling class. Later they did make this aircraft-the He 277. This is what the He 177 should have been.












Heinkel He 177
http://www.simviation.com/fsdcbainhe177.htm





Heinkel He 277
http://www.luftwaffepics.com/lhe1771.htm

With long range bombers, Hitler could have beaten Stalin in 1941/1942!

Cool Site>>http://www.luftwaffepics.com/


----------



## Erich (Jun 19, 2005)

but the Luftwaffe did not send out any long range escorts with it's twin and four engine bomber force/recon.........Fw 200 and Ju 290 over the ocean waters. If caught they were sitting ducks by RAF coastal command.

will have to check on the overall dark upper/RLM 76 lower He 177 with the single MG 151/20 with the flash hider I cannot remember off hand the staffel-wappen shield presented. Neat pic also the line up of the same a/c in another pic on the photo site.


----------



## plan_D (Jun 19, 2005)

We all know how poor Bf-110s were at the escort duty. During the Battle of Britain they were supposed to be escorts but were found to need their own escorts. 

Bf-109s would have been the most obvious option but the RAF could have forced them to drop their tanks much earlier to avoid escorts going all the way. I'm sure the VVS would have done the same. 

I doubt that heavy bombers would have won the war for the Wehrmacht in Russia. The war could have been won many times without the aid of heavy bombers. 

'Bomber' Harris was certainly proven wrong, bombers don't win wars.


----------



## Smokey (Jun 19, 2005)

Hitler did'nt need long range bombers to beat Stalin; if he had launched Operation Barbarossa on the original date (ie 2 months earlier) than thw German army could have been in Moscow in August/September/October 1941.


----------



## plan_D (Jun 19, 2005)

6 weeks earlier. The uprising in Yugoslavia and the British support in Greece stopped that though. Many things halted the defeat of Russia e.g diversion of units to Kiev from Moscow. Attack on Stalingrad etc.


----------



## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jun 20, 2005)

The Luftwaffe had some good Heavy Bomber designs but there were no good bomber strategies. When the Germans decided to really work on heavy bombers it was already to late for them and would not have changed the course of the war.

As for the He-177 as many people have stated. It was not a bad design but the engines were crap!

I think the He-274 could have been quite good as well as the Me-264, Ju-290 and Ju-390.


----------



## cheddar cheese (Jun 21, 2005)

He-177 as a dive bomber. That was just ridiculous.


----------



## FLYBOYJ (Jun 21, 2005)

cheddar cheese said:


> He-177 as a dive bomber. That was just ridiculous.



Sure is! Like using a B-24 as a dive bomber!


----------



## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jun 21, 2005)

Agreed that was just plain stupid and I still to this day dont understand the obsession with dive bombers that the Germans had. I dont care what historians say or what people say there just comes a point where you have to realize "This is Dumb!"


----------



## cheddar cheese (Jun 22, 2005)

I agree. Sure dive bombers were effective in the early years but were they necessary? No. Britain and America didnt really have any, they had P-38's and Mossies doing low level bombing and being able to escape afterwards and fight their way home, which was much more effective.


----------



## plan_D (Jun 22, 2005)

The USN used torpedo and dive bombers exclusively in the Pacific theatre. The A-36 Apache was a diver bomber. The Hudson and Vengeance were dive bombers. 

The thing is with dive bombers is any fast and agile aircraft that can carry a bomb externally can dive bomb.


----------



## the lancaster kicks ass (Jun 22, 2005)

to a cirtain extent, they will never beat a -87 for example in the dive bombing role, but then, atleast they can fight their way home........


----------



## mosquitoman (Jun 22, 2005)

plan_D said:


> The Hudson and Vengeance were dive bombers.



A Hudson as a dive bomber


----------



## FLYBOYJ (Jun 22, 2005)

mosquitoman said:


> plan_D said:
> 
> 
> > The Hudson and Vengeance were dive bombers.
> ...



Believe it or not the Hudson (A-28, A-29, PBO-1) were considered maneuvable and easily flown. I have a POH copy and it seems like a real simple aircraft.


----------



## plan_D (Jun 22, 2005)

Apparently it was used as one, despite the fact it carried it's bombs internally. The Ju-87 wasn't the best dive bomber, it's just the most famous.


----------



## the lancaster kicks ass (Jun 22, 2005)

i was just using it as an example, that's why i said 



the lanc said:


> for example


----------



## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jun 23, 2005)

cheddar cheese said:


> I agree. Sure dive bombers were effective in the early years but were they necessary? No. Britain and America didnt really have any, they had P-38's and Mossies doing low level bombing and being able to escape afterwards and fight their way home, which was much more effective.



Agreed the Stutas were very effective at the beginning the war with the fast Blitzkrieg but the Fw-190's and Me-262's doing low level ground attack and bombing was just as effective and the aircraft were better.


----------



## Monkeysee1 (Sep 18, 2005)

I have heard, and correct me if I am wrong, most of you are far better scholars than I on these subjects..., anyway, that the Germans wanted every bomber to be a dive bomber and the engineering limitations of the day prevented a heavy bomber from accomplishing that. 

That the Germans started looking at a heavy bomber for NY when the US entered the war. 

That Goering hated the idea. 

That the Luftwaffe plan involved dive bombers because they thought of airpower as tactical not strategic. Harris was wrong, bombers don't end wars but they end them sooner.


----------



## Jabberwocky (Sep 18, 2005)

Smokey said:


> Hitler did'nt need long range bombers to beat Stalin; if he had launched Operation Barbarossa on the original date (ie 2 months earlier) than thw German army could have been in Moscow in August/September/October 1941.



He couldn't of launched earlier really. Unseaonal rains during the period had turned many of the roads the German Army wanted to use into mud. At the earliest he couldof launched maybe 3 weeks earlier, and even then with some difficulty in large sections of the steppe.


----------



## syscom3 (Sep 18, 2005)

For Germany to have an effective long range bomber to destroy the Ural factories, they would have needed to deploy dozens of bomb groups, just like the RAF and 8th AF had to do. And if the Russians dispersed the factories or put them underground, then the bomber would be for naught.

I think the key would be to hammer away at the oil fields in the Caspian Sea. Its a recurring theme for every theatre and combatant. No fuel = no tanks or planes.

I also agree that the Luftwaffe emphysis on dive bombing almost ammounted to a fetish. It has its place, but at a certein point, you have to say its not going to work for this strategy or doctrine.

For the long range bombing of America, as I stated in another thread (and this also applies to American strategy), does anyone think that a long range bomber that WILL take battle damage can successfully fly over 2000 miles back home? Look at the B29's against Japan before Iwo Jima, and you have your answer. Nope!


----------



## reddragon (Sep 19, 2005)

I was under the impression that the Luftwaffe was developed to support the army, meaning they felt there was no need for long-range aircraft. I'm also under the impression that many of their aircraft were built on the lessons learned from the Spanish civil war and the designs and tactics they used in that conflict worked very well against the enemy so little thought was given to taking on a stronger opponent.


----------



## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Sep 19, 2005)

Monkeysee1 said:


> I have heard, and correct me if I am wrong, most of you are far better scholars than I on these subjects..., anyway, that the Germans wanted every bomber to be a dive bomber and the engineering limitations of the day prevented a heavy bomber from accomplishing that.
> 
> That the Germans started looking at a heavy bomber for NY when the US entered the war.
> 
> ...



Yes Hitler ordered that every aircraft be able to be a dive bomber or bomber. That is what limited many of his aircraft like the Me-262. When it first went into production he ordered that it be be built as a bomber.

The Germans were actually looking for a Heavy Bomber to attack the US before the ware even started in Europe. I have more info on this like copies of documents listing prospeected targets and what not. It is rather interesting.

Goering was not too keen on the concept because he felt the Luftwaffe was more needed against Russia at the time. He felt that long range bombers would be better suited there. I guess it was one thing that he was right with but it did not matter anyhow.

As for the long range aircraft that Germany should have developed sooner. Hitler believed that the War would be over quickly and that long range aircraft were not needed. The Stukas would do fine with Blitzkrieg tactics. Also when the war broke out Germany had Ju-88's and Dornier Do-17 which were fast bombers and at the time could out run almost any fighter the allies had, notice I said almost not all of them. Due to the fact that Hitler thought that the war would end quickly he ordered that no new designs be developed that can not be produced by 1942 because the war would be over by then and they would not be needed. By 1941 he knew he was wrong and then they started with new designs but it was too late.

Hope this helps you some.


----------



## schwarzpanzer (Sep 19, 2005)

> 'Bomber' Harris was certainly proven wrong, bombers don't win wars.



Disagree, I had figures for entire German oil production before and after a raid by B17's, dropped like a stone.

With it went the planes, Panzers etc.

Also I think the Enola Gay might have helped win it, just a tad?  


A lot of Germanys heavy bombers were ex-civilian craft, though I think the Ju290 started as a bomber, became a Lufthansa airliner, then a bomber again!

Anyway these were not sturdy craft and made of corrugated iron etc were not in the B17 or Lancs league.



> The thing is with dive bombers is any fast and agile aircraft that can carry a bomb externally can dive bomb.



Ah, ah, ah!

The Mustang was considered for dive-bombing, but was deemed far too fast.



> The A-36 Apache was a diver bomber. The Hudson and Vengeance were dive bombers.



You forgot the Dauntless, how could you!  

Was the Apache ever used operationally? I doubt it was.



> to a cirtain extent, they will never beat a -87 for example in the dive bombing role



Unnecessary with rockets, dunno about with cannons.

Think it would be an advantage with rockets though? certainly with cannons.


----------



## syscom3 (Sep 19, 2005)

Didnt the 332FG, the famous "tuskegee airmen" fly the A36 in Italy?

And I could be wrong, but the Hudson was a naval patrol aircaft used in "glide bombing". I dont think it was used as a dive bomber.


----------



## SM79Sparviero (Sep 19, 2005)

> Didnt the 332FG, the famous "tuskegee airmen" fly the A36 in Italy?



A36 dive bomber was born as a "lark mirror", a pretext to get money for P51 fighter. I don't know if it really performed well as a dive bomber on the battlefield.
A36/p51 was originally linked to a request from RAF for a fighter .USAAF soon acknowledged the superlative performances of the new aircraft due to its technological innovations(ex.: laminar profile wing; a cooling system with a nearly futile drag thanks to "Meredith effect";Merlin engine ) but they could not have a further budget for a new fighter, so they formally required P51( or A36A) as "dive bomber".


----------



## Lunatic (Sep 19, 2005)

plan_D said:


> The USN used torpedo and dive bombers exclusively in the Pacific theatre. The A-36 Apache was a diver bomber. The Hudson and Vengeance were dive bombers.



This is not entirely true. The TBF and SBD were both used in the Atlantic to interdict uboats, using both depth bombs and torpedos. As far as I know you are correct if you mean none were ever used in Europe proper.

Calling the Hudson a dive bomber is kinda like calling the B-25 a dive bomber 8) 



plan_D said:


> The thing is with dive bombers is any fast and agile aircraft that can carry a bomb externally can dive bomb.



Not really. A true dive bomber has dive brakes and can dive much more steeply to a much lower altitude and still recover. They often also had more specialized bombsights. Fighters with bombs on them were generally steep glide bombers, and multi-engine planes like the Hudson a dive bomber is really just wrong, the were level bombers or glide bombers. It takes more than a slight decent to qualify as a dive bomber. In my opinion for a plane to be considered a true dive bomber it requires that it go below 5000 feet before releasing the bomb and that the bomb be released onto an actively sighted target. Most fighter bombers either released above 5000 feet or were in the act of pulling out of their dive when they released the bombs (and the pilot could no longer actually see the target over the nose).

=S=

Lunatic


----------



## schwarzpanzer (Sep 20, 2005)

IIRC the Stuka had a kind of primitive auto-pilot, in case the pilot blacked-out?


----------



## Piaggio108 (Sep 20, 2005)

The Fw-200 was good in the role it was used for: long range missions attacking convoys. I don't think it would have done well as a bomber attacking well defended targets.

The germans probibaly favored dive bombers so much because of the Ju-87. It was very sucessful early in the war, and was used frequently in propaganda. Then, the Ju-88 is also capable of dive-bombing. The idea was to scale it up, produce a dive-bomber with an even larger bomb load. 

The Ju-87 had an automatic pull out system, so the plane could pull out of a dive itself if the pilot blacked out. It was introduced on the B series.


----------



## Lunatic (Sep 20, 2005)

As I think has already been pointed out, Hitler and Goering did not really believe in strategic air war. To them the Luftwaffe' was just an extension of the Army. They viewed bombers as airborne artillery.

Lots of Allied (and probably German) fighter bomber pilots would trim their aircraft to automatically pull out of the dive should they black out. I know this was the case particularly with the Typhoon.

=S=

Lunatic


----------



## syscom3 (Sep 20, 2005)

Didnt the first G-Suits get their first trials with the US dive bomber pilots? It worked well enough that it was then adopted for the fighter pilots.


----------



## schwarzpanzer (Sep 20, 2005)

Thanks Piaggio108 for the Ju87 info.  

- I thought it was a myth I'd bought!  

I didn't know Typhoons dive-bombed?  

I suppose dive-bombing saves HE material?


----------



## Lunatic (Sep 20, 2005)

syscom3 said:


> Didnt the first G-Suits get their first trials with the US dive bomber pilots? It worked well enough that it was then adopted for the fighter pilots.



As far as I know the Berger G-suit was designed from the get-go for fighters. The develper (Berger) was a Candian WWI ace.

The British had a hydrolic G-suit which was basically like wearing two sets of chest high rubber waders one inside the other with water between. When under G force the water would be forced down squeezing the lower body. I'm not sure if these were tried for dive bombing (the Brit's didn't really have a dive bomber) but in any case the thing was so uncomfortable pilots refused to use it. Furthermore, it made it impossible to bail out because of the weight unless you could roll the plane upside down.

=S=

Lunatic


----------



## Lunatic (Sep 20, 2005)

schwarzpanzer said:


> I didn't know Typhoons dive-bombed?
> 
> I suppose dive-bombing saves HE material?



Well again it depends what you define as "dive bombing". Typhoons really just did a steep gilde bombing attack as I define things.

The stuka was very accurate. It could reliably hit a slow or stationary enemy tank, or a pill box. Allied fighter-bombers by comparison typically missed there targets by more than 100 meteres.

In the Pacific the Dauntless was an accurate dive bomber. Attacking an evading ship using a fighter-bomber glide bombing attack would most likely be a wasted effort.

=S=

Lunatic


----------



## schwarzpanzer (Sep 20, 2005)

I don't know, I would've thought rockets could sink a moving target fairly easily?

Not torpedoes though, which is what I supppse was the only other option?

I suppose dive-bombing would be good for HEAT or HEAC rounds or (those things, forgot what they're called, but kinda like darts or flechettes, but for anti-tank usage.  )


----------



## Lunatic (Sep 22, 2005)

schwarzpanzer said:


> I don't know, I would've thought rockets could sink a moving target fairly easily?
> 
> Not torpedoes though, which is what I supppse was the only other option?
> 
> I suppose dive-bombing would be good for HEAT or HEAC rounds or (those things, forgot what they're called, but kinda like darts or flechettes, but for anti-tank usage.  )



True dive bombing can be pretty accurate, especially if there is not strong AAA defending the target area.

As it turns out, rockets were not very effective against tanks. 
The best anti-tank aircraft weapon by a huge margine was NAPALM. Next would be large caliber anti-tank cannon, then dive bombing, then rockets, glide bombing, and finally level bombing.

=S=

Lunatic


----------



## schwarzpanzer (Sep 22, 2005)

Rockets weren't good against tanks?  

The Typhoons killed a lot of British tanks, scared a tankie who was there.

NAPALM was'nt around in WW2 was it?

I thought that for a cannon to kill a tank, it would have to fly close to the (moving) tank vertically (I mean 90 degrees @ <500m!?)  

Mind, the Ju87 racked up the kills...


Oh, BTW I was wrong about the A36 PlanD, very sorry.  

Also have a smidge of info on the Spit XXI. (same book)


----------



## Erich (Sep 22, 2005)

yes napalm and oil was used in the war. Rocket kills were so so from both sides


----------



## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Sep 23, 2005)

Piaggio108 said:


> The Fw-200 was good in the role it was used for: long range missions attacking convoys. I don't think it would have done well as a bomber attacking well defended targets.



I agree. Attacking Defended targets would not have been a good idea. The aircraft was not armed eneogh for a good defence and it had a tendency to go up in flames.


----------



## the lancaster kicks ass (Sep 23, 2005)

and she was incredibly weak structuraly, whe could even break her back just landing!


----------



## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Sep 24, 2005)

She was not that terrible but yes she had some structural problems.


----------



## Vahe Demirjian (Jan 17, 2020)

Smokey said:


> If they had long range bombers before the war then they probaly would have developed a special long range escort fighter, or put more fuel tanks and lines on the BF109, or used the BF110.
> The air fighting over the UK in 1940 would have been more like the air fighting over europe in 1942 - 1945 but with role reversal.
> 
> If Heinkel had used 4 seperate engines on their He177 instead of coupling the engines, then that would probably have been an aircraft in the B17/B24/Lancaster/Halifax/Sterling class. Later they did make this aircraft-the He 277. This is what the He 177 should have been.
> ...


The second and third cited links are no longer active. And also bear in mind that the He 277 was not the same aircraft as the He 177B as asserted in some older Nazi aviation books, given that He 177B was allocated much later than He 277, and the He 277 was designed for the _Amerikabomber _role (the He 177 book by Manfred Griehl and Joachim Dressel notes that the He 177B was originally designated He 177A-8 and He 177A-10).

Had Heinkel's He 177B been approved by the time of Operation Barbarossa, it could have pummeled Soviet weapons factories east of the Ural mountains because the Ju 88 didn't have sufficient range to strike the USSR's military-industrial base. The logic behind the He 177B is similar to when Avro had to redesign the Manchester as the Lancaster with 4 separate engines because of the unreliability of the Vulture engines.


----------

