1939/40: ideal Italian fighter?

[davebender]

No one to blame but themselves. Germany was next door, friendly and had a surplus of Jumo 211 engines. With an Italian purchase order in hand Junkers might have developed a fighter variant of the Junkers engine. I cannot imagine Germany turning down a chance to earn hard currency by exporting aircraft engines to an allied nation.

 

[Civettone]

Parsifal, I think the Hungarians went for the Re.2000, because of two reasons. They had a longer history of operating Italian aircraft. Also, politically they were closer to the Italians, at least until 1939. Second, they already had the K.14 engine in production, which is basically identical to the P.XI of the Re.2000. I believe this last reason is the decisive argument why they went for the Re.2000 instead of the C.200 or the real winner of the competition, the Caproni-Vizzola F.5.

No one to blame but themselves. Germany was next door, friendly and had a surplus of Jumo 211 engines. With an Italian purchase order in hand Junkers might have developed a fighter variant of the Junkers engine. I cannot imagine Germany turning down a chance to earn hard currency by exporting aircraft engines to an allied nation.

Friendly? That is new to me

If the Nazis were so friendly, they would have allowed their Fascist allies full access to their technology, helping them to increase productivity and allowing them to produce the uprated versions of the DB 601, instead of the obsolescent 601Aa.

Germany had no use for Italian liras. it was already giving Italy 90% of its coal, oil and steel requirement in return for Italian food and workers.

Also, I have seen you mention the Jumo 211 surplus around 500 times already. I would be careful about your claim. Germans were notoriously inadequate in supplying reserve engines. Maybe the Jumo 211 was the first to remedy this shortage in 1942. Also, I have never heard of a single fighter aircraft using this engine (during the war), nor being intended to use this engine. Because the DB 600 existed? Maybe. In any case, without any further information concerning this, I would be careful to keep suggesting these what-if uses of Jumo 211s.

Kris

 

[Tante Ju]

However, its a telltale sign that this claim is totally bogus, by the numbers of foreign sales and orders the germans had received pre-war for the 109. By my quick reckoning, the Germans had received orders, or had provided as gifts, for around 300 Me 109s, of various marks. By comparison the foreign orders for the Spitfire was running in the thousands. Most were never delivered, but its a measure of the relative expense of each type, at least in part.

Which countries - excluding those not politically dependent on Britian, i.e. Commonwealth states - ordered the Spitfires and how many? The Estonians ordered 12, at a unit price of £12,604. AFAIK the Germans exported 109Es to various countries at about 150 000,- RM, i.e. c.a. 2-3 times of its domestic RLM procurement price.

And Germany was operating on a subsidised command management system, whilst Britain was operating on a free market model (more or less).

That's a very flawed understanding of economics... there was very little difference between

admittedly countries were lining up to buy British rather than German, because Germany by 1938-39 was actibg clearly as an agressor nation and the neutrals were trying to get ready for a war that would probably see the germans as their enemies.

I am unaware of any major British arms export in the pre-war years.

I think it significant also, that the Hungarians initially chose the RE 2000 as the basis for their indigenous production program over the 109. Eventually the reggiane design was exposed as inferior, and the hungarians switched to 109 production, but pre-war....up to 1940, they didnt particualalry like the 109, despite a very aggressive sales pitch by the Germans, mixed in with not a little implied threats......

Again that is a mistaken understanding. The Hungarians wanted to buy the Bf 109 and its license, which the Germans were not willing to sell. Agressive sales pitch is an utter nonsense. You can't buy something that was not for sale. The Germans did offer 24 He 112s though - which were declined, and were eventually sold to Rumania.

The Re 2000 was choosen because it was - thought to be - relatively modern, and was available. The Italians freed up the Re 2000 for export, and provided a 600 million loan for weapons purchase for Hungary, which therefore could afford to order Re 2000s and as a stopgap, Cr 42 biplanes. The Re 2000 which had many flaws (the engine was unreliable, the fuel tank system was flawed design and leaked, the original Italian guns were prone to jam and the aircraft had bad stall characteristics). Hungary also had closer political ties with Italy, which politically supported Hungarian revisionist policy, and had long standing antagonism with Rumania, which was important for Germany because of its oil. The Germans did not want to sell any weapons to Hungary, lest the Hungarians be in a position to start a war with the Rumanians and endanrged oil supplies. So Hungarians typically bought Italian and neutral Swedish and Swiss weapons in addition to their old K.u.K. leftovers and domestic designs.

Bottomline - by the time the Hungarians managed to get their licences Re 2000 production in line, Hitler already okayed the Bf 109 licence sell, which went into production rather quickly, and the licence production Re 2000 did not see much use, being now completely obsolate...

 

[GregP]

About the 1944 claim ... it's not that we weren't in combat before then, it the fact that many US divisions, armored, cavalry, and infantry, were formed in mid to late 1943 and were deployed to Europe in early to mid-1944. We were there and fighting and taking casualties but remember, the vast majority of bombs dropped in the ETO, about even with the RAF tonnage in reality, were dropped in 1944.

That's because the war in Europe ended in mid-1945 and the Luftwaffe was basically in retreat in most of 1945. Not literal retreat ... they weren't ... but retreat as far as quality of pilots, fuel delivered to the front line units, and number of combat-ready aircraft are concerned. Germany had the fuel but road, rail, and rivers were basically under continuous attack. Not much actually GOT to the front-line units compared with, say, 1942.

Think about it, we started mobilizing in what was basically January 1942. We got people signed up and through basic training in about April or May of 1942 ... maybe June. Not many but some. They deployed. Meanwhile, more were signing up and production of war materiel was ramping up. It was getting into full swing in about mid-1943 and we had to organize and equip the units and get them combat ready (as far as we knew ... can't do it without the equipment for training). Europe was preparing for war from about 1935 forward and didn't really move any faster than WE did. We had aircraft there before mud-Marines (planes are faster and pilots are already somehwat trained before they fly a fighter or bomber).

So it's NOT that we weren't there, it's that a LOT of planning came together and a lot of units deployed in 1944 as the groundswell of troops that could be equipped fully came into being. We had to build the factories that produced the equipment before we could equip the Army. Going from an isolationist country to a country ona full war footing takes about a year and then you have to train and get the logistics chain in place before you can GET the stuff there.

Ask the British or Germans or Russians or Japanese how long it took to get a credible force together and deployed. It wasn't overnight.

 

[parsifal]

Which countries - excluding those not politically dependent on Britian, i.e. Commonwealth states - ordered the Spitfires and how many? The Estonians ordered 12, at a unit price of £12,604. AFAIK the Germans exported 109Es to various countries at about 150 000,- RM, i.e. c.a. 2-3 times of its domestic RLM procurement price.

In 1939, there were actually no commonwealth countries that had actualy ordered the Spitfire, though it is my understanding the canadians were angling for a manufacturing licence. Prewar orders and/or expressions of interest for the Spitfire had come in from the following countries

Yugolsavia, Turkey, Portugal, Poland, Norway, Estonia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Belgium, Eire, Greece, France, Czechoslovakia, Argentina, Spain (Republic)

That's a very flawed understanding of economics... there was very little difference between

You may say its a flawed understanding. But according to the Economics Dean at the University Of Sydney (a personal acquaintance, whom I referred your comments to for advice, its not me who has the whacko flawed view of economic theory. According to him....

"A free market economy is an economy where the market is free to operate based on peoples wants and needs. The economy is driven by a government that practices a laissez-faire, rather than controlling its economic policy. The forces that rule the marketplace are: Supply, Demand, and Competition. There aren't any completely free market economies but the U.S. is probably the closest. Many economies are mixed like the UK, which is open to the idea of free markets, but also involves some government interventin.

In a Command Economy, the government controls all means of production. Examples of the Command Economy were the Stalin's 5 Year Plans and Mao's "The Great Leap Forward". (Good for if you want to make some historical references in your debate) The government decides what items will be made and at what price. The Soviet Union had a Command Economy. In your debate you could talk about how this sort of economy led to their downfall!

The benefits of a free market economy is largely to do with gains from international trade, and improving global efficiency through lower prices, increased consumer choice etc.

Just a little pointer for your debate. There are disadvantages to a free market economy as well. Look at those and try and provide some counter arguments, or explain how the benefits outweigh them".

I am unaware of any major British arms export in the pre-war years.

In th case of the Spitfire, they didnt, delays in getting the Castle Bromwich plant up and running meant that Supermarine could not meet even the priority orders to the RAF on time, let alone any of the foreign nations that were queing up to purhase it.

Bottomline - by the time the Hungarians managed to get their licences Re 2000 production in line, Hitler already okayed the Bf 109 licence sell, which went into production rather quickly, and the licence production Re 2000 did not see much use, being now completely obsolate...

The hungarians relied on the Heja, as it was known, for a considerable part of their war in the East, where it gave a pretty good account of itself. the Hungarian version was effective at eliminating the types more glaring failures, mostly the armament and the leaky fuel system, but of course could not overcome its basic obsolescence, which im not disputing. Im not accepting your other claims incidentally, but its a whole other debate. The Hungarians were happy to accept the Heja until quite late in the war....in this regard your assertion that it switched to the me109 is totally spurious. From memory the first of a very few Me 109s began frontline service in 1942, but it was well into 1943 before it (the 109) had any significant Hungarian service. Whether they were keen before that to get their hands on the 109, Im not so sure, so wont commit to any debate just yet. but what is patrently untrue is your claim that it was accepted or available to the hungarians from an early stage. perhaps, but I am doubtful.

Niehorsters site gives a pretty good breakdown as to when 109s were accepted into Hungarian serve, and in what numbers. it certainly does not support the claims you aree asserting

Hungarian Aircraft

Edit

And it is clear from niehorsters OOB for Hungary, that Germany was willing to sell substantial numbers of other front line equipment to the Hungarians, but not Me109s (allegedly...but Im not buying that for a second). Ju86s, Ju87s, He111s, He170s were all eagerly sold to the Honved, but for some strange reason not the Me 109, which in the same breath is argued as "cheap as chips". In cash starved Germany, if the 109 was so cheap (and it certainly wasnt secret or classified equipment after Spain and its display at air shows allover Europe....remember also that we are not mecessarily taliking "E" here) why the hell wopuldnt they be trying to sell at least one of the earlier marks of the type to intersted nations. I would accept that they might have tried, but failed because nobody trusted the germans after 1938, but thats not the line being pedalled here. whats being shoved down our throats was that the germans simply did not want to sell the 109 to anybody, but then they were willing to sell other stuff, and also the type was the cheapest on the market. Bollocks

 

[riacrato]

How does what you professor acquintance say relate to Germany being a planned economy? As correctly stated there are few true free markets, not even the U.S. is or was one, even though it's probably the closest. Germany of the 1930s certainly wasn't a command or planned economy. It was much closer to a free market and in the early 40s in many ways closer to that than the UK was (which was one of the reasons for Germany's inefficiency).

Anyway, prices are a very poor measurement for costs. The use of resources, those being raw materials or manhours, is what counts.

 

[pattle]

Greg P, I know that the Americans had already had a big impact on World War Two before D Day I was just being a little sarcastic towards the post I was replying to. The Reg 2000 wasn't a bad design full stop as it was developed into later versions some of which were pretty good. The thing that strikes me about the Reg 2000 series is that it shares its lineage with the Seversky P35 as does the P47. From memory I understand that a member of the Seversky design team had returned to Italy from America and began working for Caproni Regianni where he designed the Reg 2000 using the P35 concept. It is interesting how the basic P35 design evolved in two very different directions one the P47 and the other the Reg 2000 series. For an example of this similarity look at the shape of the wings of all three fighters.

 

[Shortround6]

Most countries are a mix of economies. However, military production was seldom as "free market" as many other aspects of the civilian market. The US had both government arsenals and ship yards pre-war, which while they could not supply the entire needs of the armed services, did provide some competition and a check on actual costs to produce some items.
The awarding of contracts in the aircraft industry often had as much to do with keeping a certain number of companies in business for future availability as it did in getting the lowest price or fasted delivery at the moment. This was used by a number of countries between the wars.

While many economies are not really planned just a simple thing like fooling about with the "official" currency exchange rate can affect the "Free Market" on the world stage,even if it does little for domestic production/competition. Manipulating the exchange rate affects imports and exports and how much these affect the economy as a whole.

Artificial exchange rates also make it rather hard to compare "costs" between countries.

 

[pattle]

I don't know what the pound/euro tourist rate was in 1944 but it couldn't have been much worse than today.

 

[parsifal]

How does what you professor acquintance say relate to Germany being a planned economy? As correctly stated there are few true free markets, not even the U.S. is or was one, even though it's probably the closest. Germany of the 1930s certainly wasn't a command or planned economy. It was much closer to a free market and in the early 40s in many ways closer to that than the UK was (which was one of the reasons for Germany's inefficiency).

Anyway, prices are a very poor measurement for costs. The use of resources, those being raw materials or manhours, is what counts.

I agree, but I also was not the one claimimg the 109 was the cheapest thing on the market. It wasnt.

Germany was not a free market economy. it was not the same economic model as the west, by any stretch of the imagination. In Germany, if you entered a tender, you didnt lose even if you lost. Germany was not run on any sort of capitalist model, more like a series of medieval fifdoms, full of corruption and innefficiency allover the place. It wasnt a command economy, but it wasnt a capitalist economy either. it was a twisted confused mess actually

 

[Shortround6]

Pre-war both the German Mark and the French Franc were "pegged" low compared to American Dollar and British Pound to discourage imports and help exports. This also means that domestic raw material prices are skewed compared to world market prices and that labor costs, which are rarely equal to begin with are really out of whack.

Saying a French fighter cost XX,XXX Francs and the exchange rate was XX Francs = YY dollars doesn't tell you a whole lot because you don't know what the actual cost of either the materials or labor would have been on an "open" world market.

 

[cherry blossom]

...snip...
And it is clear from niehorsters OOB for Hungary, that Germany was willing to sell substantial numbers of other front line equipment to the Hungarians, but not Me109s (allegedly...but Im not buying that for a second). Ju86s, Ju87s, He111s, He170s were all eagerly sold to the Honved, but for some strange reason not the Me 109, which in the same breath is argued as "cheap as chips". In cash starved Germany, if the 109 was so cheap (and it certainly wasnt secret or classified equipment after Spain and its display at air shows allover Europe....remember also that we are not mecessarily taliking "E" here) why the hell wopuldnt they be trying to sell at least one of the earlier marks of the type to intersted nations. I would accept that they might have tried, but failed because nobody trusted the germans after 1938, but thats not the line being pedalled here. whats being shoved down our throats was that the germans simply did not want to sell the 109 to anybody, but then they were willing to sell other stuff, and also the type was the cheapest on the market. Bollocks

The problem was that the Germans could not produce enough DB 601s for their own use. Notice that all the aircraft mentioned as for sale used Junkers engines. A Bf 109 prototype, v21, was even tested with a P&W 1830.

edit: The one you said looked ...wrong - now that I remember where I had seen it.

 

[davebender]

That's not exactly accurate.

1936 Germany bet on the wrong engine. Jumo 211 production was established on a massive scale while DB601 production had only a single modest size (220 engines per month) factory at Genshagen. With different production decisions one of the Jumo 211 factories could have been allocated to Daimler-Benz instead which would have given Germany plenty of both engine types by 1940.

 

[Shortround6]

And yet the He 111 used Daimler engines in the B series, priority of the DB engines for the 109 and 110 led to the D series with DBs being switched to the E series with Jumos. Some F's had DB engines as did most of the "j"s (early torpedo bomber) but a lot of these were the early DB 600 engines which seem to have left something to be desired. Production "P"s are coming off the line in the fall of 1938 but the chronic shortage of DB engines forces the switch to the "H" series, which despite it's letter does come after the "P".

Seems like really poor planning if they were ordering hundreds of HE 111s with DB engines in addition to the 109s and 110s not to have more factory space for DB engines. Of course they might have cut Jumo production in favor of the DB 600 in 1936-37-38 but that might have presented a few problems as apparently the DB 600 engines weren't operating properly which lead to continued production of 109s with Jumo 210s, small scale production of the 110 with Jumo 210s. Around 260 JU 87s got Jumo 210s despite more than one prototype have a DB 600 engine. Why? Politics or the DB 600 series was having trouble with more than just production?
One prototype of the He 111 series had Jumo 210s, low powered as they were, rather than the DB 600s intended for it.

It might take a brave man to bet on the DB series of engines 1936 given their state of development.

 

[davebender]

I agree.

You've got to eat the soup you cook. Late 1930s Germany began cooking up Jumo 211 engines in huge numbers. RLM should have been planning which airframes would eat those engines. Building a fighter version of the Jumo 211 engine seems like a good place to start.

 

[parsifal]

The problem was that the Germans could not produce enough DB 601s for their own use. Notice that all the aircraft mentioned as for sale used Junkers engines. A Bf 109 prototype, v21, was even tested with a P&W 1830.

edit: The one you said looked ...wrong - now that I remember where I had seen it.

Thats a good, plausible answer, but still fails to fully explain why the Germans had such relatively minor success in foreign orders. Not even expressions of interest until after the superiority of the 109 had been fuly demonstrated in battle. Nations far preferred aircraft like the CR42 that followed a known formula...manouvre and agility. But where they did realize that the energy fighter was a good idea, they went for other types....aircraft like the hurricanere, Spitfire, P-36/H075, or MS406, and even the the Re2000 over the 109. Why was that? Shortage of engines, well maybe, except they were sellig other aircraft equipped with the DB601. Repugnance or fear of the regime, well yes, but some of the regimes lining up for equipment had more similarity to Nazism than they did to free society. Cost, well if the 109 was cheap, one would expect that the cash starved regimes of Europe would have jumped at it, despite the difficulties, but ther is no real evidence of that. The italians, a fascist, repugnant regime enjoyed far more success with the CR 42 than the germans did with any of their equipment

 

[Civettone]

Building a fighter version of the Jumo 211 engine seems like a good place to start.

What exactly would that Jumo 211 'fighter version' be ?
What was it that made the Jumo 211 unsuited for a fighter aircraft, while the Jumo 210 was the standard fighter engine?
Was it merely a bigger weight, compared to the DB 600? Or was there more?

Kris

 

[Dogwalker]

The Jumo 211 had the pressurized cooling system only with the "E" version, in 1940. An engine with an atmosferic pressure cooling system is handicapped at high altitude, where the boiling point decreases. To not boil the water it has to have a bigger, and draggier, radiator.
Daimler offered the 601 for licence production at the end of 1938. A year and half before the Jumo 211 became suited for fighters.

 

[davebender]

How about the supercharger? Was Jumo 211B supercharger and coupling as good as DB601A?

 

[tomo pauk]

The suoercharger system was significantly different, 2 speed supercharger for the 211, vs. hydraulicaly coupled supercharger for the DB-601. The 601A has advantage in power between 2500-4500 m (the 'dent' in power curve is almost non-existing, vs. the notable 'dent' seen in Jumo 211B power curve, between two full throttle heights). The power above 5 km is as good identical, as is under 2000m. At 3500m, the 601A has 70 more HP, on 30 min power setting.
Another advantage is that 601A was cleared for 5 min power rating (further 50 to 70 PS advantage, under 4000 m), that Jumo 211 lacks.

The Jumo 211 had the pressurized cooling system only with the "E" version, in 1940. An engine with an atmosferic pressure cooling system is handicapped at high altitude, where the boiling point decreases. To not boil the water it has to have a bigger, and draggier, radiator.
Daimler offered the 601 for licence production at the end of 1938. A year and half before the Jumo 211 became suited for fighters.

The DB-601E got the pressurised cooling system, ie. we talk about 1941. According to the German Wikipedia:

DB 601 E – größere Überarbeitung des DB 601, Druckwasserkühlung für höhere Betriebstemperaturen, bis 1350 PS Startleistung

So if Jumo was not suited for fighters from day one (no pressure cooling), the same logic applies for DB-601N and earlier.