About German long range bombers....

[schwarzpanzer]

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]

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

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

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]

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

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

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

 

[Vahe Demirjian]

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.
View attachment 384833

Heinkel He 177
Heinkel He-177 "Greif" (Griffin)

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/

The second and third cited links are no longer active.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.