Aircraft for a different Zerstörer specification?

[tomo pauk]

On the 2-engined 'front', the Fw 187 topic is beaten to death, so let's see what other people were making.
Italians designed the Ro.58 as a heavy fighter, powered by DB 601A engines. Yes, it was too late, and yes, Italians didn't have enough of these engines for 1-engined fighters, let alone for 2-engined ones. 600+ km/h, 3-5 cannons (two of them in the belly 'blister'), crew of 2. Wing was smaller than on the Fw 187, despite the much heavier engines and firepower. I'm not sure about the fuel carried.
Good picture of the Ro.58: link; if I'm not mistaking it badly, radiators were between the nacelle and fuselage, just barely can be seen in the pic.

 

[ClayO]

On the 2-engined 'front', the Fw 187 topic is beaten to death, so let's see what other people were making.
Italians designed the Ro.58 as a heavy fighter, powered by DB 601A engines. Yes, it was too late, and yes, Italians didn't have enough of these engines for 1-engined fighters, let alone for 2-engined ones. 600+ km/h, 3-5 cannons (two of them in the belly 'blister'), crew of 2. Wing was smaller than on the Fw 187, despite the much heavier engines and firepower. I'm not sure about the fuel carried.
Good picture of the Ro.58: link; if I'm not mistaking it badly, radiators were between the nacelle and fuselage, just barely can be seen in the pic.

I got a 403 Forbidden error from that link, but there are a couple of nice pictures here. Nice looking machine.

 

[ClayO]

Decide on a long range bomber escort and separately describe a tactical strike aircraft. Don't combine both specifications into one airframe - you're asking for trouble.

I'd go one further: they needed three different airplanes:

• A pure bomber escort with the performance of the Bf 109 but longer range - which would have resulted in more time over the target, when long range turned out not to be necessary. The easy path would have been to start working on a drop tank much earlier.
• A pure tactical strike fighter, which could have looked something like the Bf 110, Me 410, or any of the other heavy fighters mentioned.
• A pure bomber interceptor, something like some variants of the Bf 109G were intended to be

What they got instead was too few types pressed into too many roles, like the Bf 110 used as a bomber escort, or the dizzying array of Bf 109G variants.

 

[Howard Gibson]

I'd go one further: they needed three different airplanes:

• A pure bomber escort with the performance of the Bf 109 but longer range - which would have resulted in more time over the target, when long range turned out not to be necessary. The easy path would have been to start working on a drop tank much earlier.
• A pure tactical strike fighter, which could have looked something like the Bf 110, Me 410, or any of the other heavy fighters mentioned.
• A pure bomber interceptor, something like some variants of the Bf 109G were intended to be

What they got instead was too few types pressed into too many roles, like the Bf 110 used as a bomber escort, or the dizzying array of Bf 109G variants.

Unless you have some form of superior technology, a longer ranged Bf109 will be heavier, slower, less manoeuvrable, and more explosive than the Bf109Es that fought the Battle of Britain. There is no free lunch in fighter design.

The twin engined aircraft that were able to take on single engined fighters, were built from the ground up to be single seat fighters. If your aircraft has space for one or two more crew, it will lose speed and manoeuvrability. A specialised, high speed strike aircraft that does not have to dogfight, can be optimised for speed at low altitude. If in addition, it does not need to be fully aerobatic, you can convert some airframe weight into more speed. This is how de Havilland Mosquitos worked.

Remember, jack of all trades, master of none.

 

[ClayO]

Unless you have some form of superior technology, a longer ranged Bf109 will be heavier, slower, less manoeuvrable, and more explosive than the Bf109Es that fought the Battle of Britain. There is no free lunch in fighter design.

The twin engined aircraft that were able to take on single engined fighters, were built from the ground up to be single seat fighters. If your aircraft has space for one or two more crew, it will lose speed and manoeuvrability. A specialised, high speed strike aircraft that does not have to dogfight, can be optimised for speed at low altitude. If in addition, it does not need to be fully aerobatic, you can convert some airframe weight into more speed. This is how de Havilland Mosquitos worked.

Remember, jack of all trades, master of none.

Agreed. The only path forward I can see for the BoB would have been to have already added a drop tank to the Bf 109E. They could have done that before the Battle of France, when the need for a longer range fighter was apparent.
The strike fighter and the interceptor would have resulted from a more focused development process, which would have dropped a lot of other pretty good ideas that didn't pan out and wound up wasting much needed resources. It was an issue of poor management, not a lack of talent, good ideas or hard work.

 

[GrauGeist]

The Luftwaffe was operating from foreward fields during the battle of France, which were literally minutes from the front. They didn't have a need for drop tanks at that point in time.

 

[tomo pauk]

The Luftwaffe was operating from foreward fields during the battle of France, which were literally minutes from the front. They didn't have a need for drop tanks at that point in time.

Something was still needed to provide fighter escort for the He 111s and Do 17s. Bf 109 without the drop tank can't do it, even if it is capable to escort the Ju 87s and Hs 123s.

 

[ClayO]

Thftwaffe was operating from foreward fields during the battle of France, which were literally minutes from the front. They didn't have a need for drop tanks at that point in time.

Only because that battle ended much sooner than expected. If it had developed into a protracted campaign, with a more strategic campaign to interdict supplies coming from the UK to France, longer range fighters would have been needed.

 

[nuuumannn]

I'd go one further: they needed three different airplanes:

if you want to fulfil those roles disparately, yes, but the Bf 110 was not designed for the pure interceptor role, the Luftwaffe had the Bf 109 for that.

longer range fighters would have been needed.

I agree with your statement, but of course it took some convincing that the Bf 110 was not suitable as the long-range fighter the LW needed. They did begin to realise the shortcomings of the type as a fighter escort though, but by then it was far too late and the damage had ben done. No alternative long range fighter was going to be available for the BoB unless it was developed in the mid-late 1930s.

Goering and his intelligence teams were refusing to acknowledge the bare facts that they were losing the attrition war and that their tactics were not going to bring them victory. Osterkamp stated that the Jagdgeschwader needed to achieve a 5:1 kill ratio to defeat Fighter Command, they LW got nowhere near that. Bf 109s alone achieved a nearly 2:1 kill ratio against the Spitfire and Hurricane, but Fighter Command achieved a 1.8 to 1 kill ratio over the LW as a whole, which is the crucial point, of course, in that the Germans had to replace 3 types of bomber, two types of fighter, a dive bomber type and misc other sundry aircraft. The RAF just had to replace two types of fighter to keep the pressure up against LW attacks against Britain, really, and bombers lost in the Bomber Command campaigns to deter Sealion, of course...

 

[Howard Gibson]

if you want to fulfil those roles disparately, yes, but the Bf 110 was not designed for the pure interceptor role, the Luftwaffe had the Bf 109 for that.

Airforces keep trying to achieve versatility. Being very good at multiple tasks is good for most tasks. In a dogfight, you need the aircraft with the best performance. Any feature that does not enhance your dogfighting, add weight and drag, and makes you more likely to lose dogfights.

If you design a very, very good airframe, like the P-51 Mustang, you can waste some performance and be versatile. If you plan for this, you are relying on the other guys to be idiots.

 

[nuuumannn]

Airforces keep trying to achieve versatility.

Of course they do, all obvious points and known to this particular party, Howard.

In the case of the Bf 110, pure interceptor was not within the playbook of the Zerstorer specification, nonetheless, as mentioned earlier, by the time the Germans realised the Bf 110 in the fighter role was unsuitable it was too late and losses had mounted. It did make a good account for itself and managed to shoot down a good number (I don't have figures to hand) of RAF fighters, so its efforts were not entirely wasted, from the LW point of view.