Best Aircraft in Many Different Roles Part II

HerrKaleut said:

Talking of bomb loads,as somebody was, it is interesting that the Mossy could carry half a ton more than a B 17 at 50 knots faster

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That is a little bit misleading.

The Mossy could carry that bomb load for only short distances. The B-17 could still carry a much heavier bomb load, but it usually did not due to range issues.

The B-17 could carry a 17,500lb bomb load for short range missions, 8000lb bomb load for medium range missions and 4,500lb bomb loads for long range missions. The typical bomb load was only 4,500 to 5000lb.

Still though the Mossie is one of the best aircraft built during WW2 and in my opinion the most versatile aircraft of WW2 along with the Junkers Ju 88.

I believe the whole Mossie/B-17 claim is about the bombload both could carry *to Berlin.* Mossies definitely carried 4k cookies there.

As always, I make no claim to understand when which B-17s were carrying how much to where.

I think Mhxt has seen the same sources as me. However,as always, I will stand to be corrected.

I think it's actually easier to list what the Mossie and JU-88 could NOT do.

Many pages ago I voted for the Mosquito and I'm sticking to that. I'm also making a case that the Mosquito was more versatile than the Ju 88: not only more roles, but also excelling at them. The Ju 88 excelled at what? In few (if any) of their shared roles was the Ju 88 superior to the Mosquito. Mosquito was the better fighter, night fighter, reconaissance aircraft, torpedo launcher, ground support aircraft ... and bomber. The Mosquito could carry more internally at higher speed or could do this over a longer distance.

Kris

Civettone said:

Many pages ago I voted for the Mosquito and I'm sticking to that. I'm also making a case that the Mosquito was more versatile than the Ju 88: not only more roles, but also excelling at them. The Ju 88 excelled at what? In few (if any) of their shared roles was the Ju 88 superior to the Mosquito. Mosquito was the better fighter, night fighter, reconaissance aircraft, torpedo launcher, ground support aircraft ... and bomber. The Mosquito could carry more internally at higher speed or could do this over a longer distance.

Kris

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The fact the Mossie is more superior is not up for argument, however I will ask you what roles could the Mossie perform that the Ju 88 could not? I will also say that an aircraft does not have to be the best at every role to be considered the most versatile aircraft or the best in certain areas.

Overall I will agree that the Mossie is a better aircraft however.

However...

To say the Ju 88 did not excell at is intended roles is flat out wrong. I can not think of any roles that the Ju 88 failed at. Please list all roles the Ju 88 could perform and then which roles it failed at. Not being better than every aircraft in that role, does not make it a failure. That would mean that all aircraft except for one (all types of aircraft considered) were failures.

This should be very interesting, I am waiting...

IMHO the top 3, would be (in this case I said IMHO, take a note of that):

(Multi Engine)
1. Mossie/Ju 88
2. Ju 88/Mossie
3. P-38

(Single Engine)
1. Fw 190
2. P-47
3. ???? (up for debate, am still thinking about it)

Before fellow members from USA step out, I'd say that F4-U could do many tricks that other combat aircrafts could do , but beats other single-engined planes as an useful night fighter and dive bomber*.
IMO that makes it a #1 in our race for a best-in-different-roles category, single engined planes sub-category.

Hello, Kris, almost forgot to write it

*Hellcat was a night fighter, while a P-51 offspring was a dive-bomber, true, but Corsair could do both.

Hey Tomo!! nice to see you here man

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:

The fact the Mossie is more superior is not up for argument, however I will ask you what roles could the Mossie perform that the Ju 88 could not? I will also say that an aircraft does not have to be the best at every role to be considered the most versatile aircraft or the best in certain areas.

Overall I will agree that the Mossie is a better aircraft however.

However...

To say the Ju 88 did not excell at is intended roles is flat out wrong. I can not think of any roles that the Ju 88 failed at.

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Hey Chris,
please note that I said that the Ju 88 didn't excell at its intended roles, not that it failed at them. That means that the Ju 88 could perform those roles sufficiently but it wasn't thàt great at them while the Mosquito set new standards for them.

Remember that even Goering said he was deceived by the claims of the guys from Junkers that the Ju 88 could fly around Britain without fighters fast enough to catch them. The Ju 88 didn't have the speed nor the range to do so. Had he known, he had stuck to the cheaper He 111.
Now of course, that doesn't matter that much as no one could expect a bomber to pull that off around 1940.

But let me explain what I mean by the Ju 88 being a good aircraft but not great. As a bomber it had mediocre range, and a small internal bomb load (it could only carry small bombs internally, so all 500+ kg bombs had to be carried externally), insufficient defensive armament and with its bomb load carried externally a low maximum speed. All of this compared to the other two German bombers it was to replace: the Do 17 and He 111. In the BoB relatively more Ju 88s were lost than He 111s and Do 17s which says quite a lot IMHO.

As a night fighter it was too slow. Until early 1944 the main version remained the Ju 88C which was hardly faster than the bomber version. The Ju 88C was also tried as a long-range day fighter but in serious trouble when confronted with single engined fighters. The Mosquito could hold its own.

It was not succesful as a ground attack aircraft (Ju 88A-13 and P) because of insufficient manoeuvrability.
As a recon aircraft it was ok but here too it was way too slow. They had to remove almost all armament, equip it with Jumo 213 engines to get it at 600 km/h. By that time the Me 410 with similar engines could do the same at higher speed and fully armed.

An icnreasingly important role for bombers was as a carrier for remote guided bombs/rockets. It's telling that the Ju 88 was not suitable for this role, and they had to revert to the He 111, Do 217 and He 177.

You see, the thing with the Mosquito bomber is more than it being a superior bomber. It's because it was a new generation of bombers. After WW2 the traditional stable sturdy but slow medium bomber with a larger-than-two crew with gun turrets was given up in favour of the multifunctional and fast Mosquito/A-26 to the post-war Canberra/B-45/IL-28 bomber. The Mosquito was the first to pave this way and as such it was ahead of its time. The Germans did have an aircraft which was in its league ... the Me 210. Food for a what-if

Kris

Civettone said:

Hey Tomo!! nice to see you here man

Hey Chris,
please note that I said that the Ju 88 didn't excell at its intended roles, not that it failed at them. That means that the Ju 88 could perform those roles sufficiently but it wasn't thàt great at them while the Mosquito set new standards for them.

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To say that something did not excell, is to say that it did not perform well in them. The Ju 88 performed all of her roles very well. That does not mean she performed the roles the best though.

Civettone said:

But let me explain what I mean by the Ju 88 being a good aircraft but not great. As a bomber it had mediocre range, and a small internal bomb load (it could only carry small bombs internally, so all 500+ kg bombs had to be carried externally), insufficient defensive armament and with its bomb load carried externally a low maximum speed. All of this compared to the other two German bombers it was to replace: the Do 17 and He 111. In the BoB relatively more Ju 88s were lost than He 111s and Do 17s which says quite a lot IMHO.

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You are speaking of the bomber role. The Ju 88 performed vast many more roles than a bomber. For instance as night fighter it performed excellently. The only aircraft that may have performed better in that role is the Mossie. But as I said, that in my opinion is not really up for debate here.

Civettone said:

As a night fighter it was too slow. Until early 1944 the main version remained the Ju 88C which was hardly faster than the bomber version.

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How was the Ju 88 too slow as a night fighter? It flew faster than most bombers that it was up against. Please post bomber speeds and the speed of the Ju 88C and later Ju 88G.

Civettone said:

It was not succesful as a ground attack aircraft (Ju 88A-13 and P) because of insufficient manoeuvrability.

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Never heard of that. Please provide sources.

Civettone said:

An icnreasingly important role for bombers was as a carrier for remote guided bombs/rockets. It's telling that the Ju 88 was not suitable for this role, and they had to revert to the He 111, Do 217 and He 177.

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How was that an increasingly important role. It was actually a very small role.

Again there is no role that the Ju 88 did not perform satisfactory. I am not saying it performed the best, but it certainly performed the roles very well.

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:

To say that something did not excell, is to say that it did not perform well in them. The Ju 88 performed all of her roles very well. That does not mean she performed the roles the best though.

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Chris, doesn't excell not mean that the a/c was excellent, meaning not just performing well, but really outstanding? I'm not interfering with the discussion here, but just genuinely linguistically puzzled

And this to be add to the discussion: Mr. Bekker in his Luftwaffe diaries calls the Ju88 a failure. Not by being a bad aircraft, but by not living up to expectations. It was introduced as wonderbomber, but in fact it wasn't really that.It was as Kris (BTW welcome back) pointed out, too slow, under armed, low bombload etc. According to mr. Bekker the Ju88 was a good aircraft, but not a winner.

Marcel said:

Chris, doesn't excell not mean that the a/c was excellent, meaning not just performing well, but really outstanding? I'm not interfering with the discussion here, but just genuinely linguistically puzzled

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I think I am spelling it wrong anyhow...

Anyhow, yes it does, but that does not mean it has to be the best. As I said...

Marcel said:

And this to be add to the discussion: Mr. Bekker in his Luftwaffe diaries calls the Ju88 a failure. Not by being a bad aircraft, but by not living up to expectations. It was introduced as wonderbomber, but in fact it wasn't really that.It was as Kris (BTW welcome back) pointed out, too slow, under armed, low bombload etc. According to mr. Bekker the Ju88 was a good aircraft, but not a winner.

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As a bomber yes, I will agree with you as I said above as well. I am saying that in other roles it was not though. Which is one reason why the aircraft was so versatile, it was adapted well.

The bomb load of the Ju-88 was pretty impressive for a medium bomber if you ask me! Not every medium bomber will carry up to 4 tons of bombs!

Sorry for the late reply...

I don't want to nitpick but my entire post was about the Ju 88 not excelling. I'm not saying it was not a good aircraft. So in essence I agree with you.

Soren, the He 111 and Do 217 could carry a similar bombload yet had a bigger internal bomb bay. If the Ju 88 wanted to carry 250 or 500 kg bombs it had to carry them externally. You can imagine the kind of drag up to 4 large bombs produced. So it also comes down to maximum and practical payload: for the Ju 88 it was relatively limited.
Guided bombs were becoming increasingly important but enemy air control limited operations. Even by 1945 several missions with guided bombs were carried out against the Soviets as that was an area where the Luftwaffe could still pull that off. I could also point out the He 111 launching hundreds of V 1 bombs. Maybe not that important either but then again, what was??
I can also repeat what I said about the lacking defensive armament compared to He 111, Do 217 or even Do 17!

Then there are the other roles. I already mentioned the Ju 88D which was the main recon version until 1944 and was always too slow and weakly armed to escape enemy fighters. What else? Torpedo bomber? Seems the He 111 kept on being used for that too. He 111 was also used as a transport aircraft. Plus, it was easier/cheaper/faster to build.

As a night fighter it's not enough to be faster than the enemy bombers. I mean, that's simply a minimum! The Ju 88C night fighter could reach around 486 kmh IIRC. It was the MAIN Ju 88 NJ version until midd 1944. I was looking at a full Luftwaffe table dating from June 1944. By that time the Ju 88C had become even slower because of the additional FuG 220 antennas. The cheaper Bf 110 was faster by a large margin.
Ju 88G finally got a more aerodynamical shape and the strong BMW engines pushed the speed up to 540 kmh. Not that impressive for 1944 if you ask me. The Ju 88G-6c with Jumo 213E engines was too rare to mention.

Finally, as an attack aircraft it was unsuited. You asked for a source so here is one: One hundred years of world military ... - Google Books (it also says that the Ju 88 remained an effective night fighter until the end btw)

So bottom line ... is the Ju 88 an excellent bomber/recon/attacker/fighter? Clearly not. It was not the best the Germans had in either role ... but the best combination they had. And it's not that the Italians, Russians or Japanese had anything better.

Kris

I still don't understand how it was too slow, when it could fly faster than most of the bombers it would be attacking during night missions. The bombers would be flying at there cruise speed which was certainly less than the Ju 88s speed.

The Ju-88G has a top speed of over 600 km/h with boost Civettonne, and 550 km/h without. The top speed of the Ju-88C was 510 km/h.

And as for bomb load, again the Ju-88 could carry more than most other medium bombers, be it external or internal.

And on top of this the handling of the Ju-88 was rated as excellent.

Top notch a/c and one of the greats in the LW. The Do-17 wasn't even close!

Hello Soren
what is your source for the 4 tom bomb load for Ju 88. According to Ladeplan for Ju 88A-4 and A-14 max normal t/o weight bomb load was 2 tons, max for overload t/o weight bomb load was 3 tons. In very special cases 1x 1800kg + 1x1400kg bomb was possible. Now Cescotti in his book on German bombers writes that even 2x1800kg bombload was possible if fuel load was reduced to 1000kg, but that was the limit.
Do 217, which Germans called heavy bomber, could carry 4 tons bomb load.

Juha

Chris, an interceptor needs to be faster to be able to catch the enemy aircraft. Especially in WW2 when radar guidanc e was faulty: the ground operators were constantly being mislead and sending the interceptors all over the place. If the Ju 88C flew 50 kmh faster but it was off by 50 km it would have taken a full hour to catch that bomber.
Faster fighters can also intercept more aircraft. Plus, it makes them more difficult for the Mosquito to intercept them.

Soren, which Ju 88G and C version are you talking about?
What was the maximum payload of the He 111? What was the biggest bomb the Ju 88 could carry internally?

Kris

Civettone
the internal load of A series Ju 88s consisted 50kg bombs.

Juha

Juha said:

Civettone
the internal load of A series Ju 88s consisted 50kg bombs.

Juha

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Correct! (I just wanted Soren to say it haha)

Kris

Civettone said:

Chris, an interceptor needs to be faster to be able to catch the enemy aircraft. Especially in WW2 when radar guidanc e was faulty: the ground operators were constantly being mislead and sending the interceptors all over the place. If the Ju 88C flew 50 kmh faster but it was off by 50 km it would have taken a full hour to catch that bomber.
Faster fighters can also intercept more aircraft. Plus, it makes them more difficult for the Mosquito to intercept them.

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You are correct, but the Ju 88 was much faster than the bombers which would be flying at cruising speed, not top speed (as they had to conserve fuel). The Ju 88s typical target was not a fighter, it was a bomber...

So no, it was not slower than its intended targets.