Best Axis four engined bomber?

[Admiral Beez]

Piaggio P.108, Nakajima G8N, Messerschmitt Me 264. Which Axis four engined, land based bomber had the best potential?

 

[SaparotRob]

I'd go with the Piaggio. It actually did stuff.

 

[GrauGeist]

As it stands, the Fw200 saw the most action and was actually effective in it's maritime role.

The Me264 actually held a great deal of potential and was an early enough design that could have been in production and benefited the war effort if not for the typical setbacks the RLM imposed on itself.

The Ju290 was another potential candidate, but again, sabotaged by political in-fighting.

 

[GregP]

Two Do 335s on the same mission?

Actually, I'd nominate the He 274, though it didn't make production since it used the He 177, but replaced the unreliable Siamese twin DB 610 engines with a more reliable engine setup. Of course, the DB 603 didn't make it for long, either, but the DB 605 would have slipped right in, and there was nothing wrong with the He 177 airframe, so the He 274 SHOULD have been a good one.

 

[Vincenzo]

Fw 200 was the alone available in more of 10 in the same time

 

[Admiral Beez]

Fw 200 was the alone available in more of 10 in the same time

With its 2,200 lb. internal bomb load, can we really put the Condor in the same class as other four engined strategic bombers? IMO, the Fw 200 is more a land-based maritime maritime patrol aircraft (MPA) with limited strike capability.

Not to belittle the importance of MPAs. Imagine if the Condor had the specs of the ultimate land based MPA of WW2, the Consolidated PB4Y-2 Privateer. You'd need more than a single CAM ship's Hawker Hurricane to chase that off.

 

[Vincenzo]

I'm agree but it's the alone axis 4 engined bomber available in more of 10 in the same time
The Piaggio 108 bomb bay it's more capable, 7 500 kg bombs versus 2 or 38 50 kg bombs vs 12
but the quoted official range of 3520 km it's with just 1000 kg of bombs

 

[GrauGeist]

The Ju290 had the range and the payload, but it was introduced in '43 - a bit late.

 

[Just Schmidt]

If we do not care too much about official designations, but value being operational in some numbers at not too late a point in the war, I think the N8K can be considered. They did plan to bomb Pearl Harbour with two of the earliest ones i 42.

It would be madness to send hundreds (not that they ever had hundreds operational) over well defended airspace like western Germany in 44, but if we ignore payload it performed more or less as well as the Lancaster (I'm not sure what the performance was with external stores). It may be as fast and depending how you look at it better armed than the P. 108, and leaves the Fw 200 standing both as a bomber and as a maritime patrol and attack aircraft. After 41, that is, until then the H6K is the competitior.

 

[dedalos]

The He177 had the best potential. It was a good aircraft. It s problems were not of bad design ,but of bad project management. The engine fires were a problem reasonably easy to solve. The requirement for dive bombing should simply be eliminated. The oversensitive rudder could be fixed.
But it's configuration offered good performance and heavy armament . The russians could not stop them. It suffered casualties over England but which heavy bomber of any nation could avoid the British air defence in 1944?