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It may be a litle vulgar but I would say that in the end the Luftwaffe lost.
Nothing vulgar in stating the truth MN.
Cheers
John
proof? haha just kidding.. would take 4ever. bottom line in the heat of battle, I'm sure some
numbers got fudged. but please post the top ten allied, I want to compare it to Luftwaffe loss
lists. thanks.
The problem with a boxer engine is that it lacks rigidity and can be wide.
The motor cannon is also dependent on the disposition of the supercharger and attendant ancillaries. The reason why the Merlin could not carry a motor cannon was that the supercharger was large and in the way, while the intake piping was also in the way. In two stage engines there was also the aftercooler. It was a similar case for the Allison.
A flat engine may have less of a problem with intake runners and/or exhausts, but the supercharger may still be in the way.
The Merlin's reduction gearbox was therefore able to be designe so as to give the minimum frontal cross section from the engine.
I have often wondered what would have happened if Napiers had built on the succes of the Napier W 12 Lion instead of going down the route of the immensely complicated Napier H engines. A 36 litre overhead camshaft 4 valve head W12 Napier with development starting in the early 30s sounds like fun and might have been a good fallback if Rolls Royce hadnt got there Merlin bugs sorted out. Could have been called the Napier Tiger and might have been the ideal Fleet Air Arm engine.
The problem with a boxer engine is that it lacks rigidity and can be wide.
The motor cannon is also dependent on the disposition of the supercharger and attendant ancillaries. The reason why the Merlin could not carry a motor cannon was that the supercharger was large and in the way, while the intake piping was also in the way. In two stage engines there was also the aftercooler. It was a similar case for the Allison.
A flat engine may have less of a problem with intake runners and/or exhausts, but the supercharger may still be in the way.
The Merlin's reduction gearbox was therefore able to be designe so as to give the minimum frontal cross section from the engine.
The problem with the 'W' engine is that it has a lot of frontal area. The Lion was about a foot wider than a Merlin and every bit as tall. Makes for a rather poor view over the nose. as for the 36 litres, are you talking about bigger cylinders or adding them for a W-18? With the 12 you can have a short, sturdy crankcase and crankshaft. Going to the 18 gives you a crankcase and crankshaft as long as the V-12 except you have the weight and complication of another cylinder bank.
A flat engine has very good rigidity in one dimension, not so good in the vertical. Think of a 1" X 9" plank vs 3" X 3" beam of the same length. the 1 X 9 will be very strong in line with it's width but no so good if bent vertically or in resisting twisting.
A bit simplistic but I hope the idea is there. This can also show up in engines by construction types. An engine that uses cast cylinder blocks is stronger than an engine that uses separate cylinders, like many air cooled engines and some old,old water cooled ones. a few engines tried a compromise, like the Napier Lion, one piece crankcase, separate cylinders, one piece heads trying to tie the Cylinders and block together.
Many engines that used one piece blocks needed beefed up crankcases as rpm and power went up.
You can design a strong enough flat engine, there just may be a weight penalty that wouldn't be there if a different shape was chosen.
There are dozens if not hundreds of trade offs made in engine designs.
The hyper engines used separate cylinder construction, and were liquid cooled. It was part of the hyper engine program specifications.
The Merlin's reduction gearbox was therefore able to be designed so as to give the minimum frontal cross section from the engine.
Any gearbox is anyway narrower than V engine it belongs, so no gain here?
While was thinner than some X designs it was actually wider than a Griffon which was almost the exact displacement. It was also quite a bit longer and almost 400lbs heavier (than a two stage Griffon). Weight to the Chrysler does not include turbo. There were a few questionable constructional choices but the decision to take the drive from the middle of the crankshaft points to the problem with V-16 engines.
Some info in this thread : http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/engines/opportunity-lost-db-16-cyl-21836.html