Could the Luftwaffe survive against Allied attacks if the USSR had been defeated?

kool kitty89 · Aug 16, 2008

Kruska said:
What nuke? the Neo Nazi fantasy nuke?

Regards
Kruska

There's also the his previous post which most seem to have ignored full of other stuff. I wasn't sure about commenting on it (in attemt of keepin the threadon topic) but seeing as ther's already some atention drawn to it...

krieghund said:
I think there are some additional areas which need consideration,,,

There are issues about the hidden history of wWII which are just now seeing the light of day. For example;
1. It would appear the first nuke was tested near Lubeck in Oct 1944 (NARA/RG 38 Box 9-13 Entry 98c TS Naval Atache Repaorts 1944-47.
...

2. German U-234 which surendered to the USN after VE day on its way to Japan had a very interesting shipment onboard..lest of which was a gross quanity of U235 and nuke scientists. never haerd anything about the scientists, and I don't think it was at all inriched, just refined Urainium oxide from ore. The Japanese han't really wanted the Germans to know of their intentions, though the Germans of course knew verry well what Urainium could be used for

3. Near the end of the war in the west Hitler gave te orders that an area in southern Bavaria and an airfield in Norway (with 40 LR bombers on it) were to have all of german's last defenses. WHY? [not even sure of the implications of this one]

4. Patton was diverted from his drive on germany to this area of southern Bavaria.

5. Japan set off a Nuke on Korea after Nakasaki. (looking for copy of USN intel report) [this one I have heard of, some actuall decent evedence for it, there was a History channel doccumentary on Japans 2 -1 army and 1 navy- nuclear programs, both oriented toward bomb development]

6. Enola Gay probally dropped nuke material and detonators found aboard U234 which were bound for Japan, just got there by a different route. [again seems very unlikely and suspect to say the least. and detonators??? do you even know what you're talking about]

7. The weapon dropped from the Enola Gay was untested by the US..the trinty site weapon was the type used for Nakasaki...Hiroshima was like the Lubeck weapon....why would you drop an untested weapon?
[because the mechanism was deemed so fundementally sound that testing was unnecessary, and there was only enough highly enriched Uranium for one bomb]

8. Reports and Docs of German and Japanese nuke status are still classified until late 2040's. [don't know about this one]

If the USSR capitulated would the Axis Nuke timetable been realized?

From all that I've read the German program (and few smaller programs) focused on development of nuclear reactor developmet for power generation. There was some minimal work on possible bomb development, as well as some radological/"dirty bomb" considderations. Also possibly a theoretical, very strange fission-fusion transition bomb design. (different in design than any modern or previously tested fusion, or fusion boosted fission weapon)

The Japannese programs seem to have focused primarily on enrichment of U-235 and bomb development. The more well known mainland Army project was actually fairly far along with small scale enrichment using thermal diffusion. It was destroyed, however, by a US bombing raid.
The far more secret Navy project continued up to the end of hostillities, based off shore of Northern Korea. There a relatively small, staged, Uranium fission bomb may have been tested. (possibly a "Fizzle") Fizzle (nuclear test - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Soren · Aug 16, 2008

re admiral,

1.) The Jumo 004B was never too heavy.
2.) The lack of proper materials was the sole reason for the reliability problems
3.) With proper metals fuel consumption would decrease and more performance would be available.

Soren · Aug 16, 2008

KrazyKraut said:
I have never seen evidence there even was such a program. The only nuclear program in Germany at the time I know of was the Uranverein (uran association) and fellow smaller associations. They were creating a primitive nuclear reactor, not a bomb.

There were plans for such a program very early on by German scientists, but Hitler didn't like the idea. Hitler also cut the budget on the nuclear power project, which by the start of WW2 had come very far, Hitler cut it off from funding though.

Kruska · Aug 16, 2008

kool kitty89 said:
There's also the his previous post which most seem to have ignored full of other stuff. I wasn't sure about commenting on it (in attemt of keepin the threadon topic) but seeing as ther's already some atention drawn to it...

Oh Jesus

Regards
Kruska

krieghund · Aug 16, 2008

Gents,Gents..yes I agree this is pushing the limit for this thread if the Luftwaffe could defend against the Allies onslaunt if the USSR capitulated as in WWI.......but!!!! the resourses needed for LR aviation would now be at hand....a good defense is a good offense.

Ever play Axis'n'Allies? If the axis player can put LR bombers on Iceland watch out Canada and USA.

To answer the issue of the detonators..Oppenhiemer reported to his chiefs that they had a fusing problem and probally could not perform a 'Trinity' test until late Nov '45, then U234 is acquired with it's cargo and one of the scientists aboard was the nuke fusing detonator expert and lo and behold the rest is history

Look into the U234, we all accepted the story about WMD in Iraq and Dec 7 is raising a few questions.

Anyway I will discontinue this line so we can all stay in our comfort zones.

kool kitty89 · Aug 17, 2008

Do you mean an "initiator," somthing unnecessary for the Little Boy bomb.

(an initaiator produces an intense shower of neutrons to help activate the runaway fission reaction more quickly as the crtical mass is reached, such was used in the center of The Gadget and Fat Man)

Detinators were used in the implosion type bomb to detonate the explosive "lenses" (shaped charges) that forced the chunks of Plutonium into a single mass, but they were simply used to detonate the high explosives and had nothing to do with nuclear science.

In the case of Little Boy, it used a "gun type" assembly method, using propellant (cordite iirc) to propell a peice of Uranium down a "barrel" into one or more peices of uranium at the end of the "barrel" to form a critical mass.

The gun type method was also proposed for a Plutonium bomb ("Thin Man"), but the neutron flux from the spontanious fission of the mass produced plutonium was far too high to make this viable. (initially much purer Pu-239 which was practical for this method, but the reactor bred Plutonium prooved far too contaminated with other Pu isotopes to use in this manner, and thus the implosion type assembly was utilized and tested with in the Gadget)

Njaco · Aug 17, 2008

Gents,Gents..yes I agree this is pushing the limit for this thread if the Luftwaffe could defend against the Allies onslaunt if the USSR capitulated as in WWI.......but!!!! the resourses needed for LR aviation would now be at hand....a good defense is a good offense.

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the concept of the USSR being defeated! Its tough!

Kruska · Aug 17, 2008

krieghund said:
.........we all accepted the story about WMD in Iraq.....

No, I don't and I am not alone with this opinion.

Regards
Kruska

red admiral · Aug 17, 2008

Soren said:
re admiral,

1.) The Jumo 004B was never too heavy.
2.) The lack of proper materials was the sole reason for the reliability problems
3.) With proper metals fuel consumption would decrease and more performance would be available.

1. The power to weight ratio was very poor in comparison to other engines.
2. No it wouldn't. See my post above.
3. You don't really know anything about jet engines do you? See my post above for an explanation of why fuel consumption increases with extra power.

Soren · Aug 17, 2008

red admiral said:
1. The power to weight ratio was very poor in comparison to other engines.

Untrue. Besides it was the size vs power where it was considerably superior to the other engines.

2. No it wouldn't. See my post above.

Wrong, you can scate around the facts all you want but it was the lack of the right metals which was the sole reason for the Jumo 004's reliability issues. With the right metals a Jumo 004 ran for over 10 hours full power producing 9.8 kN of thrust, which was the the gain from 8.8 kN when using the intended metals = not exactly a minor improvement as you so falsely claim!

The first batch of Jumo 004B's made with atleast some of the intended metals passed several 100 hour tests, so reliability was good even when only some of the proper metals were used.

3. You don't really know anything about jet engines do you? See my post above for an explanation of why fuel consumption increases with extra power.

You don't have a clue about jet engines red admiral, if had you'd know fuel consumption would decrease as less than 100% power output would be needed to reach previous top speed.

red admiral · Aug 17, 2008

Who is the engineer who specialises in gas turbines?

Clue: It isn't yourself

pbfoot · Aug 17, 2008

red admiral said:
Who is the engineer who specialises in gas turbines?

Clue: It isn't yourself

kool kitty89 · Aug 17, 2008

The surging and flameout problems would remain, but these would be mitigated by improved throttle cotols and/or pilot training on the engine operation. And while such occurances would be a nusince (particularly in combat) they were not nearly as serious a the short service life and issues wih complete failures.

And did you miss my earlier response?

kool kitty89 said:
Here

I still fail to see why higher power settings woul necessarily increase SFC, actual fuel conumption, yes, but SFC... (and efficiency should be higher at the previous power settings limits as well meaning lower SFC in that range at least)

Soren · Aug 17, 2008

red admiral said:
Who is the engineer who specialises in gas turbines?

Clue: It isn't yourself

You failed to answer the question.

But lets try again mr. gas turbine specialist; how can less than full throttle equate to a higher SFC vs previous full throttle SFC ?

Nikademus · Aug 18, 2008

freebird said:
According to Uboat.net the Germans comissioned 312 U-boats from 1935 - 1941, of which 68 were sunk in that period.

So at the end of 1941 Germany had 203 U-boats {Type VII/IX} plus a further 41 coastal boats {type II} If only 60% of these are available for patrol in any given month, that gives 146 U-boats.....

uboat.net - The U-boat War 1939-1945

Hi Freebird,

It is true that Uboat "losses" did not skyrocket until mid-late war after the tide of technology and greater numbers irrevecably turned the tide against the Uboats. However straight losses by themselves say very little about actual boat availability at the time period specified. Such a statistic (Losses and builds...all types) doesn't take into account boats under repair/refit...boats working up, boats in transit too and from operational theaters, boats assigned to special missions, unsuitible types for the mission in question (You are not, for example going to send Type II's to the US coast), boats assigned to other theaters, and uboat crews on rest after a mission. In addition, there were frequent times when Donetz withdrew boats entirely from a sector due to unprofitable and/or dangerous conditions that made it not worth risking.

It'll have to wait till i get back from vacation, but if your still interested, i can pull my Blair from the library on return and get you a better breakdown of the boats that were "immediately" available for Donetz's "Drumbeat" operation after Hitler's declaration vs. the US. It was, as I mentioned, a very small, modest # of boats. (which did acomplish alot thx to US unprepardness though that would change quickly)

Nikademus · Aug 18, 2008

kool kitty89 said:
Soren meant that supplies of Nickel, Chromium, etc from Russia would solve the engine reliability problems and short service lives of the 004Bs.

Thx, figured that was it though its always good to get clarification. Given the time period,'. I still don't think it would have changed anything all that quickly in regards to the 262's eventual deployment in 44 and might have actually retarded it a bit due to a major opponent having been either knocked out or at least reduced in threat. The technical problems and bugs would still require a good period of time to work out and then there's still the question of training up pilots to deal with the tempermental and very new type of plane. Then there's Hitler of course.

All during this, the Combined Bomber offensive is still on the cusp of exploding and Russia's peril would place greater emphasis on it's being implemented.

red admiral · Aug 18, 2008

But lets try again mr. gas turbine specialist; how can less than full throttle equate to a higher SFC vs previous full throttle SFC ?

Less than full throttle in this instance means reducing the TET to the same level as with the air-cooled blades so you've got the same sfc as before. This is not improved fuel consumption. With higher TET possible due to better materials the sfc goes up. You are adding more energy to the cycle but extracting the same amount from the turbine so the work done is the same. The higher jetpipe temperature means that you are able to make more thrust (sfc = fuel consumption/thrust/hour) but not enough to offset the extra energy added in the combustion chamber.

The poor fuel economy came mostly from the axial compressor which had a 3.14:1 pressure ratio as opposed to around 3.80 - 4.0:1 for the British jets. The only way to get around this and have better sfc than the British jets would be to have more efficient compressors and turbines. However, the compressor efficiency on the 004 was less than the Whittle types (72% ->78-80%) and the turbine efficiency was better on all the British jets at around 90%.

With regards to materials, stainless steels are good for 650°C with air cooling you can get up to around 100-200° higher. Whittle's early engines used stainless steels then moved to Nimonic which was a nickel superalloy. Even so, the TET was only around 720°C rising to 780°C with later Nimonic series blades. The difference between the two is small, around 5% at the most. For lifetime, the Nickel alloys are much better because of the lower creep rates.

The pressure drop caused by bleeding air off the turbine was fairly small. Even for the Spey Buccaneers with active full span blown flaps it was only 10%. There isn't much advantage to be had there. It should be noted that the Whittle and RR designs also used bleed air for cooling of ancillaries.

The surging and flameout problems would remain, but these would be mitigated by improved throttle cotols and/or pilot training on the engine operation.

Thats a different area though. Those are design improvements not materials improvements.

You can get around the lifetime issues of the actual 004s produced by adopting better maintenance procedures and swapping engines more often. Jet engines are cheap and its easy to do this. There would still be more problems than a design with better materials, but the difference would be small.

delcyros · Aug 18, 2008

red admiral said:
re admiral,

1.) The Jumo 004B was never too heavy.
2.) The lack of proper materials was the sole reason for the reliability problems
3.) With proper metals fuel consumption would decrease and more performance would be available.

1. The power to weight ratio was very poor in comparison to other engines.
2. No it wouldn't. See my post above.
3. You don't really know anything about jet engines do you? See my post above for an explanation of why fuel consumption increases with extra power.

Red Admiral is correct ,Soren. Nickel and Chromium would have helped to shorten the time for production models but it would not have helped anyhow in the reliability issue from advaning the throttles below 6.000 rpm. This was construction related. Compare BMW-003 with Jumo-004 for this.

Thx, figured that was it though its always good to get clarification. Given the time period,'. I still don't think it would have changed anything all that quickly in regards to the 262's eventual deployment in 44 and might have actually retarded it a bit due to a major opponent having been either knocked out or at least reduced in threat.

As far as Nickel is concerned, it would have helped a lot, really.
Germany received it´s Nickel primarely from Finland and never was short on this ressource until the soviet army occupied the finnish Nickel mines in oct. 1944, which effectively brought a halt to german Nickel imports.
This was about the time when Jumo-004B1/2 left the assembly lines. The whole production had to be stopped and the design reworked to make it free from Nickel due to the aforementioned shortages induced by the soviet advance into Finland and the resuling design was the Jumo-004B3 aviable from dec. 1944 onwards. You speak about 2 1/2 months brutto delay, and the resulting -B3 subvariant was initially more sensible to material overstrain, too.

moomoo2 · Aug 21, 2008

Russia is a big country which could build a massive amount of war material without being found. The Germans would have to patrol it and maintain a sizeable prescence there as the Russians wouldn't be peaceful forever. This would mean the entire Luftwaffe couldn't shift over to the western front.
The westen allies were also more advanced with radar and countermeasures than the Nazis and were using tried and tested airframes like the P51 and Spitfire, Lancaster and B17. Rather than wasting time with many different ideas All the Luftwaffe really wanted was a replacement for the 109 as the plane had outgrown its airframe.
Most of the new and wonderful Nazi planes didn't fly until late 44 early 45 and were also rushed into action, like the ME163.
So late 43 and early 44 would have been pretty hard for the Luftwaffe and the allies but i do believe the allies would wear them down eventually.

Soren · Aug 26, 2008

Nickel and Chromium would have helped to shorten the time for production models but it would not have helped anyhow in the reliability issue from advaning the throttles below 6.000 rpm. This was construction related. Compare BMW-003 with Jumo-004 for this.

I disagree. And the German 100 hour full trottle tests seems to support what I'm saying.

The main problem plagueing the Jumo 004 production engine was the turbine blades made of substitute metals which couldn't take the heat generated above 8,800 rpm and were prone to failure even at much lower rpm's. Had the needed materials such as the special heat resistant metals been there this problem wouldn't have existed.

Could the Luftwaffe survive against Allied attacks if the USSR had been defeated?

Could the Luftwaffe survive after 1943 if it faced only the US/UK airforces?

The Allies could still eliminate most of the LW strength within a year

The Luftwaffe could maintain air superiority over Europe if the USSR is eliminated.

It would be a long battle with neither side prevailing for several years.

German technical advances would cancel the Allies strength in numbers.

The Allied bomber casualties would force them to give up on bombing Germany

Other?

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