DB603 powered He177B in 1941

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This is specifically contradicted by the Griehl and Dressel book on the He177 that specifically mentions that it was structurally strengthened to support dive bombing and was repeatedly tested to dive bomb, where it experienced too many problems to ever fill that mission profile. The Lancaster is meaningless to discuss the HE177, as it was designed from the beginning for the role, which the HE177 wasn't, but was subsequently forced into it, compromising the design. I'm not saying the weight didn't go up as a result of extra fuel tanks or the addition of traditional radiators, but the addition in weight also and predominately went up as a result of structural strengthening to support dive bombing.
The definitive account of the HE177 states this clearly.

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What's the source for this?
And this 'fact' is after the original sin of modifying the basic design for dive bombing, it had been compromised. The reason it couldn't go to squadrons was the engine fires, as the major structural issues had been ironed out by 1942, but the engine fires were just starting to be dealt with. Remember too that until this point the structural issues were mainly appearing during repeated diving tests! In fact the second prototype broke up mid-air when dive tested. When the dive requirement was finally deleted all that time had been lost dealing with making the aircraft useful for diving, rather than correcting the main deficits, which included the engines and some structural issues.

Had diving never been added, the aircraft entered into testing in 1938 as per the original schedule, and all the effort that went into making it dive capable been instead expended on improving the airframe for level bombing then it would have more likely than not been fully airworthy by 1941-2.

As it was as soon as the dive issue was resolved the engine problems were focused on, not really being solved until 1943 with the 4 propellor version. Then they had to work on making it reliable for level bombing starting from that point. AFAIK there is no information about how the He177B handled either from the Germans or the Allies. I think that would be far more representative than the He177A5, as so much effort had gone into making that version flyable with its engine problems and dive bombing issues, rather than correcting the deficits with horizontal handling. BTW at least according to Wikipedia changing the tail design significantly improved the HE177Bs handling.

And Eric Brown, who you cited earlier and most people like to point to as to the flaws of the He177A, only tested the He177A5, not the He177B.
 
The missions that the He177B could do were attacks on Soviet production, oil infrastructure (which the Ju88 could barely reach with inadequate payload), and power infrastructure. Even deep logistical strikes against vulnerable targets were noted by Luftwaffe intelligence, but they lacked the capability to reach.
The German Air War in Russia: Richard Muller: 9781877853135: Amazon.com: Books
This book cites several strategic targets the Luftwaffe wanted to hit, but couldn't either due to lack of range, lack of maintained capability, or lack of payload over the target. All of these issues would be solved by having a dedicated strategic unit. Historically the He177 was constructed anyway from 1942 on, so why not actually have the Luftwaffe be able to use their HE177 rather than produce 1,200 and not have any functional?
Also the improved HE177B would useful in the Atlantic, much more than the FW200, which was too dangerous to fly with a combat load and was structurally unsound, and you are right that the Arctic sector was already serviced by the Ju88 and HE111. So even having limited He177Bs for just the Atlantic and canceling the FW200 would be a gain for the Germans.
 
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That requires hundreds of bombers escorted by hundreds of Fw-187s. Not to mention fuel, bombs, proper airfields to operate from etc.

RAF Bomber Command cost 12% of the entire WWII British military budget. What historical German military forces are you going to axe to free up the money for Luftwaffe Bomber Command?
 
The Soviets didn't have radar until 1943, so that gives Germany a huge open Steppe to infiltrate with smaller raids on concentrated Soviet industry. Look at what their medium bombers got away with until 1944! Even bombing Soviet oil didn't require escort even though there was a fighter corps defending Baku. Even assuming historical production of the FW200 (276 units from 1939-1944) is axed to start the He177 program in 1941 and the with 1200 He177's historically produced anyway after 1942, there is obviously productive capacity there for the He177. Actually having a functional bomber by even 1942, even 100 operational units during Case Blue, would be a major improvement over the historical He177, which sat unused, yet soaking up resources for no return because of technical problems.

For the sake of argument, let's say the technical issues delay operational He177's until 1942 and they start their oil campaign against Baku in September with 100 units, that would still be a major improvement over what they had to offer historically when the Luftwaffe was bombing Grozny and Baku on a very limited scale (because of range and bomb load, plus competing requirements). A dedicated, operational strategic bomber force can and will be utilized, bringing many more bombs to the target than the Ju88 could (the only aircraft with range to reach Grozny in the two engine category). The production was already historically there, but it was irrelevant because the aircraft was not operational despite being historically produced in numbers from 1942 on. Have the historical production be actually operational and there would be targets and use even without long range escorts, as German bombers operated on the Eastern Front even in 1944.
 
wiking85 said:
The source for this?
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FD 5514/45 a report from Lucht to Milch
FD 4355/45 a Messerschmitt memo on Goering's speech.
Both are held at the Imperial War Museum.

I wonder what Griehl and Dressel's source that the strengthening was completed for dive bombing is. The wings were strengthened to take the extra fuel tankage.

The He 177 was hardly capable of repeated dive tests. It had an upper speed limit of 400kph imposed due to controllability problems. Allied pilots who flew it after the war were told by the Germans that the airframe could fail in turbulent air!

Steve
 
The DB603 was not really necessary to power a four engined He 177 As the BMW 801 was available in an earlier time frame and in the same power class. Even advanced versions of the Jumo 211 could do the job I believe.

History shows that the Heinkel He 177's only significant technical problem was with unreliable paired engines or rather the integration of those engines was unreliable. By the time the engine issues were resolved to an adequate level It was too late to use or produce the 177 in any significant numbers likewise for the 4 engined version which it seems did enjoy official support.

Really clear the Germans could have produced an excellent heavy bomber with four evenly distributed Engines.

So the question is why didn't they as this would've been trivial task for them?

It seems to me that having introduced the concept of Paired coupled engines engines so as to reduce the aeroelastic problems associated with dive bombing and to produce a lighter wing they thought that the engine fire problems could be fixed without too much trouble. These were after all just a pair of already reliable DB605. These problems however were far more difficult to deal with than anticipated.

A 4 engined Heinkel with BMW 801 or Jumo 211 could have been operating about the same time the Lancaster and Halifax was and certainly the BMW 801 version would have been a much faster aircraft.

The Germans Could never of operated a very large heavy bomber force because they simply didn't have the fuel. They were making remarkable progress in coal to fuel technology But it takes time to make such technology work really well and also also one is always coming from behind due to the much greater investment required. They would've had to have captured and held the oilfields around Grozny.

However such a bomber would have provided much better support to the U-boats then the vulnerable Fw 200 did at a time the uboats were still making an impact and suffering from allied air power. It also might have forced the allies to invest in significantly more defensive fighters due to the possibility of attacks coming from more directions. Equipped with Fritz-x smart bombs the aircraft might have undertaken some lethal special missions against point targets such as bridges, canals, viaducts, dams etc.

Once the initial bad ( because the were risky) decisions were made it proved difficult to extricate from the consequences.
 
Siegfried said:
Once the initial bad ( because the were risky) decisions were made it proved difficult to extricate from the consequences.
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Absolutely true.

My point is that many of those decisions were Heinkel's not the RLM's.

I don't agree that the engines were the only problem. There were serious structural and control problems which were never properly solved. The engine problem more or less was....eventually.
Some structural problems were linked to the famous dive requirement though at no time were dive angles of more than 40 degrees ever allowed due to "loss of control". As late as 7th April 1942 a letter from Major Hutcher of the General Staff reinforced this.
By the end of 1942,according to Heinkel,1,395 structural alterations had been made to the He 177.

Transcript from an RLM GL conference ,September 15th 1942.

"The Reischmarshall has ordained that dive bombing by the He 177 is no longer a requirement. He has properly described this requirement as crazy and has prohibited it."

Rechlin was still not happy with the He 177 wing despite the removal of the requirement as evidenced in a report issued by the Kommando der Erprpbungsstelle.

"Examination has shown that the strength of the He 177's wing is one third that estimated by Heinkel.The reason for this is the uneven rigidity of the individual members with consequent deformation under load.This condition was not recognised by Heinkel at the proper time,the failiure tests having taken place too late in view of the size of the structure."

On the 25th September the minutes of another meeting at the RLM put the blame squarely on Heinkel. It was recognised that the biggest problem lay with the Heinkel technical bureau which

"..has not carried out sufficient fundamental work to take up and carry out necessary modifications."

Heinkel himself claimed that it wasn't until nine months later that the RLM and General Staff gave instructions to make the He 177 a four engined level bomber,despite Goering making it perfectly clear that dive bombing at least was not a requirement,in writing too.

It is worth noting that the crashes of the first two prototypes lost had nothing to do with engine fire.

V3 was lost on 24th April 1940 during the first attempt a diving. The crash,near Gehlsdorf,was caused by severe flutter in the rear control surfaces losing to structural failiure and consequent loss of control.

V2 was lost on 27th June 1940,crashing into the Baltic Sea. The wreck was recovered and the cause found to have been probably due to a failiure of the propeller pitch control.

There was no way,in any circumstances that this aircraft could have been in service by 1941.

Steve



"

Steve
 
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I have read a fair amount of the readily available stuff on the He 177 and the usual comment seems to be that Steinbok showed at least some benefit in all that dive-bombing nonsense as the He 177s were almost immune to interception as they (also usually described as 'nervously') made shallow dive attacks giving them a high exit speed (which seems at odds with the speed limit mentioned previously here).

Plainly the He 177 had fundamental flaws - and I suspect the culture of refusing to admit, recognise deal with them properly is not untypical in totalitarian regimes.....a little like the tales we hear of various lying managers in the USSR claiming all quotas were met regardless of the truth doing anything to keep up appearances and hoping things would all just work out in the end.

As a tangental thought, presumably the He 277 He 274 had a properly designed safe wing for the intended loads/speeds?
Were they subject to the instability mentioned?
The French seem to have operated the 2 He 274's (renamed the AAS 01A the AAS 01B) without any recorded drama (although I have to admit I can't find very much about them the French experience of operating them - in English - at any rate)
 
The speed limit must have been raised because I have another source which states that on the second "Steinbock" mission the He 177s bombed from a shallow (200m per minute) dive,if you can call that a dive.
Their exit speed was about 550 kph.

It was after the first disastrous "Steinbock" operation that Hitler himself gave his typically cool,considered and professional appraisal of the He 177
On 28th January he described it as

"the worst junk ever manufactured."

They may have been difficult to intercept as they bombed but several were shot down by Mosquitos over the "Steinbock" operations.

I don't know much about the French aircraft either.
Responsibility for the He 274 was transferred to the French Societe Anonyme des Usines Farman in Paris in February 1943. The two prototypes were built at the companies Suresnes plant.
The design office for the He 274 had been moved from Rostock to Paris and was staffed with 250 French personnel,so when the Germans left,damaging three engines on the V1 prototype and taking their drawings with them the French already had substantial knowledge of the type.
The French continued working on the type and repaired the prototype with some new DB 603 engines. The aircraft designated AAS O1A,as you say,first flew from Orleans-Bricy in December 1945. Flight trials,mainly testing the cabin pressurisation system,continued from Bretigny-sur-Orge. It was proposed to use it as a carrier aircraft for mock ups of French jet aircraft and it seems to have been used in this role for the mock up of the NC.270. It wasn't scrapped until 1953.
The second prototype,the He 274 V2,noe designated AAS O1B never flew.

Cheers

Steve
 
I agree. Jumo 211s will work just fine for early model He-177Bs and by 1941 Junkers was producing more then German aircraft manufacturers could use. The DB603 and/or Jumo213 would appear on the next model He-177 (He-177C?).

The real issue is whether Heinkel should be diverted from producing Ju-88As to produce He-177Bs.
 
davebender said:
The real issue is whether Heinkel should be diverted from producing Ju-88As to produce He-177Bs.
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As with so many things in the Third Reich a political decision was taken to continue developing the type even when it had already been shown to be a far from ideal design.

Ultimately it was a waste of time and effort. It went the way of other failed projects (Ta 154,Me 328 ) in the end,being consigned to a role as part of a "Mistel" combination.
It was in August 1944 that Oberst Heinz Heigl,Kommodore of KG 200,who had doubtless noticed the dozens of He 177s laying derelict on various airfields wrote to the commander of IV Fligerkorps suggesting that they be used as the lower component of a Mistel combination. Heigl noted that a Fw 190/He 177 combination would have twice the range of the operational Fw 190/Ju 88 combination.
To cut a long story short Soviet power stations were one of the proposed targets for such a combination. In November 1944 Heinkel proposed starting work on one of the two prototypes but the project was cancelled before the aircraft flew.
Taking an expensive,multi engined,bomber and converting it into a huge guided missile speaks volumes both for German desperation and the final fate of the ill fated He 177.

Steve
 
As with so many things in the Third Reich a political decision was taken to continue developing the type even when it had already been shown to be a far from ideal design
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That decision making process was hardly unique to WWII Germany.

How long did it take for the USN to admit torpedoes had problems and develop a fix? How long did it take for the U.S. Army to admit the Sherman tank required a better main gun? How long did it take to fix P-38 engine and cockpit heater problems?

Military bureaucracy rarely functions as efficiently as private enterprise in any nation.
 
I agree with Dave in that all sides made procurement errors, look for example RAF, look CC, most of the new planes for its planned re-equipment were failures (Lerwick, Botha) and early Beauforts were late and had unreliable engines. Of the 3 new heavy bombers Manchester was a failure, Stirling was a disappointment and even early Halifaxes had a fair share of problems. Later Warwick was almost complete waste of efforts.

JuhA
 
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Considering that Heinkel built a facility in Schwechat Austria just for the HE177 historically that went under utilized and wasted manpower and materials that could have been used elsewhere, only to eventually use them to produce the historical He177A5 that was non-functional, there was capacity there already for He177 production from January 1942 on, when production historically began of the He177A5 that never really became operational. In fact production could have been significantly higher than the historical production of He177s using existing materials and manpower set aside for that type that sat idle the production models proved to be non-operational when delivered. Producing He177Bs in this scenario wouldn't disrupt historical Ju88 production one bit, because it was already phased into production schedules, but never fully utilized the resources allocated to the project, even with over 1,200 historically built between 1942-45.
There is no conflict with Ju88 and HE177 production. Fullstop.

Now, with the He177 operational the He111 might well and should be phased out in 1941-2 to free up resources for the HE177 AND the Ju88. In fact if you are so interested in Ju88 production the He111 should be cancelled by 1942 in this scenario and the Do217 never built, instead the capacity of Dornier used for the proven and cheaper Ju88 that was much more useful historically, as they could produce more of them for the same materials, money, and manpower, especially as by 1942 there was already enough experience producing the model than the brand new Do217, which really didn't off that much more performance than the Ju88, at least not enough to justify the type proliferation in the operational bomber category, which would require years to develop the same efficiency that had already been worked into Ju88 production.

Not only that, but the Do217 was decidedly inferior to the Ju88 as a nightfighter, yet hundreds of Do217 nightfighters were produced. As a bomber the Ju88 was faster and therefore had greater survivability than the Do217, while as a naval bomber the Do217 was a poor mix between heavy and medium bomber, as it lacked the heavy defensive firepower and armor of a true heavy bomber and lacked the speed of a true medium bomber like the Ju88.
Skipping the Do217 and saving nearly 2,000 models for Ju88 production instead would have been a much better use of resources, as the Ju88 would have been more useful, survivable, and would have higher production numbers for the same material and labor than the heavier Do217.

And we can go further and cancel the Me210/410, saving nearly another 2,000 actually produced and about another 2,000 in lost production time from tooling up for the Me210 too early.
The Ju88 heavy fighter variant even as a bomber destroyer would have been just as useful and it was far more useful as a nightfighter.

Saving those 6,000 or so (probably close to 5,000 to be fair) less useful and more expensive other types of bombers for Ju88 production expansion would have been far more useful than canceling the He177B. In fact the increased economy of scale gained by converting to just the Ju88 for all of these roles (heavy fighter, bomber destroyer, speed/medium bomber, naval bomber, and night fighter) would yield huge dividends in economy of scale and standardization of parts.

In a world of just the Ju87, Ju88, and He177 as Germany's bombers (FW190 and HS129 aren't counted as bombers for this, but are still produced as historically), production would have been much higher, spare parts would have been plentiful compared to our timeline of events (OTL for future reference), and everything would have been probably more survivable. Plus the Ju88 didn't use nearly as much fuel as the Do217, so probably there would be a bit more fuel than OTL.
 
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I'm agree if you've the 177 don't need the 217. but how many the 88 is faster of 217?
 
Vincenzo said:
I'm agree if you've the 177 don't need the 217. but how many the 88 is faster of 217?
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Dornier Do 217 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Do217J:303mph with 1560HP BMW801 at 5,500 meters and nose mounted radar gear (costs about 40mph)
Do217M:347mph with 1750HP DB603 at 5,700 meters and 2.5k metric tons of bombs internally

Junkers Ju 88 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ju88G:342mph at 8,500 meters with 1700HP BMW801 and nose mounted radar gear (costs about 40mph) also the BMW was much faster below 5000 meters
Also has 200 more miles range than either Do217 model

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Ju_188#Ju_188
 
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If DB603 engines are available during 1941 you can bet there will be some Ju-88s / Ju-188s with DB603 engines during 1942. DB603 engines would make the Ju-88 considerably more capable both as a bomber and night fighter.

And then there's the Fw-190 fighter aircraft. Dr. Tank always preferred the DB603 engine and 1941 versions of the BMW801 radial were crap. There will be a competition (Fw-190A vs Fw-190C) which the BMW801 powered Fw-190A will lose by a large margin.

Do you still want available DB603 engines to power He-177Bs or would you prefer Fw-190Cs and/or Ju-88Gs?
 

It makes as much sense to have the FW190 with the BMW801 as the DB603 and in fact should have both models designed. Frankly the FW190 and the Ju88G performed well enough with the radials to have the DB603 make the HE177B more capable in 1942, while expanding production so that by 1943-4 there are enough DB603s to go around for all of these projects AND have the BMW801 as another engine to satisfy the needs of the some versions of the FW190 and Ju88.
In fact most everything on the Eastern Front requires the BMW801, because their tasks occur below 20k feet where the BMW801 excelled. That means the majority of the Ju88 bomber/heavy fighter versions should stick with the BMW, as should the FW190 ground attack fighters and any air superiority fighter on the Eastern Front.

As to the West, the bomber-destroyer and night fighter Ju88C/G should have the DB603 from mid-1943, while the FW190 with the DB603 wouldn't really be necessary until mid-1943 anyway.

So yeah, I'd prefer if the DB603 remain reserved for the He177 in 1941-42, while the DB603 powered FW190 and Ju88 versions for the West are developed and ready for 1943, by which time the DB603 production would be expanded enormously, enough to equip all demands assuming it enters serial production in mid-1941. Until then the Me109s with their DB601s will be plenty good for the West, as well as FW190 BMW801s in 1942 in the West, as much of the aerial combat until 1943 in the West took place under 20k feet. In the East the BMW801s from 1942 onward are perfect for all needs on that front, while the HE177 with its DB603s can fly as high as it needs to and the Soviets can only use specialist fighters they didn't really produce historically to climb to meet them. Especially in the first 12 months of the high-flying He177 interception by Soviet fighters is going to be extremely difficult until they can get high altitude fighters into production and train pilots to use the new technology.
 
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davebender said:
Dr. Tank always preferred the DB603 engine
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What's your evidence for that statement. Tank himself has commented on his adoption of the radial engine for the Fw 190 on many occasions.

"We chose an air cooled engine for the new fighter for two reasons: firstly because such engines were more rugged and could survive more punishment than the liquid cooled types;and secondly,because the BMW company was bench running prototypes of a new engine......which developed somewhat more power than any liquid cooled engine we had been offered."

"Some people have suggested that I had to fight some kind of battle with the RLM to get them to accept the idea of a radial engined fighter.That might make a good story,but it is not history."

"We saw that other nations,in particular the United States,were pushing ahead with the design and development of high powered radial engines for fighters and we in Germany had no wish to lag behind in this field."

When the RLM issued a requirement for a particular aircraft type a manufacturer would produce a "production outline" in German a Baubeschreibung. On 27th July 1938 Focke-Wulf produced Baubeschreibung Nr 187,Fw 190 Verfolgungs-Jagdeinsitzer (roughly single seat pursuit fighter). It has a radial engine.
Those who think that this was not the first version might consider how this project was known within the company. It was Fw 190 Projekt 1.


Political interference was of course present in the armaments programmes of all nations and I never suggested that it was not.
It had a disproportionate effect in Germany because of the structure of their government system and the influence of a very small number of men with few constraints on their decision making.
It was September 1942 that Goering made his speech to aircraft industrialists at Karinhalle and stated that the need for the He 177 to dive was "idiocy" and "nonsense" (according to Lucht,Heinkel and Messerschmitt who all reported the conversation). The He 177 had been in development for about five years at this time. Noone present can possibly have believed that Goering was not aware of the dive requirement and yet when he feigned ignorance of it noone was prepared to challenge him. They were all dependent on his contracts. That is the insidious and corrosive effect of power in a totalitarian regime.

Steve
 
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stona said:
As with so many things in the Third Reich a political decision was taken to continue developing the type even when it had already been shown to be a far from ideal design.
Click to expand...

Last time I checked the facts in this thread, this was hardly the case. A bad design requirement was made (dive bombing, not without parallel in other countries), which a the private company (Heinkel) failed to develop properly, so the nazi/political/autoriter leadership (Göring) correctly made a decision to not to develop the type along dive bombing requirements.

As a level bomber, however, the He 177 was fine in it's configuration, after DB managed to fix their engines. The crews liked it and it was quite reliable, the handling and easy of flying was praised.
The problem wasn't their layout, but the engines themselves. They simply fitted unreliable engines to the aircraft.

But it's getting a little boring the see all this random clichés about 'ineffiency of politically influenced dictatorships' blah blah blah when in this case it was clearly two completely private companies scr*wing up: first Heinkel, then Daimler Benz. It had nothing to do with the political setup in the country whatsoever.

Taking an expensive,multi engined,bomber and converting it into a huge guided missile speaks volumes both for German desperation and the final fate of the ill fated He 177.
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I wonder if you have the same opinion of the USAAF's BQ-7 Aphrodite - essentially a B-17 packed with minimum fuel and controlled by another B-17 mothership controlling the whole bomber with 9 tons (!!!) of Torpex in it on a crash course into the target. Well that was the plan, but it did not work in practice, it was a dismay failure, about a dozen or two were converted, and all crashed or were shot down.

Operation Aphrodite - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The idea itself IMHO is not bad in theory, it's exacution was. It's a simply aritmethical calculation wheter you loose more B-17s delivering 9 tons of pure explosives to the target or not, to make it militarily feasible.
 
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