DB603 powered He177B in 1941

Tante Ju said:

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.

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Simply not true. The problems with the He 177 were more fundamental and much more serious than the engines. It wasn't until the A-3,after eight years of development,that anything approaching a useable design was built. The engine problems were overcome by fitting the DB610 (coupled DB 605s) in place of the DB 606s. They were moved 20cm further forward of the wing spar,the wing was substantially modified and strengthened (at last),the fuselage was lengthened and an enlarged tail fin and rudder were fitted. The first prototype to fly with the new engines was V19 on 22nd March 1943. That's two years after the original post wanted the type in service!

There was never any chance of getting a serviceable He 177 in 1941. Whether it had two or four engines,radial or inline,the airframe was deeply flawed. The Heinkel company was very slow to make the required modifications despite pressure from the RLM and repeated reports from Rechlin specifying the areas of concern.

Two more examples which demonstrates both the problems with the aircraft and the political problems from a meeting between Milch and Baumbach in March 1943,long after the engine problems were supposedly solved.

Milch:

"We are in hot water because the He 177 is still not right.............The Fuhrer has been talking to me. I felt like a little schoolboy who hadn't learnt his lesson. I tried to explain things to him but it is difficult to explain things to someone who does not follow your train of thought."

On 17th March 1943,again at Karinhalle another conference was held. This time Milch,Dornier,Hertel,Heinkel and Messerschmitt were summoned. According to Irving's translation (Goering p.382) Goering said:

"I was promised a heavy bomber the He 177. After calamity upon calamity they tell me,"If only the plane didn't have to dive it would be the finest bird in the world-it could go into service at once. At once!"
I replied immiediately,"It doesn't have to dive." But now that it's been tried in operations there have been catastrophic losses,none caused by enemy action. So,Herr Heinkel,what do you say today?"

That's it for me. Read my posts. If you still believe that the He 177 was a fine aircraft,structurally sound,even for level bombing,that should have entered service years earlier that's fine. I haven't seen a single document or quote in this thread to support that view. Everyone is entitled to an opinion,however nebulous its foundation.

You cannot compare the United States throwing away a few bombers,from its virtually limitless supply,on a failed project with the proportion of limited resources that the Germans used on Mistel projects. They were often the last possible use of aircraft thet had failed in their intended roles. The He 177,had it worked,would have been employed in its originally intended role as a strategic bomber,the descendant of the original Ural bomber concept.

Steve

wiking85 said:

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

Junkers Ju 188 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Wiking was you talking of bomber so the speed of nightfighter is not relevant. for the range i think with same bombload the 217 had more range

stona said:

Simply not true. The problems with the He 177 were more fundamental and much more serious than the engines. It wasn't until the A-3,after eight years of development,that anything approaching a useable design was built. The engine problems were overcome by fitting the DB610 (coupled DB 605s) in place of the DB 606s. They were moved 20cm further forward of the wing spar,the wing was substantially modified and strengthened (at last),the fuselage was lengthened and an enlarged tail fin and rudder were fitted. The first prototype to fly with the new engines was V19 on 22nd March 1943. That's two years after the original post wanted the type in service!

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What's the relevance when the V19 was fitted with 610s? The 610s did not solve anything in themselves, they were just two regular DB 605s... which had their own problems that were not fixed until the automn of 1943.

There was never any chance of getting a serviceable He 177 in 1941. Whether it had two or four engines,radial or inline, the airframe was deeply flawed. The Heinkel company was very slow to make the required modifications despite pressure from the RLM and repeated reports from Rechlin specifying the areas of concern.

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I agree.

stona said:

Two more examples which demonstrates both the problems with the aircraft and the political problems from a meeting between Milch and Baumbach in March 1943,long after the engine problems were supposedly solved.

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I did not say the engine problems were solved. In fact, documents I have seen show the engine problems were not solved until about the summer-automn 1943. After that the He 177A became a mature, high performance and very capable heavy bomber and entered real series production. Sadly for the LW, within half a year the USAAF has blasted German fuel production and achieved air superiority over WE, and the Greif could never prove its worth.

That's it for me. Read my posts. If you still believe that the He 177 was a fine aircraft,structurally sound,even for level bombing,that should have entered service years earlier that's fine. I haven't seen a single document or quote in this thread to support that view. Everyone is entitled to an opinion,however nebulous its foundation.

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Well I have seen several papers of interogation of He 177s crews. They said (that's around late 1943) that the aircraft is fine. I do not claim it should or could been introduced years earlier, no, the design was not ready. IMHO changing to a conventional four engine design wouldn't solve thing earlier either. Historically the DB 605s had troubles until the 2nd half of 1943, and the much more reliable and trouble free DB 603s were not available until 1943, and not even then in sufficient numbers.

The He 177 was an advanced design, that achieved superior performance by a complex and high development risk solutions. For this reason it's development was protracted and delayed the service introduction compared to more conventional HB types. Wheter this mattered in the big picture and even that the Germans would actually require such a strategic bomber looks dubious to me. Though the He 177/Ju 88 combo looks feasible and I like the idea very much.

You cannot compare the United States throwing away a few bombers,from its virtually limitless supply,on a failed project with the proportion of limited resources that the Germans used on Mistel projects. They were often the last possible use of aircraft thet had failed in their intended roles.

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Uhm, and why not, why the double standards? By 1945 the Luftwaffe had practically limitless amount of bombers to use for such purpose, so where exactly is the "limited resources"? They had gazillion of old bomber airframes arrund for one final ride, not to mention brand new ones which just could not take off for regular missions because a) Allied air superiority late in the war b) lack of fuel required for normal bomber operations... Mistels made perfect sense, but did not work so well as expected.

The He 177,had it worked,would have been employed in its originally intended role as a strategic bomber,the descendant of the original Ural bomber concept.

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Yes. But from a military POV, for very long range targets (URALs) a one-way He 177 Mistel probably makes more sense than flying a hundred bomber sorties to get the same effect on the target.. to get say 9 tons of purse explosives on the target requires what, 20 tons of bombs? And at such long range, the bombers probably can't carry more than a single ton and a half. So, send two Staffeln of He 177 and very likely loose at least one in the process (with crew), or just send a single one on a suicide mission (without crew).

Tante Ju said:

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.

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I don't see how you can simply say 'they were private companies' without taking account of the effect of the environment within which they operated.
In a system where people live in genuine fear for their - and their families -lives or arbitary loss of their liberty (to the most appalling conditions) I do not see it is any great surprise that those people will make all sorts of encouraging claims for as long as they can get away with it, hoping to put off a day of reckoning in the hope things will work out.

The He 177 project seems to me to be one long series of failure, excuses buck-passing, God only knows why they made so many of them when they did (over 1 000?) talk about a waste of resources given the negligible effect they had.

You are missing the point about the DB 610s. There installation coincided with major structural changes,not least of which was a major alteration to the wing,making it much stronger.

I assume you are referring to the RAF intelligence report generated by the interrogations of Karl Vaterbeck and Wilhelm Hundt's surviving crew members. The RAF did note that "Both crews are most enthusiastic about the engines." I suppose they were relieved that they no longer burst into flames!

Have you read the reports of Feldwerft Abteilung zbV 1? This was the special maintenance unit attached to II./KG 40 in Bordeaux to look after there brand new He 177s. The list of faults makes depressing reading.
The unit even had to manufacture its own tools. Despite this the He 177s of this unit were the most reliable.

When Herr Rathai of the Feldwerft Abteilung was sent to Orleans to assist I./KG 40 with its serviceability programmes he noted that due to a lack of proper maintenance "The crews have no faith in the He 177."
The reliability and serviceability was increased with better maintenance.

II./KG 40's losses and damage in August/September 1944 were listed as 46.6% generator drive damage,33.5% engine defects,13.3% pilot error and 6.6% auto pilot defects. None of these are directly related to the airframe.

As for the Luftwaffe's limitless supply of old bombers,they may have had such aircraft lying around various airfields. What they couldn't afford was the thousands of man hours (5,000 was the estimate for a He 177/Fw 190 combination,7,500 for each of the two prototypes) and materials needed. Germany was already critically short of the sort of skilled labour that would be siphoned off into such desperate projects.

Steve