Dec 1941 RLM decision. Produce BMW 801. Cancel Jumo 222.

[Shortround6]

How do you figure that?

Ostmark was built to produce Jumo 222A engines. You cannot change tooling and retrain workers for Daimler-Benz production simply by signing an order. You will lose an entire year of production (about 6,000 Jumo 222A engines) during the conversion process.

Except there was no work force trained to produce 500 Jumo 222s a month. How much specialized tooling actually existed?

It took American Factories anywhere from 5 months to over a year from start of production to reach 500 a month and a lot of those factories hit 1000 a month just 3-6 months later.

If you are building similar engines ( changing from one water cooled engine to another or from one air-cooled engine to another) the time to change over is much shorter. This assumes you are actually building engines in quantity already. If you have people trained to machine pistons they don't need a year of retraining to machine a different piston.

Installing the machinery takes time, making jigs and fixtures takes time, but many factories that made large numbers of engines operated many machines in parallel, dozens of machines doing the same operation. It may take time to fit them ALL with new jigs or fixtures but some production can start fairly soon. It also ridiculous to believe that the Ostmark was fully tooled up (jigs and fixtures included) before they produced the first few dozen engines. That would have been a waste of resources, having vast numbers of machine tools sitting idle until every single machine was in place and fitted with it's own particular jig or fixture.

 

[DonL]

So was the Jumo 004A engine.

It is correct that the Jumo 004A engine was ready and could go in production, but germany had not enough special alloys/materials/substances to built it at mass production.

So the Jumo 004B engine was developed with "save" materials/substances/alloys, with all it's problems.

 

[davebender]

Per Albert Speer chromium was the only alloy metal in short supply during 1943.

Chromium requirements per engine during 1943.
27.4kg. DB605
9.5kg. Jumo 004A.

Historical Ostmark factory engine production during 1943.
U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey Aircraft Division Industry Report
4. May 1943
3. June 1943
0. July 1943
.....1943 production at Ostmark was delayed by U.S. bombing raids.
83. August 1943
40. September 1943
100. October 1943
120. November 1943.
165. December 1943
.....495 total engines produced during 1943 at Ostmark.

Doesn't look like a lot but consider historical Me-262 production with Jumo 004B engines.
July 1944. 60 Me-262s produced.
Sept 1944. 90 Me-262s produced.
.....A total of 315 production model Me-262s were delivered by the end of October 1944.
.....Historically RLM purchased a total of 80 Jumo 004A engines during 1942. These were hand built (i.e. not mass produced).

So let's kill two birds with one stone. If Milch was determined to kill the Jumo 222 program and if Milch was determined to build the Me-262 during 1943 then why not convert the Ostmark factory to Jumo 004A production? Start the conversion 24 December 1941 and Ostmark should be churning out Jumo 004A engines during 1943. By December 1943 Me-262 production (with Jumo 004A engines) should be similiar to the historical September 1944 level. A 9 month head start compared to what happened historically and you get more reliable engines.

 

[Milosh]

Chromium was only used in airplane engines?

 

[Jugman]

The "C" series R-2800 used steel cylinder liners in an aluminium "muff" that had the cooling fins instead of an all steel cylinder with machined in fins.

As far as I'm aware All R-2800s have forged aluminum cooling muffs shrunk on to a nitralloy (early) or chrome-molybdenum (later) cylinder barrel.

The contemporary R-2000 has the same bore but fins integral with the cylinder barrel. Note the clear difference in depth, pitch and uniformity of the fins.

R-2000 cylinder.

R-2800-B cylinder (with aftercooler).

 

[Siegfried]

Nickel seems to have been a far more difficult, and important material for Jumo 004 production. I wouldn't say the Jumo 004A was ready for production but versions with more refractories were more reliable in bench tests. Hand built Jumo 004B-0 were more reliable than mass produced Jumo 004B-1 and in fact Arado 234 prototype recons sent to photograph the Normandy Beachhead seem to work trouble free over the Cherburg Peninsula.

The alloy used for the turbine blades was 'tinidur' from Krupp of about 6% titanium, 15% chromium, 30% Nickel and balance Iron. This was an austinitic alloy that could not be welded as it lost its grain structure so it was (forged in the solid blades of the 004A and 004B1) and in the hollow aircooled blades of the Jumo 004B-4 it was 'deep drawn' starting out as a disk and progressively punched into a hollow blade by a series of male/female dies. Nickel became so scarce (I think after Finland was lost to the Soviets) that Krupps "Chromidur" was used on the Jumo 004B4 from Feb 1945 onwards; this substituted the scarce nickel with manganese and was nominally inferior but it could be welded so was made out of folded sheet metal welded at the trailing edge and was more reliable in practice due to simpler quality control.

These alloys were inferior to the British nimonic which had 80% nickel, 20% chromium with traces of zirconium. The British engines had their blades cast and individuall machined with 'fir tree roots' for attachment to the rotor disk. The German ones were pined through a loop and silver soldered: its obvious the British engines put much more effort in. Nickel is critical in that it provides unique creep resistance. Nickel doesn't stretch under heat and stress.
Under the conditions of the war and due to inexperience the engine components did sometimes get proper anealing and tempering.

It should be noted that many sections of the German engines such as the combustion chambers, exhaust lining and translating exahust nozzle were made of plane mild carbon steel and gave quite a deal of trouble: even plane stainless steel would have been much better.

I think more critical was the primitve fuel control system which used a centrifugal governor only and could easily overdose or underdose fuel leading to burnouts and flameouts.

To solve this the piloits throttle effect on the governor needs to be moderated or airflow estimated by say an aneroid capsule across the cmpressor so that not only engine rpm and throttle position but air fuel ratio or contolled. The BMW 003 got this 'beschleuniguns ventile'. The allied fuel control systems were no better but they could more afford the temperature fluctutations. This was an oversight, simple adaptions of the fuel control injection systems, long in use in German piston engines, were found to be capable of doing the job!

The short life of the turbines (to be replaced every 25-37.5 hours) was not an issue. The pilot gets 25 hour in the air while the pair of engine receives about 8 hours service on the ground however reliabilly was more important. The BMW 003 only needed 2 hours service to relace the turbines. They key was that it needed to be reliable. I sincerly believe that a few more months of effort would have gotten these issues under control in fact the engineers at bmw realised they had underestimated the requirements for fuel control

I rather tend to think the Jumo 222 might have been a safer bet though the advantage of success less.

 

[davebender]

Finland was mining nickel ore faster then Germany was hauling it away. Albert Speer personally intervened during December 1943 to have stockpiled nickel ore transported to Germany before Finland quit the war.

 

[Siegfried]

Finland was mining nickel ore faster then Germany was hauling it away. Albert Speer personally intervened during December 1943 to have stockpiled nickel ore transported to Germany before Finland quit the war.

In 1918 Germany had helped Finland obtain independance and had maintained cordial relations. Stalins agression against Finland, a violation of the spirit of the German-Soviet non agression pact, a threat to Germany's strategic interests, especially raw materrials supply (nickel) and an attack on a friendly nation almost certainly convinced Hitler that Stalin could not be trusted and had to be dealt with; better sooner rather than latter.

minimising use of strategic materials was an obsession, for whatever reason the Jumo 004 was favoured for its minimal use of these materials over competing designs such as those from heinkel.

 

[tyrodtom]

In 1918 Germany had helped Finland obtain independance and had maintained cordial relations. Stalins agression against Finland, a violation of the spirit of the German-Soviet non agression pact, a threat to Germany's strategic interests, especially raw materrials supply (nickel) and an attack on a friendly nation almost certainly convinced Hitler that Stalin could not be trusted and had to be dealt with; better sooner rather than latter.

.

That is the biggest crock of nonsense I think i've read on this forum in a long, long, time. So Hitler was just trying to save the rest of the world from the untrustworthy Stalin ? After Hitler had already invaded and took over how much territory himself?

 

[jim]

That is the biggest crock of nonsense I think i've read on this forum in a long, long, time. So Hitler was just trying to save the rest of the world from the untrustworthy Stalin ? After Hitler had already invaded and took over how much territory himself?

Mr Tyrodtom
Hitlers general aggression politics was not generated by Stalin politics. But today we know Stalin had equally agressive intentions(Finland,Poland,the 3 small baltic countries are early examples) and was preparing for general war regadless of the german invation. So Hitler attacked first believing it was the proper time for Germany. Personally i believe if Germany did not attack, Stalin eventually would. I would also like to remind that -technically- France and Britain declared war to Germany and the french army invated germany in September 1939

 

[Juha]

In 1918 Germany had helped Finland obtain independance and had maintained cordial relations.

That's true.

Stalins agression against Finland, a violation of the spirit of the German-Soviet non agression pact, a threat to Germany's strategic interests, especially raw materrials supply (nickel) and an attack on a friendly nation almost certainly convinced Hitler that Stalin could not be trusted and had to be dealt with; better sooner rather than latter.

Now that is rubbish. Nazi-Germany "sold" Baltic states and Finland to SU in Aug 39 and gave a free hand to Stalin to dealt with them as he wished. So Soviet attack to Finland wasn't "a violation of the spirit of the German-Soviet non agression pact", it was just what one could expect if Finland didn't give in to Soviet demands. Most of Nazi hierarcy didn't give damm to Finns, we were counted as sub-humans, who cares. Only because we fought so well during the Winter War, Nazis began to rethink of the racial category of Finns and surprisingly noticed that many Finnish children were fair and had blue eyes. The effect of the Winter War on German thinking was that because we did so well Germans began to underestimate the Red Army. On Germany's attitude toward Finland during the Winter War:

"Finnish military named Flak 30 as 20 ItK/30. Finland had managed to order 134 of these guns in October of 1939 (just few weeks before Winter War). The first shipment of 30 guns also arrived just days before starting of Winter War. The treaties Germany had made with Soviet Union forbid it selling war-materials to enemies of the Soviets or assisting them otherwise - and at that time Hitler's German followed this treaty. So, when Winter War started the Germans ended the shipments of these guns after that first delivery. To the Finns the situation was terrible: They had large number of antiaircraft-artillery units without weapons and when European armies were arming themselves getting effective weaponry from elsewhere was almost impossible. As the official channels of delivery were closed decision was made to try getting the undelivered guns by using more covert methods: Dummy company "Ab Svenska Castra" with friendly Swedes seated to its leadership was swiftly established to Stockholm (Sweden). Negotiations were also started covertly with the Germans. During first days of December 1939 Finns secretly negotiated with the Germans in Berlin. These negotiations lead to result - the Germans accepted to deliver more guns if Sweden would be portrayed as customer country buying them and if the Finns would pay the weapons with wood and copper, which German war-industry needed. This covert deal wasn't long lasting because the information about the deliveries of Italian Fiat G.50 fighter aircraft through German territory soon leaked to Swedish press, as the matter got to Swedish newspapers soon also the Soviets got alarmed that the Germans were not strictly following German - Soviet treaty. 9th of December Germany received note of protest from Soviet Union and this ended the whole Finnish-German covert arrangement. While the Germans replied the note of protest by denying its allegations, they also were unwilling to risk matters further and stopped the deliveries again - this time for good. Equipment that the Finns had succeeded convincing the Germans to send forward during those few days of early December included the second shipment of 20 guns. But after this the deliveries ended for duration of Winter War."

Source: FINNISH ARMY 1918 - 1945: ANTIAIRCRAFT GUNS PART 1

Germans offered to fuel and supply Soviet subs from German ships during the war but Soviet navy declined the offer.

After Hitler had decided to attack SU Germany's attitude towards Finland changed and in Autumn 40 during Molotov's Berlin visit Hitler didn't give "free hands in Finland" to SU when Molotov asked them for "permanent solution of Finnish question."

Juha

 

[davebender]

Historical Events.

November 1940.
Goering personally approves production of the Jumo 222A engine.

April 1941.
Jumo 222A passes 100 hour test. Operating at 2,000 hp.

25 July 1941.
Construction begins on FMO-Flugmotorenwerke Ost engine factory.
…..Stage 1. Produce 500 engines per month.
…..Subsidiary factory at Brno, Moravia to produce Bosch fuel injection system.
…..Subsidiary factory at Marburg, Slovenia to produce propellers.
…..393 million RM total construction cost.

1 Aug 1941.
Focke-Wulf proposal for Fw-190 powered by Jumo 222 engine.

28 Oct 1941.
Junkers orders tooling for the new engine factory.
…..Ju-288 prototypes during this time frame required engine changes every 20 to 50 hours.
…..Early Jumo 222A engines produce 2,000 hp @ 2,900 rpm @ SL. 2,200hp @ 16,400 feet.

24 Dec 1941.
Milch orders Ostmark plant to retool for production of Daimler-Benz engines.

Dec 1942.
2,500 hp version of Jumo 222 engine passes 100 hour test.

Fall 1941. Point of Departure.
A year earlier Goering personally ordered the Jumo 222 engine into production. In this scenario he takes a break from art collecting to push his expensive and very important project to a successful conclusion. When Milch attempts to derail the Jumo 222 engine and Bomber B programs Goering has Milch transferred command of Luftwaffe units in North Africa. The man who replaces Milch at RLM will insure the Jumo 222 engine program continues to receive top priority, including phase II expansion to produce 1,000 engines per month.

March 1942.
Completion of Ostmark factory phase I construction.
…..Assumption. Tooling ordered by Junkers during October 1941 has arrived.
…..Assumption. Workforce for this high priority factory is at full strength.
…..Assumption. Construction for Phase II expansion begins during April 1942.

Summer 1942.
Several Fw-190 ausf ?? prototypes powered by Jumo 222 engines are flying.

Goering personally approves Dr. Tank's Fw-190 ausf ?? design. It will enter production during January 1943 powered by the Jumo 222 engine. By that date Ostmark engine production will be sufficient to free up a few for the new Focke Wulf fighter aircraft.

December 1942.
The Jumo 222 engine will be cleared for 2,500 hp after passing the 100 hour endurance test. A lucky break for Dr. Tank.

What will the 1943 Fw-190 mit 2,500 hp Jumo 222 engine look like? What sort of performance would it have?

 

[tyrodtom]

Davebender, it seems like most of your post concerns how Germany could have done things better. From where does you dream/wish stem?

 

[rank amateur]

Maybe we can interest Tomo Pauk in to making a scetch? Could be interesting.

 

[Shortround6]

Historical Events.

November 1940.
Goering personally approves production of the Jumo 222A engine.

April 1941.
Jumo 222A passes 100 hour test. Operating at 2000 HP.

And we have problem, or an indication of what went wrong right there. Approving production of an engine 6 months before it passes a type test is plain stupid.

Merlin passed a type test with the ramp heads. That needed a redisgn before it was actually acceptable.
The Vulture passed a type test and we know how that turned out.
Allison passed a type test in 1937 but the 1939 production engnes had to be de rated and modified at factory expense to meet rated power.
The Continental IV-1430 passed a type test in 1940 or 41 and yet never made rated power when installed ian aircraft and actually managed to set fire to one of the two or three airframe it was ever installed in seveal years later.
That's off the top my head, I am sure with a bit of research even more engines that passed type test could be found ( like the Sabre?) that need plenty of work before they were really production ready. Approving an engine before it even passes a type test sonds like just the sort of stunt the Fat man would pull and screw things up.

 

[Matt308]

Folks, just a gentle reminder to keep your sarcasm in check. We don't want this thread to enter a flat spin.

 

[davebender]

The U.S. AAF approved the B-29 bomber for mass production before it was proven reliable. The F4U fighter entered mass production before it was certified safe for CV operations.

The 2,000hp Jumo 222 engine passed a 100 hour test a full year before mass production was due to begin at the Ostmarck factory. An improved 2,500 hp version should have been available during January 1943.
Wartime gambles sometimes pay off.

On the other hand...
U.S. submarine torpedoes were unreliable before mid 1943.
B-17 bombers weren't effective at sinking ships.
These two weapon systems were the backbone of American defense of the Philippines during December 1941. When both weapon systems failed it was impossible to prevent large scale IJA amphibious landings.

 

[tyrodtom]

On the other hand...
U.S. submarine torpedoes were unreliable before mid 1943.
B-17 bombers weren't effective at sinking ships.
These two weapon systems were the backbone of American defense of the Philippines during December 1941. When both weapon systems failed it was impossible to prevent large scale IJA amphibious landings.

Those are perfect examples of depending on untested weapons, or a untested theory, and having it come back and bite you in the butt.
The USN only tested a few torpedoes, very expensive weapons, and under ideal conditions. Very little money from congress in the late 30s meant just not enough money for extensive test.
The same with hitting moving ships from high altitude. A untested theory.

Every country in WW2 made a bunch of stupid mistakes, But one side made fewer.

 

[tomo pauk]

It was about the level of the mistakes (were those made at 'grand strategy' - like attacking Soviet Union, or at tactical, even technical level - choosing 3-ship formation of fighters vs. 4-ship, or what kind of SMG or rifle to choose), too. Then, what are capabilities, or circumstances, to shrug off the consequences of early mistakes (vast land to fall back, or island nation, or great industrial capacity etc).

 

[Siegfried]

That's true.

Now that is rubbish. Nazi-Germany "sold" Baltic states and Finland to SU in Aug 39 and gave a free hand to Stalin to dealt with them as he wished.

A baloney to your rubbish. A lot of hot air has been babbled about the non agresson pact by people regurgitating a particular political line, a line that is
hypocritical for it assignes the blame to the Nazis and Germans when it was the Soviets that carried out these invasions and one that also turns a blind eye to the Soviet genocides while focusing on the Nazis.

The German-Soviet non-agression pact was about
1 ensuring peace and normalised relations between two powerfull nations.
2 developing trade of critical raw materials for economic reasons and to bypass possible British and Fench blockades
3 developing buffer states between these potentially dangerous adversaries.
4 dividing areas into spheres of influence to diffuse tensions.
5 Allowing room for border disputes

It was a way for Nazi Germany to restore the land and ethnic minorities lost to Poland under the treaty of Versailes after negotiations for German acess to the German city of Danzig via rail and autobahn failed.

This is the link to the treaty, including the secret portions:
Molotov-Ribbentrop Treaty, 1939

Secret Additional Protocol.

Article I.

In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement in the areas belonging to the Baltic States (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), the northern boundary of Lithuania shall represent the boundary of the spheres of influence of Germany and U.S.S.R. In this connection the interest of Lithuania in the Vilna area is recognized by each party.

Article II.

In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement of the areas belonging to the Polish state, the spheres of influence of Germany and the U.S.S.R. shall be bounded approximately by the line of the rivers Narev, Vistula and San.

The question of whether the interests of both parties make desirable the maintenance of an independent Polish States and how such a state should be bounded can only be definitely determined in the course of further political developments.

In any event both Governments will resolve this question by means of a friendly agreement.


You will note the treaty 1 talks of 'spheres of influence' not annexations (as the Soviets tried) and that 'spheres of influence' is not code for invasion and annexation: for instance
"the northern boundary of Lithuania shall represent the boundary of the spheres of influence of Germany and U.S.S.R. In this connection the interest of Lithuania in the Vilna area is recognized by each party."

Which indicates that the Nazis were explicitly expecting at least Lithunia to remain independant.

The Nazi government certainly kept to its treaty obligations 100%. It may not have completed its weapons supplies to Finland. But Germany also removed two very sophisticated triaxial FLAK directors from Bismark (and Prinz Eugen) to supply to the Soviet union as part of treaty obligations: which meant that Bismark wen to sea with second rate gun directors for the rear two. It did not supply weapons to a country with which the Soviets were at war according to its treaty. As far as selling the Baltic states down the river, to an extent this is true but only to the extent of territorial realignments. The attack on Finland was the final irritation and warning.

When it was obvious that Stalins Russia could not be trusted to even comply with the spirit of the treaty the Germans invaded. Invading immediatly would not be possible, in part due to inevitalbe British and French opportunism.

As far as Finns being classed as 'subhumans'; by the Nazis: here is further exaggeration and myth. It was possible however to find some extraordinarily drunkard characters in Finland, it has a rather unique drinking problem often seen in parts of Scandinavia. Presumably if a German observed this that would constitute Nazi racial theory declaring Finns as sub-human.