Do-17 ground attacked varient - good idea or not?

[Piper106]

In an earlier thread Tomo Pauk suggested;

"The Do-17 adapted for down dirty attacks could be a more viable idea. It used non-strategic engines*, (*and not the troublesome G&R ones ) the twin layout allowed for wide assortment of cannon armament, and the dorsal turret featuring MG-151 would provide a nice punch. Of course, a crew of two in an armored crew department is a must. Some under-wing rockets would make it a good all-round ground attack plane."

I've been thinking about this for a while and it seems a pretty good idea.

- Engine option 1; As with most Do-17s use the Fafnir 323 such as the 1200 HP with MW50 R-2 version.
- Engine option 2: Use captured French Gnome Rhone 14N engines, up to 1165 HP in later versions.
- As suggested crew of two (pilot and rear observer/gunner) in an armored crew compartment.
- I would suggest the earlier Do 17 E/F/M/P nose contour but with a smooth metal nose cap in place of the bomb aiming glazing.
- Two 20mm MG151/20 cannon in the nose in front of the pilot.
- Main armament would be a single BK 3.7 cannon positioned with the breach / magazine in the rear of the crew compartment, allowing the
rear gunner to feed in additional 6 round clips. BK 3.7 could be replaced later in the war with a BK 5 cannon as tanks get thicker armor.
- I feel that a turret would be too much weight for the protection. I suggest staying with a free swing machines gun set-up for rear defense
as in the historic Do 17 M/P but upgrade to dual belt fed MG 81 (aka MG81Z) in place of the historic single drum fed MG15.
- Bomb bay retained for hollow charge or anti-personnel cluster bombs.
- Remove or clip about 60 cm (24") off each wing tip, cutting the span, area, and drag.

What is your opinion? Good idea or bad?? Alternate ideas??

Piper106

 

[ShVAK]

Maybe to convert existing Do-17Z's this would work (actually fairly similar to B-25 and A-20 gunship models in principle) but it doesn't make sense to restart the production line when there were better options like the Hs 129, Ju 87G or F-series FW 190 available not too much later.

That makes me wonder how well a Hs 129 would've done with the Bramo 323's (produced until '44) instead of the crap Gnome-Rhone radials it ended up with. If the Do 17 was out of service they might've had some excess capacity. Or they could've put an even better set of BMW radials on them but that might've interfered with Fw 190 production, among other things.

 

[Shortround6]

We have been over this before but the threads are convoluted and hard to look up. The HS 129 was a small plane and original designed for engines that weighed under 900lbs each, When these proved to have too little power the French engines were used as a step up. hanging bigger engines of the airframe is going to start giving CG problems, the Bramo 323 were about a foot or more bigger in diameter than the french radials restricting the vision even more. I am not sure how much spare capacity Bramo had, they might have been making parts for the BMW 801 under subcontract, (the companies were actually merged at this point I believe) The Germans certainly had a number of French factories trying to build BMW 801s and/or parts.

Trying to hang 1 ton BMW 801 engines on an under 9000lb ( empty with the French engines) airframe is going to present a while batch of engineering problems. Might as well start with a new airplane.

 

[davebender]

RM 85,970 Me-109
RM 131,175 Ju-87
RM 140,000 Fw-187 (Focke Wulf proposal)
RM 210,140 Me-110
RM 235,000 Do-17

Ju-87 costs about half as much as Do-17 and has far superior weapons accuracy. 1941 and later Ju-87D is also better protected against ground fire. Powered by readily available Jumo 211 engines.

If you want a long range ground strafer the Fw-187 can do the same job (as Do-17) for a little over half the cost. Ground attack variant could be powered by readily available Jumo 211 engines.

Not sure what is meant by "non strategic engines". Germany was awash in Jumo 211 V12 engines by 1942. There were also plenty of Bramo 323 and BMW 132 radial engines.

 

[Denniss]

The G/R engines were more or less problem-free after they improved the air filter installation - no idea why everyone claims they were always unreliable in the Hs 129 (More than enough other a/c used them without major problems).
As for the Do 17 ground attack version, why not use the Z-10 night fighter conversion to start with - four 7.92mm MG in the nose and two 2cm guns below the nose. 10 or 20 bombs of 50kg in the bomb bay.

 

[davebender]

As for the Do 17 ground attack version, why not use the Z-10 night fighter conversion to start with

If you plan to keep the Do-17 in production during 1941 wouldn't it make more sense to develop it as a night fighter aircraft?