Do you think it would have been different if.....

[moomoo2]

Does anyone think there would have been any difference to the fortunes of the Luftwaffe if the HE100 and the FW187 had of been produced. The HE219 hadn't of been ignored for years and the HE177 had of been 4 separate engined from the start.

I don't really have any idea myself, but they all seemed to be better than what was in service in their roles.

 

[kool kitty89]

In the canse of the He 177 (He 277) and the Fw 187 certainly would have been more useful.

The He 100 would depend, if it was to replace the 109 completely the trasition would have to be smoothe and would have to be available in similar numbers as the 109. Also Heinkel would have the He 111 and (in this case) the He 277 to produce as well.

 

[Thorlifter]

If the He 100 was available in decent numbers, it would have had a major impact on the war.

The He 177 could have had an impact, but it was a doomed plane with all the problems and due to the war situation in Germany, those problems were not able to be ironed out.

Of the two, I think the He 100 would have had the biggest impact.

 

[109ROAMING]

I read just the other day that one of the first He-219 Nachtjagers shot down 6 lancasters on its first intercept so I'm assuming by those stats that it would of had a major impact

42 crew lost because of one plane

If what I read was true then the damage 50 He-219's would do would be devasting

 

[kool kitty89]

Thor, What's your take on the Fw 187 then?

 

[Erich]

the pace of the He 219 fell off in late 43 as the history of the gruppe that used it shows, very few kills in 45; the Ju 88G-6 was superior in every way when it came onto the scene in late 44

 

[kool kitty89]

It would have been good to focus on the Ju 88 as the primary nightfighter, focus development on it. There weren't really any good replacements until the Me 262. (maybe the Ar 234) Would you say that's about right Erich? (how did the nightfighter version of the Me 410 compare?)


So, the Fw 187 becomes the main long range (single seat) heavy fighter and bomber destroyer. The He 100 replaces the 109. The He 177 is dropped in favor of the 277 (or other 4-engined version). The Ju 88 is focused on as the main nightfighter. The Bf 109 is phased out and the Bf 110 dropped early on with Messerschmitt focusing on Me 262 development. Leaving the Fw 190 and He 100 as the primary single engine fighters. Also the Fw 187 as miultirole long range heavy fighter and destroyer, uparmed with 4x MG 151/20's. (and still a fairly capable dogfighter)



Also, put more attention on Heinkel's jet engines and the He 280. Focus the on class I designs only and forego development of the HeS 011. Focus on the HeS-006 (HeS-30) and the HeS-001 (HeS-8 ). (the HeS-8 was a bit inferior, but still a decent design one the'd gotten it in order, and apeared to be nearing production quality along with the HeS-30)

The HeS-30 engines would also have been very good with the Me 262.

Perhaps put some work into the HeS-6 as well and modify the He 280's wing for a mid-monted arrangement. (to facilitate proper ground clearance for the larger diameter engines) It was running well much earlier than other designs and may have proven a good intrim measure for the other designs. Possibly forgo the HeS-8 entirely in favor of it.


Introduce the He 280 first (possibly later up-armmed with 2x or maybe 3x MK-108's) introduced probably some time in late 1943 for initial conversion training, operations taking place in early '44. (probably in fairly small numbers)

 

[Erich]

in my opinion KK that would be affirmitive

 

[KrazyKraut]

I'm 50/50 on the He 100:

It's cooling system may have been very innovative and very aerodynamic, but it was unproven and easily damaged and most of all a maintenance nightmare. The additional retractable radiator was a nice solution, but I bet it added to construction costs a lot.

The inevitable upgrade to the DB 605 would've basically meant having to redesign the whole cooling system, because it could barely support the 601 to begin with.

The D-1 was the only reasonable type: There is a lot of contradicting info about its performance though, with top speed ranging from 628-670 km/h. Consider that it still needed a stronger landing gear and performance might have dropped even further.

By that time production had top priority and the performance leap wasn't as impressive as promised by Heinkel. Further developments of the 109 were already very comparable (Bf 109 F ~650 km/h).

Maybe the He 100 would've been the better aircraft later in the war: It was probably better at higher altitudes and easier to fly and could've been made to accept wing root 20mm.

 

[Juha]

Hello
He 177 B-5 ie He 277 would have been a good plane, those who flew the 3rd prototype were impressed of it. But He 177A was very complicated plane which caused much problem to ground crews who had used to work with simpler planes. That even after a rather lenghty retraining period. And I'm not now talking on engines. So keeping 177B-5s/277s serviceable would have been a problem to LW.

IMHO one problem with FW187 was that it was single seater with 2 engines and the engineproduction was one of the bottlenecks in Germany. So question was one twin engined fighter vs two single engined fighter. Germans thought that long-range escort fighter needed 2 man crew, a bit like RN. So they saw Bf 110 better on that job. And in early was they didn't see the need of dedicated bomber destroyer so great.

He 219, as Eric wrote, Ju 88G was better night fighter.

He 100, I cannot remember much of it but IIRC it was clearly more expensive to produce that Bf109 so with it one would get less fighters.

He 280, IIRC one of main fault of it was short range and before 1943 LW didn't see much use for a jet fighter. They were not suitable to poor surface landind grounds in Russia and in N-Africa were main air-battles were fought at that time and TBO of them was too low for those far away areas. LW didn't have cristal balls to look the future.

Juha

 

[kool kitty89]

But also consider that the Bf 110 was already getting those fighter engines, so if those engines went to the Fw 187...

Although it could also be argued that the Bf 110 cut in on engine supply as well. (I suggested use of the Jumo 211 for the Fw 187 in my engines thread)

It was the He 112 that was more expensive (and with similar performance to the 109), particularly in construction time. The He 112 had far more individual parts to assemble. One of the major goals of the He 100 was to reduce the parts count as much as possible and simpify the design for production.


In the case of the radiator for the He 100, they may have ended up with a simple chin or belly mounted radiator, preferably in a low drag configuration (with boundary layer bypass) similar to that introduced on the Bf 109F line.

And on the He 280's range it was prettydecent for an interceptor:
LuftArchiv.de - Das Archiv der Deutschen Luftwaffe
(except with the Jumo 004's which were not well matched with the a/c at all)

 

[JugBR]

Does anyone think there would have been any difference to the fortunes of the Luftwaffe if the HE100 and the FW187 had of been produced. The HE219 hadn't of been ignored for years and the HE177 had of been 4 separate engined from the start.

I don't really have any idea myself, but they all seemed to be better than what was in service in their roles.

if they followed the same strategy allowing hitler to intervet over military plans, i thing would be quite difficult be too much different.

the defeat of germany was strategical, not technological.

 

[kool kitty89]

It wasn' just Hitler though. Many of the higher-ups hurt the war effort. Look at what Göring did.

 

[KrazyKraut]

In the case of the radiator for the He 100, they may have ended up with a simple chin or belly mounted radiator, preferably in a low drag configuration (with boundary layer bypass) similar to that introduced on the Bf 109F line.

Wasn't that what was essentially done with the D-1 production model (wikipedia says the radiator was still retractable, but maybe that was the way it worked)?

And the resulting airspeed (if the 628km/h figure is true) was not that impressive compared to the Bf 109 F which would've been available around the same time.

And on the He 280's range it was prettydecent for an interceptor:
LuftArchiv.de - Das Archiv der Deutschen Luftwaffe
(except with the Jumo 004's which were not well matched with the a/c at all)

True, but were the HeS 8 engines ready for mass production? I don't know. But if they were not that basically means you have an airframe without the engines and by the time the engines were ready the Me 262 was available and better all around.

 

[Juha]

KK
thanks for the He 280 link, I recalled from old AI article on He 280 that one reason for that it wasn't put in production was that it had only 45min flight time but its range seemed to be better than that of Me 262. Of course early jet engines were very thirstly at low altitude so much depend on altitude or maybe my memory just made a trick.

Yes 110 also needed 2 engines but as I wrote LW doctrine saw it that long range fighters needed second crew member and in 110 the radist at least could scan the rear sector and had a defensive mg, in 187 he was only radist, so it was not surprise that LW prefered 110.

Yes 100 was designed to be cheaper to produce than 112 but was it as cheap to produce as 109?

Juha

 

[KrazyKraut]

I think koolkitty is talking about the original, single-seater Fw 187.

 

[Juha]

Hello krazyKraut
I know but twin engined single seater didn't fit into the LW doctrine, they didn't think it was suitable for long range missions, so it would compete with 109 and as engines was a bad bottleneck the question was 2 109s vs one 187, not very surprising that LW chose 109. And to have some chances 187 design was changed into 2 seater but against 110 problem was that 110 crew layout was much more effective.

Juha

 

[kool kitty89]

That doctrine turned out to be flawed though...

What I was proposing is that the idea behind the 110 (which was already a fairly progressve design compared to the original Kampfzerstörer concept and the competing Fw 57 and Hs 124) was dropped entirely in favor of the concept the Fw 187 was built on. (possibly expanded a bit in that concept as the 187 was originally just a high performance fighter with only moderately longer range than contemporaries and with only 4x MG armament, so keep it as a high performance single seater but up the armament and fuel capacity)

As mentioned, the Bf 110 was already much closer to an actual fighter than the Kampfzerstörer compeditors. So why not take it all the way to the Fw 187?


And if the RLM still was pushing for something along the lines of the original specification, go with the Heavy fighter version of the Ju 88.


Politics aside, what did the Bf 110 accomplish that the Fw 187 and Ju 88 wouldn't be more capable in.




On the Bf 109 and He 100, I think the retractible radiator was in addition to the evaporative cooling, not in place of it. I don't know how the complexity and cost of the He 100 compares to the contemporary 109. It was probably more practical to stay with the 109 as it was developing quite well and had a larger production infrastructure in place.

 

[Juha]

KK
I'm an old dull Finn, I'm not interested in decisions which would run against established doctrines, so to me Fw 187 was non starter. And Germany's input to jet planes was very reasonable early in the war when one thinks the war situation and how much others (GB, USA, SU and Japan) put effort on them.

If He 100D even partly used evaporative cooling, it wasn't suitable to combat, period. That system was far too vulnerable.

Juha

 

[kool kitty89]

I looked some more, and acording to wikipedia the D-0 model still used the surface cooling system (in addition to the retractable radiator) but the D-1 seried eliminated the surface cooling and used a larger retractable radiator.