Extended War Scenarios?

[Waynos]

I always see lots of reference to how the Luftwaffe would have looked had the war continued into 1946, but it always seems to suppose that the Allies would not have progressed much, if at all. In this thread I would like to look at which aircraft might have been in allied service by that time, realistically. More Meteors, P-80's and the Vampire go without saying. But what other aircraft types could have been in combat in 1946? I know that in the UK the end of the war caused a swathe of cancellations and a drastic slowing of development. Did the same thing happen in the USA? Research programmes say not, but wartime production orders were surely curtailed in 1945?

For examples the questions I don't yet have the ansers for are as follows. Do you think the Hawker P.1040 and Supermarine E.10/44 would/could have reached RAF service by, say, the middle of 1946? In the event they did not even fly until 1947 but was this due to reduced priority at the end of the war or concentration mainly on the Fury and Spiteful during the war?

Development of the Canberra started at Westland in 1944. Would an extended conflict result in an in service 'Westland Canberra' before the dawn of 1947?

What other UK programmes might have been accelerated or not cancelled (M.52 continued and first to mach 1)?

America, would the P-84 and B-45 been made operational earlier than they were? Would the P-86 have debuted with a straight wing? In the absence of captured German data would the Consolidated B-46 have entered service untroubled by the non existant B-47? Some of my tentative thoughts are given away by the questions posed, but as I said I have no fixed opinion, what about you guys?

 

[Airframes]

Very interesting Waynos, and fitting in with one of Lucky 13's ideas , in the modelling threads, for the allied 'what if , '46 -'47 (and beyond).
I'll need to give it a lot more thought, but it's a probability that some designs which didn't see airborne prototypes until , say, 1947/48, would have been in service, and of course some cancelled projects also.
It will be interesting to see other's opinions, and watch the development of this thread.
Nice one!

 

[davebender]

Focke-Wulf Ta-183 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It had a planned speed of about 1,000 km/h (620 mph) at 7,000 m (22,970 ft) and it was estimated that 300 aircraft per month would be delivered when production got into its stride, each aircraft being produced in 2,500 man hours

The Ta-183 was supposed to be in production during October 1945. It was supposed to supplant all day fighter aircraft in Luftwaffe service including the Me-262 and He-162. If it worked as advertised (what are the chances?) the Ta-183 would have been a world beater during 1946.

 

[red admiral]

If it worked as advertised (what are the chances?)

Slim.

The vast bulk of forces available are going to be types already in existance. It might be possible to rush something like a Nene Canberra into service (2nd prototype had Nenes) but there are only going to be small numbers if any. I think the Hawker Sea Hawk probably stands the best chance of seeing wider service. Its a fairly simple aircraft that wouldn't suffer development problems. Performance would be a bit lower with a 4600lbf Nene I but still very good. Advanced versions of the Vampire (essentially the Venom) were planned in 1944/45 and are probably easiest to implement if higher performance is desired.

 

[Jabberwocky]

For the RAF:

Real late war/1946 aircraft that would probably see service:

Spitfire Mk 18, 22, maybe 24
Seafire Mk XVII, maybe Mk 45 accelerated into service
Hawker Tempest MK II
Hawker Fury, possibly Sea Fury
De Havilland Hornet, Sea Hornet
De Havilland Vampire
Gloster Meteor F.4
Fairey Spearfish
Blackburn Firebrand Mk IV
Bristol Brigand

Possibilities

Blackburn Firecrest, sort of a super Firebrand

Highly unlikely, but still within the realms of possibility:

Gloster E.1/44, sort of a single-engine Meteor (design finished at the end of 1944, but didn't fly until 1947)

Armstrong Whitworth AW 52 flying wing bomber, unpowered prototypes flying as gliders 1943, first powered flight in 1947.

 

[Waynos]

Apart from you proposing that the RAF would be flying Seafires and Firecrests etc that is a reasonable list, and a little bit scary that so many prop aircraft were just coming out. I would add to that list that the MB.5 (maybe?) and Spiteful (certainly) already had production orders when the war ended so these would be carried through to service.

Although this thread is about allied aircraft, mention of the Ta 183 also brings into focus another point I wanted to touch on. It is possible, even if only in small numbers, that this and the P.1101 would have been appearing before the end of 1946. So, without the fall of Germany just how long would it have taken for allied swept wing aircraft to appear? The idea was certainly known to allied designers but there does seem to have been a collective 'head in the sand' approach until all the German aerodynamic data was uncovered which circumvented an otherwise necessary trial and error research period of ourt own. That is why I proposed the F-86 would have had a straight wing and the B-46 might have been selected (although a straight wing B-47 would be equally likely).

Among the allied fighters I reckon that only the Vampire, and even then ONLY if the changes that were later implemented to make the Venom were enacted in 1944 as intended, would have been anywhere near the performance level of these aircraft. I don't think the course of the war would have been changed by a few swept wing German jets (still with low life engines made of inappropriate metals) but it is still an interesting point of conjecture.

 

[Colin1]

I don't think the course of the war would have been changed by a few swept wing German jets (still with low life engines made of inappropriate metals) but it is still an interesting point of conjecture.

Wayne
this is where conjecture gets difficult
an undefeated Nazi Germany in 1946 would have to be undefeated on all fronts, they'd still have access to Ploesti and possibly Ukrainian heavy industry, mining and agricultural resources, of course, the scenario doesn't stipulate where the Allies on both fronts are with their advance wrt Germany's impending defeat.
The Ta183 was capable of Komet speeds (plus certain greater endurance than the Me163), 45,000ft service ceiling and a 4 x MK108 battery armament; as an interceptor I can't see what the Allies had in their inventory in the first quarter of 1945 or anything that has been proposed in the thread so far that could have successfully got between it and the bombers.
If it couldn't turn the tide of war then it might well have forced a re-think on Allied daylight bombing.

As an aside
with the introduction of a quasi-MiG-15 into the ETO, it would be interesting to see how the US aircraft design corps would have responded to the threat; we could well have seen an equally quasi-F-86 duking it out with the Ta183... Korea a decade early?

Inconceivable to assume the bomber streams might by now have become B-29s?

 

[davebender]

If the Ta-183 appears as planned during early 1946 then Allied fighter pilots will be screaming for something similiar. The USA will begin a massive program to catch up, throwing unlimited amounts of money at the problem. Meanwhile the Ta-183 will dominate the sky for a year or so after introduction just as the Fw-190 did during 1942.

The Allied heavy bomber offensives will be wrecked. The Me-262 plus R4/M rocket are more then adequate for this purpose even if the Ta-183 does not make it into mass production.

 

[Lucky13]

Douglas Skyraider would have seen service, the flying dump truck!

 

[TheMustangRider]

In order for North American to come up with the swept wing design for the XP-86 they obtained a complete Me-262 wing and did extensive tests on it, I think this wouldn't have change in the hypothetical scenario of Germany fighting throughout 1945-46 if the Allies would have gotten their hands on a intact or at least slight damaged Me-262 and rushed to the US. Potentially a swept wing P-86 would had been rushed to counter the Me-262 and Ta-183 threat.

 

[Waynos]

Wayne
this is where conjecture gets difficult

Yes, very good point, there would need to be a reason for and a benefit from Germany still being unbowed by theat date.

As I said, the only fighter I could envisage being even close (not a match) was if DH had managed to 'pre-produce' the Venom (which was basically designed during the war as a high performance Vampire development but built several years later as a fighter bomber) but even that is a slight stretch .

Inconceivable to assume the bomber streams might by now have become B-29s?

I would say that was a given, and that the fully developed Windsor would also appear in service (the developed one was a bit more impressive that the prototype which already looked out of date when it flew)

Regarding swept wing development, I consider that the allies would be at a severe and prolonged disadvantage here because there is much more to swept wings on high speed jets than changinng the sweep angle. For evidence of this look at the superb wing of the F-86, which was developed in full possession of German data, and the ham fisted clumsy wing of the Supermarine 510, which was not.

I would predict quite a lot of 510-a-likes as we tried to catch up in this crucial area. Maybe we would compensate with razor sharp wings and afterburners a la Miles M.52?

 

[Waynos]

In order for North American to come up with the swept wing design for the XP-86 they obtained a complete Me-262 wing and did extensive tests on it, I think this wouldn't have change in the hypothetical scenario of Germany fighting throughout 1945-46 if the Allies would have gotten their hands on a intact or at least slight damaged Me-262 and rushed to the US. Potentially a swept wing P-86 would had been rushed to counter the Me-262 and Ta-183 threat.

I don't see how the 262 was helpful at all in this respect. It is a completely different kind of wing to the transonic one of the F-86 and is closer to a Bf 109 wing fitted at an angle. It was the P.1101 and Ta 183 that revealed the secrets of proper transonic wing design.

 

[TheMustangRider]

North American fully developed the F-86 swept wing design when material on German research into high-speed flight was available after the war in addition to the Me-262 wing, I was actually thinking on a smaller P-86 with slight swept wings and how it would have matched the Ta-183.

 

[GrauGeist]

The U.S. did have swept wing aircraft under development during the war, a few example that come to mind at the moment is the vultee XP-54, Curtiss XP-55 and the Northrop XP-56.

The Me262's wing was swept to it's current configuration because of the CG issues Messerschmnitt was having with the airframe in relation to the engines. The angle of the wing is only 18.5 degrees which didn't give it any real advantage in a transonic condition. Only the Ho-IX and Me163 were a true swept wing design.