Franco-British vs. USSR in 1942

[tomo pauk]

The problem is the altitude. Lets say, just for arguments sake (Illustration) that the AM-35 was making 1500hp in the cylinders and was using up 100hp of that in friction and was using 200hp to drive the supercharger leaving it with 1200hp to the prop. Changing the gear ratio of the supercharger to one that spun the impeller 70% as fast (I haven't bothered to look them up) would require 1/2 the power to the supercharger leaving you with 1300hp at the prop with no other changes, except you now are heating the intake charge well under 1/2 as much so you get a denser intake charge. You can also use more boost before detonation sets in. That may well explain a fair amountof the extra power of the AM-38. Remember that a Merlin VIII was good for 1080hp for take off at 5 3/4lbs boost on 87 octane compared to the Melrin III 880hp at 6 1/4lb boost on 87 octane. An extra 200hp (22.7%)and it all didn't come from just the difference in power needed to drive the supercharger and they weren't even using more boost.

Fine points.
The AM 38 was indeed to the AM 35A what basically the Merlin VIII was to the Merlin III - an engine with lower S/C grearing, with most of everything else remaining the same. The difference was a bit lower compression ratio (7:1 down to 6.8:1), and the AM 38 was rated for extra 100 rpm more for take off. The S/C gear ratio for the AM 35A was 14.6:1, for the AM 38 it was 11.05:1.
BTW, the AM 38F was turning 2350 rpm for take off (and emergency; the impeller was of smaller diameter; CR was down to 6:1), 2150 was for the AM 38 and 2050 was for AM 35A.

Thank you, I thought there was an early air frame with pressure cockpits ?

I'm not sure there were pressurized cockpits on the 'aircraft 103', it featured trainable MGs from get go, manned by 2 crew members. The 'aircraft 100', predecessor of the Pe-2 seems to be with pressure cockpits.

 

[Juha]

Are you sure the VVS or just Red Army didn't have AAA?

You are right, at least also the Army had 76.2 mm heavy AA guns. Also the fighter that the Hudson crew saw wasn't a MiG-1, the first flight of the I-200 (MiG-1/-3 proto) happened to occur just on 5 Apr 40, so it must have been a I-16, probably one of those powered by M-62 or M-63 engine (Tip-18, -24).

 

[Juha]

Even if Hayward claims that Baku produced 80% of Soviet oil according to Oil Industry of the Former Soviet Union - Reserves, Extraction and Transportation Ed by N.A. Krylov, A.A. Bokserman, E.R. Stavrovsky (1998) some 63.2% of the total oil production in the former SU 1941 - 1945 came from Baku.

 

[wiking85]

Even if Hayward claims that Baku produced 80% of Soviet oil according to Oil Industry of the Former Soviet Union - Reserves, Extraction and Transportation Ed by N.A. Krylov, A.A. Bokserman, E.R. Stavrovsky (1998) some 63.2% of the total oil production in the former SU 1941 - 1945 came from Baku.

I didn't say it would be a war winner. It would hurt the Soviets significantly though and force another theater outside of Europe.

 

[Shortround6]

So basically the altitude advantage the Allies have is real and it would seriously distort Soviet efforts to counter it? Historically the Soviets had to end Mig-3 and AM35 production to make engines for the IL-2 (AM38). Even without the disruption of Barbarossa and the benefits of say capturing Genshagen Daimler engine facilities they would be in trouble trying to match the RAF and ALA bombing their supply lines from 20k feet. Once sufficient Mosquitos show up they are really in trouble trying to catch them, with or without radar due to altitude and climb issues. AAA without sufficient gunlaying radar and computers are going to have trouble trying to hit 20k feet bombers. Or does the Soviets have other options?

People seem to be relying an awful lot on using captured German technology and captured German factories to equip these hypothetical Russian forces. How many factories were east of the Elbe and how many were west? What shape are the factories east of the Elbe? And if being used for war production for the Russians they are in easy reach of the "WA" forces, much easier than anything back in Mother Russia.
The British could have cut down on their own bomber losses by flying the 4 engine bombers at max lean power ratings rather than at most economical settings. For short range raids they don't need to wait for Mosquitos.

Russians have big problem with captured factories as the Russian machine tool industry was more than a bit lacking. They have little or no capability of replacing damaged machine tools in German factories unless using German machine tool factories.

Under lend lease the Russians received around 10,000 lathes of all sizes and kinds, 6,600 grinders, over 5,000 milling machines and other machine tools.

Do the Russians try to rebuild/repair German factories and use German workers to make weapons or do they loot the German factories and send the tools/equipment back to Russia?

 

[wiking85]

People seem to be relying an awful lot on using captured German technology and captured German factories to equip these hypothetical Russian forces. How many factories were east of the Elbe and how many were west? What shape are the factories east of the Elbe? And if being used for war production for the Russians they are in easy reach of the "WA" forces, much easier than anything back in Mother Russia.
The British could have cut down on their own bomber losses by flying the 4 engine bombers at max lean power ratings rather than at most economical settings. For short range raids they don't need to wait for Mosquitos.

Russians have big problem with captured factories as the Russian machine tool industry was more than a bit lacking. They have little or no capability of replacing damaged machine tools in German factories unless using German machine tool factories.

Under lend lease the Russians received around 10,000 lathes of all sizes and kinds, 6,600 grinders, over 5,000 milling machines and other machine tools.

Do the Russians try to rebuild/repair German factories and use German workers to make weapons or do they loot the German factories and send the tools/equipment back to Russia?

What is your source on the Soviet machine tool industry being lacking pre-Barbarossa? What's most likely about the German factories is that they are evacuated to Russia; there was a fair bit in Berlin, Saxony, Silesia, some in East Prussia and generally east of the Elbe, in all around 40% of German industry. That's not including whatever the Soviets can take from Czechoslovakia and Poland. Evacuation of anything of value including scientists, engineers, and skilled workers who are unable to flee, is the most likely scenario, rather than in place production.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Allies do the same with German industry close to the front and potentially vulnerable. They probably wouldn't let the Germans keep making much outside the Rheinland where they can control things.

 

[Juha]

I didn't say it would be a war winner. It would hurt the Soviets significantly though and force another theater outside of Europe.

Yes, I agree with that. My message was mainly to show that hayward isn't very reliable source on the things in the Soviet side. On Baku, there were powerful PVO formations and air warning radars already before June 1941 and Soviets used operationally their first fire control radar proto in Moscow area in autumn 1941, it seems to be based on the british GL Mk I radar. They claimed they got good results with it. Made 124 of them during the war, used for defence of important centres such as Moscow and Baku.

 

[Shortround6]

The Russians were buying machine tools from west during the 30s. Their own industry was rather limited. In order to expand as much as they did they ruthlessly standardized major items, like there was only one model blast furnace used in any/all steel mills built from around 1930 on. All new steel mills were essentially duplicates of an existing steel mill designed and built during the late 20s and early 30s by western contractors.
For machine tools the Russians standardized on 2 (maybe 3) different models of lathes for domestic manufacture. Russian industrial development was geared to the manufacture of weapons during the 30s although a lot of money was spent on basic tractors/trucks. See : http://www.soniamelnikova.com/NizhnyNovgorod.pdf for a snippet of the Russian Ford truck saga, please note that 102 US firms are supposed to have supplied tools and machinery for this project.

The Russians were still depending on western tooling in the late 30s and I doubt they were self sufficient in 1940/41.

 

[wiking85]

Yes, I agree with that. My message was mainly to show that hayward isn't very reliable source on the things in the Soviet side. On Baku, there were powerful PVO formations and air warning radars already before June 1941 and Soviets used operationally their first fire control radar proto in Moscow area in autumn 1941, it seems to be based on the british GL Mk I radar. They claimed they got good results with it. Made 124 of them during the war, used for defence of important centres such as Moscow and Baku.

How could there be radar there in June 1941 when the first prototype wasn't used until Autumn around Moscow?
Radar in World War II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
There is no reference to radar outside of Moscow, Leningrad, and Kiev in 1941.

The Russians were buying machine tools from west during the 30s. Their own industry was rather limited. In order to expand as much as they did they ruthlessly standardized major items, like there was only one model blast furnace used in any/all steel mills built from around 1930 on. All new steel mills were essentially duplicates of an existing steel mill designed and built during the late 20s and early 30s by western contractors.
For machine tools the Russians standardized on 2 (maybe 3) different models of lathes for domestic manufacture. Russian industrial development was geared to the manufacture of weapons during the 30s although a lot of money was spent on basic tractors/trucks. See : http://www.soniamelnikova.com/NizhnyNovgorod.pdf for a snippet of the Russian Ford truck saga, please note that 102 US firms are supposed to have supplied tools and machinery for this project.

The Russians were still depending on western tooling in the late 30s and I doubt they were self sufficient in 1940/41.

I take your point and it fits into the general situation of the 1930s and 40s, but I'd still like to see a reference to your claims, because the more I read about the Soviet war effort things were more advanced than commonly thought. Also, though I'm not sure where the German machine tool industry was located, there is a good chance the Soviets will capture a fair bit of German, Czech, and Polish machine tool industry in their invasion. Berlin was the hub for optics, electrical, and precision machinery.
And Erla was in Saxony, east of the Elba:
Eisenwerk Erla GmbH - Informations about the company

 

[Shortround6]

Machine tool industry is the industry that makes the lathes, drill presses and milling machines for other industries to make parts with. It is actually a rather specialized industry. They may buy lathe beds and Frames for milling machines from foundries but the manufacture of precision machine tools was always a bottle neck in setting up factories. At one point Allison engines was short almost 800 machine tools to fill it's factory space in spite of having an A1A priority rating. The P W plant at Kansas City was delayed in starting production for over 6 weeks when 6 Sidestrand centerless grinders were taken from them and shipped to England (via the Queen Mary, not regular convoy) to help Napier sort out their sleeve valve problem. England could not supply it's own needs fully for machine tools and was buying them from Germany, Switzerland and the US during the 1930s. I doubt the Russians were in better shape.

See History for a rather condensed version of the History of P W small tool.

The last is a bit of a false impression as one P W 'small tool' that I saw while working at P W aircraft in the tool room was a precision jig borer that was almost two stories high. Machines that work to tolerances of a few thousands of an inch cannot be be built in car factories.

 

[Shortround6]

One also wonders what shape the British would be in with the scenario. No Dunkirk and no (or reduced ) Blitz means British factories are in better shape. No need to keep the 2pdr gun in production to make up numbers so the 6pdr shows up sooner. Shorts factories are not bombed so Stirling Production ramps up much sooner. Supermarine factory is not bombed?

 

[wiking85]

Machine tool industry is the industry that makes the lathes, drill presses and milling machines for other industries to make parts with. It is actually a rather specialized industry. They may buy lathe beds and Frames for milling machines from foundries but the manufacture of precision machine tools was always a bottle neck in setting up factories. At one point Allison engines was short almost 800 machine tools to fill it's factory space in spite of having an A1A priority rating. The P W plant at Kansas City was delayed in starting production for over 6 weeks when 6 Sidestrand centerless grinders were taken from them and shipped to England (via the Queen Mary, not regular convoy) to help Napier sort out their sleeve valve problem. England could not supply it's own needs fully for machine tools and was buying them from Germany, Switzerland and the US during the 1930s. I doubt the Russians were in better shape.

See History for a rather condensed version of the History of P W small tool.

The last is a bit of a false impression as one P W 'small tool' that I saw while working at P W aircraft in the tool room was a precision jig borer that was almost two stories high. Machines that work to tolerances of a few thousands of an inch cannot be be built in car factories.

Um okay. Not sure what that has to do with what I asked of you or what I wrote. There was a major machine tool industry in Saxony, one of three major regions in Germany. Precision tool manufacturing was in Berlin, while in Saxony was a lot of the basic foundries. Assuming the Soviets can get their hands on German workers from those industries in addition to the machinery they can remove it to the USSR and set up a more sophisticated industry for themselves assuming they cannot purchase from the US. The captured areas would account for about 1/3rd of German machine tool production. Still though we don't know with certainty what Soviet machine tool production was domestically, but it was likely not as good as the Allies and even with captured German stuff it would be at a technological disadvantage.

 

[Koopernic]

So when LW deployed FuG 217 operationally? IIRC correctly it was used on Ju 88G-6, 110G-4, He 219A, Me 262 plus some 109Gs and 190As. So on fairly late-war planes

Don't look at Wikipedia.

The Neptune series of tail warning radars went into Me 410 (bombers), Do 217, He 177. Unlike the British Monica they had an "A scope" to give range of the threatening fighter. Because the radar was light it was used semi experimentally in single seat fighters such as the Me 109 and Fw 190 with lobe swiching added in to help locate the direction of the target.

it grew into a full fledged night fighter radar with high power and a wide range of frequencies with powers as high as 120kW by impulse modulation. After the disclosure of SN-2 this is the radar the German night fighter forced turned to.

These latter Neptune radars was seen as a stop gap till production of microwave sets got up to speed.

Some German night fighter radars had a tail warning mode built in.

 

[Milosh]

A new defensive device, "Fishpond", was added to H2S during the summer of 1943. In the regular H2S display there was a dark circular area in the centre of the P.O.I., representing the distance between the aircraft and the ground immediately below it. If a "blip" appeared within this circle it must be a reflection from something in the air, probably another aircraft. With this in mind, another P.P.I., operated by the iwreless operator, was installed. It expanded the dark circle to the full size of the P.P.I. cathode ray tube and, being equipped with a range scale and a bearing scale from the DR Compass, it permitted the operator to determine the range and bearing of any aircraft within about five miles and up to ten degrees above the aircraft. The operator could then warn the pilot and air gunners of possible attacks.

http://www.rquirk.com/cdnradar/cor/chapter17.pdf

 

[Juha]

How could there be radar there in June 1941 when the first prototype wasn't used until Autumn around Moscow?
Radar in World War II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
There is no reference to radar outside of Moscow, Leningrad, and Kiev in 1941...

That was a fire control radar proto. Did you read the Wiki-article "...RUS-1 was tested and put into production in 1939, entering limited service in 1940, becoming the first deployed radio-location system in the Red Army...." Even if "...Without ranging capability, however, the military found the RUS-1 to be of little value..." RUS-2 on the other hand was useful "... RUS-2 (РУС-2). A transmit-receive device (a duplexer) to allow operating with a common antenna was developed in February 1941. These breakthroughs were achieved at an experimental station at Toksovo (near Leningrad), and an order was placed with the Svetlana Factory for 15 systems...." But my source was Lappi's History of AAA

 

[Juha]

Don't look at Wikipedia.

The Neptune series of tail warning radars went into Me 410 (bombers), Do 217, He 177. Unlike the British Monica they had an "A scope" to give range of the threatening fighter. Because the radar was light it was used semi experimentally in single seat fighters such as the Me 109 and Fw 190 with lobe swiching added in to help locate the direction of the target.

it grew into a full fledged night fighter radar with high power and a wide range of frequencies with powers as high as 120kW by impulse modulation. After the disclosure of SN-2 this is the radar the German night fighter forced turned to.

These latter Neptune radars was seen as a stop gap till production of microwave sets got up to speed.

Some German night fighter radars had a tail warning mode built in.

Again when was FuG 217 deployed operationally? Me 410 began flying ops early summer 43 IIRC but when they got FuG 217?

Edit: BTW, according to Griehl's Dressel's Heinkel He 177, 277, 274 He 177A-3/V40 was used as the prototype for the pattern installations of the FuG 217 and Berlin radars and the a/c was fitted with both radar devices by early June 1944, completion of this work was delayed until the end of July at the earliest. And three of the He 177 A-1/U-2 Grosszerstörer were transferred to E-Stelle Werneuchen to receive FuG 216/217 Neptun radar equipment sometime after 2 Apr 44. All that is what I have thought because I cannot recall photos on 177s or 217s with tail warning radar antenna even if I have seen photos on both types with FuG 200 search-radar antennas. Same to 410.

 

[wiking85]

Can we at least agree that in terms of radar the Soviets aren't going to capture the later developments and will be stuck trying to make sense of whatever the Germans were working on, as most of the scientists would probably flee west? They were remain at a major disadvantage and maybe would be lucky to get some Wurzburg radars. By this point airborne radar has been developed, probably not even Hohentwiel due to the lack of need without an Atlantic front.

 

[Juha]

Looked Pritchard's The Radar War. Germany's Pioneering Achievement 1904 - 45 (1989), it seems that FuG 217 Neptun R2 rear warning radar was deployed sometimes in late 1943.

 

[Juha]

Can we at least agree that in terms of radar the Soviets aren't going to capture the later developments and will be stuck trying to make sense of whatever the Germans were working on, as most of the scientists would probably flee west? They were remain at a major disadvantage and maybe would be lucky to get some Wurzburg radars. By this point airborne radar has been developed, probably not even Hohentwiel due to the lack of need without an Atlantic front.

Seems reasonable to me, but if you are saying NO airborne radar has been developed I'd say that Soviets probably would have got some info and hardware of FuG 202 Lichtenstein B/C and probably would have tried to develope some kind AI radar based on it, but success might have taken some time.

 

[wiking85]

Seems reasonable to me, but if you are saying NO airborne radar has been developed I'd say that Soviets probably would have got some info and hardware of FuG 202 Lichtenstein B/C and probably would have tried to develope some kind AI radar based on it, but success might have taken some time.

Lichtenstein was historically ordered after the collapse of the Nazi regime in this scenario and was contingent on the RAF night bombing to a large degree. In this scenario the RAF doesn't really develop that same strategy due to the collapse of the Nazi regime before BC starts to develop into a heavy hitting force in 1942. Maybe they will get some work they can use, but ultimately there won't be a lot available after Hitler is killed and the Civil War/power struggle prevents the Germans from really focusing on new developments when their country is falling apart.