Fw 190: the good, the bad and the ugly

tomo pauk said:

In 1941, the Fw 190/211F should be performing better than any Allied fighter, with exception of Spitfire V?

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Perhaps still better than the Spitfire V (LF variants aside) at low altitudes more akin to the 801 powered variant but with somewhat different performance advantages. (still related to the smoother power curves than the single-speed Merlin)

I'd go with the normal, big wing, it is still fairly a small wing compared with Spit, P-40, P-51 or Zero. The further adoption of heavier powerplant would not favor the initial, small wing.

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Agreed, though hopefully some of the lighter structure of the 190 V1 could be retained in spite of the wing change. (granted, the structural changes seem to be more related to the engine installation and other modifications leading up to the V5k, plus the initial new wing adapted to the V5k was a longer span but still the more tapered, lower area wing used on the first few A-0s rather than the broader wing tested on the V5g, so introducing the Jumo 211 into testing earlier on would hopefully result in more of a mix of characteristics from the lighter V1 and V2, and larger V5g wing -of course with added armor and overall military load adding more weight in service too)

The Fw 190/801 will be far more attractive with BMW 801C running at 2700 rpm also in second S/C gear, along with both 801C and 801D having streamlined, but external intakes. At least in ETO, where the altitude performance is needed, and long range (at least when in defense) is not that attractive thing. Also - ditch the fuselage MGs.

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Agreed, especially for an interceptor (the reduced range and increased weight would mean more compromises for fighter-bomber use).

Aside from that, there's just the Do 217 and Ju 88 competing for 801 engines. (more so once the British night bombing campaign increased in volume and even more so with earlier, light/stripped down/interceptor configured 801 powered Ju 88 night fighters possibly making better mosquito chasers than anything else available at the time) Not to mention 801 powered Ju 88 bombers would be closer to Mosquito performance in other roles too. (or potentially, depending on defensive and offensive armaement configuration -including external loads)

Armament wise, replacing the synchronized MG17s as soon as possible would be a high priority. If MG 131s could be supplied sooner than MG 151s (15 or 20 mm) and easier to adapt to the 190's wing root mountings (as appears to be the case given the V2's armament test/provision configurations) that should have been pursued likely with deleting the upper cowl guns entirely. (and, of course, on V12 powered version you could have the hub mounted cannon as well -3 MG-FF/M and 2 MG 131 guns seems a likely practical arrangement)

tomo pauk said:

A more riskier earlier (with regard to the service use) approach to the Fw 190 engine might be pressing on with BMW 139. The installation will certainly need more louvers so it can be cooled better, along with cooling fan (instead of ducting spinner), as it was the case with reworked V1 prototype.
The BMW 139 was to make 1410 PS at 4500 m (5 min rating) and 1270 PS at 4900 m (30 min rating), weight 800 kg bare engine, but with cooling fan.

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That doesn't really sound better than the Jumo 211F (at least assuming the 1 minute limit was extended to 5 minutes for fighters). The power curves are different, so performance at the 139's critical altitudes is worse, but on the whole, you have the 211F reaching 1440 PS at 2.4 km and 1230 ps at 6.1 km with full ram (likely for the 190 at top speed) though for very slight raming conditions (ie normal climb conditions, well under the 400 km/h curve) it would be approximately 1400 ps at 1.4 km and 1200 ps at 5.2 km.

Koopernic said:

To a certain extent BMW did have two design teams: There was BMW itself, based in Munich, and then Bramo which was the BRandenberg MOtor works, based near Berlin and itself once known as Siemens Schuckert and in many ways more illustrious. BMW absorbed Bramo. I believe the 139 was a BMW project development and the 329 bramo. This is why the firm appears to have licensed both the Mercury from Bristol and the Hornet from Pratt and Whitney. BMW took over and so its programs were preeminent.

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Bramo/Siemens used 300 series numbers eg Bramo 323 with a Jupiter heritage while BMW used 100 series numbers eg BMW132 with a hornet heritage. The merged firm received a new block of numbers beginning at 800.

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It was my impression that the BMW 801 was a direct development (and renaming) of the Bramo 329 with added engineering experience applied from the BMW team.

kool kitty89 said:

It was my impression that the BMW 801 was a direct development (and renaming) of the Bramo 329 with added engineering experience applied from the BMW team.

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Wasn't the Bramo 329 an 18 cylinder radial, rather than the 14 of the 801?

What is Bramo 329?

tomo pauk said:

What is Bramo 329?

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A twined Fafnir engine.
https://books.google.ca/books?id=El...gIVg0mSCh0WrQCe#v=onepage&q=Bramo 329&f=false

Shortround6 said:

If you have enough engineers/man power for two design teams.

We don't know why they stopped the BMW 139 do we? Or the RPM, Boost it was operating at?

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Max RPM was 2700 (for 1 min take off rating and for 5 min emergency rating), 2500 RPM was for 'Climb combat power'.
BMW was historically also working on the 800 (9 cyl radial), 802 (59.9L, 18 cyl), 803/803A (28 cyl liquid cooled radial), 804 (45.6L, 14-cyl radial), 805 (development of the 801, a bit bigger displacement), plus jet engines. So there is plenty of projects that can be shelved, with resources focused on the heir of the 139.

Denniss said:

The 139 was built using 132 components, I doubt these would be suitable for higher power levels than ~1500PS.
The 801 had multiple improvements to enable further power increases.

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Denniss - maybe you could check it out elsewhere: was the crankshaft of the 139 'fixed' with 3 bearings, or just with 2?

Milosh said:

A twined Fafnir engine.
https://books.google.ca/books?id=El...gIVg0mSCh0WrQCe#v=onepage&q=Bramo 329&f=false

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Ah, I was mistaken, it seems the 329 was indeed an 18 cylinder engine and completely abandoned following the BMW merger. This seems unfortunate, given the power class being beyond that of the 801, more in the range of the R-2800 or early Jumo 222, particularly with it running earlier than either of those engines or the 801 itself. It might have been too big to practically fit on the Fw 190 but possibly better suited to bomber and transport designs. (or potentially larger fighters as well)

People SAY it might be too big to fit, but recall how the Japanese mated a good radial to the Ki-61 airframe to make the Ki-100 ... it it was too big, too, by conventional thinking.

Maybe, maybe not. the Kinsei engine was about 50in in diameter (or a bit less?) which puts it on the small side for a 14 cylinder radial, not by much but still smaller than a "twin Fafnir" which would be closer to 56in diameter and 2000lbs and 3270 cu in unless they shortened the stroke some. Think crude R-3350.

Shortround6 said:

Maybe, maybe not. the Kinsei engine was about 50in in diameter (or a bit less?) which puts it on the small side for a 14 cylinder radial, not by much but still smaller than a "twin Fafnir" which would be closer to 56in diameter and 2000lbs and 3270 cu in unless they shortened the stroke some. Think crude R-3350.

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Indeed, and I was thinking more weight than diameter. It might not be worse than the DB 603 or Jumo 213 though, at least not with the annular radiator putting all that weight up front.

Diameter wise, it'd be more a drag/speed issue than actually making it work structurally. (if it was just diameter, it would be closer to comparing the P-40 to the P-36 to the R-1820 powered Hawk 75, at least in structure/airframe terms)

Comparing the Bristol Hercules or R-2600 to the R-2800 would be more like the difference between the 801 (and 139) and 329, except without the R-2800's diameter advantage. (assuming -as you say- Bramo hadn't shortened the stroke)

kool kitty89 said:

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Armament wise, replacing the synchronized MG17s as soon as possible would be a high priority. If MG 131s could be supplied sooner than MG 151s (15 or 20 mm) and easier to adapt to the 190's wing root mountings (as appears to be the case given the V2's armament test/provision configurations) that should have been pursued likely with deleting the upper cowl guns entirely. (and, of course, on V12 powered version you could have the hub mounted cannon as well -3 MG-FF/M and 2 MG 131 guns seems a likely practical arrangement)

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I'm not sure that, for Fw 190, MG 131 offers anything vs. MG 151 (any) or MG FFM, if we exclude the inability of the MG FFM to fire synchronized. Stick indeed 2-3-4 cannons on the Fw 190 (depending on the engine type installed) and you're set.

That doesn't really sound better than the Jumo 211F (at least assuming the 1 minute limit was extended to 5 minutes for fighters). The power curves are different, so performance at the 139's critical altitudes is worse, but on the whole, you have the 211F reaching 1440 PS at 2.4 km and 1230 ps at 6.1 km with full ram (likely for the 190 at top speed) though for very slight raming conditions (ie normal climb conditions, well under the 400 km/h curve) it would be approximately 1400 ps at 1.4 km and 1200 ps at 5.2 km.

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It sounds better than the 211F - almost 200 PS more than it at 4.5 to 5 km, though the drag will eat some of that power surplus. The air intakes for the 139 should be also hopefully of external type, when altitude performance is needed.

tomo pauk said:

I'm not sure that, for Fw 190, MG 131 offers anything vs. MG 151 (any) or MG FFM, if we exclude the inability of the MG FFM to fire synchronized. Stick indeed 2-3-4 cannons on the Fw 190 (depending on the engine type installed) and you're set.

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I was referring to the possibility of MG 131s becoming available in quantity before MG 151/20s could be employed as standard in the wing roots. (namely the possibility of displacing the wing root MG17s on the A-1 -or Jumo powered equivalent) Once the MG 151s are employed, omitting all LMGs and HMGs entirely seems sensible.


On the BMW 139 issue, one other interesting possibility may have been continuing development of both the 139 and Bramo 329 rather than transitioning to the 801 at all. If the improvements in the 801 were mostly performance/diameter/weight related and not especially more optimized for faster and/or lower cost manufacturing, then sticking with the two earlier designs seems to make a lot of sense. (and also forgo investment in the 802, 803, and 804 in favor of continued 139 and 329 development -and turbine development, of course)

kool kitty89 said:

802, 803, and 804 in favor of continued 139 and 329 development -and turbine development, of course)

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What's the BMW 804?

The derivative of the 801, with a bigger bore and stroke (160 x 160 mm) and displacement (45,5L), supposed to be using either 3-speed 1-stage S/C, or 2x2 speed 2-stage S/C.

Interesting topic, although much of what actually happened on the soviet side is still probably not easily accessed. Combat records from the Germans were pretty good, mainly due to the meticulous nature of the Germans themselves, and comparative freedom of information from British and U.S sources permits a lot more close scrutiny. The Russian campaign also appears to play a background role in aerial warfare ( how many war movies show that side???), although this is just a general observation on my part. As for the FW 190, it was still in the stage of being developed when the war ended, where as the Bf 109 had reached its zenith. The potential of the Ta 152 was never realised, although the inherant design of the FW 190 showed an aircraft that was still a force to be reckoned with.

The Fw 190 was in the development stage when the war ended? Maybe the final stage. There certaihly wasn't much of anything left to develop.

It depends what one counts as part of the development. Apart form what the Ta 152 was to get, the Fw 190 was to receive 2-stage V-12 engines, wing fuel tanks, the fuselage-fastened engine cowling (vs. the engine-fastened engine cowling that was more draggier), hydraulically-operated ailerons, among other details. So it was not such a big change as it was from P-51D to P-51H, but it was still substantial.

pattern14 said:

Interesting topic, although much of what actually happened on the soviet side is still probably not easily accessed. Combat records from the Germans were pretty good, mainly due to the meticulous nature of the Germans themselves, and comparative freedom of information from British and U.S sources permits a lot more close scrutiny.

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For the accuracy of LW combat reports (and not just their) - the jury is still out.

The Russian campaign also appears to play a background role in aerial warfare ( how many war movies show that side???), although this is just a general observation on my part.

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The Soviet war movies show maybe 2 Anglo-American marked aircraft, vs. thousands of Soviet ones

As for the FW 190, it was still in the stage of being developed when the war ended, where as the Bf 109 had reached its zenith. The potential of the Ta 152 was never realised, although the inherant design of the FW 190 showed an aircraft that was still a force to be reckoned with.

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+1 on that.

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The quick'n'dirty comparison between the BMW 801D and DB engines of interest for the 1942-44 period. The 801D (blue line is Notleistung, green line is Kampfleistung) will produce some 20% more power than the DB 601E at altitude and down low, but maybe about 8% more than DB 605A; all goes for fully rated engines.
In all of 1942, however, only the 601E is fully rated, the 605A is not allowed for Notleistung ('dash dot' black line), the best rating available until late 1943 is Kampfleistung (red line, fits with green line of the 801D above ~5.8 km). The BMW 801D is restricted at all ratings until Oct 1942, with, for example, Notleistung being just a tad better than Kampfleistung of a fully rated 801D.

Speed goes up as the cube of the horsepower ratio, so there is hardly any difference between the DB 605A of 1942 and the blue line except below 1,500 meters... maybe a few mph only.

In the ETO, very few people were fighting at below 1,500 meters.

They weren't going to wring much more from the Ta 152 no matter what they did. Jets were on the way and pistons were near the peak of piston development. There was no real-world piston development that made production which performed significantly better except maybe in climb rate, so it's damed hard to argue the point that there was much development room left for performance improvement. It was as "developed" as it was going to get within a few percent. The main service improvements were going to be reilability and a spare parts supply chain.

The very few that actually got delivered were virtual service prototypes and I've never even seen a document that says they were all built the same. Certainly the Fw 190D-13 that used to be in the Champlin collection had parts that were different from the Fw 190D-9 the National Air and Space Museum owns. It is now on long-term loan to the Natioanl Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton. And the parts I'm talking about weren't supposed to be different ... they just were. That from people accociated with the former Doug Champlin Museum in Mesa, Arozona where it lived for so long. The guys at the Paul Allen museum don't seem to know much about it last time I visited there about a year ago, but I saw it get started on two occasions and talked with many of the Chamnplin staff at the time. It helped that I was with the owner, J. Curtiss Earl, of one of the diaplayed MiG-15s at the time.

GregP said:

Speed goes up as the cube of the horsepower ratio, so there is hardly any difference between the DB 605A of 1942 and the blue line except below 1,500 meters... maybe a few mph only.

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The BMW 801 will produce a bigger drag than any of the German V-12 engines, despite it's excellent installation. That, and it's substantial weight difference vs. DB 601/605 (even vs. Jumo 211) will tend to eat up most if not all of the horsepower advantage. The V-12 powered Fw 190 will also have better range/radius than the BMW-powered one due to smaller consumption (both total and specific).
Granted, from late 1941-late 1943, the BMW-powered Fw will still be a very competent fighter, whether historically or with feasible improvements.

In the ETO, very few people were fighting at below 1,500 meters.

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We still have MTO and Eastern front, plus fighter-bomber variants of the Fw 190 where the considerable power surplus of the BMW at low level is very much a good thing. The radial should be also more damage resistant.

The DB605 rating seems to be for the problematical 1.42ATA that wasn't securely available till October 1943. The DB605 has a higher compression ratio which means that it expands its combustion products over a greater distance of travel and is therefore more efficient at converting hot gases into kinetic energy. The downside, especially for a fighter, is that there is now less energy available for jet thrust. Furthermore the BMW801 reached 1900 and then over 2000hp 1943/44.

The Fw 190 was a much heavier aircraft than the Me 109 and Spitfire, I can't see it being competitive if equipped with a DB605 unless one is speaking of the 1944 water methanol injected ones or a possible version running on C3 96/125 fuel.

It needs a DB603, jumo 213 or possibly Jumo 222.

Interestingly some of the changes in technology from the DB601E to DB605A (such as changes in bearings) seem to have been a retrograde step that took a long time to debug. We would then have to ask as to whether a hypothetical DB603 that was not held up between 1937-1940 by Udet's decree is borrowing from 605 technology or DB601E technology.