FW 200 Condor

Siegfried said:

...hence even the aircraft of the Graf Spee aircraft carrier were to be opperated by the Luftwaffe...

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The DKM Admiral Graf Spee was a heavy cruiser...

Perhaps you were thinking of the DKM Graf Zeppelin?

GrauGeist said:

The DKM Admiral Graf Spee was a heavy cruiser...

Perhaps you were thinking of the DKM Graf Zeppelin?

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Yes, that's what I meant. I've corrected my initial post.

The B17E first flight was September 1941, this was the first version with tail guns. The Lancaster entered service in early 1942. So it has to be kept in context that no one really had anything much better than the FW 200 till late 1941. Even the Shorts Stirling didn't achieve opperational capabillity till Jan 1941 and it borrowed the wings, tail empenage and engines from the Shorts Sunderland flying boat.

The He 177 was ambitious and built to the role but it wasn't really reasonably debugged untill late 1943, too late to make a difference. Had the aircraft been built with 4 seperate DB601/DB605 engines etc its likely the aircraft could have achieved reliable service sometime in 1942, even late 1942 would have been helpfull to the u-boats. With this engine arrangment facilitating interchange with more powerfull engines.

A proper 'thinking through' probably would have lead to a different pallet of aircraft than that actually used.

The Fw-200 proved to be a very capable transport aircraft. The seven Fw-200s which participated in the Stalingrad airlift averaged 5 tons of cargo delivered per trip. 7 cargo aircraft are a drop in the bucket compared to what was needed. But it gives an idea what might have been accomplished if Germany had several hundred Fw-200 transport aircraft.

Price isn't a problem either as the Fw-200 was relatively inexpensive. 273,500 RM each @ a production rate of only four aircraft per month. Put the Fw-200 into mass production (i.e. at least 50 per month) and the price per aircraft should drop well below 250,00 RM. Less then the cost of the smaller American made C-47.

Oh the wonders of German aviation, so with 4 engines the FW-200 could only lift less than 1000 lbs more than a C-47, with both aircraft at max overload. The C-47 could carry 28 combat equipped troops, the Fw-200 30 troops. Two more engines to carry two more troops, wow.

Plus the BMW engines the Fw had burned about 15% more fuel per hour per engine than the C-47's engines.

If the Luftwaffe had more Fw-200 doing their heavy cargo, they'd have run out of fuel even quicker.

The C-47 was a bargain at any price.

some numbers for discussion. fw200 c1 from 1940 and c47 from 1942

The figures I've seen max take off weight for the C-47 was 31,000 lbs, empty weight 18,135. About a 12,800 lift, fuel, oil, cargo and crew.
For the Fw-200 max take off weight 50,057 lbs. empty weight 37,490. About a 12,550 lift, fuel, oil, cargo and crew.

I posted out of the pilots manual of both aircraft. Where did you see yours? Could you place a link or picture of it? Just to get some factual data in on the discussion.

24 different airlines purchased new DC-3 aircraft. 28 different airlines purchased new Ju-52 aircraft. It's safe to say both aircraft were an outstanding success. Not at any price but because they were considered cost effective.

As for the Fw-200, we will never know as WWII ended commercial sales just as they were beginning. But given the low price tag I think it would have sold well for airlines that operated long distance flights.

I'm not much on the cut and paste, but I can give several websites. Of course Wikipedia, and several other sites just reuse their info. But some independant sites are boeing.com aviationtriviainfo.com douglasc-47.com highlandlakessquadron.com pwencyclkgbudge.com.

Those last two sites list it max allowed take off weight as 33,000 lb.

davebender, me and you both know those prices could not stay the same in a normal competitive world economy.

tyrodtom said:

The figures I've seen max take off weight for the C-47 was 31,000 lbs, empty weight 18,135. About a 12,800 lift, fuel, oil, cargo and crew.
For the Fw-200 max take off weight 50,057 lbs. empty weight 37,490. About a 12,550 lift, fuel, oil, cargo and crew.

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I think that data is wrong or simply for the FW 200 in its maritime bomber configuration: guns, armour, self sealing fuel tanks, ventral gondala for bomb aimer, two gunners and a bomb bay. This site gives 28500lbs empty for the bomber version:
http://www.flugzeuginfo.net/acdata_php/acdata_fockewulf_fw200_en.php

I think you're right, I don't guess it's quite fair to compare a the C-47 in it's straight cargo version, to a Fw-200 converted to a maritime bomber.

The DC-3 may have been over built a bit which allowed for a later change in gross weight or "overload".

The Fw 200 may have been underbuilt just bit which lead to later structural failures and probably limited it's ability to be overloaded to the same extent.

I would note that this meant that the DC-3 was lugging around extra weight when operated at normal take-off weights which meant that it wasn't quite as profitable as it could have been. I would also note that the FW 200 had been intended for very long range use and needed save every pound it could of structural weight.

Stress analyses was still in it's infancy in the early/mid 30s and some aircraft designers didn't even have college degrees. Some small companies had ONE "stress" man. Some designers/companies allowed for more of a "fudge" factor than others . A wing failure of a Fokker aircraft that killed Knute Rockne (TWA 599) lead to a number of US regulations for commercial aircraft ( no wooden construction, multiple engines) in addition to near bankruptcy for TWA and the near elimination of Fokker as presence in US aviation. Some may have thought in regards to construction that a little too strong was better than a little too light. The bad publicity from a structural failure could end a company. While there were government mail contracts that was the extent of the subsidy. There was no US government airline or partnership or "national" airline.

The FW 200 may have never been given a proper upgrading. It seems to have always been seen as an interim solution, to bought and used in the smallest possible numbers while the NEXT GREAT airplane was being worked on. This meant changes were held to an absolute minimum. Perhaps more of a commitment would have lead to a more thorough redesign and eliminated some of the problems or allowed for higher gross weights.

Operating in an over load condition lengthens take-offs, reduces climb rates and ceilings (flying overloaded over the Himalayas was probably not done often, at least at 29-33,000lb over loads figures) and is harder on the landing gear, tires and brakes. Some commercial aircraft (including DC-3s) were OK'ed for higher gross weights after modification or upon application after successful service at existing weights and engineering studies/tests at higher weights. It sometimes took several years to get a gross weight raised.

The FW 200C structural problems are generally assigned to metal fatique caused not only by heavier loading but by the consistant heavy combat manouvers it performed in agressive low level bomb runs and sometimes in combat with enemy aircraft. Persistant low level flying in often in rough weather added further fatque cycles. The aircraft was strengthened somewhat in the militerised C0 version and again in the C3 but still could suffer a broken back in a heavy landing. The DC-3 never was called upon to perform this kind of roll so we can really compare. It's worth noting that the maritime recon version was built to a Japanese spec.

The FW 200 was a much larger more powerfull aircraft than the DC3 that could carry several times larger loads and loads over twice the distance. In 1938 a Lufthana FW 200B made the first non stop flight from Berlin to New York and back, the company wanted to open regular flights but was prevented by the Roosvelt administration. Physically the cabin was perhaps not much bigger than the DC3 but the FW had been designed for a different roll; that of long range airliner for routes at least twice the distance the DC3 was optimal for.

It was an unsuitable reconaisance bomber but all that could be had. It soldiered on beyond what it should have due to the slowness of He 177 development and when finally replaced (more supplemented) it was in a double irony replaced by the Ju 290: another airliner/transport that traced its direct lineage, even to actual sheet metal to the Ju 89 bomber that was cancelled in 1938 due to a lack of suitable engines.

The aircraft would have been better built in numbers to assuage the incredible logistics challenges the German military faced: It is 1380 miles from the rather eastern city of Berlin to Stalingrad (Volgograd now) and 2080 miles to Omsk and that's only half way across! It is 1000 miles Berlin to Tunis. Even the trip across the Mediteranean to Nth Africa from Italy could have used this aircraft. However as a long range transport I think the Ju 252 trounced even the FW 200 however the FW 200 could actually have been available in reasonable numbers.

Its fairly obvious the German military simply did not plan for the kind of war they ended up fighting.

It's pure conjecture, a personal theory (I've a good library tho), but I believe the prussian field marshals/colonel-generals actually believed in 1939 that the scope of permanent conquest would be a central european area plus the ukraine, no more. I think they genuinely believed this until hitler started sacking them, then they turned serious about assassinating him. Particularly in Feb43 when they realised he intended to replace the heer with waffen and to "bin the kriegsmarine" (his own words). In mid 43 the general staff were finally referring to hitler as insane, for the first time openly in their diaries.

The Ju-252 was an impressive aircraft. Unfortunately RLM wrecked the program by denying it the required Jumo-211 engines. Just as RLM wrecked the Fw-187 and He-100 programs by denying them the required DB601 engines.

As Richard Overy now point out, even the invasion/occupation of Poland wasn't planed and tactics and policies had to be made up on the fly.

The German military was set up to defend itself against Poland and France; they were the threat only a stones throw away. At one point in the late 1920s/early 30s Germany had only 50 aircraft on the Luftwaffe and 50,000 troops. France or Poland, acting alone could have easily defeated Germany in that situation and France actually did when it occupied the Rhineland. The nightmare scenario was a simultaneous French, Polish and Lithuanian attack. At the time Suddeten Germans (who had bordered Germany but were part of Austria-Hungary prior to WW1 but were incorporated along with unwilling Slovaks into Czechoslovakia) were being sacked at the rate of 50,000 railway employees, seemed to be denied public service work and larger land holdings were reposseded by the Government and redistributed to non Suddten Germans. Much the same in Poland. It's likely that things were roughly the way Hitler said: he had an issue with Poland, offered her a treaty against Russia in return for railway and autobahn access to Danzig (now Gdansk) and when he couldn't get a treaty (possibly due to British backing) he went to plan B which was the opposit: a treaty with the USSR against Poland. There are many Russian historians now, not just Suvorov who now agree that Stalin was planning an invasion of Western Europe though most now think that the buildup for an attack in 1941 failed its deadlines wildly and had to be rescheduled for 42. Whether true or not if present day Russian academics can beleve it than Hitler certainly could think it likely as well.

There is not point building strategic bomber and transports to harrass Britain if French Polish tanks and troops are already in Saarbrucken and the Rhineland and harrasing Berlin. In that context high speed fighters, medium bombers and dive bombers make sense as does a cheap but inefficient transport aircraft that works well at delivering cargo over a radious of 220 miles or so.

Lets not get too deep in revisionist history here.
At one point in the 1930s Germany had one of the largest air forces in world. Maybe if they hadn't spent so much money on He 51s and Arado 68s and the like they would have had a bit more money to spend on a newer transport than a 1920's hold over. In 1935 England barley had a squadron of bombers that could reach Germany. AS for a "strategic" bomber, it was a matter of context. With France as an enemy I would note that is further from Strasbourg to Marseilles than it is from Bonn to London. If the Germans had built a bomber that could reach Bordeaux from Germany they would have had one that could reach Southampton, Bristol, Birmingham and Manchester from Germany. And guess what? they had such a plane. The HE 111. When moved into France it was able to reach Belfast. In the late 1930s NOBODY had more than a handful of bombers that could carry more than 2 tons of bombs more than 6-700 miles.

I don't think I'm being too revisionist here; expecially if someone like Overy acknowledges tentatively that the Nazi government didn't really have an organised plan to invade Poland. It stumbled into it; sure it was agressive triggered by ethnic tensions as much and it was rearming rapidly, but the experience of being helpless with a French Army in the Rhineland had something to do with that as well. Anyway the point is that there was no plan to fight Britain in anything but a vague secondary way. Land war with Poland and France is what the problem was and where the priority lay. Attacking Germany by air did preoccupy the RAF; hence we have no less than 3 types able to do so (Halifax, Lancaster/Machester, Stirling and to a lessor extent Whitley and Wellington. If the Germans were at all serious more than just Heinkel would be tendering the He 177 for Bomber A, not to mention its maritime roll.

I take your point regarding distances: however do you really think that with the French army trundling its Char B's into the Saarland hoping to add it to Metropolitan France along with Elsass and Loire that the Luftwaffe would a/ Want to bomb Marselais or the vinyards of Bordeux with an inaccurate level bombers or b/ have tactical aircraft to support its frontline troops?

I also can't see a bombers flying Bonn to London: it means overflying Holland which is not a sure bet unless the Dutch agree or get invaded. You have to fly out from Bremen, thereabouts, which is a longer over water flight.

Perhaps so if you count all the transport and training aircraft but the 1939 Luftwaffe had little in the way of offensive capability.

The Versailles Treaty limilted the German armed forces to 100,000, a very well known stipulation, can you verify in any way that their numbers ever got down to 50,000 Siegfried?
And there was no Luftwaffe during the 20's, the treaty allowed NO armed aircraft.

What the treaty allowed, and what Germany actually did was two different things. When Hitler formally stated Germany would no longer confine itself by the limits set down by the Treaty of Versailles, it was just a statement of fact as to what had already been going on for years.