German Bomber design rational

Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules

Since this thread is about bombers, and to emphasise the point made above, the Luftwaffe started its campaign against the Soviet Union with 200 fewer bombers than it had commenced operations in the West in 1940.
Murray summed up the consequences of German policy succinctly:
"Between July 1940 and December 1941, the Germans lost the air war over Europe for 1943 and 1944."
Cheers
Steve
 
Like I said a little earlier, Germeny did not fully prepare themselves for an all out war and didn't take production seriously until thier situation was dire. *HAD* they gone into full production in '37 or '38, then perhaps they might have been able to accomplish some of their goals. Instead, they were constantly short of men, materials and equipment and constantly working from behind. As it stands, their production peaked during 1944, even with bombs raining down on them constantly - which shows that they were more than capable of an all-out production, but this serious effort was far too late to make any difference at that stage of the war.

To give an idea of what the production numbers looked like, by year, visit this link (yes, I know it's wiki, but the numbers are solid and I don't have time to type it all out here): German aircraft production during World War II - Wikipedia

To also give an idea of what Germany was up against, the U.S. manufactured more aircraft in 1944 than all the other nations (Axis and Allied) combined.
 
they kept thinking they were going to completely crush their opponent and either completely conquer them or force them to sue for peace within a few weeks/months...and up to a point it worked.
 

As UK or SU, Germany lost and then rebuilt it's aircforce several times during the course of war. Germany lost the war (air war included) the very minute their leadership decided it will be a good idea to declare the war on the USA, while being involved in the 3-front war against 2 other empires/'empires'.
 

Yes, but whereas the Luftwaffe embarked, in the third year of war, on an invasion of the USSR, with roughly the same number of aircraft it had in early 1940, others, including the RAF were not just making good losses. They were expanding with the long term production and training programmes which the Luftwaffe did not have.
 
Making good the losses includes very much the production, along with purchase. Germany produced ~23200 aircraft in 1940 and '41 combined, the UK produced ~35100, the Soviet Union produced ~26300. Even discounting the part of 25000 aircraft produced in the USA that UK purchased, and allowing for UK to supply it's allies and have greater losses than Germany, it is obvious that Germany is more than 10000 (ten thousand) aircraft short just vs. the UK, both to cover the losses and to allow for expansion until the end of 1941.
 
It probably wasn't helpful for the Luftwaffe to build more bombers than fighters in 1941/42 - if you want to keep-up the numbers you also need sufficient fighters to protect the bombers.
 
Quirk is that Luftwaffe needs both, plus trainers, plus transports, plus what their Allies need if something is actually expected from them to contribute. In 1941, Germany plays role of both UK (fights & produces for itself and Allies) and Soviets (fighting in actual war) and of USA (production for it's and other nations, mostly UK, China, later USSR), and they can't even reach what UK is making.
Obvoiusly, any planing for increase of aircraft needs to take in account the increase of need for pilots and fuel, anf fuel is not just for operations but also for training.
 
Denniss said:
It probably wasn't helpful for the Luftwaffe to build more bombers than fighters in 1941/42 .
Click to expand...

It wasn't helpful, but could it be avoided? The Luftwaffe was trying, and failing, to make good the losses, largely incurred on the Eastern Front.
Commitments in the East meant that the Luftwaffe's bomber losses were running at between 10% and 20% of establishment every month from March until November that year, in December they peaked at 23.3%, almost one in four aircraft lost.

In terms of aircraft produced the US, Britain and the USSR (the latter with the best figures available) out produced Germany by a factor of 4.6 to 1. This ignores the Italian contribution. One of the fathers of operational research, Frederick Lanchester, in one of his best known equations*, has argued that to overcome a numerical handicap of 2 to 1 an armed force does not need to be twice as good as its enemy, as common sense suggests, but four times as good. Given the numerical disadvantage at which the Germans found themselves this would imply they needed a qualitative advantage of more than 20 to 1 in order to have any chance of prevailing.
I have said this before, but the real miracle is not how the Allies won the air war, but how the Axis powers were able to hold out for as long as they did.

Cheers

Steve

* See Lanchester's power laws.
 
Last edited:
parsifal said:
the allies had temporarily cracked the Uboat Enigma ciphers
Click to expand...

I was looking through 'Destroyer - An Anthology of First Hand Accounts of the War at Sea, 1939-1945' and came across an account, typically understated, of the capture of the enigma machine and other intelligence from U 110. It is from David Balme, the man who led the boarding party from HMS Bulldog. It is a long and full account, I quote just the portion relevant to enigma.

"Meanwhile the telegraphist found the W/T office in perfect condition: no one had so much as tried to destroy books and apparatus. Codebooks, signal logs, pay books and general correspondence were all intact. A coding machine, too, was plugged in as though it had been in use when abandoned.It resembled a typewriter, hence the telegraphist pressed the keys, and reported to me that the results were peculiar. The machine was secured by four ordinary screws, soon unscrewed and sent up the hatch to the motor boat alongside.
At about 1430 hours, when we had been aboard for about two hours, I was sitting at the Captain's desk eating a sandwich sent over from Bulldog and going through all the papers when I came across a sealed envelope. It turned out to be the June settings for the coding machine, the Enigma. The May settings were probably in Lemp's pocket when he perished. Later the July settings were captured from the German trawler Lauenberg."

Luck? Yes, but you can make your own luck.

Edit: I'll qualify this. Sub-Lieutenant Balme, who led the boarding party was Gunnery Control Officer on Bulldog. U-110 was forced to the surface by two patterns of depth charges, dropped by Aubretia, appearing about 400 yards from Bulldog, who opened fire on the U-boat with every gun available.
Balme again

"In those days we didn't have sophisticated control systems. My job was as Gunnery Control Officer was to call up the three 4.7 inch guns on my telephone headset, give the gun crew a bearing and range and tell them to open fire independently.
The noise was deafening, especially from our Lewis guns which were being fired from the bridge over our heads by anyone who could pick them up. However, it was undoubtedly the noise of all the shells and bullets hitting the U-boat which panicked the German crew, who all jumped overboard as fast as they could without successfully scuttling it."

And that is how you make your own luck

Historian John McCormick would write in 2000 of that day, with the benefit of hindsight.

"That German slogan from earlier wars. 'Got mit Uns', was put in question by the apparent coincidences of 9 May 1941. If God was with anyone that day, He was with the British."

Cheers

Steve
 
Last edited:
Capture of the U-110 enigma machine was very important, but it was not the first such machine to have been captured, not even the first Naval Enigma with the extra security features that had completely stumped Bletchley Park to that point. It was nevertheless sheer dumb luck as to how the British managed to secure a fully functioning version of the machine. The rotors were still missing when the machine was captured. A member of the crew had uplifted them and had them in his pocket when the British stormed aboard. the accounts I have read suggest the germans tried to dispose of these vital parts, but were prevented from doing so as the RN sailors wrestled them to the deck and prised the rotors from their fingers. German crewmen were shot in the boarding, we dont know why exactly but im willing to bet it had something to do with all of that.

The capture of the code setting did give the British a very temporary look into the vital Uboat codes, but it lasted only a few weeks. A far more significant event occurred with the capture of various weather ships before and after the U-110 episode.

RN people died recovering the u-110 stuff and the importance of the capture was known. the british (not the sailors doing the search, but certainly their commanders) knew that it was vital to secure this information. In that sense it was anything but luck, but in the sense of being able to grab the information before it was tossed over the side, it was just down to luck. even more luck dependant was that BDU did not cotton onto to what was happening as the british had to capture german ships of different types several times. it was lucky that the german did not realise what was happening. indeed, such was their confidence in their codes that they believed that even with an ENIGMA machine captured, the british would not be able to make much use of it. The british sank an enormous amount of resources to prove that assumption wrong.
 
German restrictions on numbers isn't just, or even mainly, a function of production. bombers in particular were limited by the training establishment supporting the front line forces and compared to the opponents German training resources were extremely weak.

Most of the instructors used to train bomber aircrew were exceptionally well trained and experienced pilots, who happened to use Ju-52s as their primary training mount. this aircraft was also use as the main transport type for the LW flown by these same instructors. Over the low countries losses in these units was very heavy, such losses continued throughout the first year of Barbarossa . at Stalingrad, the instructors were almost wiped out in the relief effort, leaving the LW with no choice other than to scale back its bomber training and expansion programs.

of course the shortages, particularly of fuel played a big part in this developing crisis.

For the fighter arm, the replacement program was mostly constrained by fuel shortages. The first part of LW operations to be curtailed by this was their training program. This led to the disastrous decision of shifting advanced training out to the units themselves....pilots would be thrown in at the deep end and learn the hard way. Worked if your opponent was a pilot with only 20 or 30 hrs experience himself, but against a more experienced opponent, the rookie LW pilot was just cannon fodder.
 
U-110 is just a part of a wider drama that led to the cracking of the U-boat ciphers. this is an extract from the "This day In the War in Europe' thread

"CLs EDINBURGH, MANCHESTER, and BIRMINGHAM after covering ML Opn SN.9 A met DDs SOMALI, RAN NESTOR, BEDOUIN, and ESKIMO, which had just refuelled at Skaalefjord, for Operation EB to search for a German weather vessel.
On the 7th, weather ship MUNCHEN (Ger 306 grt) was captured off Iceland. The British cryptologist Harry Hinsley then working at Bletchley Park realised at the end of April 1941 that the German weather ships, were using the same ENIGMA code books as were being used on the U Boats. The trawlers, which were transmitting weather reports to the Germans, were in turn being sent naval Enigma messages.

Although the weather ships did not transmit enciphered weather reports on ENIGMA machines, they still needed to have one of the machines on board if they were to decode the ENIGMA signals transmitted to them. Hinsley realised that if the code books could be captured from one of these vulnerable trawlers, the naval ENIGMA system could be broken, with British intelligence able to decipher messages to U-boats and discover their locations. The problem remained that if the navy were to attempt to capture one of the weatherships, the German crew would have time to throw their current Enigma settings into the sea before they were boarded. Hinsley instead reasoned that the following month's ENIGMA settings would be locked in a safe aboard the ship, and could be overlooked if the Germans were forced to hastily abandon ship. On being informed, the RN despatched seven ships to the NE of Iceland at the beginning of May 1941. The target was the MUNCHEN, one of the weather ships operating in the area. In the course of the raid, the weather ship, and the ENIGMA settings for June 1941 were captured. As a result, naval ENIGMA messages transmitted during June 1941 could be quickly deciphered.

Halfway through June 1941 the Germans replaced the "bigram" tables used in ENIGMA. This would have resulted in a code breaking blackout unless further settings could be captured. Hinsley and the Admiralty were concerned that capturing another weather ship might alert the Germans to their vulnerability and cause them to immediately alter them again. It was eventually decided to take the risk and on 25 June 1941 four warships were despatched to capture the codebooks from the LAUERNBURG, another weather ship operating north of Iceland, which Hinsley had selected. Among the mass of charts and signaling papers naval intelligence office Allan Baker discovered some vital information; he had come across three loose sheets that Hinsley had hoped he would find. Two of these were headed Steckerverbindungen (plug connections) and one was a list of the Innere Finstellung (inner settings) i.e.: the ENIGMA wheel order, and the settings for the rings around the wheels that could be altered only by fiddling around inside the ENIGMA machine. It was thanks to these documents that naval ENIGMA messages were read throughout the remainder of 1941".
 
I have Baker-Creswell's official report, to Greenock, dated 10th May 1941, on the action during which U-110 was captured.

There is no mention of any British casualties from his ship (Bulldog).

As far as the attack on the surfaced U-boat, he reported.

"Fire was immediately opened by 4.7 inch, 3 inch, 2 pounder pom-pom and stripped Lewis guns. One 3 inch shell struck the conning tower and men were seen abandoning the submarine. Fire was ceased by the heavier guns but the men were speeded on their way by small arms fire. HMS Broadway was then seen to be about to ram. The submarine turned stern on to her and Broadway only grazed the submarine and in doing so her port forward fuel tank holed. She dropped a depth charge close to the submarine's bow. Oil covered the water.
HMS Bulldog stopped within 100 yards of the submarine and sent away an armed whaler's crew. No sign of a white flag was seen and two men appeared to be manning the submarine's forward gun. Fire was again opened by the Lewis gun and two or three men were hit. My object was to keep the crew rattled. They already appeared dazed and uncertain what to do.By the time the whaler was alongside the submarine, the whole crew appeared to have jumped into the water.....The crew [of the whaler] found the conning tower hatch closed. They opened it and went below without delay. (Their orders were to seize all books and anything that looked important.) Shortly afterwards they signalled that the U-boat had been abandoned, and appeared sound and in no danger of sinking. I therefore decided to take her in tow and passed her a 3" wire."

The report gives further detail of actions that day and makes the point that various parties, including Bulldog's Engineering Officer were sent to U-110 to facilitate the tow. The final party left the submarine at 1830 hours, some six hours after she had surfaced.

There were no confrontations on the U-boat. The boarding party was led by Sub-Lieutenant Balme and comprised six seamen, a stoker and a signalman. Whilst they made their way to the U-boat, Aubretia picked up the 34 (32?) surviving Germans. 15 seems to be the agreed figure for those lost, including Lemp. I have seen it claimed that he was shot either swimming back to, or re-boarding his boat in an attempt to scuttle it, but there is no such account in any contemporary British record.
The boarding party found the U-boat abandoned. Balme wrote in his official report.

"As no small arms fire was opened up on the whaler from the U-boat, I was fairly confident that there was no one in the conning tower. This proved correct after having entered the conning tower through the opening on starboard side. The hatch down was closed tight. This hatch was 18" to 24" in diameter, spherical surface with wheel for screwing down; on unscrewing this, the hatch sprung open as soon as a clip was released.
I went down the ladder to the lower conning tower where there was a similar closed hatch. On opening this hatch I found the control room deserted, hatches leading forward and aft were open and all lighting was on. On the deck there was a large splinter from the conning tower. There was a slight escape of air in the control room but no sign of chlorine gas so gas masks which had been taken were now discarded. So also were the revolvers which now seemed more of a danger than an asset.
The U-boat had obviously been abandoned in great haste as books and gear were strewn about the place. A chain of men was formed to pass up all books, charts, etc. As speed was essential owing to the possibility of the U-boat sinking (although dry throughout), I gave orders to send up ALL books...."

Much later, and more dramatically Balme would recall.

"I climbed the conning tower, and at the top I took my Webley revolver out of its holster, I'd never fired it in my life.
I'm still haunted by my climb down that last vertical ladder, 15 feet into the bowels of U-110, now with the revolver holstered. I felt there must be someone below trying to open the sea cocks, or setting the detonating charges, but no one was there. There must have been complete panic in U-110, and she was left to us as the greatest prize of the war. But I still wake up at night 56 years later to find myself going down that ladder."

Reading these and other reports, it is clear that a combination of the initial depth charge attack by Aubretia (which forced the U-boat to surface), the depth charging and attempted ramming by Broadway and the heavy attack by Bulldog cause the German crew to panic. With the resulting loss of discipline no attempts were made to destroy any of the secret documents or equipment on the U-boat, nor to resist the British boarding party, as every man tried to save himself.

Cheers

Steve
 
Last edited:
Was there ever any discussion in Germany about whether weather ships and U boats were being targeted for enigma code books? That is how you make your own good or bad luck.
 
I don't know about the Germans, they never believed the code(s) had been broken. In the case of the U-110 the Germans survivors were deliberately hurried below decks to prevent them seeing the fate of their vessel.
The British most definitely did target such vessels. Lauenburg, mentioned earlier, was specifically targeted for this reason, though it could not be made to seem so. The British too trod a fine line, not wishing to do anything which would disclose to the Germans that the code(s) were compromised. If they charged around the North Atlantic seizing meteorological vessels willy-nilly, then the Germans would surely have noticed something was afoot.

Cheers

Steve
 
That was the point I was making, certain aspects require luck, you cannot really guarantee depth charging a U Boat but not sinking it. With every vessel lost containing enigma code books the Germans should have become more suspicious to the point of paranoia but they didnt. That is where it ceases to be luck, the British were using a strategy that the Germans were not aware of but should have considered. I believe some mine laying operations "gardening" were also part of the strategy, aircraft detected were reported by enigma but using a specific set of codes, encoding a known code is exactly what you shouldnt do with a code set up.
 
pbehn said:
That was the point I was making, certain aspects require luck, you cannot really guarantee depth charging a U Boat but not sinking it. With every vessel lost containing enigma code books the Germans should have become more suspicious.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. I think that they were over confident in their codes and never seriously considered that they might be compromised, even when evidence to the contrary was available. Like all intelligence, it is the interpretation rather than the raw data that is so important. Maybe the Germans saw what they wanted to see (coincidence) rather than facing up to an unpalatable possibility (that the codes were being broken). It was a massive task to change codes in the middle of a war, as the British knew only too well.
Cheers
Steve
 
From what I read the Germans were not surprised that the code was broken, they thought that breaking it could be done but would take so long that the information would be almost useless, they were astounded at huge numbers being intercepted and decoded in real time rather than the odd message figured out after two weeks.

Maybe it was just self interest, after selling a code that cannot be broken to Adolfs regime it may have been easier to pretend it wasnt being broken than admit that it could be.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 1 (members: 0, guests: 1)

Similar threads

Japanese torpedo bomber design
2
Replies
28
Views
3K
marathag
M
USSBS german bomber production?
Replies
7
Views
1K
Barrett
B
German WW2 seaplane bases
Replies
1
Views
591
Dimlee
S
Design and properties of the Spitfire Mk. 21+ wing
2 3 4
Replies
64
Views
6K
Jabberwocky
J
Alternative German tanks & AFVs
6 7 8
Replies
152
Views
6K
yulzari
Menu
Log in
Register