Hardest to destroy

[ralphwiggum]

Which of these 3 German bombers were the hardest to shoot down during the Battle of Britain The He-111
Do.17 or JU-88?
Sorry to bother everyone

 

[davebender]

Do-17 and He-111 were originally designed as cargo aircraft for Lufthansa.

Ju-88 was designed from beginning as a light bomber. Consequently aircrew had significant armor protection. Fuel tanks, oil coolers and various other critical components had better protection then you find in converted civilian aircraft.

 

[Procrastintor]

Well the JU-88 was probably the best armored, but the HE-111 was pretty tough too I believe, I'll look into it real quick.

 

[Glider]

The Ju88 for the reasons mentioned above plus, it was faster and Hurricanes often found it difficult to catch an 88 once it had dropped its bombs

 

[Procrastintor]

Actually, according to a forum I just read (though I didn't verify it), the HE 111 was better armored, link below:
He 111 vs JU 88
I am not a member on that forum so I do not know how knowledgable the answers are, but yeah. Also, the HE-111 was NOT a cargo plane, it was just "disguised" as that before WW2.

 

[davebender]

Did He-111H surround aircrew with an armored cocoon? That's certainly not a feature you would find on original civilian version of He-111.

 

[Procrastintor]

Thats true, dave.

 

[cherry blossom]

I suspect that there are two effects which tended to balance out in 1940. The Ju 88 was faster and was hard for a Hurricane to catch as it made a shallow dive back to France after dropping its bombs. However, the Ju 88 A-1 was hard to land with one engine. By contrast, the He 111 was relatively easy to fly even after it had taken some damage. It seems that Milch collected a dossier of criticism of the Ju 88 in which the problems of asymmetric landing were the most serious issue. However, the Ju 188 which addressed the problem was very slow into production.

 

[Juha]

Did He-111H surround aircrew with an armored cocoon? That's certainly not a feature you would find on original civilian version of He-111.

An armoured cocoon in Ju 88A-1? He 111H was a bit different than the 111C. All 3 had their strong points, Ju 88A-1 was the fastest but most difficult to fly, that had its significance if one engine was shot up, He 111s and Do 17Z were easy planes to fly, Do 17Z had air cooled radials, so its engines were less suspectible to .303 fire than the liquid-cooled inline engines in Ju and He.

Juha

 

[Shortround6]

Did He-111H surround aircrew with an armored cocoon? That's certainly not a feature you would find on original civilian version of He-111.

I see you have bought into the German Propaganda as to what the He-111 was.

First prototype flew Feb 24,1935 He 111a (small 'a'), it was a bomber. It was followed 16 days later by the He 111c, this was the 'transport' version, followed quickly by the He 111c, the 2nd bomber prototype. These aircraft were later designated as the He 111 V1, V3 and V2, reason for the switch of the last two may be unknown. The V-4 was the first aircraft reveled to the public and was a transport. It was demonstrated to the press Jan 10, 1936 Several months after Heinkel started work on a series of 10 'A' (big "A") bombers, powered by BMW V-12s they were slow and under powered and later sold to the Chinese and not as transports. The V5 was flying in early 1936 with DB 600 engines and the improvement was enough for the RLM not only to order a batch of "B" sereis bombers in early 1936 but to give orders for a new plant at Oranienburg to be built specifically for He 111 production. SIX transport "C" versions left the factory starting the summer of 1936 and by the end of 1936 DLH decided they were too expensive and not economical enough for airline service. Not exactly a big surprise if you compare a He 111 transport to a Lockheed 10 or DC-2.

The He 111 was a bomber you could cram up to 10 passengers in. It was a lousy design for a transport. Compare it even to a Boeing 247 which flew 2 years earlier.

 

[wiking85]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinkel_He_111_operational_history#Battle_of_Britain

The He 111 and Ju 88 were equal in performance in all but speed, in which the Ju 88 was faster. The Do 17 was also faster, but lacked the heavy bomb load capabilities of the Ju 88 and He 111.[29] During the Battle of Britain the Heinkels ability to take heavy punishment was one of its strengths and it suffered less losses than the Ju 88. The battle highlighted the need for heavier defensive armament and effective fighter protection by the Messerschmitt Bf 109 and Messerschmitt Bf 110 units if losses were to be kept to sustainable levels.[29]

The concentration of most of the crew in the glass nose made the He 111 vulnerable to concentrated fire from a head-on attack.[29]

 

[DonL]

Both the He 111 and Do 17 were from the beginning military developments and advertisements, the civilian line's were only for camouflage nothing else.

 

[davebender]

That's hardly a fair comparison.

He-111H was a mature, fully debugged aircraft. Ju-88A1 was original model (production began fall 1939) and still had technical problems which needed to be fixed.

 

[Aozora]

Apparently the Do 17's radial engines made it harder to shoot down than is generally recognised; according to Dr Alfred Price, The Hardest Day:

The Dornier 17 had air-cooled engines...far less vulnerable to enemy fire. This was one of the factors which would enable the Dorniers to regain friendly territory, despite taking some remarkable battle damage.

I wouldn't be too surprised if it turned out that the different strengths of each type meant that their loss ratios were similar; the Do 17 was reasonably tough and had radial engines; the Ju 88 had speed and toughness on its side while the He 111 was also pretty strong and reasonably fast. All had self-sealing fuel tanks and reasonable armour protection by the B of B.

 

[drgondog]

If you use 355FG records the single toughest LW multi engine a/c to shoot down was the Do 217. It is characterized by multiple partial victory credits - unlike Me 110, 210, 410, Ju 88 and he 111 and 177. All the latter seemed to go down with one a/c attacking.

Only mentioned because of the lineage

 

[GrauGeist]

If you use 355FG records the single toughest LW multi engine a/c to shoot down was the Do 217. It is characterized by multiple partial victory credits - unlike Me 110, 210, 410, Ju 88 and he 111 and 177. All the latter seemed to go down with one a/c attacking.

Defensive armament was certainly NOT one of the Luftwaffe bomber's strong points. This is not to say there was a lack of trying but they sure couldn't put down a defensive fire like the Allied bombers could.

 

[Juha]

That's hardly a fair comparison.

He-111H was a mature, fully debugged aircraft. Ju-88A1 was original model (production began fall 1939) and still had technical problems which needed to be fixed.

The question was on the the timeframe of the BoB, so 88A-1 is the version we are talking about. With 111H-3 and 17Z. All these got more armour during the BoB but the level of protection stayed more or less same between them, maybe 17Z suffered somewhat having the weakest load-carrying ability.

 

[DonL]

If you use 355FG records the single toughest LW multi engine a/c to shoot down was the Do 217. It is characterized by multiple partial victory credits - unlike Me 110, 210, 410, Ju 88 and he 111 and 177. All the latter seemed to go down with one a/c attacking.

Here it would be very interesting if it were Do 217 with BMW 801 or Do 217 with DB 603 engines, to get an overview inline engine versus radial engine.

 

[Gixxerman]

For the BoB I have read that the He 111 carried the heaviest load was tough able to stand a lot of damage, the Ju 88 was fast highly capable medium bomber (but for it to carry its heaviest loads meant external carriage which cut speed range...not so sure if that applies so much to the BoB tho) but did suffer from being so new and that Do 17 was a fast difficult plane to catch but carried a light load.

It's beyond question that the He 111 the Do 17 were always bombers first revealed to the world as civilian aircraft in a bare-faced knowing lie.
It also seems history shows nobody, bar those who wanted to believe, was fooled.

 

[davebender]

Didn't work for WWI era British battle cruisers.

However speed makes a good substitute for defensive gun turrets on a bomber. That was the WWII German approach.