He-118 Dive Bomber

[davebender]

An important bridge or fortress complex will almost certainly be protected by plenty of flak. They will be a tough nut to crack no matter how you attack them. None the less you still need to get the job done and accept heavy aircraft losses as part of the cost of overall victory. In the case of 1940 France, it would have been worth losing the entire French air force plus RAF Bomber Command if they could have destroyed German bridges over the Meuse River early on.

 

[Maximowitz]

In the case of 1940 France, it would have been worth losing the entire French air force plus RAF Bomber Command if they could have destroyed German bridges over the Meuse River early on.

I'm not sure the pilots and crew would have agreed with you on that one.

 

[parsifal]

An important bridge or fortress complex will almost certainly be protected by plenty of flak. They will be a tough nut to crack no matter how you attack them. None the less you still need to get the job done and accept heavy aircraft losses as part of the cost of overall victory. In the case of 1940 France, it would have been worth losing the entire French air force plus RAF Bomber Command if they could have destroyed German bridges over the Meuse River early on.

This was never going to happen. The sacrifices by the RAF ad the FAF were totally pointless. There were three crossings achieved for a start, not just the one, and additional bridging equipment was available even if one or two of the bridges had been destroyed. Knocking out one of the bridges might have cost the Germans 24 hours, not more.

This delay might have achieved something if the French were retreating in the North, but they werent. They were still pushing forward to their Dyle Line positions, or in some cases were there, and were now engaging the enemy. Once engaged, the allies found it ve4ry difficult to disengage, except if they accepted catastrophic losses of men and materiel.

Put simply, the battle was a whole package, not just about one aspect. Knocking out the bridges at Sedan would ahve achieved a measurable delay, nothing more. If the French had been prepared or able to move their considerable reserves to the Ardennes sector, they may have done something, but this would have taken days, in the case of the reserves in North Africa, many days.

The French campaign was a battle of lost opportunities, but the destruction of the bridges would not have smothered the opportunities for the Germans

 

[Civettone]

Someone raised the pont that attack aircraft are more immune to AA than divebombers, because they come in low.

This is a comment that just isnt supported by the facts.

In the context of the 1930's when the concept of the divebomber came to fruition, the French developed the concept of the attack bomber.....the so called "hedgehoppers". Whilst the aircraft used in this role were quite high in performance, for example the Bre 690 series, they suffered very badly from the effects of LAA. The Bre 690 for example suffered the heaviest loss rate of any modern French Bomber. A similar story exists for the poor old Fairey Battle (although to be fair the battles were not designed as hedgehoppers), which suffered horrendous loss rates when called upon to make attacks at zero altitude. The Soviet IL-2 wwere employed in a similar way, but they at least had the sense to heavily armour their bird, which to a degreee seemed to reduce the loss rate.....despite the hazardous nature of the work they were doing, it appears that they suffered the lowest loss rate of any Soviet bomber, or Fighter Bomber.

Vanir, I do ackowlwdge your comments about the relative protection of divebombers because they were outside the kill zones of the flak for al but a minimum of time. However, the facts are that German Divebombers did suffer heavy casualties to AA, as did the Japanese. I would surmise that the reason for this was that despite its short time in the kill zone, the Divebomber was nevertheless forced to fly on a predictable path in its descent, and in its recovery appears to be very vulnerable indeed, as the pilot is busy recovering from the g forces he and the aircraft have just been subjected to. The losses to Stukas in the Med in the med convoys show this....they suffered the heaviest casulaty rates to AA of any of the german types, by a very wide margin. Ju-88s were not nearly as effective as the Ju-87s, but they were also far more survivable. A good ship killer was the Me 110 incidentally. It does not seem to suffer any loss of accuracy simply because it was an FB "lash up"

Kris

 

[johnbr]

 

[Wurger]

 

[GregP]

The He 118 led directly to the Yokosuka D4Y series, which also had a tendency to not want to dive very steep. It succeeded becase the Japanese found a use for it other than dive-bombing. They turned it into a reconaissance aicraft that was fast and capable, and then added a reliable radial engine in the D4Y-3. I suspect the "fix" for the dive bombing woes would be coinsiderable, but if you didn't need it to actually dive bomb, it wasn't had at all.

To me, it kind of looks like a Barracuda that isn't as ugly. It led to:

which led to the radial version. Here is the one at the Planes of Fame taxiing for the crowd at an airshow:

Fun to work on since it was all "forensic" restoration, with no real plans to follow. We assembled it and bent the parts straight to get it to fit, then made new parts from the straightened ones. Some parts, particularly forward of the wing leading edge, were fabricated with no model to work with ... just drawings and old pictures. The main restorer was the very talented Duane Lundgren, though Bob Velker started the project for Ed Maloney. I helped Bob on the early fuselage work. We fabricated a turntable spindle so we could mount the fuselage and turn it along the longitudinal axis and Bob started skin replacement. My help was minor sheet metal ... mostly drilling original skin rivets out. Soon afterwards, Duane took over. it was a good move as Duane made rapid progress. He makes rapid progress one everything he works on. After this aicrazft, he restored a Luscombe for himself and flew away to new adventures. John Maloney did a good job leading the project, painting it and making the control surfaces and brakes, etc. work so it can taxi. He did the the systems design / install. These guys are good.

Maybe someday a bucket of money will magically appear and they can go back and make it flyable. Needs new longerons and a new wing spar, for sure! Meanwhile, it can taxi when they want it to do so.