He.177 combat history

Gixxerman · Nov 25, 2011

Indeed Njaco......just like the ability to go into a shallow dive vacant hostile airspace, after all that trouble messing around with diving an aircraft that size I suppose you can at least say they got something tangible for it!

The one plane from the family I'd love to know more about was the He 274, if there's such a thing as Germany's B29 this was it.
The French built the prototypes as AAS 01A (and I believe there was a 2nd as AAS 01B).
Some performance data is noted in the Smith Creek book, 360mph @ 36,000 and a ceiling of 46,922ft when run with DB603A-2 engines and the Hirth 9-2281 turbo-superchargers.
Presuming the load carrying abilities at least match the 177 that would make for one very dangerous enemy plane.
Happily the chances of it being made in numbers in the 2nd half of the war - or Germany at that stage having the fuel to train, work up and fly on a significan number of operations - were pretty much zero.

vikingBerserker · Nov 25, 2011

...and the French used them into the 50's then scrapped them.. DOH!!!!

tyrodtom · Nov 25, 2011

Gixxerman said:
Having a bit of an interest in the Greif myself, I have the J Richard Smith Eddie J Creeks book 'Heinkel He 177 Greif Heinkel's Strategic Bomber' and the Manfred Griehl Joachm Dressel book 'Heinkel He 177, 277 274' and whilst each talks about significant improvements being made by the A3 version each seems to agree that the A5 was 'the cure'.
However even with the A5 they both talk about fires continuing to plague the aircraft.
I suppose it has to be remembered that sabotage was also a constant factor German crew just had to live with.

Maybe their cure was not quite the cure they thought it to be, it a little too easy to blame the continuance of the same problem on sabotage.

Sagittario64 · Nov 25, 2011

Well it doesnt matter how big your bombs are, you have to hit the target. you have a better chance of hitting the target with 10 500lb bombs than 2 2500kg bombs

Njaco · Nov 25, 2011

anybody thinking Scharnhorst and Gneisnau on that one?

Sagittario64 · Nov 25, 2011

if the thing about the 2 2500kg bombs on the wings alone are true, then wouldnt that make the he.177(including in this assessment that the he.177 could also carry mines, and anti-ship missiles) the bomber with the second best payload of a wwii bomber(one that actually was mass produced and used operationally, im sure several prototypes had much larger bomb loads), after the b-29?

Hop · Nov 25, 2011

Bombs are normally carried externally when they won't fit internally. 2 5,500 lbs bombs isn't a bad load, but bear in mind Lancaster routinely carried 14,000 lbs internally, could routinely carry a 12,000 bomb (more than 1,000 dropped during the war) and probably averaged more than 11,000 lbs per bombing sortie.

wuzak · Nov 25, 2011

Sagittario64 said:
Well it doesnt matter how big your bombs are, you have to hit the target. you have a better chance of hitting the target with 10 500lb bombs than 2 2500kg bombs

But what's the point if 500lb bombs do insufficient damage?

The USAAF tended to use smaller bombs in large quantities using similar thinking to yours. But it meant that for many targets that repairs were relatively easy, and thus had to be hit repeatedly.

wuzak · Nov 25, 2011

Sagittario64 said:
.50 cals always seem to beat 20mm cannon.

How so?

wuzak · Nov 25, 2011

It would have been interesting to see what the He177 would have been capable of doing had more reliable engines been available.

Unfortunately the alternative engines weren't going so well either. The Jumo 222 was also unreliable and never made it to production, The DB604 was less powerful, and cancelled. The DB603 was less powerful and running late.

Tante Ju · Nov 25, 2011

Hop said:
Bombs are normally carried externally when they won't fit internally. 2 5,500 lbs bombs isn't a bad load, but bear in mind Lancaster routinely carried 14,000 lbs internally, could routinely carry a 12,000 bomb (more than 1,000 dropped during the war) and probably averaged more than 11,000 lbs per bombing sortie.

I doubt Lancaster can carry two 5,500 lbs bombs in bomb bay either. Bomb of such size are simple too big to fit more than one.

One perhaps, or a single 12,000 lbs bomb also (though I believe - Tallboy Lancaster was special modify, no armor, no guns, so hardly a "routine" standard version.. I say if you do same for any bomber - throw off lots of "not neccessary" weight like armor, guns etc. it can no doubt carry more than routine version. Nobody else of course did such size bomb design, it is absolute stupid choice for any other than special target like sub bunker.)

Book say Heinkel can carry 15 859 lbs weight, so thats more than Lancaster, only less than B-29, so Saggitario seems right in statement. That is standard version of Heinkel, not light/special/rare version of Lancester, which is useless for most duties - no guns and armor mean aircraft cannot survive.

Intern or extern bombload is only important because external is cause of speed loss (greater drag). But Heinkel was good deal faster than any other but not B-29, so its not particular concern..

Milosh · Nov 25, 2011

Various bomb loads for the Lancaster

Bomb Loads

Two 8000lb HC could be fitted in the bomb bay but would have a hard time lifting such a bomb load.

wuzak · Nov 25, 2011

Tante Ju said:
One perhaps, or a single 12,000 lbs bomb also (though I believe - Tallboy Lancaster was special modify, no armor, no guns, so hardly a "routine" standard version.. I say if you do same for any bomber - throw off lots of "not neccessary" weight like armor, guns etc. it can no doubt carry more than routine version. Nobody else of course did such size bomb design, it is absolute stupid choice for any other than special target like sub bunker.)

Since the normal bomb load was 14,000lb, and the Tallboy was 12,000lb I don'tthink it needed any special modifications other than needing bulged bomb bay doors to clear the bomb. The Grand Slam, nominally 22,000lb, on the other hand, required that turrets and armour was removed, and bomb bay doors were no fitted.

wuzak · Nov 25, 2011

Tante Ju said:
I doubt Lancaster can carry two 5,500 lbs bombs in bomb bay either. Bomb of such size are simple too big to fit more than one.

The SC2500 was 32in in diameter and 152.25in long. Luftwaffe Resource Page Bomb Annex - SC 2500

The Lancaster bomb bay had sufficient length to accomodate two of them end to end, and certainly had enough space for them (the 8,000lb HC and 12,000lb HC bombs were 38" long).

So, I think that two SC2500 bombs, or an equivalent RAF weapon if it existed, could easily fit inside the Lancaster.

riacrato · Nov 26, 2011

tyrodtom said:
I think maybe you are wrong. If you have a group of 10 aircraft, if on the first mission they lose 1, The next mission, their still 10 aircraft because they've got a replacement, they again lose 1, and so on for 10 missions. in effect you will have replaced them all. I know in real life the bad fate might befall the replacement aircraft and crew instead of a veteran crew, but a 10% loss rate per mission cannot be sustained for long.

Sure they can't since the squadron of 10 will statistically speaking lose 1 bomber per mission.

But for the individual aircraft ("statistically no crew or aircraft is going to last more than 10 missions") it is different:
If your chances to be downed are 10% for each mission, that means your chances to survive any mission are 90% or 0.9. Your chances of surviving 10 missions are 0.9*0.9*0.9*0.9*0.9*0.9*0.9*0.9*0.9*0.9=0.9^10=0.34868 or ~34.9%

Hop · Nov 26, 2011

One perhaps, or a single 12,000 lbs bomb also (though I believe - Tallboy Lancaster was special modify, no armor, no guns, so hardly a "routine" standard version.. I say if you do same for any bomber - throw off lots of "not neccessary" weight like armor, guns etc. it can no doubt carry more than routine version. Nobody else of course did such size bomb design, it is absolute stupid choice for any other than special target like sub bunker.)

As Wuzak said, the only modification necessary for the Tallboy was slightly bulged bomb bay doors. The weight was well inside normal loads.

The RAF also had the 12,000 lb HC bomb, which was simply an enlarged 8,000 lb bomb. Lancasters dropped getting on for 200 of those as well, no modification necessary.

The modifications you describe were those required for carrying the 22,000 lb Grand Slam bomb.

Book say Heinkel can carry 15 859 lbs weight, so thats more than Lancaster

We know for a fact Lancasters actually dropped 22,000 lb bombs. Do we know how often, if ever, the 177 carried 15,859 lbs? On paper the B-17 could carry 17,600 lbs, but it seems it never did so on operations.

fastmongrel · Nov 26, 2011

Tante Ju said:
Book say Heinkel can carry 15 859 lbs weight, so thats more than Lancaster.

Which book everything I have read says 6,000kg internally, perhaps those extra 1,200kg includes the guns and ammunition.

It doesnt matter what you can lift off the runway if you cant carry it any distance or get any altitude. Anything else is just wikipedia numbers.

fastmongrel · Nov 26, 2011

wuzak said:
The SC2500 was 32in in diameter and 152.25in long. Luftwaffe Resource Page Bomb Annex - SC 2500

The Lancaster bomb bay had sufficient length to accomodate two of them end to end, and certainly had enough space for them (the 8,000lb HC and 12,000lb HC bombs were 38" long).

So, I think that two SC2500 bombs, or an equivalent RAF weapon if it existed, could easily fit inside the Lancaster.

The SC2500 is made of aluminium according to the link you posted so presumably it was a blast bomb. The British HC 4,000lb cookie is probably the equivalent.

tyrodtom · Nov 26, 2011

riacrato said:
Sure they can't since the squadron of 10 will statistically speaking lose 1 bomber per mission.

But for the individual aircraft ("statistically no crew or aircraft is going to last more than 10 missions") it is different:
If you're chances to be downed are 10% for each mission, that means your chances to survive any mission are 90% or 0.9. Your chances of surviving 10 missions are 0.9*0.9*0.9*0.9*0.9*0.9*0.9*0.9*0.9*0.9=0.9^10=0.34868 or ~34.9%

I don't follow your math. but a 1 in three chanch of surviveing 10 missions are not good odds.

riacrato · Nov 26, 2011

No it isn't. But it's by far better than the "10 missions and you're dead"-thing you said. I'm pretty sure my math is right.

He.177 combat history

Senior Airman

Lieutenant General

Senior Master Sergeant

Airman 1st Class

The Pop-Tart Whisperer

Airman 1st Class

Senior Airman

Captain

Captain

Captain

Banned

Senior Master Sergeant

Captain

Captain

Senior Airman

Senior Airman

1st Sergeant

1st Sergeant

Senior Master Sergeant

Senior Airman

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