He.177 combat history

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


Page 203:




The 2 rows in yellow have errors. First one states 30 aircraft but the Wrk Numbers range only show 20. The 2nd shows 5 but 6 Wrk Numbers.
 
Book information doesn't seem to be complete, they grossly underestimate the A-5 production. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinkel_He_177 has a good breakdown based on Bundesarchive/RLM data.
HWO did not build any A-1 because they started series production of He 177 just in december 42 (A-1 finished by Arado then).
1944 production is given as 234 for HWO and 276 for ArB

Heinkel was building the land bomber A-3 and some A-5, Arado the glide-bomb capable variants A-3 (with Kehl III and IV) and A-5 (Kehl IV).
HWO stopped production in 7/44, ArB in 8/44
 



Please tell me you are not using Wikipedia for your sources.

My books shows December of 1941 being the start day of production

Since it appears our sources differ, who do you show producing Wrk Numbers 332101-332142?

What are the Wrk Numbers you show for the A-5?
 
Last edited:
478 Me-210s were rebuilt into Me-410s. Did Messerschmitt assign new work numbers to these aircraft when they arrived at the factory for rebuilding?
 
davebender said:
478 Me-210s were rebuilt into Me-410s. Did Messerschmitt assign new work numbers to these aircraft when they arrived at the factory for rebuilding?
Click to expand...

My figures are slightly different. When Me 210 production was halted in April 1941 there were 540 Me 210s in varying states of completion across the Regensburg and Augsburg plants. 352 Me 210s had been completed across both plants.

The incomplete aircraft were finished with the lengthened fuselage, but remained Me 210s. Of roughly 100 aircraft stored at Obertraubling some were broken for salvage, but this was around a dozen aircraft (some say as many as 15). The rest were also lengthened.

None of the lengthened Me 210s received a new werknummer.

A substantial number of converted and completed 'long' Me 210s were further converted to Me 410s at Augsburg, but much later, starting in January 1943. These always retained their original werknummer too.

Production of new Me 410s at Augsburg started a bit later, I'd need to check exactly when.

The designation Me 410 for the fully modified and differently powered aircraft doesn't even start to appear until around August/September 1942.

Cheers

Steve
 
davebender said:
478 Me-210s were rebuilt into Me-410s. Did Messerschmitt assign new work numbers to these aircraft when they arrived at the factory for rebuilding?
Click to expand...
You have it wrong again, these Me 210 fuselages were never completed as Me 210 aircraft, RLM ordered Mtt to stop Me 210 assembly and Mtt decided to build fuselages for storage anticipating a quick and easy cure for the Me 210 problems.
It is possible these converted Me 410 carried the original Werknummer of the former Me 210 fuselages and the new built a/c got 5- or 6-digit numbers

He 177 dates I gave is for a/c assembled/delivered, not production start. The US survey obviously did not count prototypes or preseries. See Exhibit I-A at Aircraft Industry Report Exhibits
Griehl/Dressel list 332101-332148 as A-3 built by HWO
Book has a list of known losses for A-5 ranging from 550001 to 550324

And yes, I use Wikipedia as source because of the Bundesarchive/RLM production data. Many german wiki articles have Bundesarchive/RLM production info and there are other transcripts matching this data. See Luftwaffe in Norway for the first 3 months of 44 + the data listed further above.
 

The work to lengthen the Me 210 fuselages started shortly after the first test reports on the lengthened Me 210 issued on 27th April 1942. It was at this time that the recommendation none of the existing fuselages be scrapped, which would explain why the axing (literally) of aircraft at Obertraubling was stopped.

Aircraft WERE completed as Me 210s throughout 1942 with a lengthened fuselage. A lengthened Me 210 is not an Me 410. From April until August 1942 the designation Me 410 didn't exist officially and only starts to appear in documents around August/September.

The first Me 410 was delivered in December 1942. Some lengthened Me 210s, actually a significant number which I haven't added up from the lists, were then further converted to Me 410 standards starting in early 1943.

Cheers

Steve
 
Hi Tyrodtom,

Your statistical recollection is correct. If losses were 10%, then the probability of survival is 0.9 and the probability of surviving 10 missions would be (0.9)^10, or 34.867%.
 
151 Me 210 A-1 and 4 B-1 were built with short fuselage. A further 106 A-1 were completed with short fuselage but never issued to units, awaiting rebuilt to long fuselage.
148 Me 210 were rebuilt with long fuselage, assuming the 106 mentioned above + 42 further Me 210 sent back from units.
36 A-1 and 16 C-1 (typo, should be B-1?) were built anew with long fuselage.

According to the US survey, based on RLM data, the first 5 Me 410 production aircraft were delivered by MttA/accepted by RLM in 1/43.
The last production Me 210 were delivered/accepted in 2/42 so for most of 42 they were rebuilding Me 210s and working on the Me 210C and Me 410.
 
The He-177 was initially as proposed was supposed to be able to do shallow to moderate level dives; later on they changed it to 60-degrees of dive (which was stupid, but let's not get into that).

1. What dive level was specified early on, and if not that; what constitutes low/mid-level diving? Normal dive bombing if I recall was 55-60 degrees.

2. What was the maximum g-load intended for the aircraft?

3. What was the maximum g-load initially produced in prototype and production models?
 
vikingBerserker said:
I think the only failure of the He 177 was how they were deployed.
Click to expand...
How?

tyrodtom said:
One of the reasons the He-177 had the speed it had was because of it's engines, it had the power of a 4 engine aircraft, but the engine drag just a little more than a two engine aircraft.
Click to expand...
Until I read about the He-177, I was under the impression that if you doubled the horsepower and doubled the propeller area, the thrust doubled.

The reason cited though had to do with it's dive performance, not level cruise performance (originally the dive performance was based around a low/moderate level dive): I still find the idea strange as an aircraft with a top speed over 300 mph would naturally pick up speed fairly easy even in dive angles of 30-40 degrees, and I'd have assumed having some drag from the propeller would be quite useful from keeping the speed from building up too much.[/quote]

James W. said:
I don't have those figures, but both the He 177 & later Do 217 models with the similar shaped cockpit/nose structure were wind-tunnel tested & had high Vne ratings - for bombers - of 700 km/h.
Click to expand...
The He-177's Vne was 435 mph?
 
Last edited:
There is no doubt that the He 177 was required to dive, but the only evidence for the 60 degree requirement comes from Ernst Heinkel in 'Sturmisches Leben' published after the war in 1956. Like many of his generation he was seeking to place the blame for the many failures in the German aircraft industry, including the He 177 debacle (because that's what it was) on fellow Nazis and men like Udet, Goering and Jeschonnek, who were not alive to offer a counter argument. Everyone has to decide for themselves how much weight to attach to Heinkel's memory.

Cheers

Steve
 
James W. said:
Do 217M Vne was 700 km/h, & AFAIR, the He177 was similarly rated, they certainly operated at those speeds.
Click to expand...
Okay, so it was in the ballpark of 700 km/h if not faster?

Incidentally, that was close to the Mosquito's Vne too.
Click to expand...
While on the subject, do you have any idea what the maximum Mach for the He-177, or Mosquito were?

stona said:
There is no doubt that the He 177 was required to dive, but the only evidence for the 60 degree requirement comes from Ernst Heinkel in 'Sturmisches Leben' published after the war in 1956.
Click to expand...
Was there any test data or documentation (manuals) regarding the He-177?
 
During testing, they found that the He177 also needed a great deal of strengthening in order to pull out of the dive without catastrophic failure. When the 60° requirement was issued, they had to strentghen it's structure even more - and it was at this point that the structural problems were not fully resolved.

V4 was destroyed during dive trials at Ribnitz on 8 June 1940, although it was a mechanical failure in the pitch control and not a structural event. (V5 however, appears to have survived the trials.)

In light of that, Goering rescinded the dive-bombing requirement for the He177 in September of 1942 and the dive-flaps (wing fences) were omitted from production at the tail-end of the A-0 series.
 
The P.1041 mock up was inspected on 6th August 1937 and various problems high lighted. A revised mock up, addressing these issues, now with the RLM designation He 177, was inspected and approved on 11th November 1937.
According to Heinkel it was AFTER this approval that the 60 degree dive requirement was introduced. The requirement for the Ju 88 to dive had been introduced earlier, but not by much.
Once again, we only have Heinkel's word for this.
Cheers
Steve
 
God, that seems like you'd need an awful high g-load to pull out of such a dive if your release height was reasonably low.

On that note, do you know what release heights were done in testing, and/or the dive-speeds typically reached?
 
As far as I can tell the V5 was the first to attempt any diving trials and these are described as 'shallow diving trials', undertaken in late 1940.
Diving tests were limited and the aircraft never could dive at anything like 60 degrees. The wing was never strong enough. Heinkel seems to have been in denial, at least until the wing of the A-013 failed catastrophically in a diving test, killing pilot (Scheeding) on 16th July 1941.
To put the debacle into some perspective, by the end of 1942 170 'improvements' and 1,395 structural modifications had been applied to the He 177...and it still couldn't dive.
Cheers
Steve
 
I did a short analysis of the data presented above in Excel. The data account for 488 losses.

221 had an unknown cause.

41 were listed as "crashed."

21 were listed as "engine failure" and 6 were listed as "engine fire." 5.5% for engine-related stuff.

18 were listed as "missing in action."

6 were listed as "undercarriage failure."

So … there COULD be up to 320 with engine-related losses if you assume unknown, crashed, and missing in action could be engine related but, that would be speculation as the data just don't support that conclusion as given.

It would be nice to know how many sorties were represented in these loss figures, including those that returned home safely, but those data are not present and I have never seen a sortie breakdown for the He 177.

Of the 488 losses, 198 were He 177 A-3, 126 were He 177 A-1, and 116 were He 177 A-5, leaving 48 losses for the rest of the combined 31 variants. So 90% of the losses were from the A-1/A-3/A-5 variants alone. They lost 7 He 177 A-0.

I have seen a total built as 900 and as 1,169. 488 of 1,159 is a 41.75% loss rate for all units constructed and a bit higher if 900 is more correct. I have also seen that 1,137 units comprised 8 prototypes, 35 A-0, 130 A-1, 615 A-3, and 349 A-5 units. That leaves 32 planes to fill out the 48 remaining losses above, making me think the numbers are either wrong or the production total was slightly higher than 1,169, perhaps 1,185 if the numbers were to add up. They definitely lost almost all of the A-1 variants!

So the analysis mostly brings up questions, especially with so many lost to unknown causes.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 1 (members: 0, guests: 1)

Similar threads

J
fiatG.55 combat history
Replies
0
Views
712
Jerrybandit67
J
The real combat history of the Ki-43
19 20 21
Replies
411
Views
36K
MiTasol
Aircraft comparison for operational-level wargames and alt history forums
Replies
8
Views
308
SaparotRob
W
The scarcity of fighter to fighter FW-190A pilot combat accounts...
2 3
Replies
52
Views
3K
GrauGeist
C
PR He 100
Replies
3
Views
329
tomo pauk
Menu
Log in
Register