If the RAF had been defeated in the Battle of Britain

[michaelmaltby]

Not to drift off topic but IMO the development, performance and fate of the Westland Whirlwind is a kind of a precursor of what the fate of the FW 187 would have been.

As a kid I built the Airfix Whirwind out of the 'baggy' and loved the whole idea of that plane ... but ... with mature understanding I don't see that plane as a significant game changer, period. It may have very well been well-loved by its pilots but it didn't distinguish itself on The Channel Dash ... as top cover element, IIRC, and served till decommissioned as a hit-and-run ground attack AC. IIRC.

So, ask yourself, would you rather have a Typhoon or a Whirlwind as a Jabo? A Fw-187 of a Fw-190A?

 

[tomo pauk]

...
So, ask yourself, would you rather have a Typhoon or a Whirlwind as a Jabo? A Fw-187 of a Fw-190A?

There is no question for 1940 - those would've been Whirly and Falke, Typhoon and Fw 190 were not in production. Whirly also in 1941.
Two years mattered in ww2.

 

[michaelmaltby]

my point was fighter AC with 2 smallish motors vs fighters with a single larger engine .... the P-38 evolved through the same trajectory in Europe 1942-45. Would you rather have a twin-engined P-38 or a P-47 jabo? AC evolve their usefulness regardless of the year.

 

[Shortround6]

I would also note that the 110 did a number of jobs, unintended when first designed (?) that the Fw 187 would have trouble doing.
Case in point being that 110 that the British recovered and rebuilt had been flying a photo recon mission and the cannon had been replaced by a camera.
German recon cameras were generally very large.

Trying to fit one of these in a Fw187 without extensive modifications would be difficult.
German recon was bad enough as it was, using just Ju 88s and Do 17s in 1940 would have been worse.

 

[Shortround6]

my point was fighter AC with 2 smallish motors vs fighters with a single larger engine .... the P-38 evolved through the same trajectory in Europe 1942-45. Would you rather have a twin-engined P-38 or a P-47 jabo? AC evolve their usefulness regardless of the year.

In the far east I would rather have the P-38 thank you very much.
By the far the lowest losses of any fighter employed on similar duties in that theater.
But then the Japanese didn't have AA guns every few miles all the way back to the coast.

and in some targets you might prefer the P-38 in Europe. The P-38 evolved like other aircraft and the capabilities changed considerably in the last year of the war. P-38s could carry larger bomb loads

 

[tomo pauk]

my point was fighter AC with 2 smallish motors vs fighters with a single larger engine .... the P-38 evolved through the same trajectory in Europe 1942-45. Would you rather have a twin-engined P-38 or a P-47 jabo? AC evolve their usefulness regardless of the year.

One big engine will always be a choice. However - beligerments could buy themselves a 2-engined fighter or jabo, however nobody has been able to buy time. Time is/was not a comodity.
In 1942 the P-47 was a flying death trap, talk the US Typhoon (airframe- and engine-related issues). P-38 will be carrying more payload, will use shorter strip for taking off, and it will out-climb and out-accelerate most of opposition under 15000 ft, unlike the P-47.

 

[pbehn]

One big engine will always be a choice. However - beligerments could buy themselves a 2-engined fighter or jabo, however nobody has been able to buy time. Time is/was not a comodity.
In 1942 the P-47 was a flying death trap, talk the US Typhoon (airframe- and engine-related issues). P-38 will be carrying more payload, will use shorter strip for taking off, and it will out-climb and out-accelerate most of opposition under 15000 ft, unlike the P-47.

If you count horsepower and not engines it comes to around 2000 BHP which is about what was needed to get all the "stuff" required in the air.

 

[tomo pauk]

If you count horsepower and not engines it comes to around 2000 BHP which is about what was needed to get all the "stuff" required in the air.

No problems with the nice, round number of 2000 HP (though by the time P-47 and Typhoon became viable the P-38 was between 2650 and 2850 HP). What might get military planers in conductive mode for 2x1000 HP layout was the thing that such amount of horsies was a choice between two 1000 HP engines (doable by 1939 for all major countries) or wait until 1942 to maybe have one 2000 HP engine (some beligerents already folded, some others will have to wait until 1945 to have a 2000 HP engine in production).

 

[pbehn]

No problems with the nice, round number of 2000 HP (though by the time P-47 and Typhoon became viable the P-38 was between 2650 and 2850 HP). What might get military planers in conductive mode for 2x1000 HP layout was the thing that such amount of horsies was a choice between two 1000 HP engines (doable by 1939 for all major countries) or wait until 1942 to maybe have one 2000 HP engine (some beligerents already folded, some others will have to wait until 1945 to have a 2000 HP engine in production).

It was just a convenient round number, in 1939 if you want four cannon and a decent range and performance then twin engine is the best option, by the time a single engine has 2000 BHP it can do most jobs pretty well.

 

[tomo pauk]

It was just a convenient round number, in 1939 if you want four cannon and a decent range and performance then twin engine is the best option

To reiterate & reinforce my agreement with that - IMAM Ro.58, on a bit more than 2000 HP, five cannons + rear gunner, almost 380 mph, 980 miles of range (internal fuel only).
IMAM Ro.58 - Wikipedia

Kinda shows what to expect from a Daimlerized Fw 187, or perhaps the Whirlwing designed around Merlins from day one.

 

[Koopernic]

The Focke Wulf Fw 187 did see production and did see combat.

Below I've tabulated comparisons between the Jumo 210 engined Fw 187 A0, Hurricane and Spitfire. I think they show that even with the Rolls Royce Kestrel sized Jumo 210G could have impacted the air balance over Britain in the Luftwaffe's favour.

The Me 110 like the Me 109 lacked the range to have much of any impact except in a tiny South East part of England. The Fw 187 did have the range.

They also show how critical 100 octane fuel was to the viability of the RAFs defence operations.

Three(3) Fw 187 A-0 were built as a pre-production series based on the Fw 187 V4 prototype as a master. These aircraft were used as factory protection of the Focke Wulf plant where they saw combat.

Because the Luftwaffe didn't get the concept of a twin engine single seat long range air superiority fighter they were built with a second seat behind the pilot for a radio operator to conform with their 'heavy fighter' concept, a concept they were little interested in placing orders for. In actual combat these Fw 187AO were flown with the second seat position loaded with ballast. One can only imagine the fuel that could have been carried 400-500L litres? A massive camera?

In May 1943 the test pilot Wolfgang Stein is credited with a victory over a Spitfire while the Focke-Wulf company newspaper in an obituary for test pilot Kurt Mehlhorn said he had victories as well.

The Fw 187 A0 with its 700hp Jumo 210G engines and two seat cockpit was faster than the Hurricane I with Merlin III with 12psig, 100 octane and with constant speed 3 blade rotol propellers.

Only 100/130 octane fuel made the Spitfire faster.

Speed at Sea Level
Fw 187 A0 466kmh / 289.5mph with 2 x 700hp Junker Jumo 210G (87 octane)
Hurricane I 465kmh / 288.0mph with Merlin III 12psig 3000rpm (100 octane)
Hurricane I 420kmh / 260.0mph with Merlin III 6.25psig 3000rpm (87 octane)
Spitfire I 510kph / 316mph with Merlin III 12psig 3000rpm (100 octane)
Spitfire I 459 kmh / 285.0mph with Merlin III 6.25psig 3000rpm (87 octane)
Me 109E 500kmh/310.0mph 87 octane.

Speed at 4600m (15,090ft)
Fw 187 A0 545kmh / 338.5mph with 2 x 700hp Junker Jumo 210G
Hurricane I 525kmh / 326.0mph, Merlin III 12psig 3000rpm Rotol Constant Speed 3 blade prop.
Hurricane I 505kmh / 313.0mph, Merlin III 6.25psig 3000rpm Rotol Const Spd prop.
Spitfire I 571kmh / 355.0mph, Merlin III 12psig 3000rpm Rotol Const spd prop.
Spitfire I 547kmh / 340.0mph, Merlin III 6.25psig 3000rpm Rotol Const spd prop.
Me 109E 565kmh/351.0 mph 87 octane.

Max Speed
Fw 187 A0 545kmh / 338.5mph at 4600m/15091ft 87 octane
Hurricane I 527kmh / 322.0mph at 3300m/11000ft 100 octane
Hurricane I 515kmh / 320.0mph at 5200m/17000ft 87 octane
Spitfire I 576.5 kmh / 358.0mph at 3600m/12000ft 100 octane
Spitfire I 570 kmh / 355.0mph at 5200m/18000ft 87 octane
Me 109E 570kmh/355.0 mph 5000m/ 16500ft 87 octane

Loaded Weight, Wing Area and Wing Loading
Fw 187 Weight 4900 kg /10802lbs, wing area: 30.2sqm, loading 162.25kg/m2
Hurricane Weight 3061 kg / 6750 lbs, wing area: 23.9sqm, loading 128.0kg/m2
Spitfire Weight 2900 kg / 6395 lbs, wing area: 22.5 sqm, loading 129.0kg/m2
Me 109E Weight 2870 kg / 6327 lbs, wing area: 16.35 175.5 kg/m^2

Obviously, with a much higher high wing loading the Fw 187 was going to have a larger inferior turning radius but given equal engines it's pilot would play to its significantly superior speed, climb rate, acceleration, energy and possibly turning rate (ie time taken to conduct a turn rather than radius).
The price of lower wing loading is lower speed. The spitfire did well not to pay too high a price for it's low wing loading.

Kurfürst - Baubeschreibung für das Flugzeugmuster Messerschmitt Me 109 mit DB 601.
Spitfire Mk I versus Me 109 E
Hurricane Mk I Performance

The Fw 187A0 carried 1110 Liters of internal fuel which gave a range of 1440km, about 880 miles. If the second cockpit had of been converted to a 400 Litre tank one would expect about 40% more range Stripped of guns & excess armour with engines tuned it probably would have made a difficult to intercept recon. There was plenty of room for a camera in that seat position.

The Fw 187 V1 flew in May 1937,about 13 months after the Spitfire. It only received a contract to convert it to DB601 engines in May 1938. In 1938 production of the Jumo 210 series ended leaving the Fw 187A impossible to mass produce. The next line of Junkers Jumo 210 development was the Jumo 210H and was to add a second exhaust valve and a high pressure glycol water cooling circuit effectively doing the same thing Rolls Royce did to the Kestrel to create the Peregrine of the Whirlwind I. I believe or recollect that it would have produced about 830hp or 19% more power and considerably more jet thrust with reduced drag due to the smaller radiators possible from the increased heat transfer of the hotter fluid. The development effort at Junkers was transferred into the Jumo 211 but the Jumo 210H served as a test bed.

The Me 110 received its first DB601 engine in late 1938. These engines weighed 580kg vs 440kg dry but knock on effects raised the weight of the sluggish Me 110B->Me 110C not by 140kg per engine but 200kg. Thus a 400kg increase or a 10% increase over the Fw 187 empty weight and 8% loaded and fuelled.

The Fw 187 could have been ready and competitive for the BoB if allocated engines either Jumo 210G. If supplied with Jumo 210H or DB601 it would have enjoyed decisive speed advantages its pilots could optimise his combat strategies on.

It could have completely supplanted the Me 110.

As a single seat long range air superiority fighter it could have turned up all over Britain with an intrinsically superior speed bestowed by its configuration even with inferior German engine power and fuels. It would have been able to carry out photo reconnaissance with an ease as great or greater than PRU Spitfires and Mosquitos. As a two seater it would have the speed to intercept Mosquitoes pathfinders at night. What it couldn't do, carry 3 crew to operate a range of active and passive radar and navigation systems, could be performed by the Ju 88.

German single seat fighters were able to easily carry the Fu 217 Neptune radar but without a radar operator the pilots were left night blinded by staring at the oscilloscope plus with only a single engine the speed was affected.

The Luftwaffe tried to latter produce the Ta 154 "Moskito" making some of the same mistakes such as carrying a bomb bay and allocating by then readily available Jumo 211 engines dooming it to be inferior to the Mosquito till the Jumo 213 turned up.

Even an RAF Mosquito night fighter was too slow to intercept a Mosquito pathfinder or PRU.

If both the Luftwaffe and RAF had Mosquito night bombers the RAF would need FW 187 to intercept.

 

[Milosh]

Afaik the Mosquito NF 30 was a 400mph+ airplane.

 

[Koopernic]

Afaik the Mosquito NF 30 was a 400mph+ airplane.

I looked into this a couple of years ago just browsing on the internet and didn't log my hits. I came up with a 20 mph difference that must have been accounted for by the radar nose, 4 Hispano, flame dampers, armoured windscreen but at the moment I can only find 10-7 mph depending on whether in FS or MS gear. The figures from here are confounded by drop tanks being fitted. I can't find a speed for different Merlin 72 equipped Mosquito bombers, Night fighters, PR in clean configuration at the same boost.
Mosquito Performance Trials
The 15 psig merlun 61 variant is faster than the 18 psig merlin 72 variant because it only has 4 x 303 browning.

The difference at 25 psig would open up the speed differences.

 

[Koopernic]

I would also note that the 110 did a number of jobs, unintended when first designed (?) that the Fw 187 would have trouble doing.
Case in point being that 110 that the British recovered and rebuilt had been flying a photo recon mission and the cannon had been replaced by a camera.
German recon cameras were generally very large.
View attachment 475027
Trying to fit one of these in a Fw187 without extensive modifications would be difficult.
German recon was bad enough as it was, using just Ju 88s and Do 17s in 1940 would have been worse.

Note the well muscled person of colour sitting on the port wing helping with something.

 

[tomo pauk]

Afaik the Mosquito NF 30 was a 400mph+ airplane.

With two 50 gal drop tank it was measured at 397 mph. linky

 

[stona]

The Fw 187 was FAR too small to be equipped as a night fighter, something even the RLM recognised.
It also had zero chance, even in its cleanest form, of intercepting a Mosquito, unless the Germans really could alter the laws of physics.

To say the type entered production is stretching things a lot. Many aircraft had more prototypes built than the total number of Fw 187s built, and there was never a standardised service version. Compare the Fw 187 to the number of Whirlwinds built, it certainly did enter production, but in numbers too few to make any difference to anything.

Cheers

Steve

 

[tomo pauk]

The Me 110 like the Me 109 lacked the range to have much of any impact except in a tiny South East part of England. The Fw 187 did have the range.

Me 110 have had enough of range for BoB.

In May 1943 the test pilot Wolfgang Stein is credited with a victory over a Spitfire while the Focke-Wulf company newspaper in an obituary for test pilot Kurt Mehlhorn said he had victories as well.

Over a Spitfire, of all Allied aircraft in 1943. And described in no less than Fw company news letter, that of course have had nothing to do with the origin of Fw 187. Location of combat not stated?

The Fw 187 A0 with its 700hp Jumo 210G engines and two seat cockpit was faster than the Hurricane I with Merlin III with 12psig, 100 octane and with constant speed 3 blade rotol propellers.

Only 100/130 octane fuel made the Spitfire faster.

100/130 octane fuel in 1940??
Does the book about the Fw 187 have any facsimile of test report? That should give use a far more realistic picture about the capabilities than the creative accounting for exhaust thrust once again due to some new set-up of exhaust stacks despite the excellent layout of exhaust thrust already present on the historic Fw 187A-0 as-is.
BTW - as noted earlier by Shortround6, expecting a 13% increase in propulsive power due to exhaust thrust at ~13000 ft is a bit over the top, DB company was offering around 10% there for the DB 601A.

The Fw 187 could have been ready and competitive for the BoB if allocated engines either Jumo 210G. If supplied with Jumo 210H or DB601 it would have enjoyed decisive speed advantages its pilots could optimise his combat strategies on.

Install the HS 12Y from Czech license production lines and there is no need for any small Jumo, next to no weight penalty, performance increase due more HP.

Still - in order to kill RAF over Southern England, LW needs to deploy perhaps 50% more of the Bf 109s, all with drop tanks, plus perhaps 2 times the number of 2-engined fighters with at least 350 mph speed and useful range. Provided Germans have means to produce those, fuel them and pilot them. All while focusing bombers vs. RAF radars and bases, and allowing LR fighter sweeps to roam around before the inbound bomb raid.

 

[stona]

Someone could include the Fw 187 in a sort of 'what if' book. They could call it 'The Foresight War'. Wait, someone has already done so, none other than Tony Williams.
Cheers
Steve

 

[InlineRanger]

The Bf 109E was not outclassed by Spitfire I.

According to spitfireperformance.com, the Spitfire Mk.I running 100 octane developed more horsepower, was faster at all altitudes, had equivalent climb rates to the BF-109E all at a lower wing loading. It also had better dogfighting armament in its 8x .303 wing guns, which had a high rate of fire, uniform exterior ballistics and a superior incendiary bullet. The Spitfire Mk.1 also had better visibility, was easier to fly, had a torsionally stiffer wing, a constant speed propeller and much more development potential.

Even if the BF-109E had been the equal of the Mk.1, it wouldn't have been enough. The Spitfires had an inherent operational advantage by flying over home turf. The BF-109E needed to overmatch the Spitfire to win, which it did partially through tactics and pilot skill, but not in performance.

Inverted engine and motor cannon (that 109E was never outfitted in-service) don't have anything to do with choice made for the landing gear.

I meant that each individual choice hampered the design, not that the engine and motor cannon resulted in poor landing gear geometry... even though that is partially true.

The techincal items you mentioned served the purpose, Luftwaffe was more slowed down by lack of funds (Germany vs. UK and France combined, or even vs. UK only) and trained manpower than it was by unsuitability of it's hardware to be mass produced.

I think the unsuitability of their designs for mass production (trainers on up) made their lack of funds even worse.

Talk about self-inflicted wound if they went with Wright Cycone. Gives them 320 mph Bf 109 instead 350, and 300 mph Bf 110 instead 320-330 mph. Plus more fuel used for same distance travelled. Better allow BMW to continue with the BMW 117 V12 engine of 36 liters, might have actualy powerful BMW engine in service before the BoB.

I'm not suggesting the Luftwaffe strap an R1820 onto a BF-109 airframe, but rather a clean-sheet design. Single row radial engines are easier to build and maintain than V12s. With careful layout and detail design, I estimate that an R1820 powered fighter could meet or exceed Spitfire MK.IX levels of performance on 87 octane gas with roughly BoB level of technology.

The M82 was a new development (crankcase, cylinders, crakshaft, supercharger, carb, reduction gear, crankpins...), not just the Cyclone somehow turned into 14 cylinder radial. It needed 95 oct fuel, unlike what most of German pre-1942 engines used.

The Ash-82 was a development of the M-25, which was a licensed copy of an early Wright Cyclone. My argument is that the Germans would have been better off had they followed a similar development path.

 

[InlineRanger]

my point was fighter AC with 2 smallish motors vs fighters with a single larger engine .... the P-38 evolved through the same trajectory in Europe 1942-45. Would you rather have a twin-engined P-38 or a P-47 jabo? AC evolve their usefulness regardless of the year.

I agree with your sentiment. Twin engine fighter aircraft tend to be inferior to their single-engine counterparts. While they can have more installed HP, they lose in nearly every other metric. They're expensive to build and operate, have higher drag, and are less maneuverable due to a higher mass moment of inertia. I can't find a link to the video, by I remember watching a panel with Adolf Galland and other WW2 pilots where they share agreement that the BF110, P38 and other twin fighters were mostly failures. The P-38 was designed as the premier USAAF air superiority fighter, but I wouldn't describe it's performance during the European air war that way. Sure it had its utility, but I don't think it was the thoroughbred it's boosters had anticipated.

It's a debate that even led to the F-16 program. Since there are former fighter pilots on the forum, it'd be interesting to hear their opinion on WVR dogfighting between the F-15 and F-16 or their international equivalents.