Instead of the ME 262...why not THIS...

[Bronc]

"New factories built and operated by the state were poorly designed and reflected the traditional ethos: even in 1944, when the British had a dozen factories employing more than 10,000 people (two with 25,000), the Germans had only four (the largest with 14,000)--a situation caused not by the need to disperse to smaller sites but by poor planning. While the British mobilised the motor and electrical industries...blah, blah, blah..."

Bronc

P.S I think that's FlyboyJ being funny just below. He's kinda growing on me... But at least my
avatar is accurate now.

 

[GrauGeist]

The Do247 (P.247) was an "evolved" design of the Do335, powered by a MW50 equipped Jumo 213J located in the aftersection. The fuselage was a bit more streamlined, but still kept the Do335's tail configuration and pusher prop. It was to be 39' 7" in length with a (swept) wingspan of 39' 5" and an estimated max. speed of 519 mph.

It was intended to be armed with 3 Mk108 30m/m cannon in the nose, but as far as other ordinance, such as rockets or bombs, I'm not sure.

 

[Burmese Bandit]

Well, quite a lot of posters have posted. I will now replyt.

The front propeller would have been inefficient at high speeds

Not until about 520 mph was reached. I have designed my fighter-bomber to be about 480 mph max. Therefore this problem will not arise.

It would have been expensive to produce.

Of course. The real question is whether it was cost effective. Let us say it cost as much as six 109s to produce. Could it do more than, say, six 109s? Or, say, two Ju 88s?

This is a difficult question to answer. Only those who have studied the man-hour efforts of aircraft production in WWII can give guesses, and guesses are what they will be. No one can answer this question definitely.

So the question is: would this expensive aircraft be a war winner or not?

Here are some of my thoughts on the issue.

First, it has a Mk 103 firing in the centerline configuration, which makes it effective in the long range role against the B 17 and other bombers. The Mk 108 was fearsome, yet you had to get in close to do the dirty. With the 103 you had the possibility of standing off out of range and killing the bombers.

Of course, this kind of take-your-time shooting is not an option if the bombers are heavily escorted. Then you will need a massive volume of fire at close range for a brief firing pass. This is the shoot and run. Here again my Bandit 535 has an edge, because of its bomb bay. In that bay one could mount up to four more 20mm guns in a belly pack.

This means that you can move into position above a B 17 bomber group, then dive in a shallow dive at over 530-50 mph towards the pack from behind. As you shoot through the pony screen you will take some shots, but you should be able to leave them easily behind. Start firing at long range with the 30 mm, then close and open up with the three standard 20mm and the four belly back 20 mm for a total of seven 20 mm. With the speed you have built up then go zooming up in a zoom climb - again you will leave the ponies behind, because the faster and heavier aircraft will always outclimb the lighter and slower aircraft in the beginning, no matter what the power to weight ratio.

If properly done, this should enable each finger of four 535s to hit a B 17 pack, shoot down or cripple at least four bombers, and then climb to safety and perhaps a second attack with no losses at all, no matter what the numbers of the escort. Multiply successfully by ten during a single bomber mission and the whole bomber offensive will start to get into serious trouble.

 

[Colin1]

I have designed my fighter-bomber to be about 480 mph max. Therefore this problem will not arise

The Do335 in standard config was good for 478mph
what tactical advantage has your engineering exercise gained you bar that critical 2mph and the fact that you now need two grades of fuel instead of one?

 

[riacrato]

Potentially up to 478 mph. In reality that speed was rarely met with the pre-production planes.

 

[Colin1]

Potentially up to 478 mph. In reality that speed was rarely met with the pre-production planes.

The Do335 recorded speeds upwards of 470mph with both engines and a reasonable 350mph on a single engine. For one of the scarce Allied claims of encountering a Do335, the French-piloted Hawker Tempest was not even able to achieve an effective engagement range to fire on it.

'Upwards of 470mph' does it for me.

 

[Civettone]

Of course. The real question is whether it was cost effective. Let us say it cost as much as six 109s to produce. Could it do more than, say, six 109s? Or, say, two Ju 88s?

To me, WW" proved the value of numbers. Not until the end of the war, Germany went for quality instead of numbers and suffered accordingly.
For people like us who spent a lot of time thinking about aircraft and aircraft performances, we start to think this or that aircraft to be superior because it has a better climb rate or is a few mph faster. But to generals, a fighter aircraft is a fighter aircraft. And the pilot decides if it's a good one. This may sound cliche but it's definitely true. No fighter is twice as good as another fighter (from the same era).

With the 103 you had the possibility of standing off out of range and killing the bombers.

That's not really what it does. Staying out of range and shooting at the bombers is not an option. First and as you said, because of the escort fighters and second, because of the low probability of a hit at great distances. Some like to call the MK 108 a grenade launcher but its ballistics were really not as bad as often portrayed. They were quite similar to those of the older MG/FF.

Also, things would dramatically change with the arrival of the R4M anyway.

Kris

 

[riacrato]

Me 262 pilots shot at bombers starting from 500m distance. Hit probability may be low for the individual shot, but the ROF and the package of 4 still give you a good chance to score a few hits on a bomber until you need to disengage.

Attacking bombers from a longer range always sounds nice on paper, but in practice it rarely happened for a variety of reasons as posted by Civettone. Add to that the decreasing pilot skill of the LW in 44...

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Sorry for the mixup here. Hooton discussed factory dispersal and said even when factoring
all the dispersal (dispersed factory workers) back in, there were only 4 factories that employed
over 10,000 people.

Hooton (and his book) are pretty well-respected. I don't think he would make an obvious and
silly error like saying, "Germany only had 4 aircraft factories."

The book is pretty dry reading, academic and dense, but Hooton writes VERY well and it
is well worth the difficulty in finding it.

Bronc

I am sure that is what they meant as well. You just did not include all of the quote, which is why there was a mix up.

 

[davebender]

To score hits at longer ranges you need gyro stabilized gun sights which were just being introduced late in WWII.

 

[psteel]

To score hits at longer ranges you need gyro stabilized gun sights which were just being introduced late in WWII.

Either that or a Ru-334 air to air wire guided missile.

Would a two seater Do-335 have made an ideal replacement for a medium bomber like the Ju-88?

 

[Civettone]

Psteel, the Do 335 was developed from a fast bomber design.
But on the other hand, it lacked the bomb load for a real bomber. The Me 410 and Ar 234 would have been better options though that too was a bit too light. Later Arado versions as well as the He 343 would have become the new medium bomber.

Kris

 

[psteel]

Psteel, the Do 335 was developed from a fast bomber design.
But on the other hand, it lacked the bomb load for a real bomber. The Me 410 and Ar 234 would have been better options though that too was a bit too light. Later Arado versions as well as the He 343 would have become the new medium bomber.

Kris

WOuldn't the prop plane have allot lower fuel consumption and therefor allot greater range payload than the jet engine to say nothing about the jumo 004 engine reliability /cost problems.

 

[GrauGeist]

The Ar234 had the advantage of speed, which was a critical factor in the latter part of the war.

 

[Civettone]

Both of you are right. At that stage range was hardly an issue anymore.

But a real replacement of the Ju 88 would indeed need to match its range. Jets did require more fuel but with strong engines (the He 343 would carry 4 HeS 011 engines) it could carry enough fuel. For really long range new heavy/strategic bombers were projected such as the Lippisch flying wing.

Kris

 

[riacrato]

AFAIK the Do 335 bomber concept would've had a maximum bombload of 2000 kg (4x 500). Which would be pretty okay for light bomber.

The bomb load wasn't so much the problem as was the lack of a bombardier.

Still the Ar 234 was better in almost every regard.

 

[psteel]

It bothers me that to make up for larger fuel consumption , they had to planned for much larger jet with twice as many engines. Germany was already too short on fuel. The only counter point I can see is that the J-2 aviation fuel, was Kerosene and Diesel fuel as opposed to aviation gasoline.

As pointed out the Do 335 had maximum payload of 2000kg which sounds close to the Ju-88 levels. How did the reliablity of the DB-603 compare to the Jumo-004C, which I gather with the improved design was supposed to be in the 150 operational hours region?

 

[Civettone]

Riacrato, do you have some more information on the Do 335 bomber predecessor? All I have seen of it is an artist's impression.

Psteel, why have aircraft always gotten bigger? Because the bigger engines also needed more fuel. Exceptions like the Folland Gnat aside, that is an inevitable evolution. Reliability of the DB 603 was probably better but keep in mind that piston engines are a dead end anyway!

The Ar 234 and Mosquito didn't have a bombardier either.
Kris

 

[parsifal]

INcreasing the technology base will not win the war , not even the air war for Germany. In fact, the early adoption of jet technologies may well lead to a hastened defeat......

The air war in WWII was never about technology. The dominant features were serviceability, numbers and attrition. And jet technologies addressed none of these factors, and in fact made some of them worse.

Non-combat losses accounted for about three times the number of losses as combat related losses. During the war, the Luftwaffe suffered an average monthly loss rate of just under 7% per month due to non-combat related accidents. Introducing new technologies early will increase the unreliability of the machines, and place additional stresses on conversion training schools. It is almost inevitable that loss ratesw to attrition will go up if there is a wholesale conversion to jet technologies. Moreover the supply of pilots and other aircrew will dry up as the idiosyncrasies of this new design slow down the rate of output for new aircrew. The Luftwaffe will fight its final battles with even more numbers stacked against it. And ther is no substantive evidence that I know of that the new Jet equipped uinits of the Luftwaffe historically fielded were significantly better in their kill rates than were conventionally armed units. An Me 262 would get airborne, and maybe shoot down a bomber, as could an Me 109. It might have a better chance of shooting down a fighter , but these were not the determinants to Germany's defeat in the final months of the war. The Americans had such a massive reserve of fighters that regardless of how many fighters the JGs shot down the next day those losses would be replaced....over 60% of US fighter units never even left the continental US.

So fighting with less numbers, in aircraft that are inheherently less reliable, with a pilot pool smaller than historical, are all ingredients for a disaster in my book. But thats not the end of it. This new force is also going to suffer a massive serviciability headache, so the dwindling numbers in the force are going to be even further diluted by a very low servicieability rate, which is exactly what happened to the 262 units that were fielded.

One of the great myths generated post war was that jets would pull the German chestnuts out of the fire. They wouldnt. Germany's fate was sealed from the moment the grand alliance was forged. There was no magic bullet that would save them. Its a total croc to think anything else.

 

[tomo pauk]

Germany missed the opportunity to produce more planes in 1939-1943, allowing EACH of other 3 main adversaries to outproduce them in the contrary. By 1944 Germans finally managed to produce a lot of planes, but with 109Gs and 190As they stood no chance against what RAF and USAAF had to throw in. Both quality and quantity was against Luftwaffe in 1944 in West, with russians managing to plug the performance gap (quantity was in their hand already).

The radars, VT fuses, sonars and, finally, nuke do show us that technology was also important thing. Unfortunately for Germans, they've lost that race too.