FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
A car fuel injected engine is a lot different from and aviation fuel injected engine. You'll find very specific operating parameters in flight manuals with reagrds to start up and engine warming.
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I doubt fuel injected engines need any warm up. I'm old enough to remember cars with chokes and the 30 seconds of fiddling with them, now I just drive off.
Even is range isn't the limiting factor (which would heavily depend on the configuration of the Fw 200), altitude is. With BMW 132 or Bramo 323 engines, the Fw 200 would bve hard pressed to navigate the high Himalayas than the C-47, let alone C-46 or B-24. (B-17 might have fared better still, but that's a separate topic).By 1939 Lufthansa has the Fw 200 kurrier/condor which can carry about 3 tons cargo 2200 miles and maybe 4400 miles with special tanks in the cabin and a small load. If one wanted to fly to Bejing/Peking or Shanghai 2 refuelling stops.
However if you can fly out of Baghdad Iraq, Iran or even the Capitals of the Balkan states you can reach the Sth Western Provinces of China by flying over the Himalayas. Who in Afghanistan or Tibet will notice?
I overlooked all three of those aircraft in my previous comments about pre-war designs possibly attractive to develop in this scenario (for civil or military use). BV The 142, 139, and Do 26 all have merits there, and the 142 has a high enough ceiling to make it more useful for crossing the Himalayas.Besides the Focke-Wulf Fw 200 there is the Blohm Voss BV 142 with about 4000km/2400 miles range with cargo using its Diesels and the Dornier Do 26 Flying Boat offering ranges of nearly 9000km/5500 miles. The Seaplane version of the BV142, the Ha 139, like the Dornier Do 26 can be catapult launched from ships. There might also be a sea plane route using rivers and lakes.
I'm still not sure the Ju 290 would have been economically attractive to develop in this scenario, but the 252 likely would be, and perhaps the Fw 206 would see continued development. (... or work out a license for the DC-3)Higly capable transports such as the Ju 252 and Ju 290 would ease the problem considerably though these are 1942 aircraft not 1939 aircraft. A Me 109 can easily be broken down by removing both wings, removing the engine and propeller and the horizontal tail. it might fit in the Fw 200.
At optimal cruise power/speed, the DB 605 shouldn't have reduced range over the 601 on its own, though the overall increase in weight (and resulting drag) would be significant.Me 109 fuel tankage never increased much beyond the 400 Litre 87 Imp Gallon fuselage tank unless one counts the 130L supplementary tank from 1944 onwards that could carry either MW50 or extra fuel, the latter not quite compensating for the increasingly more powerful and therefore thirsty engines. Nevertheless the DB601/DB605 somewhat compensated by remaining very economical in high speed cruise.
In an alternate history where more range was needed, the redesigned wings of the 109F might have taken fuel capacity into account as well. (in addition to possibly adopting the rear tank sooner) How that would fare against similarly engined 190 derivatives being developed around the same time, I'm not sure ... aside from the 190 likely being easier to fly and land.The Me 109 wings seem to have been full of the pilots liquid oxygen supply though there must have been some room as I believe the Nitrous Oxide might be carried there as well.
The P-40B had a capacity of 160 US gallons in metal tanks with external self sealing material somewhat similar to the sort of protection used late in the BoB. The P-40C switched to totally new self-sealing tanks that reduced capacity to 134 US gal but added provisions for a 52 US gal drop tank to be fitted, more or less restoring maximum range. (though added empty weight and weight/drag losses from the drop tank may have lessened this somewhat)I thought the P-40B was actually pretty hampered by its modifications:
Curtiss P-40 Warhawk - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Using those figures to apply to the somewhat higher drag 109E airframe and the altitude/fuel consumption performance of the DB 601A using B4 fuel (not the 109E-4N), performance will likely have been somewhat worse either in range or cruise speed, or both. That said, I'd still believe the useful maximum range was well beyond 400 miles ... ferry range around 700 miles on internal fuel would be believable at optimal speed/altitude (probably more believable than the 1230 miles for the P-40B) and perhaps over 500 miles, maybe approaching 600 in combat.Fuel Charts for the Me 109F4 with DB601E are Here, the Gothic German might be hard to decipher.
Beim-Zeugmeister: Page 4 - Range table
The drag reduction in the low power low speed flight envelope might not have been as extreme between the 109E and F, though as above there's also the greater differences between the models using the 601A vs 601N. I still think the 410 mile figure is a bit conservative if lower cruise speeds are considered (or that ranges of Japanese aircraft cruising at higher speeds should be considered -as well as the metrics generally used for Japanese range performance), but approximately 800 miles (combat) with drop-tank to the 109F's >1000 miles seems reasonable.The large gain in speed using pretty much the same power (1175-1200) certainly points to a very large reduction in drag as does the improved turning performance and climbing performance.
Even is range isn't the limiting factor (which would heavily depend on the configuration of the Fw 200), altitude is. With BMW 132 or Bramo 323 engines, the Fw 200 would bve hard pressed to navigate the high Himalayas than the C-47, let alone C-46 or B-24. (B-17 might have fared better still, but that's a separate topic).
Turbocharged variants using similar engines, or perhaps Jumo turbo diesels (though the 207 wouldn't be available early on), or adopting DB 601 or Jumo 211s might have been enough to make the difference. (and offer better cruise performance over the radials)
I overlooked all three of those aircraft in my previous comments about pre-war designs possibly attractive to develop in this scenario (for civil or military use). BV The 142, 139, and Do 26 all have merits there, and the 142 has a high enough ceiling to make it more useful for crossing the Himalayas.
At optimal cruise power/speed, the DB 605 shouldn't have reduced range over the 601 on its own, though the overall increase in weight (and resulting drag) would be significant.
In an alternate history where more range was needed, the redesigned wings of the 109F might have taken fuel capacity into account as well. (in addition to possibly adopting the rear tank sooner) How that would fare against similarly engined 190 derivatives being developed around the same time, I'm not sure ... aside from the 190 likely being easier to fly and land.
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The Ju 252 was to be pressurised from the beginning and its Jumo 211F engines had two stage superchargers with even more power available at high altitude with the Ju 211J. ...
In regards to the Me 109, its DB601 has a reputation of high fuel efficiency at high speed cruise. I consider it somewhat of a technical accomplishment that it was competive in power to engines using 100 octane instead of 87 and seemed to have better fuel consumption outside of the turbocharged engines.
My view has been that the Heinkel He 112 would have been an excellent fighter for the Luftwaffe and might have forestalled some of the latter issues. No one complained of difficult take-off and landing characteristics. It had a wide track undercarriage, outward retracting at the point that the gull wing inflected. When powered by a 960hp DB600 its speed was 350mph and not slower than the Me 109. It carried a pair of synchronised 20mm canon in the cheeks and future versions could have carried a motor gun; 3x 20mm canon is more than enough for most missions.
Although the wing was metal (to the chagrin of heinkel) it could easily have been built of wood, as Heinkel wanted to and had done on the He 70. This would have been Germany's metal saving wooden wonder. The aircraft had a clear view bubble canopy. The wings were free of slats and guns and no doubt could have carried significant quantities of fuel. It could take the more available Jumo 211. Rejecting this aircraft is somewhat reminiscent of Dumb and Dumber rejecting the Swedish Bikini squads offer of a lift.
The Focke-Wulf Fw 200 was designed to cruise passengers at 10,000ft, the highest it was regarded as comfortable to fly passengers without oxygen or pressurisation.
One reason it was not produced in great numbers was that the 'cell' was built as a lightweight single piece that required a large area factory. It couldn't be broken down into sections and that's not how things had to be done in WW2 Germany. It's service ceiling of just under 20,000ft might presumably be improved with a two speed supercharger but since the 123 and 323 engines weren't for frontline combat aircraft why would anyone invest.
The Ju 252 was to be pressurised from the beginning and its Jumo 211F engines had two stage superchargers with even more power available at high altitude with the Ju 211J. It's hard to find a service ceiling for this aircraft, one site gives 21000ft which seems rather to low and probably refers to operational ceiling (where climb rate drops to 500ft/minute). Either way this aircraft with 4,410 lbs. (2000 kg) of payload had a range of 4,100 miles (6600 km) and would make air supply quite plausible but with First Flight in October 1941 its hard to see it in service till May 1942. The wooden built follow on to the Ju 252, the Ju 352, was slated for the BMW 801 and would have had cracking performance with that engine.
My comments regarding C-47 like aircraft were more an aside and should have been prefaced better. It was more in terms of general purpose medium range wide body transports, I was getting off topic.Please look up the Americans actually flying the Hump. It took C-87s (cargo B-24s), C-54s, C-46s to really bring in the tonnage. It also took special C-47s, hundreds if not several thousand C-47s were built with two-stage supercharged R-1830 engines for this duty.
All that is also reasons that shifting priority to the Fw 190 family (likely developed more heavily with range requirements in mind) would have more likely been the sensible option.The 109 was only so big. If you are trying to build a long range plane to take-off from crappy airfields keeping the small wing was probably not the way to go. Using something more like the 109T wing or even bigger might have worked better. 109s with the extra tank in the fuselage were using heavier engines than the early 109s (and bigger oil coolers and such.) sticking in the rear tank with the small engine, even if there was room might not work out so well.
Crashing planes on landing and take-off isn't good when you are only a few hundred miles from the factory and replacements. When you are thousands of miles away and replacement aircraft are weeks if not months in coming using planes or modifications with dubious handling qualities takes on a whole new aspect.
Some of the 132 and 323 engines were already tuned for higher altitudes at the expense of take-off power, with critical altitudes around 10,000 ft. The 323-R series used on several of the military variants of the Fw-200 had 2-speed superchargers allowing 1200 PS on take-off with WM/50 and 940 PS at 4,000 m. (the R-1 lacking WM/50 injection was limited to 1000 PS on take-off)It's service ceiling of just under 20,000ft might presumably be improved with a two speed supercharger but since the 123 and 323 engines weren't for frontline combat aircraft why would anyone invest.
Is there any indication it would have been able to accept the Jumo 211 more easily than the He 100 would have? The relatively tight design of the latter apparently limited re-engining options, or at least the modifications were overall unattractive enough to turn Heinkel off to the idea. (at least on top of conflicts with RLM negotiations)My view has been that the Heinkel He 112 would have been an excellent fighter for the Luftwaffe and might have forestalled some of the latter issues. No one complained of difficult take-off and landing characteristics. It had a wide track undercarriage, outward retracting at the point that the gull wing inflected. When powered by a 960hp DB600 its speed was 350mph and not slower than the Me 109. It carried a pair of synchronised 20mm canon in the cheeks and future versions could have carried a motor gun; 3x 20mm canon is more than enough for most missions. Although the wing was metal (to the chagrin of heinkel) it could easily have been built of wood, as Heinkel wanted to and had done on the He 70. This would have been Germany's metal saving wooden wonder. The aircraft had a clear view bubble canopy. The wings were free of slats and guns and no doubt could have carried significant quantities of fuel. It could take the more available Jumo 211. Rejecting this aircraft is somewhat reminiscent of Dumb and Dumber rejecting the Swedish Bikini squads offer of a lift.
Agreed.Germans in 1939-41 would do better to send heavy duty trucks to Burma than fool around with air transport. Unless they can get air bases in India air supply is just not a realistic option.
There is little doubt that IF a force of 109Es, 110s and He 111s had been able to arrive in 1939 they would have dominated the area they were in (assuming adequate fuel/ammo/etc). What happens as time goes on gets iffier.
With the Ki 27 and A5M both shown to be totally obsolete how fast can the Japanese replace them? DO the Japanese change design philosophy?
The German air industry was larger and in general, more capable than the Japanese industry, and may be able to react or introduce new designs faster, Germans shot themselves in both feet by trying to be too revolutionary rather than evolutionary. Japanese did the same thing and it is a fine line when you only have a certain amount of design teams or staff. DO you try to make a big leap forward so you are not left behind and then stumble leaving you producing old designs or do you improve old designs knowing at some point you will be beating dead horses?
What if the Japanese give up on the Ki-43 and build a big wing Ki-44. Not as fast as the Ki-44 and not as maneuverable as the Ki-43 but as fast as a 109E and more maneuverable while carrying two 7.7mm and two 12.7mgs for starters?
What if, the Japanese facing stiffer opposition in 1939/40, decide a Kinsai powered Zero might be a good idea for early 1942?
Assuming (logistics aside) that a German "Legion" shows up in 1939 and stays until 1942 or after and the Japanese change nothing in their aircraft design/procurement is a mighty big assumption.
Actually the Japanese have a better chance of "invading" California. Stick a bunch of troops on merchant ships, sail to California and unload/invade (best done before Pearl Harbor). Actually being able to sustain the invasion force/succeed is another story.
Germans need to send ships to India or Burma(best case scenario) unload, use exiting crappy rail system/s to move to jump off point and then use trucks over really crappy local road system for hundreds of miles to reach a Chinese city of any size. Partial air lift requires Indian air bases. Once Japan has Burma it can use land based air + ships to block traffic in the Bay of Bengal forcing ship traffic to unload on west side of India.
Trans Siberian railway is hundreds (many hundreds) of miles from the Chinese border let alone any significant Chinese city. Trans Mongolian railway didn't exist before/during WW II. Trying to move supplies by truck (or build hundred of miles of rail line) through Kazakhstan or Mongolia would be a massive undertaking. Truck traffic would be limited by weather ( summer offensive has to wait for spring thaw as no/few trucks make it through in winter? It may be around 1200 miles from Kunming to the southern Mongolian border.
Air lift without a jump off point is a joke. It is just under 4400 miles from Bucharest to Kunming. The Germans have planes that can make the distance (given good winds or at least not adverse winds) but carrying minuscule cargo and no fuel to get back out again. Even a single intermediate airfield just means you can deliver 1/2-2 tons per trip while burning thousand of gallons of fuel.
Allowing overflights and "tons of trade" to pass through the Soviet Union is one thing, but to move entire Armies (men and equipment) is another. And again, even *if* Uncle Joe was to set aside his paranoia and allow Germany to move the bulk of it's army through Soviet proper, how would the German logistics handle the unforgiving Russian winters and the swampy quagmires of the Russian spring? Or perhaps the war with Japan would only be a seasonal affair?
Hitler or not, the Germans of the time viewed Russia with a cautious eye and the historic "neutrality" between Germany and the Soviet Union was a facade and both knew that a showdown was inevitable.
There is a subdued enmity between Japan and the Soviet Union that had been simmering for years and it flared up briefly along the Mongolian border. The the Soviet Union was able to press a victory out of the confrontation with Japan is because the Northern Army was not authorized by Tokyo to engage the Soviets and was therefore not on a full battle footing nor supported. There was also the issue to the northern Japanese islands that Japan always felt that Russia "stole" from them and they intended to have them back. So the peace with the Soviet Union was an uneasy one. Allowing Germany access to China by way of the Soviet Union would most certainly antagonize the fragile peace and most likely lead to a declaration of war.
In 1940, Japan historically had 29 divisions of IJA in mainland Asia with a large reserve. The IJA air service had well over 1,600 aircraft. The IJN had 10 Battleships, 6 Carriers, 16 Heavy Cruisers, 17 Light Cruisers, 99 Destroyers, 63 Submarines and IJN had over 1,400 aircraft. The IJN also had Imperial Marines stationed in mainland Asia.
All these numbers were being added to by a large number, especially prior to 7 December 1941.
Now even assuming that the Germans were able to establish a route across the Asian continent, how would they protect the transports from Japanese interceptors? The Germans would need to establish forward bases to allow for air support and these would not go unchallenged by the Japanese. We can use the AVG as an example of a "toe-hold" in Japanese territory, but even with the AVG's successes, it did not stem the tide of the Japanese and even the AVG was handed setbacks. Considering in this case, the Japanese are not tied down against Allied targets and were able to focus their strategy against the incoming Germans, it's really hard to envision any reasonable success of a German expedition.
And even still, the "hump" is still littered with numerous wrecks to this day, of those flights that never made it...The american planes were newer, had newer engines and had better fuel. They are not direct comparisons with the German older transport designs. I am not trying to argue which was better, just use the American planes as a bench mark. If they had trouble with air supply over a 500 mile stage then how can older, lower powered aircraft actually form and air bridge over triple or quadruple the distance?