Most overrated german plane?

[pbehn]

I wonder if the Germans figured out the existence of the XX program during WW2. On the other hand, if they had, would it have made a difference? If they can't tell if an agent who is sending them information is compromised, when does information supplied get so devalued as to be worthless?

Incidentally, the Germans tried something similar, but they used their intelligence personnel to impersonate captured spies (who had been tortured and killed). Since spies used telegraphy to transmit, the people at the receiving end knew that the information was compromised as people transmitting by Morse have individual styles -- their "fist" -- which is distinguishable by a skilled operator.

The Germans did do it successfully in Holland and France. Englandspiel - Wikipedia

 

[GregP]

Yes, he had many design is service. That doesn't mean they were the preferred design. It means the Nazis had a small number of aircraft firms from which to choose, and some of the more disliked firms made some very good airplanes. Credit the German procurement arm for buying from those they preferred not to when the quality of the products offered was demonstrated.

Willy Messerschmitt was virtually hated by the Nazis at first, but had dozens of design in service. Milch hated Willy.

 

[GrauGeist]

Germany actually had a large aircraft industry base prior to, and during, WWII

AGO
Akafleig
Arado
Argus
Bachem
BFW/Messerschmitt
Blohm & Voss
Bücker
Daimler-Benz
DFS
Dornier
Erla
Fiesler
Flettner
Focke-Achgelis
Focke-Wulf
Göppingen
Gotha
Heinkel
Henschel
Horton
Hütter
Junkers
Klemm
Lippisch
Siebel
Siemens-Schuckert
Skoda-Kauba
SNCASO
Weserflug
WNF
Zeppelin

 

[GregP]

Actually, they didn't. They had a few firms capable of large production contracts and many smaller firms. Most of the firms you list above had very few significant warplanes, and you know it.

I suppose a firm like Skoda-Kauba qualifies as an aircraft builder, but it's like saying Stavatti Aerospace here in the U.S.A. is an aircraft maker. Yes, they exist, but no, they don't have any planes in service. I'd give you Arado, Messerschmitt, Dornier, Focke-Wulf, Heinkel, and Junkers as major firms. The rest are fighting for a few crumbs of production and collectively don't amount to much in the way of war-winning aircraft. The HA 129 was decent, but not vital. Thank the stars that Blohm & Voss made ships, or they'd have starved from what was purchased and built. Yes, their big flying boats were impressive, but they amount to much overall, and didn't contribute much to the war effort, aside from a few deliveries of supplies thaht never really made a difference anywhere.

Sure, they had a few in there, but the aircraft firms in question could have been dispensed with for virtually no war impact.

Messerschmitt and Heinkel weren't popular. Heinkel was personally unpopular at the RLM and Messerschmitt was personally on the wrong side of Milch, who never wanted ANYTHING from Messerschmitt. He was overruled, fortunately for the Luftwaffe. Later on, they just treated Willy like the initial dislike of him never happened. He was wise enough to let it go. I doubt if he'd have been allowed to leave Germany alive to contribute his expertise to the Allies effort.

However, opinions vary and you may consider all the above firms to be players. The war is long over, and it doesn't matter much, so the import is minimal either way. I concede they had a decent list of firms, but think the actual players were VERY few, and Messerschmitt wasn't even initially considered as one, even when he was with Bayerische Flugzeugwerke (BFW). Before the competition, the Bf 109 was given no real chance of winning a production contract. It as only AFTER the Bf 109 proved such a good airplane that BFW was considered and awarded the win. So, the six firms above viable for major contracts shrink to five or less if you turn the clock back to 1935 and look at the political reality of the time.

 

[GrauGeist]

If the war is long over and it doesn't matter, why are you here?

The germans had quite an aviation industry but they didn't have the intuition to move away from a cottage industry mindset. You cannot start a world war with a few thousand fighters on hand.

And many of those firms I listed, subcontracted out to primary designs, like Erla, Fiesler and others did for the Bf109. For the Fw190, there was also quite a few subcontractors, like AGO, Arado, Dornier, Mimetall and Weserflug. The French factory license-built transports and performed repairs.

The list goes on, but the Germans did nothing different than the U.S. did, by subcontracting out to aircraft smaller firms for whole aircraft, parts and compenents.

And back to Heinkel...he was most certainly held in high regard with the RLM. A vast majority of his designs were a vital part of the prewar Luftwaffe. The Japanese also held him in high regard, as they purchased his designs and aircraft and had his engineers as special advisors involved with their aircraft industry.

As far as the Ha129 comment goes...are you trying to say Hs129, as in the Henschel ground attack aircraft?

Bottom line, is all the manufacturers contributed to the German war effort, the majority of types don't get any press, because they were transports, liasons, trainers and so on.

 

[pbehn]

War is war, once the dogs of war are unleashed all bets are off. Adolf unleashed the dogs of limited military campaigns on 1st September 1939, he himself was in no way prepared for total war. Despite kicking off the conflict at a time of his choosing Adolfs military production quickly fell behind, despite controlling most of western Europe he was being out produced in many areas like fighter and bomber aircraft by the UK alone in 1940. But by 1941 he was also at war with USA and Russia.

 

[special ed]

Bucker and Arado built trainers just as our minor companies such as Stearman, Ryan and Vultee built trainers. Vega built B-17s. PBYs were built by Boeing Canada, Vickers Canada, and the Naval Aircraft factory. Most of these smaller companies built other models and subcontracted assemblies, just as was done in Germany.

 

[Gemhorse]

Not sure how the Germans were too dumb to develop the He219. It was designed around an engine that was troublesome, just like several Allied designs, and had to go with an alternate. The RLM also drug their feet in it's development including inhouse politics between Milch and Kammhuber, creating critical delays.
As it stands, the He219 was a good performing aircraft, well armed and faster than the Ju88 and Bf110 nightfighters.

I believe the He-219 was a reincarnation of an earlier aircraft, dating back to when they first began testing remotely-controlled barbettes on Bf-110's in 1938 which involved Arado, Rheinmetall-Borsig and the Deutsche Versuchsanstalt fur Luftfahrt - The tests were successful but they wanted a faster aircraft so to cut a long story short, they used the Arado Ar-240, which evolved into an A,B & C with a number of variants, trying-out all sorts of engines etc, including the one that was supposed to be for the Heinkel He-219 'Uhu' , the 1900hp DB-603G - There were 3 variants of the Ar-240's proposed to have these engines, the Ar-240C-4 reconnaissance aircraft became the Ar-440 which was proposed to be fitted with 2x 2000hp DB627A/B engines, but it was all suspended in 1943 - The amazing thing about these aircraft is the wing planform and twin-tail section are all obviously (to me, anyway,) fore-runners of the He-219 design -

My favourite aircraft is the De Havilland Mosquito, (more so now since we are restoring & building them down here), but their role as Nightfighter is my passion, the Nightfighter War my meat & grissle ~ Consequently, the Luftwaffe nightfighters are also of great interest to me and the He-219 was a highly evolved and progressive aircraft - Like most things that were great about their WW2 aircraft, it was probably too little of them, too late...

If I have one aircraft I disliked it was because it was disliked perhaps by it's own pilots & crew, and that would be the Heinkel He-177 - It was another failure of Goering/ Milch/ RLM that they didn't really put enough effort into big bombers and when they did venture at it they were pretty disastrous - Bloody good for the rest of us though !!

Cheers ~

(PS : There is supposed to be an umlaut over the 'u' in Deutsche Versuchsanstalt fur Luftfahrt , but I'm not familiar as to how to do that - I believe it indicates a 'plural ' nature to the name ~ )

 

[GregP]

I am here because I am interested in WWII aviation. I work on them every weekend. Why are YOU here?

When I say it doesn't matter much, I mean the war is over and decided. We can cuss and discuss and the war is STILL over, and the results won't change. So, I'd rather discuss and not argue these days. Hope you feel the same, at least on that point.

Yah, Hs 129, quite obviously. If you have been paying minimal attention for the last few years, you'll know I make a few typos. It shouldn't be "news" to anyone.

We'll have to agree to disagree on the German aviation industry, but that's no big thing. With the industry they had, they made some very good aircraft. Off hand I'd say they were amazing, especially considering the fact that they were being bombed for the last 2 1/2 years or so of the war.

Nothing to complain about other than the vast effort expended on prototypes that apparently were built to explore new ground rather than prosecute the war effort.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Relax...

 

[GregP]

Am relaxed ...

Actually, Adler, you might be a bit interested in this ... I'm taking a sabbatical from the O-47 I was working on and helping out on the Ha.1112 Buchon. I'm working on making the front half of the port tip rib. It got damaged in "hangar rash" handling after the groundloop accident in the year 2000. It's fun to fabricate repairs that look like new when you finish, isn't it? The slat is held on by two bolts. One is a 12-point bolt and the other is an internal wrenching bolt. Both are SAE rather than metric, so I'm assuming some earlier owner retrofitted them as I expected them to be metric. We find interesting stuff every weekend on it.

The primary guys on it already moved the hydraulic pump in back of the pilot and moved the battery to the firewall to compensate. They made a new instrument panel and put new transparencies in the windscreen / canopy frame. They had to fab a new battery box and I got to help with that. Not much room actually. The systems on this the Buchon are primitive and easy to improve upon. Then again, the systems may be the result of years of "hacking" by former owners. Difficult to tell since we don't generally look up something unless we have to work on it or modify it for some reason.

In the end, we are fabricating a new lower cowling that looks MUCH more like a Bf 109G, complete with carbon fiber oil cooler scoop, than an He.1112. Can't change the location of the spinner since it still has a Merlin in it, but the lower cowling will look much better than a stock Buchon when it is flying again.

 

[ClayO]

I think over-rated, in this context, might be seen to mean: It is "overrated" if the cost to the government in money, people, and resources was "a lot more" than the wartime results would warrant. That is, had they known what the wartime results would eventually be, they would likely not have expended the resources to make it in the first place, or "the cost-to-benefit ratio was too high."

I believe the cost-to-benefit ratio of the V-1 was too high, along with same for the V-2, Me 163, Me 262, Me 264, and at least the Tiger tank. The Germans would have been better off concentrating on the Fw 190 series and making actual improvements to the Bf 109 family than what really happened (V-2, Me163, Me 262, Me 264, Hs 132, Tiger tank, etc.). They literally pissed away major portions of scarce resources on projects that contributed NOTHING to the war effort, and didn't even seem to THINK about logistics on the Russian Front and other places. They also never had strategic bombing airframes at all. The closest they came was the Me 264 and He 277, and they dropped Me 264 after making viable airframes. Had they built the He 277 instead of the He 177, they might again have had a viable strategic bomber.

This is where we get into the comparison of the airplane vs. the weapon. For instance, the Me 262 was a ground-breaking airplane, a far better bomber destroyer than any other German airplane; but without high-temperature metals for the engines, an effective pilot training program, enough pilots to train, and a clear purpose from the start of the development cycle, it was doomed to never live up to its potential.

 

[spicmart]

Hello GrauGeist,
I had actually never heard of the Bf 162 before. From a quick read, it does not appear to offer that much of an advantage over existing types to justify production. The FW 187 and He 100, especially the He 100 as I see it (in hindsight) had more potential a the next generation single seat fighter.
I was thinking JuMo 213 as eventually installed in FW 190D, but that engine was off in the future and Junkers had pretty severe issues in trying to increase power, Who in 1941 would have predicted the eventual success of the JuMo 213 evolution of a "Bomber Engine"?
Perhaps an engine swap would have needed a bit of redesign, but it can't be any worse than the Ki 61 going from inline to radial or the FW 190 going from radial to a DB 603 and then a JuMo.

- Ivan.

Why do you think that the He 100 had more development potential than a Me 109? The airframe was even smaller, the same dimensions as the Yak-3. Every upgrade would have taken more modifications than the Me 109.
And installing a Jumo 213 into a He 100 would not have been possible as this engine was too big and too heavy even for the Me 109.

 

[Ivan1GFP]

Why do you think that the He 100 had more development potential than a Me 109? The airframe was even smaller, the same dimensions as the Yak-3. Every upgrade would have taken more modifications than the Me 109.
And installing a Jumo 213 into a He 100 would not have been possible as this engine was too big and too heavy even for the Me 109.

Hello Spicmart,

The service capable versions of the He 100 were about 35 MPH faster than the contemporary Me 109 and carried similar or heavier armament. (It tended to vary with each version.)
With better aerodynamics, not only is level speed greater, but range and ceiling were also better than the contemporary Me 109.

The aircraft had a wide track landing gear which didn't have the geometry problems inherent in the splayed gear of the 109. This hopefull would have reduced the number of landing accidents.
The He 100 was definitely smaller in overall dimensions, but seemed to have quite a lot of adaptability with the various sizes of wings, engines and cooling systems that were used for speed records and for service models.
Engines could have gone the same route as they did for the Me 109 with the DB 605 series.

The bottom line as I see it is that the Me 109, especially before the 109F was not a very aerodynamic design and there were some issues such as its maneuverability at high speed that were never corrected even on later versions. The He 100 had a lot more performance with no more engine power than the 109E and seems like it offered more potential for development. Other folks also managed to do more with the same power. Just do a quick comparison between the Me 109E, Kawasaki Ki 61-I and Macchi C.202. All fly with near equivalent engines generating about the same output. The 109E is slower by 15-20 MPH.

- Ivan.

 

[BiffF15]

For me it is the Ta 152. The performance was excellent for a last-gen piston fighter, but not anything better than on par with all the last-gen Allied piston fighters. It was VERY good compared with the 1943 - 1944 fighter list, but so were ALL the last-gen pistons like the P-51H, P-47M/N, Tempest, Spitfire 21, Hornet, F8F-2 Bearcat, F7F Tigercat, and perhaps slipping in the Lavochkin La-9.

The Ta-152 has the distinction of being the best German piston fighter, to be sure (can't take that away from it), but was built in numbers too few to be of any wartime impact. It ALMOST made the war in decent numbers, but it was known as the Fw 190D-9 at the time, not as a Ta-152.

It's exactly like the Japanese Mitsubishi Ki-83, of which they only built 4 ... wonderful and interesting, but not of any impact due to non-participation and small numbers. At least the Germans managed to get the Ta-152 actually deployed and into combat! They get credit for that, anyway.

You'd never know it from the comments above, but I really LIKE the Ta-152. Liking it doesn't change its wartime impact, though.

Greg,

The inline Fw-190 are my favorites as well! I also think there was a good chance that more were not made due to political sway by a competing aircraft manufacturer...

I also like your highlighted comment above. However it wasn't hard to deploy Luftwaffe fighters in late war Germany, just have to roll them outside the factory door...

Cheers,
Biff

 

[Shortround6]

Perhaps an engine swap would have needed a bit of redesign, but it can't be any worse than the Ki 61 going from inline to radial or the FW 190 going from radial to a DB 603 and then a JuMo.

On the He 100 the upper cowl was actually the engine mount. It might have been possible to redesign the airplane to use the Jumo engine with less work than converting the Ki 61 to the radial but it wasn't going to be trivial either.

The He 100 also used the surface radiator system. We can argue for weeks about if it was steam or hot water or what but

even if this is not strictly accurate there was a large area of airframe that was part of the cooling system/s (fuselage and vertical fin were part of the oil cooling system)
Which means it was rather vulnerable to gun fire. The fuel tanks were in the wings, and not really in the wing roots. That space was occupied by the single MG 17 on each side.
Since these were pre-war aircraft there is little evidence that armor or self sealing tanks were ever fitted. Large flat tanks tend to be heavy for their capacity (and loss capacity quicker) than thicker tanks when self sealing is used.
Most of the later He 100s were supposed to be fitted with a 20mm MG/FF through the prop hub. How many were actually fitted is subject to question but more importantly we have no information on how well they worked. Messerschmitt was not able to get a through the hub gun to work until the 109F in the fall of 1940. Can Heinkel do better with the same engine and gun?
Assuming the gun works (at least an acceptable amount of the time) you had a single 20mm gun with 60 rounds of ammo and the two machine guns, (500rpg?) Which means a lot less armoment than a 109E. About the same as a 109F-0, let;s assume that the HE 100 would have received the MG 151 at the same time the 109F did. The 109Fs were not well armed aircraft with any of the cannon options, at least 3 gun versions.
There was a proposed He 100 with a slightly bigger wing which was supposed to take two MG 17s on each side in the wing root. Construction may have started but I don't know if it ever flew.
The He 100 may have been wide track with all the advantages that implies, however there are a few disadvantages.
Like no space for a centerline store (bomb or drop tank) which means, unless you go for the hardpoint/store under each wing (and the drag) range is limited to internal fuel.

 

[Shortround6]

However it wasn't hard to deploy Luftwaffe fighters in late war Germany, just have to roll them outside the factory door...

 

[Ivan1GFP]

Hello Shortround6,

I actually hadn't suggested the idea of a JuMo 213 in the He 100, but as you say, just about anything is possible with enough work.
The version of He 100 that I was thinking of didn't use evaporative cooling any more. It had a retractable radiator of more conventional configuration. I don't have a book handy, Wikipedia calls this version He 100D-1 and they eventually served in the factory defense role at Heinkel.
There is also mention of the space between the wings being widened for the radiator. Depending on location, perhaps this would also allow for a centerline ordnance rack.
Performance was quite a lot less than D-0 at ONLY 390 MPH or so which is why I was claiming only about a 35 MPH advantage over the Me 109E.

As I see it, all of these aircraft were just prototypes and perhaps a little stretch for equipment required for operations may have degraded performance a bit, but the design looked like a pretty good place to start.

- Ivan.

 

[Shortround6]

There is a fair amount of disagreement on the cooling system and/or radiators on the last planes. (the D-1?)

Some sources say the under fuselage radiator replaced the surface cooling system, others say it supplemented it.

That is a might small radiator for an 1100hp class engine and while it is retractable the basic streamlining sucks. One also wonders where the oil cooler is. No, the small inlet under and behind the prop spinner isn't it.

I do have the book "Heinkel He 100 Record Breaker"

and it sides with the retractable radiator being a supplement camp.

 

[GrauGeist]

If memory serves right, the oil cooling system was similar to the water cooling system - thus, no large oil cooler as in conventional types.