On German bombers

[tomo pauk]

If I'm getting it right - in case we have a LR bomber, but now there is a need for the SR bomber, we need to either order the SR bomber from Heinkel, or send the LR bombers back to the factory and let them modify them accordingly? I don't think so, and the diagram posted earlier does not agree with that either. It clearly says that tanks 4 and 5 can be replaced with bigger tanks if neded.

so I suppose the loads illustrated above would be feasible with some jiggery pokery.

Not the jiggery pokery

 

[stona]

If I'm getting it right - in case we have a LR bomber, but now there is a need for the SR bomber, we need to either order the SR bomber from Heinkel, or send the LR bombers back to the factory and let them modify them accordingly? I don't think so, and the diagram posted earlier does not agree with that either. It clearly says that tanks 4 and 5 can be replaced with bigger tanks if neded.

No it doesn't. It describes the different versions as 'Rustzustande' and that is a factory applied modification. It might not be done at the time of production, but could be done at a suitable facility later. It was not something that could be done in the field. It would have involved some major modification of the tankage, bomb bay and associated fuel feeds, pressure lines etc.

The tankage could be altered as shown in the document although I don't know whether it represents proposals (all German manufacturers were keen on proposing all sorts of different sub-types) or actual existing rustzustand. In other words, were any aircraft actually built to those standards?

There are differing degrees of modifications, umbau, rustzustand and rustzatz. Only the last could be supplied as a field kit.

Examples:

A Bf 109 G-10/U4 was fitted with a Mk 108 cannon (umbau 4) which could only be done at the factory.

A Bf 109 G-2/R3 is a reconnaissance version and rustzustande 3 is a factory designation. A standard G-2 could not be converted at the front.

A Bf 109 G-2/RIII is a standard G-2 with rustzatz 3, a drop tank and rack which could be fitted in the field. The plumbing was already factory fitted as standard (since the E-7).

Confusion arises between rustzustande and rustzatz because both are often written in the same way with an upper case 'R' and Arabic numeral. For example if you just see Bf 109 G-2/R3 which of the two above does this mean? It should refer to the reconnaissance version, but.....

There is no confusion in the He 177 document posted.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Vincenzo]

i'm agree that the 'Rustzustande' is different from Rüstsätz, but i'm also agree with tomo the bomb bay is divided only in 2
the "jiggery pokery" are obscure words also a translator can not help can put the mean in a different way?

 

[davebender]

Four engine He-177B was offered as alternative to coupled engine He-177A during 1938. Someone with a lot of clout rejected the idea but no one wants to admit it was his decision.

Personally I think Goering deserves the blame even if original decision wasn't his. As CiC of Luftwaffe he could have over ruled decision for He-177A.

 

[Shortround6]

There are several major problems with the Germans trying to combine some of these super weapons into a strategic bombing campaign.
While you could fit a guidance package to a demolition bomb instead of the armor piercing bomb like the Fitz-X, the bomb system has a few drawbacks. The fitting of the wings and new tail assembly cuts the load to about two weapons per plane, and they have to go outside with the rise in drag/loss of speed and range.
The bomb-aimer has to steer the bomb to the target using a joystick while watching flare in the tail of the bomb. He can only aim/steer one bomb at a time meaning two bombs need two bomb runs. Perhaps OK for shipping attacks but a sure set up for land based AA. Best altitude for dropping/aiming is well within AA range.
To have a "sustained" bombing campaign you need to keep the losses somewhat below 10% per mission. Trading even 2-3 bombers for under a dozen hits might not be that good a trade. And hitting factories (often camouflaged) is lot different than spotting and hitting a ship at sea. High visual contrast?
Something else consider for the Germans trying to bomb the Russians (the so called Ural mission) is just where the missions were supposed to launched from. In the summer of 1941 just reaching Moscow would have been doing good. Trying to fly hundreds of miles further with a worthwhile bombload is a whole different thing. On the face of it the summer of 1942 looks much better, bases much closer to the Urals (but look at a map, it is still a long mission) BUT now the Germans have to get the supplies to the bomber fields. A few raids are one thing but a sustained bombing campaign using even 200 bombers per mission requires about 500,000 U.S. gallons (2,000,000 liters?) Per mission.
Each He177 with tankage for a "medium" range mission holds enough fuel to fill 27 Bf 109s without drop tanks and this fuel has to brought from Germany/Romania by rail. Plus bombs + ammo. How many trains per mission on an already overloaded railnet?

 

[Koopernic]

@Tomo, Griehl usually isn't a great author to get technically accurate performance data from in the sense of providing all of the conditions such as speed, altitude, engine limits, aircraft fit out and date nevertheless we have an accurate data sheet for the He 177A3 above showing 550kmh as its top speed probably at some kind of WEP rating. One could assume a speed at the Military Rating of at least 500kmh (312mph) which would mean about 30 minutes.

The He 177B was essentially a 4 engine version of the He 177A1 or A3 using the BMW801. (The A3 had a slightly longer fuselage to allow for CofG manipulation due to the heavier engines in new nacelles.) The He 277 was far more radically modified, it did fly, with a 33% greater wing area, twin tail fins to handle the extra torque of the DB603 engines and a much higher MTOW, reconfigured accommodation and bomb bay. The He 277 designation wasn't some slight of hand designation to hide a 4 engine development. Nevertheless the He 177 seems to have been more concerned with streamlining and speed than Allied aircraft.

@Stona The bomb bay subdivision problem isn't really a problem as far as the He 177 performing its primary role of long range maritime bombing or carrying normal loads. Hats of to modified Lancaster in late 1944 and 45 carrying tallboy and grand slam though. AFAIKT the largest Luftwaffe bombs were 2500kg (PC2500) and the above fit out shows the possibility of 4 x SC1700 (15200lbs) or 4 x PC1800 (16000lbs armour piercing). The aircraft showed great promise as a guided weapons carrier that might have greatly multiplied its effectiveness, while its speed and range would have been a massive 'force multiplier' for the Luftwaffe allowing coverage of a large number of long range targets from a minimal number of He 177.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and certainly the RLM/Luftwaffe had warnings of potential engine problems they did not heed. The problem seems to have been overly enthusiastic young engineers at Daimler Benz and Heinkel over promising. The very heavy restriction placed on the Germans by Versailes severely restricted the German aviation industry as well as the Luftwaffe would have reduced the number of experienced officers and engineers with the requisite scepticism.

A twin engine installation is significantly superior to a quad. The wing intercepts less blade area, the aeroelastic structural issues are reduced by concentrating loads near the fuselage etc so individual engines would have suffered a performance drop, having said that its likely the greater power available would have simply compensated by allowing greater MTOW therefore range and also speed. The Jumo 211J was in oversupply by 1942 and didn't produce a competitive Ju 88 anymore but would have worked well in the He 177 I suspect, the low production numbers meaning that more powerful engines such as the BMW 801 (from 1941), DB603 (from December 1942) and Jumo 213A (from 1944) were available.

I think you'll find the DB613 was intended for the He 177A7, perhaps the DB610 would have been used in the interim much as the DB606 was used in the interim for early He 177A3.

There seem to have been issues beyond just distributing 4 BMW 801 engines over the He 177 wing related to tail area, propeller rotation etc. The production of C3 fuel was quite restricted and the BMW801 was quite a valuable engine. This in my view means that the Jumo 211 or Db605 would need to be used or the BMW801 used sparingly in He 177 production, often with restriction to B4 fuel.


Luftwaffe and Heer plans for doing to Britain what the RAF and USAAF had done to Germany involved the use of missiles such as the Fi 103(V1), A4 (V2) and A4b (winged long range V1) and a few other devices such as the BV 246. These were evolving more accurate guidance packages and in all likelihood would have exceeded the average accuracy of daylight bombing and night bombing. Electronic aids were essential to both the USAAF and RAF. As the V2 and V1 already had autopilots adding a little electronics wasn't going to add much too cost.

The pilot of a 1942 Oboe equipped aircraft only really interpreted an audible dot dash sequence to tell him to nudge the aircraft heading a little left or right. A bit of electronics could have done that and saved having to supply headphones and normal radios. The IFF/Transponder based technology used on Oboe had been developed and used by all combatants.

These methods were expected to be more efficient than building up a manned bomber force.

 

[tomo pauk]

@Tomo, Griehl usually isn't a great author to get technically accurate performance data from in the sense of providing all of the conditions such as speed, altitude, engine limits, aircraft fit out and date nevertheless we have an accurate data sheet for the He 177A3 above showing 550kmh as its top speed probably at some kind of WEP rating. One could assume a speed at the Military Rating of at least 500kmh (312mph) which would mean about 30 minutes.

Indeed, Griehl sometimes give 440 km/h as both max and cruise speed for same He 177??
The manufacturer indeed gives 550 km/h at Kampfleistung (30 min rating) and 500 km/h on max. continuous power:

The He 177B was essentially a 4 engine version of the He 177A1 or A3 using the BMW801. (The A3 had a slightly longer fuselage to allow for CofG manipulation due to the heavier engines in new nacelles.) The He 277 was far more radically modified, it did fly, with a 33% greater wing area, twin tail fins to handle the extra torque of the DB603 engines and a much higher MTOW, reconfigured accommodation and bomb bay. The He 277 designation wasn't some slight of hand designation to hide a 4 engine development.

The He 277 was never built, at least going by Wikipedia.

 

[tomo pauk]

A something more down to earth - the He 111H-16:

 

[Shortround6]

Thank you.

Notice that the H-16 still only had 1120PS engines for take-off.

 

[tomo pauk]

Nope - the 'Startleistung', ie 'take off power' of the Jumo 211F engines, installed, among others, in the He 111H-16, was 1340 PS. 'Startleistung' is noted in the remark 'Beste steigeschwindligheit im Startzustand mit Nstart' (roughly 'best RoC on full load with take off power'); Nstart is 'Startleistung' or 'take off power'.
The H-16 was outfitted with bigger defensive firepower than earlier subtypes - MG FFM in nose, MG 131 dorsal, MG 81Z ventral, plus possibility for side window/hatch MGs.

 

[Shortround6]

Thank you for the correction. The He 111 never got the 211J though.
And the increase armament was a year late at best (and 2 years after the BoB) and about 100 marks short.

I have my doubts about how good the MG FFM in the nose was. Pretty good against ground targets or ships/boats, against fighter planes????

Manual for earlier He 111 armament. Including 20mm MG FFM firing out the front of the gondola.

http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/attachments/other-mechanical-systems-tech-/121769d1266024485-iii-manual-upload-111-bedienungsvorschrift-schusswaffe.pdf

I don't know how valid this drawing is as it is from a wargaming site:

Posed picture? no magazine/drum is visible.

 

[Greyman]

A something more down to earth - the He 111H-16:

Handily outpaced by a Wellington X. Ouch.

 

[stona]

"jiggery pokery" are obscure words also a translator can not help can put the mean in a different way?

Sorry Vincenzo, I shouldn't really have used such a slang expression on a forum where English is not everyone's first language.

'Jiggery pokery' just means messing about or having to do some work to make something happen. It actually has origins in the sleight of hand used by conjurers to do something like produce a rabbit from a hat if I remember correctly.

Cheers

Steve

 

[tomo pauk]

...
I have my doubts about how good the MG FFM in the nose was. Pretty good against ground targets or ships/boats, against fighter planes????

The 30-round drum used for the MG FFM here does not help the things out either.

I don't know how valid this drawing is as it is from a wargaming site:

It is taken from the manual, 1st such gun layout seem to date from the He 111H-11. S means side angle/arc, H means elevation:

Posed picture? no magazine/drum is visible.

Probably, the drum comes atop the cannon, the empty casings go through the sleeve visble.

Handily outpaced by a Wellington X. Ouch.

Wellington have had the advantage of a far less restricted bomb bay; the introduction of the Hercules engines was also a major boon.
We could use the thread about the RAF's bombers (especially about the early war types), BTW, there is wast number of threads that deal with fighters.

 

[Shortround6]

The 30-round drum used for the MG FFM here does not help the things out either.

The manual for the earlier planes shows a box magazine of 15 rounds(?). enough for a pass when strafing but not so good for defending against fighters, but then those 75 round magazines for the MG 15s weren't so good either and some of them were out of reach of the gunner if he kept one hand on the gun. See the manual for the 20mm stowage when the gun was in the gondola, gunner fired laying down on stomach but reloaded when kneeling (or standing to reach spare magazines(?)
Getting the listed 38 degrees of traverse to one side may take a bit of work from the gunner.

 

[stona]

The true workhorse of Bomber Command during the early 12-18 months of the war was the very often over looked Whitley. It could carry 7,000lbs of bombs, the heaviest load for any RAF bomber since the Handley Page V/1500 of 1918.

That what early Luftwaffe bombers should be compared to.

I don't think you can overestimate the doctrinal differences between the two sides. The RAF as an independent service was more or less established as a bombing force. Bomber Commands separate roots lie in the 'Independent Force of the Royal Air Force' commanded directly by Trenchard.

The Luftwaffe was established and developed in the 1930s on entirely different principles and that's why aircraft like the He 111, Do 17, Ju 88 were developed. Aircraft like the Do 19 and Ju 89 (based on the Ju 86, Manchester/Lancaster parallels here) were not.

The Americans were also on a different course producing the Boeing 229 for example.

Cheers

Steve

 

[stona]

Handily outpaced by a Wellington X. Ouch.

We should beware of quoted performance figures.

For example, a Wellington Mk 1C is quite rightly credited with a maximum speed of 235 mph at 15,500 ft with a service ceiling of 18,000ft. These figures bear no resemblance to operational performance. This aircraft with four 1000lb bombs and full fuel tanks could just about make 12,000ft and cruise at just 165 mph. It's optimum operational altitude was in fact just 11,300ft.
The Manchester 1 could make 205 mph at 13,650ft under the same conditions (90% of take of weight). It could also carry a heavier load than the Halifax further than the Sterling, so it was by no means a bad aircraft to develop the Lancaster from.

The same to a greater or lesser extent applies to all operational aircraft, including of course the He 177.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Shortround6]

The max range often quoted for the MK I Wellington is with 1500lb of bombs and the Whitley could only carry 7000lbs over a rather short distance.
The He 111s bomb load of 4400lbs has to be looked at that context (or 2200lbs and 1/2 the bomb bay full.of fuel.)
The He 111 was every bit a strategic bomber in 1939/40. Germans just did only the most minor of modifications/improvements for the next 2-3 years.

 

[stona]

My data for a Wellington Mk 1 are, maximum radius 1,000 miles with 2,500lbs of bombs and a maximum bomb load of 4,500 lbs with an equivalent radius, with one hour loiter reserve, of 560 miles

For the Whitley those figures are 725 miles with 3,000lbs and a mere 240 miles with 7,000lbs. The one hour loiter reserve is common sense really.

What are the operational figures for a 1940 He 111?

These may have been built as heavy or strategic bombers but they were downgraded to medium bombers with the advent of the four engine types. The Manchester was the last twin heavy.

It's often forgotten that the Independent Force in WW1 bombed Baalon, Badon, Black Forest, Bonn, Coblenz, Cologne, Darmstadt, Dillingen, Duren, Forbach, Frankfurt, Hagenau, Hargendingen, Heidelburg, Kaiserslautern, Karlsruhe, Karthaus, Lahr, Landau, Lugwigshafen, Lumes, Luxembourg, Mainz, Mannheim, Oberndorf, Offenburg, Pforzheim, Pirmasens, Rastatt, Rombas, Rottweill, Saarbrucken, Saarburg, Salingen, Stuttgart, Treves, Volkingen, Wadgassen, Worms and Zweibrucken. This was done mostly by night flying Handley Page 0/004s It was hardly a new idea in the inter war years, nor at the beginning of the second war.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Vincenzo]

Time ago were put on this forum the RAF chart for some british twins, i'm sorry but not remember the name probably like Stirling
data for the Wellington IA-IC range at most economical speed (165 mph at 10,000) (with 69 galls of fuel allowance): with 4500 lbs of bomb, 1200 (miles i suppose) , with 2750 lbs of bomb, 1805 (miles), with 1000 lbs of bomb, 2550 (miles).
Wellington X range (180 mph at 15,000)(125 gals of allowance): with 4500 lbs, 1325 miles, with 1500 lbs, 1885 miles
Manchester range (185 mph at 15,000) (110 gals of allowance): with 10350 lbs, 1200 (miles), with 8100 lbs, 1630 (miles)
Whitley VII range (135 mph at 5,000) (45 gals of allowance): with 5500 lbs, 1360 (miles), with 4500 lbs, 1630 (miles), with 3500 lbs, 1900 (miles), with 2500 lbs, 2170 (miles)
Whitley V range (165 mph at 15,000) (115 gals of allowance): with 8,000 lbs, 630 (miles), with 5,500 lbs, 1370 (miles), with 4,500 lbs, 1645 (miles), with 3,500 lbs, 1930 8miles)