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Surrender?
There is no option 'we throw in the towel'
The HE 111 never got the better engines. It ended it's career (except for the H-23 variant) using pretty much the same engines it was using in 1940.
Let's Imagine the British building Wellingtons in 1944 using under 1100hp Pegasus engines. Then we could claim the Wellington hit the peak of it's development almost from the start of the war.
The Luftwaffe had a strategic bomber. It was the He 111. It could reach a good part of England from Germany, it could hit a large part of France from Germany (excepting the coast of the southern part of the Bay of Biscay and the western part of the Spanish/French border.) it could hit most of Poland and any other targets in the Balkans. What else did they need to hit in 1939/40? After The fall of the France the He 111 could hit Northern Ireland, How much further west do you need to go?
The whole "Ural" bomber program was a waste, just look at a map.
It is almost 200 miles further from MInsk to Chelyabinsk (Tankograd) than it is from London to Minsk. 1340 miles from Minsk to Chelyabinsk and this requires the Germans to capture Minsk and be able to supply the air fields there in any planning done before the summer of 1941.
How effective was anything short of a B-29 operating at a 1300 mile radius? What would it take to supply hundreds of German almost B-29s in Russia East of Minsk?
I wasn't thinking of a B29 equivalent. The He111 had a broadly equivalent performance to the Wellington and no one from 1942 onward, no one would describe the Wellington or the He111 as a strategic bomber, time had moved on. The Wellington was replaced by the four engine bombers with their significantly improved range/payload performance and it's that capability that would be exceptionally helpful against Russia.
You are correct in the first instance, to reach the production yard would have been beyond the range of the Lanc, Halifax, B17 and B24. But between them and the front line would have been valuable targets, storage area's, railway centres, depots, repair facilities plus others who would have been ripe for air assault. Plus I think hundreds would have sufficed. It would have spread the Russian defences over a much larger area plus of course the Russian fighters were short ranged, lacked high altitude performance (except the Mig 3) and Russia were woefully prepared to defend against a night attack.The trouble is that the distances in Russia mean that even four engine bombers of types used by the allies in 1942/43 and into 1944 won't do what the German need to do. The Allies only needed to fly 300 miles to hit the Ruhr and 650 miles would see the Polish border. The Germans need planes that will fly much further with the same amount of bombs.
The Germans also need lots of them, thousands, not hundreds.
100,000, impossible. But had the Germans ramped up production in 1939 to 1942 they might have got close to 50,000 Bf 109s. This is the biggest error of the Luftwaffe and RLM (Reichsluftfahrtministerium) that they didn't go to war production levels until the after the war was essentially lost in 1942/3.
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Messerschmitt Bf 109 - Wikipedia
Considering their limited and declining access to oil (mostly from Ploiesti, Romania), it's no surprise that the German war machine was remarkably adept at creating gasoline from coal. The Germans weren't short on a gas for its fighters.I gots millions of fighters but....and here's the crunch.....no gasolina.
So unless you can find a few Millon barrels of crude then you better find horses that can fly on a few bales of hay.
Beyond Luftwaffe's pay grade.Don't invade Russia. Don't declare war on America. Stop the Wunderwaffen stuff and focus on stuff that makes a difference in combat rather than terror. Divert the resources devoted to extermination to actual fighting while you're at it. Don't invade Russia, and focus on the UK -- subs and airplanes. Kill Hitler or at least get him out of the strategy decisions. Once you've decided to support Italy in Africa, do it, don't half-ass it. Don't invade Russia and don't declare war on America.
Beyond Luftwaffe's pay grade.
He was too busy changing his wardrobe.Goering's the #2 guy in Germany. He'd best get to work trying to change Adi's mind.
It is all a bit pointless unless you can crew these wonder planes with well trained aircrew. Establish an efficient aircrew training program and fund it and fuel it. First class aircrew can do more with adequate aeroplanes than shortfall ill trained ones with wonder planes. Training, training, training.
The second option is to asap cancel the problematic programs, reduce the number of aircraft where possible (such as no He-219, no Do-335 etc), cancel such useless programs such as Me-309/209, Ta-154 and so on and focus on what works plus jets for the future, at least they will get more numbers, which they desperately needed.
A proper Me 210/410 may get you a sort of Mosquito. 340-450mph at 20,000ft with a pair of 1100lb bombs?
ditch the dive bomber requirement?