Some stuff about Tank's rare fighters (1 Viewer)

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tomo pauk

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Apr 3, 2008
...can be found here:

1 - Focke Wulf 190 C-1 - Further Suggestions - War Thunder - Official Forum
2 - Ta 152C3 and B5 - Further Suggestions - War Thunder - Official Forum
3 - Focke Wulf 190 A-3/U7 - 1. Höhenjäger - Further Suggestions - War Thunder - Official Forum

Just make sure to hit 'Spoiler' buttons, there is the good stuff hidden :)
For mandatory reading about the Fw-190, mainstream models as well as modifications tested, people are compelled to read stuff at Mike Williams' site.
 
IMO, the RLM wanted to cover it's bets. Even the problematic 801A and 801C were capable for considerably more power than contemporary DB or Jumo engines, until the DB-603 emerged. Few could disagree that, between late 1941 and late 1943, the Fw-190 was, if not the best, then between 3 best fighters in the world.
But then, the Fw-190 with even more power would've been an even more a formidable fighter, hence the LW failed when not taking the chances with DB-603 in the 190 in 1943.
 
In case the Focke Wulf gets to build the Fw-190C, the LW basically gets the Fw-190D-9 equivalent more than a year earlier.
 
too many problems with the C-series to implement, not necessarily due to lack of engines.

I don't believe that for one minute.

Provide Focke Wulf with an adequate supply of DB603 engines and Dr. Tank will modify his aircraft to make the engines fit. That holds true even if DB603 engines were available during 1941.
 
The DB 603 in 41-43 was not really deemed reliable enough for fighter use with the long use of high powersettings in combat.
And again, it's a myth you would get the 43/44 DB 603A several years earlier without the continuous improvements and developments done for the 601/605 series.
 
The DB 603 in 41-43 was not really deemed reliable enough for fighter use with the long use of high powersettings in combat.
And again, it's a myth you would get the 43/44 DB 603A several years earlier without the continuous improvements and developments done for the 601/605 series.

Again you repeat that as an article of faith without realizing the the DB601/5 improvements had little relevance to the much larger DB603, which had unique engineering issues that made the smaller engine's developments useless for it. It required its own fuel injector and cooling system due to having larger displacement, which caused specific cooling issues that simply scaling up the DB601/5's developments wasn't enough. If it were than the 603 would have been ready to go in 1941/42 instead of taking until late 1943 to even approach, not reach, 100 hours between overhauls. Having 603 specific development from 1936-1941 would have resulted in 603 specific design solutions that wouldn't have been put off and worked out later when funding was restored and prototypes built. As I mentioned in the Ideal LW thread the prototypes weren't ready until 1940-41, so when they tested the 601 developments on it they weren't good enough; they were able to skip some steps in the meantime to force it into production, but they weren't able to get it to work right until they had enough time to work on the 603 specifically, which was historically some time in late 1940-late 1943. Those years wasted from 1937-1940 would have been enough to figure out the specific engineering issues of the 603 and developed in parallel with the 601, which if anything would have offered help with the bigger 605's cooling issues.
 
Why didn't they historically though? AFAIK there were too many problems with the C-series to implement, not necessarily due to lack of engines.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focke-Wulf_Fw_190_B_und_C

Possibly we would never know why the DB-603A-powered Fw-190 was not pursued in a more resolute effort. Many creditable sources say that engines was still having issues, even in 1943. But then, the Jumo-213A was not exactly known quality in 1942-1943 either; the DB-603A at least powered some aircraft considerably sooner than that was true for the 213. Maybe RLM was lulled in a sense of false security, believing that current fighters will be more than adequate until jets are available?
One of the shortcoming in an early installation of the DB-603A on the Fw-190V13 was the attempt to use internal air intake ('Offenrohr') instead of usual external one. Someone at Fw or DB was being too smart, counting that some amount of drag might be saved? The internal air intake was installed from inside of the ring cooler, going behind the engine and then to the supercharger. At the end, it denied any appreciable gain of ram - the German Wiki mentions 1500m was lost in the rated altitude on high speed? The lower rated altitude, lower speed at higher altitudes. We don't know if, or how much the 'Offenrohr' heated the intake air traveling through it? The V15 used 'plain vanilla' external air intake, and offered good performance. Neither V13 nor V15 carried any weaponry?
The engine troubles were culprit(s) for a forced landing, however.
 
Again you repeat that as an article of faith without realizing the the DB601/5 improvements had little relevance to the much larger DB603, which had unique engineering issues that made the smaller engine's developments useless for it. It required its own fuel injector and cooling system due to having larger displacement, which caused specific cooling issues that simply scaling up the DB601/5's developments wasn't enough........ Those years wasted from 1937-1940 would have been enough to figure out the specific engineering issues of the 603 and developed in parallel with the 601, which if anything would have offered help with the bigger 605's cooling issues.

The Fuel injection isn't an issue, once you have a working system you can enlarge the injector pumps/plungers for the fuel flow desired. Some of the "cooling" issues are things like a the bigger pistons are harder to cool on ANY engine than smaller pistons. DB 603 used about the biggest pistons of any "common" WW II engine ( Ok only 2 mm bigger than the Russian AM series). Now if you can't keep the center of a 154mm piston to stay 'cool' then expecting a 162mm piston to stay cool is asking a bit much, especially if you are burning more fuel above each sq. cm. of piston area. (12.5% longer stroke). This is plain physics and geometry and has nothing to do with the coolant passages, coolant flow, or pressure the cooling system is operating at. These things can help solve the cooling problem but big cylinders are harder to cool.
 
The Fuel injection isn't an issue, once you have a working system you can enlarge the injector pumps/plungers for the fuel flow desired. Some of the "cooling" issues are things like a the bigger pistons are harder to cool on ANY engine than smaller pistons. DB 603 used about the biggest pistons of any "common" WW II engine ( Ok only 2 mm bigger than the Russian AM series). Now if you can't keep the center of a 154mm piston to stay 'cool' then expecting a 162mm piston to stay cool is asking a bit much, especially if you are burning more fuel above each sq. cm. of piston area. (12.5% longer stroke). This is plain physics and geometry and has nothing to do with the coolant passages, coolant flow, or pressure the cooling system is operating at. These things can help solve the cooling problem but big cylinders are harder to cool.

Which only reinforces the point that DB601 developments aren't going to help the 603; they needed uninterrupted time to work on the specific cooling issues of the 603, rather than relying on 601 research.
 
But the 601-605 "research" may very well have helped with supercharger design, bearings, cam timing, materials and heat treatment of parts.

Cooling problems of pistons and cylinder heads also go up with the amount of fuel/air burned in the cylinder (boost) so a smaller cylinder with high boost can give some (but not all) of the same problems as a big cylinder with low boost.

People keep wanting the 603 to show up in 1940-41 using the same boost the 605 had trouble with in 1942 and claiming that 1937-40 "development" would have solved the problem/s.

Was DB sitting back fat, dumb and happy with the 601 from 1938-41 or were they constantly working to improve the 601 series, with higher rpm, better superchargers, more compression and other changes? How many of these changes and changes done to the 605 were they able to apply to the 603?
 
But the 601-605 "research" may very well have helped with supercharger design, bearings, cam timing, materials and heat treatment of parts.
Operative word: may. Can you provide evidence that it did?


Cooling problems of pistons and cylinder heads also go up with the amount of fuel/air burned in the cylinder (boost) so a smaller cylinder with high boost can give some (but not all) of the same problems as a big cylinder with low boost.

People keep wanting the 603 to show up in 1940-41 using the same boost the 605 had trouble with in 1942 and claiming that 1937-40 "development" would have solved the problem/s.

Was DB sitting back fat, dumb and happy with the 601 from 1938-41 or were they constantly working to improve the 601 series, with higher rpm, better superchargers, more compression and other changes? How many of these changes and changes done to the 605 were they able to apply to the 603?
Again 601 development is not the same as 603, so 603 specific development time is necessary. Unless you can provide evidence that 601/5 developments positively influenced 603 development, it cannot be inferred that 601/5 research shortened the development cycle of the 603; the only thing that would have given it a chance to be ready by 1941-42 was uninterrupted development of the 603 from 1936-1941. I'm not claiming it was a sure thing, other than using the historical timeline of 603 development, which was from 1936-1937 with one prototype, with another built in 1939 for the racing stunt that never happened, then prototype construction through 1940 into 1941 and development from late 1940-to late 1943 when it became reliable. Added up that's about 5 years of development, which from mid-1936 through mid-1941 is the same timeframe, 5 years; generally in the 1930s and 40s it took about 5-6 years to develop an engine into reliability, so the 603 fits into the model.
 
600/601 development is the basic work required for any larger engine. The 603, being larger with more displacement may have more and unexpected problems but a lot of them could be avoided by learning from development done for the 601. Especially the major step from 601A to the 601E saw lots of internal changes to allow for more rpm and boost without reducing reliability + the new pressurized water cooling. But even this took time to sort out as the maximum power had to be restricted for some time.
 
Denniss can you provide evidence that DB601 developments actually influenced 603 development? Just repeating something over and over does not make it true. You are making a statement about 603 development, so I'm going to request some documentation that the 601 actually shortened the 603's development after 1940. If not then it isn't necessarily true.

We might be able to use the Merlin/Griffon as a model for 601/603 development, though the first two were not related in the same way the 601-603 were. How much did the Griffon rely on Merlin developments? AFAIK not much.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Griffon
Compared with earlier Rolls-Royce designs, the Griffon engine featured several improvements which meant it was physically only slightly larger than the Merlin, in spite of its 36% larger capacity of 37 litres (2,260 cu in).[3] One significant difference was the incorporation of the camshaft and magneto drives into the propeller reduction gears at the front of the engine, rather than using a separate system of gears driven from the back end of the crankshaft; this allowed the overall length of the engine to be reduced as well as making the drive train more reliable and efficient.[7][nb 2] The Griffon was the first Rolls-Royce production aero engine to use a hollow crankshaft as the means of lubricating the main and big end bearings, providing a more even distribution of oil to each bearing.[7] In another change from convention, one high efficiency B.T.H-manufactured dual magneto was mounted on top of the propeller reduction casing;[8] earlier Rolls-Royce designs using twin magnetos mounted at the rear of the engine.[9]

The Griffon 61 series introduced a two stage supercharger and other design changes: the pressure oil pumps were now housed internally within the sump and an effort was made to remove as many external pipes as possible.[10] In addition, the drive for the supercharger was taken from the crankshaft at the back of the engine, via a short torsion shaft, rather than from the front of the engine, using a long drive shaft as used by earlier Griffon variants.[11]
 
And you come up with a hypothetical 603 in 41 that will run on the same power level and reliability of the real 603 in late 43 which is unlikely at best, more highly questionable. DB did not have endless engineering capacity, without sacrifying other projects they couldn't simultaneously work on 600/601, 603 and 605.
The 603 would not have started with pressurized water cooling for sure as DB had no real experience with it (which it gained from the 601E). A lot of effort was made to improve the fuel burn efficiency by changes to the pistons and related components, AFAIR this helped with the 601N used in the Bf 109F but most changes again appeared with the 601E.
 
I agree Denniss,

but two points:

The basics for the pressurized water cooling came frome the record engines between 1937-1939 and,
I think without the DB 604 and the coupled stuff DB 606 etc., it was possible for Daimler to develop the DB 603 from 1937 till 1942 ready for mass production and near the same performance and reliability as the DB 603 from end of 1943
 

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