Time Machine Consultant : Maximizing the Bf-109 in January 1943

[Glider]

AFAIK Willy and co. didn't screw up on the 210. They knew the aircraft had bugs to be ironed out (which were, eventually), but the RLM pressed hard for the production, before it could be fully developed. In any case, it was the biggest fiasco for Willy M, the businessman.

I always wondered why the Hungarian Airforce were more than happy with the Me 210 while the Luftwaffe thought that they were very dangerous. As I understand it, they all came from the same production line with the Luftwaffe getting a share of the production. So both airforces would have had the same problem.

 

[Shortround6]

AFAIK Willy and co. didn't screw up on the 210. They knew the aircraft had bugs to be ironed out (which were, eventually), but the RLM pressed hard for the production, before it could be fully developed. In any case, it was the biggest fiasco for Willy M, the businessman.

One of the "bugs" was solved by lengthing the fuselage by over 3 ft (about 1 meter?) which by the standards of the time really wasn't that bad. Plenty of other companies had to do some rather major "tweaks" to get their airframes to handle properly under all conditions also.

Point is that even expericed teams could not predict flight behavior beforehand even with the wind tunnels of the time. Sometimes they got lucky and a design required very little tweaking and sometimes not so lucky and months were spent trying everything they could think of.

Sometimes they got lucky and were able to graft large changes onto an existing airframe for a change in role with little trouble and sometimes they weren't so lucky. And luck did have something to do with it

Even Ed Heinemann when working on the A-4 Skyhawk was baffled by rudder oscillations until they tried constructing the rudder inside out. No rudder skin. The rudder was a flat plate with the ribs on the outside.

 

[Shortround6]

I always wondered why the Hungarian Airforce were more than happy with the Me 210 while the Luftwaffe thought that they were very dangerous. As I understand it, they all came from the same production line with the Luftwaffe getting a share of the production. So both airforces would have had the same problem.

as I understand it the Hungarian 210s had the stretched fuselage.

 

[Glider]

as I understand it the Hungarian 210s had the stretched fuselage.

I had heard that, but if they all came from the same production line presumably the ones for the Luftwaffe had the same stretch.

 

[tomo pauk]

Hungarian were produced in Hungary (1/3 for Hungary, rest for LW).

 

[Kurfürst]

I always wondered why the Hungarian Airforce were more than happy with the Me 210 while the Luftwaffe thought that they were very dangerous. As I understand it, they all came from the same production line with the Luftwaffe getting a share of the production. So both airforces would have had the same problem.

We had the 210Ca, basically the licensed version of the 210C (a=auslandisch=foreign). The 210C had the lenghtened fuselage (and was powered by 605s instead of 601s), as did the late batch 210A (lang), as well as other fixes (slats were also added, vertical fin enlarged IIRC).

It was the short fuselaged initial 210A-1 that was earned to poor rep, and it stuck. But that AFAIK pretty much came down to rushing a semi-finished aircraft into production.

 

[Civettone]

In early 1943, the German leaders had zero idea regarding the upcoming disaster the Mustang would bring to the defense of Germany.

This is simply not true. They had heard about the American plans for a new superbomber and they noticed that the B-17 operated at altitudes which were too high for the Fw 190.
Also by 1943 they had experience with the P-38 which could escort bombers at least to the west of Germany. The writing was on the wall !

Also, Galland told Goering in 1943 that American fighter planes had reached Cologne. Goering told him to stop this nonsense as this was simply impossible. After which Galland told him "I have seen the wrecks with my own eyes, and what's more, soon they will fly even deeper inland" after which Goering went into a rage and gave him a direct order to stop talking about it
So yeah, when talking about German leaders, you are in fact right!

The Fw 190A was a superb bomber killer, better than the 109 and it was doing a very good job on unescorted B-17/B-24's where the drop off in performance was not critical as a bomber attacker.

I would like to see a source proving that the Fw 190 was more succesful against bombers than the Bf 109. I have seen kill figures and what I recall from them is that one cannot prove from these figures that the Fw 190 was more effective. (Not including the Hoehengruppen.)


Other than that, I am repeating two things what I said before.
1. The BMW 801 had to continue development and production for the simple reason that it is a bad idea to bet on just one horse. Going with one fighter aircraft can lead to serious problems when that design suddenly becomes obsolete and no further development is possible. But the same can be said about the DB 600 series. So you need a backup for both. So not just another fighter with a DB 601.
Yet for production logic one needs to become the main fighter (and engine) in production.
2. When Tank had to design a high altitude fighter, his first reaction was to take on the Fw 187 design as he thought no single engined fighter could achieve the climb rate and ceiling needed. Of course this would have been quite different from the Fw 187. Yet, it means that if the Fw 187 had reached production back in 1939 it could have served as a basis for a new fighter. Just like the P-43 lead to the P-47, the Ju 88 to the Ju 388 or the Manchester to the Lancaster. In other words, it would have saved in development time.

Kris

 

[davebender]

The BMW 801 had to continue development and production for the simple reason that it is a bad idea to bet on just one horse.

What about the DB603, Jumo213 and Jumo222? There were other engines in the pipeline as well which might have worked out after sufficent research and development.

 

[drgondog]

This is simply not true. They had heard about the American plans for a new superbomber and they noticed that the B-17 operated at altitudes which were too high for the Fw 190.
Also by 1943 they had experience with the P-38 which could escort bombers at least to the west of Germany. The writing was on the wall !

Kris - IMO 'Too High' is relative - the B-17 operated at altitudes in which the 190 performance was declining but nevertheless more than enough to climb, form and attack B-17's and certainly B-24's. The first P-38s performing escort missions in the ETO were the 55th FG P-38F's in mid Oct 1943. Had the 78th FG retained the first P-38s in Dec 1942 instead of having them taken away in Dec 1942 for North Africa - the 'warning' may have been more noticable, and the development of the P-38 may have been more accelerated.

The P-38Fs in the MTO were performing escort for both mediums and heavies and the LW may heve been lulled by not having that many high altitude enagements and the 109 was clearly equal to it at B-24 altitudes. IIRC there weren't that many 190s in the MTO, proportionately, to the Kanalfront.

Also, Galland told Goering in 1943 that American fighter planes had reached Cologne. Goering told him to stop this nonsense as this was simply impossible. After which Galland told him "I have seen the wrecks with my own eyes, and what's more, soon they will fly even deeper inland" after which Goering went into a rage and gave him a direct order to stop talking about it
So yeah, when talking about German leaders, you are in fact right!

I was, but also important is the imbedded notion that we (the Allies) did not have an airframe with both fuel capacity and performance to be a deep threat. They were quite right for the P-51A and P-47C and Spitfire and Typhoon. In addition, Koln and Coblenz were not exactly harbingers of Berlin, Merseburg and Munich.

Perhaps both the LW high command and the primary fighter manufacturers were blinded to the danger by virtue that ONLY the P-38 (and P-51A) had internal wing tanks and they could rightly deduce that neither had demonstrated superiority to either the 190 or th109 to date - at high altitudes.


I would like to see a source proving that the Fw 190 was more succesful against bombers than the Bf 109. I have seen kill figures and what I recall from them is that one cannot prove from these figures that the Fw 190 was more effective. (Not including the Hoehengruppen.)

I don't know what source you could look into. Perhaps Tony Woods lists can be broken down and units to a/c could then be matched to speculate. I do know the Fw 190 was more feared by 8th AF bomber crews, both from an armor and armament perspective.

The possible reason could be that LuftF 3 with JG2, JG 26 and ii./JG54 were dominantly Fw 190 and always met the 8th before the bombers ever got to Germany.. ditto LuftF 5 and JG5 before transitioning to Me 109s in late 1943 to 1944..Remember we are only discussing 1943?

2. When Tank had to design a high altitude fighter, his first reaction was to take on the Fw 187 design as he thought no single engined fighter could achieve the climb rate and ceiling needed. Of course this would have been quite different from the Fw 187. Yet, it means that if the Fw 187 had reached production back in 1939 it could have served as a basis for a new fighter. Just like the P-43 lead to the P-47, the Ju 88 to the Ju 388 or the Manchester to the Lancaster. In other words, it would have saved in development time.

Kris

I would speculate that Tank knew that both a climb rate and ceiling could be achieved with a single engine fighter as both a Spit IX and 109G had more than adequate climb rates to be an effective interceptor - particularly for a B-17/B-24 level technology. He was, I presume, aware of the speculation on the B-29 performance which is why the development of the Ta 152 and Fw 190D series began - was it not? Certainly the Mossie gave first hand evidence of requirements for a high performance interceptor.

 

[Bronc]

Even with 60+ years of hindsight, thinking about / finding a way to successfully attack
(and beat back) the 8th Air Force's bombers is really hard. Galland said if he would have
had even 100 Me-262's (in the air) it could have been done. And I'm thinking that was
the only way.

Let's face it, even without fighter escort attacking the bomber formations was
pretty tough (and down right terrifying.) The link below takes you to an extended
Galland interview, and much, much rarer, there is (3) three minutes of Johannes Steinhoff.

Watch Steinhoff's awesome character, the incredible presence of the man, when he talks
about attacking American bombers. And Galland when he talks about having 100 Me-262's.)

Click below:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_8LCtMddPw

There are two seperate issues here: the B-17 / B- 24 issue and the fighter escort issue.

P-38, P-47D and P-51 fighter escort is going to make getting more 30mm on target
that much harder.

Shortround6 has identified 4 issues to work on:

1) Better training for pilots
2) A better gun sight
3) Developing a flatter trajectory round to get less time of flight for a higher percentage of hits
4) Putting more lead in the air -- firing more rounds

Are there any others?

Bronc

 

[Bronc]

In the video at 1:39 it shows Galland giving a briefing without his RK. Why?

Click here:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_8LCtMddPw

Bronc

 

[paradoxguy]

In the video at 1:39 it shows Galland giving a briefing without his RK. Why?

Click here:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_8LCtMddPw

Bronc

I forget the exact time frame, but Galland took off his decorations and refused to wear them for 6 months (if I recall the duration correctly) when Goering suggested that some Luftwaffe fighter pilots won their Ritterkreuz's by faking victory claims in their combat reports. Some accounts indicate that Galland tore off his decorations and slammed them down on a table in front of Goering during a conference.

PG

 

[Civettone]

Drgondog, I think that is not giving the German intelligence enough credit. The Germans did have figures on the coming American aircraft production and they had captured P-38s and P-47s back in 1943. So they knew that these aircraft could enter Germany. They also knew that soon improved versions would be coming ever deeper into Germany. I was wrong to say Cologne, it was Aachen in the late Summer of 1943 when Galland and Goering argued. Goering couldn't and wouldn't believe there were American fighters over Germany as he had given his word to Hitler. But even if the Ruhr area is not Berlin, it is definitely a horrible idea that this main German industry zone would now be bombed with fighter escort. Perhaps not in early 1943 but at least by mid 1943 the Germans - except for the top top leaders like Hitler or Goering - realized what was coming.
In any case the development of a Fw 190 achieving an altitude of 40,000 feet had already been ordered. Was this only for the high altitude intruding Mosquito's ?
And as I said, Tank believed a single engined fighter could not get to this altitude. And he was right. It took until early 1945 before he could come up with one which could.

What about the DB603, Jumo213 and Jumo222? There were other engines in the pipeline as well which might have worked out after sufficent research and development.

Sure. But I am talking about 1938/1939. These engines were still far away.
Also, a radial engine would probably the logical choice as both have distinct advantages. The BMW 139 or 801 could be used by bombers or attack aircraft.

Kris

 

[tomo pauk]

Thanks for mentioning Mosquito, Bill, yet another impetus for having a high performing fighter.

With all this 18 page thread about 109, some things could be said IMO:
-for the better part of war, 109 was a great fighter BECAUSE of it's engine
-for the better part of war, 190 was a great fighter DESPITE of it's engine*
-MK 103 was too big for 109 ( and for 190 as we see), while MK 108 had low velocity - something in between was needed - say, perhaps 20mm flak 38 scaled up to 25mm, 200-250g M-geschoss, 700m/s, 60 round drum

*boy, did Germans $crewed up big time when neglected DB-603, the only engine that was both powerful and available early enough

 

[riacrato]

I disagree somewhat.

MK 108 vs something in between vs MK 103:
There is no in between. These guns are fundamentally different in operation, you cannot dictate the performance figures you mention into the design.

The MK108 was cheap, light, fast firing and reliable due to the simple blowback operation. You can't easily scale that down, and moreover you can't increase barrel length. The MK108 was as it was a perfect low-medium velocity gun for close to medium distance.

If you want something in between you could probably scale up the MG151/20. What's the use? Is the increase in destructive power worth the increase in weight, retooling of your factories and logistical effort? I doubt it.

Why do people always draw the conclusion that the steps taken then were wrong and some jack-of-all-trades technology was the real answer? Doesn't seem plausible to me.

The DB603:
The engine was never discontinued by DB, it simply wasn't funded by the government anymore. How much that really impacted it's development time is pure speculation unless someone brings up some facts to support this. And about the "screw up" thing. That really is a 20/20 hindsight assertion that doesn't take into account the circumstances of the time. The DB603 was no longer funded because the RLM needed DB600 series engines now. So since they already had promising projects in that engine class with other companies they tried to force DB to continue on producing and improving the engine they needed really badly at that point.

 

[davebender]

radial engine would probably the logical choice as both have distinct advantages.

I think this is the real reason RLM kept hammering away at the BMW801 engine and Fw-190A programs until they finally worked. They were determined to have a modern twin radial engine similiar to the Wright R-2600.

With the benefit of hindsight RLM would probably have been further ahead to design the Fw-190 for the DB603 engine right from the fall of 1937. But you don't get that benefit in the real world.

 

[Shortround6]

The real problem was the lack of a good supercharger set-up on any production German engine before 1945.

A single stage supercharger just cannot supply air at a high enough pressure to maintain power at 25,000-35,000ft no matter how many gears or how it is driven.

Doesn't matter if you are using a 42liter 14cylinder engine or a 44.5 liter 12 cylinder engine or a 47 liter 18cylinder engine.
The DB series did have several slight advantages which added together ment it had several thousand more feet of rated altitude than the BMW 801 but it still wasn't going to compete with the two stage superchargers on the allied planes no matter how they were driven, Mechanical or turbo.

There is no reason the BMW 801 could not have been give a mechanical drive aux supercharger stage and intercooler from AN ENGINE STAND POINT.
The problem is in fitting the extra bulk into existing aircraft designs. Or fitting the extra bulk into a standard "power egg".
Same with the V-12s.

 

[Civettone]

Why do people always draw the conclusion that the steps taken then were wrong and some jack-of-all-trades technology was the real answer? Doesn't seem plausible to me.

Although I agree with Tomo's ideas I also agree that it is perhaps too easy to suggest these engineerical improvements without complete understanding of the limitations of the time. I cannot count how many times I haven't wondered with endless amazement or even irritation why they simply didn't do this or that. So many of these ideas have been swept away as soon as I found some information about the specific circumstances of the situation.
So that's why I am sceptical about any of our propositions. It usually is more complicated than it looks. The MK 108-103 in between is a good example but also our discussions about German engines. It is clear that they made the mistake of taking on too many projects with too little resources but it still remains unclear what exactly they would have achieved if they hadn't.

I think this is the real reason RLM kept hammering away at the BMW801 engine and Fw-190A programs until they finally worked. They were determined to have a modern twin radial engine similiar to the Wright R-2600.

With the benefit of hindsight RLM would probably have been further ahead to design the Fw-190 for the DB603 engine right from the fall of 1937. But you don't get that benefit in the real world.

Quite right! Looking back the DB 603 would have been sufficient for all their fighters and night fighters. But just imagine that would have turned out another Jumo 222!

The real problem was the lack of a good supercharger set-up on any production German engine before 1945.

A single stage supercharger just cannot supply air at a high enough pressure to maintain power at 25,000-35,000ft no matter how many gears or how it is driven.

There is one thing I don't understand. What was the story behind the Mikulin engine of the MiG-3? That seems to have been optimalized for high altitude? And I also think Spitfire HFs had their engines tuned for high altitudes. Why couldn't the Germans have done the same with their DB 605s? (of course only for those Bf 109s in the Reichsverteidigung)

There is no reason the BMW 801 could not have been give a mechanical drive aux supercharger stage and intercooler from AN ENGINE STAND POINT.
The problem is in fitting the extra bulk into existing aircraft designs. Or fitting the extra bulk into a standard "power egg".
Same with the V-12s.

But this should have been less of a problem with the BMWs on the Ju 88 nightfighters, right? The power egg would be altered but it would be no problem to install. And yet we never see a two-stage supercharger.

Kris

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

About man hours required in year and after a production of n-number of aircraft - FW 190, Ju 88, Bf 109:

Man hours is a much better way to tell. Production figures is too misleading in my opinion.

In early 1943, the German leaders had zero idea regarding the upcoming disaster the Mustang would bring to the defense of Germany. They rightly concluded that they could meet the daylight threat from the 8th AF with the inventory on hand and felt no sense of urgency in building a much better high altitude interceptor.

The Fw 190A was a superb bomber killer, better than the 109 and it was doing a very good job on unescorted B-17/B-24's where the drop off in performance was not critical as a bomber attacker.

So the question arises, "what in early 1943" drives the LW to upgrade either the 190 or 109 when they believed no high performance fighter would ever have the range to challenge the LW over Germany?

I submit - Nothing.

Agreed. In 1943 things were still going alright for the Luftwaffe. It is not like they had crystal balls and all.

 

[tomo pauk]

I disagree somewhat.

MK 108 vs something in between vs MK 103:
There is no in between.

Did I said there was something in between??

These guns are fundamentally different in operation, you cannot dictate the performance figures you mention into the design.

And why not? My proposal says:

perhaps 20mm flak 38 scaled up to 25mm, 200-250g M-geschoss, 700m/s, 60 round drum

Did you ever heard about flak 38, 2cm?

The MK108 was cheap, light, fast firing and reliable due to the simple blowback operation. You can't easily scale that down,

Now when I proposed that??

and moreover you can't increase barrel length.

...says who?

The MK108 was as it was a perfect low-medium velocity gun for close to medium distance.
So MK 108 was a holy cow, and nothing could've replaced it. Nice.

If you want something in between you could probably scale up the MG151/20. What's the use? Is the increase in destructive power worth the increase in weight, retooling of your factories and logistical effort? I doubt it.

Already proposed what to scale up, so this is redundant.

Why do people always draw the conclusion that the steps taken then were wrong and some jack-of-all-trades technology was the real answer? Doesn't seem plausible to me.

WW2 bristles with machinery that made people that used it die because some engineer, or more likely, member of brass, screwed up. So it's perfectly plausible to me.

The DB603:
The engine was never discontinued by DB, it simply wasn't funded by the government anymore.

Who said it was discontinued?? 'Neglected' was my word.

How much that really impacted it's development time is pure speculation unless someone brings up some facts to support this. And about the "screw up" thing. That really is a 20/20 hindsight assertion that doesn't take into account the circumstances of the time. The DB603 was no longer funded because the RLM needed DB600 series engines now. So since they already had promising projects in that engine class with other companies they tried to force DB to continue on producing and improving the engine they needed really badly at that point.

What engines RLM really had to bolt to airframes prior late 1944, in class of DB 603? Junkers BMW managed to squeze the same power 2 years after DB managed the same. And DB 601/605 remained with same power from mid 1942 to mid 1944 (and still under the main rival, Merlin 60 series). I guess RLM failed to force DB to do that, don't you agree?

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