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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!
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 ?
I still don't understand this comment. Both the MkVII and Mk IX were easily capable of 40,000 feet and doing it in 1942 so why would tank have even a remote notion that no single engine figter could reach 40,000 feet?
The Mosquito and the Spitfire variants from Mk VII and Mk IX forward, were real and in their face - and by and of itself a good reason for a 40,000ft capable interceptor - long before the B-29 became operational
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.
Kris - without belaboring the point - the very first P-47 captured by the Germans was November 7, 1943 - exactly 66 years ago. YF-U "Beetle" 42-22490 P47D-2RA flown by 358FS/355FG pilot Bill Roach who got lost and landed intact near Caen. The P-38G was captured on June 12, 1943 in Italy but the Germans didn't geet much data because the Italian fuel grounded the airplane.. It did not have a wing tank to clue the Germans into the probabilities of very long range escort.. and the first operational flight of the P-51B-1 was to be flown three weeks+ later.
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.
I get that now - but I thought this conversation was about 1943?
Kris
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.
1. The flak 38 is not an aircraft gun. It is way to heavy and has a poor rate of fire. It's range and accuracy aren't needed in realistic scenarios. It is a very poor choice for a fighter armament.
...or you are wrong about that part in bold.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.
This is not quite true - people tend to think of two-staged superchargers as some kind of magic wand, but in reality, the power outputs of the high altitude DB 605AS and D engines with the enlarged supercharger was identical to that of the two-staged Merlin 6x series and the licensed Packard 1650-3/7 that drove the Spitfire VIII/IX and the Mustang B/C/D. This is easily confirmable from an overlay of power curves for the respective engines.
Similiarly, the gains from the adoption of the inline Jumo 213A for the FW 190D were related to the same factor of decreased drag - the Jumo powerplant neither offered more power or higher rated altitude compared to the radial BMW 801.
Could you please give some sources for this. The ones I have seem to show the Jumo having about 10% more power than an 801D at 18,000ft. But these sources are old and may not be accurate.
It also worth of noting that the later, two staged Merlin 66 / V1650-7 were geared for lower altitudes compared to the earlier ones, reflecting operational requirements, to around 16000 feet.
Again, while it is true the gear ratios were changed do not confuse WER ratings with Military ratings. IF a particular model Merlin could supply 18lbs of boost at certain altitiude and was later re-rated for 20lbs of boost the supercharger could not supply 20lb at the same altitude as it could supply 18lbs so the "rated altitude" fell. THe engine could still deliever the original boost and HP at the original altitude however.
If The Germans had developed aircraft with better altitude perfomace I don't think itwould have been any great trick to go back to the supercharger gearsets used in the -3 type engines.
I don't mean to pick on the just the Germans here. The Napier company never got a two stage supercharger on the Sabre and Bristol never really got a two stage engine going either. While their larger engines had a head start in sheer power neither one really showed a much higher altitude power peak than the much critisized single stage Allison
It's still way too heavy and the ROF is very poor. Anything below 600 rpm you can pretty much forget about unless you pack a whole lot of them into your plane and the flak 38 only has 450 rpm. Heck you might as well take the MK 103 then (440 rpm), at least its more powerful.Didn't wanted to bee to harsh, sorry
1.Since we're mounting it to aircraft, it becomes aircraft gun. For it's power (134g @ 900m/s) it's not over weighted, and it's surely lighter then MK 103. My guess is that higher accuracy power is always a good thing. Since we're about to upgrade (perhaps only up-neck) to 25mm (as I've said, 200-250g @ 700m/s) it would be a killer gun as a motor cannon, or two for FW-190 outer wing mounting.
I'm pretty sure if they could they would've done so.2. Since MK 108 had about 1/3 of propellant of 103 had, my guess is that chamber pressure was pretty low. So they could mount a longer barrel if we took only pressures in account.
Jumo 213 powered Fw 190s flew in 1942. The DB 603 still had serious teething problems even as late as late 1943. So it surely wasn't as perfected as you make it.4. DB-603 was reality in 1942. Jumo 213 was reality in 1944, with same power. What would you choose in 1942?
Sorry but I don't see the logic in that. As soon as someone puts you under pressure you magically solve all problems in no time? That doesn't make any sense. And I also said develop, which not only means increase in power. The most important thing at the time was manufacture though, which I clearly stated.My tirade shows that RLM was not properly pushing DB to increase power of 601/603 line from 1942-44 as you stated
It's still way too heavy and the ROF is very poor. Anything below 600 rpm you can pretty much forget about unless you pack a whole lot of them into your plane and the flak 38 only has 450 rpm.
450 rpm means 10 rounds in 1,5 seconds, so more then enough to bring a bomber down since 'my' gun is 'too much accurate powerful (as you state)'. But just to comfort you, the engineers would tune it to fire faster our new 25mm ammo, okay?
Heck you might as well take the MK 103 then (440 rpm), at least its more powerful.
No.
MK 103 can't fit between cylinder banks of engines of Bf-109 (until 1945 - too late), and the FW-190 installation was found unsuccesful. That's why proposed upgraded Flak 38 in the 1st place.
(about mounting long barrel for MK 108 ):
I'm pretty sure if they could they would've done so.
They could, but there was no need since propellant (because of small content of it) couldn't use up the longer barrel.
Jumo 213 powered Fw 190s flew in 1942. The DB 603 still had serious teething problems even as late as late 1943. So it surely wasn't as perfected as you make it.
Planes powered by 603 were in use 20 months before planes powered by 213 could do the same. Enough for me.
Sorry but I don't see the logic in that. As soon as someone puts you under pressure you magically solve all problems in no time? That doesn't make any sense.
It makes perfect sense to demand a better more devoted work at projects the county depends upon.
And I also said develop, which not only means increase in power. The most important thing at the time was manufacture though, which I clearly stated.
Nope, you said:
And what should be a result of developing and improving of an aircraft engine, if one is not able to squeze more horse powers out of it?to continue on producing and improving
It's still way too heavy and the ROF is very poor. Anything below 600 rpm you can pretty much forget about unless you pack a whole lot of them into your plane and the flak 38 only has 450 rpm. Heck you might as well take the MK 103 then (440 rpm), at least its more powerful.
Mauser MG 213 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
They did. However the Mauser MG213 revolver cannon didn't make it into production before the war ended.
just to add to the conversation : If you wanted to get to 40000ft fast why not develop a detachable take off rocket assisted launch ? That way you gain the altitude faster and use less fuel in the process .
Please note that it took the French about 6 years to get the the revolver cannon into production starting where the Germans left off. I don't believe the British were much quicker and according to some accounts the American version (M 39) did see combat in 1953.
I don't know if this is becasue of the Korean War slowing things down or if the Korean War actually might have moved up priority.
I am not sure I can believe that 'Not invented here' modifications would have slowed down production of a "ready to go" gun by 4-5 years assming all three countries waited until 1948 to actually do anything with the design.
That's for the 2 cm version. The 3 cm version had half the muzzle velocity.MG213C has a mv of 1050 m/s though. Conversion was rather easy so you could use the one or the other based on what was necessary.