Wellington Mk.I vs. Heinkel He-111H

Fatale · Sep 20, 2007

I am looking for any comparable data for these two planes.
Eric Brown wrote that Heinkel He-111H-1 was better than Wellington Ic. in max. speed, climb speed (much better), service ceiling, max. load... Isn't it bullshit?

For Wellingtons I have this f.e.:

DerAdlerIstGelandet · Sep 20, 2007

Well lets see:

Wellington Mk IC

General characteristics
Crew: six
Length: 64 ft 7 in (19.68 m)
Wingspan: 86 ft 2 in (26.26 m)
Height: 17 ft 6 in (5.33 m)
Wing area: 840 ft² (78.04 m²)
Empty weight: 18,556 lb (8,417 kg)
Max takeoff weight: 28,500 lb (12,927 kg)
Powerplant: 2× Bristol Pegasus Mk. XVIII radial engine, 1,050 hp (783 kW) each

Performance
Maximum speed: 235 mph (378 km/h)
Range: 1,805 miles (2905 km)
Service ceiling: 18,000 ft (5486 m)
Rate of climb: 1,050 ft/min (320 m/min)
Wing loading: 34 lb/ft² (168 kg/m²)
Power/mass: 0.08 hp/lb (0.13 kW/kg)

Armament
8x .303 Browning machine guns:
2 in nose turret
4 in tail turret
2 in waist positions
4,500 lb (2,041 kg) bombs

He 111 H-6
Data from Jane's Fighting Aircraft of World War II

General characteristics
Crew: 5 (pilot, navigator/bombardier, nose gunner, ventral gunner, dorsal gunner)
Length: 16.4 m (54 ft 6 in)
Wingspan: 22.5 m (74 ft 3 in)
Height: 3.9 m (13 ft 9 in)
Wing area: 86.5 m² (942 ft²)
Empty weight: 7,720 kg (17,000 lb)
Loaded weight: 12,030 kg (26,500 lb)
Max takeoff weight: 14,075 kg (31,000 lb)
Powerplant: 2× Jumo 211F-1 liquid-cooled inverted V-12, 986 kW (1,300 hp) each

Performance
Maximum speed: 400 km/h (250 mph)
Range: 2,800 km with max fuel (1,750 mi)
Service ceiling: 8,390 m (27,500 ft)
Rate of climb: 20 minutes to 5,185 m (17,000 ft)
Wing loading: 137 kg/m² (28.1 lb/ft²)
Power/mass: .082 kW/kg (.049 hp/lb)

Armament
Guns:
up to seven 7.92 mm MG 15 or MG 81 machine guns, some of them replaced by
1× 20 mm MG FF cannon (central nose mount)
1× 13 mm MG 131 machine gun (mounted above rear cockpit)
Bombs:
up to 2,000 kg (4,409 lb) carried internally (eight 250 kg max) , or:
up to 2,500 kg (5,512 lb) on two external racks

The He-111H does seem to be superior to the Wellington MK.1 in that it has a higher speed and higher payload. Range was about the same.

Glider · Sep 20, 2007

Unfortunately its a case of timing. The Wellington 1c was the main version at the start of the war but the He111 H-6 came into use around the beginning of 1942 so a better comparison would be the Wellington X.
That said there was little between them.

trackend · Sep 21, 2007

It was the geodetic design transfered by Barns Wallace from his work on airships that made the Wellington noticable. The framing could take considrable punishment without effecting excessively the overall strength of the airframe , as for performance it was not particulaly outstanding.

Kurfürst · Sep 21, 2007

Glider said:
Unfortunately its a case of timing. The Wellington 1c was the main version at the start of the war but the He111 H-6 came into use around the beginning of 1942 so a better comparison would be the Wellington X.
That said there was little between them.

It would H-16 by that time, which had it's defensive armament much increased... At the start of the war, there were little difference between the early H-1 through H-6 series. Generally speaking, the 111 had fine and benign flying characteristics, all of it's crew positions were heavily armored and the fuel tanks were self sealing. The Heinkel did not have blind spots in it's defensive armament. The bombs were aimed by an advanced gyroscopic Lofte bombsight akin to the Norden, whereas the Wellingtons had to do with a simple vector sight. In addition the Heinkel was troughly fitted with night navigation and bombing electrical equipment, something totally absent on the early war Wellington. It's bombload was slightly higher, altough the real edge it had was irrespective of the bombers themselves, namely that early war LW bombs carried a lot more punch than similiar sized RAF bombs.

Wellington's only good points in comparison was it's special airframe construction, and single powered tail turret, but otherwise it had many blind spots from which fighters could approach with inpunity, lack of self sealing tanks and aircraft armor.

In the longer course of the war, the Heinkel could carry some very large bombs for it's size, up to single 2500 kg ones, and with RATO it could carry as much as 3250 kg bombload. Both aircraft were limited to relatively small bomb sizes carried internally - 250 kgers in the Heinkel.

Glider · Sep 21, 2007

Kurfürst said:
It would H-16 by that time, which had it's defensive armament much increased... At the start of the war, there were little difference between the early H-1 through H-6 series. Generally speaking, the 111 had fine and benign flying characteristics, all of it's crew positions were heavily armored and the fuel tanks were self sealing. The Heinkel did not have blind spots in it's defensive armament. The bombs were aimed by an advanced gyroscopic Lofte bombsight akin to the Norden, whereas the Wellingtons had to do with a simple vector sight. In addition the Heinkel was troughly fitted with night navigation and bombing electrical equipment, something totally absent on the early war Wellington. It's bombload was slightly higher, altough the real edge it had was irrespective of the bombers themselves, namely that early war LW bombs carried a lot more punch than similiar sized RAF bombs.

Wellington's only good points in comparison was it's special airframe construction, and single powered tail turret, but otherwise it had many blind spots from which fighters could approach with inpunity, lack of self sealing tanks and aircraft armor.

In the longer course of the war, the Heinkel could carry some very large bombs for it's size, up to single 2500 kg ones, and with RATO it could carry as much as 3250 kg bombload. Both aircraft were limited to relatively small bomb sizes carried internally - 250 kgers in the Heinkel.

Fair comments and it shouldn't be forgotten that the He111 could carry the V1 under its wing for launching in mid air.
The one comment I would make is that british fighter pilots considered to the He111 to be the least robust of the German bombers (after the Do17). Also hand held guns partcually LMG's were past their best once the fighters were armed with cannons.
At the end of the day there was little between them. The problem of course was that whereas the Wellington was being replaced by the Sterling, Halifax around the same time as the H16 was being introduced.

Juha · Sep 21, 2007

Kurfürst, I agree most but He 111 had no blind spots in it's defensive armament? I think it had appr. same blind spots than Wimpy Mk. IC, which had beam guns. Maybe even bigger at upper frontal hemisphere because I doubt that Heinkel's front gun could be effectively used at as large upper sector than Wimpy's nose guns. Biggest bomb which Mk IC could carry was 2000lb AP. Mk III could carry 4000lb HC.
And IIRC Wimpys got self-sealing fuel tanks after Dec. 39 disastrous losses.

Juha

Juha · Sep 24, 2007

We seemed to be a bit too harsh towards Wimpy because Mk III was in service at same time as H-6, in fact Mk III entered service a bit earlier. Now I have seen different max speeds for H-6 from 434 km/h (Cescotti) to 440 km/h (Nowarra and Regnat) and 410 km/h – 420 km/h for Wellington Mk III. Mk. III also had self-sealing fuel tanks and armour protection for crew. Both were liked by pilots. But He 111 H-6 was a bit faster but had a bit less range but in short range mission could carry 2 x 1800 kg bombs or 1 x 1800 kg plus 4 x 250 kg bombs when Mk III max bombloab was 4500 lb (appr 2040 kg). Of course those external loads at least eat away the speed advantage of H-6, probably their effect was more and with external load H-6 was slower than Mk III. IMHO Mk III with 4-gun power-operated tail turret had better defensive firepower but H-6 had better offensive load. IMHO Wimpy and He 111 were rather well matched.

Juha

Denniss · Oct 1, 2007

Never heard of a He 111 able to carry 3.6 tons of bombs (maybe but only with much of their normal fuel load left at home), they usually maxed out in the 2.5 ton region with normal fuel load.

And they could either use external loads or internal loads but not a mix of theses two because the external bomb rack blocked the internal bomb bay doors.

Juha · Oct 3, 2007

As I wrote the max load was for short range missions. I was also surprised when I saw that info, and also that of the use of mixed external and internal loads but then i thought that maybe external bomb rack only blocked the doors of that side doors because IIRC He-111 had two 4x250 kg bomb bays .

Juha

Juha · Oct 4, 2007

The figures are from a loading card for He 111H-5 from Cescotti's book. Both short range loads highered the take off weight to maximum permitted ie to 14,5 metric tons and necessiated the use of R-Gerät (booster rockets) in take offs.

Wellington Mk.I vs. Heinkel He-111H

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