What airplane could have turned the tide of the war?

[Deleted member 68059]

As a twist to michael rauls' recent thread: what airplane could have turned the tide of the war, but didn't, because it didn't exist? I'm going to go with a German heavy bomber, which would have been much more effective than medium bombers at inflicting concentrated damage on British airfields early in the Battle of Britain, stopping the RAF's defense before it could get started.

Any other thoughts?

Depends how practical or speculative you want to get.... but if we go with "outlandish but not outside the realms of possibility" - then the only real choice for Germany is a turbojet, and would have needed one fighter and one bomber. The turbojet solves their biggest problem which is lack of high octane fuel, as you can run it on lamp oil.

There is the problem of Nickel, however, if they had got that all going in 1941 ish, which if you make some very big changes earlier in the 30`s isnt totally impossible, they could have built a big stock of Nickel up and also got a fleet of the things going.

As far as I can see it all points to the 262 or something like it - getting into production ASAP. Anything piston engine related is just playing for time really, as you`ll never get a "step-change" in performance with any piston aircraft except in totally one-off events like the two-Stage Merlin and so on. They should have ditched all piston engine development in the early 30`s and gone "all-in" with the jet, everything else is playing for time.

If thats a bit unsatisfactory, then I`d say being more practical that they could easily have got a two-stage supercharged fighter into the air in 1938, had they not frittered away early development programmes. there were DB601`s with two-stage superchargers ready to go in the late 30`s; but they were not seen as necessities at the time, but just interesting tests.

So lets say a 109E with drop-tanks and a two-stage supercharged DB601 going into the Battle-of-Britain, and you`re looking at a different outcome, although you have tactical considerations too, and the twit Goring and his crew of numpty yes-men could have chucked it all away with any set of aircraft at his disposal, but a 109 thus equipped was a pretty serious practical possibility and is less far fetched than the jet scenario.

 

[thunderbird]

Does anyone want the Nazis to win WWII? What airplane(s) would have helped the Allies win the war sooner? My vote is for using P-38s as tactical bombers instead of building B-25s or B-26s. Similar range and payload, but much faster.

 

[michael rauls]

Does anyone want the Nazis to win WWII? What airplane(s) would have helped the Allies win the war sooner? My vote is for using P-38s as tactical bombers instead of building B-25s or B-26s. Similar range and payload, but much faster.

Thats a good idea about the p38s(I think. If not im sure someone will be along shortly to explain why it was impractical) and one that has occurred to me also but I think it's not that anyone wants the Nazis to win ww2 it's that the Allies won so anything that turned the tide the totality of things anyway would have to by definition be Axis equipment. also,the intrest is of a technical and not any sort of alegical nature.

 

[Kevin J]

Does anyone want the Nazis to win WWII? What airplane(s) would have helped the Allies win the war sooner? My vote is for using P-38s as tactical bombers instead of building B-25s or B-26s. Similar range and payload, but much faster.

A lot more resources allocated to MacArthur in the Philippines? A bigger air force and a Philippine army and air force twice their size with modern equipment.

The Royal Navy having a 3 not 2 ocean fleet.So Tiger, the Iron Duke class, Erin and Agincourt would not have been scrapped after WW1. This would have given us a decent Indo-Pacific Fleet which could be forward based in Rabaul. The battleships being hybrid and able to carry Swordfish floatplanes and either Hurricats or Spitfire floatplanes. A bigger air force in the Malayan peninsula that included bomber / transports. So none of Penang, Singapore or Rabaul should fall.

 

[Dimlee]

I vote for the German heavy bomber, yet not in BoB but on the Eastern Front. Range, payload, radar similar to Lancaster.
Subject other components are in place: German economy can support the development and maintenance of such bomber force, LW can manage the training, etc.
Main targets: Soviet power stations, factories within the range, ports of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk, Baku oil industry.
So it's like operation Eisenhammer and historical bombings of Gorky, Yaroslavl, etc. but on a regular basis, more intensive and beginning not later summer 1942.

 

[Greyman]

I don't understand you. Please explain your comments.

For what the Battles were forced to do over France and the Low Countries in 1940, a Hurricane fighter-bomber would have been better in every way except payload, range, and--I suppose--navigation. I believe the overwhelming benefits outweigh the halving of bomb load.

Until the Medium-Case bombs came about, Anti-Submarine bombs were looked into as a stopgap solution to the poor performance of General-Purpose bombs.

British 500 lb GP

fragment velocity: 5070 ft/sec​

blast pressure at 40 ft: 7.0 lb/in​

average fragment weight: 2.0 oz​

total fragments: 2,928​

body weight: 366 lb​

charge weight: 114 lb​

c/w ratio: 24%​

British 500 lb AS

fragment velocity: 8750 ft/sec​

blast pressure at 40 ft: 34.7 lb/in​

average fragment weight: .05 oz​

total fragments: 67,200​

body weight: 210 lb​

charge weight: 290 lb​

c/w ratio: 58%​

German 250 kg SC

fragment velocity: 8500 ft/sec​

blast pressure at 40 ft: 25.0 lb/in​

average fragment weight: .05 oz​

total fragments: 80,120​

body weight: 251 lb​

charge weight: 299 lb​

c/w ratio: 54%​

​

EDIT: 500-lb bombs detailed above instead of their 250-lb variations that would be more applicable to the Battle/Hurricane, but you get the idea ...

 

[The Basket]

The R class battleships were considered obsolete by ww2 so the Iron Duke and Erin with their much lower speed and smaller guns would have been utterly hopeless. The Washington naval treaty ended them anyway.

Its easy to say Me-262 would have decisively ended the bombing campaign but it would have needed thousands of fully combat ready jets fully fueled and fully armed with fully trained Pilots and ground crew in 1943 and that is just hokum.

Magic wand stuff.

The ural bomber had 2 basic problems. As a day bomber it would have been vulnerable to fighter attack and navigation at night was not a thing in the 1930s so would have been lucky to find the target never mind bomb a particular building. The two bomber designs at the time would have been quickly obsolete so would have been poor choices. So left with the He-177 firebird and here is a genuine what-if coz that could have done a bit more had it been worthwhile.

 

[Greyman]

Was there a general consensus on the effectiveness of the Me 262 versus the British night bombers? My assumption would be it wouldn't be the same show-stopper in that arena.

 

[Kevin J]

The R class battleships were considered obsolete by ww2 so the Iron Duke and Erin with their much lower speed and smaller guns would have been utterly hopeless. The Washington naval treaty ended them anyway.

Its easy to say Me-262 would have decisively ended the bombing campaign but it would have needed thousands of fully combat ready jets fully fueled and fully armed with fully trained Pilots and ground crew in 1943 and that is just hokum.

Magic wand stuff.

The ural bomber had 2 basic problems. As a day bomber it would have been vulnerable to fighter attack and navigation at night was not a thing in the 1930s so would have been lucky to find the target never mind bomb a particular building. The two bomber designs at the time would have been quickly obsolete so would have been poor choices. So left with the He-177 firebird and here is a genuine what-if coz that could have done a bit more had it been worthwhile.

The 'R' class my have been old and not usable in contested air space, but they were usable as heavy cover for convoy escort.

My Hybrid class would have been legal under the Washington Naval Treaty so long as half of their big guns had been removed as then they were no longer battleships. You end up with 5 Hybrids able to perform convoy escort with Fairey Swordfish, shore bombardment, etc. Their guns are similar to most of those of the Japanese battle fleet. Able to catapult off Hurricats to shoot down recce aircraft or en masse as reinforcement to shore based fighter squadrons.

 

[The Basket]

The R class were too slow to be 'line of battle ships' so their use as shore bombardment or convoy escort was simply expedient. A Scharnhorst was about 30 knots, an R class 22 knots so yes an R class could fight a Scharnhorst but it couldn't run away or catch one.

Naval strategy is built strategy so HMS Erin was scrapped 1923 and the Iron Dukes scrapped or decommissioned early 1930s.

How do you stop them from being scrapped and converted into hybrids flying aircraft not yet designed against an enemy 10 years or more in the future?

 

[Kevin J]

The R class were too slow to be 'line of battle ships' so their use as shore bombardment or convoy escort was simply expedient. A Scharnhorst was about 30 knots, an R class 22 knots so yes an R class could fight a Scharnhorst but it couldn't run away or catch one.

Naval strategy is built strategy so HMS Erin was scrapped 1923 and the Iron Dukes scrapped or decommissioned early 1930s.

How do you stop them from being scrapped and converted into hybrids flying aircraft not yet designed against an enemy 10 years or more in the future?

You lay them up, remove half the guns and make them fit for battle in the thirties after Germany rearms, Italy invades Ethiopia and Japan invades China instead of scrapping them. They're the only decent pre WW1 battleships. The other 22, you scrap. WW2 was inevitable after the Armistice.

 

[Kevin J]

The R class were too slow to be 'line of battle ships' so their use as shore bombardment or convoy escort was simply expedient. A Scharnhorst was about 30 knots, an R class 22 knots so yes an R class could fight a Scharnhorst but it couldn't run away or catch one.

Naval strategy is built strategy so HMS Erin was scrapped 1923 and the Iron Dukes scrapped or decommissioned early 1930s.

How do you stop them from being scrapped and converted into hybrids flying aircraft not yet designed against an enemy 10 years or more in the future?

If the R class runs away, you lose your convoy, so you can't.

 

[The Basket]

What-ifs are difficult subjects.

Let's say we keep HMS Tiger in service. That means I have to give up another battleship. And that battleship would be better than Tiger. So I have kept a worse ship firing a 13.5 inch projectile which no other ship has.

But Tiger would have been useful in ww2 especially after losses of other capital ships so its a very easy argument to say had HMS Tiger served in ww2 she would have done a good job.

I could easily say the Sopwith Snipe could have served in ww2 and done useful work and there were front line aircraft with less performance than the Snipe. So I could easily build a rational well thought out thesis on the Snipe in ww2.

The surface fleet of the Kriegsmarine in the 1930s were of no big deal. Propoganda aside the Bismarck was maybe on a par with a KGV or Rodney and the Graf Spee was equal to a county class heavy cruiser so Royal Navy ships are equal to their German counterparts and outnumber them. So I am equal 1v1 and as with the destruction of Graf Spee, Bismarck and Scharnhorst they will be outnumbered as well. And this is the Kriegsmarine. The Reichsmarine of the Weimar Republic had the SMS Schleswig-Holstein! Which only threat was that it wasn't worth shooting.

So I don't need Tiger in 1931 but I do in 1941. The crystal ball at the Admiralty must have gone faulty.

 

[Kevin J]

What-ifs are difficult subjects.

Let's say we keep HMS Tiger in service. That means I have to give up another battleship. And that battleship would be better than Tiger. So I have kept a worse ship firing a 13.5 inch projectile which no other ship has.

But Tiger would have been useful in ww2 especially after losses of other capital ships so its a very easy argument to say had HMS Tiger served in ww2 she would have done a good job.

I could easily say the Sopwith Snipe could have served in ww2 and done useful work and there were front line aircraft with less performance than the Snipe. So I could easily build a rational well thought out thesis on the Snipe in ww2.

The surface fleet of the Kriegsmarine in the 1930s were of no big deal. Propoganda aside the Bismarck was maybe on a par with a KGV or Rodney and the Graf Spee was equal to a county class heavy cruiser so Royal Navy ships are equal to their German counterparts and outnumber them. So I am equal 1v1 and as with the destruction of Graf Spee, Bismarck and Scharnhorst they will be outnumbered as well. And this is the Kriegsmarine. The Reichsmarine of the Weimar Republic had the SMS Schleswig-Holstein! Which only threat was that it wasn't worth shooting.

So I don't need Tiger in 1931 but I do in 1941. The crystal ball at the Admiralty must have gone faulty.

It wasn't the faulty crystal ball but the lack of money. The RN went from being equal to the next 2 biggest navies, to joint equal with the American, or twice the size of the Japanese. Post 1942, 2 KGV class battleships, 1 maintenance carrier and two armoured carriers were completed. They were still necessary, what I am suggesting is that a hole in Imperial defences had occurred which should have been filled.

There's nothing wrong with the 13.5 in gun. We had some in Kent during WW2 firing over into France. IIRC max range ever achieved was 57.3 miles or was it km? Tiger could have been up-armoured like the Kongo class. Erin and the Iron Duke class turned into Hybrids. Agincourt retained for shore bombardment only. They were in completed in 1914. There was nothing wrong with them at all.

 

[Kevin J]

It wasn't the faulty crystal ball but the lack of money. The RN went from being equal to the next 2 biggest navies, to joint equal with the American, or twice the size of the Japanese. Post 1942, 2 KGV class battleships, 1 maintenance carrier and two armoured carriers were completed. They were still necessary, what I am suggesting is that a hole in Imperial defences had occurred which should have been filled.

There's nothing wrong with the 13.5 in gun. We had some in Kent during WW2 firing over into France. IIRC max range ever achieved was 57.3 miles or was it km? Tiger could have been up-armoured like the Kongo class. Erin and the Iron Duke class turned into Hybrids. Agincourt retained for shore bombardment only. They were in completed in 1914. There was nothing wrong with them at all.

Railway gun range, 44.7 km.

 

[The Basket]

If the Tiger was in service then it would have 13. 5 inch guns when everything else had 15 or 16 inch so you got to make special shells for a specific ship and that could be not worth it.

OK... 1930...Royal Navy is short of cash so it has to rationalise every penny and so keeping the top stuff and getting rid of anything dodgy or questionable is perfectly acceptable. I have to meet London and Washington treaty obligations which again perfect understanding so another good reason to trim the fat.

If the Royal Navy keeps every large gun ship it can then this looks very suspicious. It would simply create an arms race which UK can't afford and USA would win. War with USA was inevitable with Japan as an ally and this was avoided because the treaties stopped a new naval build up.

War was not inevitable with Japan as Japan had already been to war with China and Russia and Korea without much ado to the British Empire and even been a close ally.

Italy had been to war over Libya and Ethiopia and usually made a balls up of it and the Italian Navy while capable was bottled in the Mediterranean.

I don't have an enemy in 1930 so spending a fortune I don't have on ships I don't need is going to raise a lot of eyebrows.

Let's say that in 1936 the threat of the Axis powers were fully realised. Well you scrapped Tiger 4 years ago so that's a bad show.

War is not inevitable. There was no war between Nato and Warsaw Pact. No modern war between USA or UK. War was only inevitable because the fates aligned in such a way. If Hitler had been killed in the Beer Hall Putsch then who knows what was inevitable.

 

[swampyankee]

Which aircraft obviously depends on which year.

An effective radar system and more fighters for the French Air Force. Have the French Air Force concentrate on counter-air and close air support. How do the Germans do if their Stukas are 50% less effective?

 

[Kevin J]

Which aircraft obviously depends on which year.

An effective radar system and more fighters for the French Air Force. Have the French Air Force concentrate on counter-air and close air support.

How the French deployed their tanks is probably more relevant.

 

[swampyankee]

How the French deployed their tanks is probably more relevant.

Also true. There was a lot wrong with French military doctrine. French politics was also particularly toxic for at least a decade before the invasion, which certainly helped the Germans.

 

[Dimlee]

The ural bomber had 2 basic problems. As a day bomber it would have been vulnerable to fighter attack and navigation at night was not a thing in the 1930s so would have been lucky to find the target never mind bomb a particular building. The two bomber designs at the time would have been quickly obsolete so would have been poor choices. So left with the He-177 firebird and here is a genuine what-if coz that could have done a bit more had it been worthwhile.

Somehow, Luftwaffe managed to resolve the problem number 2 and to bomb successfully the Soviet industry at night disabling several key factories and oil/oil products storages in Povolzhye area and Kursk marshalling yard in June 1943.