What if the Bugatti 100p became a fighter? (2 Viewers)

[tomo pauk]

He 100 was too small.

Fom the American or British perspective - yes.
From the 'continental' European perspective - no.

Very good for performance. Not so good at being an effective fighter, especially after the summer of 1940 when protected fuel tanks and armor came into fashion.
He 100 didn't have enough volume to put in things like fuel, guns/ammo and cooling system/s. It had very low drag, in large part because they used a lot of volume spreading the cooling system/s all over the place in the plane.
This makes it very hard to figure out what a 1941 or 1942 version would have looked like or performed.

Remodel it so it has a fixed radiator, semi burried in the place of the retractable aux radiator. Frees awful lot of internal volume, both in the wings and in fuselage. Use the freed volume for fuel/guns/ammo. Two 300L drop tanks for extra range.

Putting cannon in small wings is hard. You can do it by redoing the spar/s and adding lumps and bumps of various sizes but then the drag goes to hell. You can use pods but again the drag goes to hell.

Cannon-armed Spitfires and Bf 109E have had the lumps above or under the wings. Nobody complained for the few mph lost.

Going to protected tanks is a problem, a lot depends on the degree of protection actually wanted. CO2 systems or exhaust gas are light weight and can reduce fires, they don't do anything for getting the plane home when it is leaking fuel at more than a trickle. Using coatings on wing tanks means decreasing the volume of the tanks if they fit in the same space.
He 100 tanks were behind the main spar in an increasing thinner part of the wing. Adding tanks further outboard gets diminishing returns and may hinder roll response.

With oil cooling system removed from the better part of fuselage, there should be enough volume to add the fuselage fuel tank; nothing special, talk ~200L, it will still a lot of mileage to the sleek aircraft with the engines of modest consumption.

It is possible to put 20mm guns in the wings of He 100 but what has to be sacrificed to do it? Wing root like Fw 190 but in smaller wing? Lumps and bumps?

The MG FF will not work in that position. The MG 151 should, as weill as a motor gun with the DB 601N.
MG FF will need to go in the outer wing position until the DB 601N is around.

Outside the prop arc but that means the gun breeches are right in the middle of the existing fuel tank/s. They can be moved but wing guns and fuel further out in the wings is going to hurt roll response.

MG FF was a very light gun anyway. Questioning the rate of roll with it installed is making a mountain from the mole hill.

 

[Shortround6]

Fom the American or British perspective - yes.
From the 'continental' European perspective - no.

The Basic problem/s for the He 100 is what is going to do better than the 109 and when.
Germans were several years behind the French on the engine 20mm gun. They sure wanted it. But it was not reliable enough until the 109F and the MG 151 gun.
Being faster with two or three 7.9mm guns was not really good enough. Germans put a gun in each wing to get to 4 guns in the 109 ( they tried prop guns in Spain but could not get them to work)

Remodel it so it has a fixed radiator, semi burried in the place of the retractable aux radiator. Frees awful lot of internal volume, both in the wings and in fuselage. Use the freed volume for fuel/guns/ammo. Two 300L drop tanks for extra range

A lot depends on how good the radiator/oil cooler installation winds up being.
If you can get a P-51 style radiator on the He 100 in 1939/40 great. If you can get a Ki-61 radiator on it things are better than some other radiator setups but not quite were they need to be for "superfighter" status. You are not going to get the speeds desired using any sort of conventual radiator in place of the surface cooling. The real question is how much speed are we going to loose and at what point is it decided the gain is not worth the cost (re-tooling factories/ loss of production)

A lot of WW II fighters had a lot of unusable volume inside or perhaps very hard to use volume. You need volume close to the center of gravity. Volume in the tail is very hard to use.
Volume in the outer wings is also hard to use.

For a "continental" European perspective in 1938-39 and some of 1940 drop tanks are irrevelant.
Needed drop tanks on single engine fighters in 1939-40 required better/different radios and navigation training or much different tactics (squadron/group leaders in long range aircraft to provide long range communications and navigation support)

Cannon-armed Spitfires and Bf 109E have had the lumps above or under the wings. Nobody complained for the few mph lost.

They were sort of forced into it. Things change a lot when things go from peace to war. People are a lot more accepting of 'good' instead of 'Best'.
Germans did a lot of no so bright things trying for "best". Po

With oil cooling system removed from the better part of fuselage, there should be enough volume to add the fuselage fuel tank; nothing special, talk ~200L, it will still a lot of mileage to the sleek aircraft with the engines of modest consumption.

Possible. I have no idea of what the oil system weighed or weight distribution.

The MG FF will not work in that position. The MG 151 should, as weill as a motor gun with the DB 601N.
MG FF will need to go in the outer wing position until the DB 601N is around.

Again, timing, they were working on the MG 151 but when was it going to be ready?
He 100 had a rather limited amount of wing space.

Fair amount in the wing root area but that is a pretty good taper in the outer wings. Exact placement of guns outside the propeller arc gets tricky.

MG FF was a very light gun anyway. Questioning the rate of roll with it installed is making a mountain from the mole hill.

A lot depends on the test pilots, especially before the shooting starts. Some Italian and Japanese pilots didn't like even a single 7.7-7.9mm gun in each wing, until they had to face larger/heavier opponents (and bombers). Soviets didn't like the wing guns in the P-39 and a pair of .30s in each wing of a plane that was 500-800kg heavier than Yak was not going to be turned into a YaK by taking out the wing guns.
Again, with the decision to be made in 1938/early 1939 things are more theoretical than practical. Deciding after the fall of Poland might give more wiggle room?

 

[tomo pauk]

The Basic problem/s for the He 100 is what is going to do better than the 109 and when.
Germans were several years behind the French on the engine 20mm gun. They sure wanted it. But it was not reliable enough until the 109F and the MG 151 gun.
Being faster with two or three 7.9mm guns was not really good enough. Germans put a gun in each wing to get to 4 guns in the 109 ( they tried prop guns in Spain but could not get them to work)

It should be faster with the same engine and firepower, and about the same speed with the previous generation of engine; IMO, that includes the F and G types. For 1940-41, that also removes the need for the temperamental DB 601N and the high-oct fuel.
Better undercarriage should be also worth a good deal, even if I don't believe the horror stories of the 109 and it's U/C.

A lot depends on how good the radiator/oil cooler installation winds up being.
If you can get a P-51 style radiator on the He 100 in 1939/40 great. If you can get a Ki-61 radiator on it things are better than some other radiator setups but not quite were they need to be for "superfighter" status. You are not going to get the speeds desired using any sort of conventual radiator in place of the surface cooling. The real question is how much speed are we going to loose and at what point is it decided the gain is not worth the cost (re-tooling factories/ loss of production)

I'm okay with what the D.520 and the MC.202 had; ditto for what the Soviet V12-powered fighters had. I'm also not too much worried about the changes on the production lines in Germany, they also have had a lot of dead wood they could've been without it.

A lot depends on the test pilots, especially before the shooting starts. Some Italian and Japanese pilots didn't like even a single 7.7-7.9mm gun in each wing, until they had to face larger/heavier opponents (and bombers). Soviets didn't like the wing guns in the P-39 and a pair of .30s in each wing of a plane that was 500-800kg heavier than Yak was not going to be turned into a YaK by taking out the wing guns.

In Luftwaffe, pilots didn't have much of the say, unless it is about the high-calibre airmen like Galland. The 109F gotten a lot of citicism for having just one cannon, by the time RAF was moving to 2 or even 4. Addition of extra guns was a far greater occurence in the LW than removal of the guns.

P-39 needed any help it could've gotten. Removal of the outer LMGs still meant the two HMGs and a cannon are there, while the drag and weight are lowered. For my money, the earlier the He 100 settles at three cannons, the better for LW.

 

[GrauGeist]

You can use pods but again the drag goes to hell. Putting a pod under each wing of a P-39 or P-63 is one thing, they were fairly large aircraft. Putting similar pods under a much smaller aircraft is a higher percentage of the drag total. It is certainly going to affect the power to weight ratio (climb) and wing loading (turn) more.

This is what happened to the P-36 when they tried to up-gun it.