What If...?

It wasn't idiocy. The Soviet destruction would be on the ground, the Luftwaffe needed to be able to support the ground forces. Heavy bombers are only required when you need to strike long distances or across areas that your ground forces cannot reach.

The Luftwaffe only needed to support the Heeres during Operation Barbarossa. Heavy bombers were not needed against the Soviet Union because the ground forces could have reached the factories and production facilities.

That is to say, if Hitler hadn't messed with the strategic planning.

The only time the Luftwaffe would have needed heavy bombers was against Britain during the Battle of Britain. The only reason the USAAF and RAF had massive amounts of heavy bombers was because we were striking at the enemy while being unable to use our ground forces against them.

It is interesting how the jet engine developed. Henri Coanda's 1910 aircraft is intriuging. If this had been developed further, when would jet aircraft have entered service?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Coanda

That's an overly complicated engine. A mix of piston and jet technology, it's just senseless but I'm sure it provided good lessons for the future. It wouldn't have gone any further with the study of that engine, they needed a proper jet engine.

Plus, design technology can only advance as far as the materials available to mankind will allow it.

Yeah, but it's a shame that there wasn't more attention paid to it, someone could have come up with the idea of a gas turbine. I think nickel was availble at the time.
At least we had the cool prop planes of the 10s, 20s, 30s and 40s.

Im with Plan_D on the fact that the Germans were too dependent on ground support rather than strategic bombing. It was Hitler who said that all aircraft had to be able to perform dive bombing duties.

plan_D said:

Frank Whittle invented the jet engine in the early 20s.

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In 1928 he submitted the idea of a "sleeved propeller engine for high altitude performance," as part of a thesis to RAF college.
In 1929 he further developed the idea, proposing a gas turbine to provide "thrust."
In 1930 he applied for a patent for a "reaction motor suitable for aircraft propulsion," it was granted in 1932. The relatively incomplete idea was proposed to and ignored by the Air Ministry at this time.
1934 attended Cambridge and was encouraged to pursue his idea.
1936 begins a development company called "Power Jets Ltd." with collegues. Germany begins development of turbojet engines at Junkers and Heinkell.
1937 first test of an experimental bench model, the WU at PJL. (I would personally place an independant body's invention of a jet engine at this event, that is my opinion or else perhaps Leonardo Da Vinci invented it in one of his sketchings and everybody's just been following his work).
1939 the Air Ministry awards a contract to PJL for engines to power a Gloster prototype.
1941 Gloster E28-39, first British jet-powered prototype aircraft flies.


Certainly jet aircraft prototypes could have been operational in England well prior to 1941, however the Air Ministry seemed oblivious to the impending war in terms of funding ideas. It's a social class thing I'm sure.

Every country has problems with its government getting involved with projects but no one topped the Germans with letting Hitler run every aspect of the militaries weapons development. If you were not in favor with the Nazi heirarchy you stuff got denied and turned down.

I'm unconvinced an oligarchy is better than fascism, since I feel the only real difference is the institution of a dictatorship. We'd probably need to discuss the merits of either in the political forum.
Needless to say it was simply an observation that if Whittle was Sir Frank before the success of his invention, England could very well have been equipping Meteors for the Battle of Britain. This was the "what if" thread?

Interesting point you make but I dont think that Meteors would have been ready for the Battle of Britain. 1943 maybe but not the battle of britain. The concept was still quit new.

I find the role of Turkey in WW1 and WW2 really interesting.

In WW1 there was the Gallipoli disaster which failed due to crap maps and amazingly slow movement on the part of some British officers after they made unopposed landings while other landing parties found steep terrain and determined resistance.
If the Gallipoli landings were successful then it MAY have led to huge numbers of French and UK troops landing in Turkey and this new front in the Balkans MAY have caused the German and Austro Hungarian high commands to sign a peace treaty.....in early/mid 1915!!!!
The failure must have haunted Churchill who was involved in the planning.

In WW2 the wise Turkish leader signed secret alliance pacts with everyone (an obvious and old tactic ) and maintained neutrality.
Were'nt there British forces occupying Iraq? After December 1941 US, UK and even a small Soviet force (for diplomatic reasons) could have used Turkey as a back door and......opened another front on the Balkans.
Hitler would be in deep shit as alot of his forces were on the Eastern Front and it seems that his forces in Yugoslavia seem to have already been fighting a Vietnam style war against guerilla resistance forces.

Here is a list of treaties which President Inönü of Turkey signed to avoid occupation/war in Turkey:

Turkey - During WW2

"If one defines a successful foreign policy as the pursuit of national interest, then President Inönü's conduct of Turkish diplomacy during World War 2 must be judged a triumph. Resisting pressures for an alliance by both the Allies and the Axis, Inönü guided his country along a cautious path of friendly neutrality until the outcome of the war was decided." William L. Cleveland

* 13 October 1939: After the treaty between USSR and Germany was signed (23 August 1939), President Inönü singed a treaty with France and Great Britain and obtained financial help.
* 25 March 1941: Turkey signed a treaty with the USSR which guaranteed that the USSR would not attack Turkey.
* June 1941: A few days before Germany declared war on the USSR, Turkey signed a treaty with Germany which guaranteed that Germany would not attack Turkey.
* 23 February 1945: Turkey declared war on Germany, and later on Japan, three months before the armistice.
* 24 October 1945: Turkey entered the United Nations.

Turkey seems to have received 3 spitfire 1s in 1940 but obviously buying huge numbers of fighters could have provoked a reaction from Hitler, though he needed all his forces for Barbarossa and invasion/occupation of Turkey would have been a huge drain on the German military.

Heres a site on this subject:
http://members.aol.com/dalecoz/ww2_0998.htm

According to this thread Turkey was

reasonably strong on their own and more important, were within
reach of support by the Western Allies.

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http://www.strategypage.com/messageboards/messages/30-54399.asp

So you can see why Hitler wanted to avoid invasion/occupation of Turkey, it would have weakened his forces on the Eastern Front.

The thing is, when things were really going bad for the Axis in 1942, why wasn't a secret deal struck with Inönü to allow a huge allied force into Turkey from where they could open a second front in the Balkans and screw Hitler?
Was it because many Turkish leaders hated the British Empire?
What was the situation in Iraq in WW2? There must have been very strong hatred of the British military for the bombings in Iraq in the 20s. Churchill wanted harmless gases used instead of bombs to put down a freedom force who had risen against the occupying British military in the 1920s.

Surely by 1943 with Rommel defeated this front could have been opened? Or would it have created another Italian Front, with the Allied forces making very slow progress through the tree covered hills of Yugoslavia and arid/mountainous terrain of Greece?

Yes the British were in Iraq and in Iran during WW2. That is one reason why there were able to hold the Tehran Conference there between Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill.

The British weren't liked too much in Iraq though, there was an uprising there led by someone called AliRashid (I think). They besieged the RAF base of Habbaniya which was only equipped with 1920s era planes but they survived

If you were not in favor with the Nazi heirarchy you stuff got denied and turned down.

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The Horton brothers were liked by Goering but not Gotha .

Anyway I may have mentioned this before, but Riley WW2 Aero-engines had DOHC's per bank and 4v per cylinder (worth a lot of hp).

'What if' the Merlin had them? 8)

Question, if the Ju89 and Do19 were produced and they had a fighter to go with them, that would be say one like the Me410 or a development from it, they could have had the arms to cross the Urals. This would have ment to dalat the war. And really if they stayed out of Poland It might have been 1941 before they had to fight. AS said earlier, this has been a grand read

I am reading a good book about the German Long Range bomber program. The program was plauged by everying imaginable and would not get off the ground. One thing that it covers is the fact that Germany had several good designs but since they had a range of only about 10000 to 13000 km they were rejected and told to continue development of them to find a way to get the range to 15000 km or more. Supposadly to reach the US Eastern Coast. If they had further developed these aircraft maybe but they did not obviously.

I dont think the Intercontinental bomber idea of the 40's was well thought out.

To fly 10,000 km, sustain battle damage and then expect to fly back to friendly territory is a bit optimistic.

Look at how bad Iwo Jima was needed for the damaged B29's, fighting over essentially undefended Japanese airspace.

Id say that Germany flying missions against the USA would have quickly become cost prohibitive. Same as if we flew B36's against them.

It is indeed a tall order for the technology of the time.

The other problem they had with Iwo Jima is that the Japanese had 2 fighter bases there that could harass the B-29s on the way to and the way back from their raids over Japan. Having a place to land in an emergency was definitely a big plus.

For the Germans, it would have been really treacherous. There was no place for emergencies and they obviously would have to have flown south of England to avoid a nest of fighters. It was wishful thinking, IMO.

I always heard the Gallipoli Campaign failed because of the terrain. The maps were bad, but even with bad maps the defenders had terrain that was perfect for defense. Why wouldn't you want to open a front in the Balkans? Terrain. Its mountains. Too easily defended with a small force. Plus the supply lines would have been pretty nasty.

Look at how long it took the allies to move north in Italy trying to get through the mountains. It was too difficult, too easily defended.

I don't think the Balkans would have ever been a viable front.

syscom3 said:

I dont think the Intercontinental bomber idea of the 40's was well thought out.

To fly 10,000 km, sustain battle damage and then expect to fly back to friendly territory is a bit optimistic.

Look at how bad Iwo Jima was needed for the damaged B29's, fighting over essentially undefended Japanese airspace.

Id say that Germany flying missions against the USA would have quickly become cost prohibitive. Same as if we flew B36's against them.

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I agree I doubt anything would have seriously come about it, especially considering the situation they were in.

and they wouldn't do huge ammounts of damage would they, do to serious damage they'd need thousands of these bombing being launched almost every night, which even america would struggle to maintain!