Why did the British airforce adopted highly similar Hurricane and Spitfire at the same time?

[Geoffrey Sinclair]

A lot of the early analysis of the German economy was based on the Wagenfuehr indexes which indicated Germany mobilised late. In fact Germany was heavily mobilised before the war with the Nazis doing major deficit spending and fiddling the books with things like the MEFO loans, but consumer goods remained scarce. In 1940 the German government was spending more on loan repayments and interest than on the war. To build a modern 1930's war machine the Nazis needed oil and lighter metals which meant generating foreign exchange while investing in ways, like synthetic oil and rubber, to create the desired autarky.

The general point was by running the economy as hard as possible to rearm it was very hard to generate foreign exchange. With industry committed to large, secure, government orders there was little capacity or incentive to look overseas for more. German exports were worth 13,483,000 marks in 1929, bottoming at 4,167,000 in 1934, rising to 5,911,000 marks in 1937 before falling again. The Nazis drove hard bargains for raw materials as their price for support in the Spanish civil war. So the economists make the point the occupations of Austria and then Czechoslovakia and the attack on Poland had the lack of foreign exchange as an important driver.

Pre war there were incentives to employ people, which continued into the war, minimal rationalisation of supply, the same component could cost twice as much from different suppliers, little communication of the better ways, the continual interference of the military demanding small changes, then the deliberate cut backs in 1941, which makes the late 1942 increases look better than they should. The fact in things like aircraft the switch to smaller, lighter aircraft means the numbers look better but not if you go by airframe weight. Pre war and early in the war if someone reported a better way of doing things they simply found their quota raised, the state took all the benefit.

Speer helped remove the inefficiencies, aided by the obvious necessity for more production. The economy's resilience was helped by having more factory space and machine tools than were needed, indeed Germany exported many machine tools during the war. In any case there were the tools looted from France etc., these mainly helped the allies, since when the Germans tried to transfer production to the factories in occupied areas many of the key tools were in storage in Germany.

According to Richard Overy the output per head for the arms industry looked like, 1939 100, 1940 87.6, 1941 75.9 (provisional figure), 1942 99.6, 1943 131.6, 1944 160.0 (minimum). The western allies had a large pool of unemployed plus women normally kept out of the work force to fill gaps as they mobilised, Germany did not, giving the predictable result, a reduction in economic efficiency as people were pulled out of their usual jobs and put into the military. Germany went from 1.4 million to 5.6 million the military June 1939 to June 1940, the total civil work force fell by around 3.4 million mostly due to an extra 0.9 million foreign workers. In June 1939 there were 14.6 million working women in Germany, mainly those working on their family farms, in October 1944 that was up to 14.9 million. In millions, employment changes from June 1939 to June 1944, civil: German men -10.3, German women +0.2, foreign/PoW +6.8, military +7.7, there was also a 3.3 million cumulative loss of people to the war, up from 1.7 million in June 1943.

The BMW801 aero engine in 1940 took 5,145 kg of raw materials and 2,400 hours of labour, in 1944 it was 2,790 kg of raw materials and 1,250 hours of labour. Henschel made a 64% saving when building engines between 1939 and 1943, in 1942 Junkers improved Ju88 production efficiency by 30%. In May 1943 each ton of munitions used less than half the iron and steel, a sixth of the aluminium and half the copper compared with 1941. Early raw material allocations were set on an industry wide basis, not product, controls were slack enough that the Messerschmitt organisation made aluminium step ladders for example, there were also lightweight shelters made intended for the troops in the desert.

Remember the German aircraft production figures in 1941 were reduced by the Bf110/Me210 fiasco and the change over to new models. Also while the USSBS says 1940 production was 10,371 only rising to 10,501 in 1941 the number of transports trainers and miscellaneous aircraft fell from 1,373 to 561.

 

[pinehilljoe]

A lot of the early analysis of the German economy was based on the Wagenfuehr indexes which indicated Germany mobilised late. In fact Germany was heavily mobilised before the war with the Nazis doing major deficit spending and fiddling the books with things like the MEFO loans, but consumer goods remained scarce. In 1940 the German government was spending more on loan repayments and interest than on the war. To build a modern 1930's war machine the Nazis needed oil and lighter metals which meant generating foreign exchange while investing in ways, like synthetic oil and rubber, to create the desired autarky.

The general point was by running the economy as hard as possible to rearm it was very hard to generate foreign exchange. With industry committed to large, secure, government orders there was little capacity or incentive to look overseas for more. German exports were worth 13,483,000 marks in 1929, bottoming at 4,167,000 in 1934, rising to 5,911,000 marks in 1937 before falling again. The Nazis drove hard bargains for raw materials as their price for support in the Spanish civil war. So the economists make the point the occupations of Austria and then Czechoslovakia and the attack on Poland had the lack of foreign exchange as an important driver.

Pre war there were incentives to employ people, which continued into the war, minimal rationalisation of supply, the same component could cost twice as much from different suppliers, little communication of the better ways, the continual interference of the military demanding small changes, then the deliberate cut backs in 1941, which makes the late 1942 increases look better than they should. The fact in things like aircraft the switch to smaller, lighter aircraft means the numbers look better but not if you go by airframe weight. Pre war and early in the war if someone reported a better way of doing things they simply found their quota raised, the state took all the benefit.

Speer helped remove the inefficiencies, aided by the obvious necessity for more production. The economy's resilience was helped by having more factory space and machine tools than were needed, indeed Germany exported many machine tools during the war. In any case there were the tools looted from France etc., these mainly helped the allies, since when the Germans tried to transfer production to the factories in occupied areas many of the key tools were in storage in Germany.

According to Richard Overy the output per head for the arms industry looked like, 1939 100, 1940 87.6, 1941 75.9 (provisional figure), 1942 99.6, 1943 131.6, 1944 160.0 (minimum). The western allies had a large pool of unemployed plus women normally kept out of the work force to fill gaps as they mobilised, Germany did not, giving the predictable result, a reduction in economic efficiency as people were pulled out of their usual jobs and put into the military. Germany went from 1.4 million to 5.6 million the military June 1939 to June 1940, the total civil work force fell by around 3.4 million mostly due to an extra 0.9 million foreign workers. In June 1939 there were 14.6 million working women in Germany, mainly those working on their family farms, in October 1944 that was up to 14.9 million. In millions, employment changes from June 1939 to June 1944, civil: German men -10.3, German women +0.2, foreign/PoW +6.8, military +7.7, there was also a 3.3 million cumulative loss of people to the war, up from 1.7 million in June 1943.

The BMW801 aero engine in 1940 took 5,145 kg of raw materials and 2,400 hours of labour, in 1944 it was 2,790 kg of raw materials and 1,250 hours of labour. Henschel made a 64% saving when building engines between 1939 and 1943, in 1942 Junkers improved Ju88 production efficiency by 30%. In May 1943 each ton of munitions used less than half the iron and steel, a sixth of the aluminium and half the copper compared with 1941. Early raw material allocations were set on an industry wide basis, not product, controls were slack enough that the Messerschmitt organisation made aluminium step ladders for example, there were also lightweight shelters made intended for the troops in the desert.

Remember the German aircraft production figures in 1941 were reduced by the Bf110/Me210 fiasco and the change over to new models. Also while the USSBS says 1940 production was 10,371 only rising to 10,501 in 1941 the number of transports trainers and miscellaneous aircraft fell from 1,373 to 561.

Very informative. Another good book is Paul Kennedy's Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. His theory is Hitler was forced to invade Poland out of economic necessity, as much as ideology. Germany needed Poland's gold reserves and resources.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

This expensive production issue is a theme in German war materiel almost to the end. The original designs are excellent in many cases, down to small details, but difficult to mass produce and sometimes to maintain. Probably one of the big reasons they relied so heavily on the Bf 109 was that this was one example where they eventually figured out how to make the production very efficient and reduce the number of man-hours quite a bit (I've seen estimates a low as 4,000 hours for a late model 109, compared to 18,000 for a Spitfire, though I'm certain these figures are a bit cherry picked, somebody can correct me based on versions etc. I know they made a ton of Spit V).

The Nazis did obviously figure out how to utilize slave labor but this (also obviously) had a lot of downsides. For one thing you need guards to keep the slave workers in line, and the harsher the treatment of the slaves (many of whom were being worked to death) the more guards you need. For another no matter how harsh the punitive regime put in place to control them they will (and did) come up with clever ways to sabotage production.

I have a theory - really just a hunch, that especially during the early war German production tended toward this high design quality but low production efficiency in part because of the legacy of their old medieval craft artisan system, which was only gradually and unevenly replaced by modern semi-skilled or low-skilled assembly line type production in the 19th Century. We sometimes forget Germany wasn't even a State until 1871. In the early war they had a lot of people who were at least partly trained as artisans, went through the apprenticeship system etc., which meant they could bring a lot of skill and some clever ideas to every step of production, but their training was focused on quality and not necessarily optimized for speed. They obviously overcame this to a significant extent during WWI, but I suspect some remnants were still lingering well into the 30s and early years of WW2.

In fact they still have this in some economic sectors.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

According to Richard Overy the output per head for the arms industry looked like, 1939 100, 1940 87.6, 1941 75.9 (provisional figure), 1942 99.6, 1943 131.6, 1944 160.0 (minimum). The western allies had a large pool of unemployed plus women normally kept out of the work force to fill gaps as they mobilised, Germany did not, giving the predictable result, a reduction in economic efficiency as people were pulled out of their usual jobs and put into the military.

Can you expand on this a bit? Germany already had women working in the factories? They didn't have a reserve of unemployed workers?

I'd think even outside of the notion of slave labor from places like France and Poland, I would think they had reserves of unemployed people in foreign countries they were allied with like in the Balkans that could at least do farm work if not factory work.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Very informative. Another good book is Paul Kennedy's Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. His theory is Hitler was forced to invade Poland out of economic necessity, as much as ideology. Germany needed Poland's gold reserves and resources.

One of the kind of hidden things in the Spanish Civil War is that when the Republican (left wing) government was pretty much abandoned by the Western nations, some of whom were openly hostile (France and England imposed an arms embargo on the Republic, and England even debated sending arms to Italy), the Soviets moved in to the void, and their goal was partly to test weaponry and train some pilots and soldiers, and partly to go in and snatch the gold reserve.

In the early part of the Spanish Civil War it was the anarchist trade unions, mainly the CNT, particularly in Catalonia and the Basque regions, who stopped the attempted coup by Franco. But the small Spanish communist party was being armed by the Soviets and started a campaign against the anarchists, socialists, liberals and Trotskyist militias which basically turned into a civil war within the civil war (including an internal arms embargo against the anarchist militias, which had to figure out how to arm themselves, including taking over and running some factories - such as making armored cars in the streetcar factory in Barcelona). Some authors have suggested that the Soviet Union didn't actually want the Republic to win, they just wanted the gold. And they got it.

 

[tomo pauk]

This expensive production issue is a theme in German war materiel almost to the end. The original designs are excellent in many cases, down to small details, but difficult to mass produce and sometimes to maintain. Probably one of the big reasons they relied so heavily on the Bf 109 was that this was one example where they eventually figured out how to make the production very efficient and reduce the number of man-hours quite a bit (I've seen estimates a low as 4,000 hours for a late model 109, compared to 18,000 for a Spitfire, though I'm certain these figures are a bit cherry picked, somebody can correct me based on versions etc. I know they made a ton of Spit V).

Bf 109 was an early design. These were easy to make from day one, not something that they eventually figured out how to efficiently produce.
Germany also made 20000 Fw 190s, Ju 88 in 15 thousand pcs, He 111s, Ju 52s and Ju 87s in thousands each - I'd say that an eye for mass production was always present.

We can just imagine shaking of heads among the German production engineers that took peek on insides of Spitfire, P-47 or P-38, to say nothing about the 4-engined stuff, especially the bombers with turbochargers.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Bf 109 was an early design. These were easy to make from day one, not something that they eventually figured out how to efficiently produce.

My understanding is that the number of man hours to produce the Bf 109 reduced precipitously from the early days. No doubt this did benefit from it being an early design.

Germany also made 20000 Fw 190s, Ju 88 in 15 thousand pcs, He 111s, Ju 52s and Ju 87s in thousands each - I'd say that an eye for mass production was always present.

Yes they did work it out in several cases, but there are also counter examples. The Panzer Mk VI, the Me 262 and the Arado 234, Ju 188 and 388, Me 410, Fw-190D variant... the Panzer Mk V was produced in fairly large numbers (about 6,000) but at great expense in both material and man-hours... and they were prone to break down and difficult to maintain, especially the earlier variants. And the halftracks Shortround6 mentioned.

I also think part of why they stuck with early designs was that they struggled to get replacements for say Ju 88, He 111, Ju 52 and Ju 87 designed, debugged and into production quickly.

Obviously Allied Strategic Bombing, fuel shortages and overall war setbacks played a role in all this. But that wasn't the only factor.

I think they had an eye for mass production, but it didn't always translate into reality.

We can just imagine shaking of heads among the German production engineers that took peek on insides of Spitfire, P-47 or P-38, to say nothing about the 4-engined stuff, especially the bombers with turbochargers.

What do you mean by that?

 

[tomo pauk]

My understanding is that the number of man hours to produce the Bf 109 reduced precipitously from the early days. No doubt this did benefit from it being an early design.

Holds true for many designs, both Allied and Axis.

Yes they did work it out in several cases, but there are also counter examples. The Panzer Mk VI, the Me 262 and the Arado 234, Ju 188 and 388, Me 410, Fw-190D variant... the Panzer Mk V was produced in fairly large numbers (about 6,000) but at great expense in both material and man-hours... and they were prone to break down and difficult to maintain, especially the earlier variants. And the halftracks Shortround6 mentioned.

Your original sentence:
The original designs are excellent in many cases, down to small details, but difficult to mass produce and sometimes to maintain.

I tried to point out that that's a too wide brush to paint, and flatly wrong for mass of hardware Germany produced.

(Fw 109D entered production in late 1944, it was little more than another engine bolted to the firewall of the Fw 190A-8 + the tail plug; Ju 188 and 388 still used the mass-produced Ju 88 wings and fuselage; Germany was dialing down the non-fighters past 1943; Me 262 was held up because engines were not ready; there is also indeed a thing of round-the-clock bombing in 1944-45)

What do you mean by that?

Complicated to produce when compared with what Germans were making.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Can you expand on this a bit? Germany already had women working in the factories? They didn't have a reserve of unemployed workers?

I can answer the last question: the Nazi regime didn't want women working in factories for ideological reasons, according to my readings. I think Paul Kennedy makes mention of that in his fine book mentioned by pinehilljoe upthread, as well. It's been about ten years since I last read it, though.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Holds true for many designs, both Allied and Axis.

True to an extent, but I think all the heavily mass produced German designs were early war designs, whereas you don't see some German equivalent of something like the Hellcat appearing in the mid or later war.

Your original sentence:
The original designs are excellent in many cases, down to small details, but difficult to mass produce and sometimes to maintain.

I tried to point out that that's a too wide brush to paint, and flatly wrong for mass of hardware Germany produced.

Some very significant designs, Panzer Mk V for example and VI, both suffered from this problem, and I'd argue most of the mid to later-war German aircraft too. Part of the pattern is that many types which were very good initially but should have been replaced never were. Of course, many other issues were also factors so I can't call this a fact or even fully a theory. It's just a pattern I believe I've noticed.

(Fw 109D entered production in late 1944, it was little more than another engine bolted to the firewall of the Fw 190A-8 + the tail plug; Ju 188 and 388 still used the mass-produced Ju 88 wings and fuselage; Germany was dialing down the non-fighters past 1943; Me 262 was held up because engines were not ready; there is also indeed a thing of round-the-clock bombing in 1944-45)

I agree, many other factors...

Complicated to produce when compared with what Germans were making.

Maybe the hydromatic supercharger was too good, it bred complacency. Turbochargers seem to have been a huge pain in the ass on the fighters though with a long teething phase. They seemed to work out better in bombers (and airliners).

 

[tomo pauk]

True to an extent, but I think all the heavily mass produced German designs were early war designs, whereas you don't see some German equivalent of something like the Hellcat appearing in the mid or later war.

Something like Hellcat does not solve any of German problems. They were tying to introduce 'reactive' powered fighters by time Hellcat was in series production.

Maybe the hydromatic supercharger was too good, it bred complacency. Turbochargers seem to have been a huge pain in the ass on the fighters though with a long teething phase. They seemed to work out better in bombers (and airliners).

Hydromatic was the drive of the S/C, not the S/C itself. Other people's 2-speed units were, in the end, just as useful.
Granted, Germans lagged with introduction of 2-stage superchargers for service use (military and/or transport/passenger A/C), despite knowing the advantages of these already by mid-1930s.

Some very significant designs, Panzer Mk V for example and VI, both suffered from this problem, and I'd argue most of the mid to later-war German aircraft too. Part of the pattern is that many types which were very good initially but should have been replaced never were. Of course, many other issues were also factors so I can't call this a fact or even fully a theory. It's just a pattern I believe I've noticed.

What was the ratio between the easy-to-produce and hard-to-produce mid to late-war German aircraft?

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

True to an extent, but I think all the heavily mass produced German designs were early war designs, whereas you don't see some German equivalent of something like the Hellcat appearing in the mid or later war.

FW-190 went operational in 1941 (almost mid-war for the Germans), and over the next four years over 20,000 of all variants were produced. That's significant.

 

[Geoffrey Sinclair]

German economy: The Wages of Destruction Adam Tooze and Hells Cartel Dairmuid Jeffreys. (about I.G. Farben)

The hours to produce an aircraft. What is being measured? Just the airframe? Or the assembly time? The US did a comprehensive survey which includes subcontractor time. The Spitfire I and Hurricane I shared the same radios, armament, engine and flight instruments for a start, similar propellers and radiators to go on with, similarly rated landing gear. Pre war the Spitfire was more expensive money wise, in 1941 the Hurricane was. The missing piece is tooling, more tooling less worker hours to build it. You only need to look at Ford Willow Run to see that, but the more tooling the more a design needs to be frozen. You can expect pre war Spitfire production would have modest tooling, Bf109 numbers in 1943/44 would justify and probably need much more tooling, but although the Spitfire IX and Bf109G-6 were in production for years the final examples had many changes versus the initial batch.

From what I understand the Panther (Panzer V) was cheaper to build than the Panzer IV, rather like the British 6 pounder AT gun was cheaper than the 2 pounder. The ideas of what numbers were going to be required and experience from the earlier designs and fighting enabled more ease of production features built into the design, along with ease of maintenance.

Can you expand on this a bit? Germany already had women working in the factories? They didn't have a reserve of unemployed workers?

I'd think even outside of the notion of slave labor from places like France and Poland, I would think they had reserves of unemployed people in foreign countries they were allied with like in the Balkans that could at least do farm work if not factory work.

Germany certainly had plenty of women working in factories and offices, the point is Nazi Germany had close to 100% peace time employment in 1939, in June 1939 Britain reported 1,270,000 unemployed while having 5,094,000 women in the work force or looking for work. In June 1943 it was 7,253,000 million women employed (461,000 in the military), with the note 2 part time jobs are counted as 1 full time. Britain's civil work force went from 18 million in June 1939 to 17.4 million in June 1943, then it began declining.

German civil workforce was 39.4 million in June 1939 including 0.3 million foreigners, in June 1943 it was 36.6 million including 6.3 million foreigners, the number of employed women in civil occupations had grown by 0.2 million.

In the late 1930's Germany was economically attractive to many, in 1940/42 that remained to an extent in western Europe, Germany had more food, it was the winner and local economies were suppressed. It was certainly a sensible move to try and obtain war work on a German farm, good food supply and safety in the country, no need for slaves. As a result there was little slave labour during this time, but foreign workers were known to be less productive and of course were of Nazi defined inferior stock, receiving less including the inferior air raid shelters. The Nazis were busy killing Polish leaders and intellectuals, shutting down high schools as Poland was to provide the new servant class. Also Germany was permitted to work the PoWs it had and did so, hints of bribes about releasing prisoners in exchange for willing workers were tried. Auschwitz Birkenau is well known because it was meant as a work camp, including for a large synthetic oil refinery that was never completed. Arriving foreign workers soon discovered they were treated little better than the prisoners and so tended to disappear.

The other reason there was little slave labour was the Nazis were imprisoning and killing as many of their defined undesirables as they could find, not working them. The extermination camps were mostly a 1942 activity. Then came the war reverses and accompanying need for workers so the SS switched to the profitable activity of renting out slaves to industry, including working the slaves to death. Auschwitz Birkenau remained the only place that could kill and dispose of the bodies of large numbers of people when the Nazis were able to take over Italy and Hungary.

From 1942 onwards Germany became a much less attractive place to work, so conscription was tried, which drove up resistance activity.

The Germans knew they would be outnumbered and looked to better weapons as one of the ways to balance things, the military was often its own worst enemy in ordering changes.

Almost all heavily mass produced aircraft designs were pre and early war. The bigger the airframe the longer the development and production set up time, throw in a new engine and things took even longer. The Tempest and Bearcat were quick because they used an existing engine, but the difference in performance, weights and aerodynamics of a fighter with a 2,500 HP engine versus a 2,000 HP was a lot less than 2,000 versus 1,000 HP. The United States was the last to enter the war and had more time to finalise what to produce, backed by the war experience and designs sent to it in 1940/41. It also helped the US was generally ahead in terms of reliable high power aircraft engines. The Germans bet big on 2,000 to 2,500 HP engines arriving sooner that they did (He177 coupled engines, the Jumo 222), and chose not to do the fall back option demonstrated by the Manchester to Lancaster. The Luftwaffe also had, on the eastern front, a situation where its training and aircraft quality was way ahead of the opposition, and that was the major war for Germany in 1941/42, but needed more numbers.

The Hurricane, P-39 and P-40 production lasting into 1944 was partly due to the inevitable problems with predicting the future plus their use as second line aircraft and trainers but also due to the costs of setting up and tearing down production lines for bleeding edge machines.

The efficiency of propellers put a limit on useful aircraft performance, especially top speed, the limits on automotive engines and suspensions put a limit on vehicle size. Some pre war designs like the Panzer IV, Ju88 etc. had enough stretch to stay competitive into the late war, plenty of others did not. One aviation historian has been half seriously quoted as saying WWII was largely fought with obsolete aircraft as there was always something better coming.

Agreed there are a whole lot of factors involved in what ended up being built in numbers, usefulness and reliability come to mind for the Ju52, He111 and Wellington. What sort of war, Swordfish in the Atlantic, not in the Pacific. And so on, remember few people understood mass production and were doing it in reality, and that number excluded the 1930's aviation industry, similarly the automotive industry found its ideas of mass production tooling hit the problems of smaller production runs and different materials, steel versus lighter metals. All the designs had trade offs, all based on what people thought would happen in the future.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Something like Hellcat does not solve any of German problems. They were tying to introduce 'reactive' powered fighters by time Hellcat was in series production.

I guess that depends what you mean precisely by "something like Hellcat" - what I mean is something produced in the mid-war which is incrementally better than the opposition aircraft and that is built to be easy to maintain and can instantly be put into large scale production. The Germans had one example similar to this, arguably (Fw 190). The US had F6F, P-51, F4U and P-47 all coming online in the mid-war... plus P-38 gradually being debugged.

I'm not sure what you mean by "reactive powered" do you mean jets or rockets?

Hydromatic was the drive of the S/C, not the S/C itself. Other people's 2-speed units were, in the end, just as useful.

I think you knew what I meant. Hydromatic 'transmission' S/C were arguably better than the 2- speed, the latter seemed to require considerable adjustment and were often falling a little short, which is why the Allies developed 2 stage.

Granted, Germans lagged with introduction of 2-stage superchargers for service use (military and/or transport/passenger A/C), despite knowing the advantages of these already by mid-1930s.

The larger engine and introduction of mw/50 and NO2 seemed to help cope with the deficiency of 'hydromatic' vs. two stage, but the turbo was another level for high altitude work (especially in the P-47).

What was the ratio between the easy-to-produce and hard-to-produce mid to late-war German aircraft?

Just off the top of my head, the Germans failed to produce any militarily significant mid- to late war aircraft in enough numbers. Fw 190 is probably the closest success story but it came a bit before the mid-war (depending on where you place that) started to have some trouble when the two stage Spitfires, Mustangs etc. and the P-47 arrived, especially at higher altitudes.

part of this problem seems to be with the Jets, 262 was flying in the mid-war but was never produced in sufficient numbers. They were after all extremely sophisticated and bleeding edge just on the engine level. But there were others which could have possibly made a difference but lagged in production.

German bombers were quite devastating in the early war but by say, 1943 they were starting to become prohibitively vulnerable, they were not having the impact they had in the early war, at least not in the West. That's why they switched to using Fw 190s as fighter bombers, but these theoretically may have been better suited in a higher altitude variant for air defense / superiority.

An effective fast bomber in 1943-44 could have been a real help for the Germans IMO. So would a longer ranged fighter.

 

[tomo pauk]

I guess that depends what you mean precisely by "something like Hellcat" - what I mean is something produced in the mid-war which is incrementally better than the opposition aircraft and that is built to be easy to maintain and can instantly be put into large scale production. The Germans had one example similar to this, arguably (Fw 190). The US had F6F, P-51, F4U and P-47 all coming online in the mid-war... plus P-38 gradually being debugged.

I'm not sure what you mean by "reactive powered" do you mean jets or rockets?

Both jet- and rocket-powered.

Neither F4U nor F6F bring anything to the Luftwaffe. It will be much harder to produce these, not easier. P-38 is a self-inflicted wound for the Germans had they tried to replicate it for production. P-47 to be fast produced? P-38 and P-47 easier to maintain than Fw 190 - I'd argue not.
Fuel quantity for the needs of these aircraft?
P-51 was not better than the Fw 190, it became better once a 2-stage Melrin was installed on the P-51. There is no comparable or better engine in production in Germany until well into 1944; when that happened, the Fw 190 morphed into Ta 152. Compares well with P-47, too, and it is better than the P-38. P-38 is equaled by Fw 190D-9.
Yes, Allied fighters have greater range, but for the LW that's a moot point past 1943.

Actual German fighter that was able to beat the best Allied fighters was the Me 262. German ability to produce these is directly dependent on their engines' production. A yet another piston-engined fighter can't beat the Allied best, even if it existed, since it will be badly outnumbered.
It might be argued that LW failed to insist on a 1-engined jet fighters already in 1943, that avoids the engines' production bottleneck by a good deal.

I think you knew what I meant. Hydromatic 'transmission' S/C were arguably better than the 2- speed, the latter seemed to require considerable adjustment and were often falling a little short, which is why the Allies developed 2 stage.

Nope, hydromatic drive was not automatically better. They were better between the two rated altitudes, while offering no advantage above the rated height. Even a 1-speed supercharged Merlin III or V-1710-33 was making better power above 5 km than the Db 601A with variable-speed S/C.
2-stage superchargers were developed to much improve the engines' power at high altitudes, and were a way to cancel out the displacement disadvantage vs. bigger engines (Merlin vs. DB 601/605 case in point). Note that DB went for 2-stage superchargers, too, late in war so they can equal or beat the Allied best above 25000 ft.

Just off the top of my head, the Germans failed to produce any militarily significant mid- to late war aircraft in enough numbers. Fw 190 is probably the closest success story but it came a bit before the mid-war (depending on where you place that) started to have some trouble when the two stage Spitfires, Mustangs etc. and the P-47 arrived, especially at higher altitudes.

A mid-war design is not automatically better than the early-war design. That was true in all countries.
Fw 190 didn't have a proper engine to equal the Allied best above 20000 ft - not the fault of the Fw 190 design itself. Spitfire IX and Merlin Mustangs were a version of an earlier type, but with a considerable upgrade wrt. powerplant, not the whole new A/C.
A grave mistake would've been to simply start producing eg. Me 309 instead of Fw 190 or Bf 109 just because he former was a later design.

Germany didn't made the bigger later designs mostly because of two reasons: either they really didn't brought a material advantage vs. previous designs, or, in case with many 2-engined aircraft, the wholesale switch towards fighter production in 1944 cut short the production runs.

part of this problem seems to be with the Jets, 262 was flying in the mid-war but was never produced in sufficient numbers. They were after all extremely sophisticated and bleeding edge just on the engine level. But there were others which could have possibly made a difference but lagged in production.

Again, I'd ask about what types specifically were supposed to be hard to produce - whack-a-mole is really not my type of a game.

German bombers were quite devastating in the early war but by say, 1943 they were starting to become prohibitively vulnerable, they were not having the impact they had in the early war, at least not in the West. That's why they switched to using Fw 190s as fighter bombers, but these theoretically may have been better suited in a higher altitude variant for air defense / superiority.

An effective fast bomber in 1943-44 could have been a real help for the Germans IMO. So would a longer ranged fighter.

Germany bite off more than they chew by late 1941. Concentration of their bombers and fighters in just one front, while much weakening another front was out of questions. As Americans found out in 1943, unescorted bomber is a vulnerable bomber, despite the B-17s and -24s being much better bombers than He 111s or Ju 88s.
Granted, the Luftwaffe program for the new bombers went badly wrong (even if the Do 217 was decent) - Ju 288 and He 177 were duds. The early, small Ju 288 with BMW 801s would've probably worked well.
It was also probably too bad that He 219 was not designed 1st as a fast bomber, same with metal-clad Ta 154.
Fw 190 + DB 601/605 + two drop tanks = LR escort fighter, but that never dawned on the LW.

 

[GrauGeist]

It might be argued that LW failed to insist on a 1-engined jet fighters already in 1943, that avoids the engines' production bottleneck by a good deal.

Most jets of that day and age used two engines because the engines did not produce enough power.

Jets like the He178, Gloster G.40, He162, etc. could operate with a single engine due to their size but it would take more time for the Germans to develop an engine powerful and reliable enough - time they simply did not have.

 

[Shortround6]

Neither F4U nor F6F bring anything to the Luftwaffe. It will be much harder to produce these, not easier. P-38 is a self-inflicted wound for the Germans had they tried to replicate it for production. P-47 to be fast produced?

I forget which German aviation person/expert it was that is supposed to have realized the war was lost when he examined an shot down P-47 and it's R-2800 engine.
He realized the Germans could not manufacture a copy of the R-2800 using existing German manufacturing technology. This is in reference to the castings, forgings and machine finishing used and less hand labor. The Americans could build R-2800s using less labor/machine time that the Germans could build an equivalent engine.

 

[tomo pauk]

Most jets of that day and age used two engines because the engines did not produce enough power.

Jets like the He178, Gloster G.40, He162, etc. could operate with a single engine due to their size but it would take more time for the Germans to develop an engine powerful and reliable enough - time they simply did not have.

BMW 003 thrust of 7.8 kN. Jumo 004B, that powered Me 262, 8.7 kN.

In other words, Germans have had a jet engine sufficient to propel a 1-engined fighter at 470+ mph in early 1944, while their best piston-engined fighter in early 1944 (they arm and produce the Fw 190C, for examle, or an early 190D) will be hard pressed to do 430 mph.

I forget which German aviation person/expert it was that is supposed to have realized the war was lost when he examined an shot down P-47 and it's R-2800 engine.
He realized the Germans could not manufacture a copy of the R-2800 using existing German manufacturing technology. This is in reference to the castings, forgings and machine finishing used and less hand labor. The Americans could build R-2800s using less labor/machine time that the Germans could build an equivalent engine.

Very interesting. Do you have details on the compared speed of production of the R-2800 and BMW 801?
Calum in his book shows the graph noting that main issue the BMW 801 manhours surplus vs. R-2600 was the fuel supply section (fuel injection vs. carburetor).
Germans will also need to produce turbochargers by thousands in order to mimic the P-47 impact on the air war.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Both jet- and rocket-powered.

Right. Only the jet really worked out, as we know...

Neither F4U nor F6F bring anything to the Luftwaffe. It will be much harder to produce these, not easier. P-38 is a self-inflicted wound for the Germans had they tried to replicate it for production. P-47 to be fast produced? P-38 and P-47 easier to maintain than Fw 190 - I'd argue not.

I didn't mean exact copies or duplicates. Though I'm not sure I agree with your conclusions. Hellcat or Corsair would have been helpful to have on the Russian Front and in the MTO. And I doubt P-47 was harder to maintain even with the turbo.

Fuel quantity for the needs of these aircraft?

Fuel is definitely a problem regardless what planes the Luftwaffe were flying. But maybe with more and better aircraft in the Mediterranean they might have eventually been able to source some Middle Eastern oil. I don't see any advantage to building aircraft, particularly bombers, that are just going to be shot down.

P-51 was not better than the Fw 190, it became better once a 2-stage Melrin was installed on the P-51. There is no comparable or better engine in production in Germany until well into 1944; when that happened, the Fw 190 morphed into Ta 152. Compares well with P-47, too, and it is better than the P-38. P-38 is equaled by Fw 190D-9.
Yes, Allied fighters have greater range, but for the LW that's a moot point past 1943.

I think longer ranged fighters, together with faster bombers, could have been very helpful for the Wermacht though I would agree by 1944 it may be too late.

Actual German fighter that was able to beat the best Allied fighters was the Me 262. German ability to produce these is directly dependent on their engines' production. A yet another piston-engined fighter can't beat the Allied best, even if it existed, since it will be badly outnumbered.
It might be argued that LW failed to insist on a 1-engined jet fighters already in 1943, that avoids the engines' production bottleneck by a good deal.

A one engined jet (Something like an HE 162 comes to mind, but it would have to be two years earlier.. would suitable engines be available?). Me 262 going into production as a fighter earlier would have certainly helped, and perhaps putting a lot of priority on developing, debugging, and mass producing jet engines. A better pistoned engined fighter that could escort bombers for longer ranged strikes would have also been very helpful, IMO.

Nope, hydromatic drive was not automatically better. They were better between the two rated altitudes, while offering no advantage above the rated height. Even a 1-speed supercharged Merlin III or V-1710-33 was making better power above 5 km than the Db 601A with variable-speed S/C.

I wouldn't say automatically better, but it seemed to be better in aggregate. Both Bf 109 and MC 202 were performing better at above 20' feet than Spitfire Mk V or merlin P-40, and much better than any Allison engined P-40 or P-39... or any Klimov or Shvestov-engined fighter. With the two speed superchargers they had to always pick the two altitudes where performance was optimal (and they didn't always guess right with this), but the hydromatic seemed to perform well at all altitudes up to it's performance ceiling.

2-stage superchargers were developed to much improve the engines' power at high altitudes, and were a way to cancel out the displacement disadvantage vs. bigger engines (Merlin vs. DB 601/605 case in point). Note that DB went for 2-stage superchargers, too, late in war so they can equal or beat the Allied best above 25000 ft.

That is what I was getting at, the two stage Merlin in particular leap frogged the Axis engines in performance, as did the turbo on the P-47 and P-38 once that was really working properly.

A mid-war design is not automatically better than the early-war design. That was true in all countries.

I never said it was. But what they needed was more successful designs in the mid war. Like the aircraft I mentioned. Instead they extended the life of pre-war or early war designs past their freshness date. One of the disadvantages of keeping the same design's in action through the war was that the enemy learned the entire performance envelope, quirks and flaws of the design. Certain problems with the 109 for example were well known by late 1942 and were exploited by Allied pilots. With a variety of newer designs arriving it's much harder to develop ideal tactics.

Fw 190 didn't have a proper engine to equal the Allied best above 20000 ft - not the fault of the Fw 190 design itself. Spitfire IX and Merlin Mustangs were a version of an earlier type, but with a considerable upgrade wrt. powerplant, not the whole new A/C.

It's a lot of incremental changes but it's arguable how new they were. Certainly in terms of capability they were very new.

A grave mistake would've been to simply start producing eg. Me 309 instead of Fw 190 or Bf 109 just because he former was a later design.

I certainly never suggested that. I was pointing out rather that they were failing to produce promising new designs (and it's also true that they failed to develop some good new ones in time).

Germany didn't made the bigger later designs mostly because of two reasons: either they really didn't brought a material advantage vs. previous designs, or, in case with many 2-engined aircraft, the wholesale switch towards fighter production in 1944 cut short the production runs.

Well they certainly made a lot of Ju 88s as pointed out upthread, and quite a few Bf 110s as well, partly because both types proved effective as night fighters which became increasingly important.

Again, I'd ask about what types specifically were supposed to be hard to produce - whack-a-mole is really not my type of a game.

I got into that in the very next paragraph mate.

Germany bite off more than they chew by late 1941. Concentration of their bombers and fighters in just one front, while much weakening another front was out of questions. As Americans found out in 1943, unescorted bomber is a vulnerable bomber, despite the B-17s and -24s being much better bombers than He 111s or Ju 88s.

I would argue that what they really needed were better long range tactical bombers rather than strategic bombers. For one thing, a four engined bomber is going to gobble up a lot more resources (four engines instead of one or two, to start).

If you will forgive me, I'd like to briefly review a couple of things you already know. In the early war, the Luftwaffe was a major part of the tactical success of the German armed forces. In their early experiments during the Spanish Civil War, in their conquest of Poland and France, their victory in Greece and Yugoslavia, in their early success in Russia, and in their early victories over British troops the Stuka in particular but also their other bombers like Do 17 and He 111, the Bf 110 and some other types proved, I would argue, critical to their victories.

The Battle of Britain demonstrated that the German bomber forces were highly vulnerable to well organized integrated defenses based on modern fighters. The Bf 109 was good in combat but lacked the range for escort missions. The Bf 110, though effective in France and Poland, proved vulnerable to Hawker Hurricanes and Spitfires. All of the German bomber types proved to be basically obsolete, at least for that particular mission. They continued to prove vulnerable to fighters in particular because, we can say in hindsight, they were too slow. In 1940 or 41 designers may have thought defensive armament was more important.

On the tactical battlefield, the Luftwaffe was still effective, but I would say no longer decisive. Instead it was the Allies who were beginning to learn to use their air forces to affect outcomes in battles and inflict attrition on the German army. The Germans were still winning victories, but were relying more on relatively small technical advantages they had with tanks, other war machines, and tactics, discipline and good leadership.

As the fighting reached a crescendo toward the end of 1942, it was the Allies rather than the Germans whose air forces were really beginning to bite. The Bf 109 was still an excellent fighter, and for a while the Fw 190 seemed even more so. But the Luftwaffe was focusing more on using their fighters to their greatest advantage - running high scores for the experten, proving their superiority... but having less and less impact on the battlefield and taking increasingly heavy losses. Not that they weren't still knocking out enemy tanks and guns, blowing up bridges and sinking ships, because they were. But the limitations in range of the fighters and both range and speed of the bombers meant that the Luftwaffe was nowhere near the asset it had been in 1940, and they were losing a lot of aircraft and particularly many of of their experienced bomber crews from mid 1942 to mid 1943.

It took a while for the Mosquito to cause the problems for the Luftwaffe that they eventually did, but it was certainly better than any Axis bomber. In terms of survivability, the A-20, the little known but quite important Martin 187, and the longer ranged Allied fighter-bombers were all becoming tactical assets that the Germans had no real equivalent for. The B-25 and B-26 weren't any faster than a Ju 88, but with escorts they were certainly more survivable than an He 111 and arguably, more than a Ju 88 too. They did not seem to be taking the same kinds of losses. The Beaufighter was arguably better than a Bf 110 (at least in the daytime) simply due to range. Late in the war the US fielded the very capable A-26,

So I would say, technically it was possible to make a faster tactical bomber, a real replacement for the pre-war Stuka or the early war Ju 88, but they never really did. The Arado 234 seems to have been quite a promising design but they couldn't get it into large scale production I gather mainly due to engines.

Granted, the Luftwaffe program for the new bombers went badly wrong (even if the Do 217 was decent) - Ju 288 and He 177 were duds. The early, small Ju 288 with BMW 801s would've probably worked well.

Do 217 looked good on paper, and with guided bombs or missiles it sometimes seemed to be quite devastating against Allied ships around Italy, but they took crippling losses.

It was also probably too bad that He 219 was not designed 1st as a fast bomber, same with metal-clad Ta 154.
Fw 190 + DB 601/605 + two drop tanks = LR escort fighter, but that never dawned on the LW.

Well I guess we are lucky in that.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

I forget which German aviation person/expert it was that is supposed to have realized the war was lost when he examined an shot down P-47 and it's R-2800 engine.
He realized the Germans could not manufacture a copy of the R-2800 using existing German manufacturing technology. This is in reference to the castings, forgings and machine finishing used and less hand labor. The Americans could build R-2800s using less labor/machine time that the Germans could build an equivalent engine.

This is a good example of what I was getting at. The US had a different type of industrial culture which took a while to orient toward the new goals, but ultimately was proving superior for this type of warfare.