Why Did the He 177 Fail?

stona · Jun 1, 2015

Bad management of the project by the RLM/Luftwaffe from Goering downwards.

Dishonest, or at least 'economical with the truth', feed back from the manufacturer to the above. This was not a problem unique to Heinkel, in fact it plagued the German aviation industry at the time.

The above essentially illustrate the difference between the He 177 project which whilst producing over 1,000 aircraft was operationally insignificant and the Manchester/Lancaster project, which produced over 7,000of one of the most operationally influential aircraft of the war.

The He 177 was just another spectacularly dropped catch by the Germans. It consumed considerable resources for a negligible result. It could have been very different indeed, it just needed some clear and concise decision making from it's inception until it entered service, something that time and time again was a problem for the Nazi system which seemed to specialise in moving goal posts.

Cheers

Steve

blueskies · Jun 1, 2015

Yes, Heinkel allocated significant manpower to the He-177.

In my view is was a project saddled with to many requirements, which shifted too frequently and led to engineering compromises that took a substantial amount of work to get right.

tomo pauk · Jun 1, 2015

RLM/LW tried to be too smart with He 177, and that backfired badly. A little bit of conservatism would've meant having an useful bomber force.
Having 4 individual engines of 1500 HP class meant also having the possibility of installing some other engines in case the original ones encounter issues.

SpicyJuan11 · Jun 1, 2015

tomo pauk said:
RLM/LW tried to be too smart with He 177, and that backfired badly. A little bit of conservatism would've meant having an useful bomber force.
Having 4 individual engines of 1500 HP class meant also having the possibility of installing some other engines in case the original ones encounter issues.

Yeah, IIRC the whole He-177B program was just insurance that was never used.

Shortround6 · Jun 1, 2015

As a general rule of thumb most airplanes that are "designed" to be multi-purpose are usually not very good at some of the intended roles and sometimes not very good at any of them. On the other hand many (not all) single purpose planes have been adapted fairly well to other roles, sometimes several roles.

Perhaps in the first case too much "stuff" is added in the beginning for the various roles and performance suffers too big a hit right out of the gate leaving the plane playing catch up in many of it's roles. In the second case a good design may have a bit of "extra" performance which can be traded for the extra weight/drag in some of the alternative roles.

It just seems to be one of those quirks of aviation History.

fastmongrel · Jun 1, 2015

A Camel is a Horse designed by a committee to be multi purpose.

kool kitty89 · Jun 1, 2015

Shortround6 said:
As a general rule of thumb most airplanes that are "designed" to be multi-purpose are usually not very good at some of the intended roles and sometimes not very good at any of them. On the other hand many (not all) single purpose planes have been adapted fairly well to other roles, sometimes several roles.

Targeting maritime patrol, short and log range heavy bombing operations, both night and day seem among the more reasonable overlapping service targets. Going beyond that certainly seems to have crippled the aircraft though, not just operationally but in terms of slowing development by adding in unnecessary engineering hurdles.

Juha · Jun 1, 2015

IMHO one reason was that He 177 was a much more complicated a/c than e.g. He 111 and the LW wasn't made made enough preparations for that (training, resources etc) so the units needed extraordinary long times to convert to the type and still ground crews had problems with maintenance and many pilots had difficulties in handling the rather delicate DB 610s.

rinkol · Jun 2, 2015

Koopernic said:
The He 177's problems stem from a number of situation unique to the German predicament
1 The lack of resources to develop competitive alternatives and flyoffs. EG the UK had Lancaster, Stirling Halifax, the US B-17 and B-24.
2 The need for tactical aircraft to deal with difficult neighbours already on the border.
3 Certain psychological factors associated with risk management of complex projects.
4 Funds sunk into the highly ambitious Bomber B project which had effectively heavy bomber range and bombload which failed to mature due to overly ambitious engine requirements.

Number 3 would have also been a factor with the Me 210. I've noticed that situations do arise in large organizations where it is politically difficult or impossible to make a decisive decision to either cancel the project or implement the major changes needed to eliminate a problem. The people who were responsible for the original decisions defend them and everyone else, loathe to admit that things have gone wrong, desperately hopes that some quick and easy work around can be found that will make the problem(s) go away.

SpicyJuan11 · Jun 7, 2015

This doesn't really pertain to why the He 177 failed, but thought I shouldn't start another thread for this simple question: What are the dimensions of the He 177's bomb bay? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Koopernic · Jun 8, 2015

SpicyJuan11 said:
This doesn't really pertain to why the He 177 failed, but thought I shouldn't start another thread for this simple question: What are the dimensions of the He 177's bomb bay? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

The He 177 did have a sub-divided bomb bay, but it was only subdivided longitudinally.

A typical load out might be 4 x SC1700 bombs (3750lbs each) which were carried fully internally. This is 6800kg of bombs or 15200lbs. Another loadout was 2 x SC1800 bombs (1800kg each or 4000lbs), although 4 couldn't be carried, due to bomb length, this left room for smaller bombs such as incendiaries or 8 packs of SC50 bombs.

The SC series were light case bombs.

The diagrams in "Griehl" don't show it but armour and semi armour piercing bombs such as a pair of PC2500 (2500kg or 5500lbs) would likely be carried as these heavy case bombs are actually much smaller.

The criticisms of the He 177 subdivided bomb bay are over stated by it seems mainly British authors recalling the far more restrictive and problematically sub divided bomb bay of the Stirling and its 2000lb restriction.

An SC2500 could be carried externally.

For deep ground penetrations the Luftwaffe had a rocket boosted bomb and if one can imagine the Luftwaffe gaining air superiority and attacking say capital ships at berth in Portsmouth (as the RAF did on the Tirpitz) then a string of say 4 x PC1700 armour piercing bombs would likely get 2-4 times as many hits as a single tallboy and cause quite devastating damage as well.

The Luftwaffe didn't have ultra light case bombs like the finless 4000lb 'cookie' which must have had considerable dispersion compared to a precision made finned bomb but it did have LMB or Luft Mines which had a capsule shape and used a stabilising parachute in lieu of fins. One must not regard these as having giant billowing parachutes and the bomb randomly and irresponsibly drifting down. The drogue 'parachute' was generally only slightly bigger than the bomb itself. It substituted for fins and a aerodynamic tail and also slowed the bomb enough such that the detonators initiated the explosives before they spilled out.

Juha · Jun 8, 2015

Koopernic said:
...
The Luftwaffe didn't have ultra light case bombs like the finless 4000lb 'cookie' which must have had considerable dispersion compared to a precision made finned bomb but it did have LMB or Luft Mines which had a capsule shape and used a stabilising parachute in lieu of fins. One must not regard these as having giant billowing parachutes and the bomb randomly and irresponsibly drifting down. The drogue 'parachute' was generally only slightly bigger than the bomb itself. It substituted for fins and a aerodynamic tail and also slowed the bomb enough such that the detonators initiated the explosives before they spilled out.

And where you got that info? The parachute of the LMB was 27ft (a bit over 8 m)diameter, IMHO a substantially bigger than the mine and yes it was a area weapon because of that, fairly "randomly and irresponsibly drifting down" see: Non-Contact Parachute Ground Land Mine Type GC (MUN 3509)

Juha · Jun 8, 2015

SpicyJuan11 said:
This doesn't really pertain to why the He 177 failed, but thought I shouldn't start another thread for this simple question: What are the dimensions of the He 177's bomb bay? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Outer dimensions seems to have been 1750mm wide and 900mm deep but i ccould not find the more useful inner dimensions in the limited time I had.

wiking85 · Jun 8, 2015

Koopernic said:
The He 177 did have a sub-divided bomb bay, but it was only subdivided longitudinally.

A typical load out might be 4 x SC1700 bombs (3750lbs each) which were carried fully internally. This is 6800kg of bombs or 15200lbs. Another loadout was 2 x SC1800 bombs (1800kg each or 4000lbs), although 4 couldn't be carried, due to bomb length, this left room for smaller bombs such as incendiaries or 8 packs of SC50 bombs.

The SC series were light case bombs.

The diagrams in "Griehl" don't show it but armour and semi armour piercing bombs such as a pair of PC2500 (2500kg or 5500lbs) would likely be carried as these heavy case bombs are actually much smaller.

The criticisms of the He 177 subdivided bomb bay are over stated by it seems mainly British authors recalling the far more restrictive and problematically sub divided bomb bay of the Stirling and its 2000lb restriction.

An SC2500 could be carried externally.

For deep ground penetrations the Luftwaffe had a rocket boosted bomb and if one can imagine the Luftwaffe gaining air superiority and attacking say capital ships at berth in Portsmouth (as the RAF did on the Tirpitz) then a string of say 4 x PC1700 armour piercing bombs would likely get 2-4 times as many hits as a single tallboy and cause quite devastating damage as well.

The Luftwaffe didn't have ultra light case bombs like the finless 4000lb 'cookie' which must have had considerable dispersion compared to a precision made finned bomb but it did have LMB or Luft Mines which had a capsule shape and used a stabilising parachute in lieu of fins. One must not regard these as having giant billowing parachutes and the bomb randomly and irresponsibly drifting down. The drogue 'parachute' was generally only slightly bigger than the bomb itself. It substituted for fins and a aerodynamic tail and also slowed the bomb enough such that the detonators initiated the explosives before they spilled out.

Where did you get that the He177 could carry 4 SC1700s internally? I've only ever read that it could handle either 2x 1700 or 1800s plus 2x SC1000s. It could take 2x Sc2500s internally. The LW did has something like the light case bombs IIRC they were the BM 1000s or something like that. Apparently there was a 4000kg light case bomb developed, but not deployed.

Koopernic · Jun 8, 2015

wiking85 said:
Where did you get that the He177 could carry 4 SC1700s internally? I've only ever read that it could handle either 2x 1700 or 1800s plus 2x SC1000s. It could take 2x Sc2500s internally. The LW did has something like the light case bombs IIRC they were the BM 1000s or something like that. Apparently there was a 4000kg light case bomb developed, but not deployed.

He 177 load outs here;
http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/at...-/45688d1299773437t-177-bomb-bay-load-177.jpg

Third row shows that 4 x SC1700 or 4 x LMB1000 or combination thereof. Last row shows 2 x SC1800 plus smaller incendiaries/bombs.

This must be an early load-out diagram as the "SB1000 parachute" replaced the LMB and has a small stabilising parachute as I described similar to the SB1000 /410

The LMB were anti shipping mines; however if they missed water they would explode by a clockwork mechanism. If they sank in water they would become anti shipping mines i.e. they were a duel purpose weapon that ended up being an effective anti building factory weapon.

It's from either the Creek/Forsyth book or from Griehl, I have both but can't get to my library. I think creek.

I can't see any significant limitations in the load out plans compared to say a Lancaster. An SC3600 could conceivably be made out of an doubled up SC1800. The RAF used such long bombs.

It is conceivable that a Fritz-X or two might have fitted internally into the He 177 despite its wings if there was no longitudinal division. That would be the worst cost. The longitudinal division member no doubt greatly stiffened and strengthened the fuselage.

tomo pauk · Jun 8, 2015

The capabilities of the Hw 177 (and it's bomb bay) were discussed here: thread.

SpicyJuan11 · Jun 8, 2015

Thanks guys, but I was just looking for the dimensions to compare to that of the He 277 which was 1.75 meters tall, 1.9 meters wide, and 7 meters long.

Juha said:
Outer dimensions seems to have been 1750mm wide and 900mm deep but i ccould not find the more useful inner dimensions in the limited time I had.

Thank you Juha! If you could, please provide the length of the bomb bay (the two halves inside are unnecessary), many thanks!

davebender · Jun 8, 2015

That misses the point.

He-177A didn't fail, at least not compared to contemporary heavy bombers. It simply didn't receive enough funding to become a significant factor during the war.

Capt. Vick · Jun 8, 2015

Shortround6 said:
They only built six Do 26 aircraft. A little hard to tell how successful it might have been. A couple of reasons for the Push pull on the Do 18 was ease of maintenance, engines are over the hull and wing giving mechanics a place to stand.
View attachment 293910
another was the fact that such an arrangement helped keep the prop/s out of the spray.
Did the Do 26 achieve such range because of the push pull arrangement or is spite of it?

There were more than 6 x Do 26 built.

SpicyJuan11 · Jun 8, 2015

davebender said:
That misses the point.

He-177A didn't fail, at least not compared to contemporary heavy bombers. It simply didn't receive enough funding to become a significant factor during the war.

Sorry for the poor choice of words dave

Why Did the He 177 Fail?

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