Holtzauge
Senior Airman
And here I was counting on German precision and "ordnung" and that a book in German, about German aircraft and by a German author must be solid. Well, it seems even the sun has its spots.......
Why no Fw 190H but the Ta 152H? (1 Viewer)
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And here I was counting on German precision and "ordnung" and that a book in German, about German aircraft and by a German author must be solid. Well, it seems even the sun has its spots.......
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Holtzauge
Senior Airman
Kurt Tank was actually convinced that it was impossible to do a sufficiently good compromise to have a fighter that performed sufficiently well both at 6000 m and at 12000 m. And since the Germans knew about the B-29, they knew that sooner or later B-29s may appear over Germany and they needed to have something to counter that.
Tank even published a paper about this in 1943, where he argues his case for having two different types of fighter designs to handle medium and high altitude interception. And the Ta 152 H1's relatively high wing loading (at least for an aircraft designed for high altitude work) was the optimal compromise between, ceiling, climb rate and speed, and Tank even shows this in a number of figures in that paper.
So the Ta 152 H1's dimensions both with regards to the high aspect ratio and the relatively high wing loading is no accident: Those have been carefully crafted based on a thorough investigation of what would be the best combination of wing loading and wing span, to find the sweet spot between the conflicting requirements of speed on the one hand, and climb rate and ceiling on the other.
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Do you know where one can see this paper or where it is mentioned?
Holtzauge
Senior Airman
I do, but since the responses to my posts in this forum lately have been dismal why would I post anything about it here?
I'm not sure how much of this is worth to you, but: I value your input, and I think that you have the ducks in the row (to borrow a phrase from across the pond). Unlike me, you are a quality addition to the forum-folkI do, but since the responses to my posts in this forum lately have been dismal why would I post anything about it here?
Keep up the good work.
Holtzauge
Senior Airman
I'm not sure how much of this is worth to you, but: I value your input, and I think that you have the ducks in the row (to borrow a phrase from across the pond). Unlike me, you are a quality addition to the forum-folk
Keep up the good work.
Well thank you, and I appreciate your posts as well. Always nice with constructive input. But if you look at the absolute mess and the way likes are distributed in the thread I started about the Spitfire with a smaller wing size, I can totally understand why Calum Douglas deleted his account here. However, this forum has a wealth of info in it, so I'm not deleting my account yet, only I will probably not be posting in it like I did before though.
Holtzauge
Senior Airman
special ed
1st Lieutenant
- 7,086
- May 13, 2018
While I value your opinion and facts, I usually do not mark a "like" when others are in discussion for either side as I consider the posts a learning lesson for me. When something notable is revealed, I send an "informative".
Hi,
Winkle Brown makes quite positive remarks about the flying performance of the Ta 152 H in his book "Wings of the Luftwaffe". He was quite well qualified to comment as he had done high altitude development flying of the Spitfire PR 19. Brown could only fly the Ta 152 H without power boosting GM 1 or MW 50, but he was impressed by the German machine.
It would be interesting if the wing of the Ta 152 H was investigated in the way that, say, the P51 wings have been. Certainly, the high aspect ratio of Tanks wing seems to have had
very good results. It should have relatively low induced drag with low losses by virtue of the high aspect ratio, and this efficiency will allow the higher wing loading without excessive
losses. I guess that Tank's deductions show this? I wonder if Tanks high aspect wing qualifies as "Laminar-flow".
Eng
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Sorry to be very late here,
High performance guns were important for the bomber-killer. German fighters had found the 0.5 Browning defence of the B-17 etc to be quite bad, and the prospective
B 29 defence would be worse. The answer was bigger and better guns for the fighter. The MK 103 was far better than the MK 108 at longer range.
Eng
While the Mk 108 arguably went too far in one direction, the Mk 103 went too far in the other.
I'm thinking the sweet spot would have been somewhere in between these two. Maybe aim for a muzzle velocity around 750 m/s? And perhaps make the shell somewhat shorter and lighter as well (the Mk 103/108 shells were very long), say around 270g rather than 330g, which would also help bring down the size of the gun.
Also at longer range a uniform armament with identical ballistics would be even more useful.
bada
Airman 1st Class
in which direction went the mk-103 too far (except the weight) ?
As for something between the 2, it's called Mg/mk-213 (depending of the caliber), but no operational units have been recorded (too my knowledge), just served to allies for their own devlopement after war.
Shooting a fairly heavy shell at high MV led to a very heavy gun with a fairly low rate of fire. Lowering the shell weight and the MV would have produced a lighter weight gun with likely higher rate of fire too, which would have been IMHO a better choice for WWII fighters.
Not really. Except for the rate of fire, it retained the suboptimal shell choices (weight and MV) of the Mg151/20 and Mk 108.
My take:
- A weapon being (very) heavy is a not a minor drawback
- The MK 103 was unsuitable as a motor cannon (as well as it's predecessor, the MK 101) until the 103 was redesigned, by what time it was too late
- Ammo being of the size it was reduced the number of rounds carried by a large factor
- The recoil, even with muzzle brakes, seems to be too hefty for the Fw 190s to carry them away from the prop disc
- Big size of the 103 meant that there was no way to fit it within the Fw 190's outer wings
Not being an easy fit for the Bf 109s and Fw 190s to be used in air-to-air fighting was a big damning.
The MK 103 was not 'guilty' for some other things, though, and it also possessed some other qualities.
It would've been a great gun if used for air defense (ditto for the 101). As a tank-buster, both the 101 and 103 were excellent - a 2-gun installation on the Ju 87s would've been very good, and much lighter than the BK 3,7 installation, thus allowing the Stuka to also carry bombs in the same time. It dawned too late to the Germans that a synchronised installation on the Fw 190 should be tried. Installation of, say, 3 MK 103s on the Me 262 would've been a powerhouse.
With that said, indeed a smaller in-between 30mm weapon would've been much easier to adopt to the 1-engined fighters, and 4-6 of them on the NFs would've also been feasible, without being so much compromised wrt. the muzzle velocity and chance to hit as it was the case with the MK 108.
bada
Airman 1st Class
Well, that's exactly what the 213 was, a lighter gun (than the mk103
). The 20mm ammo for the 213 was 20/135 instead of the 20/82. a serious bigger punch than the old mg151.with enough of this ammo, the use of the 30mm would (luft46 domain) not been necessary...
Wel, the Fw factory still wanted to put up to 3 MK103 on a ta152 , and the difference of shell number between the 108 and the 103 is not as great, but the chances of hitting something with the 103 (especialy as motor-kanon) are bigger than with the 108...compromise, compromise...
if you want to talk crazy firepower (create your own config)..
.
as for the 262, it also was done, with a nice combo of 2x103; 2x108 and 2mg151/20
but was it even operationally tested? who knows... if it was, the guy that was in front of this was pulverized and wasn't able to write a report.
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I haven't suggested the revolver cannon, but something more ... 'classic'. Talk 'big 108' or 'baby 103'.Well, that's exactly what the 213 was, a lighter gun (than the mk103
with enough of this ammo, the use of the 30mm would (luft46 domain) not been necessary...
The 20x135, even with it's MX shell, was still too weak vs. a decent 30mm, hence the drive towards the 213C 30 mm sibling.
The Fw will need to wait until the MK 103 is redesigned for the motor cannon configuration, if they want to install it in the Vee.
They can draw whatever they are pleased, it still does not change the fact that the 103 was one nasty kicker, every bit as it was when they tried to do it with the Fw 190s carrying the 103s.
OTOH - the MK 101, with it's lower RoF, might've actually be manageable under the wings of the 190s...
That set-up is not a secret for decades now.
My idea is that the 262 has just 3 MK 103 and nothing else, at least not in 1944.
Shortround6
Lieutenant General
Germans seemed to have a real love of using 3 different guns of different calibers and ballistics (times of flight) on aircraft.
Trying to get all three to hit at the same place and time was possible but only at short ranges.
Germans shot themselves in the foot with the MG 213. Trying for 1000m/s velocity at the same time as trying to develop very high rate of fire guns may have been too much.
Diameter of cartridge case is the really important dimension in ammo size as far as ammo capacity goes. Making the cartridge longer is not a big deal on the length of a belt.
Weight is the other consideration.
A more moderate specification might have allowed for quicker results.
And again, as a rough guideline, 10% more velocity with the same projectile means you need about 20% more powder.
Rifle cartridge extremes in the 1930s.
Cartridge on the left.
.22 Hornet-45-56 grain bullet at just under 2700fps.
3rd cartridge .220 Swift - 48 grain bullet at just over 4000fps. (4080?)
Getting 50% more velocity required a lot more propellent powder.
Trying to get all three to hit at the same place and time was possible but only at short ranges.
Germans shot themselves in the foot with the MG 213. Trying for 1000m/s velocity at the same time as trying to develop very high rate of fire guns may have been too much.
Diameter of cartridge case is the really important dimension in ammo size as far as ammo capacity goes. Making the cartridge longer is not a big deal on the length of a belt.
Weight is the other consideration.
A more moderate specification might have allowed for quicker results.
And again, as a rough guideline, 10% more velocity with the same projectile means you need about 20% more powder.
Rifle cartridge extremes in the 1930s.
Cartridge on the left.
.22 Hornet-45-56 grain bullet at just under 2700fps.
3rd cartridge .220 Swift - 48 grain bullet at just over 4000fps. (4080?)
Getting 50% more velocity required a lot more propellent powder.
100%.
Even further - with 30mm of two types sticking out, having the 20mm is an exercise in futility.
To be fair, the 1000 m/s requirement died when the switch from 20 to 30mm happened.
1000 m/s will be easy to achieve with the Flak 20mm ammo and a 92g shell (my guess is that they did exactly that for the 213A), or even with a bit hotter-loaded 20mm Flak ammo with the 104g MX shell.
The MK 108 would not achieve 1000 rd/min and still be reliable and cheap and fast to make, but trying to do 800-850 rd/min with a lighter breech group and a bit of play with main spring and recoil buffers (like they designed in the MK 112) would've probably been realistic. Granted, no great shakes in MV unless also a much lighter shell is made.
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