WW2 bombers. If Germany had the allies heavy bombers would they have won the war?

[Koopernic]

Steam powered, perhaps?

There were proposals for steam turbine powered Me 264 and He 177 that used a 70% coal, 30% diesel slurry. So it makes sense to tap of some of the steam to power the various servo mechanisms of the aircraft.

 

[PAT303]

The single gun EDL 131 was clearly designed for minimum drag. British aircraft might have done well to have this low drag light weight turret. The single MG131 had as much muzzle kinetic energy as twin 303 brownings and as much throw weight with more penetration and a bullet 2.7 x bigger and clearly was a smaller turret.

As proven by the B17, just fitting more guns of a bigger caliber to bombers doesn't work, they need effective fighter escort which is not possible over England during the BoB. Just look at the hardest day, the 18th Aug, the weather caused delays, fighter groups didn't meet up or couldn't find the bomber groups, final attacking waves went in first after the first waves got lost or attack secondary targets and all were intercepted by the RAF. The outcome of the BoB doesn't change except you loose more crews the deeper you go inland.

 

[Reluctant Poster]

The Ju 89 V1 flew in 1936 with 750hp engines, the Ju 89 bomber program was cancelled the day after the aircrafts maiden flight. The same fate befell the Dornier Do 19.
In 1937 the cancellation extended into an order to cease all work. Nevertheless the Ju 89 V2 with 900hp DB600 engines was allowed to fly as part of the Ju 90 transport program. The Ju 89 V3 was under construction at this point and was meant to be the first armed prototype. The Do 19 V1 never got passed its 680hp radial engines.

By December 1939 the Ju 90V5 with its wing span extended 11% and removal of the Junkers double flap was flying with Bramo 139 radial engines. That shows how fast progress could have been. The Ju 90V6 featured the trappoklappe rear loading ramp. These were essentially the Ju 90B. Bomber versions for the Ju 90B were ordered which essentially became the Ju 290 by 1941.

The Ju 89V2 set some spectacular load and load to height records. Luftwaffe Secret Projects gives one of the armament options as MG131 in the tail. It lists speed as 242-255mph with 4400lbs of bombs and a range of 1850miles carrying bombs. The MG 131 was in low rate production by 1938 for experimental purposes so maybe it crept into planning documents The MG34 belt fed MG81 (1300rpm) was available by the BoB and making appearances as a retrofit for the MG15 where suitable.

The Ju 89/Do 19 aircraft had some limitations in that their low wings would have forced a B17/Ju 52/He 111 style bomb bay but doubt this was a serious limitation.

The Do 19 obviously could have enjoyed an aerodynamic clean-up around its braced tail and its 2 dimensional folded nose and glass house. It was after all a prototype.

The lack of turrets on German bombers has little to do with the lack of ability to produce power turrets: it is explained primarily by the factor that the performance penalty of gun turrets on 2 engine bombers starting with 700hp and engines with 1000-1100hp engines by 1940 is simply too much eg He 111 and Do 17. The B25 and B26 needed CW R-2600 of 1600hp+ and the B26 needed PW R-2800 of 1850hp. The Wellington on the 1050hp Taurus was underwhelming at 235mph and needed the Merlin XX or Hercules. The Germans had 1350hp in later 1941 and 1450 in 1942 with Jumo 211F and J. The1560hp BMW 801A couldn't be spared for bombers except in very small numbers.

I can not see a technology problem in producing a hydraulic powered turret in 1838 for the Luftwaffe. Either a pressure compensated hydraulic flow control valve is used to control the traverse rate of a reversible swash plate variable displacement pump is used. These devices are not some unique British technology at the time.

Every indication is that the Luftwaffe wanted to bypass manned turrets completely so did not invest much in power turrets. The Bomber B (Ju 288) was completely defended by remote controlled guns using periscopic sights to eliminate parallax error. The Bomber A (He 177) was likewise to be defended by remote control guns in the dorsal and ventral forward firing area ie anything outside of the manned tail gun and rearward facing bathtub gun.

The Fw 200 was an airliner. The maritime reconnaissance bomber version came out of a private order placed by the Japanese Navy and seized by the Luftwaffe. Until the Bramo 323 received water injection and reached 1200hp a large power driven turret also had a performance penalty.

That leaves the Do 217 as the only bomber sand it seems to have only been an interim and the Ju 90S/Ju 290 which plodded along as an after thought.

The manned power Dorsal turrets used seem to be the 20mm FW 19 (a focke-wulf designed fully hydraulic unit used on the Fw 200 and the 20mm hydraulic HL 151/20 or HL 151/15 used on the Fw 200, Ju 290, BV222, Me 232 and several flying boats).

The MG 131 was in low rate production in 1938, seemingly for testing, The issue of using 30,60,90 round drum magazine for the MG FF gets down to reload times for the bigger magazine versus less frequent reloads.

The single gun EDL 131 was clearly designed for minimum drag. British aircraft might have done well to have this low drag light weight turret. The single MG131 had as much muzzle kinetic energy as twin 303 brownings and as much throw weight with more penetration and a bullet 2.7 x bigger and clearly was a smaller turret. The manual elevation is unlikely to be an issue given the short barrel protrusion into the slipstream.

The Ju 89 can be ready by 1939. Its probably not a spectacularly fast aircraft, due to the low engine power available at that stage but then 260mph seems to have been the norm. I would expect a 20mm power driven dorsal turret, 20 mmm ventral gun in a bathtub, tail gun (possibly MG81) He 111 style waist guns and nose guns. If the dorsal turret isn't possible I would expect a He 111 style installation with an MG15 and a similar installation with a MG FF with limited deflection.

Its a lot better than a Fw 200 and capable of significant development as the Ju 290 showed. The effect on the BoB is to force a greater dispersal of RAF fighter command, an more effective anti shipping weapon and attacks in the North of Scotland.

Periscope sighted turrets proved to be virtually useless in combat. The extremely limited field of vision made target acquisition very very difficult and even if acquired, tracking proved to be a problem. The British had little success with their various Frazier Nash turrets. The Americans abandoned the Bendix ventral turret developed for the B-25. Sperry developed the ball turret to replace their periscope sighted ventral turret. The USSAF tried to reuse existing Bendix ventral turrets as the original B-17 chin turrets, but found that while the front nose position would make acquisition easier, tracking was stiil too difficult. The sighting arrangements had to be completely redesigned before the chin turret was introduced.
Low drag turrets were comprised by the limited field of vision. The USAAF enlarged both the Sperry upper turret of the B-17 and the best turret of the war, the Martin upper turret, to improve visibility and they were larger than the German turrets to begin with.
Remote turrets introduce problems of their own. Two separated devices must be synchronized to operate in harmony. This is further complicated by the parallax problem requiring a more accurate assessment of range. The remote mounting had to point in a somewhat different direction than the sight. These calculations had to be made by analog vacuum tube computers.

 

[Koopernic]

Periscope sighted turrets proved to be virtually useless in combat. The extremely limited field of vision made target acquisition very very difficult and even if acquired, tracking proved to be a problem. The British had little success with their various Frazier Nash turrets. The Americans abandoned the Bendix ventral turret developed for the B-25. Sperry developed the ball turret to replace their periscope sighted ventral turret. The USSAF tried to reuse existing Bendix ventral turrets as the original B-17 chin turrets, but found that while the front nose position would make acquisition easier, tracking was stiil too difficult. The sighting arrangements had to be completely redesigned before the chin turret was introduced.
Low drag turrets were comprised by the limited field of vision. The USAAF enlarged both the Sperry upper turret of the B-17 and the best turret of the war, the Martin upper turret, to improve visibility and they were larger than the German turrets to begin with.
Remote turrets introduce problems of their own. Two separated devices must be synchronized to operate in harmony. This is further complicated by the parallax problem requiring a more accurate assessment of range. The remote mounting had to point in a somewhat different direction than the sight. These calculations had to be made by analog vacuum tube computers.

Sperry must have produced an ill-conceived or half executed periscope system One would have thought that any decent project manager would have tested and solved issues of target acquisition before preceding down the route of developing a system.

The Germans systems had development problems on the servo mechanism side but target acquisition was not one of the issues that dogged them. I note the B-29 used a General Electric system not a Sperry System (I presume the Sperry system was on the A-26?. Whatever the problems that Sperry or the USAF found it doesn't speak to the units developed for the Luftwaffe which developed differently.

In most of the German developed systems the gunner was situated in a sighting station and could see the target and could acquire it normally. He wasn't hidden inside using the periscope like he was in a submarine. I'll describe the Arado 240/440 (Ar 440 was a competitor to the Me 410) system which received a positive reviews from the Luftwaffe in combat usage (a few recon flights over Britain). Rudiger Kosin provides this description in "The German Fighter 1914-1975". He was the aerodynamicist responsible for the Ar 240/440 and Ar 234 jet. He had done work experience as a student at Zeiss and had a chance to play with a high end U-boat periscope and realised it could be used in aircraft. After listening for aircraft using hydrophones type of periscope called an episcope allowed U-boats to search the sky for threatening aircraft.



The periscope outlet was placed near the gun turret, this simplifying the maintenance of the alignment of the sighting head with the boresight of the gun and also gave a clear view of the target around objects such as they tail for any target the guns could fire at and eliminating parallax error. The gunner could coarsely align the target with the crude sight on his pistol grip and then switch to the optics. In the Ar 440 the periscope had an upper and lower outlet and in the lower outlet. For the lower outlet crude alignment wasn't possible since it was in a blind spot and it was found providing zoom magnification provided an answer to target acquisition. The combat reports say that the periscopic sight gave superior night vision to looking through optical glass. There were no reflections for instance from iside the sighting blister. It also allowed the gunner to be completely behind bullet proof glass.

The secret of target acquisition was
1 Good optics. The Germans had multi-coat optics and very clear optical glass.
2 Both a wide field of view and magnification zoom.
3 Orienting the gunner is a good sighting station.

On the Me 410 there were no periscopes. There were just 3 pistol grip revi sights; left, centre and right which have a wide field of vision due to the bug eyes. It worked very well but the problem was that one 13.2mm MG 131 was usually going to loose out to 6/8 browning or 4 20mm Hispano. The Me 410 needed two MG 152/20 guns to replace the MG 131.

When entering turning combat with a more manoeuvrable aircraft on its tail the pursuing aircraft invariably ends below and to one side of the chased aircraft. The Me 110 could not get its guns on to such a target but the Me 410 could. The gunner also didn't have to struggle with heavy guns or reloading magazines while under G (which proved inpossble). It just wasn't powerful enough.




For the Rear Armament on the Ju 388 (2 MG 131) or Ju 488 (MG 151) the system was different. The gunners had a duel head periscope with an upper and lower sighting head. Positioning a pistol grip aimed the tail guns hydraulically by opening spool valves. Rotating shafts for elevation and traverse communicated the guns piston back to the body of the spool valve to cut of the flow of oil. Tricks like a micron size bleed kept the system pressurised. That wasn't the magic. The guns themselves a second remote control system that positioned the sighting head, this eliminated alignment issues.

For the lower chin gun in the Ju 488 the gunner was seated in a side blister. He had a periscope, about 70cm long below the aircraft but he could search through the side blisters but he aimed through the periscope.

The remote control turret on the He 177 dorsal and chin position did not use a periscope.

 

[Koopernic]

It must be borne in mind that Soviet factories occupied a much larger portion of territory than their English, German and Japan counterparts as, to the contrary, there were no land space problems in the Soviet Union. Given the very low precision of the bombings of those times, the number of missions necessary to destroy the plants of the factories would have been impossible for the Luftwaffe to sustain, because most of the bombs would not have fallen on the sheds but on the surrounding open areas.
A very simple cost / benefit analysis immediately showed the Luftwaffe the futility of the strategic bombing of the Soviet Union, with any type of bomber conceivable at the time, regardless of the numbers of the engines.

The Lofte and StuVi are available from 1942 and the Hs 293 and Fritz-X sometime thereafter some accuracy can be expected.

I don't think the 4 engine bomber would have changed the outcome of the BoB nor would it have allowed death blows to Soviet Production behind the Urals due to the resource issues of the Luftwaffe and Axis. I placed Bf 109 and Bf 110 escorts with drop tanks as far more important in the BoB.

However it is a big positive for the Luftwaffe and German Navy.

The 4 engine bomber provides much better support for the U-boats and German Navy. A properly developed Ju 89/Do 19 is faster and far better defended than the early Fw 200 and can develop into a Ju 289 of much greater range (3400 miles for the Ju 290). A 260mph Ju 89 with a tail guns can likely deal with a 280mph Fairy Fulmar sent to shoot it down.

The British produced about 14000 Lancaster's and Halifax, 2000 Sterling, 11000 Wellingtons and maybe 1200 Warwick's and Manchester's. The US I think 17,000 B17, 25,000 B24 and 4000 B29 and innumerable B25, B26, A20 Havoc I don't think the Germans can match that more than 15%, it depends how much they can mobilise and enrol the people of the parts of Europe they occupy.

I was thinking along the lines of up to 100/month (planed He 177 production rate). Even starting with 100 operational aircraft in September 1939 changes things. The German Navy has better reconnaissance, the bombers threaten the RN itself at times. Fulmars and even Martlets/Wildcats are far less effective than they are against a Fw 200 making the smaller escort carriers perhaps unviable. Parts of Britain in the North can be threatened with raids forcing a dispersal of defences. The whole Bismarck saga changes because the Luftwaffe now has aircraft supporting and even threatening the Royal Navy.

There is perhaps one circumstance the Luftwaffe can afford to operate against the Soviet factories behind the Urals. That is if the Ju 288 is a success. (Note Wiki data is wrong, range of aircraft is 2300 miles). It is economical to use due to low fuel burn for a big bomb load and its speed, needs only 4 crew, will seldom be intercepted due to its near 400mph speed. It would only take the Jumo 222E/F or DB606 or DB610 to work or the smaller Jumo 222A/B if the smaller 3 man Ju 288A is accepted. it is no surprise they expended so much effort into a long shot as is efficiency allows them to operate a sizeable heavy bomber fleet. The Russians did have the amazing MiG 3 ready at the outset of the conflict and its DB603/Griffon sized engine and excellent high altitude capability.

The Ju 288 was manufactured in giant presses and use very little man power. Eg the 4 taper spars of the wing were pressed in one operation.

 

[Shortround6]

properly developed Ju 89/Do 19

Properly developed means throw out and start over.
The US had the Boeing B-15 flying in 1937, They weren't stupid enough to put it into production even with better engines.

They took what they learned from it in regards to structures and aerodynamics and designed new airframes. Consolidated didn't want to build the B-17 under license when approached by the AAF in 1938. In Jan 1939 they made a proposal to the AAF that lead to the B-24. Consolidated just managed to get the prototype completed and first test flight on Dec 29th 1939.

The Germans should have flown the prototypes they had and started over in late 1937/early 1938.
The two bombers had too many problems what with oversized wings and questionable airfoils/aerodynamics. Even Junkers gave up on the double wing system with the JU 88 for high speed flight and using the double wing system on the elevators? The Fuselages were oversized for the job of bomber and undersized for a transport. The Ju 89 had 14% more wingarea than a B-29 and just under 40% more area than a B-17. That is a lot of extra drag (and weight) to be carting around with the available engines if you are trying for speed

I would note that the Blenheim used a power operated gun mount even if not a true "turret" (it did not revolve 360 degrees) so the idea that you needed more than 1200hp engines in order to carry a power turret needs a rethink.
Lockheed Hudsons used a power turret, Not a particularly good one from an aerodynamic point of view.

If you want hundreds of 4 engine bombers for the BoB they need to use guns and mounts in use at the time, not experimentals or guns available by the dozen.
For the invasion of Russia you have another year to get the German act together. And it may have been a better area/theater to try strategic bombing in anyway.

The Americans did manage to get remote gun turrets to work but not until the A-26, B-29 and P-61 and they had several years of experience with a number of designs of manned turrets.

They also had experience with several failed designs. The Germans tried to jump the gap.

The thing with defensive guns is not if they can provide immunity but if they can reduce losses to acceptable levels, The Russians found that for some of the ir aircraft, improved defensive guns did reduce losses. Perhaps not enough but if you can get the average number of missions to go from 7-8 missions to around 20 before being shot down that is a not a minor improvement even if it is not enough. And pulling the guns from an existing design is not going to get enough speed to reduce losses by very much.
For the Russians I have no idea if the change in losses also coincided with a change in escort procedures or not.

 

[Greyman]

Periscope sighted turrets proved to be virtually useless in combat. The extremely limited field of vision made target acquisition very very difficult and even if acquired, tracking proved to be a problem. The British had little success with their various Frazier Nash turrets. The Americans abandoned the Bendix ventral turret developed for the B-25. Sperry developed the ball turret to replace their periscope sighted ventral turret. The USSAF tried to reuse existing Bendix ventral turrets as the original B-17 chin turrets, but found that while the front nose position would make acquisition easier, tracking was stiil too difficult. The sighting arrangements had to be completely redesigned before the chin turret was introduced.

The FN64 turret's lack of success had more to do with the fact that Bomber Command operated mainly at night -- not any problem inherent with periscopically-sighted under turrets.

By all British accounts the Bendix K turret was markedly inferior to the FN64 and after testing in the Mitchell recommended that "... this turret should be replaced by the F.N.64 under turret at the earliest possible date."

... the best turret of the war, the Martin upper turret ...

Must .. resist ... further ... thread derailment ....

 

[Elmas]

The Lofte and StuVi are available from 1942 and the Hs 293 and Fritz-X sometime thereafter some accuracy can be expected.

How many of them would be needed to destroy a Russian tank factory?

The Ju 288 was manufactured in giant presses and use very little man power. Eg the 4 taper spars of the wing were pressed in one operation.

It was not only a matter of the manpower necessary to build them: it was the "manpower" to operate that planes that Luftwaffe could not afford (and, of course, the avgas...).

 

[Glider]

Looking at this question from a different angle. If Germany had a four engine bomber and had attacked Russia instead of France, then that could have ultimately been a winning strategy.

 

[Shortround6]

Looking at this question from a different angle. If Germany had a four engine bomber and had attacked Russia instead of France, then that could have ultimately been a winning strategy.

Possibly.

Maybe I am interpreting too much but according to one of Dimlee's posts the the Luftwaffe managed to do quite a bit of damage to a number of Russian factories in 1943.

Not everything got moved back to the Urals and beyond. How much was vulnerable and when in 1941/42 might be an interesting discussion.

Attacking Russia with a strategic bombing campaign is almost the opposite of attacking Britain.
No radar net for warning and control of interceptors.
Targets are hundreds of miles apart so the ability of the defending squadrons to be mutually supporting is not there.

as an illustration: distances from Minsk to other Russian cities

Leningrad...700km/430 miles
Moscow...... 675km/415miles
Odessa..........855km/530 miles
Kiev.................435km/270 miles
Kharkiv...........740km/460 miles

A strong, somewhat centrally located bomber force could hit a variety of targets in different directions in short order making things really difficult for the defenders.

I may be wrong but my impression is that the Soviets did not have a lot of redundancy/back up in their industry. only a few factories making trucks and no (or very few ) car factories.
only a few locomotive shops and so on. Each city needs a number of defending fighters that are useless to most other (or any other?) city.

There is too much area for defensive belts of AA guns that the bombers would have to go through to hit even number number of targets so again, each city is on it's own.

Granted the cities are so far apart that once the attacking formation is spotted a few times it probable destination is pretty easy to guess.

 

[Koopernic]

The FN64 turret's lack of success had more to do with the fact that Bomber Command operated mainly at night -- not any problem inherent with periscopically-sighted under turrets.

By all British accounts the Bendix K turret was markedly inferior to the FN64 and after testing in the Mitchell recommended that "... this turret should be replaced by the F.N.64 under turret at the earliest possible date."

Must .. resist ... further ... thread derailment ....

To me it looks like the FN.64 was a power driven turret aimed by a the single lower rear gunner through a periscope. I cant find much on line information on it. The gunner sat in the belly of the aircraft and had no direct view out, not even a downward looking window behind the turret. All target acquisition and aiming had to be done exclusively through a periscope. It would probably work during the day to close of a blind spot.

This is in stark contrast to the practices seen on the B29 where the gunners were in side sighting stations and aimed through a sighting blister via a reflector sight.

The side blisters on the Ju 288 differed in concept to that of the B29 in that a short periscope allowed a view clear of obstructions etc and possible issues with reflections from the blister.

To make a periscope work at night you need a large aperture to gather that light. You need optical glass that is very transparent. You also need multicoat optics to stop reflections. If you have 10 lenses to achieve all of the functions required reflections build up and blur the imagine. Because of Zeiss they had very good multicoat optics.

 

[Koopernic]

Looking at this question from a different angle. If Germany had a four engine bomber and had attacked Russia instead of France, then that could have ultimately been a winning strategy.

France declared war on Germany and invaded the Saar part of Germany and occupied it for nearly a month. Wasn't really a choice by then. There was an attempt by Hitler, as part of territorial dispute resolution, to offer a mutual Polish-German anti Soviet pact with the Polish government against the Soviets. Poland and Germany invading Russia is quite plausible.

 

[Koopernic]

How many of them would be needed to destroy a Russian tank factory?

It was not only a matter of the manpower necessary to build them: it was the "manpower" to operate that planes that Luftwaffe could not afford (and, of course, the avgas...).

I specifically mention the Ju 288 because it had force multiplier effects. It was classified as a heavy bomber by the Luftwaffe and carried more than a B17.
1 Only 4 crew for the Ju 288B and Ju 288C. For the original Ju 288A it was 3 crew and less demanding engines.
2 It's speed of around 400mph (more or less the three models had speeds of 388, 402, 428) and a very high cruising speed means missions of 900 miles radious will take less than 6 hours allowing aircraft to operate multiple missions. One reason the Jumo 222 was chosen over the DB604 was apparently faster cruise the Jumo offered.
The aircraft seems a lot cheaper to man and operate than a big 4 engine aircraft. Of course we know the engines didn't come to maturity in time and the plan B engines failed as well.

 

[Koopernic]

Properly developed means throw out and start over.
The US had the Boeing B-15 flying in 1937, They weren't stupid enough to put it into production even with better engines.

They took what they learned from it in regards to structures and aerodynamics and designed new airframes. Consolidated didn't want to build the B-17 under license when approached by the AAF in 1938. In Jan 1939 they made a proposal to the AAF that lead to the B-24. Consolidated just managed to get the prototype completed and first test flight on Dec 29th 1939.

The Germans should have flown the prototypes they had and started over in late 1937/early 1938.
The two bombers had too many problems what with oversized wings and questionable airfoils/aerodynamics. Even Junkers gave up on the double wing system with the JU 88 for high speed flight and using the double wing system on the elevators? The Fuselages were oversized for the job of bomber and undersized for a transport. The Ju 89 had 14% more wingarea than a B-29 and just under 40% more area than a B-17. That is a lot of extra drag (and weight) to be carting around with the available engines if you are trying for speed

.

Unlike the Boing B15 the Ju 89 had a successful history of evolution to the Ju 90 airliner/transport and then to the Ju 290 transport/bomber.
I don't see the 180sqm wing of the Ju 89 as a problem (Lancaster was 120sqm) but a benefit, it gave a big lift and good take-off landing characteristics. The problem for Luftwaffe aircraft was runway length. The good speed of 242mph for 1937 shows that neither the large wing nor air foil was a performance impediment.

First some dates:
Manchester I: first flight July 39, entry into service Nov 40, power Vulture 1750hp, first missions Feb 41
Lancaster I : first flight Jan 41, entry into service Feb 42, power Merlin XX 1280hp, first missions March 42
Sterling I : first flight May 39, entry into service Aug 40, power Hercules 1500hp, first mission Feb 1941
Halifax I : first flight Oct 39, entry into service Nov 40, power Merlin XX 1280hp, first mission March 1941

So the RAF heavy bombers completely missed the Battle of Britain and the Night Blitz (technically ended May 11 1941).

There is no time to start over on Ju 89 Do 19 in a major way, there is time to refine it.

Some dates on the Ju 89:
The Ju 89V1 flew on May 1937 with 750hp Jumo 210 engines( a few months after the Ju88V1). The 4 engine bomber program was cancelled two weeks latter but the Ju 89V2 flew a short time latter on 960hp DB600A engines and soon broke a world record by lifting 10000kg to nearly 15000ft (it could have lifted a grand slam). The Ju 89 was reengineered with a new fuselage but the same wings as the Ju 90 and became a successful airliner with Lufthansa and a transport for the Luftwaffe.

The wing was always smooth skin but an aerodynamic clean up occurred in the tail which had previously had a corrugated stabiliser and fin became flat sheet and the double rudder, elevator disappeared.

The Ju 90V5 (Ju 90B) flew in September 1939. This version had a new wing and got rid of the double wing flap.

The Ju 89V2 achieved 410kmh/242mph. By September 1939 it could have the 1200hp Jumo 004B as used on the Ju 88A1. The speed increase is 242mph x cuberoot(1200/960) = 242 x 1.077 = 260. At this speed of about 110m/s and at 25 tons the aircraft is consuming about 343kW on induced lift (assuming 80:1 L/D ratio for a typical wing) out of the 3200kW so the increase in power available for overcoming parasitic drag is actually 12% more so you end up with more like 270mph. Add some armament and a little aerodynamic clean-up in the tail you can probably have this bomber doing 260mph and well armed and in mass production 1.5 years after its may 1937 flight (ie early 1939) and in September 1939 you can change the wing out while already in production much as Manchester/Lancaster transition went smooth.

It's a lot better than the Fw 200 for maritime reconnaissance and that huge wing leaves much potential for growth. When the 1450hp Jumo 211 and 1700hp BMW 801 became available the aircraft will begin to shine. Its at its core a much bigger aircraft than lancaster.

 

[swampyankee]

Unlike the Ju90, Boeing (and Douglas) had real, built-for-the-purpose airliners, so they didn't need to convert a failed bomber to a transport aircraft.

 

[Glider]

France declared war on Germany and invaded the Saar part of Germany and occupied it for nearly a month. Wasn't really a choice by then. There was an attempt by Hitler, as part of territorial dispute resolution, to offer a mutual Polish-German anti Soviet pact with the Polish government against the Soviets. Poland and Germany invading Russia is quite plausible.

I admit to not remembering that. My logic was that a large proportion of Russian industrial strength would have been in range and Russia didn't have much in the way of defences at altitude. The Mig 3 is the obvious exception, but 1 x HMG and 2 x LMG it's effectiveness must be in question.
Naturally Russia could do what it did, i.e. move its production base out of range but that took literally over 1 million good wagons to achieve, nearly all of it without interference as Germany didn't have the long range strike capability to interdict the rail network. Germany wouldn't have to destroy the factories, just disrupt the process and the chaos would have added months to the rebuild the factories and restart production.

 

[Tkdog]

That is hardly fair. The Russians didn't have defense at altitude because they didn't have a significant need for it. If the Germans get new planes then the allies do too.

Though with half as many bombers (they don't get more engines) it isn't clear how much need there would be. That's half as many planes with targets being spread out over an even larger spread than in original time line. So do they continue the blitz or try and find targets in Russia? You aren't hitting railways with 4 engine bombers at altitude in WW2. Rail yards, maybe. If you go during the day and get down lower. Whole cities were missed in WW2.

Which does beg the question of how they find factories that are scattered far from the front so they can try to bomb them.

 

[GrauGeist]

Which does beg the question of how they find factories that are scattered far from the front so they can try to bomb them.

How any military of the day did:
Aerial recon
Transmission interception
Information gathered from captured personnel

 

[Elmas]

I specifically mention the Ju 288 because it had force multiplier effects. It was classified as a heavy bomber by the Luftwaffe and carried more than a B17.
1 Only 4 crew for the Ju 288B and Ju 288C. For the original Ju 288A it was 3 crew and less demanding engines.
2 It's speed of around 400mph (more or less the three models had speeds of 388, 402, 428) and a very high cruising speed means missions of 900 miles radious will take less than 6 hours allowing aircraft to operate multiple missions. One reason the Jumo 222 was chosen over the DB604 was apparently faster cruise the Jumo offered.
The aircraft seems a lot cheaper to man and operate than a big 4 engine aircraft. Of course we know the engines didn't come to maturity in time and the plan B engines failed as well.

How many resources are needed to train one bomber pilot?
How many ground crews, engineers, fitters, radiomen, armourers to service a four engine airplane?
What about the airfields?
And of course continuing the production of the existing models, the Red Army is pushing forward and RAF and 8th Air Force are flying over Germany...

 

[gjs238]

<SNIP>
Which does beg the question of how they find factories that are scattered far from the front so they can try to bomb them.

How any military of the day did:
Aerial recon
Transmission interception
Information gathered from captured personnel

I think Tkdog was referring to aircraft navigation, not pre-flight intelligence gathering.