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

Readie · May 24, 2011

Shortround6 said:
The Germans would have needed to deliver a lot more than they did. An awful lot more.

I don't want to get into a debate about national courage or fortitude but the German civilians certainly stood up to much worse than the British received as a whole as did the Japanese. A few large Russian cities stood up long sieges/bombardments lasting over months. Individual blocks or city sections may have been equally hard it all those countries but Germany and japan had more sq mileage and more civilians killed by far.
The pre-war theories of mass panic in the streets caused by a few hundred bombers were shown to be bunk. People lost homes, businesses, family members and even their own lives, civilians in many nations paid a terrible price due to bombing raids but only in Japan did bombing alone (or nearly alone)bring a nation to surrender. and that took hundreds of bombers of double the capacity of the bombers used in Europe against a defense of less effectiveness than used in Europe plus the submarine campaign plus atomic bombs.

In addition to fear there was a lot of revenge being motivated. People stood up to bombing better if they thought the bombers were being hurt. Shot down by AA fire or interceptors. Or that the bombers bases and homeland were being bombed, or at least could be bombed in the not too distant future.

while individuals may have broken (and everyone has a different breaking point) the populations as a whole did not break. At least not until the infrastructure was such a wreck that it didn't matter. If the morale doesn't really crack until the power to the run the factories is no longer there and the road/rail transportation system no longer can get raw materials to the factory or finished goods away from the factory does it really matter if the morale cracked or not?

The Japanese had exactly ZERO chance of mounting a bomber campaign against the United States that would accomplish anything.

Unless they could base out of Mexico or Canada. Give them 1000 B-29s and Hawaii and all they could do would be to tick off the west coast.

Well said Shortround,
The general effect of the German Blitz was to stiffen British resolve.
The bomber campaign had its seeds in the British desire to 'hit back at Germany' however suicidal the mission proved to be.
Cheers
John

davebender · May 25, 2011

What makes you think that swapping He111's for Stirlings would be any more effective?

Greater bomber payload means fewer bombers are required to get the job done. Unless the Stirling was such a fuel hog that all the additional payload was to carry fuel.

syscom3 · May 25, 2011

What about the LW having several B17 type heavy bomber groups in 1941; some based in Crete for night activities to bomb the Suez and other British targets in Egypt. And a couple based in North Africa to do the same to Gibraltar. How does that impact British operation in the Med? Enough to force the collapse of Malta? Add to the RN losses? Maybe even disrupt British activities in Libya to the point they give up?

Shortround6 · May 25, 2011

Ah, what kind of B-17s? 1943-44 B-17Gs in 1941 or 1941 B-17C&Ds in 1941? A few squadrons of radar equipped Beaufighters should put a halt to any low level (under 20,000ft) night bombing shenanigans in the summer of 1941.

davebender · May 25, 2011

few squadrons of radar equipped Beaufighters should put a halt to any low level (under 20,000ft) night bombing shenanigans in the summer of 1941.

1 to 7 May 1941.
681 Luftwaffe bomber sorties struck the Port of Liverpool.

Historically how many of those Luftwaffe night bombers were shot down by radar equipped Beaufighters?

syscom3 · May 25, 2011

Shortround6 said:
Ah, what kind of B-17s? 1943-44 B-17Gs in 1941 or 1941 B-17C&Ds in 1941? A few squadrons of radar equipped Beaufighters should put a halt to any low level (under 20,000ft) night bombing shenanigans in the summer of 1941.

The Germans were quite competent in aircraft technology to develop their own heavy bombers. Read what I said . "B17 type". That is not saying to build duplicates.

Shortround6 · May 26, 2011

Well, that does simply things for the Beaufighters, no turbos so the Germans are not going to be flying too high. Also more time spent in range of the AA guns.

The Germans were certainly capable of building their own equivalents if they wished but that also means they are 'stuck' with what they could accomplish in the year/s in question. No power turrets for defense. Not so important for night bombers I grant you. 7.9mm mgs and 20mm FF cannon pretty much for guns. The 1941 German engine altitude capability mentioned above.

1941 bombing aids?

It doesn't matter if they are German bombers or exact copies of the equivalent B-17s, what does matter is that the capabilities of a 1943-44 bomber are not the same as a a 1941 bomber and the results expected, even in a "what if" should reflect that.

davebender · May 26, 2011

The German decision to employ dive bombers and low altitude level bombers has nothing to do with lack of turbochargers. German bombers were expected to hit the target and that cannot be accomplished from 30,000 feet using iron bombs.

Readie · May 26, 2011

davebender said:
The German decision to employ dive bombers and low altitude level bombers has nothing to do with lack of turbochargers. German bombers were expected to hit the target and that cannot be accomplished from 30,000 feet using iron bombs.

The Germans employed Blitzkrieg tatics in the early part of the WW2.This involved lightning strikes with Stuka's and medium bombers basically supporting the army's advance.History shows how successful this tatic was.
The German bomber offensive against Britain was damaging but,did not have the desired effect of defeating us.
The Luftwaffe never had a 'bomber command' in the way that the RAF and latterly the USAAF had, they never saw the need for one as most of the battles were over land and it was only the 'Blitz' on Britain that brought out the shortcomings with the bomber type aircraft the LW had available.
It true to say that the LW never gained the upper hand again in WW2...gave us a run for our money on occasions but, never dominated in the way that Goering had boasted they would.
Cheers
John

Messy1 · May 26, 2011

If you consider the war to be over had Germany been able to defeat England, than possibly. My main point was that if Germany had heavy bombers, they still would not have the high seas fleet in enough numbers to combat the US or England. Heavy bombers would take the fight further and further into England, but then what would Germany do about the US and it's Navy, and also the royal Navy as well. Germany did not have carriers, nor a carrier capable airplane, dive bombers, etc. to take the fight to the US. Nor would they be able to match industrial output of the US, nor be able to to reach the mainlands of the US in enough number to be able to halt, or even disrupt that production. Just the addition of a heavy bomber would not have won the war for Germany.

davebender · May 26, 2011

Germany had no dispute with the USA that I am aware of. If Britain quits the war there is unlikely to be a war between Germany and the USA.

tyrodtom · May 26, 2011

Germany had no dispute with the USA ??

You seem to be forgeting in the real world Germany declared war on the USA after Pearl Harbor. Just because Germany had heavy bombers doesn't necessarily mean Britain would have been defeated before Dec. 7 ,1941.

Messy1 · May 26, 2011

I strongly believe a war between the US and Germany was inevitable, just as inevitable as war with Japan was. We believed stong enough in supporting England that we risked our sailors and ships transporting goods in support of England. Are we just going to concede all of Europe and Great Britain to Germany if they managed to defeat the UK? I highly doubt it.

Readie · May 26, 2011

Lend-Lease - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an interesting article showing America's stance in the early years of WW2.
America and Britain were closer culturally in those days and I agree that it was unlikely that the Americans would have stood by and let Hitler win.
Cheers
John

Freebird · May 26, 2011

Shortround6 said:
The Germans would have needed to deliver a lot more than they did. An awful lot more.

I don't want to get into a debate about national courage or fortitude but the German civilians certainly stood up to much worse than the British received as a whole as did the Japanese. A few large Russian cities stood up long sieges/bombardments lasting over months. Individual blocks or city sections may have been equally hard it all those countries but Germany and japan had more sq mileage and more civilians killed by far.
The pre-war theories of mass panic in the streets caused by a few hundred bombers were shown to be bunk..

Great post Shortround (as usual!)

davebender said:
Greater bomber payload means fewer bombers are required to get the job done. Unless the Stirling was such a fuel hog that all the additional payload was to carry fuel.

Yes they were.
The Stirling is about 20,000 kg empty, vs about 9,000 for the He111.
So to get a heavy bomber with double the payload of the He111, you use twice as many engines, twice as much strategic materials (which were in short supply) and at least twice as much fuel. I'm pretty sure at least twice as much labour.

So a bigger bomber doesn't really help you.

syscom3 said:
What about the LW having several B17 type heavy bomber groups in 1941; some based in Crete for night activities to bomb the Suez and other British targets in Egypt.

Its about 450 - 500 miles from Suez to Crete or Rhodes, well within range of Ju88 or He111. Did they ever try to bomb the canal?

I think it would be almost impossible to hit the canal at night, and even if they got a lucky hit to damage the canal, it wasn't a critical transportation link like Panama was

And a couple based in North Africa to do the same to Gibraltar.

Not much chance to hit anything bombing Gibraltar at night, and day bombing without escort would probably result in high losses.
The French also bombed Gibraltar, with little effect.

What would be the purpose of the raid?
Night bombing is unlikely to do much damage to the defences.
The analysis of the bombing of the attack on Pantelleria in 1943 with pinpoint daylight bombing by 14,000 bombs only destroyed 10 of 80 guns. (with 33 more temporarily knocked out)

You might be able to damage the runway, but all of the hangers were under the rock. However, bombing the runway runs the risk of killing Spanish civilians in the adjacent town.

How does that impact British operation in the Med?

Not that much I think.
By the time that Gibraltar could be neutralized, neither the Germans nor Italians have much naval strength to make passage into/out of the Med a possibility.

drgondog · May 26, 2011

TyroT - While I don't disagree I also don't support your thesis - rational decisions are made based on value and probability (the evaluator perception). So, switching aircrew focus from fighters, Panzer crews, sub crews, etc.

drgondog · May 26, 2011

Parsifal - I might have to take exception that destruction of Suez wasn't as important as Panama. The US had the ports to deploy from west to west and east to east had panama gone down.

IF GB wanted to go east they had only one short time avenue (Suez) to bypass a long trip around Africa . Had they (LW) expended the resources to cripple Suez, and deployed woldpacks on the west coast of Africa, they could dramatically alter logistics from GB to the Commonwealth.

tyrodtom · May 26, 2011

Germany's decisions don't appear to have been rational, but seeing as how Hitler had the final say on so many decisions, that's not a surprise.

They staked everything on WW2 being a short war, put a lot of advanced projects on the back burner. Too many Nazi were working too hard to please Hitler, and realized too late that the common sense things they needed to do to win the war, and satisfying the fuehrer, was often different.

I'll paraphrase a famous statement made by Goring in, I think the late 30's " The fuehrer doesn't ask me how big my bombers are, he ask how many bombers I have."

To get these magical 4 engine bombers, you'd also have to apply the same magic to the Nazi hierarchy's mindset, all the way to the top.

Hop · May 27, 2011

The Suez canal is rather difficult to "bomb" as it has no locks. All a bomb is going to do is change the shape of the bank.

The Germans did drop mines in the canal. The British countered by putting nets over the surface so that they could see where a mine had gone through, and by using divers to walk the bottom of the canal looking for mines.

IF GB wanted to go east they had only one short time avenue (Suez) to bypass a long trip around Africa .

Once Italy entered the war the Med was pretty much off limits for convoys. Nearly all British shipping went around Africa.

Readie · May 27, 2011

Bombing the Suez is academic.
There were much bigger battles to be fought and won.
Cheers
John

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