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

[swampyankee]

There is no way that Poland would allow Germany free transit to attack the USSR: the Polish government was not run by people with an excess of naiveté. They knew that Germany had a similarly long and deep antipathy to a sovereign Poland, exacerbated by Hitler's expressed desire to invade and enslave Slavic lands. The Polish government knew that this antipathy to Poland's existence was shared by the USSR, which inherited its dislike from Russia. (I find the idea that a victorious czarist government would not attack Poland to be unbelievable. Indeed, if you look at the invasions launched by the USSR, all of them were into territory that a Russian government would claim. The Soviet invasions were at least as revanchist as bolshevik).

One wonders how the Polish Army would do resisting the German invasion if the Soviets were not simultaneously invading from the east.

 

[Zipper730]

Ehm what was the He-177 a tactical bomber? When they got ~300 of them in operation in mid 1944 they realized one thing ...they didn't have enough fuel for them AND the rest of their fleet.

I remember that popping up in a book about the He 177. I'm surprised that would have been a problem despite having poor oil resources, they did start using synthetic POL as early as 36.

Germany never had the fuel and industrial infrastructure to produce thousands of 4 engine bombers.

Plus they were producing so many different aircraft designs and didn't seem to have a central clearinghouse to weed out designs that couldn't hack it.

 

[wuzak]

And again, the reason for the 20 month gap for the Stirling between first flight and first mission are the facts that the Luftwaffe hit the Shorts factory in the late supper....

Attacked during late supper?

That's just uncivilised old chap!

 

[Shortround6]

You know I can't type for Shirt

 

[Admiral Beez]

Attacked during late supper?

That's just uncivilised old chap!

 

[Airframes]

Could have been worse ........ if they'd attacked at breakfast, then everyone would have been slightly irritated !!

 

[Koopernic]

I remember that popping up in a book about the He 177. I'm surprised that would have been a problem despite having poor oil resources, they did start using synthetic POL as early as 36.
Plus they were producing so many different aircraft designs and didn't seem to have a central clearinghouse to weed out designs that couldn't hack it.

There was certainly a serious oil problem, having to supply not only themselves but occupied Europe and Axis allies with fuel, however they had enough to run a small fleet of 4 engine aircraft. The fuel shortage became acute in the lead up to operation overlord when allied bombers began targeting the German oil industry around March/April/May to cause maximum shortages prior to the invasion. They had in fact avoided targeting the German oil industry so that it didn't have time to take measures. After the oil industry campaign and D-day created severe shortages there was no point keeping any bombers and they were mostly scrapped.

Note also that one objective of the German Army was to capture the Caucasian Oil fields. Had they been captured, put into production and held German oil problems would be over. The German high command (under Halder) and Hitler were at odds. Hitler wanted to conduct a campaign to capture materials, Halder though that capturing Moscow would cause a political collapse.

The Germans had planned to produce 100 heavy bomber aircraft per month from when the latter batch of He 177A3 received DB610 engine (paired DB605) replacing the DB606(paired DB601). The He 177A5 with the engines was achieving 220 hours MTBO by later 1943. 100/month is 1200 Year is perhaps 5%-10% of allied production. They would have been very useful in reconnaissance, special missions especially with the various guided weapons they were continuously improving. The He 177A5 had the lowest attrition rate of any Luftwaffe aircraft during the baby blitz.

After the oil industry campaign and severe shortages there was no point keeping any bombers and they were mostly scrapped. Bombers for the 1945 Luftwaffe was Ju 388 or Do 335 with maybe the Ju 488 (service ceiling over 48500ft with the BMW801TJ, probably more with the BMW801TQ and jet aircraft. A few piston designs were kept for special missions (long range or ultra high altitude)

The Plans for the He 177 were the He 177A7 which incorporated the improvements such as powered tail turrets with much more powerful DB613 engines (paired DB603) however by this time everyone wanted to move away from paired engines as fast as possible so the wing for the He 177A7 was engineered to be able to take 4 separate engines which is the He 277 Similar to what Airbus did with the A330/A340.

I dont think the Germans were producing too many prototypes, they were producing too few. The allies were able to produce a myriad of prototytpes.
The backups to the Ju 288 nor He 177 never got past a single prototype whereas the UK produced Manchester, Lancaster, Sterling, Warwich. The US had B17 B24, B29, B32 etc.

 

[SaparotRob]

Could have been worse ........ if they'd attacked at breakfast, then everyone would have been slightly irritated !!

What is the appropriate time for one to be attacked? Apologies for being a bit of a lout.

 

[GrauGeist]

What is the appropriate time for one to be attacked? Apologies for being a bit of a lout.

I would imagine sometime after breakfast but before lunch.
There is perhaps a small window between two and four, but certainly not at four in the afternoon.
Anytime after four and through dinnertime is unacceptable and anytime between bedtime and morning is simply barbaric...

 

[SaparotRob]

Thank you sir and thank you for not pointing out it's "when is the appropriate time.." and not "what".

 

[Shortround6]

I dont think the Germans were producing too many prototypes, they were producing too few. The allies were able to produce a myriad of prototytpes.
The backups to the Ju 288 nor He 177 never got past a single prototype whereas the UK produced Manchester, Lancaster, Sterling, Warwich. The US had B17 B24, B29, B32 etc.

It is hard to make simple comparisons.

The US and British tended to produce fewer prototypes of each design. Granted both countries did grab production aircraft and use them for tests without giving them special designations (no V numbers as such) which is different that make a a lot of designs.

For the US especially, comparing number of designs worked on to other countries gets a bit distorted. The US had more engineers and engineering staff, especial as the war went on.
I am not getting into an argument over if they were better, just that there were more of them so multiple projects could proceed at a reasonable pace. A big problem the British had, companies were being picked to make projects sometimes depending on how much free engineering capacity they had (how soon prototypes could be made) and not just on how good the proposal looked.

And there is timing. A Lancaster is not a whole new airplane, it is a Manchester with a new wing and engine mounts/nacelles. The B-17 was pretty much designed/engineered before the work on the B-29 really started. Sure there was ongoing "product improvement" but they didn't design a new wing for the B-17 or new landing gear or much of anything else after 1940/41. chin turret on the "G"?
Same with Consolidated, although they did do more with the B-24 late in the war. Get the B-24 up to production status and being produced in multiple factories and then move many of the engineers over to the next project, the B-32.

Perhaps the Americans did spread themselves a bit too thin, but there were a lot more people to spread around before it was obvious that things weren't going well.

 

[pbehn]

I would imagine sometime after breakfast but before lunch.
There is perhaps a small window between two and four, but certainly not at four in the afternoon.
Anytime after four and through dinnertime is unacceptable and anytime between bedtime and morning is simply barbaric...

Any attacks in Yorkshire, Devon and Cornwall should be over before consumption of scones, jam and cream commences, no self respecting despot would interfere with high tea.

 

[Zipper730]

@Koopernic

I'm curious how long it took for the Manchester, Stirling, and Halifax to go from RFP to first flight?

 

[Zipper730]

There was certainly a serious oil problem, having to supply not only themselves but occupied Europe and Axis allies with fuel, however they had enough to run a small fleet of 4 engine aircraft. The fuel shortage became acute in the lead up to operation overlord when allied bombers began targeting the German oil industry around March/April/May to cause maximum shortages prior to the invasion. They had in fact avoided targeting the German oil industry so that it didn't have time to take measures.

Why didn't they target oil more extensively earlier? I remember there was a misguided belief in them having underground stocks

Note also that one objective of the German Army was to capture the Caucasian Oil fields.

Is that why they tried to go for Stalingrad? If they succeeded the war could have gone very differently...

 

[Deleted member 68059]

I remember there was a misguided belief in them having underground stocks..

It wasnt misguided, they had about a million cubic meters underground, but it wasnt so far underneath it was bomb-proof. It was the refineries which they failed to put underground (believe it or not, its quite possible).

 

[Zipper730]

It wasnt misguided, they had about a million cubic meters underground, but it wasnt so far underneath it was bomb-proof. It was the refineries which they failed to put underground (believe it or not, its quite possible).

They though they had underground refineries?

 

[Deleted member 68059]

They though they had underground refineries?

No they knew they had not entered the war with any underground refineries, but suspected that they would attempt to construct some

 

[Conslaw]

If the Germans would have Allied types of the same period - but in the same respective numbers and gross production capability as Germany had, Germany would still be at a disadvantage. In terms of production possibilities, 34,000 bf-109 and 20,000 fw-190 equates to what, 10,000-15000 4 engined bombers? The US alone built 100,000 fighters, 18,000 B-24 alone. In terms of pounds of aircraft, the US put more pounds of aircraft into B-24 production than Germany did for all their fighters.

We had a similar discussion about what-if Pacific theater aircraft, what if the US Navy only had the F4F Wildcat and never had the F6F or F4U, would that have changed the outcome? I think there was a pretty strong consensus that it wouldn't have changed materially. Another 24,000 F4Fs would have gotten the job done.

 

[wuzak]

There was certainly a serious oil problem, having to supply not only themselves but occupied Europe and Axis allies with fuel, however they had enough to run a small fleet of 4 engine aircraft. The fuel shortage became acute in the lead up to operation overlord when allied bombers began targeting the German oil industry around March/April/May to cause maximum shortages prior to the invasion. They had in fact avoided targeting the German oil industry so that it didn't have time to take measures. After the oil industry campaign and D-day created severe shortages there was no point keeping any bombers and they were mostly scrapped.

The Oil Plan officially started after the invasion.

The Transport Plan was in place in the lead up to the invasion.

The two plans were put forward by the British and the 8th AF. The British (Portal?) pushed the Transport Plan and the the 8th AF the Oil Plan (Spaatz). The Transport Plan was chosen, but Spaatz was given permission to bomb oil facilities when the transport targets could not due to weather.

The Transport Plan was aimed at restricting movement of men and materials in occupied Europe, particularly in and around the invasion area. There may have been some effect on oil production because transport of coal to the synthetic oil plants was restricted.

 

[wuzak]

Why didn't they target oil more extensively earlier?

The RAF had tried bombing oil facilities from 1940.

The effectiveness was not great.

As for the USAAF, there was not sufficient bombers in the UK for a sustained attack on oil until mid to late 1943.

And the USAAF planners had overlooked oil in favour of another target - ball bearings.