WWII - Aircraft produced in large quantities that did not see combat - or very little

[GrauGeist]

Herman He-119 (I think). That's a rare large plane with a single pilot & all-glass nose with the drive shaft in the middle for a single propeller. Does anyone have drawings or photos? THAT would make for an interesting modeling subject.

The He119 never went into production, only 8 prototypes were built, so I don't think it qualifies for the thread's criteria.

 

[Kevin J]

I'd have to add the Bearcat, P-51H and Tempest II which were all too late for service.

 

[GrauGeist]

Here's a good one:
The Me262...out of 1,443 aircraft built, roughly 300 ever saw combat - or less than 25%

 

[wuzak]

Bearcat? Could always include aircraft that appeared too late.

P-51H? ~500 built before the end of the war.

 

[yulzari]

He 177

The He 177 certainly saw combat. As several houses near my old one could testify-were they still there.

 

[pinehilljoe]

The B-18 sort of fits. It was obsolete when the War started and relegated to Anti Submarine patrol

 

[John D. Voss]

Didn't Brewster produce P-47 G's under contact that were only used for training due to quality issues?

The P-47G was produced by Curtiss and was identical to the P-47D. The "G" notation was just an identifier for the manufacturer and of course to confuse the enemy that we had a 'newer' model of the T-Bolt. Curtiss built 354 of the type in Buffalo, NY.

 

[John D. Voss]

The Curtiss A-25 Shrike (aka Helldiver) was another useless waste of money and resources. Nine hundred were built (yes, 900) and when the USAAF realized it was a useless beast they simply parked the majority of them. The USAAF offered them to the USN but they aid NO as it didn't have folding wings nor an arrestor hook. Thy tried to push them off to Australia and the RAAF said "no thanks". Those that were used by the USAAF was for target tugs and PhotoRecon training.

 

[John D. Voss]

Another USELESS Curtiss product was the SO3C Seamew. It was grossly underpowered and many were taken directly from the production line and converted to target drones. About 800 were produced and there are no existing examples anywhere.

 

[jetcal1]

Perhaps the Breda BA.88 Lince. But, only 149 were produced.

 

[swampyankee]

Didn't the USAAF find that a) dive bombing didn't match their vision of air operations -- the A-36 was, by all accounts, quite successful as a CAS platform and not replaced by anything -- and b) that conventional dive bombers did not have adequate survivability in Europe and the Med?

For the US, just about the entire production of Brewster was futile. Their designs were pretty much crap, and their production quality was notoriously poor. The British had the Blackburn Botha, the Germans had the Me210* and Focke-Wulf Ta154 (oddly, Germany's chemical industry reportedly had trouble producing a good wood glue for aircraft). The Soviets had numerous problematic aircraft (mostly due to poor build quality of both airframes and engines). The Italians had the Breda Ba.88, which was probably one of the best examples of a combat aircraft that's better for the enemy than for the operator.



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* Why the Hungarians seemed to have much better luck with the Me210 than the Germans is a mystery. Perhaps it was desperation -- the Germans were not particularly generous to their allies during WW2 -- or perhaps the Hungarian Air Force had better pilots and developed better operating procedures for the plane.

 

[Shortround6]

* Why the Hungarians seemed to have much better luck with the Me210 than the Germans is a mystery. Perhaps it was desperation -- the Germans were not particularly generous to their allies during WW2 -- or perhaps the Hungarian Air Force had better pilots and developed better operating procedures for the plane.

The Hungarians used the Me 210C which had about a 0.9 meters longer fuselage with solved many of the handling problems. The Luftwaffe got about 2/3rds of Hungarian production.
The Hungarians also used a licence built DB605 engine instead of the DB 601 used in the early Me 210s (more power) but lighter than the DB 603s used in the Me 410.

 

[wuzak]

the Germans had the Me210* and Focke-Wulf Ta154 (oddly, Germany's chemical industry reportedly had trouble producing a good wood glue for aircraft).

I believe that a suitable glue was developed, but the factory producing it was bombed to the point it could not provide the glue in the required quantity.

 

[GrauGeist]

The German laminate adhesive called "Tego" was some of the best in the world and only produced in one factory in Wuppertal and in 1943, it was destroyed in a bombing raid.
For some odd reason, they weren't able to continue Tego production elsewhere and turned to Dynamit for a replacement. The adhesive provided by Dynamit actually attacked the wood fiber in the plywood as it cured, which weakened the structure.

 

[Conslaw]

The B-18 sort of fits. It was obsolete when the War started and relegated to Anti Submarine patrol

It sort-of fits, and sort-of doesn't, because 318 were built, but the Air Corps did get a lot of use out of them for a number of years. Training and anti-submarine patrol were useful purposes even if unglamorous. B-18s sank 2 U-boats.

 

[Shortround6]

We seem to have 3 categories. Perhaps Conslaw can give us some guidance in what he intended?

1. older planes that were being phased out when the war started (different For US and Japan) and so saw limited use.

2. Planes that went into production near the end of the war (last few months ?) and didn't make it to combat areas in numbers before the fighting stopped and so saw limited combat.

3. Planes that were ordered in large numbers, either before the fighting started or after that turned out to be not what was promised/desired once the realities of combat had sunk in. (Polite way of saying dud) and were shuffled off to secondary duties (or parked) as soon as possible.

 

[buffnut453]

I suggest we focus on #3 because #1 and #2 were due to force of circumstance rather than any inherent fault in the design. There may be some wriggle-room in #1 if an aircraft and/or specification was clearly (even factoring in the benefit of hindsight) unfit for purpose and produced for far too long into the timeframe of WW2.

 

[Kevin J]

Category 'dud' Armstrong Whitworth Albermarle. 602 built. Designed as medium bomber, used as transport and glider tug. Would this qualify?

 

[swampyankee]

Handley Page Hereford and Hawker Hector.

Most of the USSAF's pre-war observation aircraft

 

[Glider]

Armstrong Whitworth Albemarle would be my choice