Post Battle of Britain: Luftwaffe/Axis options

[tomo pauk]

What's the intended niche for the 25 mm MG FF/M? The difficulty the Luftwaffe historically faced really was to design a large-capacity mine shell with the associated fuzes to make it work, and if you don't axe the MK108 completely, you're going to have a duplication of effort the Luftwaffe can ill afford. If you have a 30 mm cannon in the works, designing a new 25 mm cannon that can't be used in a synchronized mount doesn't seem to add all that much, especially as the both the Fw 190 and the Me 109 can actually use the 30 mm cannon in a wing (or underwing) mounting. If you'd suggest a 25 mm spin-off of the MG 151, that would make more sense in my opinion ...

All of what I've suggested has a lot to do with, IMO, main concern: limits of the platform. Just like a full-power auto rifle was a bad idea once we put it in the hands of an infantryman, so was the very powerful MK 103 a wrong gun for Bf 109 and Fw 190.
(MK 103 have had all the required qualtiess of an anti-aircraft gun, though)
The MK 108 was for a fighter aircraft what the SMG was for infatryman - a lot of firepower, but at short ranges and/or does not do well if a target is behind a log, thin steel plate or a sand bag.
My suggestion is the equivalent of an assault rifle - a lot of firepower, also for longer ranges and that can threat a target that is not cooperating (it is resilient, or perhaps flying too fast and maneuvers).
The 25mm should be able to fit in the Vee of a V12 engine, and it will fit within the wings of he Fw 190. A 200+-g M-shell will make a far better job on a big bomber than a 92g M-shell from MG-151/20 or from MG FFM. At ~700 m/s, it will improve hits probability on both fighters and bombers.

Need be, cancel the MK 108.

With regard to a slightly increased muzzle velocity ... well, historically, the Luftwaffe was optimizing several parameters at once, and these were rate of fire, shell content, weapon weight, and probability of scoring hits. In the comparison between the MK108 and the MK103, they found that the MK108 was the superior weapon as the weight of gun permitted the use of two MK108 for one MK103, while the MK103 was found to be inaccurate in spite of the high muzzle velocity ... or maybe because of the high muzzle velocity, as this caused a large dispersion pattern.

As above - those cannons were at the opposite ends of the spectrum. There was no in-between weapon that takes in account capability of platform 1st. The superior MK 103 was not fitted on any 1-engined fighter that LW used operationally. For the Fw 190, it's recoil was found too problematic to bother. Installation of MK 103 in gondolas meant the low-performing Fw 190As in 1944 were performing lower still with these attached.

I'm also convinced that muzzle velocity is a factor whose importance in actual combat is commonly overrated because people try to transfer their infantristic shooting experience to air combat. You don't need a flat trajectory in air combat because you're basically shooting at point blanc range anyway, and your sight is adjusted so that the trajectory never deviates far from the aiming mark at typical combat ranges. (Few people are aware that the inevitable convergence/divergence of wing-mounted armament actually causes greater deviations.) At the ranges at which a flat trajectory begins to tell, long barreled high-velocity guns tend to give such a large dispersion pattern that only a fraction of rounds is on target anyway, even given correct aiming, so as always in aviation, you have to choose your compromise wisely ...

Germans tested the hit probability of the MK 108 and 103, and found that MK 103 has double the hit probability of the MK 108. However, the weight allowance was the same for two MK 103s as for 4 MK 108s on Me-262s, meaning the total RoF of 2400 rd/min of the MK 108 battery will do better damage than ~800 rd/min of the MK 103 battery.
Quirk was that it was either one or two MK 108s for German fighters, unless we go with gondolas.

I'm also convinced that muzzle velocity is a factor whose importance in actual combat is commonly overrated because people try to transfer their infantristic shooting experience to air combat. You don't need a flat trajectory in air combat because you're basically shooting at point blanc range anyway, and your sight is adjusted so that the trajectory never deviates far from the aiming mark at typical combat ranges. (Few people are aware that the inevitable convergence/divergence of wing-mounted armament actually causes greater deviations.) At the ranges at which a flat trajectory begins to tell, long barreled high-velocity guns tend to give such a large dispersion pattern that only a fraction of rounds is on target anyway, even given correct aiming, so as always in aviation, you have to choose your compromise wisely ...

It took a seasoned pilot to came to the point blank range of a target. Especially if the target is firing from all the guns it can bring to bear (= B-17s/-24s), or if the enemy uses the mutually-supportive tactics and uses well-performing fighters, or even the better-performing ones.
We can recall that LW asked for a 1000 m/s + 1000 rd/min gun that materialized as the MG 213A project, and were experimenting a lot with high-velocity cannons despite the tough job of installing them on current fighters.

The Luftwaffe expectation really was that the planned introduction of the EZ42 would overcome any disadvantages the low muzzle velocity of the MK108 would have even when facing hypothetical Allied jet bombers, as the sight automatically compensated both for lead and for bullet drop even at long combat ranges.

Accordingly, in an alternative timeline, it might be a better call for the Luftwaffe to get the EZ42 into service early while sticking to the historical guns, than to try and improve on the already very good guns they historically had.

An earlier EZ42 is certainly a good call.

 

[HoHun]

Hi Justo,

the powerful defensive crossfire of American gunners, who were considered statistically lethal from a distance of one thousand yards.

As the attached graph (from the USSBS, via deutscheluftwaffe.de) shows, 1000 yards were considered the extreme limit of effective range.

The "Evolution of Firepower" graph from the same source puts the defensive fire into perspective.

The Viermots were attacked from 1,300 m with W.Gr.21 rockets of 210 mm, launched from specially modified aircraft Bf 110 G-2/R3, Fw 190 A-7/R6 and Bf 109 G-6/R2. However, this type of spin-stabilised rocket was very inaccurate and, after the attack, the launcher plane could not release the launch tubes on flight, which considerably diminished its speed.

Hm, the launch tubes could actually be jettisoned. See attached excerpt from the same source.

According to statistics from the Luftwaffe, at least 400 grams of HE were required to destroy a B-17 with a 95% certainty, therefore the attacker fighter should hit the target with 36 shots of M-Geschoss or 67 shots of MX-Geschoss ammunition.

The Sonderkommission Schlechtwetter- und Nachtjagd used 360 g, and 20 hits with mine shells for the MG 151/20 in their report from 8 February 1945 ... see attached table from Waffen-Revue 25. Sounds like you might have a different variation of the same basic table? What's the date on yours? I'd love to see that!

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[HoHun]

Hi Tomo,

(MK 103 have had all the required qualtiess of an anti-aircraft gun, though)

I believe everything below 37 mm was found to be lacking in range near the end of war, but that's not really my primary area of interest.

My suggestion is the equivalent of an assault rifle - a lot of firepower, also for longer ranges and that can threat a target that is not cooperating (it is resilient, or perhaps flying too fast and maneuvers).

Well, more firepower does actually help against targets that don't cooperate, as you don't have to get into a tracking position but can take crossing shots, which means you can get closer.

A target that's flying too fast and away from you is a problem. However, you don't gain much from a slightly higher muzzle velocity ... just a short burst of less effective ammunition at the extreme limit of the effective range. That's pretty much a target that would have gotten away anyway.

The 25mm should be able to fit in the Vee of a V12 engine, and it will fit within the wings of he Fw 190.

Well, the Luftwaffe fit the 30 mm MK108 in both of these positions, so why go small when you can go big?

Germans tested the hit probability of the MK 108 and 103, and found that MK 103 has double the hit probability of the MK 108.

Sounds like a test that's missing in my collection! Where did you find it?

I was basing my comments on dispersion on the 8.2.1945 report by the Kommission Schlechtwetter- und Nachtjagd, reproduced in Waffen Revue 25 ... see attachment.

It took a seasoned pilot to came to the point blank range of a target. Especially if the target is firing from all the guns it can bring to bear (= B-17s/-24s), or if the enemy uses the mutually-supportive tactics and uses well-performing fighters, or even the better-performing ones.

Well, if you understand "point blank" in the context of air combat as putting your sight on the target as if the trajectory were perfectly flat, the MK108 will hit a non-maneouvring target just fine out to a bit beyond 500 m. I might have accidentally evoked a wrong mental image there, I wasn't thinking about ramming distances!

An earlier EZ42 is certainly a good call.

In the report by the abovementioned Kommission, they actually state that "TLR" (some technical Luftwaffe office I can't place at the moment) reported kills at 800 m out with the "RZ 42" and the MG 151/20, which proves that the fuzes go off at 200 m/s impact speed, and the dispersion of the MG 151/20 is small enough to allow successful shooting at that range.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[tomo pauk]

Well, the Luftwaffe fit the 30 mm MK108 in both of these positions, so why go small when you can go big?

I've suggested even bigger - the 'MK 105' - that lays between the MK 103 and MK 108.

A 700+- m/s weapon better matches trajectories with MG 151/20s the Fw 190 will likely still have in the wing roots. Not every fighter pilot was capable to land hits with a 500 m/s weapon. A 25mm 'big FFM', along with it's ammo, might be easier to install in the confines of the wing of Bf 109 than it was the case for the MK 108.
(I know that there was a mock-up for the MK 108 in the wings of Bf 109s)

Sounds like a test that's missing in my collection! Where did you find it?

It was posted in one of Waffen Revue issues. I'll try t dig it out.

Well, if you understand "point blank" in the context of air combat as putting your sight on the target as if the trajectory were perfectly flat, the MK108 will hit a non-maneouvring target just fine out to a bit beyond 500 m. I might have accidentally evoked a wrong mental image there, I wasn't thinking about ramming distances!

Roger that.
I'd be suspicious that a mix between MK 108 and average pilot will be capable to reliably hit any aircraft beyond 300m, though. Especially under the defensive MG fire.

In the report by the abovementioned Kommission, they actually state that "TLR" (some technical Luftwaffe office I can't place at the moment) reported kills at 800 m out with the "RZ 42" and the MG 151/20, which proves that the fuzes go off at 200 m/s impact speed, and the dispersion of the MG 151/20 is small enough to allow successful shooting at that range.

FWIW, the report I've mentioned above notes that a computing gunsight is of great help with MK 108 chance to hit.

BTW:

If you'd suggest a 25 mm spin-off of the MG 151, that would make more sense in my opinion ...

There was probably a few quick ways to get the ammo needed for the 'Chad MG 151':
- neck-out the 20mm Flak ammo (up to probably 23mm? still could get a 170-180g M-shell, ie. double the weight of the 151/20)
- nick the Madsen 23mm ammo from the Danes- (the Soviet 23mm ammo of similar power is still in use in 21st century):174g shell at 720 m/s
- copy the Soviet 23mm once captured
- use the French 25mm AA gun's ammo (it was very powerful)
- use Swiss 24mm ammo

 

[T. A. Gardner]

Against the B-17 and B-24, the better alternative isn't a bigger cannon, but a faster firing one. Couple this with a change in tactics and you get greater effectiveness.
The defensive fire gunners rely on personal skill at deflection shooting and aim with respect to gravity to hit their targets. If the attacking pilot is properly trained, he would engage the selected bomber using a head on, high-side pass.

While these start from astern, you can do them from head-on too. By using such a tactic--which takes more training and skill in deflection shooting--you make enemy defensive fire much more difficult and shorter in duration meaning you are more likely to survive. At the same time, the bomber being a much larger target and you're coming down at it such that you have a maximum area to hit with faster firing cannon, means you are very likely to shoot the target down in one pass. Even if you don't you mess it up really bad.

Of course, for the Luftwaffe the training is a serious problem given that it will take longer for pilots to be proficient at these maneuvers and using deflection shooting compared to just coming straight in from astern.

 

[HoHun]

Hi T. A.,

Against the B-17 and B-24, the better alternative isn't a bigger cannon, but a faster firing one. Couple this with a change in tactics and you get greater effectiveness.
The defensive fire gunners rely on personal skill at deflection shooting and aim with respect to gravity to hit their targets. If the attacking pilot is properly trained, he would engage the selected bomber using a head on, high-side pass.

Great graphics, thanks for sharing these!

I believe that after a period of experimentation, the Luftwaffe really arrived on head-on or stern attacks in formation as their main tactics. I have attached a couple of pages from Ballistic Laboratory Report 727 by Herbert K. Weiss (via deutscheluftwaffe.de), who describes three attacks, two from the stern and one frontal attack, and states, "These records are typical for the several hundred available to the writer for analysis. Almost two hundred are of attacks on B-17 and B-24 bombers."

Not to say high-side attacks weren't used, but I don't think they were the most typical tactics, and thus might not have been the case for which the armament was selected.

Of course, if your point is, it should have been made the preferred tactics, with the guns chosen to be optimal for that case, the merit of that suggestion is hard to assess by historical data Just brain storming here: It might have improved the exchange ratio against bombers in favour of the Luftwaffe, but due to the higher difficulty, the overall effectiveness might have gone down. With the losses of the Luftwaffe being largely determined by the Allied escort fighter effectiveness, that might have hindered the German defensive effort more than it helped.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[HoHun]

Hi Tomo,

I'd be suspicious that a mix between MK 108 and average pilot will be capable to reliably hit any aircraft beyond 300m, though. Especially under the defensive MG fire.

I believe the Ballistic Laboratory Report 727 by Herbert K. Weiss might be responsible for a pessimistic outlook at Luftwaffe gunnery accuracy as it notes low hit percentages based on gun camera films. However, if one reads the report carefully, it's clear that Weiss talks about discernible hits, which are only a percentage of all hits score, since not all hits produced "visual effects" clear enough to be recorded on film. Weiss notes that there were kills scored/fires started from attack runs without any discernible hits.

Note that Weiss in the abstract I posted above states that an aggressive pilot in an Fw 190 pressing an attack on a heavy bomber has a better than 50% chance of shooting said bomber down in his attack. So I don't think the Luftwaffe's cannon were unsuitable for the task - it was a question of training, and maybe one of morale in some cases.

You don't actually gain all that much effective range by increasing the muzzle velocity, as the hit ratio drops approximately with the square of range. If you increase muzzle velocity by 25%, simplyfing the aiming problem so that you can reliably determine the correct aiming point out to 500 m instead of 400 m previously, your target has shrunk in the sight to just 64% of its original size.

And from the BLR Report 727, what the British term "aim wander" seems to be the main reason for missing - basically, a random deviation from the optimal aim point, not the difficulty of determining the correct aiming point.

There was probably a few quick ways to get the ammo needed for the 'Chad MG 151':
- neck-out the 20mm Flak ammo (up to probably 23mm? still could get a 170-180g M-shell, ie. double the weight of the 151/20)
- nick the Madsen 23mm ammo from the Danes- (the Soviet 23mm ammo of similar power is still in use in 21st century):174g shell at 720 m/s
- copy the Soviet 23mm once captured
- use the French 25mm AA gun's ammo (it was very powerful)
- use Swiss 24mm ammo

Hm, looking at these options, maybe it would be more sensible to do a sub-MK103 instead, with 25 mm calibre and a shortened case?

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[tomo pauk]

With the losses of the Luftwaffe being largely determined by the Allied escort fighter effectiveness, that might have hindered the German defensive effort more than it helped.

If I may elaborate a bit about this.
IMO - if the LW cannot out-perform the escorts (probem arising already by mid-1943, and became a big one by early 1944), their fighters will became irrelevant. Out-performing those (1st Spitfire IX, then P-47, then Merlin Mustangs) puts the premium on either quick and massive introduction of jet-engined fighters, or installing far better hi-alt engines than it was the case on existing fighter types, or a combination of the two. We (especially myself) can dabble all day long about this or that cannon, however what makes or breaks is that what propels the darned 109s, 190s or jet fighters. And jet fighters will became necessity once the 430 mph P-47 enters the fray, let alone the 440 mph P-51B. Having the parity in aircraft performance is not an option for the LW, they need all the superiority the jet propulsion can offer.

Hm, looking at these options, maybe it would be more sensible to do a sub-MK103 instead, with 25 mm calibre and a shortened case?

I don't see why not, provided it can fit easily in the Vee of the DB 605 and in the wings of Fw 190. Perhaps use the captured ammo from the French 25mm guns to kick-start the service use, until the M-shell is developed?
I'd also suggest the 'slender MK 108', with a longer barrel and for 25mm ammo.

 

[Tony Williams]

Hm, looking at these options, maybe it would be more sensible to do a sub-MK103 instead, with 25 mm calibre and a shortened case?

I don't see why not, provided it can fit easily in the Vee of the DB 605 and in the wings of Fw 190. Perhaps use the captured ammo from the French 25mm guns to kick-start the service use, until the M-shell is developed?
I'd also suggest the 'slender MK 108', with a longer barrel and for 25mm ammo.

As a matter of interest, after WW2 the French played around with various gun projects, including the MK 103. The following is an extract from my new book on auto cannon and their ammo (out early next year!):

MK 253: 30 × 110B AMMUNITION.
After World War II France was interested in the Rheinmetall-Borsig MK 103 (30 × 184B calibre) and produced a modified version using the designation MK 252. Further work by AME in 1949 produced the MK 253, based on shortened versions of the MK 103 gun and its ammunition. The bottlenecked cartridge case would have held significantly more propellant than the later 30 × 113B DEFA round (see below) so ballistic performance would have been superior. No further details of the gun are known.

 

[tomo pauk]

As a matter of interest, after WW2 the French played around with various gun projects, including the MK 103. The following is an extract from my new book on auto cannon and their ammo (out early next year!):

*fingers crossed*

(continuing to beat the dead horse )
We can indeed take a look at various 30mm cartridges falling in-between the MK 108 ammo (30g of propellant) and MK 101/103 ammo (circa 100-110 g, depending on ammo type). Like the ADEN/DEFA/M230 of several versions, or the Japanese 30mm guns (the ammo for the Navy's Type 5 would've probably been pretty interesting for the Germans to make a cannon around it).

FWIW, some 30 years ago I've served on the 30mm twin of Czech production, aboard the lightly armored Praga V3S truck. The M53/59 seems to be a development of the MK 303, or at least of it's ammo, both being very powerful (435-440g shell at 1000 m/s).
'My' Praga (s/n 10998) at the border crossing Jezersko between Austria and ex-Yugoslavia: link

 

[Pioneer]

To all that, what the Germans needed early on was a guided missile to replace the cannon. Only a paradigm shift in technology was going to end the Allied bomber offensive, even if only temporarily.

In all due respect T. A. Gardner, I don't know about that.
After all I don't know if the technological prospect of a 'guided missile' was feasible earlier on than what they were.
I always thought the Luftwaffe failed/waisted the opertunity to develope special/specific designed air-to-air rockets - instead adopting and relying on a Heer designed ground-based W.Gr.21 rocket that was both aerodynamically insufficient in its flight characteristics, but also in its carriage configuration.
One would think it more permissible that the RLM/Luftwaffe could have/should have built and fielded a R4M earlier.

Regards
Pioneer

 

[HoHun]

Hi Tomo,

IMO - if the LW cannot out-perform the escorts (probem arising already by mid-1943, and became a big one by early 1944), their fighters will became irrelevant.

Very good point, whatever we do with the cannon can only achieve a small improvement of the overall situation, while an improvement of the gun platforms themselves will be necessary to totally change the picture. And I don't believe that achieving parity will be enough - like Galland recognized, it will take a quantum leap!

In other words, the Luftwaffe would be screwed even if in 1944, they'd fly Mustangs with Fw 190-armament.

As I don't believe there's any way a pure jet fighter will be ready by early 1944, when it counts, I wonder if it would have been possible to introduce a lower-developed, radial-flow compressor jet engine in a mixed-propulsion fighter, perhaps based on a Fw 190, with the longer fuselage, the jet in the rear fuselage (where the large diameter of the radial compressor wouldn't affect drag) and a new central wing section containing extra fuel tanks and providing the wing area needed for the increased take-off weight. Sort of a radial-engined Dora with Ta 152-style wingroot re-design ...

It won't provide full Me 262-style performance, but from looking at the (projected) performance figures of post-war US mixed-propulsion fighter, I think it might have made the "Mixwürger" quite dangerous at bomber altitudes, while avoiding the pure-jet typical take-off/landing limitations, the asymmetric thrust issues the Me 262 had, and it would have been more fuel efficient as the jet engine would only have to run once when combat was imminent. Additionally, using only a single jet engine per fighter would have allowed for a quick introduction of jet power in the beginning, when powerplant production wouldn't have been at full pace yet.

(The Ryan Fireball gained 175 km/h top speed from 6.3 kN jet thrust, which really is a leap ahead in performance.)

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[HoHun]

Hi Tomo,

FWIW, some 30 years ago I've served on the 30mm twin of Czech production, aboard the lightly armored Praga V3S truck. The M53/59 seems to be a development of the MK 303, or at least of it's ammo, both being very powerful (435-440g shell at 1000 m/s).
'My' Praga (s/n 10998) at the border crossing Jezersko between Austria and ex-Yugoslavia: link

Now that's a big iron on your truck there! :-D

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[tomo pauk]

Very good point, whatever we do with the cannon can only achieve a small improvement of the overall situation, while an improvement of the gun platforms themselves will be necessary to totally change the picture. And I don't believe that achieving parity will be enough - like Galland recognized, it will take a quantum leap!

In other words, the Luftwaffe would be screwed even if in 1944, they'd fly Mustangs with Fw 190-armament.

Bingo.

Additionally, using only a single jet engine per fighter would have allowed for a quick introduction of jet power in the beginning, when powerplant production wouldn't have been at full pace yet.

One jet engine per A/C - again I agree 100%, for the same reasons: (low) availability of jet engines before mid-1944, and huge fuel consumption that gets doubled if fighter has two of those engines.
What worries me is how suited were early jet engines to be reliably started in flight.

As I don't believe there's any way a pure jet fighter will be ready by early 1944, when it counts, I wonder if it would have been possible to introduce a lower-developed, radial-flow compressor jet engine in a mixed-propulsion fighter, perhaps based on a Fw 190, with the longer fuselage, the jet in the rear fuselage (where the large diameter of the radial compressor wouldn't affect drag) and a new central wing section containing extra fuel tanks and providing the wing area needed for the increased take-off weight. Sort of a radial-engined Dora with Ta 152-style wingroot re-design ...

With historical LW/RLM (mis)management of jet engine & aircraft programs, it will not be ready for early 1944 indeed. They should've went for material prioritization for that, not allowing engine companies to dilute their efforts on pie-in-the-sky piston engine programs. There was no a single 1-engine jet fighter project to fly before He 162 - a big, big mistake.
I'm not a fan of mixed-propulsion fighters, since IMO they retain all the shortcomings of piston engine (still needs to be made, it is very heavy, needs hi-oct fuel, has torque reaction, has propeller, we need to find a CoG-neutral way to house additional fuel...) along with jet engine shortcomings (need a lot of fuel, still needs to be made despite the shrinking raw material input).
Basically - if one has jet engine that works, make a pure jet fighter. F-W suggested the Fw 190 with a jet in the nose, FWIW, and Soviets made such aircraft work (less elegant than the FW, but still).

Now that's a big iron on your truck there! :-D

Big and heavy. Just the magazines (not shown on the photo) were 89 kg when full.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

Hi T. A.,

Against the B-17 and B-24, the better alternative isn't a bigger cannon, but a faster firing one. Couple this with a change in tactics and you get greater effectiveness.
The defensive fire gunners rely on personal skill at deflection shooting and aim with respect to gravity to hit their targets. If the attacking pilot is properly trained, he would engage the selected bomber using a head on, high-side pass.

Great graphics, thanks for sharing these!

I believe that after a period of experimentation, the Luftwaffe really arrived on head-on or stern attacks in formation as their main tactics. I have attached a couple of pages from Ballistic Laboratory Report 727 by Herbert K. Weiss (via deutscheluftwaffe.de), who describes three attacks, two from the stern and one frontal attack, and states, "These records are typical for the several hundred available to the writer for analysis. Almost two hundred are of attacks on B-17 and B-24 bombers."

Not to say high-side attacks weren't used, but I don't think they were the most typical tactics, and thus might not have been the case for which the armament was selected.

Of course, if your point is, it should have been made the preferred tactics, with the guns chosen to be optimal for that case, the merit of that suggestion is hard to assess by historical data Just brain storming here: It might have improved the exchange ratio against bombers in favour of the Luftwaffe, but due to the higher difficulty, the overall effectiveness might have gone down. With the losses of the Luftwaffe being largely determined by the Allied escort fighter effectiveness, that might have hindered the German defensive effort more than it helped.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

There's a reason for that. The Luftwaffe didn't teach pilots the practical side of deflection shooting. That is, they got no practice at it in training just a book introduction. Given the short flying hours many Luftwaffe pilots had by mid-war, coupled with these maneuvers needing aerobatic skills and deflection shooting ones, the head-on and tail chase were the easiest positions to do attacks from with good results. But they also meant you were flying into far more effective defensive fire, particularly if coming in from behind.

Ths USN on the other hand, oddly, was almost the sole air service worldwide that taught and practiced deflection shooting. Of note, that's why many early USN aircraft have a sloped nose from the cockpit. It gave a better view forward and down for this purpose as well as for carrier landings.
Anyway, the USN wanted their pilots--most of whom had high hours and often more than their Japanese counterparts--to use deflection shooting in combat. That paid off quite well.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

To all that, what the Germans needed early on was a guided missile to replace the cannon. Only a paradigm shift in technology was going to end the Allied bomber offensive, even if only temporarily.

In all due respect T. A. Gardner, I don't know about that.
After all I don't know if the technological prospect of a 'guided missile' was feasible earlier on than what they were.
I always thought the Luftwaffe failed/waisted the opertunity to develope special/specific designed air-to-air rockets - instead adopting and relying on a Heer designed ground-based W.Gr.21 rocket that was both aerodynamically insufficient in its flight characteristics, but also in its carriage configuration.
One would think it more permissible that the RLM/Luftwaffe could have/should have built and fielded a R4M earlier.

Regards
Pioneer

I'm not sure the Germans could have pulled off making a guided missile either, but it was what they needed. The R4M wasn't going to cut it on its own. I've read better accounts now of R4M use and postwar use by the US of FFAR rockets (similar) and the results aren't impressive enough to count that as a means that would have resulted in much larger losses for the Allies.
All the Germans need as an AAM is something that can beam ride to close to a bomber with a large warhead (say 50 to 100 kg) and be detonated by command. A twin engine plane carrying say two to four of these launched from 2 to 5 km astern riding a continuous wave radar beam and radio command detonation using a very specific and tight signal would have worked early on as the bombers weren't maneuvering.

 

[HoHun]

Hi Tomo,

With historical LW/RLM (mis)management of jet engine & aircraft programs, it will not be ready for early 1944 indeed. They should've went for material prioritization for that, not allowing engine companies to dilute their efforts on pie-in-the-sky piston engine programs. There was no a single 1-engine jet fighter project to fly before He 162 - a big, big mistake.

Well, Schnabel in his "Die Illusion der Wunderwaffen" argues that the jet developement program was actually quite determined and well-maintained, and still didn't give any early results. He considers the mismanagement narrative a convenient explanation to absolve those involved in the program from any blame, I believe.

I'm not a fan of mixed-propulsion fighters, since IMO they retain all the shortcomings of piston engine (still needs to be made, it is very heavy, needs hi-oct fuel, has torque reaction, has propeller, we need to find a CoG-neutral way to house additional fuel...) along with jet engine shortcomings (need a lot of fuel, still needs to be made despite the shrinking raw material input).

Neither am I, but accepting Schnabel's point of view that the jet fighter is not going to arrive any earlier, a simple yet technologically inferior jet engine in a mixed-propulsion fighter is going to plug the gap that otherwise is inevitable from early 1944 to early 1945, when Me 262 mass production starts in earnest. And the mixed-propulsion fighter offers strong thrust at low speeds, which is a safety feature during take-off and landing - you're not going to get that even from a 1945 jet engine, especially not from a single-engine fighter.

And the single-engine jet fighter, with the turbines available in 1945, was a bit of an underperformer, as well as an war-economical failure. While it might have saved a certain amount of materials in its construction, and maybe even a lot of man power in its construction, the problem was that it also demanded a vast amount of strategic materials for setting up the production lines in the first place, and a similarly great number of man hours for that purpose - and the man hours required to build the necessary tooling was expensive high-quality man power that could have better been employed elsewhere in the war effort.

One could argue that the effort for setting up mass production of the He 162 would have paid off over time if the war had gone on for longer, but the other problem of the single-engine jet fighter in 1945 was that its performance advantage over the twin-jet fighter was mainly based on cutting down on operational equipment and on endurance. If 20 minutes were required to get the jet into combat, and 20 minutes to disengage, return to basee and land, then a jet with a 45 minute endurance would have 5 minutes worth of actual combat time, and a jet with a 60 minute endurance 20 minutes, or 4 times that of the single-engined fighter. These numbers are made up, reality was more complex, but the underlying principle is valid - the combat value of the single-engine fighter was much less than that of the twin-jet, and accordingly, a greater number of jets was required for the same tactical effect, requiring a larger number of pilots (who were a limited resource, too), and burning a higher percentage of their fuel "unproductively" in transit to and from combat.

Additionally, even assuming the war lasted longer, the He 162 would not have been able to provide the desired return on investment if the Allies had increased the performance of their fighters significantly, for example by introducing jet fighters of their own. In that case, the single-engined He 162, would no longer have enjoyed a significant performance advantage over the enemy, and thus been unable to justify its intial investment. The airframe, owing to the minimalistic approach in its design, didn't have much growth potential, while the more conventional Me 262 would have been able to increase its performance as larger, more powerful engines became available while still retaining a useful measure of combat persistence.

This growth potential also is the reason that in our alternative timeline, we can't really afford to axe the Me 262 altogether to just shift the investment made in setting up production of a jet fighter type to the He 162 entirely, as the Me 262 will be needed in any case.

At least, that's the picture I have painted for myself! ;-)

Big and heavy. Just the magazines (not shown on the photo) were 89 kg when full.

Each?! The loaders must have been olympic-level weight lifters! :-D

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[HoHun]

Hi T. A.,

There's a reason for that. The Luftwaffe didn't teach pilots the practical side of deflection shooting. That is, they got no practice at it in training just a book introduction.

That's actually a topic I find highly fascinating! I've read descriptions of the training given to the pilots who were to use the EZ42 lead-computing optical gun sight in operations, and it seemed to be quite thorough, from the few excerpts I read. If you have anything on regular Luftwaffe training, I'd be quite interested in learning about that.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[tomo pauk]

Well, Schnabel in his "Die Illusion der Wunderwaffen" argues that the jet developement program was actually quite determined and well-maintained, and still didn't give any early results. He considers the mismanagement narrative a convenient explanation to absolve those involved in the program from any blame, I believe.

Let me rephrase.
German 'engine firms' spent a lot of resources (can buy those) and time (can't buy it) in fiddling with engines that gave nothing in return (BMW 802, Jumo 222, 223, different X24 or V16 types from DB), or gave a little and too late (Jumo 213, DB 603). All while trying to improve the run-on-the-mill engine types, and/or trying to develop jet engines. Engines not having the priority they require was hampering the design (see nickel situation for example, nickel supply being as good as cut also for piston engines), from here:

According to figures for Ni usage per engine in Kay's "German Jet Engine and Gas Turbine Development 1930-1945" (2002), the entire production run of Jumo 004 engines, for example (some 6010 engines) used approximately 40 metric tons of nickel. This is not an insignificant amount, but compared to 1944 Ni supplies (10900 tons), consumption (9500 tons), or stocks (7900 tons) (U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey), the needs amount to little more than rounding error.

If the two things can be reversed (cut on engine types flood; material prioritization) + HeS engines receiving a bit of official attention, situation might've improved. Already 3-4 months improvement of timetable would've meant a lot for the LW jet situation.

And the single-engine jet fighter, with the turbines available in 1945, was a bit of an underperformer, as well as an war-economical failure. While it might have saved a certain amount of materials in its construction, and maybe even a lot of man power in its construction, the problem was that it also demanded a vast amount of strategic materials for setting up the production lines in the first place, and a similarly great number of man hours for that purpose - and the man hours required to build the necessary tooling was expensive high-quality man power that could have better been employed elsewhere in the war effort.

He 162 (I'd agree that it was not an ideal fighter) went 850 km/h per German Wikipedia. For ww2 and while having straight wing, that is an clear over-performer. Even if it can do 800 km/h in 1944 it is still far cry from the existing German types that were unable to do 700 km/h in 1944, most of them doing 650+- km/h.
FWIW; the Yak-15 went to almost 790 km/h on Jumo 004.
Against a 2-engined fighter type, savings in materials is staggering, both for setting up the production line as well as making the actual fighters. Me 262 still required the high-quality man power.
I've suggested using the wing sets from existing fighters (109, 190, Me 163) suitably adopted for a jet fighter fuselage. Or, make the Me 163 around a jet engine instead of the rocket engine, with sleds and all (even simpler than the P.15 or P.20).

Additionally, even assuming the war lasted longer, the He 162 would not have been able to provide the desired return on investment if the Allies had increased the performance of their fighters significantly, for example by introducing jet fighters of their own. In that case, the single-engined He 162, would no longer have enjoyed a significant performance advantage over the enemy, and thus been unable to justify its intial investment. The airframe, owing to the minimalistic approach in its design, didn't have much growth potential, while the more conventional Me 262 would have been able to increase its performance as larger, more powerful engines became available while still retaining a useful measure of combat persistence.

This growth potential also is the reason that in our alternative timeline, we can't really afford to axe the Me 262 altogether to just shift the investment made in setting up production of a jet fighter type to the He 162 entirely, as the Me 262 will be needed in any case.

I haven't suggested either He 162 or nothing. Eg. the wing was too small and of flimsy construction.
We can also take a look at something along the lines of the MTT P.1101 or the Fw Ta-183.
Allies cannot introduce the jet-engined fighters en-masse on a whim. Certainly not in 1944, certainly not with swept wings, and certainly not the Soviets.
The jet fighters cannot provide a 500-600 mile radius to protect the bombers either.

Me 262 was supposed to morph into the HG type in order to remain competitive, that shared mostly the 262 designation with the known Me 262 and not much else?

This growth potential also is the reason that in our alternative timeline, we can't really afford to axe the Me 262 altogether to just shift the investment made in setting up production of a jet fighter type to the He 162 entirely, as the Me 262 will be needed in any case.

At least, that's the picture I have painted for myself! ;-)

Roger that

Each?! The loaders must have been olympic-level weight lifters! :-D

Two loaders per vehicle (one was back-to-back vs. driver, another one vs. commander). We managed

 

[_Del_]

Basically - if one has jet engine that works, make a pure jet fighter. F-W suggested the Fw 190 with a jet in the nose, FWIW, and Soviets made such aircraft work (less elegant than the FW, but still).

Turning a 109 or 190 into a Yak-15-like jet conversion is interesting. Conceivably, much of the rear fuselage, wings, etc could be retained meaning the tooling and jigs already exist and are producing. Should get you over 750 km/h, 465 mph even with the relatively early engines. Once you get much beyond this, though, it's going to require substantial re-design and strengthening with the added dangers of compressibility.
Still tempting in hindsight.

 

[HoHun]

Hi Tomo,

He 162 (I'd agree that it was not an ideal fighter) went 850 km/h per German Wikipedia. For ww2 and while having straight wing, that is an clear over-performer. Even if it can do 800 km/h in 1944 it is still far cry from the existing German types that were unable to do 700 km/h in 1944, most of them doing 650+- km/h.

Well, it seems that the actual speed the production He 162A-1 achieved was 725 km/h, owing to the lack of an automatic engine control device, which was planned for introduction in mid-1945:

https://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/he162/HE-162-F-TS-672-RE.pdf

The graph illustrating the difference might be the source of the 850 km/h figure from Wikipedia, though the data sheet also included in the above report attributes the He 162A-1 with a speed of 838 km/h @ 6 km, using "normal" thrust. I believe the 30 s thrust also mentioned in the data sheet is such a short peak that it might not be terribly useful for comparison purposes, and my impression is it wasn't available with the BMW 003E-1 anyway.

Even the 850 km/h speed is based upon the assumption that the upcomic automatic engine control device would achieve optimum performance, which for a newly developed analogue-mechanical regulator I suspect might be bit optimistic.

I've suggested using the wing sets from existing fighters (109, 190, Me 163) suitably adopted for a jet fighter fuselage. Or, make the Me 163 around a jet engine instead of the rocket engine, with sleds and all (even simpler than the P.15 or P.20).

I like the idea of the jet Me 163, but the Me 109 was actually considered for a jet conversion as the Me 109TL, and abandoned because it basically meant re-designing the entire aircraft anyway. The Fw 190 had NACA 230xx airfoils, not that great for jets I'd say.

I haven't suggested either He 162 or nothing. Eg. the wing was too small and of flimsy construction.
We can also take a look at something along the lines of the MTT P.1101 or the Fw Ta-183.
Allies cannot introduce the jet-engined fighters en-masse on a whim. Certainly not in 1944, certainly not with swept wings, and certainly not the Soviets.

I think we'd not have seen competitive Allied jet fighters before mid-1946, but I'm not sure if that also applies to our alternative timeline And we couldn't know that, either - historically, the Germans weren't aware of the significance of their lead.

Me 262 was supposed to morph into the HG type in order to remain competitive, that shared mostly the 262 designation with the known Me 262 and not much else?

The HG was the final development stage, and it would still have used the original Me 262 fuselage. However, I was thinking more along these lines:

Herbert Thiess : Unterirdische Fluzeugfabrik Oberammergau : Me 262 Leistungssteigerung

That's reasonably close to the 1944 Me 262.

Two loaders per vehicle (one was back-to-back vs. driver, another one vs. commander). We managed

Did they pick the strongest guys in the company for that job, or were you just assigned at random and told to deal with it? :-D If your army was like the Bundeswehr, probably the latter! ;-)

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[tomo pauk]

Well, it seems that the actual speed the production He 162A-1 achieved was 725 km/h, owing to the lack of an automatic engine control device, which was planned for introduction in mid-1945:

https://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/he162/HE-162-F-TS-672-RE.pdf
The graph illustrating the difference might be the source of the 850 km/h figure from Wikipedia, though the data sheet also included in the above report attributes the He 162A-1 with a speed of 838 km/h @ 6 km, using "normal" thrust. I believe the 30 s thrust also mentioned in the data sheet is such a short peak that it might not be terribly useful for comparison purposes, and my impression is it wasn't available with the BMW 003E-1 anyway.

Even the 850 km/h speed is based upon the assumption that the upcomic automatic engine control device would achieve optimum performance, which for a newly developed analogue-mechanical regulator I suspect might be bit optimistic.

Thank you for that report.
Again - even a 720 km/h turn of speed is a far cry from 650+- km/h the LW fighters were doing in 1943 and best part of 1944. I'd thrust more in a more powerful jet engine version (or a different engine alltogether) to bring the performance up, rather than some control 'gimmick'. Also the swept wings.
FWIW, the idea for the alternative He 162, but with Me 163 wings, can be seen here.

I like the idea of the jet Me 163, but the Me 109 was actually considered for a jet conversion as the Me 109TL, and abandoned because it basically meant re-designing the entire aircraft anyway. The Fw 190 had NACA 230xx airfoils, not that great for jets I'd say.

MTT picked wrong way to power the variant of an existing aircraft with jet egines, since the 109TL still requires two engines. Too bad they didn't tried to do the 'Bf-15', ie. a Yak-15 look-alike.
Ta 152 also had the NACA 230xx airfoils, performance figures up to around 750 km/h were expected despite a piston engine in the nose, not a jet. Granted, we can trim a bit of the wing at roots, lowering the size and drag coefficient.
Another suggestion - use the wings developed for the He 280. The outer wing panels of Me 262 also work, I guess.

The HG was the final development stage, and it would still have used the original Me 262 fuselage. However, I was thinking more along these lines:

Herbert Thiess : Unterirdische Fluzeugfabrik Oberammergau : Me 262 Leistungssteigerung
That's reasonably close to the 1944 Me 262.

The 950+ km/h turn of speed was expected with improved streamlining and HeS 011 engines, that gave almost 50% more thrust than Jumo 004. The HeS 011 begin tests in 1945 historically. Just the improved streamlining was expected to give improvement of 20 km/h at 6 km, and ~35 km/h at SL (here).
Same speed was expected with P.1101, that used just one such engine.

BTW - nice to have an informed and nicely-toned discussion, making me to read up about ... stuff

Did they pick the strongest guys in the company for that job, or were you just assigned at random and told to deal with it? :-D If your army was like the Bundeswehr, probably the latter! ;-)

It was the later.
We were mostly a bunch of flimsy 18-yo, nevertheless we've became fit enough to do stuff.

 

[tomo pauk]

Well, it seems that the actual speed the production He 162A-1 achieved was 725 km/h, owing to the lack of an automatic engine control device, which was planned for introduction in mid-1945:

RAE noted the max speed for the He 162 of ~470 mph: link

 

[HoHun]

Hi Tomo,

Again - even a 720 km/h turn of speed is a far cry from 650+- km/h the LW fighters were doing in 1943 and best part of 1944. I'd thrust more in a more powerful jet engine version (or a different engine alltogether) to bring the performance up, rather than some control 'gimmick'. Also the swept wings.

Well, the BMW 003 with the automatic nozzle device is a more powerful jet engine version! It also has the same fuel consumption as the original, which - as the He 162 has short legs - is quite important.

Remember that even the Luftwaffe propeller fighters, which were a lot more fuel-economic than the jets, were routinely flying around with external fuel tanks because the process of vectoring them onto the bomber formations and into a promising attack position took so long. If you bingo out the He 162 before it gets into attack position, then the entire mission is a wash-out.

That's part of the attraction of the mixed-propulsion fighter ... it can operate economically for most of the flight, but still tap jet power when needed. The Heinkel jet engine testing with the mixed-power He 118 test bed actually involved starting the jet engine in flight routinely, but if that doesn't work out, it still should be possible to fly with the jet engine idling, at the cost of a modest increase in total fuel consumption.

(Another idea might be to install Walther rocket engines in the existing propeller fighters for a short-term boost in speed. The "cold" rocket system based on a catalytic reaction that was used for the early Me 163 prototypes might be a good choice there as in an auxiliary engine, it might not be as important to aim for the optimum performance or fuel consumption as it's the case when the rocket is a fighter's only engine, and the much reduced vulnerability to battle damage probably would be worth the trade-off.)

FWIW, the idea for the alternative He 162, but with Me 163 wings, can be seen here.

Now that's an interesting idea! One Me 163 was actually built without the pronounced wash-out of the production aircraft, and I think these wings would have been ideal for your "tailed delta" He 162.

The 950+ km/h turn of speed was expected with improved streamlining and HeS 011 engines, that gave almost 50% more thrust than Jumo 004. The HeS 011 begin tests in 1945 historically.

You're right, and I was actually trying to make the point that the Me 262 could happily accomodate more powerful engines. The He 162 really was limited in that regard by its small fuel capacity which basically meant that when more powerful engines were mounted, its short legs became even shorter.

Same speed was expected with P.1101, that used just one such engine.

Yes, but when could the P.1101 have become operational? I don't think it could have beaten the Me 262/HeS 011 into service.

BTW - nice to have an informed and nicely-toned discussion, making me to read up about ... stuff

Same here, it's a real interesting exchange with many good contributions that cause me to re-adjust my perspective on things all the time!

It was the later.
We were mostly a bunch of flimsy 18-yo, nevertheless we've became fit enough to do stuff.

Hehe, if it was anything like the Bundeswehr, you were probably shaking your heads in disbelief about the army way of doing things all the while! ;-)

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[tomo pauk]

Well, the BMW 003 with the automatic nozzle device is a more powerful jet engine version! It also has the same fuel consumption as the original, which - as the He 162 has short legs - is quite important.

Remember that even the Luftwaffe propeller fighters, which were a lot more fuel-economic than the jets, were routinely flying around with external fuel tanks because the process of vectoring them onto the bomber formations and into a promising attack position took so long. If you bingo out the He 162 before it gets into attack position, then the entire mission is a wash-out.

Roger that about the 003 details.
We'd certainly want that our spanking new fighter carries enough of fuel, after all drop tanks are mature technology in 1940s. Internal fuel of about half of what Me 262 carried, that one was taking off with up to around 2500L of fuel (!) in internal tanks, vs. the He 162 carying about 1/3rd of that (still making 1000 km range).
At 8400 RPM ('medium' setting), the Jumo 004 used about 1500 L/h at 3000 m, and 770 L/min at 8000 m.
FWIW, Me 163 carried the 'fuel' for it's engine in the wings, almost 470 kg of it (He 162 carried just 150 kg of fuel in the wings).

You're right, and I was actually trying to make the point that the Me 262 could happily accomodate more powerful engines. The He 162 really was limited in that regard by its small fuel capacity which basically meant that when more powerful engines were mounted, its short legs became even shorter.

You can note by now that I don't regard the He 162 as an ideal fighter. Especially since it's wing was too small and flimsy, thus the flood of the suggestions to use wing sets from this or that existing fighter. Helps also with producibility.

Yes, but when could the P.1101 have become operational? I don't think it could have beaten the Me 262/HeS 011 into service.

Problem was actually having HeS 011 to be available. Mention of the P.1101 serves to note that one does not need two of such powerful engines to fly very fast.

Hehe, if it was anything like the Bundeswehr, you were probably shaking your heads in disbelief about the army way of doing things all the while! ;-)

Young men can adapt. For me, the hardest part was waking up at 5 AM every day but Sunday, when waking up was at 6 AM. Food was also not very good.

 

[Hood]

I have been wondering more and more during this thread (and the earlier 36-39 thread) whether the bigger fighter problem is simply that relying on the Bf 109 and then the Fw 190 was a mistake?

The Bf 109 was the only single-engined fighter until the Fw 190 arrived on the scene. What if Kurt Tank hadn't of done such a good job on streamlining the BMW 801 or what if BMW had mucked up the 801 like it did the 139? The RLM would have been grossly negligent and no doubt rightly condemned by historians for relying entirely on the 109 for the rest of the war.

Germany was perhaps the only combatant during WW2 that relied on two single-engine fighter families and failed to develop any competitors. No other nation was so limited or failed to develop at least two generations during the war.

It's rather instructive that most of the contributors here have listed numerous multi-engine fighters and bombers that should/or should not have been pursued but in the single-engine field there were no other choices other than Messerschmitt's 209/309 tinkerings that were fruitless.

We can muse about jets all we want but the reality is that there could never be enough jets nor of high enough quality to obtain a reasonable service life to be useful.
I wonder if there is a case to be made that jet exotics diverted too much attention away from what was needed, Luft 46 secret project books are fascinating to look at but 90% of the projects were in effect wasted effort with little chance of being built due to lack of engines or advanced aerodynamics that would take years to sort out.
The 'Ottos' were simply shoved aside or made hyper-technical (Do 335).

A Mustang/Corsair/Tempest contemporary could have been of great use (assuming the engine can provide the power needed, the fuel is there and the pilot can do more than be a flying target drogue).

 

[Tony Williams]

Each?! The loaders must have been olympic-level weight lifters! :-D

Two loaders per vehicle (one was back-to-back vs. driver, another one vs. commander). We managed

I thought the magazines were normally left on the gun as they were designed to be refilled in situ?

 

[tomo pauk]

I have been wondering more and more during this thread (and the earlier 36-39 thread) whether the bigger fighter problem is simply that relying on the Bf 109 and then the Fw 190 was a mistake?

The Bf 109 was the only single-engined fighter until the Fw 190 arrived on the scene. What if Kurt Tank hadn't of done such a good job on streamlining the BMW 801 or what if BMW had mucked up the 801 like it did the 139? The RLM would have been grossly negligent and no doubt rightly condemned by historians for relying entirely on the 109 for the rest of the war.

Germany was perhaps the only combatant during WW2 that relied on two single-engine fighter families and failed to develop any competitors. No other nation was so limited or failed to develop at least two generations during the war.

Germany developed and produced the Me 262, too. A lot of fighters developed and produced by other countries were not better than Bf 109 or Fw 190.

It was probably BMW that did a good job on the streamlining of the BMW 801, the cooling fan was there for a reason. Without BMW 801, the Fw 190s would've been just fine with the DB 601E or 601A in the nose, with less engine-related problems in 1941-42 and with better range than Bf 109 while reatining the benefits of the historical Fw 190 (excellent cockpit and undercarriage, high rate of roll, great useful internal volume for weapons, ammo and fuel despite the small size) that were not present of Bf 109.

Both the 109 and 190 were fighters to beat. It took devlopment of engines with 2 stages of supercharging to equal them or beat them, while both German fighters remained powered by 1-stage supercharged engine until too long. That leads to this:

A Mustang/Corsair/Tempest contemporary could have been of great use (assuming the engine can provide the power needed, the fuel is there and the pilot can do more than be a flying target drogue).

The contemporary German fighter indeed will not emerge as such until/unless a far better engine is available. Eg. the 'Merlin Mustang' used the 2-stage supercharged Merlin that gave ~1350 HP at 7 km, the DB 605A on the Bf 109G6 making just 1150, the BMW 801D on the Fw 190 made ~1200 there.
Corsair also used a 2-stage supercharged engine, that made 1550 HP at 7 km. Was not found to be superior vs. Fw 190 during the tests - no wonder, the Corsair being so big and heavy.
A Fw 190D-12, powered with 2-stage supercharged Jumo 213F was supposed to be a very good performer, alas that engine was even more late than Jumo 004 jet engine.
I can certainly agree that fuel and a good pilot are necessary.

It's rather instructive that most of the contributors here have listed numerous multi-engine fighters and bombers that should/or should not have been pursued but in the single-engine field there were no other choices other than Messerschmitt's 209/309 tinkerings that were fruitless.

Neither Me 209 nor 309 were any better than Fw 190 with same engine in the nose. The 309 was too small for it's own good.

 

[tomo pauk]

I thought the magazines were normally left on the gun as they were designed to be refilled in situ?

One magazine was always supposed to be on the respective gun. Other pair was on the firing platform(see here). Four magazines were between the loaders, in vehicle. All magazines in wartime conditions were supposed to be full, 50 rds each. Four boxes of ammo (40 rd each) were located in the lockers behind the rear wheel, 5th was on the locker on the gun itself.
Loading of the mags was a tedious task, not made easier due to need to ammo to be lubricated.
During the peace time, guns/vehicles were not carrying any ammo. There was also facility to off-load the guns to the fixed position and load them back via winch and sleds.
Serbian riverine flotilla installed the gun on some patrol boats lately.

 

[Tony Williams]

I thought the magazines were normally left on the gun as they were designed to be refilled in situ?

One magazine was always supposed to be on the respective gun. Other pair was on the firing platform(see here). Four magazines were between the loaders, in vehicle. All magazines in wartime conditions were supposed to be full, 50 rds each. Four boxes of ammo (40 rd each) were located in the lockers behind the rear wheel, 5th was on the locker on the gun itself.
Loading of the mags was a tedious task, not made easier due to need to ammo to be lubricated.
During the peace time, guns/vehicles were not carrying any ammo. There was also facility to off-load the guns to the fixed position and load them back via winch and sleds.
Serbian riverine flotilla installed the gun on some patrol boats lately.

Thanks for the info!
Does the riverine installation retain two guns or just use one?

 

[HoHun]

Hi Hood,

I have been wondering more and more during this thread (and the earlier 36-39 thread) whether the bigger fighter problem is simply that relying on the Bf 109 and then the Fw 190 was a mistake?

Airframes really aren't the bottle neck, their development times are short enough to allow them get into production in a well-defined time slice, with relatively low development risks which are commonly mitigated by ordering several manufacturers to bring a design to prototype stage before picking one.

The bottle neck is the engine, and it's perfectly normal to see only one fighter airframe produced per engine type. The Me 109 was the DB 601/605 family fighter, and the Fw 190 was the BMW 801 fighter.

If the Me 109 had been a failure, Heinkel's He 112 would have been an adequate substitute, and the He 100 later. Never mind the surface cooling, as pointed out in the other thread you mentioned, Heinkel actually considered a version with wing radiators (on which serious wind tunnel testing had already been done) similar to the Me 109's.

If the BMW 801 had failed, there'd not have been the need to develop an airframe for engines in the BMW 801 class, as it was the only production-ready engine in its class at that time. The Fw 190 would have been shelved, and probably pulled out again as soon as the DB 603 and the Jumo 213 aproached comparable production-readiness and power levels as those of the 1941 BMW 801 historically.

It might have been possible to build an Fw 190 around the DB 605, staying with the light-weight, small-wing layout of the early Fw 190 prototypes, but that would be of questionable value as a DB 605-powered fighter was already in mass production, and was doing really well.

If the Fw 190 had failed, there was the Me 109X which also used the BMW 801. Obviously, it didn't show as much promise as the Fw 190 historically, but it's not like as if there were no alternatives. The RLM was definitely interested in a fighter powered by an air-cooled engine, and with an engine of the calibre of the BMW 801 available, they'd not have gone that opportunity to go to waste.

Germany was perhaps the only combatant during WW2 that relied on two single-engine fighter families and failed to develop any competitors. No other nation was so limited or failed to develop at least two generations during the war.

Well, that's a bit of an odd perspective there. The first-generation Hurricane was replaced because it was an obsolescent design originally, though well-suited for mass production, while the simultaneously produced Spitfire was fully competetive, though not so well-suited for mass production and continued to serve throughout the war just like the Me 109. Retaining an inferior first generation design as the numerically predominant type, while turning out a competitive type in lesser numbers, a strikes me as closer to a failure than adoption of a single type that's both well-suited for mass production and fully competitive in combat.

The second generation of fighters only came in when new powerplants were developed that the existing airframes couldn't accept ... the Sabre had to go on a newly-developed airframe, as had the Centaurus.

We can muse about jets all we want but the reality is that there could never be enough jets nor of high enough quality to obtain a reasonable service life to be useful.

That might be the proper perspective for the Lufthansa, but the Luftwaffe found the jet engines to be highly useful even with the very limited service life those had. They were much cheaper than piston engines, they were designed to be quickly replaced in the field, and they could be overhauled after being replaced in the field. Longevity really wasn't a concern in the war they were fighting. Now of course you can pick a definition of "useful" that makes your statement valid, but down that road lies the statement, "It wouldn't have won the war for Germany, so it was useless" ... which might be true, but doesn't generate any particular interesting insights.

I wonder if there is a case to be made that jet exotics diverted too much attention away from what was needed, Luft 46 secret project books are fascinating to look at but 90% of the projects were in effect wasted effort with little chance of being built due to lack of engines or advanced aerodynamics that would take years to sort out.
The 'Ottos' were simply shoved aside or made hyper-technical (Do 335).

I don't see anything hyper-technical about the Do 335, which except for its unusual layout was a fairly conventional piston aircraft for its time. And except the P.1101 briefly mentioned by Tomo above, we've not really talked about Luft 46 stuff here, as the focus really is on "Post Battle of Britain". As is an Alternative History thread, it obviously makes sense to consider the options requested by the thread title in the light of a war continuing into 1946, but so far, we've not done that yet.

A Mustang/Corsair/Tempest contemporary could have been of great use (assuming the engine can provide the power needed, the fuel is there and the pilot can do more than be a flying target drogue).

Well, specify a point in time, and an engine to use, and we'll have a look at the options

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[tomo pauk]

Thanks for the info!
Does the riverine installation retain two guns or just use one?

Two-gun installation (picture).
Serbian military has more guns than they have ships, despite the loss of many guns due to the war or export.

 

[HoHun]

Hi Tomo,

We'd certainly want that our spanking new fighter carries enough of fuel, after all drop tanks are mature technology in 1940s. Internal fuel of about half of what Me 262 carried, that one was taking off with up to around 2500L of fuel (!) in internal tanks, vs. the He 162 carying about 1/3rd of that (still making 1000 km range).

2670 L in 2 x 900 L main tainks, one 700 L auxiliary tank in the rear fuselage, and a 170 L auxiliary tank below the cockpit. That's in fact three times that of the He 162, with only twice the number of engines obviously

With regard to range, you have to be a bit careful there as the datasheet range values are for idealized conditions for easy comparability. If you subtract the usual operational allowances inluding a sensible reserve, consider formation form-up and allow for the necessarily poorer efficiency and slower speeds in formation flying, the useful range will come out as a lot less than 1000 km.

And it's worth noting that even the Me 262, carrying more fuel per engine, was considered to be a bit short in endurance, so operational units preferred to tow the Me 262 to the end of the runway and start the engines only when in take-off position already. This also lead to the Vic being the preferred formation for a while, as taking off in sections and forming up later used up valuable flight time, and the three fighters in a Vic could be launched side-by-side on the same runway.

At 8400 RPM ('medium' setting), the Jumo 004 used about 1500 L/h at 3000 m, and 770 L/min at 8000 m.
FWIW, Me 163 carried the 'fuel' for it's engine in the wings, almost 470 kg of it (He 162 carried just 150 kg of fuel in the wings).

For me, the hardest part was waking up at 5 AM every day but Sunday, when waking up was at 6 AM.

Hm, some almost-forgotten memory awakens of being off-duty after night duty, and being able to tell, from the comfort of my warm bed, the duty sergeant that I was officially cleared for oversleeping! :-D It takes so little to be happy sometimes! ;-)

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[Hood]

Germany developed and produced the Me 262, too. A lot of fighters developed and produced by other countries were not better than Bf 109 or Fw 190.

It was probably BMW that did a good job on the streamlining of the BMW 801, the cooling fan was there for a reason. Without BMW 801, the Fw 190s would've been just fine with the DB 601E or 601A in the nose, with less engine-related problems in 1941-42 and with better range than Bf 109 while reatining the benefits of the historical Fw 190 (excellent cockpit and undercarriage, high rate of roll, great useful internal volume for weapons, ammo and fuel despite the small size) that were not present of Bf 109.

Both the 109 and 190 were fighters to beat. It took devlopment of engines with 2 stages of supercharging to equal them or beat them, while both German fighters remained powered by 1-stage supercharged engine until too long.

Well the Me is not piston-powered so I'm not including that in my calculations.
'Better' is a subjective term, of course you might say the Ta 152 was a match for the Tempest, P-47M, Spiteful, Fury, P-51H, Yak-9, La-9 but the Bf/Me 109G was a dated aircraft against most of these (and with wooden tails, ersatz alloys in the engines and sloppy build by slave labour the detriments are stacked against it).

But I won't deny that the 109 and 190 were not the main competitors to match and overcome and both were highly competent designs. But it was lucky the RLM's gamble paid off, if Tank had muffed the 190 it would have been reliant on 109s or pushing someone to build a better

Yes the credit probably does belong to BMW rather than Tank, the cult of the aircraft designer tends to push other factors into the background.

Airframes really aren't the bottle neck, their development times are short enough to allow them get into production in a well-defined time slice, with relatively low development risks which are commonly mitigated by ordering several manufacturers to bring a design to prototype stage before picking one.

Engine bottlenecks are more serious generally in getting any aircraft off the ground, British fighters suffered from similar problems given the Sabre/Centaurus issues for example.

But in Nazi Germany industry seems to have been more constrained as to what they could and could not do to an extent not achieved even under the MAP in Britain.
And beyond Messerschmitt, Fw and Heinkel, few other companies had any experience; Blohm und Voss and Henschel tinkered with unique aerodynamic concepts. Dornier never designed anything you could call compact enough to be a single-seat fighter! Arado under state leadership never built another single-engined fighter after the Ar 80 and Heinkel too was denied any success apart from some state-sanctioned exports of the He 112 and 100.

If the Me 109 had been a failure, Heinkel's He 112 would have been an adequate substitute, and the He 100 later. Never mind the surface cooling, as pointed out in the other thread you mentioned, Heinkel actually considered a version with wing radiators (on which serious wind tunnel testing had already been done) similar to the Me 109's.

I'm talking more about a 109 replacement, there seems to have been no plan in 1940-41 to see what would replace it other than the Fw 190.

Well, that's a bit of an odd perspective there. The first-generation Hurricane was replaced because it was an obsolescent design originally, though well-suited for mass production, while the simultaneously produced Spitfire was fully competetive, though not so well-suited for mass production and continued to serve throughout the war just like the Me 109. Retaining an inferior first generation design as the numerically predominant type, while turning out a competitive type in lesser numbers, a strikes me as closer to a failure than adoption of a single type that's both well-suited for mass production and fully competitive in combat.

The only other service I can think of wedded to one lineage was the Imperial Japanese Navy with the A6M and we all know how that turned out...

That might be the proper perspective for the Lufthansa, but the Luftwaffe found the jet engines to be highly useful even with the very limited service life those had. They were much cheaper than piston engines, they were designed to be quickly replaced in the field, and they could be overhauled after being replaced in the field. Longevity really wasn't a concern in the war they were fighting. Now of course you can pick a definition of "useful" that makes your statement valid, but down that road lies the statement, "It wouldn't have won the war for Germany, so it was useless" ... which might be true, but doesn't generate any particular interesting insights.

I've yet to be convinced the Me 262 was a superior fighter, it was good at interception but even then the Luftwaffe went for the Me 163 for a more rapid point-defence concept.
About 1,400 were produced, with around 200 operational at any one time, they seem to have accounted for at least 300-450 Allied aircraft (mostly bombers) but losing 100 to Allied fighters so the loss rate is not that favourable.

Of course much has been said about wasted Merlins in Battles, well 2,800 Jumo 004s could have got the Germans 2,800 single-jet jet interceptors; might have got more than 200 aircraft operational too...

I don't see anything hyper-technical about the Do 335, which except for its unusual layout was a fairly conventional piston aircraft for its time. And except the P.1101 briefly mentioned by Tomo above, we've not really talked about Luft 46 stuff here, as the focus really is on "Post Battle of Britain". As is an Alternative History thread, it obviously makes sense to consider the options requested by the thread title in the light of a war continuing into 1946, but so far, we've not done that yet.

What we tend to label 'Luft 46' were real design studies from 1943 onwards, real designers were taking time up doodling crescent wing jet bombers, delta winged jet fighters, coal-fired ramjet interceptors etc. Neat stuff but not exactly what was required given the need to combat Allied airpower in that moment.

Well, specify a point in time, and an engine to use, and we'll have a look at the options

Possibilities:
Focke Wulf
June 1941 - began looking at 190 successors; a design with BMW 802 (tractor and twin-boom pusher layouts)
1942 - 190 with Jumo 222 then a fresh-sheet design with a mid-fuselage Jumo 222C/222D
1943 - design with BMW 803 (twin-boom pusher)
None of these seem to have been well received by the RLM or indeed requested by them.

Henschel
1941 - P.75 with DB 613 (tailless canard pusher), rejected by Luftwaffe due to canard layout
1944 - P.130 (tailless pusher)

Messerschmitt
1943 - Lippisch suggested a DB 605A-powered Me 163B (pusher), not taken further

High-Altitude Programme
In 1942 the RLM decided it needed an high-altitude fighter. Like US, British and Soviet efforts the result was a handful of prototypes but no mass production given the niche role that never really materialised. So the Bf 109H and Fw 190C & D were built in prototype form but the Bv 155 lingered on until it flew in Feb 1945 and the Bv 155C was still in contention in late 1944 despite the need for a 40,000-50,000ft capable fighter being spurious at best.
Heinkel went on from He 100 to designing the P.1076 but lost out to the Ta 152. The Ta 152H did enter service in small numbers. In 1944 Fw were looking at a Ta 152 with Jumo 222E and laminar flow wing.

Jagerstab 1944
Not until July 1944 was a new 'Otto' fighter requirement released (800km/h+, pusher layout, tricycle undercarriage, 2hrs endurance at 10,000m).
This led to: BV P.107 (DB 603G), P.108 (DB 603L), Dornier P.247/6 (Jumo 213J), Dornier design with Jumo 222E/222F and a Fw design with Argus As 413

 

[tomo pauk]

Well the Me is not piston-powered so I'm not including that in my calculations.
'Better' is a subjective term, of course you might say the Ta 152 was a match for the Tempest, P-47M, Spiteful, Fury, P-51H, Yak-9, La-9 but the Bf/Me 109G was a dated aircraft against most of these (and with wooden tails, ersatz alloys in the engines and sloppy build by slave labour the detriments are stacked against it).

If it purrs and catches the mice, I'd call it a cat
Being never does not necessarily equal it to be better, even today. In 1943-45, Yak-9 was under-performer, sorta Soviet Spitfire V. La-9 was not a ww2 aircraft, even if it's performance was in ww2 levels. The contemporary 109 climbed better and was faster than either of the two.
P-51H was about 18 months later than Me 262.

The 2-stage supercharged Jumo 213E defined the Ta-152H; the 2-stage supercharged DB 603L defined the Ta-152C. Without these advanced engines, unavailable before 1945 and thus with 1-stage supercharged Jumo 213A or DB 603A, the Ta-152 will be worse than Fw 190D due to bigger wing and greater weight of the Ta 152. FWIW, see this table that also features a DB 603E-powered Ta-152, among other aircraft: link.

In light of all that, a jet fighter makes a lot of sense, since it can be had in early 1944 even with historical engine production.
Sloppy building quality is/was not endemic to the Bf 109 later in the war.

The only other service I can think of wedded to one lineage was the Imperial Japanese Navy with the A6M and we all know how that turned out...

(not a replay to me, but still)
A6M went from 840 HP in prototype, 950 in 1st versions, to 1150 HP in last types that saw combat.
Bf 109 went from ~650 HP in prototype and 1st versions, 1100 HP by 1939 (A6M is not yet in service), and clamored to 1800-2000 HP and 130-150 km/h difference in speed by early 1945.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

Messerschmitt did try to build an Me 109 replacement but neither worked out and the 109 had to soldier on.

Me 209 (ii)

And the Me 309

Both types displayed various shortcomings and by 1944 it was pretty obvious these weren't going to be worked out and development came to an end.

 

[Tony Williams]

Thanks for the info!
Does the riverine installation retain two guns or just use one?

Two-gun installation (picture).
Serbian military has more guns than they have ships, despite the loss of many guns due to the war or export.

Thanks for that! Do you know how many vessels are equipped with this?

 

[tomo pauk]

Thanks for that! Do you know how many vessels are equipped with this?

I'm sure of two, hull numbers 332 and 335 of the mine-sweeper type. They have 4 all together of these ships.
I'll ask at the Serbian defense forum and see what info they have. The 336 also has it, so it is probably true that all 4 have it.
Also the hull number 341 has the 30/2.

Seems like only the 332, 335 and 336 remain of the 'Neštin' class (other ships were sold or disposed of), and 341 of the 'Novi Sad' class - all 4 with 30/2 guns M-53/59.

 

[tomo pauk]

@Tony Williams - it might be interesting to point out the recent Serbian wheeled AFV 'Lazanski' that sports the 57mm AU-220 cannon.
link (scroll a bit down for the proper picture)

 

[tomo pauk]

Some suggestions for the Bf 109 post-BoB:
- 'wing plugs' so the U/C legs can be attached further away one from another, while being closer to vertical when extended; not as big a plug as on the 109H probably, though, to keep drag in check; a MG 151/20 in each plug
- Bf 109Z as a high-performance day fighter
- jet 109 - engine in the nose akin to the what-if Jetfire/Yak-15/Yak-17
- wing with additional lightweight spar, like it was on the Spanish Buchon (pic1, pic2; never mind the, err, wrong engine), so the wing is strong enough to carry at least the MG 151/20 in the wing plus under-wing stores (bombs, rockets, drop tanks) on daily basis