What if Germany had better long range sea-air recon?

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Germans recieving a Kawanishi H6K?

#16

Post by Dave Bender » 24 Apr 2011, 19:30

9,300 kg. 201 mph. Do-26A. 4 x Jumo205D diesel engines.
9,793 kg payload. 211 mph max speed. H6K seaplane.

The H6K offers no real advantage over the Do-26. And the Do-26 was ready for mass production.

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Re: What if Germany had better long range sea-air recon?

#17

Post by phylo_roadking » 24 Apr 2011, 21:04

....and if you remember some of the details that turned up during the legendary Panama Canal WI...the H6K wasn't actually that successful as a patrol bomber except on one or two very rare ocasions IIRC. It very soon had to be withdrawn from frontline service.
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Re: What if Germany had better long range sea-air recon?

#18

Post by gurn » 24 Apr 2011, 21:06

The do-20v6 seems to have the same range-but a smaller crew,smaller payload,less armerment,and is slighly slower.
Is that not an advantage to the H6k?

Phylo-If the British keep appearing out of nowhere and sinking surfaced subs one would think the Germans would begin to think that the Brits are listening in.I am aware that ocean rendevous are difficult to arrange and would not suggest this refueling idea as a constant practice-but it would add flexibilty-and the opportunity to deliver critical parts or crew.

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Re: What if Germany had better long range sea-air recon?

#19

Post by phylo_roadking » 24 Apr 2011, 21:09

Phylo-If the British keep appearing out of nowhere and sinking surfaced subs one would think the Germans would begin to think that the Brits are listening in.
....OR the british keep doing what they did historically - flying a COMPLETE set of maritime patrols to all points of the compass daily so that it looked as if all the historical sinkings were by chance... :wink:
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Germans would begin to think that the Brits are listening

#20

Post by Dave Bender » 24 Apr 2011, 22:06

Radio direction finding and code breaking were practised by a multitude of nations during WWI. Everyone took it for granted it would happen again during the next war. And it was.

Submarines still need to communicate with HQ. So you develop new technologies such as frequency hopping and burst transmission which are inheritly more difficult to intercept, jam and use for direction finding. You also use state of the art (for WWII) cypher machines. But some risk of enemy electronic warfare will always exist.

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Re: What if Germany had better long range sea-air recon?

#21

Post by stg 44 » 07 Apr 2013, 17:10

I've recently been relooking at this thread and thought it ended too soon; my current question is this:
assuming that Germany decided that when the Do26 became available in 1939 it would be mass produced as the German marital patrol aircraft, which leads them to reject the FW200 for production (though using the available units for recon or transport). In the Do26 they would have a diesel powered aircraft that wouldn't use avgas, which was in shorter supply, nor would it take up airfield space, which was at a premium in France in 1940-41, as it was a flying boat/sea plane, so could dock in the plentiful ports of Western France from June/July on.
Using the military model, it had about a 4,000 mile range with 500kg payload. Assuming even that its just used for recon work, how much could it help the Uboat effort? If it could keep tabs on the convoys, more Wolf Packs could be formed, which would make losses to British shipping increase by a large amount.
As far as direct attacks go it wouldn't be all that great as a bomber, but from what I've read the Fw200's kill totals were overstated anyway, so just using them for recon wouldn't change much in that regard. Instead the increase in Uboat concentrations against convoys would go up, which would increase losses; once the convoy codes are changed in early 1941 and Germany loses that intelligence source the increased number of Do26 recon work would more than make up for its loss, especially when Hohentwiel comes online in 1941.
Before anyone says that sea planes/flying boats couldn't take Hohentwiel, the BV138 used it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blohm_%26_Voss_BV_138
Most were fitted with FuG 200 Hohentwiel search radar for anti-shipping duties
Also if they aren't attacking shipping themselves, would the British as quickly start using CAM ships?

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Re: What if Germany had better long range sea-air recon?

#22

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 07 Apr 2013, 23:14

I like the general idea. The submarines were more efficient with more recon. Losing the strike capability I dont like, the Brits lost more cargo ship tonnage, and cargo from air strikes and air placed mines than I'd have thought from the pop histories. More attention to air strike capability vs ships would have been productive.

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Re: What if Germany had better long range sea-air recon?

#23

Post by Old_Fossil » 08 Apr 2013, 00:59

Better than seaplanes would be a Ju88 variant. The Ju88 is already in mass production making it relatively easy to ramp up production of long range version suitable for replacing the Fw200 Kondor. Obviously not the Ju88H. That is impossible without the BMW 801 engines. But it would have been possible, with the Jumo 211J engines, to stretch the fusilage perhaps two meters to install additional internal tanks. The Ju88 D-1 with two 900 liter external tanks had a range of 2,250 miles, about the same as the Fw200. Replace one of the 900 liter tanks with a quartette of SC250 bombs and stretch the fusilage. You can save weight by dropping down from four crewman to three and discard the gondola. Defensive weaponry is unnecessary since the Ju88 is faster than any aircraft in Coastal Command's inventory until late 1941. And even then you can add a "fighter nose" to some of your long-range Ju88's as escorts.

All you need is a quick replacement for the armed Kondor for the critical Fall 1940 to Summer 1941 period when British convoys were at their most vunerable to air attack. With a range of at least 1800 miles this would allow you to reach the Western Approaches outside of single engine fighter range. A Ju88 with a quartette to bombs would be about eight times as effective as a Kondor considering it's greater suitablity as a bomber, survivability, and operational readiness.

In the OTL, about 360 Ju88 Ds were produced by the end of 1940. Most did not have Jumo 211Js, but in this ATL they could be given a higher piority.
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Re: What if Germany had better long range sea-air recon?

#24

Post by stg 44 » 08 Apr 2013, 01:04

Carl Schwamberger wrote:I like the general idea. The submarines were more efficient with more recon. Losing the strike capability I dont like, the Brits lost more cargo ship tonnage, and cargo from air strikes and air placed mines than I'd have thought from the pop histories. More attention to air strike capability vs ships would have been productive.
They would still have HE111 and Ju88 naval bombers, not to mention He115 sea plane naval bombers. These were the strike craft that really hit British shipping, not the Condor or really the BV138. So that wouldn't change. From what I've read the 300k tons of shipping claimed by the Condor was actually split between the Condor and several other types of aircraft with Fliegerführer Atlantik, rather than just the Condor. Also note that I said claimed, rather than actually sunk.

So naval strikes and mining continues as per OTL, as the Condor didn't really do much other than strike single ships not in convoys at low levels in small numbers and then broke up in the maneuver or on landing, leaving something like 4 Condors operational at any one point. So the only thing that really changes is less useless Condors in 1939-42 and some Do26s needing to do BV138 duties.

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Re: What if Germany had better long range sea-air recon?

#25

Post by stg 44 » 08 Apr 2013, 01:07

Old_Fossil wrote:Better than seaplanes would be a Ju88 variant. The Ju88 is already in mass production making it relatively easy to ramp up production of long range version suitable for replacing the Fw200 Kondor. Obviously not the Ju88H. That is impossible without the BMW 801 engines. But it would have been possible, with the Jumo 211J engines, to stretch the fusilage perhaps two meters to install additional internal tanks. The Ju88 D-1 with two 900 liter external tanks had a range of 2,250 miles, about the same as the Fw200. Replace one of the 900 liter tanks with a quartette of SC250 bombs and stretch the fusilage. You can save weight by dropping down from four crewman to three and discard the gondola. Defensive weaponry is unnecessary since the Ju88 is faster than any aircraft in Coastal Command's inventory until late 1941. And even then you can add a "fighter nose" to some of your long-range Ju88's as escorts.

All you need is a quick replacement for the armed Kondor for the critical Fall 1940 to Summer 1941 period when British convoys were at their most vunerable to air attack. With a range of at least 1800 miles this would allow you to reach the Western Approaches outside of single engine fighter range. A Ju88 with a quartette to bombs would be about eight times as effective as a Kondor considering it's greater suitablity as a bomber, survivability, and operational readiness.

In the OTL, about 360 Ju88 Ds were produced by the end of 1940. Most did not have Jumo 211Js, but in this ATL they could be given a higher piority.
Not sure where you'd get that excess Ju88 capacity, considering it was already at capacity....they'd have to form a whole new line of these not standard Ju88s, using only some of the same parts as the A-series. Granted there would be more than the Condors, but they would use up the limited amount of Avgas that the Do26 wouldn't. Also it would have a hard time mounting armament I'd think thank the larger Do 26 or Condor. Also engines were a serious bottle neck for German industry at this time, so the competition for the extra advanced Jumos would take them away from combat units that didn't have enough. The Jumo 205 Diesel engines were much cheaper to make and had an established line with significant experience making it, which would be lost in the conversion to the Jumo 211 series.

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Re: What if Germany had better long range sea-air recon?

#26

Post by Old_Fossil » 08 Apr 2013, 01:51

You don't need much excess production capacity. Many of those Ju88Ds were assigned to FliegerFurher Atlantik anyway. Just make 100 of those Ju88Ds that were made in the OTL longer ranged Kondor equivalents. Avgas is not a problem in 1940 and early 1941. Destroy and extra 200,000 tons of shipping a month (not counting the extra shipping sunk by uboats with more air assets available) and by late 1941 you've sunk over 2,000,000 tons of shipping more than in the OTL at that time. That will have huge knock on affects over the course of the war. Tens of millions of tons of cargo will never be delivered by by those sunk ships.

I love diesel engines too, but getting the resources to massively increase production of seaplanes and Jumo 205s is going much harder politically and economically than expanding Ju88 production.
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Re: What if Germany had better long range sea-air recon?

#27

Post by phylo_roadking » 08 Apr 2013, 01:59

The thing about the Fw 200 and any alternatives...and recce'ing for uboats...is that KG40 did continue to fly Fw 200 recce missions long after they were stopped from flying strike missions :wink:
A Ju88 with a quartette to bombs would be about eight times as effective as a Kondor considering it's greater suitablity as a bomber, survivability, and operational readiness.
Four bombs...actually, more ideally three...means only ONE attack on shipping per sortie 8O The Luftwaffe didn't have the guaranteed accuracy for hitting shipping - which is why the Condor pioneered the tactic of dropping a stick of bombs across a merchant ship so that at least one was close enough to stave in hullplates - they actually scored few DIRECT hits!

So if you reduce the Ju88's strike capability to one stick...once per sortie...are you really improving the Luftwaffe's maritime recce bomber capability?
From what I've read the 300k tons of shipping claimed by the Condor was actually split between the Condor and several other types of aircraft with Fliegerführer Atlantik, rather than just the Condor. Also note that I said claimed, rather than actually sunk.
Here's something ELSE to think about...

Yes, those 200-300,000 tons of shipping figures READ great...but you need to look at the actual SHIPS lost ;) It might for instance turn out that "300,000 tons" is only, say THIRTY vessels of 10,000 tons EACH across HOW many months of operations???

Also - is that tons of shipping...or tons of shipping plus cargo??? How many tons of cargo did a 10,000 ton merchant ship carry?

And it doesn't matter HOW many tons of shipping were sunk - what REALLY hit the British was that they couldn't easily replace it ;) Note I said "replace"...not "build"...for one thing that really affected the British was the Americans' reluctance to release the hundreds of thousands of tons of GERMAN shipping sitting confiscated in U.S. ports since the outbreak of war! IIRC Postan gives the full figures, but only a few thousands tons' of shipping was realesed to the British before December 11th 1941, and so late in the Battle of the Atlantic that it then cost the British a huge amount to refurbish this shipping and make it suitable for crossing the Atlantic again!

If they'd wanted to, the Americans could have made up every ton of what the Fw 200 cost the British OTL with the stroke of a pen...and it would have cost them NOTHING because the Germans had paid for it to be built in the first place, not the Americans!!!
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Re: Shipping

#28

Post by BDV » 08 Apr 2013, 02:50

Let's not forget that British had at their disposal the entirety of the Norwegian merchant fleet, on a deferred compensation basis. Also I am at a loss on why would a neutral take one beligerent's ships and hand them to the opponents?
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Re: Shipping

#29

Post by stg 44 » 08 Apr 2013, 03:39

BDV wrote:Let's not forget that British had at their disposal the entirety of the Norwegian merchant fleet, on a deferred compensation basis. Also I am at a loss on why would a neutral take one beligerent's ships and hand them to the opponents?
The US wasn't a true neutral obviously.
Old_Fossil wrote:You don't need much excess production capacity. Many of those Ju88Ds were assigned to FliegerFurher Atlantik anyway.
When? The D's were based on the A4, which wasn't available until 1941, just as Fliegerführer Atlantik wasn't formed until then:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fliegerf% ... r_Atlantik
So that leaves us with very little in the very important period in July 1940-February 1941.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fliegerf% ... _of_battle
It's certainly arguable that the lack of available and functional aircraft left the unit virtually neutered until 1942, long after they could win the Battle of the Atlantic. By adopting the Do 26 in 1939, they could have had many more units ready than FW200s by early 1941, which a far higher operational number, as something like 4 FW200s were operational at any one time.
Equipment and tactics
The Fw 200 was the main weapon in the early rounds of the Atlantic air war. Its combat prowess rested on three vital capabilities: its ability to find targets, to hit targets and then to evade enemy defences. In 1940 the Fw 200s had only rudimentary capability of finding convoys and other suitable merchant targets. On a typical mission, an Fw 200 would fly about 1,500 km from Bordeaux to look for targets, west of Ireland, which would give the aircraft about three hours to conduct its search. Normally, Condors flew quite low (about 500 – 600 metres off the water), which made it easier to spot ships outlined against the horizon and avoided giving Allied shipping much warning. From this low altitude the Condor could search an area approximately the 320 by 120 km (200 by 75 nautical miles), which several crewman searching for ships with binoculars. In decent weather, which was rare in the Atlantic, the observers might spot a convoy 15–20 km (10–12 miles) away, but cloud cover could reduce this by half. In 1941, improved Fw 200s meant longer range, and a four-hour station (up from three) could be maintained, which increased the search area by 25 per cent. In December 1942, the FuG 200 Hohentweil radar extended the search area to four times that of 1940. The radar could detect a ship 80 km (50 mi) away and its beam was 41 km (25 mi). [25]

There were perennial problems for KG 40, and the other ‘Condor units’. Lack of numbers and serviceability meant there was no guarantee that one or two sorties of three to eight hours would be active when a convoy passed through air space in range of the Luftwaffe. Thus the ability of Fliegerführer Atlantik to find convoys remained sporadic until late in the command’s service.[26]

Further limitations were a result of the aircraft itself. A lack of proper bombsight equipment and poor forward visibility meant the aircraft had to attack from low level. This meant an approach at just 45 metres at 290 kph (180 mph) and then release of bombs at 240 metres (790 ft) from the target. This was known as the “Swedish turnip” tactic by crews. This allowed for a high chance of a direct hit or damaging near miss. The Fw 200 carried four SC 250 kg bombs, ensuring a hit potential. Merchant vessels lacked armour or fire-control systems at that time, so a hit or more would have a high chance of sinking a ship. This meant an average of one ship sunk for every attack made. At low level, it was not uncommon for German crews to achieve three out of four hits. However, many bombs failed to explode at low level, owing to improper fusing of the ordnance. Once the Lotfernrohr 7D bombsight was introduced, more accurate bombing from 3,000 metres (9,840 feet) could take place with an error range of just 91 metres (300 feet). Later Fw 200s were fitted with heavier machine guns and cannon, so that strikes at low level could also damage the superstructure of ships.[25]

Improvements were relatively quick, but the type was a civilian design, converted to military use. Initially Fw 200Bs were built to fly in thin air at high altitude, with no sharp manoeuvring. Kurt Tank – its designer – had made the aircraft’s long range possible by using a light airframe that was two to four tons lighter than its contemporaries. This meant the aircraft did not have fuel tank sealant or armour protection. An under-strength structure contributed to these vulnerabilities, which made the Fw 200 unable to sustain much punishment. The engines were also underpowered, meaning it struggled to stay airborne if one was knocked out. The six unarmoured fuel tanks inside the cabin made it exceptionally prone to bursting into flames. When a Condor attempted to manoeuvre to avoid anti-aircraft fire or enemy fighters, its weak structure could be damaged, causing metal fatigue and cracks, resulting in the loss of the aircraft.[27] In the C variant, major improvements were made to its defensive armament, causing fighters to avoid lengthy duels. However, they operated at low level mostly, to avoid attacks from below. This limited their operational range and options. They could ‘jink’ to throw an enemy aircraft off its aim, but they could not outrun or outturn an opponent. Poor evasion qualities meant the type was not the ideal operational weapon.[28]
The FW200 was not designed to operate the way it was used, unlike the Do26, which could operate at lower levels very well. But again the point is not to bomb, but rather home in the Uboats to do the dirty work, which they did much more effectively than the Condor ever did. Plus the range of the Do 26s was hundreds of miles more and could be extended by meeting up with sea plane tenders to refuel for longer missions and deeper operations.
Old_Fossil wrote: Just make 100 of those Ju88Ds that were made in the OTL longer ranged Kondor equivalents. Avgas is not a problem in 1940 and early 1941. Destroy and extra 200,000 tons of shipping a month (not counting the extra shipping sunk by uboats with more air assets available) and by late 1941 you've sunk over 2,000,000 tons of shipping more than in the OTL at that time. That will have huge knock on affects over the course of the war. Tens of millions of tons of cargo will never be delivered by by those sunk ships.

I love diesel engines too, but getting the resources to massively increase production of seaplanes and Jumo 205s is going much harder politically and economically than expanding Ju88 production.
Avgas was in fact a major issue throughout the war.
http://www.wwiiarchives.net/servlet/act ... /149/288/0
In 1941 Hitler ordered operations scaled down against Britain to save up fuel for Barbarossa. Training was severely cut down due to fuel shortages; in fact the captured fuel in Norway, Holland, Belgium, and France was what kept the LW fuel stocks up enough to launch Barbarossa.
The Jumo 205 and later 207s were the most fuel efficient engine in Germany and I think the world at the time (they set a record for lowest specific fuel consumption). So not only were they diesel, but extremely fuel efficient diesel too, so required far less fuel to fly farther and longer than the FW200 or any other aircraft that needed the expensive and limited Avgas fuel. The Jumo 205s were already in production on a larger scale, including for Lufthansa, just appropriate their 'cut' of production and expand production that had already been online for years, rather than add more for a brand new Jumo 211 engine that only first became available in January 1941 (there shortages of the new 211s for the Ju88A4 for a while).

Plus you have yet to prove that the 'extended' Ju88D's could reach the same range as the Do26's, not to mention for less fuel. The job of sinking ships should be left to the attack bombers closer to shore, like the navalized He111s and Ju88s; attacking convoys in the Atlantic was the job of the Uboats, that couldn't do that job due to lack of eyes on the targets. Have more and better eyes in 1940 and the Uboat effectiveness goes up exponentially when it really matters and doesn't cut into Ju88A4 production. When you try and have an aircraft be both a long range naval recon unit AND attack bomber for deep bombing operations, it doesn't neither job well. Its much more effective to have a proper recon unit for the Uboats and have shorter range attack bombers for closer to shore operations where targets were plentiful.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Jumo_205
http://www.enginehistory.org/Diesels/CH4.pdf

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Re: What if Germany had better long range sea-air recon?

#30

Post by Old_Fossil » 08 Apr 2013, 04:09

The Jumo 211J and Ju88 A4 were in the Battle of Britain, if only at the tail end.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ju88

If there were a major committment to long range sea-air recon then FliegerFuhrer Atlantic would have been established earlier in your ATL.

Fuel will not be a limiting issue until after Barbarossa.

Developing a long range Ju88 after the fall of France is a much more likely scenario than deciding to invest scarce resources in 1939 for flying boats with little prospect of reaching the Atlantic from bases in Germany.
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