You have to be very careful of wikipedia sometimes; the A4 airframe saw service in October 1940, which was the Ju 88A5; the Jumo 211J had to wait until January 1941 and the 'full' A4 went into action then.Old_Fossil wrote:The Jumo 211J and Ju88 A4 were in the Battle of Britain, if only at the tail end.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ju88
Yep, that's the goal.Old_Fossil wrote: If there were a major committment to long range sea-air recon then FliegerFührer Atlantic would have been established earlier in your ATL.
No it was a limiting factor in getting ready for the huge usage rates of Barbarossa; they had to tone down operations to conserve fuel to make sure they had enough, which they just barely did.Old_Fossil wrote: Fuel will not be a limiting issue until after Barbarossa.
The need for long range recon for naval purposes in the North Sea is very much an issue, which is why they had so many sea planes historically for the Norwegian Campaign. Unfortunately because of Göring's very poor relationship with Raeder, Göring never allowed the resources to be put into something like the Do 26, because he was monopolizing Dornier production capacity with the useless Do 17 design and older floatplane designs; he didn't want to use the resources to develop a useful model and instead when forced to decided on letting the Focke-Wulf entry into the role stand instead of making a major commitment; the FW 200 was a stopgap when Hitler forced him to help the Uboats.Old_Fossil wrote: 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.
So the change will have to be someone's attitude somewhere. Maybe the Ju 88 program actually isn't plagued with production problems from day one, so Dornier phases out the Do 17 in 1939-40 as planned in favor of the Ju88, so has spare capacity and can make the Do 26? Or someone at the LW pushes for greater cooperation with the Kriegsmarine. Given that this thread is about the change being that the LW produces the Do 26, it doesn't matter if a Ju 88 option is more likely or even technically feasible in 1940-41; rather, we are instead focusing on going with the best aircraft option available in 1939 to explore the results of that decision, rather than bickering over whether its likely or not.