What if Ural Bomber designs as good as B-17?

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Re: What if Ural Bomber designs as good as B-17?

#31

Post by stg 44 » 15 Apr 2014, 23:23

phylo_roadking wrote: Er....there IS a slight difference between the reach of 18th century monarchies and 20th century governments! Seriously, Peter Laurie is a very good read for LOTS of relevant WWII reasons...and should be very cheap too!

P.S. don't forget the British government had "recently" done successfully exactly what it planned to do in 1940 etc. - insulate itself from a restless population and carry on the functions of government notwithstanding...the interwar General Strike :wink:
Sure, but there is a limit to what a population can take in terms of austerity; the British government was certainly worried about rationing in WW1 for instance. Also the strike you mention involved a certain class, thus limiting the reach of social unrest; if there is only enough for the government elites and certain protected classes (soldiers and police) then the problem is going to be much more widespread. This is the reason Hitler made damn sure the German people got enough to eat throughout the war.


phylo_roadking wrote: The point is THAT amount of effort wasn't enough to close ONE port....how many UK ports does the Luftwaffe need to close??? We had/have dozens of large ones, and hundreds of small ones!
Mersey and Clyde would cut off over 90% of British imports. The British had shut all but the major Western ports to trans-Atlantic shipping. The small ports are meaningless in terms of imports because they didn't have enough inland rail connections to import any great volume nor oil stations to bring in fuel; after the fall of France Britain was at an all time low in terms of fuel, so was potentially very vulnerable to having the major port areas shut down. AFAIK there were three major import areas Bristol/Avonmounth, the Clyde (Glasgow/Clydeside), and Merseyside (Elsmere station), shut those down and Britain is in trouble.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_Blitz
As well as providing anchorage for naval ships from many nations, the Mersey's ports and dockers would handle over 90 per cent of all the war material brought into Britain from abroad with some 75 million tons passing through its 11 miles (18 km) of quays. Liverpool was the eastern end of a Transatlantic chain of supplies from North America, without which Britain could not have pursued the war.
phylo_roadking wrote: Exactly - you only have in hand enough extra power to improve one or two factors - not range AND bombload AND armour AND defensive armament and gunners! 8O ...AND strength/weight of airframe to carry it all...
Sure, range and payload with the basic armor and armament being enough.

phylo_roadking wrote: Exccept you're fighting against TWO things...

1/ you can't simply trade weight saved in smaller wings for extra payload weight and carrying capacity in volume....you still need to generate lift for the extra weight and extra size!
Worked just fine for the B17, Short Stirling, Lancaster, and Halifax bombers, which were all heavier than the Ural Bombers (except the B17 vs Ju89), yet had much smaller wing area:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Lanc ... aster_I.29
Wingspan: 102 ft 0 in (31.09 m)
Wing area: 1,297 sq ft (120.5 m²)

Empty weight: 36,457 lb (16,571 kg)
Loaded weight: 68,000 lb (30,909 kg) [43]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornier_D ... o_19_V2.29
Wingspan: 35.00 m (114 ft 10 in)
Wing area: 162 m² (1,744 ft²)

Empty weight: 11,865 kg (26,158 lb)
Loaded weight: 18,500 kg (40,785 lb)
Major difference there

We can even include the He177:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinkel_H ... -5.2FR2.29
Wingspan: 31.44 m (103 ft 1¾ in)
Wing area: 100.00 m² (1,076.40 ft²)

Empty weight: 16,800 kg (37,038 lb)
Loaded weight: 32,000 kg (70,548 lb)
phylo_roadking wrote: 2/ you've missed that large, wide chord wings was how German designers "did" things through the 1930s; to have them doing something else, you need for them to realise any disadvantages FAR earlier I.E. during the big flyingboat designing days of the late 1920s...and THEN spend the early and mid 1930s designing small, narrow-chord wings into "proving" design after proving design BEFORE reaching the pinnacle of German aviation design, a four-engined strategic bomber...

Thing is - that change CAN'T come early enough because of the restrictions built into the Treaty of Versailles on the German aero engine industry and the size of ebngines it could build through the 1920s and very early '30s. The 1920s German learning experience on "big" aviation was large wings holding lots of low- and mid-powered engines.

What I'm getting as is that there 's little or no way short of a "Road to Damascus" revelation or a "Eureka moment" that German aviation designers start the 1930s intending to come out the far end of the decade with the sort of wing you want.
Do you have a source for the claim that the large wide chord wings were what was 'done'? Or was that the result of not having access to higher powered engines that would have made them unnecessary? I understand your point about the delayed design work of due to Versailles, but we have to ask were the bad designs a function of not having access to high enough powered engines or not knowing better; if you have a source on that I would greatly appreciate it.
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Re: What if Ural Bomber designs as good as B-17?

#32

Post by phylo_roadking » 15 Apr 2014, 23:25

A couple dozen DB 600 engines would break the Jagdwaffe?
Except it's not a couple of dozen - look at the numbers you've been talking - 300+ aircraft? Times four...then there's whole engines as spare installations...AND complete sets of parts as shelf spares...
Mersey and Clyde would cut off over 90% of British imports. The British had shut all but the major Western ports to trans-Atlantic shipping.
Not at the start of the war...and not actually until 1941 when Max Horton closed the Western Approaches for a couple of months at the height of the uboat campaign....which within a very few months swung Britain's way again. All ports serving or that could be served by the Northern Approaches remained open.
The small ports are meaningless in terms of imports because they didn't have enough inland rail connections to import any great volume nor oil stations to bring in fuel; after the fall of France Britain was at an all time low in terms of fuel, so was potentially very vulnerable to having the major port areas shut down.


Actually - this one is 100% wrong...and I didn't actually know it until last year and a thread on here. Britain was actually swimming with oil and various fuel grades in 1940....we were carrying it to Europe for the French in our tanker fleet and the chartered Norwegian tanker fleet! And suddenly....no French allies to accept it! :lol:
AFAIK there were three major import areas Bristol/Avonmounth, the Clyde (Glasgow/Clydeside), and Merseyside (Elsmere station), shut those down and Britain is in trouble.
No; and this time you can take HITLER'S word on it....he specifies the Germans' target ports on his two Directives on the economic war. There was a list of nearly a dozen major ports....and THEN a list of twice as many secondary ports.
Sure, range and payload with the basic armor and armament being enough.
...but with no "extra" defensive armament or armour, THEN you get attrited by Fighter Command.
Worked just fine for the B17, Short Stirling, Lancaster, and Halifax bombers, which were all heavier than the Ural Bombers (except the B17 vs Ju89), yet had much smaller wing area:
...except it didn't "work fine" for them - the B17 AND the Stirling both had to trade bombload for range in the balance equation when flying to distant targets...and the B17 didn't have that large a bombload to begin with -nor could it be "stretched" because of the basic design of the aircraft.

The Halifax wasn't really regarded as a success - which it why it eventually got relegated to ferry and transport and tug duties. It didn't have the ceiling the Lancaster did.

The Lancaster was a success - AND it's various capacities in the "balance" could be stretched -

1/ because it was successively re-engined with more powerful Merlin marks, and

2/ the actual physical design of the aircraft meant that its carrying volume could be stretched; unlike ALL the others mentioned.

But even then - to achieve it's full potential by carrying the 22,000lb Grand Slam...it still had to have armour pulled out, and turrets removed.
Do you have a source for the claim that the large wide chord wings were what was 'done'? Or was that the result of not having access to higher powered engines that would have made them unnecessary? I understand your point about the delayed design work of due to Versailles, but we have to ask were the bad designs a function of not having access to high enough powered engines or not knowing better; if you have a source on that I would greatly appreciate it.
Yes - E.R. Hooton, "Phoenix Triumphant" - he spends a whole chapter discussing the dismantling of the German aviation and aero engine industry post-Versailles, and all the limits of German engine manufacturing and what they entailed. One example was the Dornier Do-X...and all those ten engines LOL German designers went to heavy, wide chord wings holding lots of "little" engines...because right up to the 1930s they COULDN'T under the Treaty build more powerful engines; even after that, for some time, the restrictions on German aero engine development stayed in place longest - they had to licence foreign designs first. He THEN brings the issues up in subsequent chapters dealing with German aviation through the Lipetsk years etc....

Of course they knew better and knew there WAS better - they had to buy in Napier Lions and RR Kestrels for their "constabulary aircraft" in the 1920s and every early 30s...but they weren't allowed to crack them open :lol: If they broke, or needed major servicing - they had to crate them and send them back to the UK!!! 8O
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Re: What if Ural Bomber designs as good as B-17?

#33

Post by stg 44 » 15 Apr 2014, 23:30

phylo_roadking wrote:
A couple dozen DB 600 engines would break the Jagdwaffe?
Except it's not a couple of dozen - look at the numbers you've been talking - 300+ aircraft? Times four...then there's whole engines as spare installations...AND complete sets of parts as shelf spares...
I'm talking about the prototype phase. The DB600 engine was out of production by late 1937. Having the DB600 available during the design phase in 1934 and then available for the prototypes of the Ural Bombers (like it was for the second Ju89 prototype), would have been a pittance in terms of output. A couple dozen would fit three prototypes each and the older prototypes could have their engines removed and shifted to later model prototypes in testing.

By 1939-40 there would be plenty of Jumo 211Bs with 1200hp to power all of the production models especially if we avoid making Do17s and some Ju88s. There would also be the 1200hp Bramo engines saved from the Do17s, the same engine that powered the B17 produced under license in Germany, while without the Do215s there would DB601 engines of 1175hp. Saving some 600 Do17s/215s would net enough 1000-1200hp engines for 300 heavy bombers. Cut out some Ju88s and then there are the 1200hp Jumo 211Bs. Cut out the Do217s in 1940-41 and we have BMW 801s at 1560hp.

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Re: What if Ural Bomber designs as good as B-17?

#34

Post by stg 44 » 16 Apr 2014, 00:18

phylo_roadking wrote:
Mersey and Clyde would cut off over 90% of British imports. The British had shut all but the major Western ports to trans-Atlantic shipping.
Not at the start of the war...and not actually until 1941 when Max Horton closed the Western Approaches for a couple of months at the height of the uboat campaign....which within a very few months swung Britain's way again. All ports serving or that could be served by the Northern Approaches remained open.
The UK Civil Series volume on shipping and ports in WW2 contradicts this; after the Fall of France the Western Ports were the only ones authorized to handle trans atlantic shipping due to the threat of the LW, mines, and Uboats in the English Channel and on the East Coast. Of the numbers listed Merseyside took about 87% of imports, Clydeside about 6-7%, and the rest went to the Bristol Channel ports.

phylo_roadking wrote:
The small ports are meaningless in terms of imports because they didn't have enough inland rail connections to import any great volume nor oil stations to bring in fuel; after the fall of France Britain was at an all time low in terms of fuel, so was potentially very vulnerable to having the major port areas shut down.


Actually - this one is 100% wrong...and I didn't actually know it until last year and a thread on here. Britain was actually swimming with oil and various fuel grades in 1940....we were carrying it to Europe for the French in our tanker fleet and the chartered Norwegian tanker fleet! And suddenly....no French allies to accept it! :lol:
Well, you can say the UK Civil Series is wrong all you want, the Oil volume covers this issue in depth and specifically mentions how after the fall of France British fuel reserves had sunk to 3 million tons, which was a wartime low and caused a minor panic; can you post the link to the thread you are talking about?


phylo_roadking wrote:
AFAIK there were three major import areas Bristol/Avonmounth, the Clyde (Glasgow/Clydeside), and Merseyside (Elsmere station), shut those down and Britain is in trouble.
No; and this time you can take HITLER'S word on it....he specifies the Germans' target ports on his two Directives on the economic war. There was a list of nearly a dozen major ports....and THEN a list of twice as many secondary ports.
Hitler was clearly wrong about a lot of things; even the notoriously poor LW intelligence branch suggested honing its port attacks according to the "Germany and the Second World War" series.


phylo_roadking wrote:
Worked just fine for the B17, Short Stirling, Lancaster, and Halifax bombers, which were all heavier than the Ural Bombers (except the B17 vs Ju89), yet had much smaller wing area:
...except it didn't "work fine" for them - the B17 AND the Stirling both had to trade bombload for range in the balance equation when flying to distant targets...and the B17 didn't have that large a bombload to begin with -nor could it be "stretched" because of the basic design of the aircraft.

The Halifax wasn't really regarded as a success - which it why it eventually got relegated to ferry and transport and tug duties. It didn't have the ceiling the Lancaster did.

The Lancaster was a success - AND it's various capacities in the "balance" could be stretched -

1/ because it was successively re-engined with more powerful Merlin marks, and

2/ the actual physical design of the aircraft meant that its carrying volume could be stretched; unlike ALL the others mentioned.

But even then - to achieve it's full potential by carrying the 22,000lb Grand Slam...it still had to have armour pulled out, and turrets removed.
It did work fine in the sense that they were better than the Ural Bombers. The major problem with the B17 and range was its heavy armor and defensive gun load in addition to its fuel hungry engines. The Halifax I cannot comment on further due to not being familiar with it. My entire point, which you aren't exactly addressing here, is that the smaller wing area would be just fine for a heavier payload and longer range than the historical Ural Bombers, because the actual successful strategic bombers of WW2 had smaller wing areas with higher powered engines and were successful in combat. The Ural Bombers were designed around very low hp engines and were compromised in their design as a result; it didn't need to be that way had they had access to the DB600 in the design phase, as it would have been in production in time for the prototypes, with further engines improvements showing up during the development stage of the Ural Bomber designs which would enhance them like you mention the better Merlins did for the Lancaster.





phylo_roadking wrote:
Do you have a source for the claim that the large wide chord wings were what was 'done'? Or was that the result of not having access to higher powered engines that would have made them unnecessary? I understand your point about the delayed design work of due to Versailles, but we have to ask were the bad designs a function of not having access to high enough powered engines or not knowing better; if you have a source on that I would greatly appreciate it.
Yes - E.R. Hooton, "Phoenix Triumphant" - he spends a whole chapter discussing the dismantling of the German aviation and aero engine industry post-Versailles, and all the limits of German engine manufacturing and what they entailed. One example was the Dornier Do-X...and all those ten engines LOL German designers went to heavy, wide chord wings holding lots of "little" engines...because right up to the 1930s they COULDN'T under the Treaty build more powerful engines; even after that, for some time, the restrictions on German aero engine development stayed in place longest - they had to licence foreign designs first. He THEN brings the issues up in subsequent chapters dealing with German aviation through the Lipetsk years etc....

Of course they knew better and knew there WAS better - they had to buy in Napier Lions and RR Kestrels for their "constabulary aircraft" in the 1920s and every early 30s...but they weren't allowed to crack them open :lol: If they broke, or needed major servicing - they had to crate them and send them back to the UK!!! 8O
Thanks for proving my point. They used those big wings due to lack of higher powered engines; make the 1000hp DB600 available during the design request and the design changes to take advantage of the increased horsepower and lift increase

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Re: What if Ural Bomber designs as good as B-17?

#35

Post by phylo_roadking » 16 Apr 2014, 00:40

The UK Civil Series volume on shipping and ports in WW2 contradicts this; after the Fall of France the Western Ports were the only ones authorized to handle trans atlantic shipping due to the threat of the LW, mines, and Uboats in the English Channel and on the East Coast. Of the numbers listed Merseyside took about 87% of imports, Clydeside about 6-7%, and the rest went to the Bristol Channel ports.
....yes, but do you realise just how many individual ports I.E. individual targets...stopping this traffic means? "Merseyside" means Birkenhead as well as Liverpool, and Manchester via the ship canal, for example. The Bristol Channel doesn't just mean Bristol and Avonmouth, it means all the South Wales ports. Ditto for Clydeside, that doesn't JUST mean Glasgow.
Well, you can say the UK Civil Series is wrong all you want, the Oil volume covers this issue in depth and specifically mentions how after the fall of France British fuel reserves had sunk to 3 million tons, which was a wartime low and caused a minor panic; can you post the link to the thread you are talking about?
If I can find it I will indeed; it suprised me too. Possibly however that comment is accounted for by the huge amounts intended for France that were still on the high seas when France fell - it would have taken x-amount of time to arrive!
Hitler was clearly wrong about a lot of things; even the notoriously poor LW intelligence branch suggested honing its port attacks according to the "Germany and the Second World War" series.
Yes - but the thing is the GERMANS will be targetting British ports depending on how the Germans saw the problem....not how the British were handling things :wink:
It did work fine in the sense that they were better than the Ural Bombers. The major problem with the B17 and range was its heavy armor and defensive gun load in addition to its fuel hungry engines
...and the fact that it's bombload physically couldn't be improved because of the bifurcated bombbay and their locations buried in the main spars :( Same sort of problem as the He 111.
My entire point, which you aren't exactly addressing here, is that the smaller wing area would be just fine for a heavier payload and longer range than the historical Ural Bombers, because the actual successful strategic bombers of WW2 had smaller wing areas with higher powered engines and were successful in combat.
Yes - but you're assuming that German designers would actually THINK in the same way others did. They had broadly two VERY different learning curves....and 193/4-1939 doesn't give German designers much time for type-after-type experimentation. Not only do they have to UN-learn all the lessons of the 1920s....they THEN have to start learning NEW lessons all over again. Do you really, seriously, see just five years as being enough to go from something like the Do-X....to something like the B17 or Lancaster??? 8O Remember - German designers WEREN'T experimenting with larger aircraft at Lipetsk and through the 1920s...
Thanks for proving my point. They used those big wings due to lack of higher powered engines; make the 1000hp DB600 available during the design request and the design changes to take advantage of the increased horsepower and lift increase
But see my point above - five years - actually...less by the time they get their hands on DB600s...is enough to produce a successful design??? Take a look at ALL the failures that German designers turned out in the 1930s - the Ural Bombers were not the only flops. When you get your hands on Hooton he discusses quite a few of them. German designers HISTORICALLY fell over their own feet time after time trying to compress TWO decades of progressive development into less than one - and here you think they're going to go from aircraft the size of the Ju52....and the clunkiness of the Do-X....to a successful four-engined strategic bomber - in five years? Well...actually less by the time the RLM selects prime contractors, issues specs etc.

Look at the Fw200 for example, in its original passenger carrying form; that was the absolute pinnacle of German mid-1930s aviation design when it first prototyped - and came with a whole series of major issues; the rotating brake plate/tearing hydraulic lines issue? The overcomplicated and fragile undercarriages? The brakes "overcentering" and sticking on....and brake linings going on fire...sometimes inside the engine nacelles? The fuselage prone to catastrophic breaking just behind the main wing spar AND just forwarrd of the tail? These weren't faults that arose because of corner-cutting, or tailoring designs to certain requirments - these were just plain bad design elements.

EVERY nation's aviation industry had/has failures; but not every nation's aviation industry lost almost a full decade of experimentation and development in a fast changing industry.

And it wasn't just aircraft - it happened with German naval shipping too! When German designers started designing destroyers again....they could only pick up where they left off, technically...and produced basically WWI designs that came with a lot of inherent problems - because they'd lost so much progressive development time.
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Re: What if Ural Bomber designs as good as B-17?

#36

Post by stg 44 » 17 Apr 2014, 21:53

phylo_roadking wrote: ....yes, but do you realise just how many individual ports I.E. individual targets...stopping this traffic means? "Merseyside" means Birkenhead as well as Liverpool, and Manchester via the ship canal, for example. The Bristol Channel doesn't just mean Bristol and Avonmouth, it means all the South Wales ports. Ditto for Clydeside, that doesn't JUST mean Glasgow.
If you'll recall I suggested mining the mouth of the river, which would stop up all the ports, just as what happened when the Germans mines the Thames in the early months of the war before a mine was recovered after it was misdeployed and for some reason lacked an anti-tamped mechanism. The Thames was shut down at the mouth for two weeks after an entire coastal convoy was lost to magnetic mines and there was a panic about the effect on shipping this would have; of course the Brits got extremely lucky and managed to recover one by October 1939 IIRC, which made it less of a war winning weapon and more a nuisance.


phylo_roadking wrote: If I can find it I will indeed; it suprised me too. Possibly however that comment is accounted for by the huge amounts intended for France that were still on the high seas when France fell - it would have taken x-amount of time to arrive!
If you can I would appreciate it, because I haven't found any info about that.


phylo_roadking wrote: Yes - but the thing is the GERMANS will be targetting British ports depending on how the Germans saw the problem....not how the British were handling things :wink:
Part of the issue was that Goering and Jeschonnek did whatever Hitler wanted and offered him no alternative strategy; have Wever survive and we get an alternative strategy offered, instead of the LW waiting on Hitler to devise one himself. There was a crisis after the Fall of France as Jeschonnek waiting on orders instead of passing on the suggestions offered by his intelligence branch. Felmy was already gone, so he had no voice in the matter, despite being the only one that had done pre-war research on just this issue.


phylo_roadking wrote: ...and the fact that it's bombload physically couldn't be improved because of the bifurcated bombbay and their locations buried in the main spars :( Same sort of problem as the He 111.
That's not so much of an issue given the possibility of being able to use external bomb racks, just as the B17 did. The distances from Northern France and the Lowlands to Britain is much shorter than from Britain to Germany. Even using overloads a strategic bomber could still reach its target given the short ranges involved, which is why the historical medium bombers Germany had were able to use their full war loads against targets like Liverpool historically (though not overloads).


phylo_roadking wrote: Yes - but you're assuming that German designers would actually THINK in the same way others did. They had broadly two VERY different learning curves....and 193/4-1939 doesn't give German designers much time for type-after-type experimentation. Not only do they have to UN-learn all the lessons of the 1920s....they THEN have to start learning NEW lessons all over again. Do you really, seriously, see just five years as being enough to go from something like the Do-X....to something like the B17 or Lancaster??? 8O Remember - German designers WEREN'T experimenting with larger aircraft at Lipetsk and through the 1920s...
B17 perhaps, but not Lancaster. Yet 2 years after the Ural Bomber spec was issued the Bomber A spec turned up the advanced He177, which, engine issues not withstanding, was as capable as the Lancaster. I agree that 1934 is a short time frame, but having better engines to work with in the design phase would make it easier to get something like the B17 without needing to generate all that extra lift to compensate for weak engines with huge wings. Plus there is the development period in the prototype phase; it took the B17 some time in development to become the B17 we know, it wasn't perfect off the drawing board.


phylo_roadking wrote: But see my point above - five years - actually...less by the time they get their hands on DB600s...is enough to produce a successful design??? Take a look at ALL the failures that German designers turned out in the 1930s - the Ural Bombers were not the only flops. When you get your hands on Hooton he discusses quite a few of them. German designers HISTORICALLY fell over their own feet time after time trying to compress TWO decades of progressive development into less than one - and here you think they're going to go from aircraft the size of the Ju52....and the clunkiness of the Do-X....to a successful four-engined strategic bomber - in five years? Well...actually less by the time the RLM selects prime contractors, issues specs etc.

Look at the Fw200 for example, in its original passenger carrying form; that was the absolute pinnacle of German mid-1930s aviation design when it first prototyped - and came with a whole series of major issues; the rotating brake plate/tearing hydraulic lines issue? The overcomplicated and fragile undercarriages? The brakes "overcentering" and sticking on....and brake linings going on fire...sometimes inside the engine nacelles? The fuselage prone to catastrophic breaking just behind the main wing spar AND just forwarrd of the tail? These weren't faults that arose because of corner-cutting, or tailoring designs to certain requirments - these were just plain bad design elements.

EVERY nation's aviation industry had/has failures; but not every nation's aviation industry lost almost a full decade of experimentation and development in a fast changing industry.

And it wasn't just aircraft - it happened with German naval shipping too! When German designers started designing destroyers again....they could only pick up where they left off, technically...and produced basically WWI designs that came with a lot of inherent problems - because they'd lost so much progressive development time.
You make some very good points here; all I can say is what I've said above. The He177 came out of a design 2 years later than the Ural Bomber and Heinkel had no more experience with heavy aircraft than Dornier; the Do17 had already come out in 1934 and the He111 had come out in 1936, yet Heinkel managed to design a bomber in 1936 which equaled the Lancaster but for its engine issues (I suppose it equalled the Manchester...).

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Re: What if Ural Bomber designs as good as B-17?

#37

Post by BDV » 17 Apr 2014, 22:40

Also, the germans "had" a B17 - like (well, more B24-like) plane available. The MB162. Just that they could not be bothered to instruct the french factory to build them.

Like with the self-propelled GPFs, Somuas, Dewoitines, etc etc etc.
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Re: What if Ural Bomber designs as good as B-17?

#38

Post by phylo_roadking » 17 Apr 2014, 22:41

If you'll recall I suggested mining the mouth of the river, which would stop up all the ports, just as what happened when the Germans mines the Thames in the early months of the war before a mine was recovered after it was misdeployed and for some reason lacked an anti-tamped mechanism. The Thames was shut down at the mouth for two weeks after an entire coastal convoy was lost to magnetic mines and there was a panic about the effect on shipping this would have
Well, it would be the first time I've heard of an entire convoy lost to mines! But you do realise that "coastal convoys" could be as small as two daily coal boats heading to battersea power station, something of that size?

As for "the Thames being shut down at the mouth" - again I'd love to hear more about that....are you sure that's not getting confused with the introduction of prioritisation of using the Swept War Channel in and out of the Thames Estuary to north and south?
Part of the issue was that Goering and Jeschonnek did whatever Hitler wanted and offered him no alternative strategy; have Wever survive and we get an alternative strategy offered, instead of the LW waiting on Hitler to devise one himself. There was a crisis after the Fall of France as Jeschonnek waiting on orders instead of passing on the suggestions offered by his intelligence branch. Felmy was already gone, so he had no voice in the matter, despite being the only one that had done pre-war research on just this issue.
Well, Felmy's going to go after the Mechelin incdent, whether Wever's there or not!
That's not so much of an issue given the possibility of being able to use external bomb racks, just as the B17 did. The distances from Northern France and the Lowlands to Britain is much shorter than from Britain to Germany.
Really? Take a map and measure Bomber Command's fields in Norfolk to, say Bremen or the Ruhr....the range of operations' "Option" (C, IIRC) selected from those given to them in 1935-6 by the Air Staff when it came to allocating monies for aircraft development...with the distance from France and the Low Countries to port targets in WESTERN Britain.
B17 perhaps, but not Lancaster. Yet 2 years after the Ural Bomber spec was issued the Bomber A spec turned up the advanced He177, which, engine issues not withstanding, was as capable as the Lancaster.
Really? What was the maximum bombload of the He 177?
I agree that 1934 is a short time frame, but having better engines to work with in the design phase would make it easier to get something like the B17 without needing to generate all that extra lift to compensate for weak engines with huge wings. Plus there is the development period in the prototype phase; it took the B17 some time in development to become the B17 we know
That's my point - look at the amount of lead-time the B17 to to get into the air and into service...with NO decade-long break in the development path of American aviation...excess of power won't cut years off the time needed for t=german designers to stop dpoing things one way and stat doing them another - AND to get it right.
the Do17 had already come out in 1934 and the He111 had come out in 1936, yet Heinkel managed to design a bomber in 1936 which equaled the Lancaster but for its engine issues (I suppose it equalled the Manchester...)
To be fair - hardly IN 1936. they only began work after the contract was awarded in LATE 1936...and they didn't get the first V1 prototype into metal until 1939. That's not actually designing it IN 1936....that's designing it 1936-1939!

And remember - leaving aside the unreliability issues with the engines...which actually didn't surface in the V1 aircraft :P (possibly as a result of its restricted, early testing regime...?) - it didn't come up to "Bomber A" performance specifications!. That's not an utroubled gestation you know - and when series p[roduction of a decent version, the A-3, DID begin...eventually!...it's production rate was painfully slow - five a month!!!
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Re: What if Ural Bomber designs as good as B-17?

#39

Post by phylo_roadking » 17 Apr 2014, 22:54

Also, the germans "had" a B17 - like (well, more B24-like) plane available. The MB162. Just that they could not be bothered to instruct the french factory to build them.
To be fair - not really "available". The single prototype had flown, there was still a lot more development to do. The design itself was problematic as the rest of the war was to show - it was certainly faster than the B17...but it was MUCH weaker-armed :( Which means that "balance" equation would catch it out somewhere - that speed was going to have to be traded off against extra weight in the end - defensive armament and gunners - as the bombload couldn't really be touched, it was a relatively average 7,900lbs.

As of 1940 it was going to require maybe another 12-18 months to reach full production state I.E. around the same time the He 177 A3 was going to be available ;) If France hadn't fallen, it was planned to bring it into service in 1941...but historically, the French avaiation industry didn't start making aircraft and engines for the Germans until after an agreement with the Germans was reached in the Autumn of 1940, so 5-6 months had already been lost, possibly pushing production into 1942 even if there were no hurdles or issues along the way.

Then there's issues such as...could Bloch maintain a decent rate of production? When French production of the Ju52 was begun for the germans as part of that agreement, production rates and totals manufactured were quite low.
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Re: What if Ural Bomber designs as good as B-17?

#40

Post by BDV » 18 Apr 2014, 18:26

phylo_roadking wrote:To be fair [the MB162 was]- not really "available". The single prototype had flown, there was still a lot more development to do. The design itself was problematic as the rest of the war was to show - it was certainly faster than the B17...but it was MUCH weaker-armed :( Which means that "balance" equation would catch it out somewhere - that speed was going to have to be traded off against extra weight in the end - defensive armament and gunners - as the bombload couldn't really be touched, it was a relatively average 7,900lbs.
AFAIK, there had been few (3?) civilian version MB162s built, which is why the prototype behaved so well. In any case, by June 20 1940, the MB162 was already a better plane that He177 was ever going to be. It behooves the RML?LW honchos to evaluate for and come to that realization.

As of 1940 it was going to require maybe another 12-18 months to reach full production state I.E. around the same time the He 177 A3 was going to be available ;) If France hadn't fallen, it was planned to bring it into service in 1941...but historically, the French avaiation industry didn't start making aircraft and engines for the Germans until after an agreement with the Germans was reached in the Autumn of 1940, so 5-6 months had already been lost, possibly pushing production into 1942 even if there were no hurdles or issues along the way.
Yeah, only one of the many, many instances of Nazis making a complete hash from the unexpected bounty of the french armament industry. German programmes didn't fare much better once the pre-nazi plans ran their course and pre-nazi technocrats were run out on a rail.

Back to the discussion at hand. Also, when germans went about weapons development incrementally, they usually got decent pieces out of their efforts: the Do17, He177, the Bf109. It is the technological jumps that they completely messed up, in many many situations. Only aviation wise the Ju88, the Me210, the He177 (of course) are some of the bigger ones.

One can mutatis mutandis expand the discussion to submarines and armor.

It is very doubtful that they could "stick the landing" on the 4 engine bomber.

Then there's issues such as...could Bloch maintain a decent rate of production? When French production of the Ju52 was begun for the germans as part of that agreement, production rates and totals manufactured were quite low.
Surely, if the appropriate resources are made available? Production for all french weapon systems was to be in large numbers - like for a multimillion man army, no?

And to the french "Tante Ju"s, it brings up the standard nazi imbecility applicable to the situation. What was wrong with Potez 62? Instead retool, reorganize, retrain, and start producing a completely new (for the builders) plane - BECAUSE?
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Re: What if Ural Bomber designs as good as B-17?

#41

Post by phylo_roadking » 18 Apr 2014, 22:15

AFAIK, there had been few (3?) civilian version MB162s built, which is why the prototype behaved so well. In any case, by June 20 1940, the MB162 was already a better plane that He177 was ever going to be. It behooves the RML?LW honchos to evaluate for and come to that realization.
Oh it behaved well as an airliner....and went into production POST-war almost immediately. But the point is that from a standing start in 1940, the military version would need a beefed-up defensive armament for mid and late-war conditions over what the french spec'd prior to 1940, so there are changes to be made to the original, and V2 or V3 prototyoes built and tested. Whether its a better plane or not - is it going to be available in its finished prodution form BEFORE the He-177 A-3? That's very doubtful.
Surely, if the appropriate resources are made available? Production for all french weapon systems was to be in large numbers - like for a multimillion man army, no?
The French aviation industry wasn't like that, it was still cottage industry size by the beginning of the war...which was why they bought everything America could offer and they could get their hands on - to allow their domestic industry to catch up in design terms AND ramp up production. There's a couple of decent threads somewhere on all this.

And don't forget - the few Blochs that had been built could hardly be described as a production line as yet...
And to the french "Tante Ju"s, it brings up the standard nazi imbecility applicable to the situation. What was wrong with Potez 62? Instead retool, reorganize, retrain, and start producing a completely new (for the builders) plane - BECAUSE?
1/ the Germans had developed a lot of ground and loading procedures, special equipment for loading and for various configurations of cargo etc. for the Ju52, and

2/ the factory that eventually ended up building them for the Germans began by setting up a "production" line to repair them after Holland etc - just as Fokker had done in Holland in the summer of 1940. From THERE it was a relatively small step to producing them.
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Re: What if Ural Bomber designs as good as B-17?

#42

Post by phylo_roadking » 19 Apr 2014, 00:21

Something was niggling me about some of the above, so I checked Nowarra's book on the Ju52...

The Wiesbaden Agreement , where the Vichy government agreed to built 2000 aircraft for Nazi Germany, wasn't signed in late Autumn 1940 - it wasn't signed until the end of July 1941!!!!

The French knew the Bloch wasn't going to be coming into service until 1941, as of May 1940...another year. So add a year to July 1941 and the Bloch is definitely not going to come into service before the He-177. It may have been a superior aircraft - but the RLM/LW were ALREADY years late getting themselves a strategic bomber. They're not going to divert resources away from anything vital to have a strategic bomber come into service even later.
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Re: What if Ural Bomber designs as good as B-17?

#43

Post by BDV » 22 Apr 2014, 20:28

phylo_roadking wrote:The Wiesbaden Agreement , where the Vichy government agreed to built 2000 aircraft for Nazi Germany, wasn't signed in late Autumn 1940 - it wasn't signed until the end of July 1941!!!!
But it does not require ASBs for some-such agreement to be signed in September 1940, once it becomes obvious that Great Britain will hold out. My conjecture is that Nazi Germany saw zero or even negative benefit from helping France maintain a cutting edge air-industry at the Reich's expense.

Such consideration would have been sensible ONLY IF a peacetime consideration. Losing the war with Britain makes the status of the french air-industry moot (although some Machiavellian implications of French maintaining potential martial prowess in case of German loss can be predicted - so an added incentive to maintain French aero industry).

The French knew the Bloch wasn't going to be coming into service until 1941, as of May 1940...another year. So add a year to July 1941 and the Bloch is definitely not going to come into service before the He-177. It may have been a superior aircraft - but the RLM/LW were ALREADY years late getting themselves a strategic bomber. They're not going to divert resources away from anything vital to have a strategic bomber come into service even later.
Once germans dismiss french designs, and given that they were already so far behind, by the time the events in the air force them to change their mind, your timeline is surely right. IMO, an insurance policy against the failure of the He177 programme, would STILL have been sensible.
Last edited by BDV on 22 Apr 2014, 20:33, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What if Ural Bomber designs as good as B-17?

#44

Post by phylo_roadking » 22 Apr 2014, 20:30

But it does not require ASBs for some-such agreement to be signed in September 1940, once it becomes obvious that Great Britain will hold out.
The question is of course what political considerations etc. resulted in the Wiesbaden Agreement coming over a year after the Armistice...!

And would they pertain here...or being of even greater impact on events??? 8O
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Re: What if Ural Bomber designs as good as B-17?

#45

Post by BDV » 22 Apr 2014, 20:35

phylo_roadking wrote:
But it does not require ASBs for some-such agreement to be signed in September 1940, once it becomes obvious that Great Britain will hold out.
The question is of course what political considerations etc. resulted in the Wiesbaden Agreement coming over a year after the Armistice...!

And would they pertain here...or being of even greater impact on events??? 8O

Well, if we're considering Barbarossa, the moment to make the agreements with the French is surely the time Directive 21 was issued, i.e. December 1940, not as an afterthought at the time it was starting to sputter.
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