Long-distance bombers

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Kenny
Unregistered
(11/18/00 2:03:54 pm)
Reply Long-distance bombers
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Did the Luftwaffe have any long-distance bombers?

Goggi
Member
Posts: 82
(11/25/00 9:09:27 am)
Reply Long-Distance Bombers
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Basically the Luftwaffe had only one four engine bomber active (Focke-Wulf 200) in the first war years which was mainly used for naval reconnaissance and also attacks on shipping. I think the total number was around 20 airplanes! Later in the war more heavy bombers were developed; One type was designed for bombing attacks against New York City. One airplane made once a trial run to a point about 12 miles off NYC and turned then back and made it home again! If my Memory serves me right, it was a Junkers Design.
Goggi

Dumdum
Unregistered
(11/25/00 5:09:08 pm)
Reply Re: heavy bombers
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There were heavy bombers under development before the war though, but the projects were halted in favour of the single- and two-engined bombers such as the Stuka and Ju 88, which fitted better in the concept of the Blitzkrieg. Later in the war, some types were developed ( I believe the Dornier Do 217 was one of them, plus a rather flammable Heinkel type ), but they weren't succesful enough to turn the tide.

Scott Smith
Member
Posts: 45
(11/26/00 4:32:20 am)
Reply Luftwaffe Strategic Bombing?
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The Focke-Wulf 200 was a four-engined commercial airliner. Hitler cruised around in it frequently during the earlier part of the war when the Germans had aerial supremacy. It was adapted as a long-range naval reconnaissance aircraft and light anti-merchant ship bomber. It was extremely successful in this role except that the airframe was not rugged enough for military use and many fuselages were bent upon hard landings. The success of the FW 200 goes to show how sorely the Kriegsmarine could have used a decent level of air support during the war.

The only serious strategic bomber, however, was the Heinkel 177. It was a four-engined bomber with an unusual design, only two engine nacelles, to reduce drag and improve range and speed. The only problem was that cooling two engines in the same nacelle proved difficult and more development time was needed, which the Luftwaffe didn’t have. So most of the available He 177’s actually only had two engines and were somewhat disappointing. Some were used as transports during the airlift of Stalingrad, for example. By 1944, the project was cancelled and air armaments went to fighters for air defense and single-engined fighter-bombers, using Bf 109 variants and FW 190’s.

The strategic bombing story is a long one. In my opinion, Göring was correct in not developing to a large extent a strategic bombing arm (for economic reasons). A so-called Ural Bomber would have taken precious industrial plant capacity away from the vital fighters, dive bombers and medium bombers that were effectively used for air supremacy and ground support in the early part of the war. Only when the Luftwaffe mission haphazardly went to actual strategic bombing, from *big diplomatic bluff* (a la the “horrors of Guernica”) to the actual Battle of Britain, did the Luftwaffe fail. Its pilot and airframe replacement program could not win a war of attrition under such unfavorable odds without long-range heavy bombers and long-range escort fighters. The Luftwaffe might have done much better if the short range Bf 109 air-superiority fighters had all been equipped with drop tanks, and if the Bf 110 heavy fighters had been decidedly faster that the more maneuverable Spitfires. Anyway, it was the wrong mission for the existing equipment, but when you have limited resources you must set priorities, and strategic bombing is a *luxury* that is seldom decisive. I do not see any way that The Battle of Britain could have been decisive unless it had led, somehow, to a diplomatic victory. And here again, strategic bombing is not the proper tool; it tends to galvanize the enemy populace for greater sacrifices.

Generaloberst Ernst Udet committed suicide in November, 1941, as Luftwaffe industrial production lagged scandalously. The Battle of Britain aside, the Luftwaffe could have used some strategic capability in knocking out the Soviet rail system that was sending materiel forward and evacuating Ukrainian industrial plant and slave labor east to the Urals. One T-34 tank factory was evacuated and was already back in operation from the safety of the Urals by December, 1941, an impressive achievement.

Later in the war, the Germans did not have enough Junkers 52 Flying Boxcars to realistically support an encircled army at Stalingrad, although air armaments genius, Generalfeldmarschall Erhard Milch fought a brilliant but hopeless battle trying to pull it off. But bombers and transports take away from fighter aircraft production, and despite extensive Flak and civil defense preparations, Germany was losing air supremacy over its own skies. Although this created a second and expensive front to fight the Germans on, it was not decisive until near the end of the war because defense usually has the greater advantage in a war of attrition. Hamburg was firebombed in atomic proportions, and in August, 1943 Generaloberst Hans Jeschonnek committed suicide.

The new OKL chief-of-staff, Günther Korten (along with Armaments Minister Albert Speer) tried to build a strategic Luftwaffe with the foolish notion that the Soviet Union could be brought down by systematic attacks on its electrical powergrid. It was a good example of crisis management and wishful thinking. Just because Germany had precious little electrical power in reserve does not mean that nations like the USSR or America would find such attacks any more than a pinprick. Germany was forced to concentrate on fighters only by February, 1944, a year or two too late to be effective against the Allied air war. Furthermore, bombing Germany had finally galvanized her people and industry to move to a Total War economy, very late in the war! (Korten died a horrible death from burns suffered in the July 20 attempt on Hitler’s life, a reminder, I think, for anyone who thinks that the bombplotters were heroes. They could have simply shot Hitler dead if they had had the courage of their convictions! Of course, this would have confirmed Hitler’s belief in the public mind that the General Staff were indeed recalcitrant, if not actually disloyal.)

Back to the He 177. A twenty-four cylinder engine was under development that would allow the He 177 sufficient power with only two engines, but it needed time, and German engine development was playing catch-up anyway because there were too many different kinds of airframe and engine models in production as it was. One excuse for the failure of the He 177 was found by an obsolete specification that all Luftwaffe bombers have dive-bombing capability in order to stress them for military use and allow for precision bombing. Ground support requires either precision bombing or massive carpet bombing, preferably the former because of the danger of friendly fire. (Even with “smart bombs,” however, precision bombing for level-bombers is largely a myth of the strategic bombing theorists like General Billy Mitchell.) But nobody took Udet’s original specification seriously for a *heavy* bomber like the He 177. Still, the Heinkel company, actually made use of this ruse as an excuse to explain delays that were actually caused by the multiple-engine cooling problem! (Ernst Heinkel’s credibility was *low* when it came time to promote another of his ideas, a turbojet engine, but that’s another story!) Had the four-engined or super two-engined He 177 been successful, it would have diverted precious production capacity away from fighter production, and besides, the bombers would have needed long-range escort fighters as well, like the Americans did with their P-51. The bottom line is that strategic bombing would have simply hurt Germany’s overall war effort.

One can win a strategic air war in two ways: Sinking adequate resources into air defense, or by offensive deterrence. Germany could have done either, or both, but it was very expensive, and this takes away from other armaments like tanks or U-boats (ultimately useless without adequate air support, in my opinion). Germany did not recognize the danger and buildup its fighter arm until it was too late; this required lots of skilled veteran pilots, fighter aircraft and fuel!

The V-weapons campaign was a novel “poor man’s” approach to deterrence—which might have worked if it could have delivered as much ordnance on Jolly Old England as Bomber Command on Germany, but in the event, it didn’t even come close, was too expensive (except in terms of pilots!) and was too late in technical development, to be decisive. I question that Germany could have won the war even with atomic bombs because the U.S. could have cranked out much more atomic ordnance and was virtually immune to attack anyway unless Germany had developed an ICBM, and that would have probably taken a few more years of development. A so-called Amerika Bomber was under development by Germany, but it would have had an extremely skimpy bombload, and the Luftwaffe refused to even *risk* the prototypes by using them to fly over neutral airspace in order to send diplomatic pouches to Japan!

The best book (by far) on Luftwaffe aircraft (including jets) is the classic:

Green, William, 1927- The warplanes of the Third Reich /William Green; with line drawings by Dennis Punnett. London: MacDonald & Co., 1970; New York: Doubleday, 1970; Galahad Books, 1986, c1970.



Edited by: Scott Smith at: 11/26/00 5:22:09 am

Marcus Wendel
Webmaster
Posts: 806
(11/26/00 1:14:26 pm)
Reply Re: Luftwaffe Strategic Bombing?
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Scott,

Thanks for that excellent post.

/Marcus