Who would have had the technological edge in 1946?

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Re: Who would have had the technological edge in 1946?

#16

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 26 Apr 2020, 21:29

Horton brothers built four distinct models of glider of the tiles wing design. One of those was modified to accept a engine. They built two models with engines powering a pair of props, and one design to accept jet engines. AFAIK only the jet powered example survived. The first Horten glider is supposed to have been completed and flown in 1933.

Northrop was studying the 'wing' concept in the 1920s & had a test aircraft circa 1928-1932, but did not abandon the tail. Rather the test plane, the X-216H had the tail on a slender pair of booms rather than a full fuselage. The N-1M built in 1940 eliminated the tail entirely. Northrop built a series of glider & powered flying wings. The N-9MB accumulated the most flight hours of the prop models, & suffered from a problematic engine that fails frequently. The surviving N-9MB was restored to flight in the 1990s & flew at air shows until destroyed in a crash in 2019.

The most sucessful iteration of Northrops wing was the YB-35 first built as a prop driven bomber for the Army Air Force. Underpowered engines were the primary flaw, tho otherwise the aircraft met specs & was easy to control in most aspect. The one prop driven model was converted to jet engines and two more were completed with jet engines as the YB-49. Those solved the power problem. The USAF decided to continue with the B-36 as a interm heavy bomber & selected the B-47 over the YB-49 for the long term.

The Pultilov Stal-5 was a Soviet approach to the 'wing' aircraft, tho it still had a large vertical tail/rudder. One test model was built or flown in 1933.

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Re: Who would have had the technological edge in 1946?

#17

Post by T. A. Gardner » 27 Apr 2020, 07:22

The problem here is that all of these flying wings, be they Russian (and they had a bunch pre-war), German, US, or whoever is that they were low speed gliders and prop planes. The second you got one going over about 300 knots they started to become aerodynamically unstable and required a vertical tail or tails and even then usually still had control and stability issues.

On the YB-35, the problem with the engines was the USAAF owned them. Hamilton Standard provided the counterrotating props, and neither would take responsibility for the props and engines not working correctly leaving Northrop in a bind as they couldn't fix the problems with either. The conversion to a jet as the YB-49 brought back stability problems aerodynamically.

So, we know from US experience, which went much further than German experience with high speed flying wings, that at the time the technology wasn't mature enough to put it into production. Thus, all those German fantasy flying wings were likely to be failures for the same reasons the US ones were.


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Re: Who would have had the technological edge in 1946?

#18

Post by glenn239 » 27 Apr 2020, 15:50

maltesefalcon wrote:
26 Apr 2020, 14:36
When I referenced stealth I was referring to the Horten aircraft, which had a reduced radar signature, whether by accident or design.
I saw a program on that once. The stealth characteristic was accidental. I seem to recall about a 15% reduction in RCS, with most of the return being the engine blades. The conclusion was that given the speed of the jet, the radar cross section head one would have posed a difficulty for the UK's defenses because the bomber could get some distance closer before being detected.

After writing this, I googled a bit and found

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horten_Ho ... _and_shape

Which references the program I saw. The figure was actually that the plane could be detected by Chain Home 20% closer than an ME-109, meaning a radar return reduction from the ME-109 of 40%.

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Re: Who would have had the technological edge in 1946?

#19

Post by maltesefalcon » 27 Apr 2020, 16:29

I will concede the issue on the stealth so as to move on. My main point was really that many examples of German R+D were blunted (for various reasons) by manufacturing capability.

They were still producing the Bf-109 at the same time as the Me-262.
They were still producing PIV very late in the war despite Panther and Tiger already in production.
They were still producing and issuing bolt action Mausers to most troops, despite proven design of MP44. (Of course bolt actions would be useful for sniping etc, but this should have been the exception, not the rule.)

High tech research is only effective if the products can be made in useful numbers. Hence the old adage "Quantity is a quality."

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Re: Who would have had the technological edge in 1946?

#20

Post by T. A. Gardner » 27 Apr 2020, 17:28

maltesefalcon wrote:
27 Apr 2020, 16:29
I will concede the issue on the stealth so as to move on. My main point was really that many examples of German R+D were blunted (for various reasons) by manufacturing capability.

They were still producing the Bf-109 at the same time as the Me-262.
The biggest problem with the Me 262 was getting enough engines. Messerschmitt could produce the airframes far faster than Junkers could turn out Jumo 004B engines. Worse, some were taken up by the Ar 234, and other prototypes that shortened the supply even further. Then when you throw in the roughly 10 hours or less between engine changes, this made German jets a self-defeating proposition.
They were still producing PIV very late in the war despite Panther and Tiger already in production.
Krupp produced the Pz IV, Henschel the Tiger, and MAN the Panther. This was a major issue with most or all of German production. Each corporation wanted to produce their design and nothing got standardized. In the US by comparison, a company producing medium tanks produced the M3 then the M4. That's it. If they produced light tanks it was the M3, then M5, then M24. You didn't get to choose. Aircraft were the same way.

They were still producing and issuing bolt action Mausers to most troops, despite proven design of MP44. (Of course bolt actions would be useful for sniping etc, but this should have been the exception, not the rule.)
The problem here is that the MP 44 required very different manufacturing techniques and machinery from the K98. Most of a MP 44's parts were metal stampings a type of machine and production process a K98 manufacturer wouldn't normally have. This is a case of not paying attention to production details. In the US (I use the US only because I know their production better than British or Russian) they modified the extant M1 Carbine into the M2 giving it a fully auto option and 30 round magazines. In effect, it became an "assault rifle" in doing so. Yes, we can quibble over the details but a light weight carbine firing a sub sized cartridge with full auto and a 30 round magazine fits "assault rifle."
High tech research is only effective if the products can be made in useful numbers. Hence the old adage "Quantity is a quality."
In some cases it's useful to have done it even if at the time you can't use it because you don't know if it might have a use down the road.

Here's a little known example of that. In early 1944 John Hopkins University started a series of tests to build a supersonic ramjet engine to power a surface to air missile for the US Navy. The Navy wanted a long-range SAM for shooting down Kamikaze.
John Hopkins set up a test site on a remote island off the North Carolina coast and started firing test models out into the Atlantic. No chance that enemy agents, etc., would get their hands on an expended one.

By the end of the war, the researchers were firing ones that could hit about 1400 mph and reached 20,000 feet in altitude over a distance of about 10 miles. A bit over a year later it was Mach 2.4, 30,000 feet and 20 miles.

These tests led to the development of the engine for the Navy's Talos SAM in the 1950's.

The problem for Germany was even when they "rationalized" their production, they never came close to what any of the Allies were doing in that area. The US, Russians, and British / Commonwealth all picked a limited number of winners in some category and made all their manufacturers make them. The Germans let every corporation make a selection of their own designs. There was never a "standard" German truck or half track like the Allies built. Instead they ended up with a whole plethora of different designs using totally different parts.

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Re: Who would have had the technological edge in 1946?

#21

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 28 Apr 2020, 03:09

T.A. Gardner wrote:Then when you throw in the roughly 10 hours or less between engine changes, this made German jets a self-defeating proposition.
This wasn't a tech issue though; the Germans simply lacked access to a few critical elements required for long endurance of high-temp jet components (most especially cobalt). The original Jumo designs used cobalt and had much longer endurance; the production designs were adaptations to the strategic material situation.

Even today it is simply impossible to build a durable jet engine without certain alloys (or, more recently, ceramics - but that's decades ahead on the tech path).
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Re: Who would have had the technological edge in 1946?

#22

Post by T. A. Gardner » 28 Apr 2020, 03:59

TheMarcksPlan wrote:
28 Apr 2020, 03:09
T.A. Gardner wrote:Then when you throw in the roughly 10 hours or less between engine changes, this made German jets a self-defeating proposition.
This wasn't a tech issue though; the Germans simply lacked access to a few critical elements required for long endurance of high-temp jet components (most especially cobalt). The original Jumo designs used cobalt and had much longer endurance; the production designs were adaptations to the strategic material situation.

Even today it is simply impossible to build a durable jet engine without certain alloys (or, more recently, ceramics - but that's decades ahead on the tech path).
In part it was. The Zweibel that was used in the exhaust to vary the outlet size was a design flaw. There were flaws in the turbine and compressor blade design as well. These were things that were problems mainly because of lack of experience with jet engine design compounded by Germany having limited access and knowledge on turbine blade profiles. Germany turned to Brown-Boveri in Switzerland for help on these, but that company's experience with gas turbines versus steam turbines was limited.
Companies like Vickers, GE, or Westinghouse had far more in-house design experience with turbines than Junkers or BMW with GE having considerable gas turbine design experience from building turbochargers so they had an advantage in designing jet engines.

Yes, the lack of high temperature alloys the Allies had access to didn't help things one iota.

As a direct example of this, Junkers made their turbine blades hollow out of sheet metal and flame sprayed them with alumina. They forced bleed air through the blades to cool them. It was a rather ingenious solution but led to serious problems dynamically balancing the turbine wheel which led to early bearing failures. The problem was trying to make each blade of equal weight and profile when you are folding sheet metal and spot welding it. The Junkers engineers weren't stupid, they just had limited ways to solve problems and were under pressure to put out a product NOW versus the Allies who had more resources and weren't being pressed with imminent defeat.

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Re: Who would have had the technological edge in 1946?

#23

Post by glenn239 » 28 Apr 2020, 19:31

T. A. Gardner wrote:
27 Apr 2020, 17:28
The biggest problem with the Me 262 was getting enough engines. Messerschmitt could produce the airframes far faster than Junkers could turn out Jumo 004B engines. Worse, some were taken up by the Ar 234, and other prototypes that shortened the supply even further. Then when you throw in the roughly 10 hours or less between engine changes, this made German jets a self-defeating proposition.
So which is it was the big problem? Engine production or 10 hours between servicing?

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Re: Who would have had the technological edge in 1946?

#24

Post by T. A. Gardner » 28 Apr 2020, 20:57

glenn239 wrote:
28 Apr 2020, 19:31
T. A. Gardner wrote:
27 Apr 2020, 17:28
The biggest problem with the Me 262 was getting enough engines. Messerschmitt could produce the airframes far faster than Junkers could turn out Jumo 004B engines. Worse, some were taken up by the Ar 234, and other prototypes that shortened the supply even further. Then when you throw in the roughly 10 hours or less between engine changes, this made German jets a self-defeating proposition.
So which is it was the big problem? Engine production or 10 hours between servicing?
Both. Junkers for most of 1944 was producing about 300 004b engines a month. That equates to 150 Me 262 or Ar 234. Me 262 operational losses for a JG were about 2 to 3% per day of operational flying with most losses to write-offs for accidents and inability to keep the aircraft serviced. Enemy action was actually a minor cause by comparison. One of the bigger problems in the later category was collapse of the nose wheel. Messerschmitt had serious issues with this item. But, you also had FOD issues, ground crew and technicians that were untrained on the engines, pilots who had next to zero training and familiarization on the plane all contributing to this as well. The Luftwaffe initially didn't recognize that jets were very different from prop planes in these areas and had done little to prepare units to convert to them.

The roughly 10 hours between engine overhauls meant that the typical Me 262 needed one or both engines replaced after every other sortie.

Between the two, it was really hard for the Luftwaffe to keep just 60 or so Me 262 flying on a regular basis even if there were no shortages of fuel and such.

If you look at the history of Me 262 units like say, Kommando Nowotny, they simply ran out of planes in short order. That unit went operational with about 40 Me 262 and in just one month was down to three operational planes having lost the rest mostly to operational accidents and inability to keep the planes serviced. Enemy action was a minor cause of losses.

By comparison (I know, I keep using the US but I know their history better than the British one), the USAAF put the P-59 into a fighter group that used the plane in operational training. This way the pilots got familiar with the differences in flying a jet and the ground crew and technicians learned how to service and maintain the planes. The early GE J31 (aka I-16) engines weren't particularly reliable either, but in a training setting it didn't really matter as much. The technicians were able to learn how to service, repair, and overhaul them in an appropriate setting.
That meant when the XP-80 showed up, the 412th FG was well prepared to test these prototypes and worked out many of the bugs and problems with them quickly.

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Re: Who would have had the technological edge in 1946?

#25

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 30 Apr 2020, 02:48

T. A. Gardner wrote:
28 Apr 2020, 03:59
TheMarcksPlan wrote:
28 Apr 2020, 03:09
T.A. Gardner wrote:Then when you throw in the roughly 10 hours or less between engine changes, this made German jets a self-defeating proposition.
This wasn't a tech issue though; the Germans simply lacked access to a few critical elements required for long endurance of high-temp jet components (most especially cobalt). The original Jumo designs used cobalt and had much longer endurance; the production designs were adaptations to the strategic material situation.

Even today it is simply impossible to build a durable jet engine without certain alloys (or, more recently, ceramics - but that's decades ahead on the tech path).
In part it was. The Zweibel that was used in the exhaust to vary the outlet size was a design flaw. There were flaws in the turbine and compressor blade design as well. These were things that were problems mainly because of lack of experience with jet engine design compounded by Germany having limited access and knowledge on turbine blade profiles. Germany turned to Brown-Boveri in Switzerland for help on these, but that company's experience with gas turbines versus steam turbines was limited.
Companies like Vickers, GE, or Westinghouse had far more in-house design experience with turbines than Junkers or BMW with GE having considerable gas turbine design experience from building turbochargers so they had an advantage in designing jet engines.

Yes, the lack of high temperature alloys the Allies had access to didn't help things one iota.

As a direct example of this, Junkers made their turbine blades hollow out of sheet metal and flame sprayed them with alumina. They forced bleed air through the blades to cool them. It was a rather ingenious solution but led to serious problems dynamically balancing the turbine wheel which led to early bearing failures. The problem was trying to make each blade of equal weight and profile when you are folding sheet metal and spot welding it. The Junkers engineers weren't stupid, they just had limited ways to solve problems and were under pressure to put out a product NOW versus the Allies who had more resources and weren't being pressed with imminent defeat.
What was the endurance of Allied jet engines in 1945?

Re bleed air into the turbine blades, that's still how jets work today. Pretty big achievement for 1945.
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Re: Who would have had the technological edge in 1946?

#26

Post by T. A. Gardner » 30 Apr 2020, 03:12

TheMarcksPlan wrote:
30 Apr 2020, 02:48
What was the endurance of Allied jet engines in 1945?

Re bleed air into the turbine blades, that's still how jets work today. Pretty big achievement for 1945.
Allied engines varied greatly from about 10 to 15 hours to over 100 depending on the model. The Whittle design that became the RR Derwent was over 100 as were the production GE J31's. Early I-16's ran 10 to 15 as did the Allison J35 initially The Allison J33 (their version of the I-16) was equivalent to the J31. The Westinghouse J34 ran from about 25 to 30 and up to over 100 hours as production continued.

As for bleed air, that turbine blades, everybody figured that out. It wasn't unique to the Germans. Bleed air is also used for cooling the shell of the engine. That is now common. Using flame spray to help shield the blades was sort of unique to the Germans simply due to the lack of better choices and materials. Film cooling where the designer seeks to minimize heat transfer to the blade is not the most common method in use as this is more efficient than bleed air.

Like I said, it wasn't that the German engineers were stupid, they simply had limited materials to work with. Nobody makes turbine blades today by folding sheet metal and spot welding it. In many cases, turbine blades in jet engines and car turbochargers are now going to ceramics instead.

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Re: Who would have had the technological edge in 1946?

#27

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 30 Apr 2020, 03:24

T. A. Gardner wrote:
30 Apr 2020, 03:12
TheMarcksPlan wrote:
30 Apr 2020, 02:48
What was the endurance of Allied jet engines in 1945?

Re bleed air into the turbine blades, that's still how jets work today. Pretty big achievement for 1945.
Allied engines varied greatly from about 10 to 15 hours to over 100 depending on the model. The Whittle design that became the RR Derwent was over 100 as were the production GE J31's. Early I-16's ran 10 to 15 as did the Allison J35 initially The Allison J33 (their version of the I-16) was equivalent to the J31. The Westinghouse J34 ran from about 25 to 30 and up to over 100 hours as production continued.

As for bleed air, that turbine blades, everybody figured that out. It wasn't unique to the Germans. Bleed air is also used for cooling the shell of the engine. That is now common. Using flame spray to help shield the blades was sort of unique to the Germans simply due to the lack of better choices and materials. Film cooling where the designer seeks to minimize heat transfer to the blade is not the most common method in use as this is more efficient than bleed air.

Like I said, it wasn't that the German engineers were stupid, they simply had limited materials to work with. Nobody makes turbine blades today by folding sheet metal and spot welding it. In many cases, turbine blades in jet engines and car turbochargers are now going to ceramics instead.
Can you start providing sources, please?
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Re: Who would have had the technological edge in 1946?

#28

Post by Terry Duncan » 30 Apr 2020, 03:37

What do the Germans do when the planes that were historically slowed down in production turn up in the later half of the 40s, things like the B-47 and B-36. If for nothing else the sheer scale of the production of these and the later B-52 is remarkable. Even if all this effort it channeled into the existing B-29 and B-32 programs it alone will dwarf anything Germany can build.

There are a few areas here Germany still had the lead in 1945/46 but manufacturng wasnt one, that will be decisive. Germany has no way to hit back at the US production facilities, and although it wasnt tried much historically, the US could turn to bombing Germany at night with wave after wave of B-29's. Germany would resemble 1945 Japan before too long.

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Re: Who would have had the technological edge in 1946?

#29

Post by T. A. Gardner » 30 Apr 2020, 05:36

Terry Duncan wrote:
30 Apr 2020, 03:37
What do the Germans do when the planes that were historically slowed down in production turn up in the later half of the 40s, things like the B-47 and B-36. If for nothing else the sheer scale of the production of these and the later B-52 is remarkable. Even if all this effort it channeled into the existing B-29 and B-32 programs it alone will dwarf anything Germany can build.

There are a few areas here Germany still had the lead in 1945/46 but manufacturng wasnt one, that will be decisive. Germany has no way to hit back at the US production facilities, and although it wasnt tried much historically, the US could turn to bombing Germany at night with wave after wave of B-29's. Germany would resemble 1945 Japan before too long.
The real danger for Germany is when the US acquires a nuclear armed ballistic missile that can hit a city along with a high subsonic cruise missile that can do the same.
The US started developing both in 1945 and given wartime necessity would have one or both by late 1946. Then it doesn't matter how many jet fighters or flak guns Germany has they start losing cities and have no way to retaliate in kind.

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Re: Who would have had the technological edge in 1946?

#30

Post by T. A. Gardner » 30 Apr 2020, 05:37

TheMarcksPlan wrote:
30 Apr 2020, 03:24
T. A. Gardner wrote:
30 Apr 2020, 03:12
TheMarcksPlan wrote:
30 Apr 2020, 02:48
What was the endurance of Allied jet engines in 1945?

Re bleed air into the turbine blades, that's still how jets work today. Pretty big achievement for 1945.
Allied engines varied greatly from about 10 to 15 hours to over 100 depending on the model. The Whittle design that became the RR Derwent was over 100 as were the production GE J31's. Early I-16's ran 10 to 15 as did the Allison J35 initially The Allison J33 (their version of the I-16) was equivalent to the J31. The Westinghouse J34 ran from about 25 to 30 and up to over 100 hours as production continued.

As for bleed air, that turbine blades, everybody figured that out. It wasn't unique to the Germans. Bleed air is also used for cooling the shell of the engine. That is now common. Using flame spray to help shield the blades was sort of unique to the Germans simply due to the lack of better choices and materials. Film cooling where the designer seeks to minimize heat transfer to the blade is not the most common method in use as this is more efficient than bleed air.

Like I said, it wasn't that the German engineers were stupid, they simply had limited materials to work with. Nobody makes turbine blades today by folding sheet metal and spot welding it. In many cases, turbine blades in jet engines and car turbochargers are now going to ceramics instead.
Can you start providing sources, please?
Buy a copy of the book I'm doing on advanced WW 2 technology when it comes out. I know, that's a bit of a cop out, but it's a long list from many different sources. I will say that both Rover and Westinghouse screwed the pooch when it came to jet engines. Both were total mess ups in a way no German firms were. Rover dithered and dithered with minor design changes on the original Whittle engine to the point even the British bureaucrats in the Air Ministry finally took the program away and gave it to Rolls Royce.
In Westinghouse's case, internal idiocy, management failure, and engineering incompetence took away what would have been a promising new field for the company and handed it to GE and Allison.

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