Luftwaffe selects either the Dornier Do 19 or Junkers Ju 89 for production

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Cantankerous
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Luftwaffe selects either the Dornier Do 19 or Junkers Ju 89 for production

#1

Post by Cantankerous » 27 Jan 2021, 03:14

The death of Walther Wever in a plane crash in June 1936 meant that the Ural Bomber program was cancelled shortly before the Dornier Do 19 and Junkers Ju 89 prototype heavy bombers had flown, because Wever was a staunch advocate of strategic bombers. If Wever had not been killed in a plane crash, and the Luftwaffe had selected either the Dornier Do 19 or Junkers Ju 89 for production, would either of these designs have had a chance of smashing the Soviet Union into submission in World War II, given that the Ural Bomber program called for a strategic bomber capable of striking weapons factories east of the Urals (Stalin relocated some weapons plants east of the Ural Mountains)? I wanted to ask because the Do 19 and Ju 89 might have provided the Nazis with a reliable strategic bomber in WW2 because the He 177 was plagued by engine fires and the piston engines for the Ju 89 had no technical problems.

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Re: Luftwaffe selects either the Dornier Do 19 or Junkers Ju 89 for production

#2

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 27 Jan 2021, 04:57

Been discussed multiple times on multiple web sites. The core item is the number of aircraft needed to actually 'smash' industry. I don't have a copy to display here, but in John Ellises 'Brute Force there is a set of overlapping graphs. One set shows the rise & decline of select German production catagories from 1941 through 1944 or 45. The others show the tonnage of Allied bombs dropped on Germany in those years. What this strongly suggests is the Allied bomber offensive was damaging though early 1944, but wasn't 'smashing' anything. Basically production continued to climb into early 1944, then levels off and finally declines as the weight of explosives reaches something like three or four times the average for 1943.

What this suggests is 500, or 1000 Ural bombers won't be able to trigger a decline in Soviet military production. Maybe if someone can identify a true Panacea target it might work, but a general bomber offensive like the US Eigth and Fifteenth Air Forces tried in 1943 is not going to work. It was not working for the Allies then with 3000+ heavy bombers & I can't see how it could work for the Germans.

To understand a bit deeper compare the US & British production numbers for heavy bombers in 1943 & 1944 to German multi engine aircraft production at its peak. Or better yet compare what it took in engine production for the Brits/US to German engine production.

My take is the Germans did a decent job with a 'operational' or tactical airfare through 1942. If they had made some better decisions in aircraft development post 1940 and allocated resources a bit better their air forces would have done better into 1944.


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Re: Luftwaffe selects either the Dornier Do 19 or Junkers Ju 89 for production

#3

Post by Peter89 » 27 Jan 2021, 10:45

Just a quick reminder, the Ju-89 / Ju-90 (Ju-290 / Ju-390) was still under development in 1941.

The staggering number of noncombat losses is also a red flag.

Also, the Germans loved tinkering, and 4E planes are no exception. The Ju-90s - the ones not built for civilian service - came out with almost a new configuration with every plane. The first 96 Fw-200s (production up to 1941) - not counting the preseries's variants - came out in over 13 configurations, and the longest production run was 40 planes in 3 batches.

Not as if it would stop there. From 96 until 200, there were 6 types.
"Everything remained theory and hypothesis. On paper, in his plans, in his head, he juggled with Geschwaders and Divisions, while in reality there were really only makeshift squadrons at his disposal."

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Re: Luftwaffe selects either the Dornier Do 19 or Junkers Ju 89 for production

#4

Post by Sheldrake » 27 Jan 2021, 12:10

There was a very popular idea before WW2 that strategic bombing would mean that war could be won by attacking an enemy's industry, military institutions and civilian population thus avoiding the costly blood letting of the trenches of the Great War. This was very popular with politicians seeking an inexpensive alternative to big armies. RAF's Bomber Command had the highest priority for British military spending before WW2 and absorbed a huge amount of money, manpower and resources. One statistic is that one million men and women (2% of the population, 5% of the working population) were involved in building, maintaining and operating just one type of aircraft - the Avro Lancaster bomber. The investment in a bomber force was one reason why the British Army deployed in WW2 was much smaller than in WW1.

One of my favourite historical comments is Jim Sheehan's observation that war is the story of cruel disappointments and tragic ironies. The air forces that invested heavily in strategic bombing found that the results fell far short of expectations - and the attrition among airmen was the WW2 equivalent of the western front.

A German strategic air force would have gobbled up far more resources than the Germans could spare. Ju90s Do19s and He 177 were no better defended than medium bombers. Without a very long range escort fighter they could not have survived in the skies over Britain or Russia by day and would have struggled to find targets by night.

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Re: Luftwaffe selects either the Dornier Do 19 or Junkers Ju 89 for production

#5

Post by stg 44 » 27 Jan 2021, 23:55

Carl Schwamberger wrote:
27 Jan 2021, 04:57
Been discussed multiple times on multiple web sites. The core item is the number of aircraft needed to actually 'smash' industry. I don't have a copy to display here, but in John Ellises 'Brute Force there is a set of overlapping graphs. One set shows the rise & decline of select German production catagories from 1941 through 1944 or 45. The others show the tonnage of Allied bombs dropped on Germany in those years. What this strongly suggests is the Allied bomber offensive was damaging though early 1944, but wasn't 'smashing' anything. Basically production continued to climb into early 1944, then levels off and finally declines as the weight of explosives reaches something like three or four times the average for 1943.

What this suggests is 500, or 1000 Ural bombers won't be able to trigger a decline in Soviet military production. Maybe if someone can identify a true Panacea target it might work, but a general bomber offensive like the US Eigth and Fifteenth Air Forces tried in 1943 is not going to work. It was not working for the Allies then with 3000+ heavy bombers & I can't see how it could work for the Germans.

To understand a bit deeper compare the US & British production numbers for heavy bombers in 1943 & 1944 to German multi engine aircraft production at its peak. Or better yet compare what it took in engine production for the Brits/US to German engine production.

My take is the Germans did a decent job with a 'operational' or tactical airfare through 1942. If they had made some better decisions in aircraft development post 1940 and allocated resources a bit better their air forces would have done better into 1944.
You do realize the Soviet and German economies weren't directly comparable, right? And that the immense damage the Soviet economy took from the 1941-42 offensives left their industry at the edge of collapse?
Per Mark Harrison:
http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/1580/
Consider the Soviet war effort in the winter of 1942. Huge Soviet wealth had already been
destroyed or lost to the invader. In figure 3 panel (A) illustrates this case. Controlling
for rats, the payoff per mouse had been depressed by capital losses. Controlling for mice, the anarchy in the civilian economy and the dangers of outright defeat had raised the payoff per rat. The net effect was to shift the good equilibrium dangerously
close to the point of collapse. Stalin could rationally fear that with only a small
additional capital loss the good equilibrium and the point of collapse would converge
and then disappear, making a disintegration of the Soviet war effort inevitable.
Plus the Allied bomber effort had crushed the planned German industrial expansion per Tooze and brought them to the brink of economic collapse:
https://www.scribd.com/book/360801588/T ... al-Railway
Cantankerous wrote:
27 Jan 2021, 03:14
The death of Walther Wever in a plane crash in June 1936 meant that the Ural Bomber program was cancelled shortly before the Dornier Do 19 and Junkers Ju 89 prototype heavy bombers had flown, because Wever was a staunch advocate of strategic bombers. If Wever had not been killed in a plane crash, and the Luftwaffe had selected either the Dornier Do 19 or Junkers Ju 89 for production, would either of these designs have had a chance of smashing the Soviet Union into submission in World War II, given that the Ural Bomber program called for a strategic bomber capable of striking weapons factories east of the Urals (Stalin relocated some weapons plants east of the Ural Mountains)? I wanted to ask because the Do 19 and Ju 89 might have provided the Nazis with a reliable strategic bomber in WW2 because the He 177 was plagued by engine fires and the piston engines for the Ju 89 had no technical problems.
Wever had already chosen not to adopt the Do 19 or Ju 89 and instead focus on the Bomber A project, what would become the He177.
Covered in detail in this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Luftwaffe-Creati ... 0700609628

He died shortly after making the decision, IIRC about 2 weeks later.

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Re: Luftwaffe selects either the Dornier Do 19 or Junkers Ju 89 for production

#6

Post by T. A. Gardner » 28 Jan 2021, 02:55

The problem here is one of how many can they build? I'd say either would be in production at a rate of like 1 to 3 per day at most, possibly a bit less. Let's say, 20 to 30 a month. That means between fuel use, crews, and replacements for losses the largest sustainable bomber force would be roughly (this is at a 2% operational loss and 2% combat loss rate) 500 aircraft at most. Above this, the bomber force cannot be sustained without some massive increase in production. When you tack on planes down for repairs and maintenance, the Luftwaffe would have a "strategic" bomber force of just 200 to 300 planes flying.

That's hardly a war winning technology for Germany. The He 177 illustrates the exact same thing. The Germans were never able, even with the plane's technical problems all sorted out, to field more than a couple hundred of these in service at any time.

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Re: Luftwaffe selects either the Dornier Do 19 or Junkers Ju 89 for production

#7

Post by Peter89 » 28 Jan 2021, 08:11

Not to mention the ground facilities these planes required for sustained efforts with optimal noncombat losses and combat readiness.

I am currently working on the correlation between airfield facilities and operational possibilities for German heavy transports.

But it is quite irrelevant, because the Luftwaffe did not implement strict flight safety measures until 1944, and pushed its planes to their limits.
"Everything remained theory and hypothesis. On paper, in his plans, in his head, he juggled with Geschwaders and Divisions, while in reality there were really only makeshift squadrons at his disposal."

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