Topic: Could Poland have beaten Nazis if ......?

[gebhk]

Out of curiosity, given that IRL the Polish air force largely escaped being hit on the gorund, why do you think
things would have turned out differently in either of the above two AH scenarios?

[Topspeed]

Polish AF had 126 kills in defending Poland...later more in RAF colors.


https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/o ... rld-war-2/

[maltesefalcon]

Out of curiosity, given that IRL the Polish air force largely escaped being hit on the gorund, why do you think
things would have turned out differently in either of the above two AH scenarios?

Point taken. But may I add...

IRL perhaps the Germans felt the Polish Air Force was a lower priority threat and focused on more dangerous targets, in the early stages?
The Poles knew their air element was severely outmatched and dispersed it, to make it more difficult to locate and destroy.

In this What If Poland has a more capable air force. Perhaps it would not have dispersed and Germany would have raised a preemptive strike to a higher priority? As I stated earlier, they did just that on 22/6/41 in Barbarossa.

[gebhk]

IRL perhaps the Germans felt the Polish Air Force was a lower priority threat and focused on more dangerous targets, in the early stages?

Not the case, I'm afraid. The elimination of the PAF was the No1 priority of the Luftwaffe on the first day of the war and something like 57% of all air strikes were directed against identified airfields and aerodromes that day. As we know, the PAF had vacated the peace-time bases and the LW therefore failed to annihilate the PAF as was hoped. The failure was not for lack of trying but because the LW had been let down by inadequate intelligence. I see no reason to assume the German imntelligence would have been any better had either of the above scenarios played out.

[maltesefalcon]

IRL perhaps the Germans felt the Polish Air Force was a lower priority threat and focused on more dangerous targets, in the early stages?

Not the case, I'm afraid. The elimination of the PAF was the No1 priority of the Luftwaffe on the first day of the war and something like 57% of all air strikes were directed agains identified airfields and aerodromes that day. As we know, the PAF had vacated the peace-time bases and the LW therefore failed to annihilate the PAF as was hoped. The failure was not for lack of trying but because the LW had been let down by inadequate intelligence. I see no reason to assume the German imntelligence would have been any better had either of the above scenarios played out.

Was not aware of that. We learn something new every day. Thanks for the insight and update.

[pugsville]

A Strong Czech-Polish-French alliance. They had the interests in common, butt hey failed to find the political will.

[gebhk]

Hi Pugsville

That is an attractive idea but has to be hedged with a great many 'howvers'...

(1) The curse of all alliances is that they don't have 'the inetersts' in common - rather usually there is only one (stuffing the common enemy) and beyond that they are pulling in different directions: this inevitably has a profound effect on how the war is progressed, on how decisions are made (usually sloooowly), on the quality of choices (often crappy because they are anodyne half measures to half-satisfy everyone) and so on. Alliances favour procrastination and delay when decisive and quick action is needed. This would have been no different in this case - or rather very evident and little to suggest that in this respect, things would have been much different to RL until, perhaps, 1938. And even then........??? After all France was treaty-bound to defend Chechoslovakia and we all know what happened in Munich! I get that you use the word 'strong' advisedly but it is a stretch to imagine that if Poland had been part of this alliance, things would have turned out any different.

(2) Time was a crucial factor. In 1933 Germany was inferior to the proposed alliance in every way. Over time this changed quite rapidly. Even in such crude measures as population: in 1933 that of Germany was somewhat less than that of our 'Triple Alliance'. As time progressed and Germany swallowed up new territories, this ratio was reversed. Much the same can be said about industry. However, it is in military terms that the time factor is most significant. Germany starts off with a token (if very competent and well-trained) force that rises meteorically in strength in the 6 years or so to 1939, to the point where in almost all crucial aspects it far outstrips that of the Triple Alliance.

(3) The skulking carnivorous elephant in the room is Stalin's Soviet Union, which is usually conveniently forgotten in these AH scenarios. Stalin had no interest in France (or more precisely the Western domocracies in general) wiping out Hitler without a long and exhausting war and every interest in grabbing as much Polish and Chechoslovak territory as he could get away with (as well as Finnish, Baltic, Romanian, Hungarian etc). To France, on the other hand, Poland and Czechoslovakia as allies were poor second prizes to their dream of a Russian alliance. Getting France to commit genuinly to an alliance that also included defending against the Soviet Union was going to be a challenge. For Poland and Chechoslovakia an alliance without this commitment was almost useless because the Soviet Union was as much if not more a threat as Germany (and to Poland's and Czechoslovakia's ally Romania). The time factor here was as much an issue as it was in 2 above, because the optimum time to do anything was 1937 and thereabouts when Stalin was busy beheading the Soviet armed forces. However, by then, the optimum time to do something with regard to Germany would have passed.

(4) No 3 inexorably leads us to the fact that the Triple Alliance will intertwine with other existing alliances and arrangements of all three participants - (UK [France], Romania [Poland and Czechoslovakia], Yugoslavia [Czechoslovakia]) and dersirable ones (Hungary, Finland, the Baltic states - Ukraine even). However how far does France want to involve itself in potential complications that arise from this, not to mention cost?

[Terry Duncan]

A Strong Czech-Polish-French alliance. They had the interests in common, butt hey failed to find the political will.

The problem is maybe best summed up by Poincare in the WWI period when he said that the problem with the Germans is that there are 20 million too many of them. You have a large nation able to field a large number of troops that can only be met by smaller forces unless some sort of alliance can be formed that will all agree to fight at the same time. In the 1930s France was really not ready to fight politically until the end of the decade, and at that point they were not going to be fully ready to fight until 1941. The only powers able to balance Germany were Britain and the USSR. The former could never get public support for a large peace time army even if there was a political will to do so (policing the empire at lowest possible expense was the desired policy most of the time), and the USSR was not entirely trusted by the western powers. Italy could have offered some opposition initially to Germany (Mussolini was not well disposed to Hitler at first) but nobody really thought they would fight Germany. The situation is far more confused than in WWI where all powers were kept pretty much at full readiness and in settled alliances, and finding a suitably ready coalition is very hard at most points in the decade.

[richcarrick]

Hello All :

Mr. Topspeed asked :

Your estimate is based on ...what ?

P.S. - For years, I had seen figures quoted regarding the Heinkel He 219's top speed,
giving it a figure on the order of 420 MPH. I doubted this very much, considering
the crude surface finish of the aircraft, the ' suitcase ' design of the fuselage, the high
drag shape of the tail, and the built in headwind of the frontal radar antenna.

So, I spent a few days, did a lot of math, and came up with a figure of about 360 MPH
as a top speed, assuming both engines are working up to snuff and there were no
technical issues with the aircraft.

So, where did the figure of 420 MPH ( which you can find in Wikipedia ! ) come from ?

Well, the post war Allied evaluations of several captured He 219s gave top speeds,
using American gasoline, of about 365 MPH. At some point, someone apparently
translated that figure into Metric, ( MPH to KPH ), but, instead of using the statute
miles conversion, used the Nautical Miles Conversion, increasing the speed
by a factor of about 1.15.

Then, someone else converted that metric KPH back into MPH, and used the statute miles
conversion factor, and, voila, 365 MPH became 365 KnPH, which became 675 KPH,
which became 419.3 MPH ! And that's where the 420 MPH figure came from - sloppy
conversion - probably done by a history major.....

very interesting...as I and a team of other authors are working on a He 219 book, could I ask where you got this information from? I mean, can it be substantiated by written evidence...

thanks
Rich

[paulrward]

Hello All :

With respect to the Heinkel 219, Mr. richcarrick asked :

very interesting...as I and a team of other authors are working on a
He 219 book, could I ask where you got this information from? I mean, can
it be substantiated by written evidence...

OK: Here goes :

From History of the German Night Fighter Force by Gebhard Aders.

Though the He 219 is recognized by all as the most efficient German night fighter type,
its performance was not as extraordinary as is often claimed. In fact, the type never achieved even
the values given in its manual. For instance, with almost full fuel tanks and full armament the
He 219 could not get above 8000 m (26,250 ft) altitude, and passed the 10,000 m (32,810 ft) mark
only at an equipped weight of about 10 tons - in other words with almost empty tanks and nearly
all ammunition used up. And then it hung in the sky like a 'ripe plum', as the pilots used to say, and
would stall at 5 m/sec (16.4 ft/sec) from a normal blind flying turn. Level performance was also
less than it appeared: the He 219 could only reach its 'paper' maximum speed of 605 km/h (376 mph)
if no night fighting equipment was fitted. With Lichtenstein and engine flame dampers the maximum
was a good 45 km/h (28 mph) less at 6,200 m (20,340 ft) altitude and fell to about 500 km/h at 8,200 m
(311 mph at 26,900 ft) - much too slow to catch a Mosquito at full power. Until June 1944 only two
Mosquitos are known to have been shot down by He 219s.

and some further comments:

From Wings of the Luftwaffe by Captain Eric “Winkle” Brown CBE, Hon FRAeS

I found no opportunity to fly the later DB 603G powered He 219A-5, but imagine that it did
not display any markedly different handling or performance characteristics to those of the A-2...

...I had read German reports that, fully loaded, the He 219 enjoyed an ample surplus of power and
that an engine cutting immediately after take-off or during the approach presented little danger.
There was, it is said, an instance of a pilot making an emergency take-off on one engine with his
undercarriage locked in the 'down" position and with flaps fully extended! If there is any truth in
this last report, I can only say that for this extraordinary feat the aircraft must have been equipped
with JATO and have had a very long runway indeed! In my view, the Heinkel fighter, certainly in its
He 219A-2 version - was decided underpowered. An engine failure on take off must have been a
very nasty emergency to handle at night as, below 137 mpg (220 km/h) the aircraft was difficult
to hold straight...

...The rate of climb was certainly unimpressive...A full power run at 20,000 ft revealed somewhat
sluggish acceleration and a top speed of 378 mph (608 km/h), which was somewhat below the
German handbook figures...

...From my experience with the He 219A-2, I would say that this Heinkel fighter's reputation was
somewhat overrated. It was, in my view, basically a good night fighter in concept but if suffered
from what is perhaps the nastiest characteristic that any twin-engined aircraft can have - it was
underpowered. This defect makes take-off a critical maneuver in the event of an engine failing
and a landing with one engine out can be equally critical. There could certainly be no overshooting
with the He 219 in that condition. Furthermore, it appeared to be short on performance to deal
with the Mosquito, a task which was, in part, its raison d'etre.

The only figures that I have found relating to an He 219 exceeding 400 mph were related to
the A-7 version, which had more powerful engines, and when flight tested WITHOUT Lichtenstein
Radar or external Antennae, reached a speed variously quoted as being between 416 mph and 435 mph.

However, to the best of my knowledge, the A-7 version never entered service, and there are, to the
best of my research, no published flight reports in English of tests on an A-7 version with the external
antennae installed.

Since Watson's Whizzers never had an A-7 version to test at Freeman Field, it is unlikely that the
test data they obtained would be of an aircraft capable of those high speeds. However, if you take
the figure of 360 Miles per Hour, and simply transcribe it as 360 Knots per Hour, then convert that
figure to Kilometers per Hours, and then convert it back to Miles per Hour, you have the 400 MPH
Heinkel 219.

Hope that is of some use to you.

Respectfully :

Paul R. Ward

[Von Schadewald]

When the Poles actually did invade Germany in 1939!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP79RBS5uFc

Shows what a preemption could have achieved.

[Topspeed]

Very interesting piece of history....tankettes.