Myth Buster - German 4 engined bombers

I’ve been wanting to write this one for a while, but somehow the time to sit down and put it altogether has seemed lacking.

This is one of my favourite of the WWII myths and one that crops up from time to time.

The lack of a dedicated 4 engine bomber early on is often used as reason for German defeat both in the Battle of Britain and on the Eastern Front.

Firstly the Battle of Britain.

The argument usually put forth is that with a long range bomber and a heavier bomb load, the Luftwaffe could have attacked RAF aerodromes throughout the country at will and kept a consistent pressure on Fighter Command throughout the Battle, squadrons could not have been rested, nowhere would have been safe and fighter command would have crumbled.

This is quite simply not true. At no point during the Battle of Britain was the range or bomb load of the existing Luftwaffe twin engine types an issue. They had the range to bomb practically anywhere in the Great Britain and could do so with bomb loads that were more than ample for cratering grass airstrips or destroying the RAF’s flimsy hangers. What was lacking, and what would remain lacking even with a 4 engine heavy, was a single engine fighter that could escort the bomber’s far enough to make the range count.

Unescorted raids to the North and Midlands were tried and abandoned in the face of heavy losses, had 4 engine heavies been available these would undoubtedly have faired no better and the Luftwaffe would have fought basically the same battle by day, but with fewer planes. With the historic diversion of resources to the reprisals against London, they still would have lost.

The Soviet Union.

Mostly, the arguments used imagine a Luftwaffe strategic bombing campaign causing massive disruption to Soviet industry that was apparently unreachable having been moved beyond the Urals, having a decisive impact on the ground war.

I do not believe this would have been at all effective. Considering the advantages the Allies enjoyed bombing Germany, in terms of intelligence and having the full weight of two air forces directed against the enemy by night and day (And considering that it is now largely believed to have been far less effective than believed at the time) it seems doubtful that the Luftwaffe alone could have had a decisive impact lacking effective intelligence, numbers or an effective escort fighter.

Whilst initially Luftwaffe bombers would prove difficult to intercept by the Red Air Force, MiG-3s would prove effective in the long term as these held their performance at altitude far better than their Soviet contemporaries (historically scoring one of the first kills against high-altitude Ju86 reconnaissance craft). The Luftwaffe would soon find themselves having to effectively carpet bomb the Urals by night in the hope of hitting something that mattered.

Also unlike their Allied counterparts relatively safe in the UK, the Luftwaffe would not enjoy the stability of such permanent bases in such secure surroundings.

As the war in the east progressed, the need for tactical aircraft over strategic ones required the twin engine types of the Luftwaffe far more than heavier types, which would have used up far more resources (The usual yardstick seems to be that two 4 engine planes required the same resources as five 2 engine planes), resulting in a much smaller air force. Such a heavy bomber force would probably suffer heavy casualties supplementing the transport fleet trying to bail out the 6th Army at Stalingrad.

Well, that’s my thoughts on the matter, anyone care to comment?

 

Also the amount of gas that would be needed

 

Well, I'm in full agreement with you on the issue of whether long range 4 engined bombers would have made any difference in the outcome of either the Battle of Britain or the invasion of the Soviet Union, They wouldn't




However, I totally disagree with this statement

Even if they had continued with the attacks on the airfields they still would have lost.

 

Given the arguments today over the effects of the Anglo-American heavy bomber offensive, I think it is safe to say that a large four engined bomber force was a luxury that the Germans could not afford and would not have brought them victory. Given their position, the were best off concentrating on fighters and interdiction/tactical support aircraft.

 

Yet their production of such types was totally inadequate until 1944, and their pilot training program was equally so.

 

I will say just this: a four engined bomber would have enabled to Germans to at least try to hit the Soviet production plants on something resembling a regular basis, which would have given the Russians something else to deal with. Of course, given the massive size of the Red Air Force, diverting fighters to point defense would have been fairly simple.

 

It's not like the Germans had no experience with 4-engined aircraft.
The Fw200;C Condor comes to mind, and they also developed some interesting 3 and 4-engined seaplanes and flying boats.
I suspect the answer may be more closely related to engine-production lines and current obligations. The DB601-DB605 engines were always in great demand... and I imagine the BMW radials which the Fw190 used were also in short supply.
Still, were it considered a top-priority, I'm sure a long-ranging 4-engine bomber could have been the result.
Keep in mind the Blitzkrieg was put into motion prematurely. The Kreigsmarine--for example--needed a couple more years to be fully prepared for war, and no doubt other programs suffered from the accelerated timetable as well.
Interesting topic.
Had they been as ingenious as the Russians, they could have reverse-engineered B-17s and B-24s... as was done with the Boeing B-29.

Tim

 

long range escort fighters was the problem.


The Me 109 in the BoB was limited to 20 minutes or so over the target area.

It they had something that could loiter, say for hours and hours, the story would have been different.

 

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if the germans had done regular long range bombing ,
the soviets fighter forces would probably have found it easier and less dangerous to take on the bombers than the bloody grinding above the fronts
the allied could send them good planes easily enough if requested

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The Allies did send them good fighters (The Soviet Union recieved Mustangs, Spitfires and Thunderbolts amongst others, they just didn't use them anywhere near as much as higher altitude interceptions were not as much as an issue), in any case they had their own, the early MiGs were remarkable amongst early Soviet fighters as they had good high altitude performance and in any case recorded amongst the first victories against the near un-interceptable Ju86P recce plane. If high altitude bombing offensives had become an issue the prodution would have simply shifted from the lower altitude La, LaGG and Yaks to the better higher altitude MiGs even if Allied interceptors had not been made available.

 

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Von Richthofen , a cousin of the red baron and commander of the aviation of army group south , complained loudly , bitterly and often about the perceived misuse of "his" planes on ground attack and troop support ,
He though it was dangerous and getting them to act as " no better than artillery ", he though it would have been more useful to go strategic and in particular hit the supply chain harder ,
He also kept warning headquarters of massive soviet build up on the flanks of Stalingrad .

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Simply shifted ?

 

Can't imagine it'd be difficult, just order and build more MiGs and fewer LaGGs or Yaks. It's not like the Soviets would have to go down some extended, tortuous R&D process to get aircraft with adequate high altitude performance, they were already flying and in squadron service by Barbarossa.

 

Yes they were flying but initial production was troublesome and the aircraft itself suffered from construction failures because it was simply said badly built at first .
Another big problem would be the lack of engines as the engine came out of the same plant as the one needed for the Il-2 (wich was in such a high demand that the Mig-3 engine was discontinued...altough if the demand shifted to high-altitude fighting their could be no need for the Il-2 engine).
So simply building more could mean airframes without an engine?!

 

Or by cutting orders for Yaks and LaGGs this would reduce the demands for their engines freeing up production for the MiGs, as would an increased emphasis on high altitude interception decrease the emphasis on ground attack again freeing up engine production for the MiG's engines.

I know it's not quite as straightforward as just ordering a different engine from a factory since the dies and tools need to be set up, but it is a lot easier to do so with an existing airframe and engine than would be the case with designing one from scratch, it would certainly be simple enough for the Soviets to do with the threat of NKVD encouragement in time to deal with the threat of an extended Luftwaffe heavy bombing offensive.

 

Building less Yak's and Lag's would not mean automaticaly more production of AM-35 engines as those used different brands made by other plants!

 

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The production and development of Mig was actually reduced , as they were not needed and couldn't fight it against Germans fighters ,their accelerated development seems to have been in response to German high altitude reconnaissance flights over the soviet territory from late 40
during the war ,they were wasting their time around Moscow or being used for air reconnaissance .
The soviet leader in charge of planes production was Malenkov , he did O.K. and seems to have managed his resources reasonably well considering the circumstances .
development was still ticking on even as low priority
mark 3 came flew in may 41 , mark 5 in 42 , the Mig 7 came out in 43 with pressurized cabin and a ceiling claimed at 42,600 ft .

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I am aware of that and this is a point I did make, however those plants could be retooled to build those engines relatively easily.

 

Changing an complete plant to build a different engine is pretty hard, retooling to produce modified engines was already almost impossible just to the fact it would take to much time to retool and Russia couldn't stop engine production because there was a desperate need for them.

 

I'm not talking about retooling complete plants, I'm just saying shift the emphasis. Additional workforce - not just labour but construction crews to expand the factories, materials, machines allocated to the production of better high altitude engines, like the MiGs. If the demand for the Il-2's engines was able to curtail MiG engine production then surely the reverse is also true that a higher demand for the MiG engine could have been met by cutting production of that of the Il-2 or replacing the latter with the Su-2 as an interim measure. The Soviets were able to increase availability of the Il-2 ground attack, LaGG and YaK fighters whilst decreasing the priority of the Su-2 and MiGs, I fail to see why the reverse could not also have happened.

It would have been relatively simple since a fair amount of the consideration such as all the design and R&D work had already been done, it was certainly achievable within the timescale that any Luftwaffe strategic bombing offensive would have taken to really bite into Soviet industry.