Biggest failure of the Luftwaffe? Why not cancelled in favor of ME 264 or some other design?

Too long of runway to tool up for another design? Perhaps they were determined to make it a winner after so much time & effort.

http://www.geocities.com/pentagon/28...177/he177.html

thats a fairly large bomber, i can only imagine runway space...

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four engines were condensed down to two by connecting two engine blocks to the same crankshaft. This streamlined things by only offering the drag of two engine nacelles while retaining the same power as four engines, but this also gave the He 177 the nasty tendency to burst into flame during normal cruising flight.

Goering forbid Heinkel to make a 4 in-line version, but he did so anyway secretly.


Heinkel secretly flew the He277 with four 1-750hp DB 603A at Vienna, as the first of a major production programme. The almost completly redesigned He274 was a high-altitude bomber developed at the Farman factory at Suresnes, with four 1,850hp engines, a 145ft wing and twin fins. After the liberation, it was readied for flight, and flown at Orleans-Bricy.

Wonder where Orleans Bricy is?

General Weaver was a pre-war pusher for four engine long range bombers but he died in an aircrash and the medium bomber pushers took over and said their was no need for long range bombers.
An interesting side note was that dive bombing was in favor then and they wanted the He-177 to have dive bombing capibility like the Ju-88 and Ju-87. I don't think that idea got past the drawing board. [img]graemlins/no.gif[/img]

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JU 290 & Condors less problematic. Don't know enough about ME 264.

The biggest problem with all of these aircraft for the German aircraft industry is simply that they lack the capacity to produce them in anything approaching useful quantites. A large four engined bomber takes about 8 to 12 times the production effort that a single engine fighter does. That is, the relationship is expotential not arithmetical in nature.
Building a few hundred large bombers of any sort is not going to serve the Luftwaffe well.

They did build 7-800 Griefs, so it was possible. The problem was building a reliable one at the right time. They were have been invaluable in 42 when Russians moved factories behind Urals. As far as strategic materials are concerned, Galland did say that there were enough materials about in 41 to build 1000 fighters per month. different story in 43 one might imagine.

http://www.armchairgeneral.com/forum...ad.php?t=39149

Strangely enough, the four engine version of the He-177 Heavy Bomber was farmed out to an aircraft factory complex in France where it was overun by the Allies in 1944. There were some surviving prototypes and production models that served with the French Air Force for several years.

The Germans were in a hurry to create the bomber force in numbers so that way the dive bombing idea suited them well. It also crippled some bomber planes which were quite heavy because the wings had to stand the dive and thus the speed they could reach was quite lower than without the additional weight. I think Ju 88 was one of these at least.

If the Germans had followed the strategic bombing system would they have had the kind of Blitzkrieg success, hard to say?! I do believe the accuracy with Ju 87 dive is better and on several occasions saved the troops in the battle which the big bombers might not have been able to do.

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I don't quite see the Germans mounting a continuous round the clock bomber offensive, 8th AF/Bomber Command style. They would never have the resources for that - bombers, escort fighters, fuel. Target dispersion was enormous, and per the Battle of Britain example, they would be switching target cathegories every week. So no chance of success, but this is yet another What-If.

Yes, armament production was dispersed all over the conquered countries outside the Reich in order to take advantage of existing plant which otherwise would just sit there gathering dust; so it was no surprise that He 177 ended up in France.

The Hs129 used the existing stock of captured French Gnome-Rhone engines for the same reason, if they were available why waste them?

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Round the clock, no. But specific targets like industrial areas behing Urals, yes. & yes something would have to give if serious numbers of heavy bombers built, but Stukas were cheap & could be produced easily. Phasing out one of the meduim bombers would make more sense. I don't think blitzkrieg would be eliminated by having some heavy bombers, based on what Galland said anyay.

The French Gnome-Rhone engines did not work well on the Hs-129's nor on the 6 engine giant gliders, they were also tried on the Gotha Go-244 glider.

Anouther failure the Germans had was the Me-210 and the follow on Me-410 was not much better.

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I saw some 3 engined bombers they had in a film in the 30's. They only needed one good one, but couldn't get it done in reasonable time. Here's another contender.


Heinkel He119 from the book
"Hitler's Luftwaffe" by Tony Wood and Bill Gunston".
Some of which is given below:"

type:high speed reconaissance bomber
engine: 2,350 hp Daimler-Benz DB 606, comprising a coupled-pair of inverted-vee-12 liquid-cooled
Dimensions:span 15.89m; length(most) 14.79m;height 5.4m
WeightsV6) empty 5200kg, loaded 7565 kg
Performance:Maximum speed (V6) 367mph(590km/h)
range 1,940 miles(3120km)
Development:A private venture bu Heinkel to test radical ideas by the Gunter brothers, the 119 was one of the most advanced aircraft to fly prior to WWII.
The main unusual feature was that two of the most powerful engines were buried in the slim fuselage, coupled to a common gearbox driving a tractor propeller via a long shaft. On each side of this shaft sat two pilots, in a unique transparent nose. There was no conventional radiator, the two engines being cooled by an evaporative system which condensed the steam between double wing skins. Like the later Moskito the 119 was thought to have such a high performance it could not be intercepted, and it had no armament. The V1 flew in mid-1937, reaching 351mph. Subsequently its speed was cut by fitting upper and lower MG 15s, at the insistence of the RLM, while the V2 had a prominent lash up radiator. V3 was a seaplane (it still reached 354mph), while V4 was a very fast aircraft which unfortunately made a forced landing after the 370mph outward leg of what was to have been a record flight. V5 to V8 were production prototypes for recce and bomber versions never put into production, the bomber having an internal bay for up to to 2,205lb(1000kg). V7 and V8 went to Japan, while other became testbeds for the troublesome DB 606 and 610 engines."

Since only eight prototypes were built information on this aircraft is scarce.

I found this long list of paper tigers while looking for a picture of the He-119. If the Germans would have concentrated on just producing a few winners such as the Fw-190 and Ju-88 they may have done better in the war.

http://www.luft46.com/Planet/kitlist.html

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It is amazing how much the Messerschmitt Me P.1110/I looks like the Supermarine Swift. Would the British stoop so low as to copy German aircraft.

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Of course & they did. The Tempest & Sea Fury were influenced by the 190, they admit that. & the Spitfire wing was designed by Heinkel before the war.

"All your marbles belong to us!"

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That Page really is an excellent illustration of wasteful Axis projects isn't it. There's a fair few allied white elephants in there but nothing compared to the sheer volume of German 'wonder-weapons'each one tying up people, time & resources for little or no reward. Same old story...

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No, the problem was building it at all. The Ju 290 was built by Junkers at a rate of about 1 or 2 per month. The He 177 at a rate of about 1 per day or so at the most.
Compare this to the US where the Ford Willow Run plant produced a B-24 an hour. Convair's plant in San Diego matched this with basic airframes that were then flown to Goodyear Arizona for completion taking about another hour per aircraft delivered.
Even Boeing matched Henkel building the far more complex B-29. Messerschmitt likely could never have progressed beyond hand-made Me 264 bombers at a rate of one or two a month matching Junkers.
The German aircraft industry simply lacked the managerial, industrial engineering, and factory space to build a large four engined bomber in quantity.

http://www.warbirdsresourcegroup.org/LRG/he119.html

119 shot.

"Twenty-five Fw-200C-1s were delivered during the second half of 1940 to Kampfgeschwader 40, equipping I Gruppe at Trondheim in Norway and responsible for operations in the far North Atlantic and around the west of Ireland, and III Gruppe at Bordeaux-Merignac flying over the Bay of Biscay and far out into the central North Atlantic.

This handful of airplanes - the Condor never had more than 30 aircraft total operational at any one time between November 1940 and the end of 1943 - gave the British fits. Operating beyond the range restrictions of British aircraft, the convoys didn’t have air protection, while the anti-aircraft weapons carried by the escorts and the merchant ships were inadequate for defense against the Condor’s attacks."


276 Condors were built. 365.000 tons of shipping. This proves the theory that a small amount of bombers can do serious damage. Similiar amount of 290's or ME 264's could have done major damage to factories behind Urals.

" it was claimed that from June 1940 to February 1941 they sank 365,000 tons."

The total may be higher as this figure is only for early part of war.

The Ju 290 was built by Junkers at a rate of about 1 or 2 per month. The He 177 at a rate of about 1 per day or so at the most.

Messerschmitt likely could never have progressed beyond hand-made Me 264 bombers at a rate of one or two a month matching Junkers.


One should be careful here, production is largely down to allocation of raw materials & orders from above. Had the materials been made available, & higher ups pressed more for these bombers, production would no doubt have been higher. One also has to figure in the considerable de-bug work done on 177 which would slow down production.