With an extra motor,( setup like HE 119, driveshaft inbetween the pilots ), & a bigger prop & a lengthened fuselage. Or a whole new plane designed along these lines.

Less wind drag with only 2 motors outboard. The inboard motors would be encased with steel & hard to knock out. Outboard motors could be radials.

Anyway, don't see why this wouldn't work. HE 119 was real quick, yes I know, didn't have armanent & turrrets in early versions, but still, the inboard motor setup did work. It was a bit too small for heavy bomb loads, that's why the extra outboard motors & larger fuselage idea seems appealing.

Hi Chrome! Well, you're talking about two entirely different planes, the He119 was an extremely refined high speed bomber, while the Ju 52 was a lumbering tin box. No relation at all, exactly the same thing as a Ford Trimotor on a low wing. The Tante Ju was a very unsophisticated plane, really a corrugated crate with wings. I once took a joy ride in one some 30 years ago and more lumbring than that only the An-2

Perhaps you could gain something with dropping the nose engine and putting in better engines on the wings if these could be made available, for example the Italians did that with the SM-79. I suppose using a too sophisticated and complicated engine set-up would make the machine awfully problem prone and expensive, therefore no useful numbers would be built.

If the bomber planes had so little priority, imagine the poor transport fleet.

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Yes, very different planes, but again I did mention the idea of a whole new design if JU wouldn't be workable. & not really thinking numbers so much as a workable bomber 4 engine design with 2 inside the fuselage. Only mentioned JU as it had one on the nose & this idea plane of mine would too, plus one behind it.

For arguments sake, we could go with B-17 with the engines arranged in this way.