More DO 355 info

It's true there were rivalties (rivalries ?) between airplanes producers. WWII Germany often looked like a "Court" where people wanted to please the "King" in order to have favors etc...

It's particularily obvious when you compare with, for example, the very pragmatic and rational way USA built its war machine.

 

Henkel didn't "refuse" to make them. Rather, Henkel was to make just the A-6 nightfighter model (none of these was actually completed by Henkel or Dornier) and Dornier was unable to supply a complete set of jigs and tools necessary to make them. Without these Henkel could do nothing.
The bottleneck in the tooling was twofold: First, Dornier was slow in producing them and second, the state of transportation in Germany by that time made delivery problematic.
So, Henkel's decision to continue He 219 production (for which they already had an assembly line set up) was very rational. It was, once again, the Luftwaffe's technical branch that showed myopia in telling Henkel to just shut down their production and wait for Doriner to provide the necessary tooling to start making 'better' Do 335s which was never going to arrive.

 

Heinkel! It's Heinkel with an "i"! 'Henkel' is a present day chemical firm famous among other things for it's adhesives www.henkel.com

 

"the state of transportation in Germany by that time made delivery problematic."

False, rail lines were repaired easily. & where is the data on the tooling?


Hitler himself, demanded that the Arrow be redesigned for a bombing role which stalled the program for almost two years. This prevented the Arrow from reaching it full potential as early as 1944.

 

Interesting.

Both Green (The Warplanes of the Third Reich) and Monogram Close-up 21 Do 335 make no mention of Hitler interfering with this program. Instead, both cite that the RLM initially asked several manufacturers for proposals for a "high speed unarmed intruder" aircraft from which the RLM picked the Dornier submission Projekt 231 towards the end of 1942. In early 1943 the RLM changed the requirement from a unarmed intruder to a mulit-purpose heavy fighter aircraft based on the changing war conditions they now faced. This change had only minor delays on the Do 335 project as Dornier had yet to actually start a physical prototype.
Of course, in any case, it is difficult to see how "Hitler....stalled the program for almost two years." when the entire Do 335 program ran for only 26 months if you include the design period prior to the first prototype and just 19 months from the first prototype flight. Certainly the above timeline for production previously given shows no indication of major hold-ups due to Hitler's interference changing the requirements of the program. Instead, the timeline shows a large number of variants that fit the general description of a "mulit-purpose heavy fighter."
One might also note that up through 1942, at least, it was the position of the RLM and its technical department that Dornier was not to concern itself with building fighter aircraft and rejected several earlier Dornier proposals for such. The Do 335 started out as a bomber and ended up a fighter; not the other way around as suggested.


As to delivery problems the above sources both state specifically that Dornier was unable to deliver the necessary tools and jigs from Oberpfaffenhoffen to Heinkel's Vienna plant due to assembly and transportation problems.
While not trying to be arrogant about it, Chrome, you do have some idea what goes into manufacturing jigs and speciality machine tools for assembling large aircraft components like wings or control surfaces don't you? These things are not made overnight or bought at the local tool store. Many take weeks or even months to put together. If so, it is simple to see why Dornier was unable to supply them. Given that Dornier itself was only building about 2 aircraft a month supplying what would have been very limited jigs and tools to Heinkel would have severely hurt their own production. Building a complete new set obviously would require some time.

Various other sources as diverse as Overly's The Air War to the USSBS all show that rail transportation in Germany by mid 1944 was highly disrupted. Civil motor transportation was almost non-existant. This problem effected virtually every major German production program not just the Do 335. So, why should this single program be special?

 

Yes, isolated rail lines can be repaired easily, but when you get to marshalling yards subject to heavy bombing (ask about the 9th Air Force campaign in France before Overlord) then it's a different kettle of fish.

http://www.63rdinfdiv.com/gluntphotoNRailyards.JPG
http://afhra.maxwell.af.mil/photo_galleries/xix_tac_photo_album/Photos/01069634_222.jpg

http://afhra.maxwell.af.mil/photo_galleries/xix_tac_photo_album/Photos/01069634_224.jpg

There's quite a difference between damaging a stretch of double or single line and a marshalling yard. In the first case all you have to do is rip up a number of twisted rails and cracked sleepers, level the ground again, restore ballast, lay new sleepers and screw in new rails.

On a marshalling yard as you find in city centres you have a lot more than straight rail. The layout can be quite complex, and made up of a number of non-standard curved rails, and the sidings themselves are damned expensive and sometimes made by special order, so they are not made up of materials that you keep on the side just in case. You also have to take into account that siding were at the time either manually operated (the simplest) or were mechanically operated from a remote station, in which case they had mechanical linkages which are always sensitive and require maintenance, not bombing.

Also there is the signalling system with its wiring maze, and you can't simply forget about this unless you rely on a number of signallers but in wartime you have already lost a number of personnel to mobilization.

Sorry, no, a railyard is not something you repair in two days after the 8th AF visit.

By the way, I wonder how the vast railway system worked in the Eastern front, with what personnel? Germans from Reichsbahn taken away from the regular rail service? Bad for the inner workings. Russian more or less forced labour? Bad for efficiency, security and safety.

Part of the above is based on my observations after 5 years work on railway construction, but who cares?

 

Green is generally known as one of the worst authors of all time on the Luftwaffe.


& again, according to at least one who was there, rails were repaired easily. & it would only take a few cars to transport tooling, not a big deal.


Butefisch stated that he was astonished at the rapidity with which bomb damage to railway tracks was repaired. At one time a shortage of railway tank wagons became imminent but this was unexpectedly relieved by the shortening of communications due to the retreat in Russia, and from then on there was an abundant supply of tank wagons.

http://www.luchtoorlog.be/do335.htm

Nice German language site. Nice to have it traslated.

 

Debate the condition of the rail system all you like. The fact remains, and cannot be refuted, that Dornier was unable to supply the jigs and tooling. Having had to plan and supervise the manufacture of both tooling and GSE (ground support eguipment...specifically in my case for Harpoon and SLAM-ER along with seeing what was involvedn in the tooling in use for repair of F-15, F-16, and A--10 aircraft) I have no doubts given the chaos in late war Germany why none got delivered.
This also does nothing to explain away the utterly miserable production rate or the production of so many variants and prototypes in lieu of more operational aircraft.

But, on railroads, I would agree with Za. Fixing a single or double line of flat track on relatively level ground is simple. Bridges, railyards, sidings, switches, communications, and all of the other paraphanellia that goes into a railroad system take much longer. These things greatly increase the efficency of rail movement.
Even something you dismiss as "simple" as moving the tooling and jigs is far more complex than you give credit for. A large jig might well weigh a ton or more and is a bulky oddly shaped contraption. This would have to be palleted or crated, moved to the railhead, put on or in a car and then secured so it didn't shift in transit. When you multiply this by hundreds or quite probably thousands of items it is no small logistical operation.
You have to arrange the transport from the factory to the railhead, Arrange for the trains to arrive and depart with their specific loads. Arrange for packing and labeling the shipments, arrange for personnel to load and unload everything. More transport has to be arranged at the delivery end. The receiving factory needs notification of shipment and delivery. Funding has to be arranged for all of this too.
When I had to ship stuff I manufactured, which was admittedly much simpler in nature only a few items usually being involved, it still took the better part of a day or more to arrange everything to do it. Have ot have a forklift driver and forklift available. Have to have the paperwork done. Have to have the funds set up. Have to have someone to meet and guide the truck to the pickup point. Have to give the driver instructions for delivery. Have to ensure the load is properly packaged (today this is a biggie). Ever ship something overseas per Mil-Spec? I have. The packing costs a small fortune on its own and has to be done by trained personnel.

Anyway, you trite dismissals of the "simplicity" of this whole operation of making and delivering jigs and tooling to build an aircraft are obviously based on a near nonexistant knowledge of the difficulties and effort involved.

 

Psst, did you read what I wrote about rail lines being easy and railhubs not?

 

Yes, psst, did you read Butefish mentioning rail transportation probs not really being a prob? Psst, he was there.


& 26 months is a bit unreasonable as it really began in 37.

The man behind it was Claude Dornier who took out a patent on his first push-pull design in 1937.
Early in 1942 the German Army was doing well and the politicians felt no need for such a radical airplane. By 1943 however, the tide was turning against the German Army and the order was finally given to build the Arrow. In just nine months the first prototype was built.

 

Here's what 'really' happenned.


http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/aero/aircraft/dornier_do335.htm

Initial production was at the Dornier Manuel plant, but this factory was bombed heavily in March-April, 1944, and the Do-335 tooling was destroyed.


Had this not happenned, the tooling would have arived at the Heinkel facility.

& I wouldn't take anything Green says with any seriousness. That book mentioned the 109 being hard to land with throttle wide open. Who would be dumb enough to try that? Let alone write such a thing.

 

& if one reads here, one sees there were 2 sets of jigs & tooling. One at Manuel plant, & another 3-4 months later in Oberpfaffenhofen. & to insist that another set couldn't be available Feb 45, ( or even sooner ), for Dornier just isn't reasonable.



Initial production was at the Dornier Manuel plant, but this factory was bombed heavily in March-April, 1944, and the Do-335 tooling was destroyed.

Ten Do-335A-0 preproduction aircraft were then produced at Dornier's Oberpfaffenhofen plant in July-October 1944,

So at the end of the day, had not the Manuel plant been bombed, we would no doubt have seen more DO 355's delivered to the Luftwaffe.

 

TA, this is the last time anyone sees me involved in a discussion with Chromeboomerang. He has this kind of magnetic stupidity that manages to drag every discussion down to his own level; his technique is simple: refuse everything and leave the others the onus of trying to convince him. This works fine as he never ever accepts anything that is said, his mind is already made up and anything you say to him is by definition garbage.

Solution: cease rising to his bait. He starts a thread, and as idiotic as it may seem, do not respond to it. It's the "Do not feed his ego" technique.

This was supposed to be a PM to T.A.Gardner but I decided to make my position public. I'm sure this will attract a negative reaction, but so be it, that's life.

"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig, you get dirty; and besides, the pig likes it.” G.B.Shaw

 

Another yawnful insult attempt from Za. Typical, ignore the subject matter, attack the person. Immature, ignorant 3rd grade behaviour. Since he's lost every argument so far, its no surprise he's quitting.

& isn't it fascinating that he alone repeatedely indulges in his passion for this sort of silly unadultlike personal slights?? No one else here has demonstrated this pattern. T.A. & I have some nice go rounds, but he is a gentlemen, & refrains from the personal stuff Za gets into. He's never caled me Ignorant, nor have I done that to him. We disagree often, but he posts data, not insults. His argument making skill is leagues beyong you Za.

& my IQ was 142 at age 14.


& back to subject matter, like I mentioned in the earlier thread, had the 335 been greenlighted late 42, early 43,( & ME 410 not built ), perhaps 2-300 could have been built.

& it may have been an easier plane to fly than 109 & 190 since it had tricycle landing gear & like P-38 one could see straight down the runway. Dunno about twist & such, but certainly looked more stable than single engine jobs.

 

Assuming the Manuel plant was not bombed, it still looks like a mere handful of aircraft would have been built. Given the original plethora of prototypes this would not have changed. I did not include the half dozen or more prototypes that were not built nor the dozen or so more on top of that planned.
So, if we say Dornier gets 70 to 100 aircraft finished, these are still essentially a waste. They are nowhere near enough to make any appreciable difference in the outcome of the war. Even if the half of those or so that were actually operational models would have had no impact on events.
The Do 335 simply is not better enough to make any difference. Certainly the early A models like the A-0 and A-1 are not even going to make particularly good bomber busters given their minimal armament of 2 15mm machineguns and a single Mk 103 cannon.
As for earlier "green lighting" of the 335, that is unlikely. Dornier spent through 1942 largely testing proof of concept test airframes Gö 9 Dornier still had to convience the RLM that he had something worthwhile in its design. Given the RLM's conservative views this was highly unlikely.