fw 190 in service 1940

i am new here and this my first post so bear with me

the fw 190 started development with the support of ernst udet in 1938... this was inteded to be a more flexable and reliable alternative to the me 109.... it was delayed getting into production due to issues with its bmw radial engine. lets say these problems are over come early and it enters squadron service during the twighlight war and 100 are ready for the battle of france and 200 by the start of the battle of britain.
2 questions

1. does the appearance of the fw190 which was superior to the early spitfires allow the germans to gain firmer air superiority over dunkirk and disrupt the evacutation?
2 does it make any appreciable difference in the battle of britain. i understand the basic math favors the british but does the possibility of the germans having superior fighter have a chance of overcomming their inherent weaknesses

The difficulty was that switching over production would severely reduce the number of fighters available for the start of the war. The me109 outclassed most anything in the sky at that point anyway and production was being set up for the FW190. Numbers were more important at that point then anything else. But all is not lost. If the BoB does not happen, then it is likely that the transition would have time to take effect and for more trainers to call for the replacement of the short ranged Me109. Historically flight school teachers were thrust into the fight over Britain as everyone thought the war would be over soon, but this had the effect of large losses among the best pilots in the LW. If more survive, they can possibly put greater pressue on Goering to shift production while they prepare for Russia. The large losses of fighters over Britain forced the extension of production of Me109's too, as after the massive losses in France and Britain, there was a major shortfall that needed to be made up and the Me109 factories were set up.

So no BoB and the Fw190 is likely to replace the me109 by 1941-2. Of course this means major butterflies, so who knows how things play out from here.

I think the biggest problem with offensive fighters, whether they be Me109s in BoF or BOB, Spitfires in those Rodeo fighter sweeps or Jugs and Mustang escorting bombers over Germany is range. The Me109E6 had about 40 minutes flying over England itself. With the later fitment of a drop tank this went out to over an hour, giving the 109 enough range to do the job, but after the battle was lost.

So did the Fw190 have more range, thus flying time over England than the tankless 109? Or would just putting the tank on 109s befere the BoB be just as good?

Riain said:

So did the Fw190 have more range, thus flying time over England than the tankless 109? Or would just putting the tank on 109s befere the BoB be just as good?

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It did, & the 190 with the tank'd be better still. Could it be introduced in the "Phony War" period? Or's that asking for too much speed?

There's not much in it in range, less than 100miles difference in the 190s favour. So about 15 minutes more time over Britain. What would have been far worse for the Allies would have been the Heinkel 100 being put into full production in 1939, twenty-five pre-delivery aircraft had been made. It outperformed the 190 and had 50 miles more range.

you all bring a valid point....i suppose it cant make too much a difference because in the long run the radar and the fact that they can parachute into friendly territory favors the brits anyway the kill ratios might favor the germans a little bit more but the bombers would still be what they where... 2 engined tactical machines that could never force a decision... if the fw 190 was available in enough numbers and variations it might have been more effective on the shipping and radar strikes that the ju87s where since it was much faster and less vulnerable to anti aircraft fire and to defending fighters

Sorry to jump off-topic, but along similar lines, I've sometimes wondered about the Do 335 (or a similar type) in 1940. I read somewhere that Dornier got the idea for this arrangement of engines in the 30s, but Dornier company was devoted to producing bombers. So maybe, if Messerschitt gets some bomber contracts in the 1930s, instead of Bf110s, the Luftwaffe gets something similar to the Do335, and instead of Bf109s, the Luftwaffe gets ????? (I was going to say FW-190, but maybe this is too late)

The Dean said:

There's not much in it in range, less than 100miles difference in the 190s favour. So about 15 minutes more time over Britain. What would have been far worse for the Allies would have been the Heinkel 100 being put into full production in 1939, twenty-five pre-delivery aircraft had been made. It outperformed the 190 and had 50 miles more range.

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The trouble with the H100 is that it used evaporative cooling to get the performance, which no-one ever got to work on a combat aircraft. It was a tecnique that only worked on very limited-life race aircraft (I believe the between-service time for the engine was 30 MINUTES....!!)
By the time you've changed to a practical engine configuration, you arent much faster than comparable aircraft, if at all.

SunilTanna said:

Sorry to jump off-topic, but along similar lines, I've sometimes wondered about the Do 335 (or a similar type) in 1940. I read somewhere that Dornier got the idea for this arrangement of engines in the 30s, but Dornier company was devoted to producing bombers. So maybe, if Messerschitt gets some bomber contracts in the 1930s, instead of Bf110s, the Luftwaffe gets something similar to the Do335, and instead of Bf109s, the Luftwaffe gets ????? (I was going to say FW-190, but maybe this is too late)

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The Do 335 wasnt built until 1943. Just how are they going to get it inservice 5-6 years early???!

Astrodragon said:

The Do 335 wasnt built until 1943. Just how are they going to get it inservice 5-6 years early???!

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I said similar to the Do 335, not the exact Do 335. The basic research and patents that allowed the Dornier company to build the Do 335, was done in the early (? I think) 1930s

The PoD is Dornier is a fighter-building company in the 1930s, and this research is immediately used - instead of sitting on a shelf until 1943.

also off the original topic ive been reading recently the ju88 in its original design was much faster and more lethal and some of its specs where reduced so it could be strengthed to perform as a dive bomber... if the ju88 was kept in its light configuration can it bomb britain in 1940 with impunity?

Astrodragon said:

The trouble with the H100 is that it used evaporative cooling to get the performance, which no-one ever got to work on a combat aircraft. It was a tecnique that only worked on very limited-life race aircraft (I believe the between-service time for the engine was 30 MINUTES....!!)
By the time you've changed to a practical engine configuration, you arent much faster than comparable aircraft, if at all.

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The evaporated cooling was only used on the two prototypes used for the speed record attempt. During that program in June '38 Ernst Udet flew a model with the standard DB601 model a engine over a 100km distance at an average speed of 394mph. This speed rather than the 464mph achieved, using the techniques you mentioned, in March '39 should be regarded as the top speed of the aircraft. That in 1938 was way better than any other machine in the air for a few years to come.

The Dean said:

The evaporated cooling was only used on the two prototypes used for the speed record attempt. During that program in June '38 Ernst Udet flew a model with the standard DB601 model a engine over a 100km distance at an average speed of 394mph. This speed rather than the 464mph achieved, using the techniques you mentioned, in March '39 should be regarded as the top speed of the aircraft. That in 1938 was way better than any other machine in the air for a few years to come.

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Indeed, but remember that this was with a model designed for speed, not a combat-ready aircraft. By the time you've changed it into that, its unlikely to be noticeably faster than a Spitfire...

would the two in concert, the non dive bombing ju88 and the slightly early fw190 change the tide... the ju88's production was seriously delayed due to the airframe changes it might have been in much greater numbers by the time of the battle of britain

can fast ju88s escorted by fw190s gain air superiority of britain?

BlairWitch749 said:

would the two in concert, the non dive bombing ju88 and the slightly early fw190 change the tide... the ju88's production was seriously delayed due to the airframe changes it might have been in much greater numbers by the time of the battle of britain

can fast ju88s escorted by fw190s gain air superiority of britain?

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Personally I would say not, it may cause more losses to the RAF but not change the final outcome.

BlairWitch749 said:

also off the original topic ive been reading recently the ju88 in its original design was much faster and more lethal and some of its specs where reduced so it could be strengthed to perform as a dive bomber... if the ju88 was kept in its light configuration can it bomb britain in 1940 with impunity?

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It pretty much could anyhow. CH & CHL weren't teriffic at detecting lo-level intruder missions even into '44. IIRC, Hitler prohibited it. Go figure.

The Do 335 early prototype was P59 as I recall. It was in response to some other fighter requirment had smaller engines and was something like 2/3 the size and I don't think it could be ready that early, maybe 1942.

They had the original 'push pull engine design' in the late 1930s, but it was just a slow speed test demonstrator.

Given that the BMW 801 was so large and took so long to build up efficent production. I was wondering if it was even worth the effort? I read that while its low altitude performance was superior its high altitude performance was inferior to its competitor the DB-605. Worse while the BMW engine was new the DB engine was just a DB-601 rewored with a supercharger [or something like that]? The point being that it didn't interupt production efficency that much.

Inital BMW production engines required 5tons of resources to produce a 1 ton engine. By 1944 when the production had hit 20,000 accumulated, they were down to 2.5 tons of resources to produce a 1 ton engine. Going on resource input , its likely that 2-3 times as many 3/4 ton DB 605 engines could have been produced for the same strategic resources invested.

I was looking at the DB -605 engine and it looks like it occupies about 3/4 of the space of the BMW engine, so a FW-190 build for the DB 605 engine would have been possibly 500kg lighter [?], more streamline nose and designed for a cannon in the engine. That would make the DB FW more maneuverable than the BMW FW and certainly faster at altitude due to the DB engine not loseing so much power at altitude.

I had not thought of the DB 601 engine since I didn't know the FW was developed prewar. Maybe I should look into this.

Kurt Tank wasnt given any priority to get the db inline engines and had to cobbled together his with a radial engine

maybe an interesting pod would have been if Willi Messerschmidt wasnt favored so much and the fw 190 was allowed to be produced with an inline db engine similar to the 109... this might have allowed the fighter to be produced much earlier with superior performance to the 109