Wimble Toot
Banned
20,000 troops? Small beer compared to TORCH, HUSKY and AVALANCHE, OVERLORD and DRAGOON.
AHC: 1935-42 Luftwaffe 'sanity options'
- Thread starter tomo pauk
- Start date
20,000 troops? Small beer compared to TORCH, HUSKY and AVALANCHE, OVERLORD and DRAGOON.
Deleted member 1487
I didn't say not as big at the beginning of this all. Still, successful. Arguably the Aegean campaign of 1943 was a amphibious operation that Germany won on a shoe string:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodecanese_campaign
Back on topic: I have wondered what would have happened if a Hs129 like plane had been asked for early on during the SCW. So a Call had been made in 1936 and it was given equal priority to other types. Eg access to Brahmo, jumo, DB’s. What kind of tank killer would have been available then in 1940-41?
Deleted member 1487
The Hs129 was asked for in 1937 based on combat experience in 1936...involving the Hs123 in ground attack missions. Just stick with the Hs123.
I do Think a hs129 which is not ubderpowered and armed with a 37 mm + gun would be a better tank killer. Giving it priority and decent engines? What would happen?The Hs129 was asked for in 1937 based on combat experience in 1936...involving the Hs123 in ground attack missions. Just stick with the Hs123.
Deleted member 1487
Apparently it had any number of other flaws, not least of which was the exposed, unarmored engines. It would also need to be a bigger aircraft to handle larger, more powerful engines. Do that and you'd have a BMW 132/Bramo 323 engined BF110.
No its not, it only ends up as the definition if all of the following come true first.
- Germany must not have the forces to provoke a war with GB/Fr over Munich
- Germany must have the forces to defeat Poland quickly
- Germany must have the forces to defeat Denmark and Norway quickly
- Germany must have the forces to defeat The French, Belgians and Dutch quickly
If any of the above fails to happen (apart from Norway potentially as long as it does not kill even more KM than OTL) then getting to attack GB is simply not going to happen.
We can add,
- German forces (and therefore large parts of the population) have to stay loyal to the regime
- German economy has to stay working and at least mostly solvent
Curtiss got orders because they delivered. That is unless you think that Airacuda and P-35 woud've been better mounts to compete in 1st years of ww2. Once Curtiss ceased to deliver, they got sidelined quckly.
As for F4F - a 320-330 mph to clash with Luftwaffe's best, since 340-360 mph P-40 can't? That is an novel way to hamper the Allied war effort.
Hap Arnold was not a saint, most of his job was well done.
Soviet aircraft were not crap. Opinions of the Soviet techicians don't note that He 111 was unstable civil machine pressed into military role, being bad in that role.
I've asked on what are your sources about He 111 being the most vulnerable (of German A/C), not pilots training minutiae.
German engines were not that heavy. There was enough of resources for anything but turbines for turbochargers and jet engines that needed alloys suitable for high temperatures, and even there was a work-out in a vein of hollow blades for those turbines.
I don't know what do you mean about term of 'speed' with regard to aero engines.
Compression ratio (term connected with engine cylinders internals) was higher in German engines - benefit being a bit greater power for unit of fuel burned, shortcoming being that boost needed to be kept low. Less boost = lower power. Packard didn't achieved that much, being a licensee of RR. RR was very good, if not the best, in achieving good pressure ratios (term connected with superchargers) on budget and in size. Germans knew that good pressure ratios, as offered by multi-stage supercharging, were beneficial for high altitudes, yet their 2-stage engine was in service 3 years after the 1st 2-stage engines US engines and 2.5 years after British 2-stage engines. The turbo-supercharger working in series was another way to achieve good pressure ratios, as per P-38, P-47 or host of heavy bombers.
Last example - what engine is that?
Sorry for the mistaken paste: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daimler-Benz_DB_604
Regarding weight, they were a good 2-30% heavier per HP.
By speed I mean rpm, but that improved over time I guess.
The DB 604 indeed looked promissing. Too little data on reliability is available, so it's anyone's guess how it would've played out.
When using same fuel (87 oct, 100 oct, 130 grade etc, or MW 50 to improve anti-detonation properties of low-oct fuel), German engines were making about same HP per installed weight of engine.
RPM is/was closely connected to the piston's stroke. The Merlin or V-1710 will be making higher RPM due to having shorter piston stroke than DB engines, but the DB 601/605 were with bigger displacement, thus the net power will be about the same. Of course, if the engine is made much stronger and heavier, it will do bigger RPM, like it was the case with Jumo 213 that run to 3250 rpm in service, with prototypes going to 3700 rpm, despite the long stroke. Or, extra-short stroke that Napier engines used, with Dagger going to 4400 rpm for short time.
A thing with incresing the RPM is that engine stress goes up with square of increase - an increase of 10% means 21% greater stress on engine components.
The RPM of DB and Jumo engines improved over time, Merlin and Griffon remained at 3000 and 2750 respectively, the V-1710 went to 3200 rpm with 2-stage supercharged engines. BMW 801 was also not too shabby, 2700 rpm.
McPherson
Banned
Curtiss received orders for the same reason Brewster did. Congressional patronage. These "geniuses"
Senators:
Royal S. Copeland 1923-1938 Democratic
James M. Mead 1938-1947 Democratic
Robert F. Wagner 1927-1949 Democratic
Congresspeople:
Parker Corning 1923-1936 Democratic
Robert Low Bacon 1923-1938 Republican
John Joseph Boylan 1923-1938 Democratic
John Joseph O'Connor 1923-1938 Democratic
Samuel Dickstein 1923-1946 Democratic
Sol Bloom 1923-1950 Democratic
John Taber 1923-1962 Republican
Emanuel Celler 1923-1972 Republican
Andrew Lawrence Somers 1925-1950 Democratic
William Irving Sirovich 1927-1940 Democratic
Francis Dugan Culkin 1927-1944 Republican
James Martin Fitzpatrick 1927-1944 Democratic
Clarence Eugene Hancock 1927-1946 Republican
Joseph Andrew Gavagan 1929-1944 Democratic
Martin John Kennedy 1929-1944 Democratic
James Joseph Lanzetta 1933-1934, 1937-1938 Democratic
Theodore Albert Peyser 1933-1938 Democratic
Alfred Florian Beiter 1933-1938, 1941-1942 Democratic
James Wolcott Wadsworth, Jr. 1933-1950 Republican
Some were stockholders, others were bribed and most were looking out for their NEW YORK corporate constituent the way the Washington state congressional delegation has looked out for Boeing for years?
Why do you think Airbus/Northrop lost the aerial refueling tanker war to Boeing a decade ago? It was not the planes.
The F4F has a better roll rate, is a better dogfighter, better performance at high altitude, has a better engine, better pilot armor and is a better guns platform and is tough enough to take and survive cannon fire which the P-40 could not. These very things the Spitfire found it could not do against the "inferior" Zero. British Martlets also did very well against the best the Germans had.
Do you understand what is meant by he was WWII's Joe Hooker?
If Soviet aircraft are not crap, explain their love affair with the P-39? And the Kingcobra proves the Russian aeronautical engineers may not know how to build planes, but they sure knew how to analyze them well. And they did note the DC-3 like shortcomings in the Heinkel as well as the FW Condor from the same article.
P-35 ===> P-47 Alexander Kartvelli? Hell, yes!
The Airacuda was no worse than the Blackburn Roc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinkel_He_111_operational_history
Battle of Britain[edit]
Heinkel He 111 bomber over Wapping and the Isle of Dogs in the East End of London on 7 September 1940
Luftflotte 2 and Luftflotte 3 committed 34 Gruppen to the campaign over Britain. Fifteen of them were equipped with the He 111. The remainder were mixed Do 17 and Ju 88 units.[29] The He 111 and Ju 88 were equal in performance in all but speed, in which the Ju 88 was faster. The Do 17 was also faster, but lacked the heavy bomb load capabilities of the Ju 88 and He 111. During the Battle of Britain the Heinkels ability to take heavy punishment was one of its strengths and it suffered fewer losses than the Ju 88. The battle highlighted the need for heavier defensive armament and effective fighter protection by the Messerschmitt Bf 109 and Messerschmitt Bf 110 units if losses were to be kept to sustainable levels.[29] The concentration of most of the crew in the glass nose made the He 111 vulnerable to concentrated fire from a head-on attack.[30]
The Ju-88 was improvable. The Heinkel was not.
The Germans were behind the Americans in high temperature aluminum alloys. They used more steel in their aero engines to achieve the same results; hence heavier engines and lighter and more fragile airframes.
http://histclo.com/essay/war/ww2/eco/raw/w2er-rmf.html
The Germans lost a decade in engine development due to the Versailles prohibitions. What was wrong with the German engines? Aspiration and brittle steels which was same as the American engines. Other than that pair of problems, not a whole lot. They were well made with AUDEC controls a decade ahead of anyone else.
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McPherson
Banned
The British used the Gladiator at sea until it was replaced with the Martlet. (That is Wildcat in Ameriplanespeak)^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The Claude was replaced by the Zero, which was handled/mangled by what? ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The F4F Wildcat. A pilot could survive his mistakes in a Wildcat. Grumman Iron Works.
About the P-36...
I note that the French flight line circa 1940 was of fair to mediocre plane quality, but their pilots were extremely well trained to get the most out of their machines. You could have put those guys in P-40s and Buffalos and they would have done extremely well with the planes. That says something important about the French, the Finns and anyone else (the Russians) who made use of such "second-rate" American equipment. It also says something about the American "First Team" that was saddled with that junk.
I want to note that the P-36 was saddled with the usual lack of armor, lack of self sealing gas tanks and other usual deficiencies that contemporary Japanese aircraft had. It burned easily.
One needed to be a good pilot to survive it. One could not make mistakes as one could with USN planes.
AFAIK the Luftwaffe's intelligence branch under Schmid was poor and the signals branch under Martini was excellent. Could the Luftwaffe have developed an intelligence branch that was as good as its signals branch between 1935 and 1939?
Would it have helped during the Battle of Britain and Blitz?
Would it have helped during the Battle of Britain and Blitz?
If Milch had been in charge of aircraft production instead of Udet could he have squeezed more production out of the available resources? Not necessarily more finished aircraft, it could be more spares to improve the serviceability rates of the aircraft built IOTL.
Having written that could some of the extra production have been exported to earn foreign currency to pay for raw materials?
Having written that could some of the extra production have been exported to earn foreign currency to pay for raw materials?
Deleted member 1487
Milch prevented the export of aircraft to ensure production was fed into rearmament programs, as they were well behind target pre-war.