AHC: post-1942 Luftwaffe 'sanity options'

[marathag]

POD what if the Luftwaffe shoots down the aircraft carrying the nuke?

It still armed, and it goes off when the barometric trigger says 'go'
Intercepting 350mph bombers at 34,000 feet isn't as easy as big B-24s flying at 24,000feet 150 mph slower.
The US was building the infrastructure to mass produce bombs, 3 per month, increasing as the months go on into Fall and Winter

You have to stop every single B-29, that's rough job

 

[tomo pauk]

Was compartmentalized bomb bay avoidable/solvable? This would solve drag problem.

My favorite thing to do with Ju 88 is to have wings located higher on the fuselage, so the in-fuselage reinforcements can be also located higher, thus providing for one long bomb bay instead of two short ones. We might also try mating the fuselage of Ju 288 with wings of Ju 88, to take advantage of the Ju 288's excellent bomb bay & fuel tank layout, as well as less draggy cockpit. Granted, all of this is not worth much until/unless the engine receive major improvements.

The Ho 229 was tested by the Smithsonian and it did have less of a radar footprint than the Bf 109.
It had about 80% the footprint of a Bf 109, which in the 1940s was pretty good considering the tech back then.
The only good faster bomber was the Ar 234 because it had 4 engines and had decent low altitude speed as well.
The other jets were better as bomber destroyers and fighters to counter the Allied bombing raids.

IMO, stealth was all about decreasing radar return of an aircraft to one or two orders of magnitude vs. what non-stealth A/C had. Ho 229 didn't do it, it will still be very detectable, especially from the front and back.
The very good, if not excellent fast bomber was DH Mosquito; a 2-engined Ar 234 was also very good. We can also stipulate here a swept-wing jet bomber, with a bomb-bay.

 

[yulzari]

[QUOTE="Gunnarnz, post: 19854895, member: 25199"they were waiting for doodlebugs which hardly did any damage anyway. QUOTE]
Tens of thousands of casualties with a high proportion of deaths across the South East of England and Antwerp and it's environs is not hardly any damage if it is your family being killed, wounded or made homeless. They had already had 5 years of conventional bombing not to mention the same from coastal artillery so 'we won't bother this time' is not going to be an option. The troops in NW Europe are not going to be impressed if nothing is done to protect their children and parents. The brake on advances on the ground was logistics not weaponry so the defence of South East England and Antwerp had little impact upon the advance into Germany. AFAIK the whole V1/V2 matter was not a Luftwaffe affair anyway.

 

[tomo pauk]

...
AFAIK the whole V1/V2 matter was not a Luftwaffe affair anyway.

The V1 was Luftwaffe's affair.
Now that we're at it, I'd try to outfit the V1 with passive radio guidance, so it can home on the radio emiters, like radars, radio stations and such All while trying to push it's development so it can be deployed by late 1943, with a faster and/or 2-engined version in use by mid-1944?

 

[Richard V]

The Ho 229 was tested by the Smithsonian and it did have less of a radar footprint than the Bf 109.
It had about 80% the footprint of a Bf 109, which in the 1940s was pretty good considering the tech back then.
The only good faster bomber was the Ar 234 because it had 4 engines and had decent low altitude speed as well.
The other jets were better as bomber destroyers and fighters to counter the Allied bombing raids.

Rule of stealth is every time you reduce radar cross section by 90% you reduce detection range by 50%. So a 99% reduction shrinks range to 25%. A 20% reduction of RCS is tactically useless.

 

[thaddeus]

AFAIK the whole V1/V2 matter was not a Luftwaffe affair anyway.

The V1 was Luftwaffe's affair.
Now that we're at it, I'd try to outfit the V1 with passive radio guidance, so it can home on the radio emiters, like radars, radio stations and such All while trying to push it's development so it can be deployed by late 1943, with a faster and/or 2-engined version in use by mid-1944?

they were scheming a single use jet version, could they have flown with jets earlier? IIRC the vibration from the pulse jets delayed things quite a bit?

at any rate they could have mixed jet, pulse jet, and twin pulse jet versions to great effect. fabricated some of the fuselages with nipolit to increase its destructiveness.

the BV-246 glide bomb was slated to receive a passive radar seeking system at one point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blohm_&_Voss_BV_246

 

[Richard V]

Realistically the only thing that might save Germany at this point is getting the atomic bomb.

 

[Jukra]

Realistically the only thing that might save Germany at this point is getting the atomic bomb.

And, in yet another twist:

"Mein Führer, we must construct an atomic bomb before our enemies do it. In American dollars, we just must spend 2 billion and a few years on development of the bomb and 3 billion to develop an Amerika bomber to deliver it."

Wouldn't this screw Nazi war effort quite nicely?

 

[Richard V]

And, in yet another twist:

"Mein Führer, we must construct an atomic bomb before our enemies do it. In American dollars, we just must spend 2 billion and a few years on development of the bomb and 3 billion to develop an Amerika bomber to deliver it."

Wouldn't this screw Nazi war effort quite nicely?

Cancel the V2. The program cost about the same as the Manhattan Project. Don’t need a bomber when they built over a thousand submarines. Buy the plans for the Japanese I-400.

 

[tomo pauk]

Not making and no debugging of 1170 of He 177s frees a lot of manufacturing & design capacity at Heinkel, similar with MTT not making Me 210/410. What to make & design instead? Make the He 219 as a fast bomber powered by BMW 801 and/or V12s, instead of a (night)fighter He 219?

they were scheming a single use jet version, could they have flown with jets earlier? IIRC the vibration from the pulse jets delayed things quite a bit?

There were plans to make install a jet engine on later versions of the V1.

 

[BELFAST]

Biggest problem the German air force faced was it was fighting too many enemies on too many fronts
1. Avoid war with America at all costs.
2. Air force needs to avoid supplying troops behind enemies lines.
3. Air force needs more secure radio codes.
4. Air force needs to pass naval airborne recon to the Navy
5. Promote Adolf Galland and retire Hermann Göring to be in charge of national parks.
6. Promote Albert Speer to control production of aircraft etc.

I am not sure if any of this will make a real difference. Hitlers problem go well beyond the need for air force reform.

Best book I have seen on the subject is
also in web site below
Strategy for Defeat: The Luftwaffe 1933-1945 - Ibiblio
https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/AAF-Luftwaffe/index.html#index

 

[Garrison]

Biggest problem the German air force faced was it was fighting too many enemies on too many fronts
1. Avoid war with America at all costs.
2. Air force needs to avoid supplying troops behind enemies lines.
3. Air force needs more secure radio codes.
4. Air force needs to pass naval airborne recon to the Navy
5. Promote Adolf Galland and retire Hermann Göring to be in charge of national parks.
6. Promote Albert Speer to control production of aircraft etc.

I am not sure if any of this will make a real difference. Hitlers problem go well beyond the need for air force reform.

Best book I have seen on the subject is
also in web site below
Strategy for Defeat: The Luftwaffe 1933-1945 - Ibiblio
https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/AAF-Luftwaffe/index.html#index

1 is all but impossible by the timeframe suggested by the OP and 6 is unlikely to make much difference. The Luftwaffe proved quite capable of matching Speer's 'Armaments Miracle' until 1944. The only plus to putting Speer in charge is that he would stop be so obstructive. He used his influence to quash a Luftwaffe production plan that was all but identical to the one adopted once the Luftwaffe agreed to put its production under Speer's control.

 

[tomo pauk]

Luftwaffe will also need to have tools for less glamorous tasks, like transport, reconaisance (both tactical and strategic), and training.
An-2 equivalent as a light transport, Ju 352 as big? Ar 232 in 2- or 4-engine configuration? Diesel engine onboard?
The strategic recon will need much improved engines.
Trainig - diesel-engined trainer? The 2-seater Bf 109 and Fw 190 are needed ASAP.

 

[marathag]

IMO, stealth was all about decreasing radar return of an aircraft to one or two orders of magnitude vs. what non-stealth A/C had. Ho 229 didn't do it, it will still be very detectable, especially from the front and back.

Spinning compressor blades are great at making a radar return

 

[tomo pauk]

Spinning compressor blades are great at making a radar return

Of course. This is why we have nets at inlet start (like on F-117) or curved intakes (like what F-23 and B-2 used).

 

[Kevin Renner]

Do you like lead in your brain? Because this is how you get lead in your brain.

Not really but the thought of certain individuals with lead in their brains a few years earlier has its attractions. But then I do know the old adage about being careful what you wish for. Imagining a Third Riech headed by say Reinhard Heydrich is something I have no wish to contemplate

 

[Paolo Giusti]

Cancel the V2. The program cost about the same as the Manhattan Project. Don’t need a bomber when they built over a thousand submarines. Buy the plans for the Japanese I-400.

I never get the "Aggregate costed as Manhattan": money has no value in war. Alcool for V2 costed 10 in Germany but (probably) less in UK and USA.
I have never seen a PPP analysis of that statement.

 

[Paolo Giusti]

Luftwaffe will also need to have tools for less glamorous tasks, like transport, reconaisance (both tactical and strategic), and training.
An-2 equivalent as a light transport, Ju 352 as big? Ar 232 in 2- or 4-engine configuration? Diesel engine onboard?
The strategic recon will need much improved engines.

Ar232 was a wonderful machine. I would trade all FW200's Bramo Fafnir for them: Do26 was a better V-LRMP. EDIT although not an opportunistic naval bomber, too frail as Norway showed.

Trainig - diesel-engined trainer? The 2-seater Bf 109 and Fw 190 are needed ASAP.

Diesel engined trainers anyone ?

Why diesel? There were different low-quality fuels (alcool) for training duties that avoid overloading Junkers.

 

[tomo pauk]

Why diesel? There were different low-quality fuels (alcool) for training duties that avoid overloading Junkers.

Diesel was not very much in use by Wehrmacht, and refining of Romanian crude was giving 2 liters of diesel per one liter of gasoline (and another 2 liters of oil suitable for street lights). Conversely, in Sept 1939, Wehrmacht used 5 times more of gasoline (vehicle-grade plus AvGas) than diesel, and great increase of aircraft, tank and truck numbers kept the ratio, if not icreased it. For comparison, German 'civil' usage of diesel and gasoline was about equal in Sept of 1939.
The synthetic fuel factories were also delivering diesel fuel as byproduct, roughly 1 litre per each 3 liters of AvGas (tpically 87 oct and higher) produced. In 1944, Germany was producing about same quantity of AvGas and diesel, plus a bit less of vehicle-grade gasoline.
My bottom line for all of this - since we're getting the diesel fuel anyway, let's use it.

Alcohol as fuel sounds great, but it will require devoting a good percentage of arable land to it - fuel of food dilema. One then needs factories to produce alcohol is quantities needed. Since we're making factory to make fuel, better make factory to make hi-oct fuel.

I've already suggested that Jumo 222 is cancelled, so Jumo will not be that overloaded.

 

[Paolo Giusti]

Diesel was not very much in use by Wehrmacht, and refining of Romanian crude was giving 2 liters of diesel per one liter of gasoline (and another 2 liters of oil suitable for street lights

But they did not waste it, AFAIK. So more diesel engines need more production.

The synthetic fuel factories were also delivering diesel fuel as byproduct, roughly 1 litre per each 3 liters of AvGas (tpically 87 oct and higher) produced. In 1944, Germany was producing about same quantity of AvGas and diesel, plus a bit less of vehicle-grade gasoline.
My bottom line for all of this - since we're getting the diesel fuel anyway, let's use it

Wut?
Frisch-Thropsh and Bergius produce directly required fuel, contrary to cracking and oil refinery that separate high- from low-octane fuels. I never heard that synfuel production has diesel waste.