I'd be a bit concerned about visibility for the pilot, with the cockpit dead-centered over the rather broad wings...
Alternate History Combat Aircraft
- Thread starter S. Marlowski
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- aircraft helicopter
While I'm not too sure on the Jet this coupd be a decent torpedo bomber for Germany
Two issues I see immediately:
1. The height of the aircraft above the floats does not match between the side-on and nose-on views.
2. Because floatplanes will experience a strong breaking force as soon as one float touches down, it is very important to ensure that both floats touch down at the same time. With the floats so far apart on the wings, it would be very easy to set one down on the water and start to yaw before the other can get down.
There are a few floatplane conversions of Beech 18s. They are similar in size and configuration to the Bf 110 you have here, so you can see how they set up the floats in real life.
Good eye, the float on the right was slightly higher, I think I repositioned it a little to the left after I first attached it to the plane and forgot to check it with the one on the left.
These things happen when drawing these up.
The Zwills are just something I do for fun, they're not to be taken too seriously but there are a few exceptions but the He-380 isn't one of them.
I myself like the Me-110 floater and it was inspired by the Japanese who seemed to love to stick floats on almost all of their fighter and support aircraft (torpedo bombers and such) so I figured if they had the Me-110 they'd have stuck floats on it too but here I have the Germans do it.
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I hear you, someone else posted a similar response a while back when I did a whole slew of them (some of them were pretty lousy too to be honest) but I enjoy doing them because I don't have to hunt up other pics of planes that I can combine into a new pic and I don't have to scale up anything because I'm just using one pic.
In other words, they're just really easy to make.
Pangur
Donor
Side comment, I was a thread on this side for Douglas DC-10 twins, it is about a twin engine version of the OTL DC-10. However as soon as I read the title a mental image of a Zwill incarnation of the DC 10 came to me!
Remember, the RN heavies are the primary targets, and this is meant to give the Italians the ability to be able to escort their bombers in while not appearing to have the range to hit Alexandria and/or Gibraltar, let alone with fighter escorts. Losing some fighters is a small price to pay to kill RN Battleships/Battlecruisers/Aircraft carriers in the opening stages of the war.
As far as ranges...
Using Bing maps, I can put some distances to the distances from Sardinia to Gibraltar at over 800 miles, one way, and not including the combat time over the target. If we look at Sicily to Alexandria, we are looking at 950 miles one way, without combat time over target. This is both good and bad, as the range precludes fighters at either location, so the British can easily be excused for thinking that a handful of second rate fighters are more than enough to meet any threat by long range bombers. An A6M could (I think) make either flight, as they had IIRC a 2,000 mile range, but that is from early 1940, so inter Axis cooperation is needed for that to happen, and they will only be available in small numbers I should think.
Below is another example of the ranges that could be had, but I think that if this were something the Italian had operational before the shooting started, then the British would recognize Alexandria/Port said are within bomber range, and would thus have been forced to deploy larger fighter forces to Egypt than historically, if they suspect that the bombers based there could have fighter escorts with them.
520 miles, one way, may or may not be outside of British fears of Italian escort fighters, and I think that basing military aircraft there would be a bad idea, unless only second rate ones were to be employed there pre-war, to give a false sense of security.
So, what kinds of alternate aircraft would we need Italy to have, to be able to take the fight to the RN bases, on day one of Italy's war, and keep the British feeling that they were safe, right up until their ships start getting sunk?
What the Italians need is obviously a long range fighter but that is easier said than done. IOTL they had the Breda Ba-88 but the plane was overweight and underpowered.
The simplest solution IMO would be a Zwilling style fighter(and no I'm not suggesting another zwill because I like them, it really is the best option the Italians would have here but this of course requires hindsight).
I would suggest using the Reggiane Re.2000 Falco, it was Italy's best single engine fighter in 1940, the two engines would give the Falco Zwilling the range needed while not losing too much maneuverability.
The Falco had very good maneuverability and according to tests done in 1940 could outfly the Me-109E and Macchi C.200 so it should be able to take on Hawker Hurricanes without too much difficulty and the extended middle wing could fit an extra pair of MG's or maybe even some 20mm cannons.
Not a perfect solution but the best that Italy could do in a short time at the beginning of the war IMHO.
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Another idea is that the Italians conceive the idea for a twin boom fighter similar to the Lockheed P 38 Lightning.
IOTL the Italians did experiment with a twin boom fighter and a tandem cockpit fighter both designs by Savio Marchetti, the SM.91 and SM.92.
Above I've taken an SM.92 and replaced it's inline engines with the radial engines used in Reggiane Re.2000 Falco.
I had to widen the diameter of the booms to fit the radials and I also reduced the number of 20mm cannons from five to three because the Italians were prone to under arm their combat aircraft in WWII at least during the early years of the war. Three 20mm cannons is still pretty good for an early era WWII fighter.
