AHC: 1935-42 Luftwaffe 'sanity options'

[NOMISYRRUC]

Another use for any feasible increase in aircraft production in 1935-39 is to re-equip the Luftwaffe's equivalent of RAF Coastal Command with landplanes. That is Do17s to replace the Do18 and He111s to replace the He59, He60 and He115. Could more Do17s and He111s have been built instead of the Do18, He59, He60 and He115 in the first place?

The Luftwaffe actually had 8 anti-shipping squadrons in September 1939. The RAF only had 4 and 2 of them were in Singapore. By April 1940 the Luftwaffe had increased its total to 18. However, they didn't have an effective torpedo until 1942. Is the POD of 1935 enough time to develop an effective torpedo and have it in service by September 1939?

Germany needed to have built up a bigger stock of magnetic mines by September 1939, but I don't know if they had the resources to do it without making less of something else.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Milch prevented the export of aircraft to ensure production was fed into rearmament programs, as they were well behind target pre-war.

Would he have allowed more aircraft to be exported if more aircraft were being built?

 

[McPherson]

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?

Probably not. Radar jamming would have been of more EW help at the time as well as better tactical photo-recon efforts.

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?

Maybe, if someone would listen to Heinkel and sell hardware to China, Italy and Sweden, it might have been that toad. I am not really a fan of Milch; but he was the best of the four stooges screwing up the LW.

Ranked in order of Incompetence from worst to best as I rate them; Goring, Pretty Boy Willie, Udet and Milch. So maybe.

 

[tomo pauk]

Curtiss received orders for the same reason Brewster did. Congressional patronage. These "geniuses"

<snip>

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?

There was no other US fighter around (= in pipeline) that was making 300 mph when P-36 was intoruced. Ergo it is P-36 or worse.
There was no other US fighter around that was making 350 mph or better when Curtiss got the contract, thus P-40.
US military was buying from many manufacturers, meeting specs was the main criteria in 20th century.
We can discuss the US politics until the cows came home, but this will not mean that P-51 was around in 1939.

Why do you think Airbus/Northrop lost the aerial refueling tanker war to Boeing a decade ago? It was not the planes.

That has nothing to do with this thread nor the ww2.

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.

P-40 has better roll rate than F4F, so does the P-36. F4F did not have better engine in 1940, nor ever. Especially the 1-stage supercharged versions (Martlet I and II) that ended up in British hands in 1941, with 4 guns and not able to make 320 mph. P-40 was excellent gun platform and renown as tough puppy. Martlet was a lousy proposal to go against a 370 mph German fighters, let alone 400 mph types.

Do you understand what is meant by he was WWII's Joe Hooker?

I do, and I disagree with that.

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.

I don't take orders from you.
With that said, why don't you prove that Soviet aircraft were crap, in another thread perhaps?

P-35 ===> P-47 Alexander Kartvelli? Hell, yes!

The Airacuda was no worse than the Blackburn Roc.

Do you have comprehension problems? P-47 was not an option in 1938, nor in 1940.
Yay, lets sit in Airacuda and go kill Luftwaffe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinkel_He_111_operational_history
The Ju-88 was improvable. The Heinkel was not.

How about reading the Wikipedia article 1st? It states plainly: 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.
Thus refuting your notions that He 111 was more susceptible to the battle damage than other types.

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.

No sources, of course.

 

[marathag]

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.

F4F-3 didn't have self sealing tanks, and had 30 less gallons of fuel, four guns. Not as maneuverable as the P-36
The Curtiss could have the armor behind the pilot ,depended on the model. Lots of customer options, Curtiss was used to building many different versions of the same type to different countries

Curtiss didn't need politics, they were the largest company that had a record of trouble-free production with few delays in the '30s(this was not the case after 1941)

Now the first Buffalos were a bit more maneuverable than the Curtiss, but far more than the Willdcat. That why they won the Navy contract. their problems with build quality and delays would come later.

The only thing that the F4F had going for it, was getting greenlit to put in engines with two-stage superchargers, and its durability.
The P-36 was close, that why that type had the prewar powerdive speed record.

In 1939, the Curtiss Model 75 was one of the best fighters flying

 

[McPherson]

Another use for any feasible increase in aircraft production in 1935-39 is to re-equip the Luftwaffe's equivalent of RAF Coastal Command with landplanes. That is Do17s to replace the Do18 and He111s to replace the He59, He60 and He115. Could more Do17s and He111s have been built instead of the Do18, He59, He60 and He115 in the first place?

Seaplanes in the 1940s have their maritime uses. The Germans needed them. As to antishipping and LRMP, the Germans needed something better than FW 200. They never built it. That might have been a mission for a rationalized He-177.

The Luftwaffe actually had 8 anti-shipping squadrons in September 1939. The RAF only had 4 and 2 of them were in Singapore. By April 1940 the Luftwaffe had increased its total to 18. However, they didn't have an effective torpedo until 1942. Is the POD of 1935 enough time to develop an effective torpedo and have it in service by September 1939?

BUY IT FROM ITALY. Their torpedoes worked.

Germany needed to have built up a bigger stock of magnetic mines by September 1939, but I don't know if they had the resources to do it without making less of something else.

Shrug. I don't know. Depth charge/magnetic mine? That's like artillery shells; bread and butter naval munitions.

 

[jsb]

About GB as the target set definition for the LW.

Look: the Luftwaffe; if it can tackle and succeed against its toughest problem in front of it, then all the rest is easy.

I don't think its that easy the forces you need for each one are not the same. If you build long range bombers they cost a fortune and are worth little more than light bombers for army support early on and will just worry GB more.

1. Get rid of Goring, Udet, Milch and especially Willy Messerschmidt. ... I think you really need some of them early on for what they brought to the LW regarding DBs and 109s available early on and building a force from northing in a few years.
2. Training matters. ON only gets it half right. Pilots are expendable munitions. They need to be so produced. A program that produces 50,000 average pilots a year is better than one that produces 10,000 good to great pilots. Attrition warfare is the definition of an air campaign. But they need the experts for wining the early fight so they cant afford to fight the long game and hold back the Spanish veterans from the Polish and French campaign or the training Ju52s from Norway and Netherlands etc.
3. Define the target set to define the air fleet. Germany's definition is Great Britain. That is the target set in a nutshell. Anything that knocks Great Britain out in an air campaign wins WW II in Europe. So what is needed? Defeating GB needs long range strategic forces not the battlefield support force of OTL needed to win in Frence cheaply.... How do they get both?

a. 4 hour in air endurance competitive air superiority fighter. Never produced. FW-190 was only 3 hour with drop tanks. And cancel what the 109s? They had one of the two best fighters in the world in 39/40 asking for better is simply ASB IMO?
b 6 hour in air endurance bomber with 2-2.5 tonne bombload. This is the Ju-188 with RATO. Too late and not in enough numbers. Swap for what? every Ju188 is a 1940 first flight 1943 service aircraft that's got two much better engines and far more airframe weight so it must cost much more maybe 25-50% more, that means they get far less aircraft than OTL.
c. LRMP patroller. Contrary to popular belief the KM U-boat force desperately needed and did not get air recon and anti-ship attack support on the western approaches. Same as the above each one is two or three less OTL bombers for the LW do they really have sufficient spare to still win BoF?
e. Bombs and rockets to fit the target sets. NAPALM would have helped. Battlefield is obvious against Wally infantry and soft-skins. Might have even burned up those dense Russian tank formations. City killing, and for Britain the tacair LW needs this; cluster bombs and AP mines. All cost money to develop and test OTL LW had some of the best bombs in the world from its tests in Spain asking more is going to be hard...?
f. More ground crew, better ground crew, a Red Horse organization equivalent, and emphasis on field mobile logistics to match the Blitzkrieg. Paid for how? What do they give up?
g. Listen to Heinkel, damnit. What specifically?

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Would he have allowed more aircraft to be exported if more aircraft were being built?

When he was in charge he did not despite having the freedom to make as much as he could.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Seaplanes in the 1940s have their maritime uses. The Germans needed them. As to antishipping and LRMP, the Germans needed something better than FW 200. They never built it. That might have been a mission for a rationalized He-177.

The seaplanes the Germans had in September 1939 were death traps. Avro Ansons could and did shoot them down.

The Germans did buy torpedoes from Italy but not until 1941 and it wasn't until 1942 that they came into service. But the Italians didn't put their torpedoes into service until the second half of 1940, which is at least a year before the Luftwaffe needs them.

IMHO the major problem with the Fw200C was not its weak airframe or its poor serviceability, it was that it was built in insufficient numbers. According to my copy of Vajda & Dancey production of the Fw200 was one in 1939, 36 in 1940 and 58 in 1941. A total of 95 aircraft. Between June 1940 and May 1941 they managed to sink 450,000 tons of merchant shipping in addition to their "day job" of scouting for the Kriegsmarine. If it was possible to increase German aircraft production 1939-41 using better management of the available resources then quadrupling Fw200 production would be high up on the list on the extra aircraft to make.

However, as the POD is 1935 could either the Do19 or Ju89 have been developed into an LRMP aircraft that was better than the Fw200C? Could it have been in service in gruppe strength by September 1939?

 

[McPherson]

There was no other US fighter around (= in pipeline) that was making 300 mph when P-36 was intoruced. Ergo it is P-36 or worse.
There was no other US fighter around that was making 350 mph or better when Curtiss got the contract, thus P-40.
US military was buying from many manufacturers, meeting specs was the main criteria in 20th century.
We can discuss the US politics until the cows came home, but this will not mean that P-51 was around in 1939.

Under development:

P-38
P-39
P-43
F4U Corsair
F6F Hellcat, all starting 1036-37, all expected around `1942.

Apache was delivered in 1942 in `100 days. ===> P-51.

Politics and procurement... Airbus tanker fiasco ~ Brewster Aircraft scandal and Curtiss Aeroplane Company

That has nothing to do with this thread nor the ww2.

Course it does. History repeats itself.

P-40 has better roll rate than F4F, so does the P-36. F4F did not have better engine in 1940, nor ever. Especially the 1-stage supercharged versions (Martlet I and II) that ended up in British hands in 1941, with 4 guns and not able to make 320 mph. P-40 was excellent gun platform and renown as tough puppy. Martlet was a lousy proposal to go against a 370 mph German fighters, let alone 400 mph types.

Your opinion? Read Lundlum. He's my source.

About HAP Arnold's leadership ability and his mistakes I listed.

I do, and I disagree with that.

Arnold led the air staff and he as much drove USAAF doctrine and built the service around it. What suffered? TacAir in particular. Before Arnold the USAAC was a CAS force of the French model. Then Mitchell bedazzled and Douhet happy Arnold got in and the rails came off. This hurt the US Army in North Africa and in the Mediterranean and Italy. Quesada had to reinvent TacAir in 44. But let us not forget or forgive the other Arnold bolos.

1941-1943, what was the biggest threat to the Wallies? Hint: the U-boat war. What was the aerial cure? B-24 Liberator. What was the problem? Arnold unwaveringly fought the British and the USN for every damn Liberator for his strategic bombing lunacy. Okay, so it worked eventually. But not that Strategic Bombing was working when the Liberators were needed for sub killing more than for useless factory missing raids on French and German towns. ^^^^^^^^^^. Arnold and the bomber barons also ignored their chief fighter tactician, Claire Chennault, the guy who was using P-40 junk to give the IJA air service bomber heartburn from where he was USAAF exiled in China? Yeah. Doolittle in 43 finally figured it out the hard way in Europe. Need fighters. Need to kill the Luftwaffe force on force. Air Superiority.

I don't take orders from you.

With that said, why don't you prove that Soviet aircraft were crap, in another thread perhaps?

Why should I? The Russians say so themselves. And I never order. I suggest.

Do you have comprehension problems? P-47 was not an option in 1938, nor in 1940.

P-35-P-43-P-47. Want to argue that history?

Fine. You will lose.

Yay, lets sit in Airacuda and go kill Luftwaffe.

Blackburn Skua.

How about reading the Wikipedia article 1st? It states plainly: 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.

How about reading... "The Ju-88 was improvable, the He-111 was not?"

Thus refuting your notions that He 111 was more susceptible to the battle damage than other types.

Lol. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

About US aluminum tech.

No sources, of course.

https://patents.justia.com/assignee/alcoa-inc

 

[McPherson]

I don't think its that easy the forces you need for each one are not the same. If you build long range bombers they cost a fortune and are worth little more than light bombers for army support early on and will just worry GB more.

McPherson said: ↑
About GB as the target set definition for the LW.

Look: the Luftwaffe; if it can tackle and succeed against its toughest problem in front of it, then all the rest is easy.

I don't think its that easy the forces you need for each one are not the same. If you build long range bombers they cost a fortune and are worth little more than light bombers for army support early on and will just worry GB more.
McPherson ↑
1. Get rid of Goring, Udet, Milch and especially Willy Messerschmidt. ... I think you really need some of them early on for what they brought to the LW regarding DBs and 109s available early on and building a force from northing in a few years.

Does one really? Maybe Pretty Boy Willie, but there were LW staffers who were far better than the other three gentlemen.

2. Training matters. ON only gets it half right. Pilots are expendable munitions. They need to be so produced. A program that produces 50,000 average pilots a year is better than one that produces 10,000 good to great pilots. Attrition warfare is the definition of an air campaign. But they need the experts for wining the early fight so they cant afford to fight the long game and hold back the Spanish veterans from the Polish and French campaign or the training Ju52s from Norway and Netherlands etc.

You just killed your training base and experienced ops staffs. That is RTL by the way.

3. Define the target set to define the air fleet. Germany's definition is Great Britain. That is the target set in a nutshell. Anything that knocks Great Britain out in an air campaign wins WW II in Europe. So what is needed? Defeating GB needs long range strategic forces not the battlefield support force of OTL needed to win in Frence cheaply.... How do they get both?

What defeats Great Britain happens on the sea lanes. Long ranged TacAir works. Otherwise the Pacific War is a stalemate in the SWPA. We've discussed this, remember? Subs without airpower = 0 effect. Medium bombers in the interdiction role also = city killers. Coventry was not bombed by B-17s. Neither was Rotterdam. Lack of range not the type bomb carrier is the factor in the BoB.

a. 4 hour in air endurance competitive air superiority fighter. Never produced. FW-190 was only 3 hour with drop tanks. And cancel what the 109s? They had one of the two best fighters in the world in 39/40 asking for better is simply ASB IMO?

Drop tanks. FW-190s with better ones. Me 109 I doubt could be plumbed for wing tanks, so yeah... He 100. Heinkel. Remember him?

6 hour in air endurance bomber with 2-2.5 tonne bombload. This is the Ju-188 with RATO. Too late and not in enough numbers. Swap for what? every Ju188 is a 1940 first flight 1943 service aircraft that's got two much better engines and far more airframe weight so it must cost much more maybe 25-50% more, that means they get far less aircraft than OTL.

What do you want? A-20s? No seriously, the requirement is stated, not the result.

c. LRMP patroller. Contrary to popular belief the KM U-boat force desperately needed and did not get air recon and anti-ship attack support on the western approaches. Same as the above each one is two or three less OTL bombers for the LW do they really have sufficient spare to still win BoF?

Same as stated before; the requirement is the need; not the RTL result. Could they do it? Yup. Look at the wastage in the 1939-1941 LW programs.

e. Bombs and rockets to fit the target sets. NAPALM would have helped. Battlefield is obvious against Wally infantry and soft-skins. Might have even burned up those dense Russian tank formations. City killing, and for Britain the tacair LW needs this; cluster bombs and AP mines. All cost money to develop and test OTL LW had some of the best bombs in the world from its tests in Spain asking more is going to be hard...?

I don't think that the Germans have a choice. Italy, Russia and GB made the effort. They'd better.

f. More ground crew, better ground crew, a Red Horse organization equivalent, and emphasis on field mobile logistics to match the Blitzkrieg. Paid for how? What do they give up?

Their utterly evil hideous insane and reprehensible "final solution". Lunacy. Sheer psychotic inexplicable lunacy, not only morally, but as practical war-making. Billions of Marks and millions of precious lives and man-hours wasted. But that goes into ASB territory. Take it from the navy. Raeder is screwing up as bad as Goring anyway. Rob Peter.

g. Listen to Heinkel, damnit. What specifically?

Well, fighter production, seaplanes, jet engines, manufacturing processes, ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ "don't kill your best most skilled workers in the name of insane "race theories" and chew on one enemy at a time," Ernst Heinkel. That guy.

 

[Wimble Toot]

Look: the Luftwaffe; if it can tackle and succeed against its toughest problem in front of it, then all the rest is easy.

But if the Führer doesn't want to see the UK invaded and defeated (and he didn't) no-one is going to work towards that.

 

[kalamona]

About US aluminum tech.

https://patents.justia.com/assignee/alcoa-inc

Ahh! First i was pretty much confused, what on earth do you mean by the more steel thingy, now if understand you, you mean the aluminium engine blocks and the german inability to make them?
Not true. it was a design decision to go with iron - their alu engine blocks were just fine.

 

[McPherson]

Ahh! First i was pretty much confused, what on earth do you mean by the more steel thingy, now if understand you, you mean the aluminium engine blocks and the german inability to make them?
Not true. it was a design decision to go with iron - their alu engine blocks were just fine.

They did not have the rare earths knowhow and they did not have the aluminum milling and temper know how. Plus the aluminum they did have had to go into airframes.

 

[Wimble Toot]

Why should I? The Russians say so themselves. And I never order. I suggest.

The only quote in that WRT USA vs USSR equipment is this

Flying American equipment was a mixed blessing. The airplanes were as good (or better) as any Russian-made, but in the Stalinist era, carried a certain stigma.

Hardly a damning indictment of the aeroplanes of the rodina!

I'm reminded of the RAF Hawker Hurricanes struggling to keep up with the Petlyakov Pe-2s they were ordered to escort.

 

[McPherson]

But if the Führer doesn't want to see the UK invaded and defeated (and he didn't) no-one is going to work towards that.

And ...............? Just because the lunatic in charge is insane and should be removed (Boy does that sound relevant for many nations today?), does not mean you give up proper war planning in the meantime if you are a professional military.

 

[McPherson]

The only quote in that WRT USA vs USSR equipment is this

Flying American equipment was a mixed blessing. The airplanes were as good (or better) as any Russian-made, but in the Stalinist era, carried a certain stigma.

Hardly a damning indictment of the aeroplanes of the rodina!

Actually QUITE DAMNING as it was/is death in Stalin's Russia to criticize "Soviet" achievements.

Look, the Russians in an article (same site) said they preferred the P-40 to the British Hurricane, because the American plane was better made; so I know when they were free to criticize, they were honest.

 

[Wimble Toot]

And ...............? Just because the lunatic in charge is insane and should be removed

And is beloved by the people, and surrounded by heavily armed thugs.

 

[McPherson]

And is beloved by the people, and surrounded by heavily armed thugs.

Same answer as before.

 

[Wimble Toot]

Look, the Russians in an article (same site) said they preferred the P-40 to the British Hurricane, because the American plane was better made; so I know when they were free to criticize, they were honest.

So how did Ivan Kohzedub shoot down 64 Luftwaffe aircraft (one of them an Me262) and two USAAF P-51Ds, in entirely Soviet-built aircraft?

Were they all flukes?