Junkers Ju288 as four engine bomber

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FBKampfer

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I think the biggest limitation on the 88 line is that, due to its internal bomb bay, it's limited to 20 50kg bombs on the internal bomb bay, and the remaining 2000kg are on 4 external hardpoints, IIRC.
 

Deleted member 1487

I think the biggest limitation on the 88 line is that, due to its internal bomb bay, it's limited to 20 50kg bombs on the internal bomb bay, and the remaining 2000kg are on 4 external hardpoints, IIRC.
The Ju288 was an entirely different design. It's bomb bay could take up to two 2500kg bombs. Normal payload was 3000kg internally.
 
FWIW, I'd also go with a 'Ju 288 minus' - the airframe of Ju 288 + BMW 801. Granted, it will never be as zippy as what was expected with Jumo 222 engines, but Luftwaffe would've have had a better bomber than the mid-war Ju 88s or He 111s.
 

thaddeus

Donor
when the "power system" scenario did not work for JU-288 wonder if a trimotor arrangement might have served? (using the Jumo 211s)

FWIW, I'd also go with a 'Ju 288 minus' - the airframe of Ju 288 + BMW 801. Granted, it will never be as zippy as what was expected with Jumo 222 engines, but Luftwaffe would've have had a better bomber than the mid-war Ju 88s or He 111s.

you think fitting a center engine too complicated for the results? circa the same time they had the JU-252 operating with great range (and payload, albeit not a bomber)

just quick glance the JU-288 had extended wingspan, not sure if it would be enough?

(basically meant as stopgap "until" Jumo 222 engines "work")
 
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you think fitting a center engine too complicated for the results? circa the same time they had the JU-252 operating with great range (and payload, albeit not a bomber)

I actually like the 3-engined bomber that incorporates plenty of Ju 288 parts. However, I'd propose the central engine to be a pusher, like it was the rear engine on the Do 335. Obviously, that means the defensive guns need to be relocated (probably in the now extended nacelles of wing engines?), tricycle U/C, tail that also serves as a bumper to shiled the prop from hitting ground. Use the off-the-shelf Jumo 211s.

just quick glance the JU-288 had extended wingspan, not sure if it would be enough?

(basically meant as stopgap "until" Jumo 222 engines "work")

The 1st prototype of Ju 288, powered indeed by BMW 801, was with shorter wing span - 18-something meters (similar to the early Ju 88s). Later it grew to 20 m, and 22+ m at last, to cater for greater weight of Jumo 222s and, especially, DB 610s they installed in some prototypes.
 
The best case for a new weapon is if it can butterfly away some bad German decisions.

Lets says in September 1942, Hitler is depressed about the stalling of the drive in the Caucasus, sacking List, dire intelligence reports about Soviet capabilities along the Don, so Goering, proud of his JU 288 in its early deployments in the Atlantic, a Persian gulf refinery raid (is that possible?). Goering gives one of his typical boasts about how he can destroy Grozny and Baku (and the remaining Stalingrad pocket from the air), even raid shipping over the Caspian sea, and reach far away Soviet power grid targets. Hitler buys into this as a cheap and easy way of ending his Soviet problem, so goes over to the strategic defensive in the east in December 1942 to let Goering destroy Soviet capabilities from the air and create conditions for a favorable peace with the Soviets

Stopping the drive on Grozny, Tupase, and Sochi in September, a modest reserve of 2 Panzer and 1 motorized division is created behind the Don at Stalingrad. Its not much of reserve, but its enough to delay the Soviets for a couple of days encircling Stalingrad, Goering instead of boasting that he can air supply Stalingrad, boats that he can still bomb the Soviets into making peace even if Stalingrad is evacuated, the Germans evacuate, its rather messy, almost the entire heavy equipment is lost of sixth army, but the majority of the soldiers make it out.

With the defeats attacking army group center, the less complete victory at Stalingrad, and German strategic raids achieving some success, the Soviets agree to a peace on largely 1941 lines (the Romanians get to keep Buknovia, the Finns Vipuri, and the Germans Lemberg oil.
 

Deleted member 1487

The Ju288A:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Ju_288#Variants
The results were highly underwhelming. It was more underpowered than the Do217.

The 5000 kg bombload spec goes through the window (too optimistic for 3000-3500 HP total), 2000 kg normal or 3000 kg in overload is probably the highest value for the '288 minus'. I'd also go for just one defensive position, tail preferably. Some/plenty of weight might be shaved if fuselage looses one or two sections, CoG-permitting. 5360L of internal fuel is also over-the-top, so again some fuel tankage will be deleted - 3000L should be enough?
All in all, a bomber much better than He 111 or Ju 88, and no worse than Do 217.
 

Deleted member 1487

The 5000 kg bombload spec goes through the window (too optimistic for 3000-3500 HP total), 2000 kg normal or 3000 kg in overload is probably the highest value for the '288 minus'. I'd also go for just one defensive position, tail preferably. Some/plenty of weight might be shaved if fuselage looses one or two sections, CoG-permitting. 5360L of internal fuel is also over-the-top, so again some fuel tankage will be deleted - 3000L should be enough?
All in all, a bomber much better than He 111 or Ju 88, and no worse than Do 217.
So...why not just go with the Do217?
 
How much wider of fuselage are we talking than the Ju288? Same with the cockpit?

Fuselage of Ju 288 was 91 cm wide, per Regnat. The 3-man cockpit's width is in the ballpark; 4-men cockpit is wider.
Fuselage of Do 217 was wider than the width of the cowling for the BMW 801A (= 1307 mm) by some 20% -> roughly 157 cm.
 

thaddeus

Donor
I actually like the 3-engined bomber that incorporates plenty of Ju 288 parts. However, I'd propose the central engine to be a pusher, like it was the rear engine on the Do 335. Obviously, that means the defensive guns need to be relocated (probably in the now extended nacelles of wing engines?), tricycle U/C, tail that also serves as a bumper to shiled the prop from hitting ground. Use the off-the-shelf Jumo 211s.

probably Dornier would be more likely company to undertake such a project? had suggested a trimotor scheme for JU-288 fuselage to make the least internal changes, and overall reduce the weight of aircraft vs. the twinned engine arrangement.

also looking at the probably boost in range.
 

Deleted member 1487

probably Dornier would be more likely company to undertake such a project? had suggested a trimotor scheme for JU-288 fuselage to make the least internal changes, and overall reduce the weight of aircraft vs. the twinned engine arrangement.

also looking at the probably boost in range.
Depends on the engines used. Even if 3x DB603s probably not compared to the Jumo 222 or even DB610, but certainly much better than with 2x BMW801s. The only issue is that you'll need to reengineer the fuselage to handle the torque of the engine, especially the bigger engine, while in a pusher arrangement like Tomo suggested (which makes sense) it would require even more reengineering as they'd lose the rear defensive guns in the tail and need to really rework the tail, rear fuselage, and air intake, not to mention the landing gear as I doubt a tricycle would work with the heavy weight in the front. If they can make it work that would be great, but it would be tough. Putting the engine in the front would obscure the critical front view for the bombardier. The Ju252/352 could do it because they weren't bombers.
 
probably Dornier would be more likely company to undertake such a project? had suggested a trimotor scheme for JU-288 fuselage to make the least internal changes, and overall reduce the weight of aircraft vs. the twinned engine arrangement.

also looking at the probably boost in range.

Oh, your proposal is certainly less of a hussle than mine, but it will still require a lots of rework from wing front. For my proposal, at least the fuselage and tail would've involved a clean-sheet design.

Depends on the engines used. Even if 3x DB603s probably not compared to the Jumo 222 or even DB610, but certainly much better than with 2x BMW801s. The only issue is that you'll need to reengineer the fuselage to handle the torque of the engine, especially the bigger engine, while in a pusher arrangement like Tomo suggested (which makes sense) it would require even more reengineering as they'd lose the rear defensive guns in the tail and need to really rework the tail, rear fuselage, and air intake, not to mention the landing gear as I doubt a tricycle would work with the heavy weight in the front. If they can make it work that would be great, but it would be tough. Putting the engine in the front would obscure the critical front view for the bombardier. The Ju252/352 could do it because they weren't bombers.

People were making 3-motor bombers that featured bomb-aimer's position (picture).
However, a 3-motor Ju 288 would've mean a lot of time & resources invested into a redesign, probably more than a switch to 4-engine version.
 
Why do some people here and elsewhere (have you seen the YouTube videos on “theoretical 1946 German aircraft?) seam to think that with a flip of a minor change that Germany could have build “super planes”. Faster longer range, carries more load etc. zIt seams that except for the stupidity of the government Germany could have built much better aircraft, by far, then the rest of the world managed. So apparently the rest of the world was just stupid?

I just don’t get these things. “If Germany had only built X”. “It was faster, more maneuverable, more powerful “ ect. If only someone had killed Hittler in 1940 they would have had the technology to take over the world!
 

Methinks that you've fired a lots of bullets here, some of them missed the target by a large margin, though. Nobody implied that rest of the world is/was stupid, nor that getting rid of Hitler unlocks the world-conquering technology for Nazi Germany. While it is true that Germany lost the war predominantly because of mistakes made on grand strategy level, their hardware was also sometimes lagging behind what was technologycaly available and feasible - thus a legit topic to discuss as a 'what if' or/and AHC.

On the other hand, nobody is forcing anyone to read or contribute to the threads that he does not like.
 

Deleted member 1487

Why do some people here and elsewhere (have you seen the YouTube videos on “theoretical 1946 German aircraft?) seam to think that with a flip of a minor change that Germany could have build “super planes”. Faster longer range, carries more load etc. zIt seams that except for the stupidity of the government Germany could have built much better aircraft, by far, then the rest of the world managed. So apparently the rest of the world was just stupid?

I just don’t get these things. “If Germany had only built X”. “It was faster, more maneuverable, more powerful “ ect. If only someone had killed Hittler in 1940 they would have had the technology to take over the world!
For one thing the Nazi administrators really did screw the Luftwaffe over IOTL when it came to getting the next generation of aircraft in 1941-42, but no one is arguing that they'd be able to make some truly next level aircraft beyond the wildest dreams of any other world power, just that they could have done a lot better in the technology department, which would have had an impact on the course of the war at least. In no way is anyone arguing that the rest of the world was stupid, instead we're just saying what if the Nazis were marginally less stupid when it came to managing technology. Hitler was part of the problem, as he appointed a lot of really stupid people based on personal friendship or at least long term slavish loyalty, which led to those people also doing the same in their areas of influence, like Goering with Udet in the RLM/Luftwaffe.

If you look at the record for 1941-43 with technological development the Luftwaffe really dropped the ball on the four engine bomber (look at how much was simply wasted on the non-functional He177), while it is estimated that 2,000 aircraft were lost over the Me210 debacle where 1000 of an paper design was ordered for production before it was even test flown (which proved to be a disaster). The Ju288 was also a massive boondoggle with over 100 million Reichsmarks invested only for it to basically be scrapped when the original engine didn't pan out. There have been arguments from historians that that was a function of a power struggle between administrators wherein one purposely sabotaged the project to assert control over the head of the Junkers corporation. Had the project actually panned out it would have been a truly revolutionary aircraft; the Germans certainly invested a lot of engineering resources to get there, but if not for the unreasonable changes in requirements it very well could have been a serious headache for the Allies to deal with. They got lucky that the Nazis bungled the 1942 generation of aircraft and were left with upgraded versions of obsolete aircraft to fight from 1942 on.

BTW the US corps of engineers sent one of their top engineers to look into the German R&D effort and found it horribly mismanaged, claiming that the Germans could have been a much more dangerous opponent had they actually got their science and engineering efforts properly organized:
https://www.amazon.com/German-research-world-war-II/dp/B0007DVL80
From one of the reviews:
I have read other books on German weapons programs during WWII, and am always surprised by both the variety and novelty of these designs. As I am a scientist who has participated in military-funded research programs, I am somewhat familiar with the organizations which support such research. Compared to American, British, and Russian military research of the WWII era, Germany military research seems whimsical and inspired--often to the extreme--rather than obsessed with "discipline" and order. Actually, the principle criticism that I would level at German WWII research organization is a lack of discipline and order! In some cases, this lack of order can be traced to Hitler, who interfered and inserted his opinions in the organization of German research in a way that American or British political and military leaders would never consider sensible or proper!
 
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Deleted member 1487

Getting back to the original topic, I suppose, having looked into the details of the development program, that the best option would have been to simply have gone for the Ju288C (i.e. the model with the DB606/10 engine) in 1940-1 instead of waiting on the Jumo 222 or redesigning it for four separate engines. Unlike the He177, the Ju288C doesn't seem to have had the engine fire problem AFAIK.

With that said, if it were production ready in 1942 and effectively able to outrun the existing fighter opposition at altitude might it be utilized for strategic bombing missions?
 
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