Nazis develop/mass produce Wunderwaffes early, not destroyed/captured or War is longer in Nazi Favor

By mid-war, plenty of radial engines provided sufficient horsepower to lift helicopters. Yes, they needed extra fans for cooling. Look at all the early Sikorskies. I suspect that the biggest disadvantage of piston engines was their inherent vibration. You would need something like a hydraulic torque-converter to reduce torsional vibration.
 
Did an industry survey on what little helicopter production did occurred. Then reset it for sole FL-282 production & then reset again for FL-282 plus Fa336 production [hybrid Fa -330 with motor].

Approximated
FL-282
dozen in 1942
30 plus in 1943
almost 50 in 1944 and 60 in 1945.

FL-282 & Fa-336
dozen in FL-282 in 1942
in 1943 ~ 20 FL-282 plus 3 dozen Fa-336
in 1944 ~ 30 FL-282 plus ~ 60 Fa-336
In 1945 ~ 50 FL-282 and over 110 Fa-336.

Original thought was to put a helicopter on the quarter deck of every Zerstroer, then a smaller scout Helo on every GTB 1939 /1937/1935 etc. Then I gave up and rethought the whole mess. Helicopters on escort warships from 1942 on is going to change nothing - but improve the occasional coastal sortie/convoy mission.

Back in the mid 1930s Hitler forced the LW to purchase 44 x Spanish C-30 Auto gyros. While the LW had little interest, they could have helped the KM surface fleet surveillance shortfalls. The trouble is you would need a deck as wide as a cruiser hull and 40-60m long to takeoff and landing to say nothing about deck storage. That means 1/2 a light cruiser hull length...70-90m, but could maybe operate up to 1/2 dozen autogyros. This deck is going to dominate the warship superstructure , but still leave turrets at either end plus torpedo batteries on side deck- allowing some measure of self protection.

In fact they could make for interesting surface raider -except they could only manage 2000nm @ 19 knots on turbines plus 3900nm@ 10knots. With > 4 days @ 19 knots running GIUK gap works plus over 2 weeks cruising @ 10 knots, it makes for 3 week sortie. However factor in 24 hours at top battle speed leaves you only 2 days to break through from Germany through the GIUK gap- both ways. Difficult unless it refuels in the ARTIC OCEAN. A better option might be use such hybrid cruisers as escorts to help big surface raiders to break out of GIUK gap or run interference to help them break for home.

Needless to say as autogyros are lost , they could be supplemented- then replaced by helicopter's mid war. The next step might be to mount mini decks on surface raiders like PBS & cruisers instead of seaplanes and catapults etc. Finally in the late 1930s Fi-156 Storch STOL was trialed off a small deck on a small fleet tender in the Baltic. After a dozen launches & landings on a tiny 14m x 25m deck - one landing failed with Storch going over the side. Further trials were planned but the war got in the way. STOL operations could certainly work off larger - higher deck like the ones described above.
 
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Did an industry survey on what little helicopter production did occurred. Then reset it for sole FL-282 production & then reset again for FL-282 plus Fa336 production [hybrid Fa -330 with motor].

Approximated
FL-282
dozen in 1942
30 plus in 1943
almost 50 in 1944 and 60 in 1945.

FL-282 & Fa-336
dozen in FL-282 in 1942
in 1943 ~ 20 FL-282 plus 3 dozen Fa-336
in 1944 ~ 30 FL-282 plus ~ 60 Fa-336
In 1945 ~ 50 FL-282 and over 110 Fa-336.

Original thought was to put a helicopter on the quarter deck of every Zerstroer, then a smaller scout Helo on every GTB 1939 /1937/1935 etc. Then I gave up and rethought the whole mess. Helicopters on escort warships from 1942 on is going to change nothing - but improve the occasional coastal sortie/convoy mission.

Back in the mid 1930s Hitler forced the LW to purchase 44 x Spanish C-30 Auto gyros. While the LW had little interest, they could have helped the KM surface fleet surveillance shortfalls. The trouble is you would need a deck as wide as a cruiser hull and 40-60m long to takeoff and landing to say nothing about deck storage. That means 1/2 a light cruiser hull length...70-90m, but could maybe operate up to 1/2 dozen autogyros. This deck is going to dominate the warship superstructure , but still leave turrets at either end plus torpedo batteries on side deck- allowing some measure of self protection.

In fact they could make for interesting surface raider -except they could only manage 2000nm @ 19 knots on turbines plus 3900nm@ 10knots. With > 4 days @ 19 knots running GIUK gap works plus over 2 weeks cruising @ 10 knots, it makes for 3 week sortie. However factor in 24 hours at top battle speed leaves you only 2 days to break through from Germany through the GIUK gap- both ways.
The Japanese had a late war plan for using autgyros for anti submarine duty, the plan was to convert some small ships to flattops for the autogyros and to arm them with a depth-charge. I think they actually converted a couple of ships but they were sunk by the allies.
I always thought it was an interesting idea and I wonder if it could've worked?
 
Back in the mid 1930s Hitler forced the LW to purchase 44 x Spanish C-30 Auto gyros. While the LW had little interest, they could have helped the KM surface fleet surveillance shortfalls. The trouble is you would need a deck as wide as a cruiser hull and 40-60m long to takeoff and landing to say nothing about deck storage. That means 1/2 a light cruiser hull length...70-90m, but could maybe operate up to 1/2 dozen autogyros. This deck is going to dominate the warship superstructure , but still leave turrets at either end plus torpedo batteries on side deck- allowing some measure of self protection.

The IJA Escort Carrier Akitsu Maru was 11,000 tons and could operate 8 STOL or Autogyros. She was 470 ft. long with a handful of 75mm AAA
 
By mid-war, plenty of radial engines provided sufficient horsepower to lift helicopters. Yes, they needed extra fans for cooling. Look at all the early Sikorskies. I suspect that the biggest disadvantage of piston engines was their inherent vibration. You would need something like a hydraulic torque-converter to reduce torsional vibration.

Power-weight ratio is inherently better with a turboshaft, which increases weight the helicopter can carry. Vibration is a secondary concern. Piston engine helicopters don’t exist for the same reason cars don’t have carbureted engines anymore, not because they’re impossible to build but because they’re impractical.
 
The sales numbers for Robinson R22 and R44 say otherwise, although the R66 went with a Rolls Royce turbine. On the other hand, the R66 was likely built with profits from the previous models, something over 10,000 units.

“Aren’t common”would have been a much less awkward way for me to phrase that. I think the metaphor still holds, since small engines in pressure washers and lawnmowers and such are still carbureted instead of EFI.
 
It caused a lot of shock and disproportionate investments to protect against, including diverting a lot of bombing against the launch sites because of the heavy impact it had on morale;

Where "a lot" must be read, of course, within the context of the numbers of bombers that the Western Allies could now deploy.

In July 1944, for instance, Bomber Command launched raids on each every damn night/day of the month. Of these 31 nights/days of operations, only five nights saw the totality or a majority of the sorties targeting launch sites and storage sites. On several other nights/days a minority of the sorties was against such targets; to give an idea of what I mean by "a lot" in context, for instance, on the night of July 28, 119 bombers targeted a storage area. That are a lot of bombers; they are less than 10% of the sorties sent out that night, which totalled 1,126. On the night of July 25, 47 bombers targeted launching sites - that night, the total sortie number was 852. On the night of July 24, 112 bombers attacked a launch site, that was out of 1,088 sorties.

And that's not counting the US bombers.

The Allied strategic bomber forces, that month and in the few previous ones, were still targeting the transportation infrastructure that linked the German factories with France, i.e. the landing sites and later the front lines. That also had effects on the transportation of flying bombs and sundry supplies for them to the launch sites.

Synth fuel plants, all sorts of armaments industries, and area targets in Germany were of course still being attacked, all the time, all over during the time window of the V1s.
 

Archibald

Banned
Sure. Nobody has ever denied that.

not even sure. They shot down a grand total of 400 Wallies combat aircrafts over a period spanning between July 1944 (Nowotny) and May 8, 1945.
Quite a number, except that as of March 1945, the combined British - American bomber force could launch 2000 aircraft raids every single day (not counting the overwhelming fighter escorts).
By bomber force, I mean British and American, heavies, medium, and attack (B-17 and Lancaster, B-25 and B-26, Mosquito, A-20 and A-26)
Even Galland met his face against the overwhelming odds, in April 1945 when a P-47 caught him.
 
That's why I mentioned using them against the Yugoslav partisans; no AAA and no air force.

Look up the Balkan Air Force.
That said, 1940-era helicopters would be vulnerable to any old light MG set on a pintle mount. Maybe it wouldn't down them, but it would certainly be enough to keep them at bay.
That said, it's not as if Yugoslavia was exactly the decisive theater.
That said, I do find telling, in the context of the discussion of the Nazi wonder weapons, that those enthusiasts gushing out about them generally only read the description of their real or alleged or hypothetical performance. They forget to read the fine print of their historical description, which more often than not ends up to the tune of "unfortunately production was severely disrupted by enemy bombing... poor-quality Ersatz materials had to be used because of the shortages caused by the bombings... the factory was razed down... the prototype was destroyed in an Allied raid...".
 

Archibald

Banned
By mid-war, plenty of radial engines provided sufficient horsepower to lift helicopters. Yes, they needed extra fans for cooling. Look at all the early Sikorskies. I suspect that the biggest disadvantage of piston engines was their inherent vibration. You would need something like a hydraulic torque-converter to reduce torsional vibration.

In 1960 (before the AH-1 Huey Cobra, the armed UH-1s, and the AH-56 fiasco) the US Army did tried to fit rocket pods, and guns and machine guns to Sikorsky piston-engine powered helicopters (probably H-34 / S-58).
The results were NOT encouraging.
First, vibrations were awful, and really ruined the day.
Plus the piston engine power-to-weight ratio was quite bad.
Consider the fact that the turbine-powered, armed UH-1s Hueys really took a big performance hit with the weapons weight and drag.

Also France in Algeria had Alouettes and S-58 (and Piaseki flying bananas) and the piston-driven helicopters really hated heat, desert, and high altitude.

when compared to the piston-engine Sikorsky, both Bell UH-1 and French Alouette choppers were revolutionary, a quantum leap in performance. There are some helicopter historians that make a good case than turbine really saved helicopters; piston-engines were really not up the task.

Helicopters don't fly, they beat the air into submission.
 
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Archibald

Banned
1950s or 1960s Helis yes, 1940s helis no. The engine technology was pretty weak for any of that.

i agree with Viking here. WWII helicopters were death traps, and would have made large, fat targets even against Tito resistance (which were not armed with sticks and stones, but had some very real and deadly fire weapons, probably enough to shot any german early helicopter). This no freakkin' Rambo chased by Mi-24s.
 
Note that gliders were also death traps, as were planes like the Storch, but no one stopped using them just because of it. They were used because they could carry troops into places planes couldn't, relatively fast. And landing a glider was a nightmare. Think of the Pegasus bridge assault for example: a miraculous landing, in the right place, at night. Or the landing to recover Mussolini. Now imagine they didn't need a proper landing area, with a long clear space.

Even if a WWII model could only carry 3-4 troops, it would still make a diference. Sniper teams, demolition squads, AT teams, small rifle squads, all could be lifted and dropped of at will. For special assaults, hunting partisans, scouting... look at what the tiny Bell H-13 did on Korea. So, assuming Germany could have a decent heli, say, mid 1943, that would make a diference. A cross-channel raid, at night, for sabotage, would be perfectly feasible; 5-6 helis, each carrying 4-5 men with demolition gear, flying at wave-to height... the radars of the time would either not pick them up or assume they were ships.
 
I think the Type XXI along with Junkers Ju 290 or Junkers Ju 390. these 2 if available of large number at the start of the war have a chance of winning the battle of the Atlantic and forcing the British to the peace table before the Americans can join the war.

This might result in a longer war, I think Germans would lose in the long term on the eastern front.
 
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