The Junkers 88 is Germany's only medium bomber

  • Thread starter Deleted member 1487
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Deleted member 1487

There are a few points I think you are missing. There are very good reasons in war NOT to go for a single design...

(1) While you are changing your existnig factories to make that wonderful new bomber design, they aren't actually producing any planes...
Which is why Germany kept the HE111 in service for so long...but that was also motivated by incredible mismanagement of production in the first 3 years of the war, which meant they had no choice because they weren't producing enough bombers to allow them to cancel it. So there is the issue of that.

Also when the choice was made to cancel the Do17 and shift the Do217 that was a point in which the shift to expanding Ju88 production could have occurred without disrupting production of a vital model. Thus with expanded production of a proven model, the shift away from the HE111 could begin in 1942.

Remember too that the shift to the Do217 did not work over very well in the beginning because of the serious flaws in the BMW801 and continuing work being done on the Do217, which didn't really enter into mass production until 1942 when the airframe entered its main version and the BMW got sorted out. So for a full year Dornier wasn't producing more than a handful of Do217s and no Do17s. Switching instead to Ju88 production when the Do17 is cancelled means that Dornier produces at full tilt Ju88s instead of sitting idle for a year while the Do217 become production quality.

That alone justifies the canceling of the Do217 and the switch to the Ju88 for that producer.

(2) If anything, anything at all, goes wrong with your Ju88, or if the allies suddenly come with something that negates it in some way, you are well and truly f***d. At least if you have a number of diffferent models in service the chance of this is reduced.
I'm talking about switching the Ju88 in 1941 after it has already been proven to be a worthwhile design. Historically it wasn't ready for production until 1940 as it was, so switching to the Ju88 pre-war wasn't possible and 1941 would be the earliest any other type could be phased out/not produced in the first place. So this point doesn't apply to the POD I'm discussing.


(3) You wouldnt actually achieve much improvement in efficiency UNLESS you don't continually update the plane. In which case it becomes steadily obsolute and you also end up f***d. Because of the need to constantly introduce improvements and chages, aircraft types in WW2 simply weren't built in the numbers really needed (the estimate for the RAF was about 500 planes for fighters, less for bombers). The US came closest (on paper), but at the cost of aircraft sitting around in a modification centre (which actually meant the real rate of production per man was a lot closer to the UK figures - the main diffeernces were things like no need for blackouts/air raids and so on)

As you have multiple factories working on the same design when the next generation becomes available one starts phasing out some lines to phase in the next generation version or model. Obviously one cannot take down every line at once, which of course means that some of the production lines will be producing outdated models, but that happens in world wars. The British phased in updates and new models production line by line to introduce change with minimal production loss; the Germans can do that easily too even if they have the Ju88 as the single proven type from 1941 on, as when the Ju288 or 388 is available (or 188 when the 288 doesn't work), then it can be phased in while ensuring that there are still enough Ju88s floating around.

But the major benefit from having all lines working on the Ju88 is that they can collect and exchange ideas abou how to improve production as time goes on. Sure as updates and modifications are made this will set certain improvements in production back, but generally even with the switch to updated versions of the Ju88 the ideas did accumulate.
 
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