POD of December 16, 1937; a fuel transfer switch does not fail, and again a Heinkel HE-119 prototype sets a world performance record. Both Heinkel and the LW are excited enough to commit to series production although (as in OTL), this proceeds with some secretiveness. The plane is seen as a bomber of Douhetian capabilities, and one that will “always get through”. The remaining pre-war years see the HE-119 productionized and the bugs, particularly cooling, worked out.
The world finally sees them in significant numbers during the Battle of France; not necessarily making a major contribution to the fighting, but one thing is noted – they are coming back from missions relatively unscathed. Neither French nor British fighters were effective in catching them. Now, with France defeated and Britain to face, squadrons of them are placed in forward airfields near the Channel.
Meanwhile, the rest of the LW’s aircraft “mix” ended up different (perhaps far fewer HE-111’s, DO-17’s sold off to other countries, JU-88’s confined to maritime strikes, BF-110’s to coral reef-building activities?) than would otherwise be expected. As missions over the UK commence, a few things become clear.
First, against the HE-119, the Spitfire is often reduced to a tail-chase after them and the Hurricane maybe not even that (perhaps a belated effort is made to Merlinize a few Whirlwinds to gain some MPH, but how many could be built in time?) BF-109’s, freed from escorting slow bombers, are free to range over SE Britain, making life miserable for the RAF pilots who, unable to resort to sitting in cockpit-alert waiting until late to take off, now have to be airborne constantly in hopes of being in place to intercept the raids.
Second, the Heinkel’s payload is light (one wonders if this might be addressed later in the war with a HE-119Z “zwilling” carrying a mix of internal and external bombs). It takes quite a few sorties to make up a significant tonnage; fine against specific vulnerable targets like airfields and radar sites, less so against city centers. However, the LW is losing very few of them, and, at these speeds, the planes can be turned around for several missions per day as quickly as they can be refueled and re-armed (note heavy drinking amongst HE-119 maintenance crews, though).
A battle of attrition is swinging in the LW’s favor. The RAF is losing planes and pilots, and too few downed bombers to show for it being pictured in the newspapers. As Napoleon said, “The moral is to the physical as three is to one” or something like that, and to the casual reader the BoB seems like a classic case of “who wanted it more?” Could this new aircraft tip the loss ratio to the point that instead of the RAF saying “we can keep this up longer than you can”, the LW is saying that? Would this be more important than the actual damage done be the (fewer) bombs?
At what point might it be voiced privately by the UK government “we have lost control of our own skies; what shall we do?”
……………………..
After several years lurking, 1st post and 1st topic; and the topic chosen is one where I find little enough in books or online, most resources seem to regurgitate the same limited info over and over again. However, reading over and over again how late-war introductions of aircraft like the ME-262 might change things (I think nothing short of the Death Star would have given the LW air superiority at that point), I wondered if, instead, a game-changer had been introduced early in the war might have had a more dramatic historical impact.
OK, why won’t this work (there’s always a reason why things won’t work)? To me, this seems a little far-fetched but not 100% beyond plausibility.
Note that no sea mammals were harmed in the composition of this message.