W.I? Better bombers for the Luftwaffe?

What if Germany created better bombers for the Luftwaffe using FW 200 extensively redesigned as true bomber with an internal bomb bay and proper defensive gun positions in the nose, turret, waist, tail and a ventral turret much like Britain's Short Stirling a four engined bomber.

How hard will it be for Germany to properly use such bomber?
How long before the Luftwaffe bombers production facilities are destroyed in the course?
How hard will be for the RAF to intercept a fleet of heavily armed bombers?
What effect would they have on the war?
 
What if Germany created better bombers for the Luftwaffe using FW 200 extensively redesigned as true bomber with an internal bomb bay and proper defensive gun positions in the nose, turret, waist, tail and a ventral turret much like Britain's Short Stirling a four engined bomber.

How hard will it be for Germany to properly use such bomber?
How long before the Luftwaffe bombers production facilities are destroyed in the course?
How hard will be for the RAF to intercept a fleet of heavily armed bombers?
What effect would they have on the war?

Part of the problem was that the FW 200 was converted from a civilian airliner so its going to be inherently weaker then a purpose built bomber. Military aircraft have to be built to be built to be a lot more durable then civilian planes. The luftwaffe used them because they desperately needed a long range maritime recon and anti shipping bomber and the FW 200 machinery and infrastructure already existed.

If you want a better long range bomber you're better off with purpose built combat airframes.
 
Both the Ju-89 and Do-19 were poor, underpowered designs. And again the question must be asked, if bigger bombers are built then what falls by the wayside? Germany can't have everything, something else hits the scrap heap...
 

Deleted member 94680

You’d need a rationalisation of design, construction and usage that the nazi system was inherently incapable of providing.

That and should chose a better design than the FW200 that broke in half under the ‘strain’ of being a naval reconnaissance airframe.
 

Deleted member 1487

I'd just say have the He177 project get designed as a 4 engine aircraft from the beginning and never add the dive requirement. There you go, a Lancaster-like bomber ready in 1941.
 
like Britain's Short Stirling a four engined bomber.
How hard will it be for Germany to properly use such bomber?
Very easy compared to the small numbers of OTL cheaper single DBs/twins that had to be forward deployed to support the army.....

How long before the Luftwaffe bombers production facilities are destroyed in the course?

The production factories will not be heavily destroyed, why would the French tanks damage what is obviously going to be available as reparations when they roll into town in 41....

How hard will be for the RAF to intercept a fleet of heavily armed bombers?

No worse than OTL without 109s to escort them due to range from Germany proper, at night they could hit London but will not do much more damage than OTL.

What effect would they have on the war?

Without sufficient Ground support the army doesn't break through in BoF and it ends in a stalemate with the Entente wining in 41/42 .
 
How hard will it be for Germany to properly use such bomber?
How long before the Luftwaffe bombers production facilities are destroyed in the course?
How hard will be for the RAF to intercept a fleet of heavily armed bombers?
What effect would they have on the war?

1 - No that hard.
2 - Does not depend on the 4-engined bomber they are supposed to use, but rather on capability of RAF BC to destroy the said factories (= not good before 1943).
3 - No problems for RAF - interception does not depend on defensive firepower of a bomber that is to be intercepted.
4 - Probably no change - bombers will still require escort of good qualtity and quantity, and LW is woefully short in that category.
 
To what end? How do you foresee this force of heavy bombers being employed? The Americans and British produced fleets of heavy bombers the Germans could never hope to match and yet they did not win the war for the Allies. Even with a significant heavy bomber force I can't see them significantly wrecking either Soviet or British industry with them, and American industry was forever out of range.
 
The only real usage (of importance that is) would be to strike at Soviet industry. And that is also a bit 'iffy' as escort fighters would still have to provided.

HE 111 could transport some 3,6 tons. Short Stirling some 6 tons. BUT: Short Stirling had a draw-back. the internal spar was in the way for carrying some bigger bombs. The bomb bay simply wasn't designed for bigger bombs (like we would see in the Lancaster).

In essence: HE 111 was not a bad bet for bombing Britain, but not so great for bombing around Ural.
 

Deleted member 1487

To what end? How do you foresee this force of heavy bombers being employed? The Americans and British produced fleets of heavy bombers the Germans could never hope to match and yet they did not win the war for the Allies. Even with a significant heavy bomber force I can't see them significantly wrecking either Soviet or British industry with them, and American industry was forever out of range.
Depends. There is a pretty convincing argument made in this book that it did:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0807858501/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1
The thing is they only hit the right target towards the end of the war, so the economic collapse was ongoing as the country was being overrun.

I doubt the Germans were realize the key vulnerabilities in the British system and be able to sustain the pressure, but the Soviets were much more vulnerable once the German had penetrated so deeply into the country and pushed the Soviet economy to the brink. The were vulnerabilities due the concentrated electrical infrastructure that was regionally based without a national power grid that would allow for compensatory shifts to make up for damage. Plus as with the German economy the demand for power was on the edge of exceeding production ability, leaving little to no room for damage to or loss of even a single station. There may or may not have been room to repair damage eventually internally or at least source it from the US, but that would take a lot of time and expense if even possible, so damage to region electrical infrastructure would cause a lot of damage for limited investment of aircraft, with little if any need to launch follow up raids provided the first one hit the target.

Potentially the bigger problem for the Luftwaffe is the lack of strategic bombing focus until too late and of course Hitler frittering away the bomber force on stupid side projects (Steinbock). Some of that may have changed if there were strategic bombers ready in 1941, but given the dumb waste effort on bombing Moscow in 1941 instead of doing something productive like army support, the odds aren't necessarily great that the Luftwaffe would go after the necessary targets before say Hitler intervenes and diverts them.

The only real usage (of importance that is) would be to strike at Soviet industry. And that is also a bit 'iffy' as escort fighters would still have to provided.
Escorts weren't necessary except if attacking so very well defended targets, which would be incredibly dumb to do even with escort (Moscow proper). Outside of Moscow and Leningrad the PVO, the air defense organization that handled defending cities and other stuff outside the front lines, was highly limited especially in 1941-42. Moscow proper was insanely well defended, Luftwaffe pilots said it was worse than bombing London and probably one of the very most heavily defended cities in the world, but the areas in the wider Moscow oblast were not, which is where enough of the electrical infrastructure was to cause serious problems if attacked. Even in 1944 it was said to be poorly defended enough that if they attacked in somewhat 'dirty' weather they wouldn't need any escort and losses would be low. Even the He111 could operate generally unescorted even in 1944 in many areas, which was a death sentence on other fronts.
 
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Maybe not an FW 200 but proper four engined bomber would have worked instead of the flying pencils that are do 17/200 and other bombers.

The one time Germany made a four engined bomber it was a disaster that was the 177 two engines in one casing moving one huge propeller, let's not forget that the 177 tended to burst into flames.
 
for a long range maritime aircraft the FW-200 would have been fine for a couple of years, then it could have served solely as a transport (they needed those too)

my scenario is for an earlier and smaller Fritz-X guided munition, they started the testing with SC-250 bombs, which is what the Condor typically would carry.

would argue the twin fuselage HE-111 Zwilling could have been effective, certainly compared to other projects it warranted more development.
 
for a long range maritime aircraft the FW-200 would have been fine for a couple of years, then it could have served solely as a transport (they needed those too)

my scenario is for an earlier and smaller Fritz-X guided munition, they started the testing with SC-250 bombs, which is what the Condor typically would carry.

would argue the twin fuselage HE-111 Zwilling could have been effective, certainly compared to other projects it warranted more development.

I am looking at this HE-111
Zwilling still having a hard time with believing that Germany that beast.

But a smaller radio control x bomb would have worked.
 
Both the Ju-89 and Do-19 were poor, underpowered designs. And again the question must be asked, if bigger bombers are built then what falls by the wayside? Germany can't have everything, something else hits the scrap heap...
Giving up the FW-200 and the He-117 plus stopping production of the He-111 early would be a worthwhile exchange
 
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