Posted on 12/21/2016 6:59:45 AM PST by C19fan
Put yourself in the shoes of a German pilot during World War II. It’d be more than just a bit concerning if your assignment was to fly the “Flaming Coffin,” a.k.a. the “One Way Bomber” or “Volcano.” But the hot, flammable He 177 Greif, or Griffin, was Nazi Germany’s only long-range heavy bomber produced in appreciable numbers. The 35-ton machine — when fully loaded — was a mistake, and more importantly, contributed to the German defeat by sucking up valuable resources into an ineffective and compromised aircraft.
(Excerpt) Read more at warisboring.com ...
Great. Now you tell us. (from the German side)
I believe that in the Battle of Britain, HE-177’s suffered a loss rate of about 12.5%. Every mission for the Luftwaffe was like the Schweinfurt Raid.
Hitler was the one who insisted on that.
People often forget that he was ‘t just evil — he was stupid too.
Try to understand the frustration that the German high command was experiencing. Their cities and industrial base was being systematically destroyed by long range American and British strategic bombing. They had very limited means to retaliate against Britain and virtually no means to strike America. Frustration often leads to irrational behavior and policy. Always wondered why the Germans didn’t develop a small explosive rocket to be launched from fighters with a proximity fuse to be fired into the lumbering tight bomber formations
I always thought that if Hitler were able to build large, long range bombers he could have won the war.
Of course there are all sorts of would have, should have. And when written the ways I just wrote it, it makes it sound like we are sad that he didn’t do these things.
That is not the case.
But it makes you wonder what tools are being made today that are going to fall into that age old problem of planning to fight the last war.
Personally, I think building jet fighters is going to soon be a waste of time. For the price of one jet, you could probably build a slew of unmanned aircraft that could swarm the air, and overwhelm the enemy.
But what do I know....
This bomber operated on the Bf109 engines? Weren’t those fighters?
For various reasons the Germans never got into strategic bombing like the Allies. The German focus was more on tactical instead of strategic bombing, detonation instead of incendiary bombs, precision dive instead of carpet bombing, producing mostly light fighters instead of heavy bombers.
The famed Merlin engine powered the Spitfire, Hurricane, P-51, Mosquito, and the Lancaster bomber. Wright and Pratt-Whitney engines, of the same types, were used in both fighters and bombers by the US in WWII.
and the Merlin engine was selected to replace the Daimler-Benz engine in the Spanish Air Forces versions of the ME-109 and the Heinkel 111 bomber.
Germany had a jet prototype in the 30’s and Hitler thought it was a waste of resources.
The He-177 didn't enter service until 1942. The German bomber during the Battle of Britain was the He-111:
A much smaller aircraft, with only two engines.
Those were HE 111’s
The Germans did develop and use various air to air unguided rockets, some of the late ones were quite successful and the idea of unguided air to air rockets was copied by several countries in the 1950s.
Look up Werf-Granate 21 and R4M.
He would have won if..
He left the Russians alone.
ME262 is a fighter not a bomber - B17s & B24s had no chance
Finish off RAF before bombing London
BF109 or ME109 (same thing) was a single engine fighter and a good one. Using four of the engines to make a bomber makes sense.
Develop the jet aircraft earlier.
Bombing the radar stations in Britain
Focus on one country at a time.
One of the early leaders of the Luftwaffe Walther Weaver wanted a strategic bomber, dubbed the Ural bomber. But he died in a plane crash and his replacements were more interested in tactical bombers for the CAS role.
Which appeared too late in the war, after the need for a strategic bomber had passed.
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