Fw-190 A Series - Hypothetical Senario Question

[Broncazonk]

It's July 1943, and you have just replaced Adolf Galland as General der Jagdflieger.

Realizing:

The Me-262 is a long way off -
The Daimler 603 Fw-190 is a long way off -
The Jumo 213 Fw-190 is a long way off -

What can YOU do to make the Fw-190 (specifically) more competitive in the East and West?


Bronc

[KrazyKraut]

1. It's still very competitive in the east. No change required so far (1943).

2. Build turbocharged BMW 801Js to increase competitiveness in the west.

[Broncazonk]

Did the General der Jagdflieger have the authority to order the BMW 801J into production?

I would have done five things immediately:

1) Remove ALL outboard MG-151/20's to improve speed, climb and turn. (Sacrifice firepower for increased survivability.)

2) Installed rubber engine cover seals and gaskets to streamline the cowling.
(Amazingly, when they did this with the D-9, it improved the speed considerably.)

3) Retrieved all of the 'black-men' that were sent to the Luftwaffe infantry divisions. At any one time, something like 40% - 50% of all the Fw-190's ever built were sitting around somewhere in an unserviceable condition. If you can build only so many, it makes sense to keep all of what you do have flying.

4) Strip out the MG-151's and Mg-151/20's on Fw-190's flying bomber interception missions and replace them with one (1) Mk-103 30mm in a central pod with lots of ammunition. (You don't hunt elephants with a .22 cal machine gun. "Use enough gun," means two or three 30mm hits on a heavy and it goes down.)

5) Find a way to replace the supercharger gear ratio and cut-in altitude so it would cut in earlier.

Bronc

[delcyros]

1.) remove all outboard guns. This can be done on the lower service unit level

2.) Install a paddle prop (improving climb rate).

3.) serially install computing gunsights for improving long range hitting rates

4.) replace the MG 151/20 and the MG 131 with four MG 151/15 (less weight, same volume of fire but massively better ballistics).
5.) rework the engine controll unit so that it doesn´t suffer the division by zero error. (improves altitude power output)

[Broncazonk]

I'm sorry, "the division by zero error" term goes right over my head.

Would you please have mercy and explain?

Bronc

[drgondog]

Originally Posted by Broncazonk

It's July 1943, and you have just replaced Adolf Galland as General der Jagdflieger.

Realizing:

The Me-262 is a long way off -
The Daimler 603 Fw-190 is a long way off -
The Jumo 213 Fw-190 is a long way off -

What can YOU do to make the Fw-190 (specifically) more competitive in the East and West?


Bronc

The Fw 190A6 and A7 were excellent a/c. The problems they encountered as interceptors at 24,000-30,000 feet is that altitude zone was the best performance altitude for it's opponents in the P-47 and later the Mustang and later the P-38J/L.

[kool kitty89]

The problem with using turbochargers is that they usually required the same scarse materials for the turbines that were being diverted for the jet engines. (though thy could probably have developed some alternative versions using substitute materials, but I don't know if this was done)

[delcyros]

Originally Posted by Broncazonk

I'm sorry, "the division by zero error" term goes right over my head.

Would you please have mercy and explain?

Bronc

I am afraid that I don´t understand much of the technical issue behind. IIRC, RG_Lunatic deserves the credit for mentioning it the first time on this board (it is actually buried here on another Fw-190 discussion).

Best regards,

[Soren]

Delcyros, the division by zero error os non-existant. The higher alt performance issue suffered by the Anton series had to do with the engine & supercharger, it nothing to do with the kommandogerät.

[Soren]

Originally Posted by drgondog

The Fw 190A6 and A7 were excellent a/c. The problems they encountered as interceptors at 24,000-30,000 feet is that altitude zone was the best performance altitude for it's opponents in the P-47 and later the Mustang and later the P-38J/L.

Well said.

[KrazyKraut]

Originally Posted by Broncazonk

4) Strip out the MG-151's and Mg-151/20's on Fw-190's flying bomber interception missions and replace them with one (1) Mk-103 30mm in a central pod with lots of ammunition. (You don't hunt elephants with a .22 cal machine gun. "Use enough gun," means two or three 30mm hits on a heavy and it goes down.)

I disagree with lots of ammunition. The best approach was the "Kompaniefront" - gathering all fighters ahead of the bombers and make a single frontal pass and then use the speed advantage to escape. You don't need extra ammo for that. I also think the MK-103 is rather worthless: Too heavy, too large and I don't think "sniping" the bombers would've worked anyway.

[HoHun]

Hi Broncazonk,

>It's July 1943, and you have just replaced Adolf Galland as General der Jagdflieger.

Maybe of interesting in this context: In August 1942, the first prototype of the Fw 190A-3/U7 made its first flight. In the current issue of Flugzeug Classic, there is an article by Dietmar Hermann on this type.

The gist of it: The Fw 190A-3/U7 was down in weight to 3660 kg from the 3850 kg from a standard A-3. This was achieved by eliminating pilot back and head armour, the cowl guns and by using non-sealing fuel tanks. Additionally, forward-facing "cheek" intakes were used to exploit ram effect.

This resulted in a decrease in turn radius from 1450 m at 10 km altitude for the A-3 to 1250 m for the A-3/U7. The Höhenjagdflugzeug, which would have a slightly enlarged wingspan (12.3 m) and wing area (20.3 m^2) - adding another 40 kg to the weight of the A-3/U7 - would have decreased turn radius to 950 m.

For the longer wings, the safe pull-out load multiple decreased from 6.93 for the A-3 to 6.0 for the (lighter) Höhenjagdflugzeug.

The Fw 190A-3/U7 with enlarged wing achieved an initial climb rate of 18 m/s, a ceiling of 11.9 km and a top speed of 694 km/h @ 7.4 km at "take-off power". Sea level speed was 534 km/h at take-off power.

The article is a bit contradictory with regard to the A-3/U7 - it seems it had the enlarged wing, but the above comparison suggests otherwise. Three prototypes were built.

Hermann reports that the full throttle height increased from 6400 m for the A-3 to 7400 m for the A-3/U7 thanks to the external intakes. Reportedly, this means 60% ram efficiency compared to 22% ram efficiency for the standard variant. Unfortunately, he omitted the full throttle heights for climb, or there'd be a good way to cross-check it.

Anyway, someone once posted a later chart on the Fw 190A-6, showing 652 km/h @ 6300 m for internal intakes versus 655 km/h @ 6850 m for external intakes. The gain above full throttle height appears to be around 10 to 15 km/h top speed, quite a bit less than the figures mentioned in Hermann's article.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)