He 177 Specifications?

[dazzagreenwood]

Hi guys i'm researching the Eastern Front for a modelling theme, and i was wondering if He-177's were ever deployed there? I know He-111's and Fw-200's were, but I can't find any information on He-177's.

[Wurger]

According to Kev Darling's book "Heinkel He-177" Warpaint series no.33, the first operational unit to deploy He177 was 1./FKG 50. formed during the summer of 1942 with the first a/c arriving in June.Actual combat operetions began for the unit in January 1943 when transferred to Zaporozhye as a part of Luftflotte 4.This was the era of the defence of Stalingrad and massive amounts of air support of all kinds were needed to supply and defend the troops on the ground.That's all I 've found.I hope it is helpful.
There a pic from the mentioned above book :

[Kurfürst]

Originally Posted by delcyros

If You trace that 350 mp/h figure down it comes from a He-177 Schiffer book. Those Schiffer books have never been reputated for reliability altough in this very topic they were correct. However, there is something different:
The 350 mp/h were flown at "Erhöhte Notleistung"-powersetting (something like WEP + injection. Only suitable for less than a minute in DB 610´s without risking an engine failure or worser: engine fire) in level flight by an He-177AV prototype stripped down from defensive armement and without payload except for minimum fuel load. So this figure isn´t represantative for the He-177 in usual bomber configuartion.
The He-177A5, the mostly used bomber variant had a top speed of 440 Km/h (273 mp/h) sustainable for 30 min.+ at "Steig- und Kampfleistung"-powersetting (100%). Using the "Start- und Notleistungs"- powersetting (WEP or 110%) the He-177A5 could be accelerated to 488 Km/h (303 mp/h) max in level flight. This speed was flown at Rechlin during several testflights with defensive armement but without bombs at 3/4 fuel load (for normal range).

Hope, this helps.

Interesting and good info, which Schiffer book is that exactly ?

A sidenote on power settings, of course the max speeds are understood for Start u. Notleistung, or as it was earlier called on the DB 601/606 engines, erhöhte Notleistung. These power settings were of course, only allowed for a couple of minutes, by Allied terminology this is WEP power setting.

However it should not be forgotten that every other bombers listed top speed, say a B-17s, is also given with using the WEP limited to a few minutes. So it's comparable, even though it's not a very useful speed for a bomber, considering especially formation flying and fuel economy issues (range!) that meant that bombers usually cruised at far less then their top
speeds.

Continous maximum and economic cruise speeds are far more interesting IMHO.

[Nicodemus]

Recently I saw a profile of an He 177 unit on the eastern front which had their aircraft equipped with heavy calibre 50 mm cannons to combat Soviet flak positions. What was the idea behind this? Doe sanybody have more info?

[Nicodemus]

I found it on my computer. Check out the top aircraft with the weird 'chin cannon'

[dazzagreenwood]

Hey thanx Wurger. Muchly appreciated!

[delcyros]

Use of He-177 on th eastern front 1944:
KG1 (new) was formed in early june 1944 at Königsberg/eastern prussia and subsequently commssioned with 3 Gruppen (estimate strength: 100 He-177A5).
Despite several strategical targets were in range, they barely were active due to severe fuel shortage. Training flights were mostly disbanded. Usually fuel was delivered the day before a major attack was planned.
From eastern Prussia they flew several attacks against soviet supply depots and transport centres in late summer 1944. Usual attack altitude was 6000m (~20.000ft) and formation was close in order to get most of the defensive potential. Few attampts to intercept were made and those cases usually ended with fighter beeing frustrated by He-177 formation defense (they copied the US combat box). Losses are credited to AAA more than fighter causes and remained on a very low level (below 5%).
One of the major attacks was flown under supervision of Kommodore Horst v. Riesen and targeted the railway centre Velikiye Luki (approx. 300 Km west of Moscow) with 87 He-177.
At june, 23th, a soviet major assault targeted for Army group centre and eventually destroyed the bulk of the german forces. The success of soviet tanks forced all german planes to be involved in anti tank purposes. V. Riesen was ordered to attack soviet tanks along the frontline (personal order from Göring) in low level flying. As You may know, sending such a huge airplane, as the He-177 was, in low level anti tank duties isn´t a wise idea and thus those sorties ended with a loss ratio of nearly 25%, mostly by fighters, which found the low and slow He-177 an easy target, altough they prooved to receive a huge amount of battledamage (some planes are reported to return to bases with several 3.7cm hits in the fuselage and wings). It is not known if any soviet tank was destroyed.
At jule, 20th, KG 1 again flew succesful high level attacks on various targets.
This also was the last major operational sortie of KG 1 as fuel shortage did not allowed to keep KG 1 operational. KG 1 was ordered to move to central Germany and the unit was disbanded shortly afterwards. This directly may be credited to the high grade fuel shortage.

[delcyros]

Originally Posted by Kurfürst

Interesting and good info, which Schiffer book is that exactly ?

A sidenote on power settings, of course the max speeds are understood for Start u. Notleistung, or as it was earlier called on the DB 601/606 engines, erhöhte Notleistung. These power settings were of course, only allowed for a couple of minutes, by Allied terminology this is WEP power setting.


Continous maximum and economic cruise speeds are far more interesting IMHO.

Compare:
J. Dressel/M. Griehl, Heinkel He 177 - 277 - 274. Eine luftfahrtgeschichtliche Dokumentation, 2. Aufl. (1989). Griehl earlier published the performance datas in his article "Gesch. der dt. Bomberflotte".

I agree that economic cruise speed is the more relevant figure for bombers. So far, I have no such datas at hand.