Time Machine Consultant : Maximizing the Bf-109 in January 1943

[Bronc]

Nobody takes a consultant serious in this market unless he recommends the immediate liquidation of someone, and I'm fairly certain the same would hold true for the Luftwaffe. So I'm starting a list:

1) "The Fat Man" Herman Goring - He's gotta go. About 500 specifications of war profiteering and looting would be the most straightforward way: to repay his incompetence and dereliction of duty.

2) Willie Messerschmitt - Now let's not get all sentimental. The Dr/Prof got so greedy that outright treason should be easy to prove.

3) The RLM - Transfer the Luftwaffe's technical officers back to the front, and then line the rest of the RLM up against a wall. (The firing squad should be given orders to aim poorly.) All those worthless bureaucrats gotta go.

4) Nearly everybody at B&V except for Richard Vogt (and maybe the janitors.) (Talk about turning a beautiful straightforward design like the Me-155 into a freaking clusterf-cked up mess.)

5) Those assholes over at BMW who can't figure out a faster way to put a turbocharger on a 801.

6) The morons at Jumo who keep delaying the 213A.

7) Oberst Beppo Schmid, the head of Luftwaffe "intelligence" during the Battle of Britain.

8] The dip-stick who was flying the plane when it hit a smokestack and killed Werner Molders. We're going to dig that dead-guy up and shoot him as a matter of principle. While we're at it, we should also shoot the body of Mr. Ernst "I don't need any more fighters" Udet for fatally delaying Germany's aircraft engine development.

9) Wernher von Braun - for selling us a pig in a poke. "Why are we short of strategic metals and materials all the time? Well...maybe it's because we are putting them all in the V-2's and shooting them at the British..."

10) ???

 

[paradoxguy]

5) Those assholes over at BMW who can't figure out a faster way to put a turbocharger on a 801.

On the Luftwaffe forum 12 O'clock High!, I found this interesting thread on the Fw 190A and turbo superchargers:

Focke-Wulf Fw 190A poor high-altitude performance - Luftwaffe and Allied Air Forces Discussion Forum

The information in this thread suggests the lack of effective turbo superchargers for the BMW radial engine was more complicated than simple neglect, such as Germany's lack of adequate metal alloys, and that turbo supercharger development for radial engines was laborious and tedious.

 

[paradoxguy]

2) Willie Messerschmitt - Now let's not get all sentimental. The Dr/Prof got so greedy that outright treason should be easy to prove.

Bronc-

Your assertion about Willi Messerschmitt piqued my curiousity, could you elaborate more on this? How did his greed lead to treasonous activity?

I've long had a dim view of Messerschmitt from the structural defects of the Bf 109F (inadequate bracing resulting in tail break-offs, wing crumpling) that resulted in midair disintegration and cost the lives of many Luftwaffe fighter pilots, including the aces Gustav Sprick and Wilhelm Balthasar, and generally flimsy construction of the Bf 109 series that rendered its pilots more vulnerable than necessary in combat situations and limited its development.

Thanks,
PG

 

[Bug_racer]

On the Luftwaffe forum 12 O'clock High!, I found this interesting thread on the Fw 190A and turbo superchargers:

Focke-Wulf Fw 190A poor high-altitude performance - Luftwaffe and Allied Air Forces Discussion Forum

The information in this thread suggests the lack of effective turbo superchargers for the BMW radial engine was more complicated than simple neglect, such as Germany's lack of adequate metal alloys, and that turbo supercharger development for radial engines was laborious and tedious.

This deserves its own thread
Good information here

 

[Shortround6]

Turbo chargers were not fast or easy to deal with at the time.

The therory is easy, the practice is hard. The American Military had actually built just under 100 turbo supercharged aircraft by the time they got into WWII, some dating back to the late 20s. GE had been working on them since 1917. THe only other country to put in large amounts of time and effort was the Soviet Union and I don't think they got any into service in any nmbers.
The really hard parts are building a high quaility turbine and then controling it. Many an early turbo plane came to greif when it's turbine exploded. Most American aircraft put steel scatter sheilds between the turbos and occupied areas of the aircraft. When used as a 1st stage in a two stage system the turbo has to run at low speeds on the ground and providel little or no boost by using a waste gate to dump the exhaust before it flows through the turbine. As the plane ascends the gate slowly closes putting more and more of the exhaust gases through the turbine. once the plane has reached operational hight and wants to come down the reverse has to happen without the waste gate or controls haven "frozen" due to low temperatures or the turbine will overspeed and destroy itself and maybe the plane. This has to be automatic on a fighter, A bomber might have the time (and manpower) to control the turbo/s manually but iti is still not a good idea.
AN exploding turbine has been likened to a direct hit from an AA shell.

Adding turbos to existing aircraft is niether cheap or easy. one basic text book of the time estimated that a proper turbo set up could occupy 10 cubic feet of space for a 1000hp engine. HP requirements and volume might not be strictly proportional but "just Adding" a turbo to an existing small fighter is not going to be easy. There was a reason one of the FW prototypes was called the"'Kangaroo"

Part of the problem with ANY two stage supercharger is charge heating. The more the air is compressed the hotter it is before it enters the cylinders and the higher the risk of detonation. Most peaple got around this by using an inter/after cooler of some sort. THis is what actually accounted for a fair amount of the bulk. But without it high altitude performance is severly comprimised. THe P-63 tried to do away with it and substitute water/alcohol injection for charge cooling.

Even the US turbo effort might have come to Greif until it was discovered that turbine blades could be cast rather than machined. Machining was all well and good for prototypes but would have been a nightmare in mass production.

Somebody in Germany might have put a bit more effort into 2 stage supercharging a little earlier. It was used on several German Grand Prix racers in the late 30s so some of the basic therory/knowledge was available. They didn't really use charge cooling though, finning the exterior of the intake manifolds doesn't really count although it shows the idea was there.

Germans seem to have skipped trying to improve things at 25,000-35,000ft and jumped to trying to build planes to fight at 35,000-45,000ft. OF course try to forcast the future 2 years or more down the road when one could expect prototypes to turn into operational squadrons is always a bit tough.

 

[Milosh]

Source...? What units do these include, first line or second line or both?
What about servicibility rates?

Your figures seem to be largely incomplete on the Luftwaffe side.

As of 30 June 1943, the Luftwaffe had
1849 SE fighters (vs 1500 RAF fighters, which were largely composed of obsolate types btw),
554 night fighters (vs ca 570 RAF TE fighters, again mostly obsolate types),
1663 level bombers and 523 dive bombers and attack aircraft, ie. a total ca 2186 bomber types vs some 1300 RAF heavy, medium and light bombers.

Take note that several types are not included, ie. daylight Zestorer units, which had about 150 heavy fighters at this point.

The complete first line strenght of the Luftwaffe as of that date, not counting a large array of secondsry purpose planes (ie. liason, transport etc.) at this date was 7089 aircradft, not including secondary and reserve units. According to your data, the RAF at this point had about 3430 similiar combat types...

A more complete view on Luftwaffe strenght can be gleaned from the RLM strenght reports. These, as of July 1943, show the following strenght (both 1st and 2nd line units, but not including reserves):

Recon 1237
Bomber 2579
Stuka&Schlacht 975
Transport 908

Zerstörer (daylight TE F) 160
Nachtjagd 688
Tagjagd (daylight SEF) 2018

Grandtotal: 8565, incl. 2nd line units

Were all those 8586 units deployed against the UK?

 

[Civettone]

Bronc-

Your assertion about Willi Messerschmitt piqued my curiousity, could you elaborate more on this? How did his greed lead to treasonous activity?

I've long had a dim view of Messerschmitt from the structural defects of the Bf 109F (inadequate bracing resulting in tail break-offs, wing crumpling) that resulted in midair disintegration and cost the lives of many Luftwaffe fighter pilots, including the aces Gustav Sprick and Wilhelm Balthasar, and generally flimsy construction of the Bf 109 series that rendered its pilots more vulnerable than necessary in combat situations and limited its development.

Thanks,
PG

Take a look at post nr 32. I explained briefly what Mtt was up to.


Let me just stir this up a bit.
Nr 10 of who had to be shot ... Kurt Tank !
You may ask why...
It's because of what he did or better did not do during 1943/1944.
All he had to do ... all he had to do ... was put a freakin inline engine in a Fw 190. DB 603 was ready and he made the Fw 190C back in 1943. The Luftwaffe urgently needs a stronger fighter for high altitude. So what does he do? Instead of focusing on the C he goes for a turbocompressor (Kangaru) on the 190C, he goes for the Jumo 213 powered Fw 190D and at the same time starts building the Ta 152 and Ta 153. Some say he was not allowed to continue with the Db 603 but this seems dubious for several reasons. In any case, it took him an entire year, a full 12 months to get the Dora operational and only because he wanted the radiator nicely in front of the engine. He should have finished the 190C which would then have entered service in early 1944. Later he can put a Jumo 213 in it, and he can even work on his annular radiator. But not 4 fighters at the same time please!

And I won't even start on what the hell he was thinking when building the Ta 154.

I am expecting some flak now haha
Kris

 

[proton45]

German aircraft production during World War II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Germany did not run out of aircraft. They produced over 35,000 during 1944, as many as 1942 and 1943 combined. As for fighters, they averaged over 1,000 Me-109s and over 600 Fw-190s per month during 1944.

The problem was fuel. The bottom fell out when the synthetic fuel plants were bombed during 1944. After 5 years of trying RAF Bomber Command finally managed to make a serious contribution to the allied war effort. Perhaps Germany was lulled into a false sense of security by the bombing failures of 1939 to 1943.

They may have had a lot of aeroplanes (because the manufacturers where under a lot of pressure to produce), but the quality and reliability really suffered as the war went on. In some cases "new" fighters had to be broken down and reassembled, just to make sure everything was proper. And frequently pilots felt unsure of the reliability of their new aeroplanes and it hampered their confidence in the air....sabotage was a common problem because of the practice of using "slave labor"...


p.s. I agree with the "landing gear" issue...I made a similar comment in another topic.

 

[davebender]

Not much you can do about that under wartime conditions. Other WWII equipment like the T-34 tank also had quality control problems. Not to mention aircraft like the P-38 and Me-210 which were rushed into mass production before the bugs were fixed.

 

[proton45]

Not much you can do about that under wartime conditions. Other WWII equipment like the T-34 tank also had quality control problems. Not to mention aircraft like the P-38 and Me-210 which were rushed into mass production before the bugs were fixed.

If one could better protect the workforce and factory system I believe quality would have been better...but as it was, as the factory's where destroyed and trained employees where displaced (loose of homes) killed or pressed into military service...the quality of the weapons deteriorated.

Maybe if they had moved production facility's underground, and relocated the essential trained workforce earlier...it could have made a difference.

 

[Bronc]

Shooting Kurt Tank? Sacrilege! Sacrilege!!

However, I have both books by Dietmar Harmann, Fock-Wulf Ta-152 and Focke-Wulf Fw-190 "Long Nose" and reading between the lines in both books, I get the distinct impression that Kurt Tank stalled, blanched and resisted for over a year and a half (maybe two years) going to production with the Jumo 213 series engines in a Fw-190 airframe. He had his heart set on the DB-603 series engines from the very beginning, and he used every hiccup in the 213's development to try to get it.

[The Rest of the Story Self-Edit] Okay, after rereading Dietmar Harmann's Focke-Wulf Fw-190 "Long Nose" we have the following:

Daimler Benz first proposes the DB 603 in September, 1936. (pg 12) The RLM halts development six months later and it's not until the end of 1939 that the RLM shows official interest again. (pg12) Kurt Tank and Focke-Wulf show INTENSE interest in the DB-603 in January, 1940. (pg 12) Daimler Benz is willing to play ball, BUT the RLM REJECTS this initative on 12 Feb. 1940 by saying, "...the BMW 801 will suffice for the immediate future..." Kurt Tank and Focke Wulf then go about finding a way to improve the BMW 801's performance and spend 1940 and 1941 working on the FW-190B prototypes. Because...the Junkers Jumo engine, after an extended development phase, is DROPPED from the production schedule in October, 1940. Plus...it's further development is severely restricted. (pg 36) Not until early 1942 does the RLM decide to develope and produce the Jumo 213. (pg 36) The first installation of a mock Jumo 213 is delivered to Focke-Wulf in July, 1942. By the summer of 1942,Tank and Focke-Wulf give up on the BMW 801. Without a turbocharger or better supercharger the 801 is not going to get better. Within a month, Tank has two prototypes flying with the DB 603 and by October, 1942 they prove to be the cat's ass up to 39,000 feet. Instead of going to production, the RLM now decides that they need, absolutely have to have, a plane that performs at 45,000 feet. and refuses to produce the DB 603 powered FW-190. Talk about a clusterf-ck. 1943 is lost trying to achieve that goal and trying to get the Juno 213 into production.

And from Dietmar Harmann's other book, Fock-Wulf Ta-152 we have this little tid-bit. In June, 1941 Focke Wulf set up a new factory in Adelheide - Branch Plant 8 that was solely responsible for the development and construction of prototypes. Only 1,500 employees originally worked there and by the end of 1941, 1900 worked there, but after that, the number declined to 1,200!! No wonder it was taking them months and months and months to do anything over there.

Unforgivable really and damn it, maybe we do have to shoot him for this incredibly selfish error in judgement. So, maybe not so much.

The underlying point in all of this is the incredible lack of unity and cohesion in most of Hitler's / Germany's key people and organizations. They were fighting a World War after all and the personal jealousies and rivalries really doomed the effort.

Bronc

 

[davebender]

To where? Germany cannot move factories to the other side of the Ural Mountains like Russia can or place aircraft orders in the U.S.A. like Britain can.

 

[proton45]

To where? Germany cannot move factories to the other side of the Ural Mountains like Russia can or place aircraft orders in the U.S.A. like Britain can.

Like i said...maybe underground.

 

[Civettone]

They may have had a lot of aeroplanes (because the manufacturers where under a lot of pressure to produce), but the quality and reliability really suffered as the war went on. In some cases "new" fighters had to be broken down and reassembled, just to make sure everything was proper. And frequently pilots felt unsure of the reliability of their new aeroplanes and it hampered their confidence in the air....sabotage was a common problem because of the practice of using "slave labor"...

I agree but let me add a couple more elements.
German aircraft industry suffered from overengineering until 1944. They actually built the aircraft on a standard which was way beyond that of the allies. This is also related to what I said before about the RLM stuck in pre/war thinking. Before the war aircraft were built to last years. They were constructed in an artisanal way resulting in very high quality. The allies soon realized that aircraft in wartime didn´t survive long and that production could be increased by simplifying an aircraft. For instance and very simple, they would use less bolts to keep parts together. Not ideal but it worked fine for the limited life expectancy of an aircraft. Only after Speer took over did they start simplifying production. This is quite clear on the Bf 109. The number of manhours was only about 5,000 but they actually managed to bring it down to 3,000 and below. This was mainly because of a simplified production.
So far all went well, the quality was still acceptable.
This only changed in the last months of 1944. But this seems to be a result of the extensive decentralization of the aircraft production. To counter the massive allied air attacks on the aircraft industry the Germans started vigorously to break up production lines in smaller plants spread out in the area. This meant that coordination between these plants started to become problematic. Especially when design changes were ordered. And this of course happened all over the time. Also the logistical problems due to attacks on German railroads and waterways meant that parts didn't reach the assembly plants in time. To cope with these shortages they also often took parts from other damaged aircraft but they often had dubious quality or were from a different submodel. For all these reasons it's difficult to have a clear image of German aircraft production. One can often find parts of 4 different aircraft in a single newly produced aircraft.
A final problem is also the lack of fuel and the logistical problems. These resulted in aircraft often waiting weeks for delivery to the units. In the last weeks of the war thousands of aircraft were stuck in transit ... somewhere in Germany. The Germans kept producing aircraft at this point though they had no way to actually bring them to the units.

Besides all that, there is a more fundamental problem with the German aircraft production. It is the production of spare parts. Especially Speer wrote a lot about this in his memoirs. The following is difficult to comprehend but one must see this in the light of an absolute dictatorship where following orders was often more important than doing what's right.
German manufacturers were ordered to produce a certain amount of aircraft and tanks each month. So they did. But senior German nazi's were so shortsighted that they did not realize that a complex weapon such as an aircraft, tank or even truck will not function for a long time witout sufficient spare parts and a logistical system (supplying these parts and technicians to install them) to support them. All Hitler asked for was "how many Panthers and Me 262s were delivered last month and how many are you going to deliver next month". Telling the old man that production quota have not been met because more spare parts had to be produced would not go down well. The Fuehrer ordered 500 aircraft so he will get them. Germany was not the place to criticize orders of the Fuehrer. He often gave orders which were ridiculous to most ... yet few were disobeyed.
So what's the result? During most of the war half of the German combat aircraft and tanks were not operational. Speer's team calculated that a 20% part of the actual production should had to go to production of spare parts. This would result in 20% less aircraft and tanks but of those the vast majority would remain operational and reach the levels of for instance the American forces which almost always flew with full strength.

Then again, another problem would arise: pilot shortages. For similar idiotic reasons the nazi leaders did not grasp the importance of a proper training and of sufficient numbers of pilots. Hitler ordered a production rise without thinking for a single moment about the pilots to fly them. As if they could also be produced in a factory. When the Americans entered the war they did not immediately order the full blown production of combat aircraft. They first focused on training aircraft, facilities and personnel. Once that was on its way did they look at combat aircraft. Germans did it the other way around. So if they would have increased the number of operational aircraft they would have run into problems. Germans always had a surplus of pilots because of the fact that most were grounded together with their aircraft.

Sorry for the long read.
Kris

 

[Bronc]

Okay, after rereading Dietmar Harmann's Focke-Wulf Fw-190 "Long Nose" we have the following:

Daimler Benz first proposes the DB 603 in September, 1936. (pg 12) The RLM halts development six months later and it's not until the end of 1939 that the RLM shows official interest again. (pg12) Kurt Tank and Focke-Wulf show INTENSE interest in the DB-603 in January, 1940. (pg 12) Daimler Benz is willing to play ball, BUT the RLM REJECTS this initative on 12 Feb. 1940 by saying, "...the BMW 801 will suffice for the immediate future..." Kurt Tank and Focke Wulf then go about finding a way to improve the BMW 801's performance and spend 1940 and 1941 working on the FW-190B prototypes. Because...in October 1940, despite an extended development phase, the RLM decides to drop the Junkers Jumo 213A engine from the production schedule. And incredibly: it's further development is severely restricted. (pg 36) Not until early 1942 does the RLM decide to develope and produce the Jumo 213. (pg 36) The first installation of a mock Jumo 213 is not delivered to Focke-Wulf until July, 1942. By the summer of 1942, Tank and Focke-Wulf give up on the BMW 801. Without a turbocharger or better supercharger, the BMW 801 is not going to get better. Within a month, Tank has two prototypes flying with the DB 603 and by October, 1942 they prove to be the cat's ass up to 39,000 feet. Instead of going to immediate production, the RLM now decides they need, they absolutely have to have, a plane that performs at 45,000 feet and they refuse to order the DB 603 powered FW-190 into production. Talk about a clusterf-ck. All of 1943 is lost trying to achieve the 45,000 ft. goal and trying to get the Juno 213 engines developed and into production.

And from Dietmar Harmann's other book, Fock-Wulf Ta-152 we have this little tid-bit. In June, 1941 Focke Wulf set up a new factory in Adelheide - Branch Plant 8 that was solely responsible for the development and construction of prototypes. Only 1,500 employees originally worked there and by the end of 1941, 1900 worked there, but after that, the number declined to 1,200!! No wonder it was taking them months and months and months to do anything over there. Apparently, there was no profit in R&D, only expense.

Talk about a bunch of stupid Nazis!! Wow-o-Wow...

Bronc

 

[davebender]

Daimler Benz first proposes the DB 603 in September, 1936. (pg 12) The RLM halts development six months later and it's not until the end of 1939 that the RLM shows official interest again.

That was a serious blunder. However there is another element to the story. RLM began funding for the Jumo222 engine at the same time the DB603 was halted. This was cutting edge stuff during 1936 to 1937. Nobody knew which engine proposals would work and which proposals would end on the scrap heap after absorbing lots of development money. For that matter nobody knew the DB600 program would produce the 1,850 hp DB605DB engine during 1944. Without the benefit of hindsight you examine the various engine proposals and make your best educated guess as to which proposals offer the most promise.

If I get the benefit of hindsight....
During 1936 Germany throws all development funding behind the DB600 / DB601 / DB605 series as a near term solution. The Jumo004A is the long term solution. They don't need anything else. However Germany does need to increase production of high octane fuel for the DB605DB and to stockpile chromium for the Jumo004A.

 

[Civettone]

That was awesome. Also the Ta 153 info from the book is interesting,

But it still remains strange why the Dora was chosen, its Jumo 213A engine did not perform much better at very high altitude. In the end they adopted the Dora while knowing it could not perform at 45k. That remains difficult to comprehend.

The main reason I have heard is that the RLM reserved the DB 603 for the Me 410 and Do 217M/N. But that too is questionable as the 603 production was quite sufficient in 1944. And also the Db 603 had its problems worked out while the Dora still had engine problems in the first weeks.

In any case, one can wonder what Tank was up to all through 1943 and 1944. He failed to come up with something new between the Fw 190A in 1941 and the Fw 190D9 at the end of 1944. And then within a matter of weeks he had the Dora and the Ta 152. Also a Ta 152C prototype and several Fw 190D versions, from D-11 to D-15 ! All of this stuff in a matter of 7 months or so. So that's what I mean by bad management of projects. It's like starving for weeks and then suddenly getting the biggest banquet ever of which you can only manage to digest a fraction.
Kris

 

[Civettone]

However Germany does need to increase production of high octane fuel for the DB605DB and to stockpile chromium for the Jumo004A.

I don't think the C3 was all that much more difficult to produce than B4. I used to think so but it was merely a different thoughmore complex procedure. In the end the Germans didn't have more shortage of C3 than of B4.

Kurfurst had a say about it ... Axis History Forum • View topic - 87 octane fuel vs. 100 octane !

Kris

 

[davebender]

don't think the C3 was all that much more difficult to produce

Then why didn't the Luftwaffe switch entirely to C3 fuel by 1939?

 

[Shortround6]

As another point, if Diamler benz had tried to develop the 603 at the same time as the 600-601 would it have affected the introduction and production of the 601?
One of the reasons that R-R shelved the Griffon during the mid 30s. Not enough staff to work on it and the Merlin at the same time and of course they were sidetracked by the Vulture.

In 1936 the 600 was still using carburators and had yet to get the hydraulic drive for it's supercharger.

in 1936 NOBODY had a really good supercharger.

In 1935 100 octane gas was around $4.00 a gallon in the US. Yes it was the stuff of the future but trying to predict WHEN in the future was the hard part.

ALL of these companies, Axis and Allied alike, were much smaller in 1936-38 than they were just a few years later.