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Old September 13th 04, 02:00 PM
Peter Stickney
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In article ,
(Eunometic) writes:
(Peter Stickney) wrote in message ...
In article ,
"Keith Willshaw" writes:

"Top Secret" wrote in message
...
Compared to Allied forces, what was the max they fielded? My

understanding
is they lacked heavy bombers.


The largest bomber aircraft they used in squadron service
was the He-177 Grief (Griffon)

It was a 2 propellor aircraft with each propellor
driven by 2 coupled engines. Built in relatively small
numbers (approx 1000) it was not a success being prone to fires and
on the few occassions it was used over the UK it took
heavy losses. Max bomb load was around 6000 kg
but this would require external racks which slowed the
aircraft down and reduced range. More typically
1000kg of bombs would be carried internally.

It flew most of its sorties over the eastern front.


Where it suffered from a number of problems which compromized its
combat effectiveness. During the Stalingrad campaign, a Gruppe of
early He 177s was dispatched to the area to fly supplies in, and
evacuees out. (The Luftwaffe had, between Crete, Stalingrad, adn
Tunisia pretty much wiped out their transport fleet) It was found
that the 177 couldn't carry any more cargo or people than an He 111,
at a significant cost in fuel, reliability, and maintenance.


This in part sounds unbelievable considering the quoted actual range,
performance and huge fuel load of the He 177 aircraft. Many earlier
(Battle of Britian) He 111 seem to have been converted to transport
aircraft for paratroops and supply delivery as more advanced aircraft
replaced them eg the Do 217 K and Do 217M, Ju 188, Ju88S and perhaps
latter variants of the He 111 (H-22) Although never really an
airliner it did have a duel use history as a Lufthansa airliner and I
suspect that the He 177 bulked out on volume or while the much smaller
He 111 must have had its internal bombay removed to gain volume.
Either that or the runways couldn;t handle the He 177 at full load.


Unlike a cereal box, it's not a matter of weight, but of volume.
While the He 177 was a bigger, heavier airplane, it achieved its
performance by having the lowest drag, and highest fuel fraction
possible. There wasn't a whole lof of usable volume inside the
fuselage, especially for passengers. That's not really an unexpected
result - it's perfectly natural if your goal is to carry a dense,
concentrated load, such as bombs, over a fairly long distance.
Consider the examples of the B-17, the B-29, and the Tu-95. All were
used as the basis of transports, (Boeing 307, Boeing 377, and Tu-114,
respectively) but all required completely new fuselages with a major
increase in volume available. The He 111 was less compromised in this
respect - it had started life, after all, as an airliner (Well,
perhaps we should make that "airliner" - it always was intended to be
a bomber) so it had built into it the usable volume in the cabin to
hold things that were less dense than bombs. That's the reason for
the 111's wonky vertical bomb racks (For those unfamiliar, He 111
bombs were stowed vertiaccly, hanging nose-up in 4 pairs of discrete
cells in the fuselage at the location of teh wing center section).
The bombs fit into the "smoking cabin" of the He 111 airliner, and the
vertical stowage didn't require cutting the major structural members
of the fuselage structure. Removing teh racks and fitting floors in
the bays for carrying people & stuff was an easy mod. (The vertical
bomb stowage seriously compromised bombng accuracy. As the bombs
dropped out, tail first, they'd wobble around untile they stabilized
in the normal bomb manner. (Pointy part forward, fins in back, body
aligned with the airflow) Until they stabilized, they were flying
themselves in random directions, making accurate dropping impossible.)

It wasn't that the He 177 was an inferior load carrier, it just wasn't
a useful transport.


The Germans put a lot of effort into debugging the Grief, and, by mid
1944, had it pretty much in shape to use. By that time, the Luftwaffe
in the East had two problems - They didn't have the Intelligence
resources to find target suitable for heavy bombers, and there's no
use sending the airplanes out without some idea of where to go adn
what to hit, and they were suffering under severe fuel shortages. A
Gruppe-sized heavy bomber raid would have used the entire front's
AVGAS allocation for a week. There's not much point in conducting a
single raid of minimal effectiveness if it wipes out your own troops
air cover better than the Soviets did.


--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster