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| Luftwaffe bombers 1944. [KG 100 under air attack 1944.] |
With strategic bombers, too, there was hope. The He 177 was being produced in numbers, and more importantly, several Luftwaffe bomber squadrons were now retraining and re-equipping on the new type. [Only three Kampfgruppen would be major users of the type: KG 1, KG 40, and KG 100.] Unlike the docket of 1943, it seemed that some of the other Luftwaffe programs might actually produce craft that could go on operations as well. The He 177B, the four engine He 177, had made its first test flight on Dec 20th, 1943 in Vienna, and Heinkel's elves were forecasting a trouble-free rollout. The Me 264 V1 was being re-engined with BMW 801 radials, and Messerschmitt had found the time to mostly complete the second and third prototypes of the bomber, Me 264 V2 and V3. These aircraft, with armor and defensive armament, could conceivably have been used operationally. Furthermore, before having to pack the manufacturing dies in storage to make more room for Me 262 production, Dr. Messerschmitt had cranked out all the parts needed to make three more prototypes. Messerschmitt, the eternal tinkerer that he was, had also modified the Me 264 V2 and V3 to accept two BMW 004 jet engines in the wing roots. Messerschmitt realized that if the jet engines were used part of the time, they could give the Me 264 a dash speed of 793 km/h [492 mph], 200 km/h higher than its cruising speed. At a time when new Nazi bombers would soon have projected 'initial production series' you could count on one hand, the ability of these aircraft to survive a long time in the in the face of Allied air superiority was rapidly becoming paramount.
Spring 1944 - The Anvil Chorus
More optimism on Nazi long range projects could be found at FAGr 5 in January 1944. The men of the long range reconnaissance formation were getting their first look at the Ju 390 V1 prototype, with the promise that it would be entering service at the start of 1945. As part of this RnD goodwill tour, the two Ju 290 aerial tankers were also at Mont-de-Marsain, doing operational tests. The tankers might have even done operational tests with aerial refueling over the ocean, though the documentation to back up this assertion appears to be lacking.
While work would continue until its cancellation in later 1944, this is the high-water mark of German air-refueling experiments: a test in the operational environment. Had these techniques been developed earlier, they could have supported propaganda raid against the US coast, or, more likely, to support trade flights to Japan. This new technology might have also helped the Nazis slightly to recover from their many mistakes in developing strategic bombers. Small raids deep into the Soviet Union might have been possible. Of course, aerial refueling could only have been used in small numbers: anything beyond that would have required quite a bit of Black Gay Hitler, not to mention a viable long range bomber. The fact that the best tanker aircraft was also the basis for the best long range naval recon aircraft, best long range transport and a candidate for any number of other roles ensured tanker aircraft numbers would remain in scale with other large Nazi projects.
One thing that strikes me is that if the Allies had for some reason decided to develop aerial refueling for a specialized extremely long range mission, they would have developed technology specifically for that mission, and worried about general-purpose uses later, if at all. With the Nazis, it was the opposite: develop the general-purpose technology first, and then use it for these very specialized missions (IE a lone bomber raid against America, trade with Japan.) Despite their relative lack of time and resources, efficiency concerns dictated that investment be directed to the general rather than the specific. This approach meant that by the time it was perfected, it would be too late to be used for anything. Interest in using the technology to raid America was lost with the airbases on the French coast in the summer of 1944.
Like, well, most things discussed from this point on, the end product could have been useful - if the Nazis were in a vastly different position.
January 1944 was also when the Luftwaffe started a mini-blitz against England, notable for involving the He 177, one of the few times the heavy bomber would be used against land targets in the West. The operation had its origins in the Allied Strategic bombing campaign. Six months before, the Allies attacked Hamburg, which resulted in a horrific firestorm that killed tens of thousands. At this point the usually fractious leadership of the Luftwaffe and the RLM came together, realizing that if the enemy had this sort of power, the only focus of the air force should be defense of the Reich. Goering was sent to Hitler with the decision, who naturally rejected the whole proposal and yelled at Goering until the Reichmarshall cried. Hitler knew what really had to be done: Germany had to conduct similarly devastating raids against Britain, till the Allies got the message that terror raids would be met with terror raids, and thus they'd abandon the whole thing. With that wobbly baby gazelle of a rationale, Operation Steinbock [Ibex] was to be the first of these counter-terror terror attacks. So, the name of the game was not - say - targeting the staging areas for the forming European invasion, it was blowing up London.
By taking bombers out of the Italian front, the Germans collected a fleet of about 400 serviceable aircraft. Most of these were medium bombers, Ju 88s and Do 217s, with a smattering of the newer Ju 188s and Me 410s. KG 40 and KG 100 deployed between 42 and 47 operational He 177s. Tactically, at least, the attacks were well thought out, with attacks on many different vectors at the same time to make interception as difficult as possible.
KG 40 was withdrawn after the 'opening' night, losing 6 of their 15 He 177s. Thereafter KG 100 (changing bases regularly to deter any counter-raids the Allies cared to send) sent low single and double digit numbers of He 177 to raid London in spring 1944. The aircraft did impress the Allies in one aspect: the He 177 would take a shallow diving trajectory across London, both to go faster and to fox radar-guided AA guns, which apparently didn't handle changes in altitude well. In the "escape" phase of their attack, He 177s would redline their engines, leading to speeds in excess of 563 km/h (350 mph), a difficult intercept even for a RAF Mosquito. This piqued the interest of British Intelligence, who decided that a captured Greif was a high priority. This would pay off only at the end of 1944. [Note 1]
Life Magazine's 2 page take [March 1944]
Ibex was not the city-flattening retaliation that Hitler had hoped for. Crews had trouble flying and navigating at night, so attacks on London itself were usually made by only a fraction of the attacking aircraft. The Luftwaffe did manage damaging raids [1,556 killed, with 2,916 seriously injured was the final British tally with a few fighter losses], but this was doing nothing in achieving the stated strategic goal. Steinbock also cost 329 Luftwaffe aircraft. The raids would continue until April, which attacks thereafter on London being performed by purpose-built Vergeltungswaffe [vengeance weapon]: the V-1 cruise missile, and later, the V-2 ballistic missile.
Meanwhile as always, the RLM continued its quest for long range aircraft and Amerika bombers. The 11th of January 1944: RLM announced to a surprised Heinkel and Messerschmitt that it liked the idea of combining the He 277 fuselage with the wings of the Me 264, because it would be 'quick to make' and with a three ton bomb load had a projected 6250 km range, enough to attack NYC. Very little could be done practically, as just slapping the wings on a fuselage of another aircraft manufacturer is actually very difficult, and the He 277 fuselage didn't exist.
Also in January, Junkers looked at the experience of FAGr 5 and confirmed the Ju 290 was 'excellent to fly' in all conditions, which is a pretty big complement for any aircraft operating over the North Atlantic. But, there was a surprising request from FAGr 5: for heavier/better guns. The Ju 290, when it came to defensive guns, was one of the heaviest-armed aircraft of the Second World War - and it wasn't enough. The latest marks of Coastal Command Mosquitoes mounted 20 mm cannons with a 2 km effective range - and the range of the cannon in the Ju 290's tail was 1.2 km at best. [note 2] This was the modest start to a rolling snowball in the RLM's/ Luftwaffe's thinking: since they couldn't make many aircraft, long range recon/Amerika bombers would have to be able to defend themselves without support, or avoid interception. This meant making them faster, and /or higher flying, and/or more heavily armed. This all meant more development time, and more new technology. As Allied Air dominance loomed ever bigger, this snowball of development to overcome it became ever more ludicrous.
But that was in the future. Right now it manifested in the argument from last time as to what was better in dual front/rear turrets: more firepower or longer range cannon. The later hypothetical series of Ju 290/390 often featured these standardized power turrets. [Note 2.] Winter storms and Allied air attacks made Atlantic scouting challenging in Winter/spring of 1944. On the first of March, FAGr 5 stood down from operations for a month to rest and to make repairs. While we're with Junkers, March also saw RLM procurement head Milch order a shift in emphasis from the Junkers 290 to the 390 program. His logic was simple: even better than bigger turrets would be to fly where the enemy was not, and the Ju 390 was longer range. Milch thought attacks via missile would be a new phase in the convoy war.
March would prove to be an eventful month for the Luftwaffe. On March 1st, Minister of Armaments Albert Speer created a staff office specifically for boosting the production of fighters - the Jagerstab [fighter staff.] with Hauptdienstleiter Dipl.-Ing Karl Otto Saur in change. Saur was a blunt-spoken specialist in manufacturing, hopefully one that could vastly increase fighter production. Saur's appointment, and the creation of the fighter staff was because of some rather alarming changes in the Allied Air War.
The introduction of the Merlin-powered P-51 Mustang at the start of 1944 in vast numbers was the start of the Luftwaffe's unraveling. The latest American fighter, along with the latest version of the P-47 Thunderbolt, were more than a match for the Fw 190A and the Bf 109G, and could escort American bombers to any target, even those deep inside Germany. What was worse for the Luftwaffe is that the USAAF changed tactics. USAAF fighters now not only protected the bombers, they engaged the Luftwaffe directly in fighter sweeps and attacks on Luftwaffe airbases. The results were devastating for the Luftwaffe. In February 1944, the Luftwaffe lost 33.8% of its fighters and 17.9% of its pilots; in March, fighter losses were 56.4%, with 21.7% of its pilots lost. In May alone, the Luftwaffe lost 25% of its fighter pilots. This was an ass-locking attention-getter for the men administering the Luftwaffe, as the figures projected Germany would have no air force at all by the end of the year. The tactical changes of the USAAF also frustrated many of the Luftwaffe's existing daytime bomber-killer tactics. In the daytime war, defense fighters had been increasingly divided into fighters, to engage the Allied bomber escorts, and heavy fighters that specialized in killing bombers, such as the Fw 190A Sturmbock formations, (Fw 190s heavily armored and armed with twin 30mm cannon) or the BK 5 cannon mounted Me 410. The latter was very effective when it could get into position, as a single shell could bring down a B-17, and it could attack beyond the range of the defensive guns of the USAAF bombers. But, the Me 410s were now easy prey for Allied escort fighters, and soon the Me 410 A-2/U-4 equipped ZG 26 took such casualties that it was forced to disband. This turn of events was noticed by the Luftwaffe and the RLM. Now, even if a given tactic was effective, it was pointless if the casualties were too high. At this point in the war, any trading of losses would inevitably defeat the Luftwaffe - thus, once again, new technology had to solve the conundrum.
So into the middle of all this sober news, the first flight of a gigantic flying boat must have been like learning the backyard swimming pool the kids always wanted had arrived in the mail, while the record breaking drought had caused a water crisis.
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| If a piston-engine aircraft is closer to a B-36 than a B-29 in size, it is huge. Fact. |
I'm not sure if the defensive turrets were ever fitted to the single prototype, but the game War Thunder made a nice model:
If that's not enough, here's footage taken of the early test flights. I'm a little unsure of the mast - when I saw it I assumed it was some sort of long range radio aerial, but I've read this was actually a test instrument for measuring air turbulence.
The initial test flights revealed that Blohm und Voss had gotten it right. Despite its bulk, the new flying boat flew magnificently on March 11th, 1944, and seemed to have also retained good sea-keeping abilities. But this being March 1944, it was clear that the giant aircraft flew too late. Truth be told, I think the only reason the RLM didn't cancel production earlier was for political reasons: with the giant BV 238 being worked on, the Kriegsmarine couldn't complain too much about the Luftwaffe's lack of support. Of course the air calamity of 1944 eliminated the need to be politic.
Between March and June 1944, the BV 238 made 38 drama-free test flights - at which point the RLM restricted the prototype to taxi tests. In August the prototype was relocated to Schaalsee, a lake 80 km North-west of Hamburg, where tinkering and experimenting would continue. The prototype must have been well camouflaged, as it would survive into 1945. It was also by all accounts kept flight ready, should any Reich-saving mission arise that needed a giant flying boat.
Anyway, back to the hell March: in the spirit of painful reappraisal, on Mar 15 1944 a new paper was circulated in the RLM by a Ob/Lt Sorge on the strategic air war, "How Should the War be Continued?" Sorge did not mince words, writing that previous attempts at long range projects were failures, and that Germany has lost the initiative everywhere in the air, and in the Atlantic. The only shortage the Allies had, according to Sorge, was natural rubber; the only excesses Germany had was coal, iron, and zinc. Supplies that were failing: aluminum, all-non steel metals, rubber, copper, fuel, and manganese (a necessary ingredient in all steel production). Oil in particular was vulnerable to Allied air attacks. In Sorge's view, the only way to now crimp a Allied invasion from the west was to redouble efforts to interdict Allied supply lines in the Atlantic. The Luftwaffe needed many more Ju 290s/He 177s specifically to support U boats, and attack merchant ships. "Small raids" along the American east coast were also to be done, using--
I think Sorge thought of attacks against North America as further crimping Allied supply lines - specifically targeting port facilities and shipyards. That a RLM staff member was proposing this when the Luftwaffe was completely failing to do that against England and the specific ports where that invasion would sail from at the time of his writing shows how far into wolkenkuckucksheim [cloud kookoo land] the Amerika bomber plans were at this juncture. None the less, the RLM made once again a request for manufacturers for a Amerika bomber that could also attack deep into the Soviet Union. The RLM specified a high speed, high altitude bomber cable of carry 4000 kg of bombs (or one 'special weapon' let's hope it maxes at 4000 kg) 5,633 kms - a total round trip distance of 11,265 km - without aerial refueling. Five companies made submissions to the RLM, though all (rather justifiably) complained that the specifications were too demanding for current technology.
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| An illustration from a 1/72 model kit by Revell. |
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| The Ar E555 is also on the cover of Luftwaffe Strategic projects, which has informed all these posts and who's illustrations I've used shamelessly, buy it |
Arado would mess with configurations through 1944 - after their initial proposal, it was realized that Arado didn't have experience with flying wings, so a less development-heavy configuration was looked for. Luft '46 has details on some of these other projects if you are curious - they all look pretty neat, with the last, most conventional iteration looking like a Nazi Vickers Valiant - but the project was terminated at the end of 1944 when it was realized that it was not going to produce a operational airplane by, say, next week.
Despite the cracks in the sky, the Luftwaffe had not completely given up on bombers. Goering rolled by, also on March 15 to give further instructions to Heinkel on what the He 177 B-7 should have. [I'm guessing this is a four engine version of the A-7, IE the one with steel wings.] The engines were to be DB 603Es. It was to have quad MG 151 auto-cannon turrets front and rear. And all gun positions were to use MG 151s. Since none of this ever happened, take the defense requirements as planning for an increasingly hostile North Atlantic.
Though maybe this instruction from Goering was due to the He 177B undergoing test flights. The second He 177B had flown in Febuary, with Oberst Edgar Petersen, head of the Luftwaffe's flight test center, RLM procurement head Milch, and RLM technical director Oberstleutnant Siegfried Knemeyer giving the new bomber rave reviews. (Ironically, this happened on the week of February 20-25 1944, what the USAAF called Big Week, a series of big daylight raids often marked as the start of Allied Air Superiority over Europe.) Much like the Ju 390's test flight a few months earlier, the RLM fell in love with the new aircraft once the initial test flights went so well, and began making frantic plans for production.
Another bomber project was started in March: given the sky falling over the Greater German Reich, some smart person in the RLM asked something : given our problems, and shortages, and constraints, et cetera, what is the easiest path to a proper strategic bomber? Easiest meant existing, in production engines, and recycling existing parts and sub-systems wherever possible. This was the start of the Junkers 488, the spare parts bomber.
The Ju 488 used a cockpit and outer wings developed for the Junkers 388, rear fuselage from a Ju 188, the ventral panels from the Ju 88/188 except made from wood, and a tail from the stillborn Ju 288. Turrets and landing gear could be taken from other aircraft. Only the inner wing sections and the wing box were new. Engines were initially BMW 801s, but somebody had optimistically penciled in that the 2500 hp Jumo 222 should be used if available. The result looked very similar to the Avro Lancaster. Amusing note: because of the dihedral of the outer wing, the outer engines had to be mounted slightly lower than the inner engines to make sure the landing gear wheels all touched the ground.
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| A Ju 488 A-series. |
Amazingly, this was not the only spare parts project Junkers was working on. The Ju 287 was (initially, anyway) a test mule for figuring out the aerodynamics of a heavy Jet bomber. The only original part was the wings - reverse swept ones. The rest of the aircraft was cobbled together from other sub-assemblies. A He 177 forward fuselage was mated with the tail of a Ju 388, and used landing gear from the Ju 352 transport and wheels from a shot down B-24. It would first fly in August 1944.
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| The Ju 287. The pods beneath the turbojets are takeoff assist rockets. |
In April, the production plans for the He 177B came apart spectacularly. Bombers of the USAAF 15th Air Force made a series of raid in the Vienna area, targeting Heinkel's production complexes. On the 23rd of April 1944, these raids smashed the lines building the He 177 bomber, and wrecked one of the three prototypes of the He 177B. Arado, the other major producer of He 177s, was now engaged of the production of the Ar 234 jet bomber, and didn't have the capacity continue the B series.
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| The Me 264 V1 with BMW 801 radials. |
Cancellations: Fw 200 manufacture ended, as did the BV 222. The sources bicker with each other, but it seems a production series of 3 BV 238s might have been started, but if any aluminum was laid down in these aircraft, it was likely recycled at this point. The He 274 was reduced from 6 planned prototypes to three.
Summer 1944: Sweet Dreams and Flying Machines Get Blown to Smithereens
In April, General of Fighters Adolph Galland reported to his superiors: "Between January and April 1944 our day fighter arm lost more than 1,000 pilots. They included our best Staffel, Gruppe and Geschwader commanders . . . The time has come when our force is within sight of collapse." In May, however, Goering at least was still putting an optimistic face on things. On the 23rd of May 1944, a production conference featuring all the senior brass happened, and Goering said:
I must have two thousand fighters in the shortest possible time, even if the battle fronts get nothing at all... The schools will have to make do with repaired aircraft. And then I shall want the two thousand to be increased to two thousand five hundred. I must be in a position to meet any incursion into the Reich with two thousand fighters. Then heaven help you if you don't send the enemy to blazes!...
If we can stop these enemy incursions it will help the battle fronts. If the enemy is still contemplating invasion, we'll give him something to think about when he suddenly finds himself confronted with a thousand fighters within the next fortnight, just when he thinks he has settled accounts with our fighter force!
We can laugh at Goering now, but in May, the total Luftwaffe strength for single engined fighters was 1051 machines - Saur would back Goering up by saying another 1000 fighters were going to be completed in the next eight days! Even ignoring for the moment that Jet Fighters were not on the menu, this was a massive boost in airframes, at least.
There was of course also a discussion of long range aircraft. Goering was chair, with Minister Speer, RLM Procurement head Milch, Luftwaffe General Gunther Korten, The Luftwaffe Chief of General Staff, and for their experience, Oberst Petersen and Oberstleutnant Knemeyer. Goering, as usual, managed a good sound bite:
"What can be done to make possible reconnaissance at extreme ranges? What type of aircraft do I have for this purpose? There are the Ju 290 and Ju 390, types that have a colossal fuel consumption, and now - keep a firm hold on yourselves and don't fall under the table - the Me 264! This aircraft, which needs to be produced only in small numbers and can be further improved, would give us a much faster aircraft than the 290 and would make reconnaissance at extreme ranges possible. I would set a definite limit of one Gruppe. [Note: a Gruppe typically would be three wings of twelve aircraft.] This unit would be allotted special, long-range reconnaissance duties and we must consider the possibilities if the Me 264 was specially adapted for this work. If this was done we could exclude all types which devour so much fuel.
[Bold emphasis mine - just because I've no idea why Goering is bitching about fuel economy. ]
The Allied invasion of Normandy started on June the 6th 1944. The Luftwaffe had laid careful plans for this, assuming (correctly) that Allied strategic bombers would concentrate their efforts in supporting the invasion. Once the invasion was acknowledged to be happening, fighter gruppen defending Germany would pack up and fly to forward airbases in France to support Nazi efforts at throwing the invasion back into the sea. Meanwhile, bomber groups would concentrate their attacks on the surface fleet supporting the invading troops. For the first time, Mistrel (composite) aircraft would be used; this was another new technology the Nazis had hopes for. A bomber, such as a Ju 88, would be loaded up with explosives and made into a flying bomb; a pilot attached to the bomber in a fighter would fly the aircraft(s) to the target area, and then release the Ju 88, and then manually guide the flying bomb into an Allied ship.
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| This is a Mistrel in case you've never seen 'em. |
Meanwhile, the invasion precipitated one hell of a meeting at the RLM on the ninth of June 1944. The first topic was if an attack against New York City could maybe somehow reverse the Normandy invasion? The plan this time was to send 30 or so He 177s on a one way trip: have them bomb New York, then have the crews bail out and surrender. I'm guessing something like America's withdrawal from the war/ reversing Normandy was the aimed for result, but this was so silly that the RLM heads involved in the meeting preferred to use euphemisms like "have a marvelous effect on the war situation." Karl-Otto Saur, Jagerstab head, in particular cited a "knight's Iron Cross holder, one of our top U-boat men" who believed that a air attack on New York city at this juncture would have an "unbelievable" effect. But would such an attack play into Roosevelt's hands?!?
As out there at this is, the idea that an air attack, with a bomber dropping a bomb that is referred to vaguely but the modern reader understands to be a nuclear weapon, could somehow reverse Nazi Germany's total defeat remains a common one from this point. Many of the top Nazis took refuge in this fantasy, and it would keep many an aeronautical project churning till the war's end. Never mind that Germany didn't have nuclear weapons, let alone a means of delivering them. That said, there was a sort of internally consistent logic here: along the lines of "we need X tech (IE an atomic bomb) to actually conduct a useful air raid against America - so we must develop X and Y, Z, etc (IE all the things necessary to deliver it,) even if not remotely plausible, as that's what it takes to secure us victory."
Anyway, other interesting ideas include: instead of mass production of very long range aircraft what if we had a perpetual series of prototypes in small numbers so they'd always be ahead of the enemy? There was also a fun variation on let's attack New York in a sacrifice raid using He 177s: we have the bombers launch V-1s at Manhattan? This was something already being done with the He 111 against Britain.
The next day, the Luftwaffe General Staff weighed in, picturing using the forthcoming Ar 234 jet bomber and the fast Ju 388 for coastal/ Atlantic reconnaissance. The Luftwaffe general staff feel that it is now impossible to have formations of heavy bombers; what was needed now are aircraft that can operate and survive singly. This is another case of the demands for future aircraft being raised: now the General Staff wanted was an aircraft with a cruise of 700 km/h, pressurized, flying be 12k and 13k meters (over the ocean, I guess.) This meant that in the view of the General Staff, all existing prototypes for large bombers were now obsolete.
Speaking of, the emergency of the war in the air combined with the emergency of the invasion of France was having an effect on existing prototypes. The Ju 290 B and later series were canceled, along with the Ju 390 production series. This actually had little effect, as work on the Ju 390 had stopped thanks to lack of resources. The Ju 390 V1 was moved to Junkers HQ in Dessau, where over the next few months it would be salvaged for parts for the Ju 290 fleet. Heinkel was told either to 1) de-emphasize the He 274 in favor of the He 177B or 2) de-emphasize the He 177 B in favor of the He 274. I've read both and it is quite possible Heinkel was told both. For that matter after canceling both, the RLM told Junkers that the Ju 290B was looking good, and that with all the lightening tricks and drop fuel tanks, rocket takeoff etc it was possible the 290B would have a range of 2750km. There was also a chastising note that the Ju 390 needed 30mm turrets front and rear. I mean, c'mon, Junkers!
More chaos was in the pipe: on June 23rd Armaments Minister Speer said he wanted to 'rigorously decelerate' He 177 production in favor of the B series. This was logical, insofar as existing He 177 formations were going to be deactivated for lack of fuel - though Speer would have to work out where He 177 B production was happening. The general war production committee would only agree with this if the numbers were replaced with equivalent Me 264 production, without specifying how such a thing could be done. While this discussion was happening, Dr. Messerschmitt, at least, had some hope still for the program: in June, wind tunnel research at the world-leading German aeronautical research facilities had given enough data to redesign the Me 264's wing for optimum efficiency (and hopefully cure that vibration problem).
Hitler, suprise suprise, was difficult to beat when the topic was extreme measures. He thought 'centers of concentrated effort' were necessary, IE the focusing on revolutionary new technologies that could win this thing for Germany, such as the new wunder-waffen in the form of the vengeance weapons, or building new aircraft to attack America with. Though these thoughts were probably delivered as a tirade to whomever Hitler was talking to through a haze of amphetamines, there was a certain logic to it. The Allies material advantage was now so overwhelming that it was clear that fighting in more conventional methods would be a loosing strategy. The only way to prevail now is via the strategy of radical new technologies that would nullify the material advantage. This justified any number of late war wunder-waffen the Nazis are still famous for.
But it also meant Hitler himself had become interested in Amerika bombers again. His first act in this reawakened interest was to cancel the He 177B, as "only the Me 264 could cross the ocean alone, at night." Like several of Hitler's orders concerning the Luftwaffe from this point forward, it is difficult to say if anybody paid much attention.
The SS, too, had looked at the shambles the Luftwaffe found itself in, and decided to back its own aeronautical developments. On June 15th 1944 they ordered from the Horton Brothers 12 of their flying wing gliders - forerunners for what the SS hoped were much larger bomber/courier aircraft.
The Hortons were fascinated with flying wings, and since before World War 2 had been experimenting with flying wing gliders. As they made their own gliders out of wood from their own designs, they didn't need to involve themselves in the RLM's bureaucracy. The Hortens were by no means alone in their interest in flying wings - Hugo Junkers, for one was similarly smitten with the efficiency promised by the design, and airplane designers in Britain, the Soviet Union, and America had all experimented with unconventional tail-less aircraft. The Horton Brothers stock climbed throughout World War 2 - by 1944, they had a personal benefactor in the form of Hermann Goering, who was backing the Bros efforts to build a flying wing jet fighter-bomber, the glider prototype of which had flown in March 1944.
The Horton Brothers first captured Goering's attention with their submission to his December 1943 request for the development of the 3x1000 bomber,. The speed requirement mandated jet turbines - but the thirstiness of jets made the payload and range requirements very difficult to achieve. The Horton's submission was the only submission that claimed to meet all the requirements. The flying wing's performance was so high in fact that soon plans were made to make the new aircraft a fighter, as well. What's more, the flying wings could be mostly made out of wood, a non-strategic material. To Goering, who is now on record as being jealous of the wooden De Havilland Mosquito, it must have seemed a dream come true.This flying wing would become the famous Go [sometimes known as Ho] 229.
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| The Ho 229 V1 glider. |
What was exciting in an Amerika bomber context is that the efficiency benefits of flying wings scaled up. With the desire for a straight Amerika bomber real once again, the anti-semetic brass realized that this was the configuration to meet such a challenge.
While the top skunks of the Third Reich were becoming smitten with this new daydream, the actual situation was bleak. On the 29th of June, the only long range 'bombers' were the fifteen Ju 290s of FAGr 5. Twelve He 177 B-5s were scheduled to bolster these numbers 'before May 1945' with 'another six before September 1945' as a stop gap. Only good thing here was that the He 177B was advanced enough that it could be developed further. Range projections with external fuel tanks and reduced defensive armament, and some internal tankage as well, range increased to 3,750 km. In any sort of medium term development (think 1944-1945) truly minuscule aircraft numbers were planned to support the next generation U-boats.
With this sorta background, the story of Amerika bombers is like putting a mantis and a spider in a jar together to make them fight, while in the background Godzilla and Mothra duke it out: it's very difficult to not get overshadowed. Anyway, the Me 264 continued flight testing. Faults continued to crop up in the autopilot, radio, and electrics. On June 26th, an hour into a test flight saw both inner engines stop thanks to malfunctioning fuel pumps. "Das Schiff" landed fine, but the fuel system was added to the list of systems that needed revision. This would in fact be the last flight of the Me 264 V1.
July opened with another crisis for the Luftwaffe: fuel. Only two days after the Normandy invasion started, the Allied strategic bombers were given a new primary target: Nazi oil production. Production throughout the summer of 1944 reflects this: production of aviation fuel went from 195,000 tons in May, to 35,000 tons in July, to only 7000 tons in September. Thanks to the Luftwaffe's healthy operational reserve, this did not interfere with fighter operations throughout the summer. But the numbers became so alarming that first the big Luftwaffe aircraft in the west - the He 177 and the Fw 200 - were withdrawn back to Germany, and had their units deactivated. The rest of the medium bomber fleet would follow by the end of the summer, save KG 100, which still (on paper, anyway,) was operational with He 177s. [Note 3]
Given that sort of development, it is unsurprising that on the 8th July 1944 Speer ordered ALL heavy bomber projects abandoned, save the prototype programs already underway. This gave the axe to the He 177 and the Ju 290 (and stepped on any remaining hopes that the Ju 390 would become a thing.) Only prototypes now were worked on, namely Heinkel's 177B prototypes, and the Me 264. The He 274 was included in the reprieve, but for some reason the French labor on the project inexplicably slowed once the Allies invaded Normandy. This ALL STOP order was also a moot point for long range reconnaissance over the Atlantic - it was clear the Allies would soon retake those bases, making the whole job superfluous. Any interim heavy bomber would have to be the Ju 488, who's initial prototype was nearly assembled...
...at the Latecoere plant in Toulouse, France. Once again the RLM had no choice but to subcontract out a heavy bomber to France, and this time they paid for it. On the night of July 17th, 1944 French resistance fighters broke into the plant and set explosives on the Ju 488 V1, and blew it up, setting fire to the factory in the process. Junkers didn't officially give up on the program till November, which may explain why one of the partially constructed prototypes was later found abandoned in France by a railway siding.
Major Edger Petersen on the 18th of July wrote a memo on the progress of the Me 264 program, wondering how a fighter maker like Messerschmitt could ever hope to start up a large aircraft production plant, especially as in this time of declining production, when logically Messerschmitt had to be focused entirely on the Me 262. This was a fair point: the advent of jet fighters was now what the Luftwaffe thought could save them.
Petersen's point was also rendered moot even as he wrote his memo, as the USAAF 15th air force that morning blew up the Messerschmitt Memmington factory, destroying 80% of the buildings, killing 170 personnel and wounding 140, and wrecking the completed Me 264 V1. This raid would also destroy the parts Messerschmitt had made for Me 264 V4-V7. This was effectively the end of the Me 264 program - though as a zombie idea it would lurch on for some time. As Hitler was emphatic about the program's importance, a special detachment was formed, called Sonderkommando Nebel specifically for making the V2 and V3 prototypes flight worthy - but this team were soon re-assigned to assist in Do 335/635 development.
Showing considerable chuzpah, Dr. Messerschmitt used the destruction of the Memmington factory as a opportunity to pitch his latest ideas for the Me 264. Taking a cue from the Ju 290, now Me 264 had three specialized sub types - A, recon, B, LR bomber, C, a version with Jets. Some sort of militarized C was also planned for "dropping paratroops" IE spies. It was very Amerika bomber, as now the RLM had three or four sub-types to fiddle with and dictate to, instead of one.
This development, when Luftwaffe aircraft production was by necessity going underground might have been met with incredulous stares by lower level staff, but was endorsed by a man who stopped inspiring incredulity in subordinates a long time ago: Hitler issued a directive to the RLM on August 5 demanding "fastest possible production" production of the Me 264. The only effect was for Speer to command to "build the Me 264 with utmost precipitation and by utilizing all readily active industrial forces."
August saw the loss of Paris, and the three prototype He 274s. When the Germans retreated, it seems they tried to destroy the prototypes. While it seems one prototype was destroyed, the Allies - specifically the French - would complete the other two, flight testing them at their leisure. Oh, and at the end of July, Romania switched sides, becoming Soviet allies and declaring war on Germany. This also cut off the only natural oil supply Germany had; from now on only synthetic fuel from coal would have to do.
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| The He 274 post war. As far as I know, all pictures of the 274 are post-capture. |
Fall 1944 - CASE BLUE
The Allies had surged their bombers throughout the summer, and by the early fall, there came a pause to regroup, allowing the Germans to do the same. Amazingly, September 1944 was the month Luftwaffe aircraft deliveries peaked, with 3821 something machines being delivered. 4/5ths of these were single engine fighters, the Bf 109 and Fw 190. 500 or so were Ju 88s or Bf 110 night fighters - while only 144 were jets (including the rocket-powered Me 163.) The D version of the Fw 190 entered service, which did something to return to parity the performance of the Fw 190 vs. the P-47 or P-51. This number was partially to the Germans deciding to run down their stocks of spare parts to create complete fighters, (and of course the termination of all bomber programs but the Ju 388 and the Ar 234) but it was still an amazing accomplishment, all things considered. What's more, the retirement of the bomber fleet freed up the pilots and crews to be reassigned into fighter formations. In addition, German engineers had managed to get the average life of the Jumo 004 up to 25 hours, enough so they could freeze the design for mass production. While the Me 262 and Ar 234 had made appearances over Europe during the summer, (most notably, two prototype Ar 234s had flown successful recon missions over Normandy in daylight, undetected by the Allies) it was only with the start of mass production that would allow jet aircraft to appear in numbers.
This rather remarkable regeneration did not improve Hitler's opinion of the Luftwaffe. As is the way with megalomanical tyrants, Hitler chose to blame his own airforce for the increasingly desperate situation in the air. [Luftwaffe Staff officers, Generals, and military intelligence reports on Allied aircraft production had been predicting these developments for years - which of course, Hitler ignored.] Goering, craven toady that he was, joined in with this line of blaming his own aircrews, producing much bitterness in the threadbare ranks. Training for new pilots at the start of the year had been 50% less than what the Allies did - now fuel shortages and the need to fill squadrons caused training standards to slip further. General Galland, one of those generals who had been sounding the alarm, had used the discovery of fighter wrecks inside the German border in 1943 as evidence that the Allies would soon have escort fighters flying over Germany. Goering responded to this report in his usual way, dismissing it as the "rantings of a worn-out defeatist" and that maybe the aircraft in question ran out of fuel on the other side of the German border and maybe just glided into Germany, huh, you think of that smart guy? Galland, General of Fighters, would husband resources for a battle he called "the Great Blow" - essentially having the entire daytime Luftwaffe to sortie at the same time to maul a 1000 aircraft USAAF bomber formation - but he would find himself undermined both politically (the SS had spotted his unpopularity and backed a rival General) and by Hitler, who saw those resources as support for his last roll of the dice, the Battle of the Bulge.
The loss of France also lost the staging bases for long range maritime reconnaissance. On the 5th of September, Generalstabs-Ingenieur Roluf Lucht became head of the Emergency Aircraft Commission which among other things had to continue - somehow - the work on the Me 264, by direct Furher-order. To quote Hitler, "with its range we can use the machine to punish America a thousand times over for the destruction of our cities!" [This quote is a cut from Hitler's album "The Best Maniacal Tirades IV", and as such, it's difficult to tell if the 'machine' means explicitly an atomic bomb, but as mentioned in late '44 early '45 the super-bomb was a favorite daydream.]
On the 7th of September in Berlin, there was a last-ditch meeting as to what, if anything could be done with the Me 264. Grossadmiral Donitz and his staff met with Luftwaffe General Barsewisch and Major Fisher, commander of the now defunct FAGr 5. The meeting was not especially optimistic. The Luftwaffe expected "delivery of 5 Me 264s expected by the end of 1944" [author's emphasis, even Griel cannot believe this shit] but Donitz is so over the Me 264 - it can't survive the current operational environment IE complete air superiority over Europe and the Atlantic by the Allies. A few days later von Barsewisch and Donitz met again, where it was decided that the Me 264 might not be *totally* worthless - flying out of Norway, it could scout the Atlantic and support next year's planned U-boat offensive.
18th of September: Speer reports production of Me 264 to begin 'shortly.' Also: 'By decision of the Fuhrer, V-1, A4 [V-2], and Me 264 required urgently.' Dr. Messerschmitt persisted in trying to make Me 264 V2 and V3 fly, but by now "nearly all above ground factories have been bombed to ruins" according to Griel. With 'cave space' now an essential wartime asset, even the combined forces of Hitler's shouting and Dr. Messerschmitt persistence could not accomplish much.
Apparently in late September Donitz had another change of heart, and convinced Hitler that there was no real chance of the Me 264 being useful, and Hitler finally ordered the project canceled. Despite this, during October, the Henschel firm was brought in as a subcontractor to build wing sub-assemblies, but the specification of which were changed seven times, but near the end of October Goering finally pronounced the efforts "terminated absolutely", which frankly must have been a relief to Henschel.
Dr. Messerschmitt, star-eyed dreamer that he was, seems to have kept working on variants of the Me 264 till the end of the war. Everybody needs a hobby, I suppose. Using turbines and recent German discoveries about aerodynamics, Messerschmitt's notebook designs predict the shape of several post war bombers:
At the same time the undead phase of the Me 264 was playing itself out, a new challenger approached the Amerika bombers problem. Do you remember that RLM tender for Amerika bomber submissions back in March? The RLM judged none of the submissions really plausible, and accepted none of them. The Horton Brothers, busy with the Go 229, didn't bother to submit to that tender. In Autumn 1944, the RLM brought Horton, Messerschmitt, and Junkers together to re-submit for the tender, with Horton setting the direction of a large trans-continental flying wing, and Junkers with Messerschmitt being in charge of mass production and engineering support. The RLM and Horton hoped to recycle the data Horton's gliders and the Go 229 had generated to greatly shorten the prototype design phase. Both Heinkel and Messerschmitt had also submitted their own flying wing bomber designs - Messerschmitt's design was projected to fly in 1948 - so both larger manufacturers wanted to get in on the hot new trend in American bashing machines.
By the end of October 1944, the Hortons submitted a new flying wing bomber for consideration - and constructed a prototype! The new bomber, the Ho VIII, was a motorized version of a glider they had built previously. With a projected range of 4000 km, the Ho VIII had a projected speed of 850 km/h (530 mph) with a two ton bomb load. The engines were either a pair of Argus 24 cyl As 9-413 piston engines, or two Jumo 109-18 turbojets. The prototype made do with prop engines.. Lateral stability was provided by twin under-wing fins, that housed the landing gear. Oberstleutnant Knemeyer stopped by and test flew the Ho VIII, and proclaimed it the ideal layout for an Amerika bomber. It's difficult to say exactly where the Ho VIII fit into the RLM's chaotic schemes - I've heard "proof of concept for a much larger aircraft", "a fast bomber made from non-strategic materials", or even as "a trainer for much larger flying wings."
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| Ho VIII. |
The Ho VIII would fire enthusiasm for the Horton's Amerika bomber proposal, which we will cover next time.
While the flying wings of Horten flew outside the formal planning procedures of the Third Reich, the production program Saur drew up in December 1944 had only two bombers planned for: the Ar 234, and the Ju 388. While (some) of the He 177Bs still existed, they appear to have been forgotten. The rest of Germany's Long-Range Ambitions had ended production or been blown up by Nazi Germany's enemies. For that matter, the German aircraft industry had moved its most valuable production into bomb-proof caverns and underground salt mines.
This is, in a rational light, the end of Amerika bombers. Rationality never means much to fascists, of course, and so plans, especially at the level of Germany's aircraft industry, would be made until Germany's surrender. The Third Reich itself penciled in as ways to defeat America included nuclear-tipped ICBMs, towed submarine barges for launching V2s with weapons of mass destruction, oh, and the world's first space place, the Silbervogel antipoedinal bombers. In the context of what Germany could realistically do, late war Amerika bomber projects were only slightly more realistic.
Part of a series on Amerika Bombers.
Part 1: Black Gay Hitler
Part 2: Vague Plans and Flying Boats
Part 3: Walking on Sunshine
Part 4: Stuffing arrogant mouths
Part 5: Eris is Goddess
Part 7: Look Busy and Hope Americans Capture You
Part 8: Rocket-Powered Daydream Death Notes
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| A captured He 177 in British colors. |
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| A Ju 290 A-7. |
[Note 3] On KG 1 and its He 177s
May 1944 also saw KG 1 fly to East Prussia, 87 He 177s strong. Most accounts by this point say the engine fire problem was under control: pilots were trained not to pin the throttle for long periods. The new, powerful bomber wing went into action against the Soviets. The Soviets were planning their summer offensive, Operation Bagration, and KG 1 was given the task of disrupting Soviet rail networks to interfere with these plans. Unlike most other things He 177 related, these high-level attacks went well, with the Red Air Force not really prepared for high-altitude intercepts, as they had been fighting a low-down air war for so long. The rail yard at Velikye Luki, 500 km [300 miles] west of Moscow, was attacked by all 87 Heinkels, the largest formation of strategic bombers the Luftwaffe ever used. Other high altitude raids happened at night.
June 23th saw the start of Bagration, and unsurprisingly, it was not long before things were far beyond what a KG of heavy bombers could help with. While KG 1 continued flying bombing missions, one gruppe of bombers attacking supply depots and rail yards could do little to stop the Red Army, now the most terrible force on the face of the earth. In a desperate attempt to turn rout into mere defeat, Goering ordered Horst von Riesen, KG 1 group commander, to attack tanks with his heavy bombers. This would require attacking at a very low altitude. The result was a fiasco, with a quarter of the He 177s being lost to Red Air Force fighters before Goering relented.
High altitude attacks resumed. Another all out attack was arranged for July 20th, 1944, with the bombers assembling over some distinctly-shaped lakes near Koeingsburg. There was nearby an area that was forbidden to Luftwaffe overflight, and KG 1 had orders that if they had to jettison bombs, they had to do it in "safe" (IE non-explosive on impact) mode, and to aim the bombs at the lakes. As it happened, several He 177s had engine fires, and had to jettison their bombs. Everything was fine until von Riesen returned to base at five PM, where his commander informed him he was under arrest, as apparently Hitler's eastern HQ, near Koeingsburg, had been bombed with Hitler inside! It was an awkward few hours for von Riesen, waiting for the men in the black Hugo Boss suits to show up, but in the end he was let off the (at that point, metaphorical) hook. The bomb blast was of course the famous July 20th assassination attempt on Hitler's life! Laughs all around!
The attempt is famous for not killing Hitler, but did critically injure the Luftwaffe chief of staff Generaloberst Giinter Korten, who would die in hospital a few days later. Korten replaced the previous chief of staff, Hans Jeschonnek, after Jeschonnek killed himself the previous summer. Korten in turn would be replaced by Werner Kreipe. Krepie was more of a "telling the truth and defending his service" man than Hitler liked, and after arguing with Hitler Krepie was forbidden to enter Hitler's HQ. At a time when Hitler viewed the Luftwaffe as a bunch of ineffectual cowards (at point suggesting summary execution for one man at radom in each Luftwaffe fighter wing for their "failures") this actually didn't matter much.Krepie would be replaced with General Karl Koller in November 1944.
This Three's Company-esque misunderstanding was the coda to KG 1's He 177's operations, as the fuel famine now dictated that KG 1 return to Germany for deactivation. The Last Year of the Luftwaffe estimates that the establishment goal for the He 177 in May 1944 was 9 Gruppen, that being approximately 270 heavy bombers. This is something like a tenth of the Allied establishment. Still assuming 10 sorties per month by that 270 bombers, and training for new crews to replace the ones lost through normal attrition, the total monthly fuel consumption was 35,000 tons - approximately 1/4 of the entire aviation fuel production of the Third Reich in May 1944, its best month. A single attack by KG 1's full gruppe of He 177s consumed 480 tons of fuel, about a day's production by itself in August 1944. Given these figures, the standing down of the heavy bomber wings for other priorities made sense.
KG 1's He 177 A-5s, often factory fresh, would be stripped for parts, especially their engines which, after all were four modern fighter engines linked via a common gearbox. Defensive guns, too, were popular salvage items. It seems all of KG 1's He 177 crews were reassigned to Me 262 jet training, under JG 7.
[Note 4:] Model Kit giant Revell released a series of "Luft '46" kits in 1/72 about 15 years ago, and they are not difficult to find today. In addition to the Arado 555, you can get the Me P1099B (a armored expansion on the Me 262, for intercepting B-29s) the Blohm und Voss P.194 (a, er, asymetrical crazyplane meant for the dive bombing and ground attack role, the Focke-Wulf TL-Jäger "Flitzer" (a German DH Vampire), and the famous Horton Go-229, the flying wing jet fighter. They also briefly produced a 1/48 of Lippisch P.13a, the infamous supersonic ramjet fighter that used coal dust as fuel.
When I was just getting back into scale modeling, I built the BV P.194. It's a really nice kit of an aircraft that I love. While definately not the last asymetrrical airplane of noted aviation surrealist Dr. Richard Vogt, it is one of the most intriguing, simply because on the one hand it promised to be one of the War's best ground attack aircraft, mounting 4x 30mm cannon and able to handle 1000 kg of bombs. It had a thick piece of armored glass beneath the pilot's feet, apparently important in ground support, and was made from non-strategic materials, IE steel and wood, with aircraft aluminum being saved for landing struts and control surfaces. On the other hand, it's so weird looking it's likely to cause spit-takes in onlookers.
