By the start of 1943, even a devout Nazi might concede the war was not going well for Germany. The Eastern Front had taken a hard reverse: the 1942 attempt to seize the oil fields of the Caucuses had ended in failure and defeat, with Stalingrad a multi-axis disaster for the Third Reich. In Africa, a similar defeat was looming - Hitler had massively reinforced the Afrika Corps in the wake of their defeat at the second battle of El-Alamein, but now lacked the logistic capacity to get them out of Africa. The Allies were pressing Axis forces back, and the United States had surprised with an invasion of West Africa. On the home front, Allied air raids were now a regular occurrence, and manpower problems continued to grow. A report circulated among Reich Armaments industry said that the average industrial worker had burned through their fat reserves by the end of 1942.
All this was putting the squeeze on the Luftwaffe, who had increasing demands for pretty much everything: pilots, aircraft, aluminum, engines, fuel, experienced workers, manufacturing space, new aircraft types. Naturally the supply of all these things were ever more tightly constrained. In addition to the usual material problems, the Allies were now conducting strategic bombing raids, day and night, against the Third Reich. This was a twofold problem for the Luftwaffe: it was damaging and destroying aircraft factories, and drawing an ever larger percentage of the Luftwaffe's resources to defend against it. So far, the Luftwaffe had air superiority over continental Europe, and was teaching the Allied air forces a lesson that the Allies had taught the Luftwaffe two years earlier: how costly bombing missions could be through defended skies. So while it was under control, the Allied strategic bombing campaign was a argument in itself for more resources for defensive fighters.
This saw all the Reichluftfahrtministerium [Reich Air Ministry, or RLM] plans for Amerika bombers sidelined. With even Hitler now doubting the value of such a raid - "the few aircraft that could get through would only provoke further resistance." The squeeze as outlined above dictated resources move toward more practical projects. Strangely, though, the project didn't die - it instead became an adjunct project to two other Luftwaffe efforts.
The Reich was now determined to come back from its mistake regarding strategic aircraft, and was putting a large effort toward developing viable strategic bombers. To that end, here's a quote -
The first of these was straight-forward enough; to carry out a major independent bombing offensive against Britain in retaliation for that now being fought against German cities. The campaign was to be strictly strategic in nature. The expectation was that its successful operation might bring the British to thepoint of negotiating terms with the Germans. Hitler in particular favored such a program. 'The English', he told Goebbels, 'will be surprised when this undertaking is launched on a big scale. There is no other way of bringing the English to their senses. They belong to a class of human beings with whom you can talk only after you have first knocked out their teeth'. [Note 1]
At the same time, the leadership of the Third Reich came together (for once) with the view that the Luftwaffe needed more aircraft to support the U-boats in the Battle of the Atlantic. The need for long range reconnaissance in the Mid-Atlantic was desperately desired by the Kriegsmarine, as closer to shore, Allied air power had turned the Bay of Biscay into a prime fishing spot for catching U-boats. The job of making a strategic bomber and a naval recon aircraft was was viewed as two separate aircraft, or hopefully some sort of one-size-fits-all solution...ideally coming out of existing programs so it could be deployed as quickly as possible, and oh, hopefully something that could be then modified to be a viable Amerika bomber.
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| Points of interest helpfully circled. |
The picture over the Atlantic at the start of 1943 was, like the general picture, not great but not completely hopeless. The Luftwaffe had Luftflotte 5 [air fleet 5] in Norway, spying on and attacking the Arctic Convoy to Murmansk. It also had Flyer Command Atlantic, a Luftwaffe command in France for coordinating with the Kriegsmarine. Here, things were sorely tested. As it was the previous year, the only aircraft capable of Long range reconnaissance was the Fw 200 Condor, critically endangered now that a combination of escort carriers and patrols by Allied Air forces turned the Western Atlantic into contested airspace.
The problem here was, once again, the capacity squeeze. The Ju 290 was being produced in Prague, and even expanding capacity of the plant was too difficult for the RLM, when greater demands kept superseding it. The He 177 was tenuously in service, but for reasons regular readers will be familiar with, it lacked the range needed, and was still too unreliable for long range missions. Heinkel had plans to build better versions of the Luftwaffe lighter, but these would take time to engineer, and once again, would take more manufacturing capacity.
Faced with no spare capacity and a distinct lack of viable designs, the RLM naturally refocused its Amerika schemes on plans that would require nether of those things."Nether of those things" meant once again looking at launching a "doolittle" style raid against NYC using flying boats, or using aerial refueling in a similar propaganda raid. (Griel also transcribes RLM officials discussing maybe landing an aircraft on the Greenland Ice cap, and then supplying fuel for a north American jaunt via airplane, ship or submarine. As the RLM official himself observed "I really wonder where we get these ideas.")
Aerial refueling still was not ready. I've talked up Reich aerial refueling research quite a bit, and I should mention research was given a very high priority. That said, research in my opinion still seems unaccountably slow - perhaps this was caused by the strains of industry, or maybe there was, as there often was in Nazi plans, a "perfect being the enemy of the good." The research was very through, and explored many possibilities, with the focus on creating the most general purpose useful method for the Luftwaffe. At the same time, two Ju 290s had been converted to tanker aircraft, and in later 1943 were carrying out air refueling experiments that were successful. Though, if the Reich had wanted to send, say, a single bomber raid against America, they had another problem: no bomber. While the future family of the Ju 290 included bombers, none had been built.
As for the magic of mid-ocean flying boat rendezvous, the Kriegsmarine obviously had to agree to it, and they were not crazy about the idea. The reason was simple: at the start of 1943, it seems only two BV 222s were flying long range reconnaissance over the Atlantic, and the Kriegsmarine assumed they would loose this ability if they agreed to participate in any flying boat adventures. With the focus on getting more long range recon for the U-boats, the RLM created a special wing: See-FAGr 222, Luft-speak for Long Range Sea Recon 222, a unit that aimed to have two wings of six BV 222s each, flying out of a new base. This base was set on a triangular lake next to the sea, in Biscarrosse, France. [Biscarrosse is near Bordeaux and Mont-de-Marsan, not so far from the Spanish border.] For the same reasons, the RLM would create another long range recon wing, FaGR 5, which would use the Ju 290. The latter at least had the speed, armor, and defensive guns to survive above the increasingly hostile Atlantic, but production, as mentioned, was a severe bottleneck. In particular, the Blohm und Voss factory was so small, and the BV 222 so big, that 12 aircraft for See-FaGR 222 was nearly the sum total of the entire BV 222 production through the war.
Of the near future prospects in long range aircraft, there was the Ju 390, the BV 238, and the Me 264. The first two were at least a little more promising from a production perspective. The BV 238 at worst could take over the BV 222s production space, though that space was anemic for anything more than artisanal hand-crafted giant flying boats. The Ju 390 was hoped to synergistic with Ju 290 production and engineering - and hopefully production expansion. (Given Junkers was especially close to the political leadership of the Third Reich, and had made a specialty of mass production of military aircraft, this was not unreasonable.) The Messerschmitt design, meanwhile, with so far one flying prototype, with two more under incredibly slow construction, was screwed as far as production space was concerned. Messerschmitt had the world's first jet fighter to mass-produce. Junkers helpfully suggested looking into Toulouse, France as a possible production place.
Just to please Eris, goddess of chaos, the RLM had other long range projects demanding attention. The He 177 had become a franchise, with the He 177 spawning three four-engined sub-types. Then their was the 'long-term' solution of the Reich: the Ta 400. While not an official RLM program, Dr. Messerschmitt had the tenacity of Skeletor in his hope that his six-engined Me 264 could find a place in Snake Mountain's production plan.
The result was that all the parties with a say in these things: the Kriegsmarine, the RLM, the Luftwaffe general staff, the heads of the Third Reich, and Luftwaffe generals often had differing ideas as to what model deserved scarce resources and production space. The answer the RLM chose with this scrum of opinion going on was naturally "all of the above."
The BV 222, like the Fw 200 before it, found itself a key stopgap aircraft, despite having started life as a civilian design. The first flight of V7 [X4+GH] happening on on April 1st, 1943, and this was significant in two ways: the V7 was equipped with Jumo 207 diesel boxer-12s, which had the same power of the previous engines but got considerably better fuel economy, allowing the BV 222 to become the very long range scout the Luftwaffe desperately needed. What's more, from this point to the termination of production in the 1944 fighter emergency, 6 more airframes would be made, so production was essentially doubled.
On the other hand, in Spring 1943, See-FaGR 222 had precisely four air-frames [see note #2] which was the total number of aircraft that weren't the Fw 200 for long range reconnaissance. While Blohm und Voss was pleased to finally have a diesel powered version working, the numbers problem couldn't be ignored, especially as in June 1943 V3 and V5 were destroyed at anchor by RAF fighter-bombers, wiping out 50% of the fleet. While great hopes had been initially placed on the dedicated facility at Biscarrosse, by mid-1943 it was proving a popular spot for Allied Fighter-bombers.
The Bv 222 was naturally the candidate for a raid against New York City, but that required the cooperation of the Kriegsmarine. The RLM's inquiry about the possibility of stationing a U-tanker between the Azores and Bermuda brought the response "sure - as long as the tanker is not going to be used in any hair-brained Amerika bomber schemes." The Kriegsmarine clearly didn't have much use for the plan until they got a little more support from the Luftwaffe. The RLM began working on the issue again in March 1943, and figured that three U boats 1000-1500 km off the eastern US seaboard would be sufficient for a trip to New York and back. (One U-boat to refuel on the outbound leg, another to refuel on the return trip, and a third as a backup.) The RLM figured, not unreasonably, that the BV 222 could load some 8 tons of bombs . Strangely, the Kriegsmarine had a change of heart and now thought it a good idea. Oberst Von Lossberg, the figurer of this staff work, was so sure of the mission's succsess he volunteered to lead it himself:
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Von Lossberg: The 2.2 kg magnesium incendiary detonates after four to ten minutes. If you dropped a series of those down a New York Street and they all went off like hand grenades that would be good.
Milch: What do you want to go for?
Von Lossberg: The Jewish area or the docks.
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Unfortunately for this plan, by the time the Kriegsmarine had started to favor it, it was too late in the year for the attempt. It was agreed to try it in the spring of 1944 - but later events would see the plan forgotten.
There was another idea for attacking America with flying boats. The Germans after the conquest of France had captured several different models of large French flying boats, including the Potez CAMS 161, and the Latecoere 631. Like the BV 222, these aircraft had been built for the trans-Atlantic trade - and like the BV 222 they were civilian designs, with difficult to find spare parts. It seems there was a plan to take one of these aircraft and turn it into a flying bomb - in effect a flying boat cruise missile, and launch it against the American coast. It was a pretty wild-ass scheme, obviously - I've no idea how you'd even implement such an idea with early 1940s German technology - fortunately, nothing came of this plan.
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| SNCASO 200 flying boat in German markings. |
The Kriegsmarine was also looking forward to the BV 238. Not being aircraft-savy, they imagined the giant flying boat flying for 24 hours, landing on the ocean, refueling, and taking off again to do another 24 hour patrol , much to the amusement of the Luftwaffe staff:
[this is quoted from Griel's book, who occasionally uses recordings of Reich staff meetings.]
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Oberst Pasewaldt: The BV 238 is being built, though only in small numbers. But the way people imagine it just gently bobbing up and down on the ocean makes me laugh.
[Luftwaffe] General von Barsewisch: The Navy keeps bring it up. They say it can refuel every so often from a U-tanker and stay out there for weeks. [Hilarity.] No, seriously, they emphasize that particularly! For that reason it's not being shelved. But now they are coming round to the idea that only a fast land-based aircraft is going to be of use for shipping reconnaissance. There we just have to find a way to get the Me 264 into service.
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Blohm und Voss built the BV 222 in Hamburg, and this was notable as the Allies launched a series of 1000 bomber raids, against Hamburg, damaging Blohm und Voss's production facilities. In the wake of this the Luftwaffe General staff attempted to reclaim existing BV 222s as transports, but the Kriegsmarine successfully fought this attempt off, pointing out that using highly trained maritime patrol crews for transport flights was a poor use of resources.
Focke-Wulf: How Hard Could it Be?
Focke-Wulf had landed an incredibly valuable contract last year for the Ta 400, an aircraft being considered an "Amerika Bomber", even though it almost certainly was not. A Nazi B-29 equivalent, the Ta 400 was hoped to be the long term solution to German strategic bomber woes in the late 1940s. Of course, right now this ambitious project was in its design phase. While Focke-Wulf had been studying large projects for years, the actual design was a international effort, with French and Italian engineering firms as partners {see note 3.} The design for the Ta 400 was finalized in mid-1943. The only major addition from last post was twin 30mm cannons in a nose-gunner position for strafing merchant ships - this was later upgraded to be on a "turnable chassis", which I take to mean something that had one axis of movement. It was hoped this setup would also allow the Ta 400 to hunt lesser allied patrol aircraft.
Naturally due to capacity limits, the actual construction work was subcontracted out to SNCAO, in Paris, France.
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| Ta 400 models in the wind tunnel. |
While Paris had started a prototype, by the middle of 1943 it was under construction but putting out doubts like
Thus ended the Ta 400. Anybody who's convinced the Luftwaffe could have built Amerika bombers 1943 or later should consider the implications of this tale. The Germans were capable of designing strategic bombers, but even with broad state support, this project was stopped because of the sheer manufacturing difficulties - in France, because there was no German production available.
There's two other Focke-Wulf projects I'd mention: one that was very practical, and the other that is a distinct oddity.
The oddity first: Focke-Wulf submitted a design they called the Fw 261. Precise dates would help, but all I've been able to find out is that it was submitted to the RLM in 1943. What makes it so odd is that as an aircraft, it had roughly the same capacities and capabilities as the Ta 400 was projected to have. Looking at the shape (and I stress, this is a guess) it might have had all the easy-to-build-with-slave-labor features the Reich was evidently looking for in its large aerospace projects.
It was a sort of flying wing, with a round fuselage set athwart a very large wing, with twin booms supporting a split tail. Like the Ta 400, it used four BMW 801s that had already been proven. Assuming it managed a range of 4500 km, it could scout most of the North Atlantic. It's standard bomb capacity was identical to the Ta 400 (10,000 kg) and most of its dimensions were slightly smaller. For defense, it hoped to use the 4x MG 131 machine guns in a quad turret, a common defensive emplacement on designs in this period. As a design by itself, it looked to be exactly what the Nazis needed over the Atlantic, a fast, robust naval bomber with a nearly ocean spanning range. Had aerial refueling ever worked itself out, sure, the thing could have attacked America.
Only knowing the year it was submitted, I'm guessing that either this design was an attempt to design an airplane to the manufacturing realities of 1943, or that it was submitted after the Ta 400 had been canceled. (Or maybe, that Focke-Wulf knew the Ta 400 would never fly, and wanted to get something that might actually be built submitted.) This time, Focke-Wulf emphasized the design's utility as a naval bomber. It was rejected by the RLM as "it couldn't bomb America" according to Strategic Bomber Projects, though given the tale above, "no conceivable capacity to build it" is I'd say is much more likely.
The other Focke-Wulf project is almost the opposite of the previous one, since this time it is baffling as to why the RLM didn't show more interest, especially as less than a year later it would be endorsing something similar in a hail-mary pass to build a viable strategic bomber.
As I've mentioned before, the "bomber B" program was a very important Luftwaffe project to make a next generation "medium" bomber, with the speed of a fast bomber but with capabilities closer to a heavy bomber. The crux of this project was the development of new aircraft engines making more than 2000 hp, which as I've mentioned, failed to produce anything.
The Fw 191 was Focke-Wulf's entry into the program, and it had been chosen for full prototype development along with the Ju 288. By 1943 when the RLM threw in the towel for the program, had an airframe that had done flight tests, though without the engine power it had been designed for. When the program was finally cancelled in July 1943, Focke-Wulf surprised the RLM with a proposal: How about a four engined Fw 191?
With a wing redesign, the aircraft could use BMW 801 radials, and aside from being four engined, have the broad performance looked for. As it only had a crew of three, it was a sort of "big medium bomber", with the range and projected payload of the He 177. The RLM said "nah" - and if they said "because we already have the He 177 and Heinkel is working on four engine variants of that" you can laugh at them.
Heinkel: The Sunk Cost Fallacy Franchise Deal
Heinkel's He 177 was finally starting to see service. More exciting to Heinkel, the Third Reich had come about to the view that four separate engines were needed. Hitler himself in 1943, when told about the linked engine setup on the He 177 said 'But that's madness! I've heard nothing of this until today. Is it possible that there could be so many idiots?' Milch two managed to get on the record on how he had been against the whole linked engine thing from the start. Heinkel himself was having none of it, saying he had wanted to hedge the design from the start but had been restrained from doing so.
So, setting aside blame, it seems the top Luftwaffe brass were now on the same page. And this makes things a little complicated, because the He 177 had turned into a family of aircraft.
The work for the He 274 was being done under French subcontract outside of Paris, and this worried Heinkel, who attempted to transfer this work to someplace not so close to Allied Bombers - ideally Vienna. Because the He 219 night fighter had been transferred to Vienna, long story short, more He 274 subsystem engineering was transferred to Paris.
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| "And this is the difference between the He 274 and the four-engine He 177 variants, **Heinz**." |
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| Another development going on at the time was the development of standard heavy tail turrets. Goering favored the four machine gun design... |
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| ...while people closer to operations favored longer range cannons. |
Earlier in 1943, (and this surprise may well kill you, reader) the RLM was not very impressed with the He 177B, as the new aircraft might have promised to avoid the A version's thermal excursions, but didn't really give that much more in terms of performance. The Ministry Brains specified that the He 177B should mount four Jumo 222, or six BMW 801s (the He 177B's new wing was designed so mounting six engines if desired was a straight solution - apparently a design feature of the He 277 as well.)
The He 277 is a bit of a mystery, and hence, controversy. It seems it was going to be a clean sheet redesign of the He 177, with four engines, expanded capabilities, and much heavier defenses compared to the He 177 family. It also seems the basic design was going to imitate another Heinkel design, the He 219 night fighter, except with expanded dimensions and four engines. It was also going to have tricycle landing gear, like the He 219 and the B-29. It was also projected to have 'mid-ocean' range of 2500 km. The He 277 also got its foot in the door as a 'Amerika bomber' design, assuming aerial refueling became operational. The timeline for development was less optimistic. Despite the many bits of smart re-use in the design, the earliest a prototype could fly was judged to be November 1944, with operational deployment happening in spring 1946.
So the He 177, the dive bombing heavy bomber that was developed because the Third Reich judged the whole concept of strategic bombers a needless expense, was now the He 177 heavy bomber, the He 274 high altitude bomber, the He 177B four engined bomber, and a further revision that might replace all these aircraft. Then again, the development of the Ju 290 was strategic bomber (Ju 89) civilian airliner (Ju 90) transport and maritime patrol plane (Ju 290) and was slated to be developed into all heavy third Reich Aircraft, including a heavy bomber version when the bottom fell out, so that seems par for the course. Speaking of...
Junkers: Ambition vs. Reality
The Junkers 290, by virtue of existing and being in production, had managed to become an essential Nazi asset. While production would be difficult to increase, the Nazis made up for it with the scale and ambition of the plans dreamed up for the aircraft. Like the He 177, the Ju 290 was to become a whole family of aircraft, with two notable improvements over the Luftwaffe's flaming regret: the Ju 290 was actually suited for this, and the design of the Ju 290 would make most parts interchangeably across the line. The Junkers 88 had gotten off to a wobbly start, but soon became a large success for the Luftwaffe, as it had enormous versatility - a good thing with the production constraints of the Third Reich. Junkers now wanted to do the same thing with the 290. The airframe was now seen as getting redesigned as two progressively heavier "B" and "C" variants, with four or six engines, which too could be upgraded as the Reich developed more power piston engines.This was in truth a brilliant idea, all the more so if you consider that the 290 program synergized with the Ju 390 program, a six engined version of the 290, and could accommodate most future Reich piston engines. In theory, the 'big junk' family could have scaled up to do all the big aircraft jobs the Luftwaffe needed, from transport to heavy bomber, to aerial tanker to long range bomber to possible Amerika bomber (with aerial refueling).
Had this idea been pursued in the late 1930s, it's possible it could have solved most of the Luftwaffe's endless problems with large aircraft at a stroke; fortunately for the Allies it now was 1943, and the larger strategic mistakes were finally swamping the Reich, eventually to douse these guttering flames of hope.
Junkers in 1943 was occupied producing progressively better versions of the Ju 290 for patrol over the Atlantic. It also had two Ju 290s involved in the vital aerial refueling program. In late 1943, the Reich attempted to send aircraft to Japan, and Junkers produced three special Ju 290s for that effort: the Ju 290 A-9, a version without defensive armament but with the expanded North Atlantic fuel capability. This was all good news for the Reich, but the staff estimates of what production would be needed versus what could actually be done cast a distinctive shadow over the proceedings. The Kriegsmarine estimated for proper recon of the North Atlantic it would need 150 long range machines, while the head of FAGr 5 estimated that to keep two wings of six aircraft ready for patrol over the Atlantic each day would require a production of 30 Ju 290s a month. The Luftwaffe General staff added to this estimate, saying that in order to meet transport needs on top of FAGr 5's requirements would need 50 aircraft a month from the factories, or 600 aircraft a year. Like the total production of the BV 222, the total wartime production of the Ju 290 made a mockery of this requirement: it was 50 aircraft.
FAGr 5 received its aircraft, but lack of trainers and trained crews on the Ju 290 slowed deployment. This was partially the fault of the debacle at Stalingrad. In their desperation to resupply the garrison there, the Luftwaffe had gotten its bomber trainers to fly aircraft into the besieged city - and naturally a lot of those crews died. By the 20th of November 1943, Griel reports that FAGr 5 had only flown four operational missions. One of these saw a Ju 290 orbit a Allied convoy for four hours - as the Allies mistook the Ju 290 for an Allied patrol plane, as it had been so long since the Germans had flown long range reconnaissance mid-Atlantic.
The Ju 390 program was seen as so vital that Milch had ordered a prototype aircraft be constructed. In order to speed things up, a Ju 90 that had been rebuilt to Ju 290 spec went to Junkers in Dessau and was once again rebuilt as the prototype Ju 390. This prototype first flew on October 20th, 1943. These flight-tests went so well that even Milch said 'the Ju 390 has flow and it was fantastic', and the Reich was so desperate for this new capability, that it was decided to start production of the Ju 390 without a flight test program. While this was not a large a risk as it would normally be thanks to the reasons outlined, it does speak to the desperation of the RLM to fill that gap in its lineup. Series production was projected as follows: starting in October 1944, there would be one produced, followed by consecutive month by three, five, seven, nine, and from March 1945 onward ten every month until February 1946. How Junkers was actually supposed to do this is left to the reader's imagination!
Junkers, according to Griel, also constructed a mockup Ju 390 to study cabin layout and other issues. [For those not familiar, a mockup is a non-functional model of an aircraft, IE it was incapable of flight.) I mention this as Griel also mentions for completeness the isolated references to a second flying Ju 390 prototype. [I've talked about all this before if you are interested as to what the fuss is about.]
Messerschmitt: Ding! Flying Prototype, Bitches!
Messerschmitt had a prototype long range aircraft that was functional; but the sudden change in the political winds in the Amerika bomber project suddenly made the prototype 264 seem irreverent. Milch in June 1943 now had a not-Messerschmitt designed aircraft to make eyes at in the form of the Ju 390/ Ta 400 and tried to cancel production of the Me 264 and turn the project into a research one alone. The two further prototype V2 and V3 Me 264s, with armament and armor, would be completed, but that would be an end to the program.
Dr. Messerschmitt, despite the intractable problems of producing the Me 264, didn't take this lying down. So during the next Nazi party Herr Doktor attended, he sidled up to his friend Adolph Hitler, and told him about the vast possibilities even a small production of Me 264s would allow. These were for long range reconnaissance and ship attacks over the Atlantic, and soon all the big sky Nazis were convinced that the Me 264 was now an absolutely vital Reich project. Milch had not become a baron in the kingdom of racist shitheads by arguing with Hitler, so he sighed and let Dr. Messerschmitt have his victory. A July conversation between Donitz and Hitler had Hitler promising the Me 264 as the aircraft to provide intelligence to the Wolfpacks.
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| Me 264 with dummy turrets. |
"The Me 264 will not win the war. The Me 262 [jet fighter] can win it. Therefore everything must be risked on the Me 262. If Messerschmitt completes the Me 262 and hasn't gotten anything more urgent then I would ask him to sort out the Me 264 so that we know if we should proceed with it or not. I do not need a machine that is able to fly 20,000 km but breaks up on take-off, even if it only happened ten per cent of the time."
The latter comment was a fling of the engineering problems that the Me 264 (and in truth, the Ju 390) had: a very long takeoff roll of 2.4 km, made manageable with rockets, as the Reich had no airfields with a 2.4 km runway. Milch thought the rocket gambit a too-risky proposition.
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| The armed Me 264 lacked a tail turret, but it was hoped ventral auto-turrets could do the job. |
In contrast to other programs, though, the Me 264 had a prototype undergoing flight tests. This was going alright - the airplane flew, and did not crash, after all - but Messerschmitt's chief test pilot, Karl Bauer kept uncovering little problems that would have to be fixed. This is of course, the entire point of flight testing, and it does not reflect poorly on Messerschmitt's design that they existed - but the Nazis were now very impatient indeed for a long range aircraft, and even the ususal prototype problems promised delays that caused various RLM bigwigs to fume. For example, the effort needed to operate the Me 264's controls was far too high, and its very high wing loading made it a bear to land even for expert test pilot Bauer. The initial test flights happened on a unpaved runway at Augsburg, and after the mud kept smutzing up the prototype's underside, the prototype was flown to Lechfeld, where the runways were paved. Small problems, like exhaust gas leaking into the cockpit were fixed, but problems with the controls, the hydraulics system, and the auto pilot. Where the hydraulics could be addressed, sorting out the first and last items would likely take some design work. (Much impatient huffing and sighing from the RLM.)
Plans were also afoot by Messerschmitt engineers to pressurize the cockpit only, and make use of remote turrets throughout the aircraft for defenses. Late in the year, Dr. Messerschmitt began to dream of adding turbojets at the Me 264's wing's roots, the first of a whole series of improvements Messerschmitt considered for the design, long after it became clear the design would never be produced. For that matter, Messerschmitt had the Me 364, a six-engined version of the 264. Dr. Messerschmitt was convinced that this project would have Amerika-bomber range, and the RLM seems to have thought such a thing plausible - but they never made it an official Reich project Dr. Messerschmitt promised that the Me 364 would have a 7,000 km range for the Bomber, and up to 9000 km for the reconnaissance version. Dr. Messerschmitt seems to have returned ever more frequently to his notebook, and later 1943 it seems German engineers were starting to grasp the possibilities of the turbine. While jet power was too thirsty for trans-atlantic flight, the possibility of using turboprop engines was very exciting, offering greater economy and vastly greater power. This variation too featured in Messerschmitt's daydream notes.
By march the prototype had accumulated 12 hours flying time, and many precise notes from Bauer. The engines too seemed to have issues, with engines sometimes needing to be stopped. Fortunately, the first prototype could fly with three engines shut down. None the less, the prototype was promising enough that the RLM was taking meetings about their use - the intelligence community already was eying them as a "paratrooper" [IE for air-dropping agents] transport. Apparently Luftwaffe Chief of Staff Hans Jenschonneck would forget his troubles (and he would kill himself before the year was out, so the dude had troubles) with the planning of a 'vengeance raid' against New York City. Goering was more saturine in the chances for such things:
"I can only express my absolute bitterness about the complete failure which has resulted in practically all areas of aeronautical engineering - bitterness too that I have been deceived in the past to such an extent that such as I had experienced only in variety shows of magicians and illusionists - such has been the hocus-pocus that everybody had used to take me in.
I well recall that at Augsburg - it was exactly a year ago - I was shown an Amerika bomber that really called for nothing more than to be put into mass production. It was to fly to of America and back, from the Azores to the American West Coast and also carry a lot of bombs. I was told so in all seriousness. But in those days I was still so trusting, I half believed that something like this was possible. Fun has been made at the enemy's backwardness and his slow four engine crates. Gentlemen, I would be extremely happy if you could produce one of these crates in the immediate future. I would then at least have one aircraft with which something could be achieved."
Thanks to these negative waves (I mean why don't you say something righteous and hopeful for a change), ten days later the Me 264 broke a gear strut on landing. This was not terminal to the airframe - it needed more work, anyway, but it meant no more flights till May. Gun turret mock-ups were installed to see what the aerodynamic effects were. [It's around this time the program was relegated to a test program - and Dr. Messerschmitt did his end run around Milch with Hitler.] In August 1943 the prototype had an engine swap, with its Jumo 211 being replaced with radial BMW 801s, which promised better high altitude performance. This would take awhile - or possibly other events just distracted the personnel involved. At any rate, the Me 264 would not fly again until 1944.
The Me 261 test program was also wrapped up at this point. One (Griel says the V-3) was scrapped after a crash landing, and one of the other two aircraft was also damaged by an accident and was captured by American soldiers in 1945. The third aircraft was apparently taken by a Luftwaffe reconnaissance squadron - and then vanishes from history. Which fuselage this was is a matter of some debate.
So: what did 1943 end up with?
At the end of 1943, the Nazis had a prototype program (the Me 264) that could teach them stuff - but was not the perfect airplane they were looking for. They had the Ju 390 program, which thanks to unusual shortcuts looked like it'd produce a viable aircraft without taking the time or resources the Nazis didn't have. They also had whatever good could be squeezed out of the He 177 program, which had somehow resulted in four different projected aircraft. It was definitely a bunch of efforts at making a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but in the thousand year Reich, sow's ears were now a strategic national resource that if damaged would cause thousands to starve.
It wasn't much - especially for longer range missions and strategic bombardment - or a raid against America. Everything was now riding on the perfection of aerial refueling, another shortcut that if it worked promised to change the whole game. It's with the surprisingly positive developments with aerial refueling that we open with next time.
Part 1: Black Gay Hitler
Part 2: Vague Plans and Flying Boats
Part 3: Walking on Sunshine
Part 4: Stuffing arrogant mouths
Part 6: Ragnarocky Road
Part 7: Look Busy and Hope Americans Capture You
Part 8: Rocket-Powered Daydream Death Notes
Notes
Note 1: R. J. Overy (1978) From ‘uralbomber’ to ‘amerikabomber’: The
Luftwaffe and strategic bombing, Journal of Strategic Studies, 1:2, 154-178,
DOI:10.1080/01402397808436996
Note 2: With so few aircraft made, the BV 222's combat record is a oddly
personal one for an aircraft type. Initially most BV 222s were assigned
to their own transport squadron, LTS 222, which operated in the
Mediterranean supplying Axis forces in Africa. The first fuselage V1
[X4+AH], landed in Athens harbor during an air raid warning in February
1943. The pilot did not see the warning buoys for a shallow submerged
wreck, and tore gouges out of the flying boat's bottom, sinking it.
(I've read some sources claim that the accident happened at night, but I've seem a photo of the V1 sinking in daylight, so...)
V2
[X4+AB] was used as a scout for flyer command Atlantic in Norway, a
role that allowed it to survive the war. V3 [X4+CH] survived its tour in
the Mediterranean and had by spring 1943 come to Biscarrosse to scout
for U-boats. [X] V4 [X4+DH] had an action packed career. Flying with V1
and V8 over the Mediterranean, the flying boats were intercepted by RAF
Beaufighters. The flying boats skimmed the waves, attempting to cover
each other. The V1 managed to escape damage, while the V4 took fire but
managed to limp home; V8 [X4+HH] caught fire and exploded when it hit
the water. [Some have speculated that the V8 also had the Jumo diesels, but the photo below shows the V8 with the BMW radials V1-6 had.] V4 would go on to be a scout over the Atlantic, where it
apparently shot down a USN B-24 patrol plane. V4 survived the war, and was
scuttled in Kiel in 1945. V5 [X4+EH] also made it through Mediterranean
service and joined See-FaGR 222 at Biscarrosse with V4. V6 [X4+FH] had a
very short career in LTS 222 before being shot down over the
Mediterranean.V7 [X4+GH] was the first aircraft equipped with the Jumo
207 diesel engines, flew on April 1st, 1943. It was the final
'prototype' with hulls 9-13 being the 'C' 'production' series. First
flying over the Atlantic and then transferred to Norway, V7 was another
survivor, being scuttled by her crew off Travemunde in 1945.
Only
5 C series would be completed, with 9 initially laid down. ('A' series
was the initial production, while 'B' was a unrealized civilian version
with the diesel engines.) Hulls 14-17 would have had an improved version
of the Jumo 207, but Junkers could not perfect a reliable version -
like a lot of other non-fighters, they were scrapped during the RLM's
emergency fighter program of 1944. C9 would be used as a scout and also
move to Norway, where she was destroyed in an air raid in 1945. C10 was
lost in February 1944, likely intercepted and shot down by a RAF Coastal
Command Mosquito over the Atlantic. V2, C11, C12, and C13 would be
captured by the Allies, who made a close study of them for their own
flying boat projects before scrapping them. The American project, the R3Y Tradewind, was in several ways like the BV 222, attempting to make
a turboprop flying boat with a large cargo capacity that could be
loaded and unloaded via ramp. Apparently the woebegone Saunders-Roe Princess also used data gleaned from the BV 222.
With the total war
record written down like this, I'm impressed how many BV 222s managed to
survive into 1945, and often survive the conflict entirely. A lot of
this has to do with how they were used as scouts in the Atlantic: they
all had FuG 200 anti-ship radar, so they could detect and track convoys
while remaining well out of visual range. Though slow, the flying boats
had great endurance, being able to stay aloft 24 hours at a time, and
unlike, say, the Fw 200, had lots of space for crew comforts. Another
factor in their survivability was that the Luftwaffe shifted all the
airframes to Norway in 1944, practically the only Nazi territory not
being aggressively invaded.
Note 3: The French had actually designed a modern heavy
bomber - the
Breguet 482. Two prototypes were completed, with one ending up under
Vichy France's control, and was destroyed on the ground in Algeria in
November 1942. The second prototype which were sealed up by the French government in a aircraft hanger - which survived invasion, occupation, air raids, and counter invasion by the allies who discovered the aircraft in 1944. Italy, too, had made its own heavy bomber, the Piaggio P.108. While
production was extremely limited, the P.108 was close in
performance to the B-17.
 |
| Fw 191. |
The "flying power station", as it was nicknamed, had its first flight in 1942, where, surprise, surprise: designing an airframe for 2500 hp engines and using 1500 hp engines instead makes things underpowered. What's more, the use of all those electric motors drove the weight up considerably. This allowed Focke-Wulf to finally got permission to replace all the electrical systems with hydraulic and mechanical ones, but the engine situation was so desperate the design team considered using the DB 606/DB 610, the same engine used in the He 177, until Goering said he was out of tears on this particular issue and forbade the use of linked power plants on any production aircraft but the He 177.
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