Daydream Notes

The book is my jam: it's a very detailed account of FAGr 5, the Luftwaffe long range recon squadron that flew Ju 290s. It also mentions the efforts of other Luftwaffe formations flying out over the Atlantic. Here's what I want to share from it: how tiny the Luftwaffe long range recon force was compared to the Allies. FAGr 5 was operational by November 1943, and by the middle of December had lost two aircraft and its crews: one to Coastal Command Mosquitoes, the other in a crash. On the 11th of December, total long range forces of Fliegerfurher Atlantik [unified Luftwaffe command for coordination with the Kriegsmarine] are: 3 Junkers 290s serviceable (of 6); 10 Focke-Wulf 200s (of 15); 1 Blohm und Voss 222 (of 2). I'm thinking if you stick to RAF Coastal Command, you can find individual squadrons with more serviceable four engine aircraft. After the operation on the 11th of December, U-boats were supported by two Ju 290s and one Fw 200.

Luftwaffe bombers 1944. [KG 100 under air attack 1944.] When you read The Big Book of Luftwaffe History , one surprising thing you notice is how hopeful the Luftwaffe and its managers in the  Reichsluftfahrtministerium [RLM - Reich Air Ministry] were at the start of 1944. This hope was not irrational, either: there were several factors, even facts, to underpin that hope, and it was a durable hope, too, lasting throughout even the spring of 1944, when the already battered Luftwaffe took terrible losses as they lost control of the skies over Germany. The most impressive fact was Armaments Minister Albert Speer's expansion of German fighter production, while dispersing the factories: 27 big plants were turned into roughly 270 dispersed ones, keeping production of basic fighter types (the Bf 109 and Fw 190) resilient in the face of Allied bombing.  Even as the spring losses mounted, Germany made good and even gained fighter airframes: in January, fighter deliveries were 50%...

A wind tunnel model of the "Me 364."  By the start of 1942, the development of Amerika bombers by the Third Reich had not produced many results. The most concrete development so far was the commissioning of a prototype, the Me 264. This was under construction - but lack of resources was making even construction of the initial prototypes painfully slow. As the Second World war expanded, so did the demands on the German aircraft industry. Not only did production numbers need to keep climbing, the Reich was now drafting experienced workers out of aircraft factories, creating a shortage of skilled labor. 1942 was also the year the dead raccoon under the Reich's procurement porch really began to stink. The Third Reich had pursued multiple strategies to get around the resources needed for strategic bombers - first, by trying to develop a heavy dive bomber in the form of the Heinkel 177. The second was a similarly ambitious project to develop next generation medium bom...