Heinkel He 177 Germany's succesful longrange bomber

[Riain]

there were mid 1942 some 180 machines operational and increasing up to nearly 400 at the start of 1943.

Here's a question. Assume that the He177 is more successful and other bombers like He111 cease production to ramp up He177, so the OTL numbers above are doubled.

If the LW can mass ~500 He177s against the Eastern Front to use strategically can the Soviets effectively counter such a force? Could the LW mount 400 strong daylight raids without deep escort into Russia, or would they have to bomb at night? I've read that while the Soviets had a lot of planes their sortie rate was appallingly low. Were their fighters sufficiently high performance to deal with such a powerful force?

 

[PhilKearny]

Could you stick with two engine pods, but with a separate engine at either end (a bit like the layout of the Do. 335) - that would still cut down the frontal area but get rid of the overly cramped OTL engine installation?

Edit - Dornier already had made seaplanes with this configuration - like the Do.26

Dornier Do 26 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The push-pull design would probably have trouble with propellor clearance because the He-177 was a tail dragger and didn't tricycle landing gear. The rear propellers tips might strike the ground.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

Did GB not helpfully sell a large number of surplus Enigma machines for some reason postwar to lots of minor nations?

Don't know. The factory was in Cezchoslovakia. Perhaps they kept building them postwar?

 

[Post]

Here's a question. Assume that the He177 is more successful and other bombers like He111 cease production to ramp up He177, so the OTL numbers above are doubled.

If the LW can mass ~500 He177s against the Eastern Front to use strategically can the Soviets effectively counter such a force? Could the LW mount 400 strong daylight raids with deep escort into Russia, or would they have to bomb at night? I've read that while the Soviets had a lot of planes their sortie rate was appallingly low. Were their fighters sufficiently high performance to deal with such a powerful force?

I don't think the LW had longe-range fighters besides the ME-110.

 

[I lurk therefore I am]

The push-pull design would probably have trouble with propellor clearance because the He-177 was a tail dragger and didn't tricycle landing gear. The rear propellers tips might strike the ground.

Would it be possible to switch to tricycle gear?

 

[Riain]

I don't think the LW had longe-range fighters besides the ME-110.

Bugger, i meant without deep escort.

 

[Finbarr the Fair]

Did GB not helpfully sell a large number of surplus Enigma machines for some reason postwar to lots of minor nations?

I've heard that too, with the sub-text that this made it fairly simple for the British to decipher their communications. Although they may have simply taken advantage of the sales pitch of the Czechs.

Keeping the Ultra secret so long was not just the inate Establishment wish to control information flows.

 

[Parma]

As a reply to some comments.
The OTL He 177 was a four engined plane, only in an unusual configuration which was the reason of its major flaw, over heating engines to an exend the motor oil catch fire, which incombination of the configuration of the machine turned out to be deadly.
This is solved with the orthodox engine configuration.

At the time of the introduction of the ITL He 177 the LW saw the need of longrange bombing missions at the East front. Most likeley on railroad junctions feeding the front, and industrial centers.
I have no idea of the Sovjet intercepting capabilities, but initial this will be very poor around the targets deep behind the front.

As for the effectiveness, the long range bombng raids, will have the same results as the ones performed by the Western Allies in 1942/43. The results of each raid will be different to the other, some would be spot on, other flattening a residential area while a production facility was the target, and some targets will be completely missed in such a way the Sovjets would be puzzled what the intended target excactly was,, and this would be only for day raids not to mention night raids. Esentially the same result as at the West around the 1942/1943 period.
Since the initial limited numbers, terror bombings on cities would be not aplied, or at least not initially.
Most likely the production of more or less obsolete designs, by 1942/43 standards like the He 111, would be deverted to the production of the He 177.
Some German bomber designs like the He 111, and the Fw 200 were intially designed as passanger planes, hence the structural issues with the Fw 200. It is in the line of expectations that, if production allows it, that He 177 would be used for the KM for naval duties, replacing the Fw 200.

An other side effect of a better performing He 177 would be the acceleration of more long range/heavy bomber projects. This could accelerate the production of the improved He 177, the He 277 or the Junkers Ju 390 and even the Messerschmitt Me 264 .

But would the long range bombing raids, on railroad junctions or production facilities, (those raids who were effective) influence the eastern front and the performance of the Red Army?
Would it effect the supply of the Red Army on crucial moments?

 

[M79]

Three possible solutions,

A) Have Japan and Germany do more tech exchange earlier in the war and give Berlin access to the DC-4e specs later used to make the failed G5N (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_DC-4E)
(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakajima_G5N),

B) Work closer with Italy as they develop the P.108b and later P.133 bomber aircraft (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaggio_P.108)
(https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/piaggio-133-was-like-b-24.5085/)

C) Knock off the French MB 162 after the fall of France and mass produce it to German specifications
(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloch_MB.162)

 

[TDM]

He111s after 1942, that should get another 1000 4 engine He177s. Basically every bomber that wasn't a Ju88 after 1942 should be a 4 engine He177.

But that means you won't then have the two engine bombers and they were being used

(also it not just the extra engine when it come to scaling up to 4 engine bombers it will be a greater investment)

As for use, the idea isn't to match the combined bomber offensive, but rather how bombers were used in theatres like the Med and Pacific (not B28s against Japan). Against targets that are theatre-strategic, rear area cities and base areas rather than factories.

Are you talking about using them in the med or the east?

 

[Crowbar Six]

I don't think the LW had longe-range fighters besides the ME-110.

They used JU88 as heavy fighters over the Bay of Biscay, mainly to go after allied ASW aircraft in the area.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

At the time of the introduction of the ITL He 177 the LW saw the need of longrange bombing missions at the East front. Most likeley on railroad junctions feeding the front, and industrial centers.
I have no idea of the Sovjet intercepting capabilities, but initial this will be very poor around the targets deep behind the front.

Looking at the Allied transportation campaigns the railway attacks seemed the least costly. Dispersal of the targets made antiaircraft weapons less effective. Since the German interceptor capability was so degraded by the time the several transportation campaigns were run that par tiff it is not a good example. The Soviet interceptor forces would have had better numbers.

Operation STRANGLE vs the Italian railroads, the transportation plan vs the French/Belgian railways, and Operation CLARION and its follow on ops vs the German railways in 1945 all had a significant effect, collapsing supply delivery in the latter two cases. Conversely the effort made was not trivial, it took multiple bomber wings and months to get the effect. One would have to do a lot of aircraft and sortie counts and associated number crunching to get to a hint how effective 250, 500, 0r 1000 He 177 could be vs railway bridges in the USSR. After that there quite a few related actions. ie: Repair capability, other aircraft vs the railways, like light bombers strafing locomotives. Bombing repair facilities....

But would the long range bombing raids, on railroad junctions or production facilities, (those raids who were effective) influence the eastern front and the performance of the Red Army?
Would it effect the supply of the Red Army on crucial moments?

My other wild guess here is a focused transportation campaign supporting a specific army group might have the desired effect. Say the Red
army build up ahead of the CITADELLE offensive is so disrupted the forward defense is weak, the reserve not entirely arrived, and supplies short because the railways capacity is cut 30%, 50%, or 70%. Ot some of the later Red Army offensives forestalled due to severe railway disruption.

In France in 1944 the capacity of the railways servicing the German 7th Army in Normandy were reduced by approx 90%. That was in part by the destruction of bridges. the other part being the loss of rolling stock. In March 1944 Rudsteadts staff estimated the entire French railway system had lost 70% of its prewar capacity. The remaining Allied attacks in March, April, and May effectively cut off the Normandy battlefield.

Operation STRANGLE was aimed at a smaller more fragile Italian rail system and the automotive roads. That appears to have dropped the supply deliver capacity by at least 50% in 4-5 months. In Germany Op CLARION not only reduced delivery to the army depots, but interrupted the flow of material in and out of the factories.

These three bombing campaigns were focused on specific regions. The Rhineland-Ruhr in the case of Op CLARION & western Germany in the following operations. So if the Germans hop to get a similar effect they'd have to focus tightly as well.

 

[The Wooksta!]

I remember in one book on German aircraft that the authors opined that even if the 177 had been a successful aircraft, the Luftwaffe couldn't have a strategic bombing campaign for several reasons. Radio aids not as effective as those of the Allies, not enough crews to replace losses and most importantly, fuel. They estimated that a force of 500 bombers would need roughly a sixth of Germany's 1943 fuel production.

I'd also add their reconnaissance and intelligence sections being woefully inept plus their generals being too focussed on tactical rather than strategic goals.

Let's say they do roll a string of success and they get a strategic force, all it does is prolong the war to 1946 at the most and areas of Germany are radioactive.

 

[TDM]

Looking at the Allied transportation campaigns the railway attacks seemed the least costly. Dispersal of the targets made antiaircraft weapons less effective. Since the German interceptor capability was so degraded by the time the several transportation campaigns were run that par tiff it is not a good example. The Soviet interceptor forces would have had better numbers.

Operation STRANGLE vs the Italian railroads, the transportation plan vs the French/Belgian railways, and Operation CLARION and its follow on ops vs the German railways in 1945 all had a significant effect, collapsing supply delivery in the latter two cases. Conversely the effort made was not trivial, it took multiple bomber wings and months to get the effect. One would have to do a lot of aircraft and sortie counts and associated number crunching to get to a hint how effective 250, 500, 0r 1000 He 177 could be vs railway bridges in the USSR. After that there quite a few related actions. ie: Repair capability, other aircraft vs the railways, like light bombers strafing locomotives. Bombing repair facilities....





My other wild guess here is a focused transportation campaign supporting a specific army group might have the desired effect. Say the Red
army build up ahead of the CITADELLE offensive is so disrupted the forward defense is weak, the reserve not entirely arrived, and supplies short because the railways capacity is cut 30%, 50%, or 70%. Ot some of the later Red Army offensives forestalled due to severe railway disruption.

In France in 1944 the capacity of the railways servicing the German 7th Army in Normandy were reduced by approx 90%. That was in part by the destruction of bridges. the other part being the loss of rolling stock. In March 1944 Rudsteadts staff estimated the entire French railway system had lost 70% of its prewar capacity. The remaining Allied attacks in March, April, and May effectively cut off the Normandy battlefield.

Operation STRANGLE was aimed at a smaller more fragile Italian rail system and the automotive roads. That appears to have dropped the supply deliver capacity by at least 50% in 4-5 months. In Germany Op CLARION not only reduced delivery to the army depots, but interrupted the flow of material in and out of the factories.

These three bombing campaigns were focused on specific regions. The Rhineland-Ruhr in the case of Op CLARION & western Germany in the following operations. So if the Germans hop to get a similar effect they'd have to focus tightly as well.

the problem is such campaigns against groups of small and decentralised targets are not what massed 4 engine bombers are great at, so it took lot of bombers and much repetition

Operation strangle:

Over the course of eight weeks, the Allies flew 21,000 sorties (388 per day) and dropped 22,500 tonnes of bombs.[2][3] The operation employed medium bombers and fighter bombers over a 150-square-mile (390 km2) area from Rome to Pisa and from Pescara to Rimini.[4]


Operation Clarion

Operation Clarion was the extensive allied campaign of Strategic bombing during World War II which attacked 200 German communication network targets[2]: 217  to open Operation Veritable/Grenade.[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Clarion#cite_note-Bauer-1
3,500 bombers and nearly 5,000 fighters attacked targets across Germany in effort to destroy all means of transportation available. Targets included "rail stations, barges, docks, and bridges."[3]: 535 


(not sure of bomber mix but it certainly included lighter planes like Strangle, and it's hard to separate out Clarion from ongoing bombing campaign at times, but again look at those numbers, no way is a German 4 engine bomber force scraped out of cannibalised 2 engine programmes going to do this)

and of course one other big difference, those wallie operations were run with either air superiority or damn near local supremacy. The red air force and LW were in an ongoing fight over citadel

 

[Post]

Bugger, i meant without deep escort.

Without escort a daylight raid would be massacred.

They used JU88 as heavy fighters over the Bay of Biscay, mainly to go after allied ASW aircraft in the area.

I don't think they'd work that well as escorts. Even the Lightning didn't and I assume that would be a more nimble plane than the Ju-88.

As for the effectiveness, the long range bombng raids, will have the same results as the ones performed by the Western Allies in 1942/43. The results of each raid will be different to the other, some would be spot on, other flattening a residential area while a production facility was the target, and some targets will be completely missed in such a way the Sovjets would be puzzled what the intended target excactly was,, and this would be only for day raids not to mention night raids. Esentially the same result as at the West around the 1942/1943 period.

I wouldn't take it for granted that they'd achieve similar result.The distances are (much) longer, so that add to the navigation issues. I also think that the USSR was a lot less mapped than Germany, so that adds more to the navigation issues. Further the campaign is supposed to be against the new factories, so they'd first need intel as to where the factories are.

And the USSR is a lot less densely populated than Germany, so there's more chance of bombing forest.

 

[Crowbar Six]

Without escort a daylight raid would be massacred.


I don't think they'd work that well as escorts. Even the Lightning didn't and I assume that would be a more nimble plane than the Ju-88.

I wouldn't take it for granted that they'd achieve similar result.The distances are (much) longer, so that add to the navigation issues. I also think that the USSR was a lot less mapped than Germany, so that adds more to the navigation issues. Further the campaign is supposed to be against the new factories, so they'd first need intel as to where the factories are.

And the USSR is a lot less densely populated than Germany, so there's more chance of bombing forest.

The JU 88 was mainly used to attack MPA in the Bay of Biscay which were going after departing/returning U Boats. The JU88 was an agile and quick bugger, the only thing which would be too much would be a Mosquito or a P51.

 

[Post]

The JU 88 was mainly used to attack MPA in the Bay of Biscay which were going after departing/returning U Boats. The JU88 was an agile and quick bugger.

MPA are not fighters. An ecort fighter must fend of fighters that are attacking the bombers (who kind of expect there fighters to be around).

 

[Crowbar Six]

MPA are not fighters. An ecort fighter must fend of fighters that are attacking the bombers (who kind of expect there fighters to be around).

IOTL Coastal command used to send MPA to attack Uboats in the Bay of Biscay, the Germans used JU88 to attack them.

I never posited the JU88 as an escort fighter. Whilst it was pretty agile as a bomber and quick enough to go after large, relatively slow patrol aircraft (and bombers as a night fighter) it was never a clear air long range fighter. The Germans botched all the development programmes which could have given them one such as the Me 210 and Me 410. I was simply pointing out, admittedly indirectly, that the HE 177 as a LRMPA would have been very vulnerable to attack by long range allied fighters like the Mosquito, P51, P47, P38 etc when returning to bases in Western France, also if operating against Russian convoys they would get whacked by the escort carriers.

 

[Post]

IOTL Coastal command used to send MPA to attack Uboats in the Bay of Biscay, the Germans used JU88 to attack them.

I never posited the JU88 as an escort fighter. Whilst it was pretty agile as a bomber and quick enough to go after large, relatively slow patrol aircraft (and bombers as a night fighter) it was never a clear air long range fighter. The Germans botched all the development programmes which could have given them one such as the Me 210 and Me 410. I was simply pointing out, admittedly indirectly, that the HE 177 as a LRMPA would have been very vulnerable to attack by long range allied fighters like the Mosquito, P51, P47, P38 etc when returning to bases in Western France, also if operating against Russian convoys they would get whacked by the escort carriers.

We've been talkin past each other then, because my original comment about longe range fighters was in reference to the HE-177 used as a long range bomber in Russia, which would have needed fighter escort, i.e. a longe range fighter which the LW didn't have, and indeed the JU-88 is not suited for.

I agree that the HE-177 would be vulnerable to lange range allied fighters. And also to fighters on escort carriers or CAM-ships. Maybe even ASW planes could scare off or shoot down a HE-177 if it was fast enough (I can imagine that if the crew of a HE-177 sees something like a Dauntless closing in, they might confuse it for a fighter and decide to better get away, not sure though if Dauntless's were used in this role, but there are probably other allied planes which could confuse them).

 

[Garrison]

He111s after 1942, that should get another 1000 4 engine He177s. Basically every bomber that wasn't a Ju88 after 1942 should be a 4 engine He177.

As for use, the idea isn't to match the combined bomber offensive, but rather how bombers were used in theatres like the Med and Pacific (not B28s against Japan). Against targets that are theatre-strategic, rear area cities and base areas rather than factories.

Converting from producing one type of engine to another is time consuming and costly and as has been pointed out a few hundred extra He 177s isn't going to make a major strategic difference.