Combat aircraft. Uralbomber from a different point of view

2024 Author: Matthew Elmers | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 21:49

If you open the materials on "Griffin" on the Internet, in 9, 5 cases out of 10 we will be able to read something similar to the quote from the poem by Nekrasov about the fact that "This groan is called a song for us …" Luftwaffe lighter "was about nothing, the plane was rubbish, one continuous miscalculation of Goering, Hitler, Heinkel, Milch, in short, everyone.

And where to him to the Pe-8, it is generally not clear.

However, here's the suggestion. Let's just take a look at the plane. On a long-range bomber, which, I note, was made in the amount of more than a thousand copies. And there, perhaps, we will draw some conclusions about failure and incompetence.

Let's start almost fabulously: once upon a time there was a general. This sometimes happens, and the generals are different, and smart, and not so. Our general was smart. His name was Walter Wefer, he had the rank of lieutenant general and served as chief of staff of the Luftwaffe.

And planning all sorts of plans, Wefer thought about the need for the Luftwaffe to have a long-range bomber capable of reaching targets in the most distant points. For example, the main naval bases of Great Britain or the steel mills of the Soviet Urals. Yes, the Germans were aware of the development of metallurgy in the Urals and even then thought that these centers would need to be influenced.

Work in this direction has been carried out since 1935, and in general, the Luftwaffe began to think about a long-range bomber in 1934.

The first experiments did not come out very well. The Dornier Do.19 and Junkers Ju.90 created in the framework of the project did not impress the Luftwaffe leadership and by 1937 work on them was curtailed, and all the prototypes made were used as transport aircraft.

Combat aircraft. Uralbomber from a different point of view

In 1936, the technical department of the Ministry of Aviation presented new requirements for a long-range medium bomber. Flight range 5000 km, bomb load 500 kg, crew: pilot, navigator and gunner-operator of remotely controlled rifle installations.

The claims were sent to the firms Blom und Foss, Heinkel, Henschel, Junkers and Messerschmitt. Who and how started working on the project (if at all) is not known for certain, but in 1936 Wefer died in a plane crash, and the Uralbomber program was apparently terminated.

"It seems to be", although for the majority this was the collapse of the entire long-range bomber aviation of the Luftwaffe, but literally a month later Heinkel's firm received an order for an aircraft under the project "1041".

It's simple. One program was terminated and another started. Obviously, only Heinkel's work was going at least in approximately the direction determined by the ministry.

On November 5, 1937, "Project 1041" received the official designation He.177, and the history of this aircraft began. Full of ambiguities and misunderstandings.

The Air Ministry seriously planned that Heinkel would bring the plane to normal in a couple of years and in late 1940 - early 1941 the Luftwaffe would have a long-range bomber with which to start bringing Great Britain to its knees.

However, the ministry itself, with the full support of the Luftwaffe, began to engage in outright nonsense: the bomber's flight range was supposed to grow to 6500 km, the bomb load was up to 1000 kg, and the maximum speed should be 535 km / h.

And the main thing: the plane had to be able to bomb from a dive. Let it be gentle, but dive. In those days, many tried to do something like that, but not everyone succeeded in diving.

Further, it was required to increase the wing area, ammunition for machine guns up to 6,000 rounds, to supply more powerful radio equipment. The crew also increased - up to 4 people.

Project 1041 designer Siegfried Gunther was faced with a difficult choice. In general, the problem was simple: there were no engines in Germany that could meet the requirements set out. And Gunther did a local miracle by placing a pair of DB601 engines, designated DB606, in the design. In the DB 606 engine, two 12-cylinder V-shaped units, created on the basis of the DB 601, were mounted side by side and worked on a common shaft through a gearbox connecting both crankshafts.

The takeoff weight of the He.177 with the DB606 was estimated at 25 tons, and the speed of 500 km / h at an altitude of 6000 m was more than that of many fighters of that time.

However, problems began. The main problem was the new chief of staff of the Luftwaffe, Major General Yeschonnek, who was inclined to believe that Germany should pay attention to medium bombers, based on the successful experience of using twin-engine bombers in Spain. If it had not been for the Kriegsmarine's application for a long-range reconnaissance agent for interaction with submarines, most likely, the He.177 would never have been born.

It was with great difficulty that permission was obtained for a preliminary series of six aircraft and a plan was approved for the construction of six more aircraft with four BMW 801 engines, if the twin engines from Daimler-Benz could not be adjusted.

The installation of four engines excluded a dive, so Heinkel concentrated on debugging the DB 606. At the same time, it was decided to introduce a rather impressive number of technical innovations into the design in order to maximize the interest of potential customers from the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine.

Such an innovation was the use of remotely controlled rifle installations, which had significantly less aerodynamic drag than turrets with arrows. In the design of the He.177, the operator's cabin was made, who controlled three installations from it. It was noted that the aiming angles and the response speed of the installations "are close to ideal." This was in August 1939.

However, the Luftwaffe continued the show with new requirements for the aircraft. First, they demanded to replace the remote-controlled installations with conventional manual ones. For reliability. Secondly, the dive angle was required to be increased to 60 degrees. It was necessary to strengthen the structure and modify the landing gear, since all this entailed an increase in the mass of the aircraft.

While the Luftwaffe and the Air Ministry were playing with Heinkel's project, 1939 struck. World War II began. It was followed by the Battle of Britain, which the Germans successfully lost, not least due to the insufficient flight range of their Do.17, He.111 and Ju.88.

Perhaps anticipating the lack of range of their bombers, the Luftwaffe demanded that Heinkel speed up the work, and on July 6, 1939, an order was placed for 20 He.177A-0. Subsequently, the order was increased to 30 vehicles. The first flight of the Ne.177 took place on November 19, 1939, ended prematurely and pointed out a bunch of flaws in the aircraft.

On the other hand, there was a good confident takeoff, landing and handling.

During the tests, the weight of the empty He.177 V1 was 13 730 kg, the takeoff weight was 23 950 kg. The maximum speed was 460 km / h, as much as 80 km / h less than the set one. The cruising speed was also lower, 410 km / h, and the maximum flight range was calculated as 4,970 km - 25% less than the specified one.

And this despite the fact that fully defensive weapons were not installed.

"Gave the heat" in the truest sense of the word and engines. Gasoline and oil lines leaked and caused fires, oil overheated, engines did not handle oil starvation very well.

The first serial He.177A-0 flew in November 1941. These machines differed from the prototypes in the cockpit and modified tail assembly.

The crew increased to five people. The maximum bomb load was 2400 kg. Defensive armament consisted of one 7.9 mm MG.81 machine gun in the bow mount, a 20 mm MG-FF cannon in the nose in the lower gondola, a pair of MG.81 machine guns in the tail of the nacelle, two 13 mm MG.131 machine guns in the upper the tower and in the tail unit.

The first five He.177A-0 were used for dive tests, during which a speed of 710 km / h was reached. This required equipping at least one aircraft with trellis brakes, although in reality the He.177 was not able to safely get out of the dive even with a moderate angle. Unfortunately, this has been achieved through several disasters. Plus, the tests revealed another unpleasant phenomenon: constant vibrations of the structure at speeds over 500 km / h. The result was the limitation of flight speed to this very figure.

Yes, the He.177 was still considered a dangerous and not very reliable aircraft due to engine problems, but experienced pilots from the specially created 177 Test Squadron received the bomber well. All the same, the Non-177 was pleasant to fly and flew pretty well. And the duration of the flight, so interested in the Kriegsmarine, gradually reached 12 hours.

It was assumed that, in addition to conventional bombs, the He.177 could carry both Fritz-X and Hs.293 guided bombs, as well as depth charges.

In early January 1943, Hitler personally touched on the work on He.177, having familiarized himself with a pile of documents and reports. He was very interested in the aircraft, which could solve the problem of strikes against distant rear services enterprises of the Soviet Union. The Fuhrer handed over to subordinates from the Ministry of Aviation both for missed deadlines and for being distracted by frankly stupid ideas such as creating a four-engine dive bomber. The twin DB606 also got it - not as reliable as we would like and difficult to operate.

But even Hitler's timely intervention did not help much, and in mid-October 1942 the 130th and last He.177A-1 rolled off the assembly line in Warnemünde. But at the same time, in Oranienburg, the production of an improved version of He 177A-3 was in full swing. The main difference was a 20 cm longer engine mount and an additional 1, 6th section in the fuselage behind the bomb bay. An additional upper tower was installed behind the wing with a pair of 13-mm MG.131 machine guns with 750 rounds per barrel.

It was decided to equip the He.177A-3 with more powerful engines. But it didn’t work, the new engines could not be debugged, so the new aircraft went into production with the old engines. The Ministry of Aviation set a production rate of 70 vehicles per month, but due to constant improvements, by the beginning of 1943, the output was only five (!) Vehicles per month.

At the beginning of the winter of 1942-1943. No.177 were urgently sent to supply the German troops surrounded in Stalingrad as transport aircraft. Here the following happened: in the maintenance units, on several vehicles, a 50-mm VK 5 cannon was placed in the lower gondola. The ammunition for the gun was placed in the bomb bay. These field modifications were tried to be used for ground attacks.

It turned out so-so. The horizontal bomber was completely unsuitable for such a thing as ground attack.

Nevertheless, the He.177A-3 / R5 or "Stalingradtip" was still created with a 75-mm VK-7.5 cannon in the lower gondola. These machines were planned to be used as naval reconnaissance vehicles instead of the rapidly aging Fw.200 "Condor". It was assumed that powerful offensive weapons would allow hitting both ships and transport aircraft over the Atlantic.

Like the attack on tanks at Stalingrad, the idea of sinking ships was also difficult to implement.

By 1943, when the Allies finally complicated the life of the German submariners, Grossadmiral Doenitz began to insist especially on the support of the submarines with torpedo bombers made at the He.177 base.

As a result, the 26th Bomber Squadron appeared, armed with the He.177A-3 / R7. The torpedoes did not fit into the bomb bay, so they were simply hung under the fuselage. The aircraft carried two standard L5 torpedoes quite normally.

But it all ended in October 1944, when an urgent order came to stop all work in connection with the adoption of the "urgent fighter program". On the assembly line, the He.177 was replaced by the Do.335, ironically also an aircraft with a tandem engine arrangement.

Large-scale production of the He.177 aircraft ended on the A-5 version, and further modifications did not go beyond the prototype stage.

Meanwhile, the next model, He.177A-6, was developed taking into account the wishes of the frontline pilots. And it was already a very interesting car.

The A-6 gas tanks were armored, and a Rheinmetall four-gun remote-controlled rifle turret with solid firepower appeared in the tail of the aircraft.

In addition, the A-6 was equipped with a pressurized cabin and an additional gas tank instead of the front bomb bay. With this tank, the flight range was calculated at 5800 km.

There was a project No.177A-7. It was a high-altitude long-range reconnaissance aircraft that retained the ability to carry a bomb load. Its wingspan was increased to 36 m, the power plant - two DB613 engines (two twin DB603G, giving takeoff power of 3600 hp each). The empty weight of the aircraft was 18,100 kg, the take-off weight was 34,641 kg. The maximum speed is 545 km / h at an altitude of 6000 m.

No.177A-7 was planned to be produced by the Japanese, but the outbreak of the war did not provide an opportunity to deliver a prototype to Japan.

In the end, everything ended the way it did for many projects of other firms: a complete failure. And the plane was very promising. Its generous bays allowed for a lot of payload. If it came to installing the radar, I'm sure there would be no problems.

Was the plane unsuccessful?

Not sure.

Unsuccessful planes are not built with more than a thousand cars. In a country like Germany, during the war, many interesting projects played into history at the prototype level. And here - 1000+. Doesn't fit.

An interesting system of twin engines, an original chassis, remotely controlled shooting installations …

Another question is that for some reason they wanted to make a heavy bomber a dive. The heavy bomber was used as a transport aircraft in the Stalingrad boiler. A heavy bomber weighing 25 tons began to be converted into an attack aircraft with large-caliber cannons.

If you look objectively, you understand that for the failures of the No.177, the responsibility lay with the Ministry of Aviation, which clearly had a poor idea of what it needed from the aircraft. And incompetence cannot always be compensated for.

In fact, there were no special flaws in the He.177 project, the problems were typical for all German bombers. Plus, there are constant improvements at the request of the Ministry of Aviation. "Childhood diseases" are generally inherent in all new cars, but here it is more likely a matter of something else.

The fact is that strategic long-range aviation is a very difficult and expensive business. A heavy aircraft with good flight characteristics, good defense and armament is not so easy. And not every country can handle it - to have a fleet of strategic bombers. In general, only the Americans and the British really did it.

If Germany had a budget that would allow not to dig with He.177 for several years, bringing it to mind, saving on everything, the result could be completely different. But when there is no money, and a rather promising machine serves to plug holes, no ingenious and modern design developments will help this.

So, perhaps, to hang the label of an unsuccessful aircraft on the He.177 is somewhat unfair. The amount of work was done huge, just mired in intrigues, the Ministry of Aviation and the Luftwaffe did not give the opportunity to implement the project.

But this is not so bad after all, is it?