Combat aircraft. "Heinkel" He.111. Justified compulsion

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

So, "Heinkel" No.111.

We won't stick to the labels “blitzkrieg symbol” and “beauty and pride of the Luftwaffe”, but the plane was quite remarkable. At least only by the fact that he plowed the whole war, from the first to the last day, and this already says a lot.

Not really. It happened, and it turned out very strange. But let's go in order.

The order begins when it was not really there. More precisely, when Germany after the First World War was tied down by the Treaty of Versailles, and both the Air Force and the Navy really wanted. But if it was not very convenient with the ships, then it worked out with the planes.

We even remember the author of this cute idea. Lieutenant Colonel Wimmer from the Reichswehr proposed to design and build "auxiliary bombers", apparently by analogy with auxiliary cruisers, more precisely, raiders at sea.

The idea came up: to design a bomber that could be issued to observers for a passenger plane - why not? A technical assignment was issued for a twin-engine dual-purpose aircraft that could be used as a bomber and as a high-speed passenger or mail machine. Priority, of course, was given to military functions.

Junkers and Heinkel started working on the project.

The first such dual-purpose vehicle, as they would say now, was the Junkers Ju.86. Its prototype took off from the airfield at Dessau on November 4, 1934.

The military and civilian versions of the aircraft differed in the nose of the fuselage (with and without the cockpit of the navigator-bombardier), the presence or absence of weapons and the equipment of the cockpit. The passenger car had a ten-seat cabin in the fuselage, while the military had internal cluster bombs.

For a passenger plane, "Auntie Yu" was frankly cramped, but as a bomber … However, we have already written about this.

"Heinkel" lagged behind the competitors, but what happened with the brothers Gunther surpassed the work of "Junkers".

In general, the twin brothers Siegfried and Walter Gunther (pictured with Ernst Heinkel) did a good job. The first of them was engaged in calculations, and the second - in the general layout of the aircraft.

They created a completely modern all-metal cantilever monoplane with smooth skin, enclosed cockpits and retractable landing gear. With a very voluminous fuselage, which is useful for both bomber and passenger aircraft.

The wing, so recognizable, the Gunthers simply borrowed from the high-speed passenger aircraft of their own design, the He.70.

What was sad about Germany in those years was the engines. Approximately as in the USSR of those times, and possibly worse. There were no own engines, more powerful than 750 hp. The Gunthers chose BMW VI.60Z engines with a capacity of 690 hp. This was the minimum for the bomber to somehow fly.

In the military version of the aircraft, a narrow elongated nose ended with a glazed cockpit for the navigator-bombardier. The glazing of the cockpit had a slot for a 7.9 mm machine gun. The same machine gun was planned to be installed in an open top installation. The third machine gun was mounted in a downward-extending booth-tower.

The bombs were placed vertically inside the fuselage in cassettes. The maximum load consisted of eight bombs of 100 kg each. According to the assignment, the military version of the aircraft was designed for a crew of four: pilot, navigator-bombardier, gunner-radio operator and gunner.

In the civilian version, the aircraft could carry ten passengers in two cabins: four in the former bomb bay and six in the cockpit behind the wing. Luggage and mail were placed in the trunk, arranged in the place of the navigator's cabin. In the passenger modification, the nose of the fuselage was not glazed.

It was this aircraft that received the designation He.111.

Heinkel received orders for both military and civilian aircraft. The main version of the new aircraft was considered a military one.

A few words about the most important difference. About weapons.

Defensive armament, as mentioned above, consisted of three 7, 9-mm MG.15 machine guns, standing in a glazed nose, an upper turret and a turret extending downward.

MG.15 was fed with cartridges from the store, the spent cartridges were dropped into a bag attached to the machine gun. The navigator fired from the bow machine gun. The barrel moved left and right in a narrow slot, covered with a shield from blowing out. The upper firing point was open, only in front of the arrow closed the wind visor from the incoming stream. The downward-backward shelling was provided by the lower retractable tower, open at the back. In a combat position, she went down with a shooter sitting inside.

Naturally, as soon as the plane went into series, modernizations and improvements began, to which the Germans were great masters.

Already from the second modification of the V-2, DB 600CG engines with increased supercharging (maximum power - 950 hp) appeared on the aircraft, which had improved altitude characteristics. The radiator was placed in a ledge, improving the aerodynamics, and additional radiators were placed under the leading edge of the wing.

All this made it possible to bring the maximum speed to 370 km / h, which the military definitely liked and the first four copies of the B-2 were sent to Spain for testing in combat conditions.

Bomber Group II / KG 152 was the first to receive the He.111B. Nine He111B and nine Do.17E were handed over to it for comparison. The pilots liked the Heinkel. It was unhurried and not very maneuverable, but it was distinguished by good controllability, ease of takeoff and landing.

In the meantime, in the parts they mastered and got used to the He.111B, the company was preparing the next version, D.

In the middle of 1937, Walter Gunther, having lost his brother, continued to work on the plane alone. He proposed to change the shape of the bow, abandoning the traditional ledge between the cockpit visor and the navigator's cabin located below.

Now the seats of the pilot and the navigator-bombardier were nearby. The navigator had a folding seat to the right of the pilot; when firing, he moved on a bed in the very nose of the car. The generously glazed nose of the fuselage had smooth contours and ended in front with a ball machine-gun mount "Ikaria". So that the navigator, lying on the machine gun, did not block the pilot's view, the installation was shifted to the right.

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So "Heinkel" acquired its original, but somewhat asymmetrical (I would say - lopsided) silhouette.

Here an incident occurred, from which the German engineers came out, from my point of view, just great.

With such a new layout, the glass moved very far from the pilot's eyes, and since it had such a strong bend, tilt and curvature, this instantly created problems with the pilot's view, especially in bad weather. Having stuck a couple of aircraft in the ground during testing, the Germans realized that something had gone wrong …

We found a way out, but to say that it was extremely original is to say nothing at all!

If necessary, the pilot's seat, together (!!!) with the controls, was hydraulically raised up, and the pilot's head protruded outward through the sliding hatch in the glazing. And the pilot could turn his turret in all directions.

A small hinged visor covered his head from the oncoming stream. The most interesting thing is that the pilot could stay in this position for an infinitely long time or until everything froze to himself. Even the main instrument panel was located on the cockpit ceiling and was clearly visible to the pilot from both positions.

By the way, the pilot could leave the plane through the same hatch.

The claims of the representatives of the Luftwaffe were not only about the pilot's seat. More precisely, there were no complaints about the place of the navigator-shooter. Unlike the rest of the jobs.

The upper arrow was covered from the incoming stream only by a small visor. At speeds over 250 km / h, two problems arose at once: the air flow blew into the fuselage, and the machine gun barrel could only be turned sideways from the aircraft axis with great difficulty.

With the retractable bottom installation, everything was even trickier. In the extended combat position, she created a huge aerodynamic drag, "eating" up to 40 km / h. But this is only half the battle, in general, the installation, or as it was also called "Tower C", simply jammed in the lower position, and then problems began in full.

The shooter could not always leave it, especially if it wedged in the lowest position, and when landing, the uncleared installation touched the ground, which guaranteed an accident.

It was also not very convenient for the shooter to be in the installation, the shooter, open to all the winds, not only experienced some discomfort in the cold, but the complete lack of booking made him a very easy victim of enemy fighters. The statistics of the use of He.111 in Spain testified to almost 60% of the losses of the lower shooters.

Therefore, Walter Gunther designed and installed a fixed ventral nacelle, which replaced the retractable unit. She had much less resistance, and the machine-gun installation in it was always ready for battle. The shooter was placed in a supine position on a mattress. A hatch was provided on board the gondola through which the crew entered the plane.

The upper firing point was also changed. Instead of a small windshield, a semi-closed sliding lantern was introduced. When firing, it manually moved forward, providing a significant field of fire.

On the next series of He.111E aircraft, Jumo 211A-1 engines were installed, which made it possible to raise the bomb load to 1700 kg, which in itself was a very good figure. The maximum speed even with overload (2000 kg of bombs) was 390 km / h, which was quite decent for that time.

In March 1938, the first of 45 He.111E-1 also went to Spain. Naturally, the planes repeated the success of the previous model.

Here, however, a certain role was played by the lack of a worthy destructive resistance among the Republicans. Therefore, a bomber with three machine guns seemed to be something like that, well armed.

The command of the Luftwaffe generally decided that weakly armed, without fighter cover, but relatively fast bombers would be able to continue to carry out their tasks.

In just two years, during the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe will pay for these mistakes with the blood of its pilots in full.

Then there was a very interesting moment. On the basis of the F modification, the first German wheeled torpedo bomber He.111J was created. The engines were again supplied from Daimler, DB 600CG.

The torpedo bomber turned out to be interesting. Under the center section, it could hang bombs with a caliber of up to 500 kg, LT F5b torpedoes (765 kg each) or aircraft magnetic bottom mines (two each). Internal placement of bombs was not provided.

Several aircraft of the J-1 modification were later equipped as carriers of the L10 Friedensengel gliding torpedo. The gliding torpedo was suspended under the fuselage along the axis of the aircraft. In this case, it was possible to take off only from a flat concrete strip, since the clearance from the rudders and torpedo screws to the ground was very small.

The drop was carried out from an altitude of 2500 m, directing the plane towards the target. 3 seconds after the drop, a 25 m long wire was released from the container under the wing. It was part of the height sensor. When the gliding torpedo was at a height of 10 m above the water, the pyromechanism shot off the torpedo wing and tail. The torpedo went under water, launched the propellers and eventually hit the target (or did not hit). After trials in the fall of 1942, Friedensengel was put into production, several hundred of them were made.

The 1111J-1 was allegedly turned into a missile carrier, and it carried an A-4 (V-2) ballistic missile. I did not find visual confirmation. The V-2 weighed nearly 13 tons at launch, so I doubt the He 111 would have been able to carry it off. Plus the length is more than 10 meters.

But the V-1 "Heinkel" dragged easily. And they launched it, however, without much success. The British quickly realized that the slow He.111, coupled with a rocket, was easier to intercept on the way and stock up than to chase after the launched "FA". But more on that below.

A number of minesweepers were also made, equipping the aircraft with a device for cutting the cables of balloons. The frame formed a triangle with slightly convex sides. The cable slid along the frame to the end of the wing and fell on the electrically driven knives that cut it.

The frame and its attachments, together with the knives, created an additional weight of about 250 kg, which greatly shifted the centering forward. To compensate, ballast was placed in the tail of the bomber. In total, about 30 machines were manufactured, but the weight of the frame and ballast forced a decrease in bomb load and worsened flight performance. Therefore, after several operations over England, the surviving aircraft were converted into glider towing vehicles.

In general, He.111 has become a kind of laboratory for testing new types of weapons. In 1942, it was on the He 111 that the FX 1400 radio-controlled bomb ("Fritz X") was tested.

Several He.111H-6 equipped with FuG 203 Kehl control system transmitters were used to test the FX 1400 in Foggia (Northern Italy).

Despite some successes, "Heinkel" was completely unsuitable as a carrier of such weapons and therefore did not find use in a combat situation.

Other He.111s, equipped with FuG 103 radio altimeters, were used for trial dropping of BV 246 Hagelkorn gliding bombs. Tests of the previously mentioned planning torpedoes L10 Friedenzengel were also carried out.

But all these exotic types of weapons were only tested on the He.111, and in no case did it come to use in battle. Except, as already mentioned, "V-1".

In 1943-44, it was experimentally found that He.111 is quite capable of carrying and launching in flight a projectile (or a cruise missile with a pulsating jet engine) Fi.103 (aka FZG 76 and VI, V-1 / "V-1"). The total weight of the device in the filled state was equal to 2180 kg, so even with an overload, but the 111th could take the "V".

Initially, they wanted to fix the "V" on the struts above the fuselage. After starting the rocket engine (it was produced by an electric igniter from the carrier), it had to unhook, and the bomber went down in a gentle dive so that a collision would not occur.

However, the option did not work, "Fau" after uncoupling, not picking up speed, fell down, and the He.111 was not at all the plane that could easily dodge.

Then they used a different scheme. The bomber carried the rocket under the wing root, asymmetrically to the right or left, so that the engine, mounted above the V-keel, was parallel to the carrier's fuselage.

In general, such a fastening of the projectile significantly worsened the weight distribution and made piloting more difficult. Naturally, the speed also dropped, which was already quite unpleasant.

But launching from an airplane had its advantages. Yes, they shot from ground launchers much more accurately, the then reference and orientation systems in space were very simple and unpretentious. But the ground installations unmasked themselves, they were constantly hunted by enemy reconnaissance, they were constantly bombed and fired upon by allied aircraft.

And the launch from the air made it possible to attack where the air defense system was not ideal.

The first combat sortie of the He.111 from the "V" was made on July 8, firing several missiles at Southampton. Until the end of 1944, approximately 300 Fi. 103 were fired from carrier aircraft in London, 90 at Southampton and another 20 at Gloucester.

The efficiency was rather low. For example, on September 15, 1944, 15 He.111N flew against London. Only nine Faus were successfully dropped, two of them reached the target, the rest fell into the sea due to failures or were shot down by British fighters.

However, these operations were very dangerous, and KG 53, which was engaged in the launches, suffered heavy losses. For example, group 11 / KG 53 lost 12 aircraft in two sorties as a result of explosions of shells at the time of takeoff. Combat missions with missiles ceased on January 14, 1945. Over the entire period of launches, the Germans lost 77 aircraft, of which about 30 - when the missiles were separated from the carriers. A total of 1,200 shells were sent to the British Isles.

Here's a history of the application. This is in addition to the usual bombing and torpedo launches, which the 111th was doing throughout the war, from the first to the last day.

The plane, despite the large number of disadvantages, was loved by the pilots. Excellent visibility from the cockpit, reliability, good stability and controllability in all flight modes. Separately, I would like to say a few words about booking.

The 111's armor looked very serious. For the pilot, a cup (5 mm thick) and a back (10 mm) of the seat were made of armor steel. Under the navigator's seat (both in the seated and in the recumbent position) there was a 5 mm thick armor strip. In front of the top shooter, 60 mm thick bulletproof glass was placed in the canopy of the lantern. At the rear, the gunners' cabin was covered by three plates of 8 mm each, forming the fuselage partition. In the nacelle, armor plates with a thickness of 6 mm covered the sides and bottom, including the entrance hatch. From bullets flying from the top-rear of the aircraft, the gondola was protected by a sheet of 8 mm. The oil cooler tunnel was covered by a 6 mm steel sheet from above, and an 8 mm damper was located at the exit.

Add to this those measures to increase survivability that the German designers introduced earlier. The walls of the fiber tanks were easily pierced by a bullet, but the fiber did not bend with petals, like duralumin, preventing the protector from tightening the hole. The tread of the Germans was of excellent quality, all gasoline and oil tanks were protected, including additional ones mounted in the bomb bay instead of cassettes.

The fire-fighting system worked perfectly (as the Luftwaffe pilots wrote in their memoirs).

The control was implemented using rigid rods. Yes, this gave additional weight, and considerable, but it was much more difficult to break the traction than the cable.

Basically, the only useful thing that the Germans did not have was the system for filling gas tanks with exhaust gases. But it was generally our invention.

The release of He 111 in Germany was completed in the fall of 1944. The data of the total total for various sources do not coincide with each other. They range from 6500 to 7300 and even 7700 aircraft. Since the aircraft were manufactured not only in Germany, it is very difficult to say how many He.111s were actually produced.

"Heinkel" No.111 was produced in more than 70 variants and modifications, but alas, the efficiency of the aircraft gradually began to decline.

But why then did the Luftwaffe command not withdraw the aircraft from production in favor of new models?

I think that the point is just the unwillingness to lose the well-established production of well-proven aircraft. The fact that an increase in engine power took away an increase in armor and armament did not improve the characteristics. But no one wanted to allow the production of combat aircraft to fall.

In addition, in addition to bombing and torpedo throwing, He 111 performed a very wide range of combat missions. Landing operations, transport operations, towing gliders, launching gliding bombs and aircraft-shells.

And here high speed, as it were, was not required, because He.111 fought so calmly until the very end of the war. Although, of course, the closer to the end of the war, the more difficult it was to use it, despite the constantly increasing booking and defensive armament.