What do you think about this?

Hey, im new here, and am avid in my search for knowledge about the german, and all airforces in world war two. But the luftwaffe has always captured my mind. anyway, here is a thought that i had. Keep in mind im only 16, and dont know EVERYTHING, thats why im here, to learn. This is a scenario, in other words, if alternate decisions had been made, could the war have turned out differently.

Suppose in early 1942, production of the Bf/Me-109 of all variants and subvariants was cut to half, and the production facilities were devoted to producing the Fw-190, a much more capable fighter, with more range, speed, better handling, and high speed characteristics, and many more possibilties for design changes to improve characteristics. Woudlnt this have at least infulenced the war to some degree? At least extending the Luftwaffes struggle against the heavy bombers of the allies. Now suppose that you begin to recall, and scrap the earliest Bf/Me-109's and use the materials and engines to build more aircraft. Supplying the inline engines of DB-601 and up engines to the Italians and the Japanese. Also, using the spare metals and materials, to build more Fw-200 Condors, to assist the U-boats in the struggle against the Merchant shipping. These Fw-200's were by Winston Churchill himself named the Scourge of the Atlantic. Would this have also influenced the war? i think so. Also, Scrap the Bf-110 production to 1/3 the original capacity, again using the supplies to fund other aircraft production, and suppling the engines to the Italians and the Japanese. These are just some things to think about, i wont get into the future Luftwaffe projects, known as Luft'46, which i know alot about, because this seems to be a factual only website, but i just wanted to get some of my random thoughts out there. thanks for reading, and just think, what if there were more Fw-200's and Fw-190's instead of the Bf/Me-109's. And what if the Italians and Japanese had more inline engines, allowing for more effecient fighters early in the war. Just something to ponder. Thanks for your time. please feel free to email me with thoughts and comments, id love to hear them.

[Graham Boak]

I can think of a number of flaws: clearly the Germans at the time thought of more.

Where are all the extra BMW engines going to come from?

What are you going to do during and after the transition period when the production lines close for refurbishment and you have a massive reduction in the number of fighters produced?

If you scrap all the earlier fighters what do your training units use? Just what do you think actually happened to all the old aircraft anyway?

Not every Jagdwaffe pilot preferred the 190 - many on the Estern Front preferred the 109. In 1942 the 190 was showing problems and the Russian front was more important than the West.

By 1942 the Fw200 Condor was obsolete.

How are you going to ship all these in-line engines to Japan?

[Laurent Rizzotti]

If I remember well, Germans provided engines and technical drawings to Japanese aboard one of the subs that did the trip in 42 but the Japanese engine production was still hampered by low industrial quality standards and bad quality of alliages. The Japanese industry just can't compare at the time with the German.

The main problem of Japan and Germany after 1943 were not aircrafts but pilots. Both countries were unable to train enough to replace losses and both saw the experience levels of their air force fall. Given the fact that they were at war with almost all the rest of the world, no wonder they were overwhelmed by numbers.

Fw200 were efficients until 1941 but then Allied escort carriers much reduced their efficiency. Also most of their success were against unescorted or little escorted ships, against a 1944 convoy they had little chance of success. On the other hand Bf110 were the main German nightfighter of WWII and were always badly needed.

As Graham said, most Eastern Front pilots liked better the Bf109. And the Eastern Front was the main front for Germany for most, if not all the war.

Also you dismiss the fact that both types of fighters were built by two different and concurrent firms.

[Juha]

To add that what Graham and Laurent wrote, IIRC FW 190 production cost was about twice of that of Bf 109. I mean that to produce a FW 190 one needed about the same amount of the raw materials and labour than to produce two Bf 109s.

Juha

[Primoz]

Furthermore, the Bf 109 was faster than the Fw 190 at all altitudes above 1000 m (at least in 1941-42).

[Jon]

The British airforce and American airforce were by 1943 /44 far to powerfull to have ever seen the Luftwaffe being able to beat them.

US heavies by day with a massive fighter escort that would have continued to have grown in strength month on month could have dealt with the FW190, even had the Luftwaffe had large numbers of the ME262 these would also eventually have been shot down, factories bombed , fighter bases flattend reducing the numbers put into the air. Also if the war had dragged on any longer the Gloster Meteor would have been available to counter the fast flying jets, perhaps not as capable as the 262 but able to meet it at altitude at speed rather than looking for them returning to base. The FW190 was a great plane but the problem lay with the quality of the pilots, hastily trained , not a great deal of flying practice due to the fuel shortages and thrown against an enemy who killed you on take off, climbing to altitude, in combat and landing, and then bombed and shot up your base on the way home !

By night the RAF could and did "simply" wipe out a city, this massive force although hit hard would never have been stopped and with the Mosquito it had a Nightfighter friend capable of shooting down any Luftwaffe nightfighter and again killing them from take off to engine shut down.

As i have said the FW190 was a superb fighter but it was a numbers game and the numbers from the mid war were against Germany...dont forget the massive Russian force on the other front.....70% of German combat (men)losses were against the Russian.

As for transporting engines to Japan how ? by sea they would have been sunk, by air shot down, and by land...a long trip and eventually stopped.

[Six Nifty .50s]

Originally Posted by carpenoctem1689

Suppose in early 1942, production of the Bf/Me-109 of all variants and subvariants was cut to half, and the production facilities were devoted to producing the Fw-190, a much more capable fighter, with more range, speed, better handling, and high speed characteristics, and many more possibilties for design changes to improve characteristics. Woudlnt this have at least infulenced the war to some degree?

The BMW engine in the FW-190A was not very efficient at high altitudes, much like the Allison engine in the P-51A. The power decreased rapidly above 25,000 feet and so a larger-capacity supercharger unit was needed. Neither company came up with an effective response, so the P-51D and FW-190D were built with entirely different engines.

The ME-109 remained in production mainly because the Daimler-Benz engines had better performance above 25,000 feet. Focke-Wulfs assigned to attack USAAF bombers were often escorted by a top cover of ME-109s. Someone else mentioned a difference in production costs, but I'm not sure if that was a significant factor in the decision to continue production of the 109.

Comparing the 109G and the 190A was much like comparing the Corsair and the Hellcat. The Focke-Wulf, like the F6F, was probably more practical because it had features that made it a better choice for inexperienced pilots. The Focke-Wulf did have a high stall speed, at least when compared to the Hellcat, but I don't think that was a serious drawback for a land-based airplane.

Wow, you are all very right, and im sorry about that stupid post...i dont know what i was thinking, i mean honestly, well i suppose now that i have lost any hope of ever being able to get any respectability. should have known i was too young to discuss such matters with anyone else...but thats how you learn, by saying things, and having smarter people correct, thanks for the replies, and i apologize for my ridiculous post.

[Graham Boak]

Don't run away....

Although the comment about the Fw200 was a bit uninformed, the other comment on the choice between two different fighter types is perfectly real. This kind of decision in real life was faced by the warring nations on a regular basis. No doubt the RLM did consider such actions, as did the Air Ministry between the Spitfire and the Typhoon.

One problem in understanding their decisions is knowing all the information that was available to them, and all the pressures from directions beyond the fighter scene. We also have to forget all the knowledge that was not available to the original participants: we know the Fw190 got over its initial problems happily, we know the massive increase in strength of the allied Air Forces. They didn't. What we also need to remember is that the situation might have well looked very different six months later, and that the decisions on aircraft production in any one year need to be taken 12 months in advance.

So it was not a simple question with a straightforward answer, but hopefully we have shown you a few more aspects of a very complicated situation.

[Juha]

I'll second Graham
no need to regret Your post, carpenoctem1689.
For example question of quality vs quantity is still a very difficult one in arms procurement. But IMHO also in arms procurement the old military maxim "order - counter-order - disorder" held some truth.

Juha