New Military History Blog - first post about loss of Ju 188 in the East in 1944

[edNorth]

Originally Posted by Dan History

William Medcalf's book is a reasonable source for general, rather than specific, information.

That is tall statment. You effectively are saying all the critics commenting in Medcalfs two TOCH! book discussion threads are wrong, and Medcalf be reasonably right.
And them Ju 188 figures of yours/his, are other than I have, found, totals, versions and broken down. Period. But I am not copying them here. Others are also on the type (and watching) just not saying they are. But a few I know of have shown interest. I may have discussed such in the past but I see no need do so here. That will be my last comment here on this tread.

[Russ Fahey]

Originally Posted by edNorth

That is tall statment. You effectively are saying all the critics commenting in Medcalfs two TOCH! book discussion threads are wrong, and Medcalf be reasonably right.
And them Ju 188 figures of yours/his, are other than I have, found, totals, versions and broken down. Period. But I am not copying them here. Others are also on the type (and watching) just not saying they are. But a few I know of have shown interest. I may have discussed such in the past but I see no need do so here. That will be my last comment here on this tread.

HALLELUJAH!!!

[Dan History]

Ed,

You are misrepresenting what I wrote in your response:

Originally Posted by edNorth

You effectively are saying all the critics commenting in Medcalfs two TOCH! book discussion threads are wrong, and Medcalf be reasonably right.

Bill Medcalf's book is fine as a general reference to non-technical issues, which is how I have used it in my blog post. If I needed accurate technical information, including the numbers of aircraft produced, I would have to look elsewhere. My research focuses on the strategic and operation levels of war, so I am not and do not claim to be a specialist on individual aircraft types. I took the production numbers of the Ju 188 from a Flugzeug Classic brochure written by Herbert Ringlstetter, not from Bill Medcalf's book. The figures in the brochure may well be in error, so I would be happy to read more accurate information provided by you. To repeat a point made above, I would be glad to buy a publication by you on the subject. I trust that the discussion can now return to the main arguments that I made.

Regards,

Dan

[edNorth]

I may still say this; its a flop. I will still be oblivious to what you need.
What you want will not be available until some years more. Sorry.

[Nick Beale]

A couple of observations:

"Attempts by the Luftwaffe to employ the Ju 188 as a bomber essentially ended in summer 1944." It would perhaps be clearer (and fairer on the Ju 188!) to relate this to the deactivation of the bulk of the conventional bomber force in the late summer/early autumn of 1944.

Re the vulnerablity of the Ju 188 to the Yak-7b, there's more to it, I suggest, than which was the faster. First, aircraft very rarely fly flat-out, and if they do it's not usually for long. Second, to intercept a reconnaissance aircraft one has first to see it coming, then get off the ground, then start climbing to its altitude, after which one has to manoeuvre into an attacking position (which can take a while), and have enough fuel to do all this. All in the hope that the Ju 188 doesn't evade you in the meantime (in cloud for example) or make effective use of its two rear-firing MG 131s.

I don't know how well a Yak-7b performed at high altitude but Soviet fighters are often said (fairly or not?) to have been best at low-medium level.

[Dan History]

Your observations are welcome, Nick.

Originally Posted by Nick Beale

It would perhaps be clearer (and fairer on the Ju 188!) to relate this to the deactivation of the bulk of the conventional bomber force in the late summer/early autumn of 1944.

Re the vulnerablity of the Ju 188 to the Yak-7b, there's more to it, I suggest, than which was the faster.

I admit I may have been unfair to the Ju 188 What I could have said is that the Ju 188 proved just as vulnerable as the Ju 88 A, if not more, during the period before the bomber force was taken out of action.

You make a very fair point about the performance comparison that I proposed. A couple of other people have commented off the forums that the Yak-7b might not have had any performance margin over the Ju 188 at the suggested altitude of interception, even before the other difficulties that you mentioned are taken into account. It is clear from the Soviet records that attempted interceptions of Luftwaffe reconnaissance aircraft often failed. A clearer way of making my point would be that the Ju 188 was a bad enough aircraft that even the low peformance Yak-7b could intercept it in certain circumstances.

The reason that Soviet fighters performed best at low and medium altitudes was that they had fairly primitive single-stage two-speed superchargers. The Klimov M-105PF engine used in the Yak-7b was a somewhat improved derivative of the French Hispano-Suiza 12Y and carried over the latter's weak supercharger technology. The M-105PF operated at a higher boost level than its predecessors, but this came at the cost of a drop in critical altitude to just 2,700 metres (8,900 feet).

Regards,

Dan