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#21
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In article , Gregory W
Shaw writes Others have already hit on what effect higher octane ratings had. Peter Stickney will probably have one of his great replies coming along soon too. But here is a quick rundown on what 104/150 octane should provide for a Merlin 266. SNIP of great summary of relevant formulae Thanks, Greg - that is a really handy ready-reckoner. Much appreciated! Cheers, Dave -- Dave Eadsforth |
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In article , Emmanuel.Gustin
writes Dave Eadsforth wrote: : Yes, the success of agents like 'Garbo' in feeding duff stuff to the : German High Command was remarkable. The familiar problem, as far as I know: Too many different intelligence services, every one a part of the personal empire of a different Nazi leader, and unwilling or unable to cooperate. And of course the 'Abwehr' leaked like a sieve. The Germans did produce recce versions of fighters, usually with fewer guns and more fuel; in addition to cameras of course. But I suspect the Bf 109 was just less adaptable to the task than the Spitfire. It was even smaller. The Spitfire had inherited a D-shaped leading edge structure from its direct ancestor, the Supermarine 227, which used this as a condensor for its steam-cooled Goshawk engine. This made a great fuel tank for the long-range reconnaissance versions. With better fuel and more powerful engines, these models could also operate at higher weights and reach higher altitudes than Bf 109s. On the other hand Ju 88s were less suitable for reconnaissance than Mosquitoes, because they were bigger and slower. Still, the Germans did develop a high-performance recce aircraft in the Ar 234A. Emmanuel Gustin Thanks for that! Re. the Ar 234A, I believe that this machine made a number of attacks on the UK, but I do not know when. Do you happen to have any rough dates? Also, do you happen to know if the Ar 234 (of any mark) was ever used as a recce machine over the UK prior to D-Day? Cheers, Dave -- Dave Eadsforth |
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Dave Eadsforth wrote in message ...
In article , The Enlightenment writes Dave Eadsforth wrote in message news:s9BISHBVA3GAFw82 ... In article , WaltBJ writes Slightly off track - the Germans did not seem to place the same level of importance on recce that the Brits and USAF did. Me109s could (some did) carry a camera in the aft fuselage like the recce P51s (F6?). A lightened waxed Me109F or G would have a very good chance of completing a recce pass on an in-and-out basis flown at max speed on a curving descent or in-and-out at naught feet (prop tips above the wave tips). It appears to me that the 86R was declared a 'clay pigeon' when the LW found out Spits and Mosquitoes, appropriately modifed, could get up that high. Why the LW didn't use 'hot-rodded' photofighters is beyond me. Maybe they swallowed the 'XX' turned spies' reports as gospel. Walt BJ Yes, the success of agents like 'Garbo' in feeding duff stuff to the German High Command was remarkable. Without wanting to go wildly off-topic, there was a programme on UK TV a few nights ago ('Spitfire Ace') that had some very useful stuff on the mentality of the RAF versus the that of Luftwaffe in 1940. The RAF (through the vision and efforts of Dowding) had created a parless air defence system, while the Luftwaffe had concentrated overmuch on the lionisation of its individual pilots. Honestly this sounds like Brits patting themselves on the back while not looking at the strategic and tactical issues the Germans faced. (sadly this is a sort of anasthetic as the UK goes down a sewer) While I agree that we, as a nation, should be organising our lives better these days, there is no doubt that the British air defence system of 1940 was unmatched anywhere else in the world, and no-one, not even the Germans, dare to claim that Goering's boasts of 1940 held water. The Britsh radar at the time was inferior. It used a laege omni direction arial at about 10 years waverlenth wid radio direction finding loops. the German Freya searh radars and Wurzburk radars were at this time mobile, more accurate. They were too goog in that they **** caned their micrwave developement on the basis that their radars were more than good enough. However as far as a system goes you are right. The Germans lacked IFF (indentifiucation fried or foe) untill "erstling" came along and they did not integrate the air defenses. Luftwaffe, Army, Navy and various regions simply were not integrated properly and respnded with confusion to a raid. http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/docs/97-0609F.pdf: DEFLATING BRITISH RADAR MYTHS OF WORLD WAR II A Research Paper Presented To The Research Department Air Command and Staff College In Partial Fulfillment of the Graduation Requirements of ACSC by Maj. Gregory C. Clark March 1997 I think that by 1944 the Allies had developed a war machine that was thorough enough to filter out most flakey thinking and to concentrate on the real issues. If the Luftwaffe in 1944 was still relying on the whims of 'gifted individuals' (Hitler, Goering), who would have prided their own (uncriticised) judgement then a lot of bad ideas would have good through and a lot of good ideas would have been turned away. German thinking was predicated on the need to fight a short and sharp war as a nation sourunded by hostile countries. Avoiding a war of attrition was essential and avoiding a war on German territory was also essential. The surrounding countries were only hostile because of Hitler's belligerence - he could have been a peaceful leader had he so chosen. As for laying odds on a short war - having contingency plans in case your lightning strike does not work is fundamental to military planning. I don't blame Hitler for it all. Hitler was a symptom of severe patholgies in Eruopean statecraft, ethics and nationalism. Nor do I blame the Germans. They were up untill WW1 among the most passive of nations. Even the Prussian beligerance is a myth when the number of wars and/or their size is compared to the other Eruopean nations. France untill recent EU integration has always been beligerant towards Germany and its states over hundreds of years this goes back before the Franco-Prussian war and even before Napoleon (when Pussians and English fouth together). Preventing a unified Germany has always been a French policy. Poland was rather beligerant towards Germany as well as often shamefully discriminatory Germans who had come under Polish rule. Poland went to war with almost all the neighbours in 1919/20 and had annexed Wilna from Lithuania, large parts of Germany, the Olsa area from the CSR (in October 1938!) and large parts of the Ukraine and Bjelorussia from the USSR. A country with considerable problems with large ethnic minorities which made up almost 50% of the population. And a country between Germany and the USSR. And a country armed for more heavily than germany was in 1935. The nation was physically to small and to devoid of materials to handle a war in any other way and not loose thus substantial offensive capability was emphasised but it was all up front: resources were not devoted to reinforcements. This was the thinking even before the Nazis came to power. Germany had many resources to spare in the early years of the war. Their industry was still working single shifts until things got really bad. While Hitler was telling the German people about how well things were going, Churchill was telling the British that we had to get a wiggle on or lose - and our industry went to 100 percent from 1940 onwards. I believe Nazi ideology was grounded into keeping a happy home life and keeping the Birth rate high and they did not want to take mom away from her role as mother. It took them a while to turn around their ideology and their propaganda effort to spread this. In the long term they were probably right though obviously it was part of their contribution to their defeat: unless you regard a nation as only an abstract concept that is equivalent to a state if your population declines below a crical level your nation is lost and they were obsessed with this. In 200 years the memories of "White English" and "White Germans" will surely only footnotes in history books the decline in Birth rates per 20 year generation is so dramatic. The Nazis had a "volkish concept of the nation" that focused obsessively on the survival of its people/race or nacestors not its institutions. Much of the German work on Microwaves and Proximity fuses (which inspired British research) Um...they told us about their work in these fields? They did have a Magnetron team, this was disbanded and the engineers and technicians drafted into the Army. They were hurridly recalled when the Rotterdam (H2S device) was discovered in a crashed RAF bomber. Some of the Magnetrons were of apparently good quality. The Brits Randle and Boot invented the Muliticavity Magnetron not to work on Radar but as a cheap source of microwaves for their work which was in direction finding. Single cavity manetrons like the Germans were using probably would remain stable up to about 30-50 watts output after which they would refuse to give more power and start becoming unstable due to thermal effects. This would give an night fighter a detection range of only 1.5km as apposed to an 8km range in a 16kW Magnetron. The Germans were ahead in microwave research having developed microwave radars of 1.3 watt output in 1933 that detected destroyers up to 1.5km away and could send radio messages 60 km. http://www.ieee.org/organizations/hi...ts/schwan.html SCHWAN: Oh, yes. As a matter of fact, when the war started in 1939, the Germans developed the fairly well-known Wurzburg type of equipment which operated at a wavelength of about one and one-half meters. They were operating at a rather low frequency by comparison with the 2400 megahertz which the United States used later in 'forty-three. They never made it to higher frequencies than that. They operated at lower wavelengths where, of course, resolution is not as good as it is at the higher frequencies. They developed some good magnetrons. It's an irony of history that a few months after the war started in thirty-nine the Nazis closed the Magnetron Development Laboratory since they thought it unnecessary for the war. Can you imagine that? ************************************** The Engineer Nakajima of japan had developed Multicavity resonant Magnetrons 1 year beofore the British. Ironicaly he worked in Germany before the war and if the Germany and Japanese had of shared as well as the US/UK did things could have turned out different. http://www.star-games.com/exhibits/j...neseradar.html Nakajima: In 1953 I traveled around the world without a translator. At that time I went to London, and at the museum I found exactly the same thing, which was explained as: "This was invented by some Birmingham University people in 1940." 1940 means one year later than our invention. ******************************* Yes, the Germans were working on radar proximity fuses first and the British had espionage data of German tests. This induced them to do start their own effort which yielded good results. I believe a German engineer disaffected with the Nazis (he had resettled in Norway) revealed the work to British intelligence. "Oslo Report" was the name of the intelligence report. The German work was **** canned as low priority becuase the Germans researchers could not guarantee that their efforts would come to deployment within two years. Presumably it was possible to make fuses that might handle several hundred G acceleration without to much difficulty but to go beyond this would presumabluy require speciual efforts in valve technogy fundementals. "The initial idea behind radar proximity fuses was suggested by the Germans. However, a Hitler dictat caused the device's development within Germany to a halt because its development was deemed to be destined to take too long to come to fruition; the war would be over by that time. http://groups.google.com.au/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&threadm=9iv8uk%24dsq%241%40nntp6.u.wash ington.edu&rnum=1&prev=/groups%3Fhl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26safe%3Doff%26q%3Dflak%2Bpredictor%2Bproximity% 26btnG%3DGoogle%2BSearch The British received as an invaluable gift a well-made tube, a part of an early attempted iteration of such a fuze, which measured electrical potentials and could serve to trigger a detonator if the potential detected were high enough. The gift came as part of what came to be known as the Oslo Report, so-named because that was the city in which a German engineer (IIRC) disaffected with the Nazi regime, used to transmit this remarkable and priceless document to the British. In it were described all of the most advanced technologies then under consideration by the Hitlerites, including the proximity fuse, in great detail. Great Britain, however, lacked the capacity needed to research and develop the device. Along with the resonant cavity magnetron (itself a development of original US magnetron research) a diagram of a proposed circuit for a proximity fuse was sent as a part of Britain's Tizard mission of September, 1940 to the US. While the diagram was useful, it proved necessary for US firms to pioneer a family of impact-resistant vacuum tubes (strong enughto survive being fired at hiigh velocities from a cannon tube) and for a Canadian firm to pioneer batteries with indeterminate shelf-lives before a workable proximity fuze emerged." was suspended because the anything that could not be ready in 2 years would be a waste. Not a waste, a strategic error - no-one to blame but themselves. Indeed. However were they right? Did the liberated the resources actualy help them? Clearly disbanding the magnetron team and the proximity fuse efforts were mistakes: more so when one cosniders that the magnetron team ended up in the Army! Would however the UK have prioritised magnetron work had US resources not been available? It seems that at this point that many of the German might have beens got caned. Examination of this period is perhaps where it might be said that Germany's technical loss may be said to lie. It might also just lay in the fact that Germany lacked the resources to develop them. Poor prioritization - no-one to blame but themselves. The proximity fuse was a small printed circuit that any small group of radio men could have taken forward - there was no great industrial effort needed here. The ciruit was simple: a doppler shift device. However Hardening the tubes, inventing the printed circuit board and repeatedly manufaturing shells, firing them and recovering them would have needed state help. I expect you get reasonably far just dropping the sheells on their ass onto corncret (wrecking the tubes and checking what broke) but then you get battery problems, and the probem of handling 30,000 rpm. The secret was apparently in placing the tubes in wax and oil to equalise stress. The Tiazard commision handed the proximity fuse and magnetron on a platter for the USA to develop. The Germans just culled. Good prioritisation on Tizard's part - hand the designs over to the people who can mass produce immediately. Indeed but my point is who do the Germans hand their reserach over to? The Italians? The Japanese? They did get the French to do some of their engineering for them and that was their best bet but the Vichy is hardly the USA. The excelent Freya and Wurzburg Radars were not integrated into a defensive system because the bomber naviagation aids were considered more important. Integration was a matter laying telephone connections and training a limited number of staff. Organisationaly it was more than that. Kammhubber eventualy created such a system complete with TV to transmit the battle situation but at the time Navy, Luftwaffe and Army FLAK units all had their fiefdoms and much politics was involved. The Freya/Wurburg system required a huge expensive number of radars because of their limited range and the politicing involved in getting the system up and running was huge. If you have started a war, and it has gone pear-shaped, and your efforts have simply created a hostile world around you, air defence should then be recognised as a priority. After 1942 the allies were no longer fighting a war dictated by German initiatives - they were fighting according to their own. Cheers, Dave |
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In article ,
Dave Eadsforth writes: Re. the Ar 234A, I believe that this machine made a number of attacks on the UK, but I do not know when. Do you happen to have any rough dates? I don't think the Ar 234s made any bombing attacks over the U.K. They were used against targetsin Belgium and France in late 1944. Also, do you happen to know if the Ar 234 (of any mark) was ever used as a recce machine over the UK prior to D-Day? Not prior to D-Day. The Ar 234s available in June/July 1944 were the inital models with a skid landing gear, which used a wheeled trolley for takeoff. Immediately following the Invasion, one or two fo these prototypes were staged to an airfield in France, where a vcertain logistical weakness was discovered - It's no use having a Jet Recce airplane that can stage to a forward airfield in an hour when its takeoff gear and mechanics have to come by truck, through the Allied Fighter-Bomber cover. It took until mid-July to get all the pieces rounded up so that they could fly missions, and by that time, it was a matter of shutting the barn door after the horse was gone. (It turns out that they wouldn't have been able to return any useful intel even if they could have flown sooner. There weren't enough experienced photointerpreters to sort through the pictures, so the turnaround time from flights to intel in the hands of the Staff was on the order of a couple of weeks. Not much use in mobile warfare. If you get a chance, check out Alfred Price's "The Last Year of the Luftwaffe." It's an excellent account of what the state of German Airpower was from just before Normandy until the final collapse. -- Pete Stickney A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures. -- Daniel Webster |
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In article , Eunometic
writes Dave Eadsforth wrote in message news:3J4OP5A0ETHAFw1O ... In article , The Enlightenment writes Dave Eadsforth wrote in message news:s9BISHBVA3GAFw82 ... In article , WaltBJ writes Slightly off track - the Germans did not seem to place the same level of importance on recce that the Brits and USAF did. Me109s could (some did) carry a camera in the aft fuselage like the recce P51s (F6?). A lightened waxed Me109F or G would have a very good chance of completing a recce pass on an in-and-out basis flown at max speed on a curving descent or in-and-out at naught feet (prop tips above the wave tips). It appears to me that the 86R was declared a 'clay pigeon' when the LW found out Spits and Mosquitoes, appropriately modifed, could get up that high. Why the LW didn't use 'hot-rodded' photofighters is beyond me. Maybe they swallowed the 'XX' turned spies' reports as gospel. Walt BJ Yes, the success of agents like 'Garbo' in feeding duff stuff to the German High Command was remarkable. Without wanting to go wildly off-topic, there was a programme on UK TV a few nights ago ('Spitfire Ace') that had some very useful stuff on the mentality of the RAF versus the that of Luftwaffe in 1940. The RAF (through the vision and efforts of Dowding) had created a parless air defence system, while the Luftwaffe had concentrated overmuch on the lionisation of its individual pilots. Honestly this sounds like Brits patting themselves on the back while not looking at the strategic and tactical issues the Germans faced. (sadly this is a sort of anasthetic as the UK goes down a sewer) While I agree that we, as a nation, should be organising our lives better these days, there is no doubt that the British air defence system of 1940 was unmatched anywhere else in the world, and no-one, not even the Germans, dare to claim that Goering's boasts of 1940 held water. The Britsh radar at the time was inferior. It used a laege omni direction arial at about 10 years waverlenth wid radio direction finding loops. the German Freya searh radars and Wurzburk radars were at this time mobile, more accurate. They were too goog in that they **** caned their micrwave developement on the basis that their radars were more than good enough. However as far as a system goes you are right. The Germans lacked IFF (indentifiucation fried or foe) untill "erstling" came along and they did not integrate the air defenses. Luftwaffe, Army, Navy and various regions simply were not integrated properly and respnded with confusion to a raid. http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/docs/97-0609F.pdf: DEFLATING BRITISH RADAR MYTHS OF WORLD WAR II A Research Paper Presented To The Research Department Air Command and Staff College In Partial Fulfillment of the Graduation Requirements of ACSC by Maj. Gregory C. Clark March 1997 I think that by 1944 the Allies had developed a war machine that was thorough enough to filter out most flakey thinking and to concentrate on the real issues. If the Luftwaffe in 1944 was still relying on the whims of 'gifted individuals' (Hitler, Goering), who would have prided their own (uncriticised) judgement then a lot of bad ideas would have good through and a lot of good ideas would have been turned away. German thinking was predicated on the need to fight a short and sharp war as a nation sourunded by hostile countries. Avoiding a war of attrition was essential and avoiding a war on German territory was also essential. The surrounding countries were only hostile because of Hitler's belligerence - he could have been a peaceful leader had he so chosen. As for laying odds on a short war - having contingency plans in case your lightning strike does not work is fundamental to military planning. I don't blame Hitler for it all. Hitler was a symptom of severe patholgies in Eruopean statecraft, ethics and nationalism. Nor do I blame the Germans. They were up untill WW1 among the most passive of nations. Even the Prussian beligerance is a myth when the number of wars and/or their size is compared to the other Eruopean nations. France untill recent EU integration has always been beligerant towards Germany and its states over hundreds of years this goes back before the Franco-Prussian war and even before Napoleon (when Pussians and English fouth together). Preventing a unified Germany has always been a French policy. Poland was rather beligerant towards Germany as well as often shamefully discriminatory Germans who had come under Polish rule. Poland went to war with almost all the neighbours in 1919/20 and had annexed Wilna from Lithuania, large parts of Germany, the Olsa area from the CSR (in October 1938!) and large parts of the Ukraine and Bjelorussia from the USSR. A country with considerable problems with large ethnic minorities which made up almost 50% of the population. And a country between Germany and the USSR. And a country armed for more heavily than germany was in 1935. The nation was physically to small and to devoid of materials to handle a war in any other way and not loose thus substantial offensive capability was emphasised but it was all up front: resources were not devoted to reinforcements. This was the thinking even before the Nazis came to power. Germany had many resources to spare in the early years of the war. Their industry was still working single shifts until things got really bad. While Hitler was telling the German people about how well things were going, Churchill was telling the British that we had to get a wiggle on or lose - and our industry went to 100 percent from 1940 onwards. I believe Nazi ideology was grounded into keeping a happy home life and keeping the Birth rate high and they did not want to take mom away from her role as mother. It took them a while to turn around their ideology and their propaganda effort to spread this. In the long term they were probably right though obviously it was part of their contribution to their defeat: unless you regard a nation as only an abstract concept that is equivalent to a state if your population declines below a crical level your nation is lost and they were obsessed with this. In 200 years the memories of "White English" and "White Germans" will surely only footnotes in history books the decline in Birth rates per 20 year generation is so dramatic. The Nazis had a "volkish concept of the nation" that focused obsessively on the survival of its people/race or nacestors not its institutions. Much of the German work on Microwaves and Proximity fuses (which inspired British research) Um...they told us about their work in these fields? They did have a Magnetron team, this was disbanded and the engineers and technicians drafted into the Army. They were hurridly recalled when the Rotterdam (H2S device) was discovered in a crashed RAF bomber. Some of the Magnetrons were of apparently good quality. The Brits Randle and Boot invented the Muliticavity Magnetron not to work on Radar but as a cheap source of microwaves for their work which was in direction finding. Single cavity manetrons like the Germans were using probably would remain stable up to about 30-50 watts output after which they would refuse to give more power and start becoming unstable due to thermal effects. This would give an night fighter a detection range of only 1.5km as apposed to an 8km range in a 16kW Magnetron. The Germans were ahead in microwave research having developed microwave radars of 1.3 watt output in 1933 that detected destroyers up to 1.5km away and could send radio messages 60 km. http://www.ieee.org/organizations/hi...anscripts/schw an.html SCHWAN: Oh, yes. As a matter of fact, when the war started in 1939, the Germans developed the fairly well-known Wurzburg type of equipment which operated at a wavelength of about one and one-half meters. They were operating at a rather low frequency by comparison with the 2400 megahertz which the United States used later in 'forty-three. They never made it to higher frequencies than that. They operated at lower wavelengths where, of course, resolution is not as good as it is at the higher frequencies. They developed some good magnetrons. It's an irony of history that a few months after the war started in thirty-nine the Nazis closed the Magnetron Development Laboratory since they thought it unnecessary for the war. Can you imagine that? ************************************** The Engineer Nakajima of japan had developed Multicavity resonant Magnetrons 1 year beofore the British. Ironicaly he worked in Germany before the war and if the Germany and Japanese had of shared as well as the US/UK did things could have turned out different. http://www.star-games.com/exhibits/j...neseradar.html Nakajima: In 1953 I traveled around the world without a translator. At that time I went to London, and at the museum I found exactly the same thing, which was explained as: "This was invented by some Birmingham University people in 1940." 1940 means one year later than our invention. ******************************* Yes, the Germans were working on radar proximity fuses first and the British had espionage data of German tests. This induced them to do start their own effort which yielded good results. I believe a German engineer disaffected with the Nazis (he had resettled in Norway) revealed the work to British intelligence. "Oslo Report" was the name of the intelligence report. The German work was **** canned as low priority becuase the Germans researchers could not guarantee that their efforts would come to deployment within two years. Presumably it was possible to make fuses that might handle several hundred G acceleration without to much difficulty but to go beyond this would presumabluy require speciual efforts in valve technogy fundementals. "The initial idea behind radar proximity fuses was suggested by the Germans. However, a Hitler dictat caused the device's development within Germany to a halt because its development was deemed to be destined to take too long to come to fruition; the war would be over by that time. http://groups.google.com.au/groups?h...fe=off&threadm =9iv8uk%24dsq%241%40nntp6.u.washington.edu&rnum=1 &prev=/groups%3Fhl%3Den%26lr%3D %26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26safe%3Doff%26q%3Dflak%2Bpredictor%2Bproximity% 26btn G%3DGoogle%2BSearch The British received as an invaluable gift a well-made tube, a part of an early attempted iteration of such a fuze, which measured electrical potentials and could serve to trigger a detonator if the potential detected were high enough. The gift came as part of what came to be known as the Oslo Report, so-named because that was the city in which a German engineer (IIRC) disaffected with the Nazi regime, used to transmit this remarkable and priceless document to the British. In it were described all of the most advanced technologies then under consideration by the Hitlerites, including the proximity fuse, in great detail. Great Britain, however, lacked the capacity needed to research and develop the device. Along with the resonant cavity magnetron (itself a development of original US magnetron research) a diagram of a proposed circuit for a proximity fuse was sent as a part of Britain's Tizard mission of September, 1940 to the US. While the diagram was useful, it proved necessary for US firms to pioneer a family of impact-resistant vacuum tubes (strong enughto survive being fired at hiigh velocities from a cannon tube) and for a Canadian firm to pioneer batteries with indeterminate shelf-lives before a workable proximity fuze emerged." was suspended because the anything that could not be ready in 2 years would be a waste. Not a waste, a strategic error - no-one to blame but themselves. Indeed. However were they right? Did the liberated the resources actualy help them? Clearly disbanding the magnetron team and the proximity fuse efforts were mistakes: more so when one cosniders that the magnetron team ended up in the Army! Would however the UK have prioritised magnetron work had US resources not been available? It seems that at this point that many of the German might have beens got caned. Examination of this period is perhaps where it might be said that Germany's technical loss may be said to lie. It might also just lay in the fact that Germany lacked the resources to develop them. Poor prioritization - no-one to blame but themselves. The proximity fuse was a small printed circuit that any small group of radio men could have taken forward - there was no great industrial effort needed here. The ciruit was simple: a doppler shift device. However Hardening the tubes, inventing the printed circuit board and repeatedly manufaturing shells, firing them and recovering them would have needed state help. I expect you get reasonably far just dropping the sheells on their ass onto corncret (wrecking the tubes and checking what broke) but then you get battery problems, and the probem of handling 30,000 rpm. The secret was apparently in placing the tubes in wax and oil to equalise stress. The Tiazard commision handed the proximity fuse and magnetron on a platter for the USA to develop. The Germans just culled. Good prioritisation on Tizard's part - hand the designs over to the people who can mass produce immediately. Indeed but my point is who do the Germans hand their reserach over to? The Italians? The Japanese? They did get the French to do some of their engineering for them and that was their best bet but the Vichy is hardly the USA. The excelent Freya and Wurzburg Radars were not integrated into a defensive system because the bomber naviagation aids were considered more important. Integration was a matter laying telephone connections and training a limited number of staff. Organisationaly it was more than that. Kammhubber eventualy created such a system complete with TV to transmit the battle situation but at the time Navy, Luftwaffe and Army FLAK units all had their fiefdoms and much politics was involved. The Freya/Wurburg system required a huge expensive number of radars because of their limited range and the politicing involved in getting the system up and running was huge. If you have started a war, and it has gone pear-shaped, and your efforts have simply created a hostile world around you, air defence should then be recognised as a priority. After 1942 the allies were no longer fighting a war dictated by German initiatives - they were fighting according to their own. Cheers, Dave Thanks very much for your points - there are a number of things in your summary that I did not know until now. On the political side, I did know that there were some big stresses in Europe in the 1930s, and any German leader would have to have exercised sound judgement to keep things on an even keel. German rearmament alone could have made the rest of Europe cautious in their dealings and stability could have been maintained for decades. Where it all went wrong was when Hitler started on his trail of conquest. But having done so, he would have done better to adopt the 'ego free' process of planning and execution of military operation. On the allied side, good ideas stood a chance - on the German side it seems to have been 'trust in the Fuhrer' and pull your neck in. But once the genie was out of the bottle so many things were done in a crazy manner; the treatment of the people in conquered territories by the SS for one - the people of Russia would have turned against Stalin in the early days; but not after the SS atrocities. Real vision, and appreciation of consequences of action, seems to have been lacking in Hitler's planning processes. Cheers, Dave -- Dave Eadsforth |
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In article , Peter Stickney
writes In article , Dave Eadsforth writes: Re. the Ar 234A, I believe that this machine made a number of attacks on the UK, but I do not know when. Do you happen to have any rough dates? I don't think the Ar 234s made any bombing attacks over the U.K. They were used against targetsin Belgium and France in late 1944. Also, do you happen to know if the Ar 234 (of any mark) was ever used as a recce machine over the UK prior to D-Day? Not prior to D-Day. The Ar 234s available in June/July 1944 were the inital models with a skid landing gear, which used a wheeled trolley for takeoff. I've seen a photo - quite a sight. Immediately following the Invasion, one or two fo these prototypes were staged to an airfield in France, where a vcertain logistical weakness was discovered - It's no use having a Jet Recce airplane that can stage to a forward airfield in an hour when its takeoff gear and mechanics have to come by truck, through the Allied Fighter-Bomber cover. Would it be too awful to suggest that the whole programme was on the skids? It took until mid-July to get all the pieces rounded up so that they could fly missions, and by that time, it was a matter of shutting the barn door after the horse was gone. (It turns out that they wouldn't have been able to return any useful intel even if they could have flown sooner. There weren't enough experienced photointerpreters to sort through the pictures, so the turnaround time from flights to intel in the hands of the Staff was on the order of a couple of weeks. Not much use in mobile warfare. Hmm, no German equivalent of Constance Babington-Smith then? If you get a chance, check out Alfred Price's "The Last Year of the Luftwaffe." It's an excellent account of what the state of German Airpower was from just before Normandy until the final collapse. Would you believe I bought a copy last week? I haven't had time to read it yet - but it's nice to know I have made a good choice! Thanks, Dave -- Dave Eadsforth |
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"Dave Eadsforth" wrote in message ... In article , Emmanuel.Gustin writes Dave Eadsforth wrote: : Yes, the success of agents like 'Garbo' in feeding duff stuff to the : German High Command was remarkable. The familiar problem, as far as I know: Too many different intelligence services, every one a part of the personal empire of a different Nazi leader, and unwilling or unable to cooperate. And of course the 'Abwehr' leaked like a sieve. The Germans did produce recce versions of fighters, usually with fewer guns and more fuel; in addition to cameras of course. But I suspect the Bf 109 was just less adaptable to the task than the Spitfire. It was even smaller. The Spitfire had inherited a D-shaped leading edge structure from its direct ancestor, the Supermarine 227, which used this as a condensor for its steam-cooled Goshawk engine. This made a great fuel tank for the long-range reconnaissance versions. With better fuel and more powerful engines, these models could also operate at higher weights and reach higher altitudes than Bf 109s. On the other hand Ju 88s were less suitable for reconnaissance than Mosquitoes, because they were bigger and slower. Still, the Germans did develop a high-performance recce aircraft in the Ar 234A. Emmanuel Gustin Thanks for that! Re. the Ar 234A, I believe that this machine made a number of attacks on the UK, but I do not know when. Do you happen to have any rough dates? Also, do you happen to know if the Ar 234 (of any mark) was ever used as a recce machine over the UK prior to D-Day? Leutnant Erich Somner made the world fist jet reconaisance flight on August 2 1944. in the Arado 234 V7. The V7 indicating that it was the 7th prootype. (V stands for Versuchs or esperimental) which was hurridly adapted to obtain the photorecon of the situation at the Cherbourg Penisuala. He had accomplished more in this mission than the entire luftwaffe did in 2 months. It took 12 photographic interpreters 2 days to produce an intitial report. This revealed that the Allies had landed 1.5 million men. Somner was a test pilot and responsible for having the Lofte 7 bombsight linked into the PDS autopilot. On September 9th Somner conducted a reconaisance mission over London and the Thames estury. On the outward bound leg he came upon a reconaisance Mosquito intent on the same type of mission. As both pilots aircraft were unarmed the pilots simply waved at each other. Somner despite being given orders to fly the reconaisance flight was almost court martialed as unbeknownst to him flying a jet over Britain was strictly forbiden Somners friend the Horst Gotz flew his Fiesler Storch to see Goebells and this may have save hime from the court martial. "Exellent Propaganda" was the comment of Goebells's assisatant. Early Arado 234A used a trolley to take of and skid to land. The Ardo 234B bomber an undercariage and had a fueselage 1 inch wider to accomodate the recessed bomb bay and compensate for fuel loss. The recon Arado was swiched over to an normal undercarriage as the 10 minutes needed to retrieve the aircraft left it too vulnerable to straffing. Bombing raids on the UK would have been possible with a light bomb load and heavier loads with the more developed versions. The Arado had an accurate computing Bomb sight the Lotfe 7 (this was regarded as more accurate than allied sights and it was once recomended that it be copied for the RAF) it also apparently had the EGON blind bombing system (similar to OBOE apparently) and a computing dive bombing sight. The few aircarft to enter service (about 70) were to busy with recon tasks and attacking supply lines to overfly the UK I assume. Nevertheless EGON was probably as accurate as oboe though it is hard to imagine that even a Lotfe 7 would be accurate at the 10,000 meters that would be used over the British isles. Dive bombing had to be done with care as the aircraft lacked dive breaks and in conditions of tension produced by AAA the pilot could easily get in trouble with Mach. The Arado 234 was a pretty aircraft because of its amazing smoothness. It's designer Rudiger Kosin lofted the wing on a computer and rather than rivet the wing on points of equal chord it was riveted at points of equal curvature to produce a wrinkel free su Kosin also invented the crescent wing (as in handley page victor) to overcome the Arado 234s mach limitation. He also invented the Krueger flap. (Krueger was the wind tunnel technican who did the tests) Cheers, Dave -- Dave Eadsforth |
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