Stupid or not? Why Germany Had NO Long Range Bombers - Explained.

hello everyone it's chris from military aviation history and one of the recurring questions i get here on the channel is why did germany not develop and use a large force of long range four engine bombers during world war ii and in fact this is quite a contentious questions it seems because every time it pops up arguments ensue and for such a simple question really the answer is indeed quite complicated and today i'm going to lay out to you an answer in an attempt to explain why germany didn't in fact have that force of long-range strategic bombers at the start of the war without of course considering this video to be any sort of end of the discussion and the reason for that is simple it's because that well the reasons as you will see are complex and there are in fact some contradictions and now i recognize that in the first part of this video i'll be touching upon a lot of theory and doctrine aspects that often seem so abstract that they couldn't really possibly have any sort of importance on a discussion about things like military equipment but if there ever was a case that the connection between theory doctrine and practical decisions in development of weapons cannot be ignored well then that example is probably the luftwaffe one of the advantages enjoyed by the rice shadow luftwaffe was the close and effective cooperation between those who developed doctrine for the area war the army and the defense ministry staff who made the military plans with the greater strategic context with those who developed and built weapons and prototypes in the weapons office and finally the actual producers of the weaponry we start this off with the immediate post world war one world you're familiar with it of course this is just going to be a flyby in the treaty of versailles articles 198 to 202 and 313 to 320 severely restricted germany's aeronautical industry but a treaty of versailles and the amendments and agreements that followed in the 1920s early 1920s were actually those that really handicapped germany's aeronautical society and of course its industry in the long run for example in 1922 germany was officially forbidden to have any of the following single seaters with engine ratings above 60 horsepower aircraft with armor defensive capabilities or those that allow for the installation of weaponry engines that permit over compression aircraft able to pass 4000 meters in altitude able to fly faster than 170 kilometers an hour at 2000 meters of altitude with a fuel load exceeding a volume of 0.8 times 177 kilograms per horsepower any aircraft able to reach the above performance limits and still able to carry a load of 600 kilograms no engines could be exported or stockpiled these restrictions were of course severe and they were kept until 1926 when some of them were lifted but only for civilian aviation although no public money could be used for this either they all had to be sourced from private investors and military aircraft remained an absolute no-go and this of course handicapped germany's aeronautical society and the developments that came out of it now granted germany set up covert aviation agencies they sent designers and companies abroad and they cooperated with various nations out there on aeronautical matters like the soviet union or japan but the volume of work does not compare at all to that in britain the united states the soviet union or france but nevertheless the 1920s saw a lot of developments that are really of crucial importance here the 1920s were a time of theoretical discussions and clandestine planning under hans von zakt for now germany planned to have a air force centered around cheap one-engine machines as fighters but actually primarily as reconnaissance tools for the army not that germany actually had an air force that was just a plan by the mid-20s then germany got more concrete in terms of theory and doctrine one of the documents published around 1925 provides a glimpse of where rice ware air doctrine stood seven years after the end of the war this 1925 pamphlet discussed air power at the operational level and specified that in wartime there would be essentially two air forces one allocated to army control for air support of the divisions corps and armies and the other the area of fighting forces consisting of the fighters and bombers germany was very much aware and informed of the different trends out there the discussion between the two haitians and mikotians in italy the transguardians and the slessorites in the united kingdom and of course of that highly public clash between billy mitchell and the united states navy on the whole however looking at these discussions and thinking for themselves german theories well they never fully bought this whole the bomber will always get through a story but at the same time it did have supporters of strategic warfare which is sometimes forgotten for example in 1924 a book by capitin hans ritter argued that a modern war was an economic war and that the enemy's homeland was a stockpile just waiting to be destroyed but instead of an offensive doctrine using strategic bombers germany could not build in the first place well such concerns kind of prompted and comprehensive and unprecedented air defense program which must also have influenced the opinion that in fact the bomber will not in fact always get through and when it does its impact will not always be such as some people claim it it would be the primary question however was not whether germany would experience strategic bombing in the next war but the degree to which germany was vulnerable to strategic bombing one positive aspect of germany's lack of an air force in the 1920s was to push german military personnel and civilians to seriously consider how one might conduct a passive defense what does this have to do with germany's own development of four engine bombers well since you asked this helplessness made germany think more in terms of how an enemy air force could be quickly destroyed rather than how an air force would dominate the battlefield simply by virtue of showing up for example the difficult relationship that germany has with france in the 1920s and of course the 1940s and actually didn't get much better after that either but it was one of the reasons why the luftwaffe became what it was in the mid to late 20s the french aviation military was without doubt the most powerful air arm in the world clearly a conventional class with the aversion military was unthinkable even in the medium term germany therefore advocated an interdiction campaign that would seek to destroy the sources of its military power its key aircraft and armament factories such thinking became the basis for the 1926 directives a 39 page document that laid out a proposed organization targeting strategy and operational parameters for a bombing campaign a concept that was referred to as operativa lufkrik operational air war sure enough it's 1926 now and germany still has a long way to go but this was the first directive that condensed that new but reminiscent of the old german way of thinking when it comes to warfare into sort of a clear framework that would go all the way into influencing the later luftwaffe then in 1927 the heres waffenhand set the technical specifications for a four-engine knight bomber known as gor na bo that's short for gosner bomber large knight bomber although the industry answered with designs this development had no relevance to the actual realities in which the reichsburg found itself around 1930 as planning by the iceware only foresaw the use of twin twin-engine designs for night bombing and even this only after long indecision by the army leadership this indecision on the german side is understandable german officers remembered the bombing both day and night and both conducted by themselves and sustained during the previous world war and they analyzed this damage and this bombing campaign a lot more soberly than the strategic bomber supporters abroad the allied bombing campaign against germany was less successful than the german campaign against england in terms of costs and benefits although the allied effort was far greater the casualties and damage inflicted was less the german air staff studied the effect of the allied strategic raids against germany and concluded that they posed no major threat to the population or to war production the germans were quite rightly not impressed with the allied strategic bombing campaign their experience with world war one and their 1920s observations gave the germans two convictions when it came to bombers first bombers were not invulnerable and second qualitative and or quantitative superiority did not guarantee effective damage you have to hit the key areas to deliver concrete results and if you are of course familiar with sort of the german military thinking since at least well you might as well go back to frederick the great the concentration of power rapid movement setting a schwerer point a main point or a main area for the main effort you can start seeing those wheels turning inside the heads of the theories back then these observations were confronted with practical realities of course as germany was lacking in technical know-how industrial capacity and also facilities by 1933 the german aviation industry hat while being more or less reliant on governmental support already developed a plethora of aircraft types for the secret high sphere fligarai yet could not expand beyond the capacity of 3500 workers due to a chronic lack of orders by the way all of this happened before the nazis took power then in 1933 when the nazis take over the rice luftwas ministerium the rice air ministry was founded and various technical boroughs and cabinets provided an increasing centralized control and governmental support for a growing industry but let's face it there was still a noticeable delay since neither the industry nor the men nor the machines could simply be made available overnight this was especially true for bombers in 1933 it was not possible to set up an operational bomber unit because neither the material nor the personnel was available in october 1943 a so-called behelfs bomberswada was set up whereby the deutsche lufthansa provided the aircraft men and technical facilities if in need arose germany's bomber force thus was one written on paper only at the beginning germany possessed only around 550 trained aviators of which about 100 were classified as fighter pilots and only the commercial airlines had the pilots capable of flying complex multi-engine machines hence their importance during this time and hence why you always hear about germany using civilian pilots initially the early program to field 1 000 aircraft already in planning before the nazis i might add only foresaw around bombers reality was that germany is focused on building up the force quickly quantity before quality with the majority of the machines being well trainer aircraft and fighters and reconnaissance machines nevertheless germany started the year of 1934 with only 30 bombers yet it ended it with 80 dornier doe 11 bombers and about 200 junker jo52 auxiliary bombers both the leadership and the technical office knew that these bombers including the military version of the jo52 did not meet the requirements but the qualitative inadequacy of the equipment had to be accepted until the current development and testing of superior models was completed given these limitations plans were put into motion to develop more competitive machines that are more telling of the time but before you can do that you of course need to know what sort of aircraft you actually need and against what enemy france and poland were considered the main potential adversaries with belgium and czechoslovakia taking a secondary position there is no proof that between the years 1943 and 1945 either the united kingdom or the soviet union were considered by the military leadership as belligerents a large-scale air war oversea and land were as of yet not included in the military planning of this time i know that it might sound strange that the soviet union is not seen as an enemy at this point you have to see this from well the german perspective in 1954. it didn't even have the means to defend itself from smaller neighbors so whatever they might have planned for you know the long term for the for the future doesn't really matter for now this is also true for the whole four engine bomber program that is running at this point the program to build up and enlarge the luftwaffe can only be understood if one recognizes the perspectives of the time which did not consider an aerial offensive against the united kingdom nor a military clash with the soviet union the 1944 non-aggression treaty between germany and poland provided some relief of the threat of a pre-emptive front war against irai from both east and west but it did not change the regional conception of german military planning which remained and was by necessity still defensively orientated but yes it becomes increasingly offensively minded as capabilities increased and that offense became a possible reality as the force built itself up slowly at first war games continue to experiment with practical application of the new aircraft that germany was developed with the strengthening of germany's aeronautical industries its capacities and capabilities support for a bomber fleet started to grow to give you an idea how the capacities grew here is actually a graph that shows you the number of workers germany airs industry employed from 1943 to 1938 in about five years the size of the industry grows by a factor of 50. with the growing capabilities the development of bombers became possible walter veva usually stands at the center of this debate and often he's sort of seen as the german version of mitchell or trenchard this is not the case at all waver did call the bomber the decisive factor in aerial warfare but and this is important this needs to be placed within context of his operational thinking at no time did viva express any especially radical views on air power waver easily rejected many of duhai's propositions concerning strategic bombing instead developing his own theories let's say you are looking for the german duhey or the german trench art then you won't find him in valdeva but you will find him perhaps in robert knows he believed germany needed to invest in nothing more than a large bomber force since this and this only would provide deterrence at a bargain price and yes he even felt that indiscriminate bombing was acceptable but his convictions this must be said as well were not without criticism canal suggested a speedy and covert development of an air fleet of approximately 394 engine bombers which would be reinforced by 10 air reconnaissance stuffing knaus was convinced that such an extremely mobile military instrument on the side of germany would yield decisive advantages in a two-front war with france and poland but he specifically calculated on the deterrent effect compared to viva canals never had the same influence and the real planning in building up the force did well did not follow his line of thinking this program slightly adjusted in august and september 1943 barely resembled knauss's expectation because the airfleet was never composed out of the expected heavily armed bombers nor was his numerical recommendation of bombers reached however it must be recognized that the program followed the basic idea the bombardier would be the core of the future air force and take on both the political and military deterrence value that knows had anticipated voices like wilhelm wimmer hemophilia hemorrhoid wilberg became influential together weber vimer and wilberg started to codify the luftwaffe's envisioned operational conduct and they placed an emphasis not on strategic bombing but various other tasks this did not question the necessity of direct support for the army and navy but was of the opinion that the anemia's air force had to be destroyed first before any direct or indirect support of the other two forces could be given regaining control of the air by defeating the enemy's air force was the primary objective viva argued that the best defense against enemy air power was to go on the offense it is not possible to create an unlimited number of areas adequately defended against air attack and at the same time build up a strong air force instead the evo should be attacked at its roots the enemy bomber formation should be caught at the most vulnerable moment when they are on the ground by destroying the enemy's aircraft in combat and on the ground the luftwaffe would have free reign over the field this line of thinking is enshrined in luftwaffen dinst forschrift zekzen which is perhaps well it yeah you could actually say that perhaps it's the most important document the luftwaffe has ever published because it explains how the luftwaffe itself plans to conduct its operations and it was released in 1935 and it saw no major revisions say for let's say a few annotations until 1945. the parameters of warfare presented in elderflower section was in its aim completely conventional only the manner and methods were new but not revolutionary since it rested on a development from the 1914-1918 experience combined with new technological capabilities right at the start of the war the destruction of the enemy's air force was envisioned and through continuous bombing of known pre-war bases ground operations as well as communication centers the enemy's air threat was to be eliminated in an offensive just so you know in this quote i translated the german frieden stunt auto to known pre-war bases which captures the idea of the original which would be peace locations in literal translation in the following years the cooperation with the army was emphasized but if you look for example at the luftwaffe operations well let's go through them right against poland the low countries france even britain and then of course the soviet union a pattern repeats itself and that is that the luftwaffe seeks to destroy the enemy's air force and after that it supports the army and only then it goes after the industry and the stockpiles if necessary the fact that germany was a continental power certainly also has an influence or at least that contributed to their opinion that direct support of the army was probably more relevant than long-strike potential elder faustin argued that actions against the enemy's war industry and the supply infrastructure to the front lines could drastically influence the outcome of the war in itself but the resulting impact on the actual fighting by both heir and grix marine would be delayed for too long and would bind luftwaffe forces at the same time in the mid 1930s twin engine machines fitted the conception of the regional war germany was anticipating with its direct neighbors and of course its envisioned conduct of air operations four engine machines well they didn't and they couldn't they were expensive they were complex and ongoing issues with engine performance and engine production as well as aircraft production made development difficult although of course it was pushed forward to some degree nowadays some people call it the oral bomber project it has as of yet not been confirmed with written documents that the air ministry used the term ural bomber throughout the development of a 4-inch bomber naturally this designation might have been used in conversation but only in the sense of its inventional range and not in regards to its strategic use in a possible german soviet war the oral bomber was a terminal's technicals it did not hold significance in the operational conceptions of the time in 1946 due to the limitations of ancient technology it became the policy of the luftwaffe air staff to simply skip the entire first generation of bombers and begin research and development of a future heavy bomber which would be deployed when the german aircraft industry and aircrew training had caught up technologically when it comes down to it germany followed a logic of a relatively functional weapon you can actually build it's better than no weapon at all and it shelved ambitious projects this is where the later long-range bomber aircraft like the four-engine heinkel he 177 find the origin and yes i know the he-177 looks like it is a two-engine machine but each prop is driven by two engines so that makes four heinkel was instructed to continue a study into four engine bombers without a given deadline or production being prepared by the mid-1930s germany still had no proper bomber project and had to completely reset their bomber development and it was starting to push forward the introduction of conventional machines until technological progress and industrial capacities as well as their logistical infrastructure within germany enabled the production of machines that met sort of the set requirements that people would anticipate for engine bomber machines to have the german political and military leadership believed until 1938 that it could manage with a luftwaffe that would equipped with large numbers of medium and dive bombers engage on its own both the air power and war industry of potential central european belligerence as well as being able to support the operations of the hair at the same time there was that continental aspect again even by 1939 though it had four engine machines like the vodka wolf fw or 200 which really can't be classified as a heavy bomber germany recognized the advantages of the heavy bomber as a concept but also their price let's for example have a look here at what a standardized german production sorry that production publication from 1949 has to say on the subject of heavy bombers with the heavy bomber the additional bomb load requires additional engine power and a corresponding increase in the size of the aircraft the reduced speed requires additional defensive measures it needs large airfields the strong defensive weaponry limits the bomb load the size limits maneuverability and enlarges the target area adding to this comes the necessary supply of spare parts which provides incredible difficulties for larger units ground-based defenses force the bomber to ever higher altitudes and due to this the accuracy of its drop bombs in horizontal flight can be questioned during attacks on small and moving targets the chances for hits are reduced considerably i find this text quite telling since with its criticism it shows you where the germans place their emphasis for bombers and that would be speed operational mobility tactical versatility logistical sufficiency and accuracy by this point in time then the first signs of change of course emerged germany now possessed the potential in pure industrial terms to build a force of long-range bombers in 1938 one year before the war starts a first step starts being taken in a memorandum helmut felmi you might remember him from earlier a supporter of long-range bombing as well argued that a war with great britain might be problematic due to the limited range of the existing fleet the range of bomber units without bases in belgium and the netherlands was not sufficient to allow successful operations against the island and the training of the crews was not sufficient to allow for an air war over water gurwing does order the completion of the ju-88 as a priority in the long term the four engine he 177 was envisioned but now we are in 1939 the war kicks off and germany has no expensive and resource intensive long-range bomber in the conventional sense the fokker wolf 200 does not count but yes that video is coming i just need you guys to have a little bit more patience it serves as a reminder at this point that germany isn't that different to other countries like the united states like the soviet union france or even britain at this point since most of them only have a small fleet of modern four engine bombers at this point in 1949 the us of course has the b-17 but not that many and it's not the fortress you know from the war it's still an earlier machine britain introduces the handy page halifax in 1939 but it won't have the more famous avro lancaster until 1941. difference is that germany for the reasons i have laid out only starts to turn to this concept now slowly with a whole lot of upcoming problems and it has no design ready for production the development of the heinkel hg177 will continue that's a whole other video i will have to make at some point i guess and that's gonna be fun and yes of course america bomber but that luftwaffe fantasy never got off the ground i want to thank you for joining me today i hope that you enjoyed the video i hope that you found it informative and remember that military aviation history is what you could call an independent organization so consider supporting via patreon or channel memberships to make this sort of content possible this is especially true so for these longer format videos that take a lot of time and research to complete and big thank you here of course already to those existing patreons and channel supporters for making this sort of content possible now if you cannot support don't worry i understand please consider sharing the video telling others about the channel and of course subscribing for more also a big thank you here to andrew and military history visualized for their feedback on the script and as always i wish all of you a great day and see you in the sky

Channel: Military Aviation History

Views: 196,569

Rating: 4.9277277 out of 5

Keywords: Luftwaffe, Heavy Bomber, Strategic bomber, WW2, Military Aviation History, Heinkel, Junkers, He 111, He 177, Ju 88, Do 17, Do 19, Ju 86, Ju 52, Ju 89

Id: znSAv2f1lJw

Length: 29min 9sec (1749 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 08 2020