[Music] [Music] unlike the allies the Axis powers had the advantage of entering World War two with proven aircraft had experienced pilots the early German bombers - the Condor Legion fought on the side of General Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War along with the aircraft of dictator Benito Mussolini's Italian Air Force the liner had also taken part in Italy's invasion of Ethiopia and in Asia the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy air forces have been committed to combat in the sky over China since 1937 you'll see the Luftwaffe x' bomber force in action along with the italian aircraft which were inferior to a German and allied warplanes and flashed before your screen you will see three of the better known Japanese bombers the kawasaki 84 mitsubishi g3m and its superior successor mitsubishi g4 him successively they bore the Allied code names of Lily Nell and better [Music] [Music] after Hitler repudiated the Treaty of Versailles in 1935 Germany built up a large and capable armaments industry which proved itself well able to turn out large numbers of weapons of all types however the course of the air war soon showed that too little thought had been given to the development of new generations of warplane so the Luftwaffe had to soldier on with types which had mainly been designed before 1939 the Heinkel 111 was the mainstay of the German medium bomber arm throughout the Second World War despite the fact that the prototype flew as early as February 1935 though designed from the start as a bomber the type had ostensibly been developed as a civil transport and some early aircraft were indeed delivered as high-speed transports the first bomber flew in October 1936 and over 7,000 were manufactured between Vienna and 1944 when production ceased within the limitations imposed by the small airframe the Heinkel 111 was developed into a remarkably effective warplane which was used in a variety of roles the first variants had a conventional fuselage with a stepped cockpit but from early 1939 this was replaced by the more familiar extensively glazed nose this was asymmetric with the bow machine-gun offset to starboard so the pilots forward view was not impeded early versions were powered by a pair of daimler-benz engines but these were soon replaced in the definitive Heinkel 111 H by more powerful Junkers Jumo 211s each producing 1200 horsepower these gave the aircraft at top speed of 270 miles an hour at 20,000 feet while its range was some 1,200 miles the aircraft normally had a crew of five and had defensive armament of 5 to 7 machine guns although that in the forward part of the ventral gondola was often replaced by a 20 millimeter cannon during the course of the war the 111 equipped 30 bomber gesh fada these were the equivalent of an allied group and in turn were subdivided into three or four kampfgruppe on each of about 30 aircraft further divided into three or four staff 'ln or squadrons operationally they flew in a fairly tight formation to give overlapping support against enemy fighters the smallest formation being the Keter or flight of three aircraft the 111 was used as the testbed for a variety of radar installations designed mainly to be fitted to other aircraft one of the most successful being the fog 200 and his shipping device the nose machine gun was replaced by a 20 millimeter cannon in these versions the Germans also pioneered the use of radio direction-finding as a navigational aid the Heinkel 111 was among several bomber types to use the nicker bine and later X&Y great systems which allowed the aircraft to follow a radio beam to its target the Luftwaffe was most infamous success using these methods was the raid on Coventry on the 14th of November 1940 British scientists soon developed means of bending or jamming these beams though sending the Bombers off course on the actual bombing run a fairly simple optical sight was used but this was adequate to provide accurate bombing from low and medium altitudes a typical bomb load was 8 550 pound bombs stored in two Bay's either side of a central gang wave the 111 was also developed as a torpedo bomber and as a carrier for anti-shipping missiles a selector switch on the starboard side of the cockpit allowed the radio-controlled guidance system to be used with either the roar style x1 glide bomb sometimes known as the fritz X or with the rocket-propelled Henschel 293 the operator moved into the knows where the kale Strasburg control unit was installed and inserted a small lever which was stowed separately for safety reasons once the target was in sight the guidance apparatus was switched on then when the operator said the word the pilot pressed the trigger releasing the missile in this case a Henschel 293 d which had a television camera in its nose then the operator guided the missile to its target using the joystick just as in many home computer games on a typical bombing run over England the huncles learn to approach at low level over the coastline in order to lessen the risk of radar detection [Music] practically skimming the treetops at times they made themselves less vulnerable to fighters or anti-aircraft fire [Music] nearing the target that had to climb to a typical bombing altitude of 6,000 feet Presley escorted by Messerschmitt 109 fighters because of their method of stowage the bombs dropped out of a Heinkel 111 's Bombay's tail first resulting in the on wobble typical of the aircraft's bombing technique [Music] the Heinkel 111 served in all the German campaigns from Poland Norway France and Britain to the Balkans North Africa and Russia as a bomber transport glider tug and even as the carrier for air launch v1 flying bombs precursors of today's cruise missiles [Music] [Music] [Music] another pre-war design was the Dornier 17 which was originally developed as a high-speed mail plane for the national airline Lufthansa [Music] first flying in 1934 the aircraft was actually nicknamed the flying pencil because of its slim fuselage this made the passenger accommodation very cramped and it was not adopted for several purposes instead redesigned with a new nose and twin instead of single tail planes it was adapted as a bomber in 1935 and first saw action with the condor legion during the Spanish Civil War [Music] unfortunately the slender fuselage restricted the size of the bomb bay and the Dornier 17 could only carry half the Heinkel 111 load various prototypes were built as bombers and reconnaissance aircraft the first production variants being designated E and F respectively but these were quickly replaced by the M and P models powered by 900 horsepower BMW Brahmo 323 engines these only gave a top speed of 255 miles an hour at 13,000 feet but pilots loved the aircraft because of its delightful handling characteristics range was also limited normal tactical radius being only 311 miles in an effort to improve matters the engines were operated to a thousand horsepower in the Z series however the addition of a fifth crew member in the redesigned nose and an increase in the number of machine guns to between 6 and 8 added so much weight that performance was actually worse tactical radius being reduced to 205 miles the Dornier 17z saw its baptism of fire during the Polish campaign in September 1939 being used to bomb airfields bridges and troop concentrations the aircraft was used similarly during the invasion of the West in May 1940 although by this time its inadequacies were very apparent and only nine kampfgruppe one was still equipped with the type during the Battle of Britain due to its limited range the Dornier 17 was principally used to attack shipping in the English Channel during this period the aircraft was next used during the invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece in April 1941 and then again in June for Operation Barbarossa the invasion of Russia by this time there were only four operational kampfgruppe and partly because of heavy losses from fighters and partly because new and improved types of bomber were entering service despite all this the Dornier 17 remained remarkably popular with its crews until the last machines were withdrawn from service in November 1942 [Applause] this particular machine is rigged with cine cameras to make part of a propaganda film [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] for operations at the aircraft service ceiling of 27,000 feet oxygen masks had to be worn [Music] [Music] [Music] the Dornier to15 powered first biome Rhone radials and then by 1075 horsepower daimler-benz inline engines was an unsuccessful replacement for the 17 and the 112 that were built saw their principal services reconnaissance aircraft much more successful was the Dornier 217 which was in essence a scaled-up 215 development of a larger version of the Dorniers 17 had begun in 1937 with the first flight a year later but the aircraft didn't enter service until late in 1940 because it took two years to find and fit a suitable power plant from a distance the 207 and 17 appear virtually identical but the new aircraft was both longer and had a greater wingspan more importantly it was powered by BMW radial or daimler-benz inline engines of between 1500 and 80 and 1750 horsepower these gave a high top speed of up to 348 miles an hour and a greatly increased range even without fuel drop tanks of 1300 miles on top of this the 217 could carry eight thousand eight hundred and eighteen pounds of bombs and missiles externally and internally a greater load than any other German bomber of the period for defense the aircraft was usually fitted with a single 15 millimeter cannon and between five and seven machineguns the Dornier 217 had a crew of four and continued in service right to the end of the war equipping nine bomber groups it was also used very successfully as a night fighter and his shipping and reconnaissance aircraft squadrons of two 17s were deployed against targets in England as well as being used in Russia and in the Mediterranean after the Allied invasion of Sicily and Italy in 1943 [Music] looking more like a fighter than a bomber the single-seat Henschel 123 was the Luftwaffe x' last operational biplane first flown in the spring of 1935 it had been planned as a dive bomber but entered service as a closed ground support type it sorts first combat in Spain in 1937 and subsequently in Poland France and Russia up to the middle of 1944 by which time the 60 airframes built had all been used up [Music] it was a remarkably agile and robust aircraft although the 880 horsepower BMW radial engine only gave it a top speed of just over 200 miles an hour [Music] it could deliver for 110 pound bombs and had to forward firing machine guns for self-defense or strapping enemy troops it was especially appreciated by the German army because it could operate from rough strips close to the frontline so could provide almost immediate aerial support in crisis situations although it was very vulnerable to enemy fighters it could absorb a great deal of punishment from anti-aircraft fire which endeared it to its pilots the yonkers 86 was planned like the Heinkel 111 as a civil transport as well as a bomber and saw service in both roles it first flew in 1934 and for its time was a technically advanced airplane with diesel engines one old-fashioned aspect was the provision of a retractable ventral turret for one of its three defensive machine guns the others being in the nose and the dorsal cockpit unlike earlier yonkers aircraft the 86 had smooth rather than corrugated metal skinning as well as a retractable main undercarriage the first operational bomber variant was the 86'd which saw action in Spain it proved very vulnerable to enemy fighters though so the e model was provided with 800 horsepower BMW engines instead of the earlier 600 horsepower yonkers jumo types these increased speed from 186 to 202 miles an hour the four-man Yonkers 86 II could carry either four five hundred and fifty pound or sixteen 110 pound bombs but was obsolescent at the start of the Second World War and was withdrawn from service as a bomber after the Polish campaign [Music] rather more significant was the Yonkers 86 P model seeing that the earlier variants were unsatisfactory as bombers in 1939 Yonkers started work on a high-altitude version with a fully pressurized cockpit and wingspan increased to 84 feet from 73 feet 10 inches first flown in 1940 it was powered by two 950 horsepower jumo 207 supercharged diesel engines [Music] the 86 P could reach an altitude of almost 40,000 feet where the cruising speed of 160 miles an hour carrying a two thousand two hundred and five pound bomber as a bomber it proved no more successful than its predecessors though and after several had been shot down by high-altitude Spitfires it was relegated to reconnaissance duties in Russia a few 86 P's were further modified and given the type designation 86 are these had a wingspan of just under a hundred and five feet engines operated to a thousand horsepower with nitrous oxide boosting and four-bladed propellers which enabled them to reach 47 thousand two hundred and thirty feet [Music] the Yonkers 86 our saw limited service during 1943 and 1944 [Music] Italy entered the second world war in 1940 with only a small industrial base and this coupled with an obsolete concept of airpower made most Italian warplanes inferior to their allied counterparts [Music] the Italian Air Force did however field some adequate medium bombers among them the can't said 1007 al Chonan or Kingfisher the al Jonah was a five seed land plane development of the Z 506 twin float seaplane and first flew in 1937 deliveries to the regia aeronautica began in 1939 the first 35 aircraft being powered by 840 horsepower is not a Fraschini inline engines [Music] as they had only 47.7 millimeter machine guns for self-defense they were clearly both underpowered and undergunned so a number of modifications were rushed through these resulted in the z1000 and seven beasts with a longer fuselage and larger wings new a thousand horsepower piaggio radial engines were installed which gave a top speed of 283 miles an hour in addition two of the guns were replaced by heavier weapons of 12.7 millimeter caliber the heavy machine gun in the dorsal turret was aerodynamically counter balanced by a metal tube of the same dimensions so the turret could be traversed manually later in the production run which eventually ran to nine batches the single vertical tail surface was replaced by a twin tail unit [Music] the algae on a was the most important Italian bomber of the Second World War after the SM 79 and as an alternative to its four thousand four hundred and ten pound bomb load could alternatively carry a pair of 1,000 pound anti-shipping torpedoes in 1942 Kant introduced an improved version with eleven hundred and seventy-five horsepower piaggio radial engines and bomb load reduced to two thousand two hundred and five pounds to give higher performance and longer range in all 526 out journeys were built seeing service from North Africa and the Balkans to the depths of Russia a few were briefly stationed even in France to help the Luftwaffe x' attacks on british targets the aircraft proved very vulnerable to Allied fighters in the Mediterranean theater but their crews soldiered on bravely until the armistice in September 1943 many thereafter serving alongside British and American bomber squadrons the Savoia Marchetti SM 79 s Barbiero or Sparrowhawk was without doubt Italy's best medium bomber during the Second World War designed originally as a six seater civil transport the SM 79 first flew in 1934 and over the next half dozen years established several new world flying records in addition to winning the prestigious East Damascus Paris Air Race in 1937 it entered service as a bomber with the regia aeronautica in 1936 powered by three 780 horse park alfa romeo radial engines these were later replaced by a thousand or a thousand and thirty horsepower piaggio or Fiat radials giving a top speed of 267 miles an hour at 1,300 feet the spa vieira with its defensive armament of 312 point seven and one 7.7 millimeter machine guns proved it's worth during the Spanish Civil War its crews rather unkindly nicknamed the aircraft GABA malady toe or damned hunchback because of its rather ungainly appearance but this didn't detract from its effectiveness thus Pahlavi arrow was of unusual mixed construction with steel light alloy wood and fabric components this however gave it great structural integrity which was highly appreciated by the men who flew it in all weathers over the Mediterranean he's had a flight crew of four and carried two thousand seven hundred and fifty pounds of bombs at the beginning of the war 594 were in service with fourteen storming or groups each of four squadrons in total 1215 were built for the Air Force plus a large number of others for export the aircraft took part in the Italian invasions of Albania and Greece in the north and east african campaigns in Russia and most significantly during the siege of mortar the SM 79 was particularly successful as an anti shipping aircraft and was arguably the best land-based torpedo bomber of the war in this row carrying a single 18 inch torpedo under the fuselage they did an enormous amount of damage to Allied convoys on the mortar and North Africa runs particularly the pedestal convoy in August 1942 [Music] when Japan entered the war with the infamous attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 the country had a large and well-equipped army and navy each with its own Air Force the Japanese enjoyed the benefits of combat experience from the full-scale war which had been raging in China since 1937 they rode an initial tide of enormous success as combined forces struck against the Americans in the Hawaiian and the Philippine Islands against the British Imperial forces in Burma and Malaya and against the Dutch in the East Indies ultimately however Japan couldn't match the manpower strength and industrial muscle of her implacable enemies and was slowly driven to total defeat at Pearl Harbor Japanese aircraft damaged eight battleships leaving five sunk or sinking as well as destroying six other ships and a hundred and eighty-eight American aircraft the Army and Navy Air Force's proceeded the ground troops everywhere using a combination of level bombers dive bombers and torpedo bombers in shock attack waves which within days left a swathe of burning buildings wrecked aircraft and equipment and a flood of refugees with nowhere to go one of the principal aircraft in the initial assault was the Kawasaki ki 48 like bomber codenamed Lily by the Allies [Music] it had been developed after border encounters with the soviet tupolev s beep - during the late 1930s and was designed to much the same specification the Lily went into production in 1939 and nearly 2,000 were built between then and late 1944 it was an inadequate aircraft with only three machine guns for protection against enemy fighters early versions powered by 950 horsepower Nakajima radial engines could only carry 660 pounds of bombs but the introduction of the eleven hundred and fifty horsepower radials in 1942 increased this to one thousand seven hundred and sixty four pounds the Lily had a high top speed of 298 to 314 miles an hour depending on powerplant but still needed all the fighter escort it could get much more successful was the Imperial Japanese Navy's Mitsubishi g3m which the Allies codenamed knell this was one of the two most important Japanese bombers of the war and played a key role in the attacks on Pearl Harbor Hong Kong Rangoon and Singapore [Music] greatly influenced by the Yonkers 86 it was a twin-engined medium bomber initially powered by 750 horsepower hero type 91 but later by progressively more powerful hints a radios of between 8:30 and ultimately 1,300 horsepower these gave the aircraft a top speed of up to 258 miles an hour [Music] given the vast distances of the Pacific Ocean range was more important than speed and the aircraft was designed first and foremost with this in mind compared with German aircraft of similar size and configuration a maximum range of almost three thousand nine hundred miles in the final m3 production version was a considerable achievement this performance made it a strategic bomber in orbit name although that payload was low at 1764 pounds of bombs or a single 18 inch torpedo [Music] but something had to be sacrificed in order to give this range and it was the lack of self-sealing fuel tanks or armored protection for the crew which made the Nelso vulnerable to enemy fire even the provision of a 20 millimeter cannon in the dorsal turret in addition to up to four machine guns was not enough to keep enemy fighters at bay the Mitsubishi g3m made its operational debut in July 1937 taking off from bases on the island of Formosa now called Taiwan for deep penetration missions into mainland China just over four years later it was attacking allied installations all over the Far East and Pacific region the Pacific War was principally a naval one so oil refineries and dock yards were the primary targets of Japanese aggression in the early stages these scenes give a vivid impression of the effectiveness of Japanese bombers against targets which had practically no anti-aircraft guns at a time when Allied fighters were virtually non-existent due to the pressures of the war in Europe [Music] firefighting teams were run ragged and the loss of irreplaceable stores seriously hindered the Allied effort to rally under the blows and begin to make a comeback [Music] [Music] the feat for which the g3m Nell is best remembered however is its part in the sinking of the British battleship Prince of Wales and the battle cruiser repulse on the 10th of December 1941 this wartime reconstruction shows how aircraft operated from Indochina found and attacked the two capital ships after their position had been reported by a Japanese submarine about 90 level bombers dive bombers and torpedo bombers were involved in attacks lasting some two hours the effect on British morale was similar to that on the American nation three days earlier and showed above all the vulnerability of capital ships unsupported by aircraft carriers Mitsubishi g4 M's codenamed Betty also took part in the attacks on the Prince of Wales and repulse this aircraft which had a single vertical tail surface instead of the g3 MZ 2 was developed by the same design team as a naval attack bomber [Music] in all 2446 were built making it numerically the most important of all Japanese bomber types range was again a principal requirement so the wings were packed with 1078 gallons of fuel and everything possible was done to lighten the structure [Music] this flimsy construction coupled with the lack of armor or self-sealing fuel tanks made the Betty extremely prone to catching fire or breaking up in the air when attacked by Allied fighters and it's unfortunate crews nicknamed it the one-shot lighter the prototype first flew in 1939 and the aircraft saw its operational debut over China 120 g4m took part in the assault on Pearl Harbor and the aircraft also conducted several raids against the northern Australian port of Darwin which was an important staging post for Allied troops and supplies powered by a pair of 1530 horsepower cos I 11 or 15 radial engines the G for m1 Betty had a range of 2,300 miles carrying a 1764 pound bomb load it carried a crew of seven and had a defensive armament of four machine guns plus a 20 millimeter cannon in the tail after the Solomon Islands campaign in August 1942 the aircraft was re-engined with 1,800 horsepower radials fuel capacity was increased still further and the bomb load raised to 2,000 205 pounds in addition to extra machine guns were fitted in the nose and the dorsal machine gun was replaced by a 20 millimeter cannon 1154 g4m tools were built compared with 1200 m ones the final version was the m3 only 60 of which were built in 1944 245 this rare sequence from the camera guns of American fighters highlights the Betty's propensity to catch fire or breakup in the air after being hit by a stream of heavy caliber machine-gun fire the German Junkers 88 seen here being fuelled and bombed up for a mission was certainly the most versatile warplane of the Second World War it was arguably the best bomber the Luftwaffe possessed and like the de Havilland Mosquito with which it's often compared provided sterling service as a night fighter and reconnaissance aircraft as well it was also used as a land-based torpedo bomber over the Mediterranean and North Sea and as a tank Buster in Russia yonkers 88 production continued right through the war and over 15,000 were built the type resulted from a 1935 specification for a high-speed bomber and the first prototype flew in December 1936 powered by daimler-benz engines these proved unsatisfactory and were replaced by yonkers jumo radials after a number of other prototypes and pre-production aircraft had been evaluated the first 88 a1 bombers began entering service towards the end of 1939 these were powered by 1,200 horsepower through mode 211 radial engines which gave a top speed of 286 miles an hour the bomb load was three thousand nine hundred and sixty seven pounds bombs being carried both internally and externally later in the a series production run which ran 217 sub-variants built by six different companies more powerful thirteen hundred and fifty horsepower engines were introduced these allowed the aircraft to carry seven thousand nine hundred and thirty-five pounds of bombs but speed was slightly reduced Yonkers eighty-eights were active against British shipping from the beginning of the war but although they took part in the invasion of Norway in April 1940 the aircraft was a rare sight over the skies of France next month it's real testing time came during the Battle of Brittany when eight groupon were deployed because of its comparatively high speed the Yonkers 88 suffered a lower loss rate than the slower Heinkel 111 and dawnia's 17s however the fact that the crew of four were grouped closely together and the extensively glazed nose did give British fighter pilots are nicely concentrated target the Germans were conscious of this fact and the Yonkers 88 series was fitted with increasingly heavy defensive armament in the a4 version for example this comprised between five and seven light and heavy machine guns in the nose the rear of the cockpit and the ventral gondola the next bomber variant was the model C which saw service as a night intruder Vaart as operations against Britain began to tail off in 1941 most Junkers 88 bombers were moved east for the invasions of greece and yugoslavia the airborne assault on crete and the attack on russia the yonkers 88 was designed from the outset to be able to operate as a dive bomber as well as a level bomber and its wings were fitted with dive brakes [Music] the aircraft attacked in a sixty degree dive dropping their external 550 or 1000 pound bombs from an altitude of about 3,000 feet the pilot had determined the moment of bomb release using an illuminated ring sight it's been seen once the bombs were away the elevators automatically turned to the full a position to pull the aircraft out of its dive eliminating the danger of target fixation [Music] the Yonkers 88 was heavily committed in the war against Russia and often operated from extemporized airfields where essential supplies of bombs and fuel had to be flown in by Yonkers 50 to transport this allowed the 88 to support fast-moving ground forces from bases close to the frontline the versatility of the type is shown by its ability to undertake semi strategic tasks such as the bombing of Moscow as well as purely tactical missions against enemy tanks trains and troop convoys [Music] by the middle of the war that was no doubt that the survivability of the Yonkers 88a was being compromised by the improved performance of Allied fighters including new Soviet types the Yonkers design team thus evolved the 88's high-speed model powered by two 730 horsepower BMW radial engines which gave a top speed of 379 miles an hour or 382 miles an hour with nitrous oxide boosting the crew was reduced to three the ventral gondola being removed and a new smoothly blazed nose fitted while defensive armament was reduced to a single rear wood firing machine gun these soldier Don alongside the earlier a models until the end of the war from the middle of 1943 the Yonkers 88 bomber groups were progressively withdrawn from the Russian front to counter the Allied invasion of Sicily and Italy [Music] in the following summer they were moved again this time to France to bomb the Allied beachhead in Normandy they also operated in hit and run intruder missions over England but by this stage of the war the German bomber force had effectively ceased to exist and most of the yonkers eighty-eights left were night fighter versions with airborne interception radar the massive fokker wolf 200 condor is best remembered as the scourge of Allied shipping in the North Atlantic in the hands of kg 40 but it was in fact originally designed as a long-range civil transport the first of three prototypes flew in July 1937 and these aircraft soon set a number of impressive range records it wasn't long before consideration was given to the types potential as a maritime reconnaissance bomber with a long gondola added under the fuselage for the bombe and observation positions the types main operational floor was a weak structure behind the wing and several aircraft broke their backs in heavy landings the first military conga was powered by four 850 horsepower BMW radial engines but these were operated to a thousand horsepower in the definitive 200 c3 version these gave a cruising speed of 208 miles an hour and a range of 2200 miles the crew of eight frequently had to endure patrols of up to 14 hours duration over the Bleak Atlantic one story that the captain of an allied ship asked the pilot of a condor to fly around the other way because he was making him dizzy is almost certainly apocryphal though for defensive purposes the Condor was fitted with two 20 millimeter cannon and four machine guns while the maximum load of bombs or mines carried both internally and externally was 4626 pounds later variants of the aircraft were also equipped to launch a pair of Henschel to 9-3 radio-controlled and his shipping missiles the Heinkel 177 greif or Griffin was the only German heavy bomber to see widespread service during the Second World War it was also the Luftwaffe sole attempt to create a truly strategic bomber but fell far short of the demands the war imposed the greif was developed from the 1938 requirement for a bomber capable of carrying a four thousand four hundred and ten pound bomb load over a radius of a thousand miles at a speed of 310 miles an hour finding a suitable power plant proved the biggest problem delaying the aircraft's entry into service until the middle of 1942 the solution the Heinkel designers came up with was to couple to daimler-benz inline engines together in each nacelle thus while the 177 looks as though it's twin engine because it only has two propellers it was actually four-engined the twinned engines each produced 2700 horsepower to give a top speed of 303 miles an hour at just under 20,000 feet but normal cruising speed was only 258 miles an hour one of the ideas in using double engines wants to reduce drag but in practice they proved mechanically troublesome and prone to catching fire nevertheless the Heinkel designers far exceeded their brief and produced an airplane with a range of over 3,000 miles and the ability to carry an internal and external bomb load of up to 13,000 230 pounds for self-defense the six-man 177 was typically fitted with a 20 millimeter cannon plus two heavy and three light machineguns the Heinkel 177 was an attractive mid wing design produced in four main models including anti-shipping variants armed with torpedoes or ventral - nine three missiles or tank Buster's with a 50 or 75 millimeter cannon the aircraft also served as a transport on the Eastern Front it served with nine bomber groups and played a significant part in the so-called mini blitz against England in the first half of 1944 attacking London and southern ports where the d-day Armada was being assembled on several occasions the last 177 saw the last act of the war played out in the East a projected high-altitude version with a pressurized cabin never got to be on the prototype stage appropriately named the Blitz or lightning the Arado 234 was the world's first jet-powered bomber resulting from a 1940 requirement for a high-speed reconnaissance aircraft with jet propulsion the first prototype didn't fly until June 1943 and the aircraft only began entering service in July 1944 the prototypes took off on three wheels trolleys which were jettisoned at 200 feet and landed on a retractable central skid the reason was that early jet engines were so thirsty that virtually all the available fuselage volume had to be occupied by fuel tanks so there was no room for undercarriage in the air the Blitz was a graceful airplane despite its use of straight wings rather than ones which were even moderately swept the Arado Blitz was a remarkable achievement and typical of the inventiveness of German aircraft designers in the later stages of the war the production bomber version the 234 B had a top speed of 457 miles an hour at 30,000 feet far outstripping any piston-engined fighter it was a single seater and not only was the cabin pressurized but the pilot even had an ejector seat due to the lack of space in the narrow fuselage the weapons load of 3307 pounds of bombs or rockets was carried on under wing pylons because of the very long landing run using the skid braking parachutes were introduced early in the program even this didn't solve all the problems because the aircraft then had to be reloaded onto a trolley before it could be moved nor were attempts at landing with the three wheels trolleys still in place very successful so in the end the fuselage was widened and a tricycle undercarriage adopted for production models the resulting loss of fuel space restricted range to just over a thousand miles even with rocket assisted takeoff to extend this experiments were even carried out with the aircraft towing a winged fuel tank behind it like a glider an unusual feature of the 234 was the provision of twin remote control 20 millimeter cannon fixed in the rear fuselage too far backwards at any pursuing fighter lucky enough to get press production totaled 210 aircraft most powered by yonkers jumo axial-flow turbojet s-- delivering nineteen hundred and eighty pounds of thrust some night fighter versions had seventeen hundred and sixty horsepower BMW turbo jets instead operations using the Blitz were severely limited by Germany's acute fuel shortage towards the end of the war they did however see action during the Battle of the Bulge and in attacks against the American bridgehead across the Rhine at Remagen but were eventually grounded for lack of fuel the Yonkers 87 is universally known as the Stuka the word being an abbreviation of stood scamp fluke toy the German name for dive-bomber the StuCo was probably the most decisive weapon wielded by the Germans at the beginning of the Second World War for psychological as well as purely military reasons an enduring image of Germany's blitzkrieg successes between 1939 and 1941 is the shape of the crank weights dukkha powering downhill in a near vertical dive accompanied by the nerve shattering scream of the sirens attached to its landing gear legs [Music] [Music] as such the sticker was an essential component of the aerial artillery which blasted open the path for Germany's fast-moving panzer forces at the same time the StuCo with its pinpoint bombing accuracy was by its very threat an important weapon in lowering the morale of troops facing German attack it also made a major contribution to the hordes of civilian refugees who streamed away from threatened areas and clogged the roads which could otherwise have been used by the armies facing the German onslaught the Yonkers 87 was planned after Germany learned of the effectiveness of dive bombing experiments by the Americans the first version which appeared in 1935 had twin vertical tail surfaces and ironically any view of what was to follow was powered by a rolls-royce Kestrel engine later prototypes featured a single with vertical tail surface and Yonkers engines the first production there and the 87 a entered service in early 1937 with a 640 horsepower jumo 61 OC this model was used with great success during the Spanish Civil War and paved the way for the first definitive variant the Yonkers 87 B in 1938 this had an uprated 1,200 horsepower jhummer engine which enabled the aircraft to carry an eleven hundred pound bomb load instead of the 87 s 550 pounds the 87b had a top speed of 237 miles an hour and arranged fully-loaded of 372 miles the main bomb was carried in a crouch under the fuselage that swung it clear of the propeller as it was released the nine Stuka Gripen played a major role in the Polish and French campaigns of 1939 and 1940 some 340 aircrafts spearheading and supporting the Panzer divisions attacking bridges cross roads airfields and troop concentrations the pilot had a dive angle indicator in his side window and lers on the Yonkers 88 a device was fitted to pull the aircraft out of its dive automatically as soon as the bomb was released during these early campaigns the Luftwaffe enjoyed the benefit of local air superiority but when it came to the Battle of Britain the Stukas shortcomings were finally revealed with only two forward firing machine guns and a single gun in the rear of the cockpit the Stuka couldn't defend itself against British fighters it was as a Stuka pilot that hands rudl eventually became the most highly decorated officer in the German armed forces the final dive bomber variant was the 87 d which began entering service late in 1941 this model was cleaned up aerodynamically where the new nose and cockpit was fitted with extra armor protection and had twin machine guns fitted in the cockpit rear none of these factors could alter the vulnerability of the Stuka except under conditions of complete German air superiority a condition that became increasingly scarce from 1942 it was principally used for ground attack work in Russia some aircraft being fitted with under wing anti-tank guns instead of bombs [Music] by 1944 the writing was on the wall for Germany much serious fighting still had to take place as the Allies closed in but German bombers could no longer survive against modern fighters such as the American Thunderbolt lightning and Mustang or the British typhoon and tempest the Germans made frantic efforts to get new aircraft of their own into service but losses among veteran air crews were horrendous and in the end it was all in vain on top of this the increasing fuel crisis meant that large numbers of aircraft were grounded and fell easy prey to the swarms of Allied fighter bombers which roamed virtually at will after d-day Japan's turn was next the Axis powers had opened the lid to this Pandora's box of destruction but had failed to learn from their own successes and now had to pay the price [Music] [Music] you
