LUFTWAFFE - SECRET BOMBERS OF THE THIRD REICH.pdf

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HITLER’S ‘ WONDER WEAPON’ BOMBER PROJECTS
rare drawin
g
and photos s
300
More than
‘AMERIKA BOMBER’
M
MYSTERY UNRAVELLED
S
L
SELF-DESTRUCTING
T
N
SUICIDE ATTACKERS
HIGH FLIERS DESIGNED
TO DESTROY THE RAF
Dan Sharp
ISBN: 978-1-911276-06-7
£6.99
CLASSIFIED GERMAN WW2 AIRCRAFT DESIGNS REVEALED IN DETAIL
R
T
Preface
B
ritain became intimately familiar with the
Luftwaffe’s bomber fleet during the Second
World War, particularly from September 1940
to May 1941 when it repeatedly attacked the nation’s
o
major ports and cities. Yet despite their evident
need to drop the highest possible tonnage of bombs
e
over Britain, it always struck me as curious that the
v
Germans did not operate a heavy bomber of a sort
e
equivalent to the British Avro Lancaster or
Handley Page Halifax.
a
Instead, Germany fielded a range of smaller
aircraft – the glass-nosed Heinkel 111, Dornier’s
r
slender Do 17 and the workmanlike Ju 88. They
e
seemed to get the job done however, and having
e
grown up with stories of the terrifying and deadly
Blitz, it did not occur to me that the Germans
might have been anything less than satisfied
i
with their bomber fleet.
i
Years later, during the 1990s, I was amazed to
discover the incredible variety of unusual ‘secret
s
project’ aircraft apparently developed by German
o
manufacturers during the war. There were rocket-
a
powered interceptors aplenty, pulse-jet fighters,
w
forward-swept wings, asymmetrical ground-attack
r
aircraft, parasite fighters and more.
r
The purpose, context and even in some cases the
true nature of many of these designs appeared to
u
have become confused however, prompting me to
a
write Luftwaffe: Secret Jets of the Third Reich in an
attempt to provide some clarity.
While working on this project I naturally
encountered many bomber designs, but lacking the
space to do them justice, I set them aside. In truth,
there were just as many puzzling aspects to German
bomber development during the war as there were
concerning jet fighters.
o
The more I read about these designs, the more
conflicting claims, obfuscation, oddly recurring
o
themes and outright misinformation I encountered.
h
This publication is therefore an attempt, once again,
to set the record straight using primary source
o
material as far as possible.
There is one particular theme that seems to have
cast a shadow over all studies of German wartime
a
bomber development – what has come to be called
o
the ‘Amerika bomber’. Today, many German bomber
h
projects are said to have been part of an ‘Amerika
r
bomber programme’, this being a concerted effort
o
throughout the war to build something capable of
h
flying over to US, bombing it, and flying all the way
back to a base in Europe.
However, among the records and archives I
examined for this edition, there is seldom any
mention of an attempt to build a bomber capable
of reaching America. Reading the Germans’ own
technical reports, minutes of meetings, air ministry
memos and dozens of other documents carefully
preserved in British archives, one could be forgiven
for thinking that the Germans never seriously
considered flying a bomber all the way from Europe
to attack the US.
Time and again, there are references to bombing
Britain. There are laments that the Luftwaffe’s
existing types are not up to the job of doing just that,
there is regret at the lack of a bomber that can fly
high enough to avoid RAF interceptors, there is
concern that the British are developing ever better
navigation techniques for their own heavy bombers
without fear of reprisal.
Similarly, there is constant debate and discussion
about how best to find and sink the convoys plying
the Atlantic with the supplies that are keeping
Britain alive. The U-boats, it is said, urgently
require help to do their job effectively – something
that is better than the Focke-Wulf Fw 200, a
repurposed airliner.
In fact, there was one attempt – during the
early part of the war – to build a bomber capable
of reaching America, but this hope seems to have
faded very quickly and was never to be rekindled. All
thoughts turned instead to Britain and how best to
bomb it into submission.
With the ‘Amerika bomber programme’ myth
removed from the equation, the story of heavy
bomber development in Germany becomes a little
more straightforward as I hope will be apparent.
As before, I found that the best place to begin
my research was with a document called German
Aircraft: New and Projected Types, which can be
found in the National Archives at Kew in London.
This factually accurate ‘greatest hits’ of German
secret aircraft projects was compiled by British air
intelligence in 1945 from captured documents and
published in January 1946. Numbered among the 174
types and projects it covers are numerous bombers.
Dozens of other documentary sources were then
added to establish a basic history of German
bomber development. The focus has been mainly,
though not exclusively, on large and long-range
bombers and bomber projects, rather than ground-
attack aircraft or smaller ‘schnellbomber’ types. This
is primarily for reasons of space but also because
those types tended to have more in common with
fighters and therefore had a somewhat different
development background.
It will also be noticed that this publication
is somewhat lacking in tables of statistics and
graphs. Contemporary documents are full of these
occasionally useful graphics but there is rarely
enough room for them in a publication that seeks to
establish a cohesive historical narrative, rather than
n
documenting every technical nuance and detail of
aircraft that were never built.
Finally, no matter how interesting their features,
no matter how innovative their design, it should not
be forgotten that these projects were sponsored by
the Nazi regime, and that their chief purpose was to
bomb and destroy its opponents.
•
Luftwaffe: Secret Bombers of the Third Reich
003
006
Introduction
012
Fernbomber (1936)
Blohm & Voss design
Heinkel P 1041/He 177
Henschel P 26
Junkers design
Messerschmitt P 1061
Arado E 340
Dornier Do 317
Focke-Wulf Fw 191
Junkers Ju 288
Heinkel design
Luftwaffe: Secret Bombers of the Third Reich
022
Henschel Hs 130 (1937)
026
Fernkampfflugzeug (1940)
Focke-Wulf Fernkampfflugzeug
Junkers design
Messerschmitt P 1061 (Me 264)
036
Blohm & Voss BV 238 and BV 250
042
Fernerkunder (1941)
Focke-Wulf Fw 300
Junkers Ju 290
046
Heinkel He 274 (1941)
050
Blohm & Voss P 163 (1942)
054
Interlude: Göring on bombers (1943)
058
Fernkampfflugzeug final phase (1943)
Focke-Wulf Ta 400
Messerschmitt Me 264
030
Arado E 470 (1941)
032
Fernkampfflugzeug second try (1941)
Focke-Wulf Fernkampfflugzeug – revised
Heinkel six-engined design
Junkers Ju 390
Messerschmitt Me 264
016
Bomber B (1939)
004
Con
tents
o
FRONT COVER:
A pre-production model
Junkers Ju 287 A-0
prepares to bomb Allied
advanced landing grounds
in western Germany by
Ronnie Olsthoorn. For more
information about the Ju
287 see pages 78 and 106.
AUTHOR: Dan Sharp
DESIGN: atg-media.com
REPROGRAPHICS: Jonathan Schofield and Paul Fincham
PRODUCTION EDITOR: Jack Harrison
PUBLISHER: Steve O’Hara
ADVERTISING MANAGER: Sue Keily, skeily@mortons.co.uk
PUBLISHING DIRECTOR: Dan Savage
MARKETING MANAGER: Charlotte Park
COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR: Nigel Hole
PUBLISHED BY: Mortons Media Group Ltd, Media Centre,
Morton Way, Horncastle, Lincolnshire LN9 6JR.
Tel: 01507 529529
THANKS TO: Simon Fowler, Chris Gall, Chris Gibson,
Paul Malmassari, Paul Martell-Mead, Ronnie Olsthoorn,
Alexander Power, Chris Sandham-Bailey, Daniel Uhr,
Stephen Walton, Gary Webster and Tony Wilson
PRINTED BY: William Gibbons and Sons, Wolverhampton
ISBN: 978-1-911276-06-7
© 2016 Mortons Media Group Ltd. All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic
or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or
any information storage retrieval system without prior
permission in writing from the publisher.
ABOVE: The distinctive form of a Junkers EF 130 in flight. In fact,
numerous different configurations for the EF 130 were proposed,
though none now survive save this one. Art by Ronnie Olsthoorn
Junkers Ju 390
Heinkel P 1068/Strabo 16 to/He 343
118
Red bombers (1946)
068
Heinkel He 277 (1943)
070
Arado projects (1943)
Arado E 555
Arado E 560
Arado TL-Jäger
Arado R-Jäger
Arado K-Jäger
090
Junkers Ju 488 (1944)
094
Sänger Raketenbomber (1944)
100
Daimler-Benz Schnellstbombenträger (1944)
106
Langstreckenbomber (1944)
Messerschmitt P 1107
Junkers Ju 287
Horten XVIII
Horten XVIII
Junkers Ju 287
Messerschmitt P 1107
124
Unknown!
076
Strahlbomber (1943)
Arado E 395
Junkers Ju 287
Blohm & Voss P 188
114
Messerschmitt P 1108 (1944)
Henschel P 135
Messerschmitt P 20
Focke-Wulf Bomber mit 2 HeS 011
Swaty S.8
Karl Stöckel rockets and rammers
Horten committee bomber
BMW bomber projects
Luftwaffe: Secret Bombers of the Third Reich
005

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