Midland Publishing

Luftwaffe Advanced Aircraft Projects to 1945 Volume 1: Fighters & Ground Attack Aircraft, Arado to Junkers

by  Ingoff Meyer

Reviewed By  Art Silen, IPMS# 1708

MSRP: $54.95 ISBN: 1-85780-240-3 Available from www.specialtypress.com. For many of us, modelers and aviation history enthusiasts, the idea that wartime Germany had advanced aircraft designs under development that could have turned the tide in Germany's favor has had an irresistible hold on our imaginations. However, much of that information and design history lay hidden in archives in Eastern Europe, neglected, but not forgotten, even as Soviet-led governments of Eastern Bloc countries attempted to suppress examination of the war. In the West, some knowledge of these projects existed, but in relatively little detail, as much of the advanced technology, along with the manufacturing plants, and indeed, their design personnel, were transported en masse to the Soviet Union. . I can recall having seen a book published in West Germany in the early 1970s that identified various "Projects", with tentative three-view drawings, and little else in the way of specifics. Moreover, for most Germans surviving the war and its aftermath, Germany's prowess in advanced aviation design was not a source of pride, as the Luftwaffe had been completely defeated and Germany's aviation industry lay in ruins. In the 1990s, as Germany re-united, German aviation history began to reemerge, and with it tantalizing hints of advanced aircraft designs that were long believed to have been lost. Midland Publishing, an imprint of Ian Allan, has published a series of titles on advanced aircraft design projects undertaken by both Great Britain and Germany, of which this volume is the latest. Ingoff Meyer is an artist who collaborated on Midland's earlier title, "Luftwaffe Secret Fighter Projects". Since publication of that work, Meyer has continued his researches into other advanced German aircraft of the 1930 - 1945 era; and he has uncovered new information of which approximately forty percent is entirely new and unpublished. His new book describes 157 specific projects by 13 aircraft manufacturers, and this is only Volume One. Designs are grouped together by manufacturer. Each design variant gets a page to itself consisting of a short narrative of the design history and development, a color rendering in hypothetical tactical markings, three-view general arrangement drawings, and a table of weights, measurements, proposed weaponry, and anticipated performance figures. We begin with Arado, one of the smaller airframe manufacturers that produced a variety of designs. After the war began, Arado produced Bf 109 and Fw 190 fighter aircraft under license, as well as subassemblies for other aircraft types. Of its own designs, Arado produced trainers (Ar 96); floatplanes (Ar 196); transports (Ar 232); heavy fighters (Ar 240); and the standout Ar 234 Blitz, that gave excellent service in the bomber and reconnaissance roles. Meyer describes 16 advanced aircraft proposals, of which no fewer than six were derivatives of the Ar 234, or which included similar design features, such as shoulder wing layout with underslung engine nacelles. Among the more unusual designs depicted are the Ar E 381.02 air-launched, rocket-propelled glider with glazed, hemispherical nose, in which the pilot lay in the prone position; and the Ar E 530, a twin-boom fighter similar to the Me 609 in layout, but with design features borrowed from the Focke Wulf Fw 190D. The most radical designs include the Ar E 580, which was similar in design layout to the Heinkel He 162 Salamander and Henschel Hs 132, and four delta wing designs featuring large turbojet engines mounted below the airframe. Next come designs from BMW (Beyerische Motorenwerke, Munich). BMW was primarily involved in producing piston- and jet engines, but it did offer several aircraft designs, five included here, all jet-powered, of simple design that could be put into production quickly and have acceptable performance. Project I was a low-wing single-seat fighter, having its jet engine exhaust midway along the fuselage spine between twin tails; Projects II, III, and IV featured underslung engines with high tails or twin booms. Project V was a flying wing similar to the Horton Ho 220, but with a single engine. Blohm & Voss, Hamburg, is known mostly for its seaplanes; however, it did participate extensively in advanced aircraft design. Included in this volume are 34 design types beginning with the Bv 40 cannon-armed glider designed to attack allied bomber formations while avoiding the bomber's defensive fire by presenting the smallest possible target. There follows variously powered designs intended for ground attack or aerial combat roles. Among those featured were ground attack aircraft based on the asymmetric Bv 141, with variants having flight crew stations located on the aircrafts' wingtips. Equally unorthodox was the P-170 and P-170.02 with engines located in three elongated nacelles, one central and two at the wingtips, with crew stations at the rear of the aircraft. One can only imagine the difficulties that pilots of such aircraft would face in controlling them. Next depicted are several turbojet-powered and mixed piston- and turbojet-powered aircraft intended for the air superiority role. One, the P-192.01, featured swept canard winglets in the forward fuselage that were joined to the wings by small booms, and mid-fuselage propeller immediately following. Upon examining the in-flight rendering, my first thought was that it resembled the French SPAD A-2 of 1915, with its observer/gunner located ahead of the engine and propeller, and that it's prospects for success were approximately the same - nil. Several designs featured rear-mounted pusher propellers, and were similar in layout to the Douglas XB-42A, the Curtiss XP-55 Ascender, or Northrop's XP-56 "Black Bullet". In the latter, Projects P-208 (piston engine), P-209 through P-215 (jet engine) featured wingtip-mounted movable stabilizers or vertical tails, similar to the Vought F7U Cutlass. One variant of P-209.02 dispensed with the wingtip tail control surfaces in favor of a conventional cruciform empennage and forward-swept wings. None of these designs appear to be especially well-conceived, and for the tail-less aircraft, flight-regime instability problems that were inherent to these designs ensured that they would never reach fruition, or at least not until computerized fly-by-wire flight controls were developed. Daimler-Benz, in Stuttgart, another premier aero engine manufacturer also contributed to advanced aircraft design with two projects, both turbojet powered, that were not fighters at all; rather, they were parasite aircraft launched from bombers, and were intended to be used as guided bombs, much like the Japanese Oka air-launched flying bomb. In principle, at least, the pilots would have an opportunity to escape by parachute before the aircraft hit their targets; but again, the likelihood of a successful bail-out would seem to be nil. DFS (Deutsche Forschungsinstitute für Segelflug) offered a pair of designs for gliders to be used to attack bomber formations with on-board cannon in a manner similar to the Bv 40 mentioned earlier. Each would have been towed to an altitude of about 300 meters above a bomber formation by a standard Fw 190 fighter, and then released. A small, solid-fuel rocket motor would be ignited, and the pilots would carry out attacks until their ammunition was exhausted, whereupon they would then initiate ramming attacks. Dornier-Werke's six contributions to this volume consist entirely of variations on its famous Do 335 tandem-engine bomber/heavy fighter. There is a wealth of information already in print on these variants: see J. Richard Smith, Eddie J. Creek, and Thomas Hitchcock's, Dornier 335, (Monogram Publications, Sturbridge MA, 1994), Karl Heinz Regnat, Dornier Do 335, An Illustrated History (Schiffer, 2003), and Marek Rys, Dornier 335 Pfeil, (AJ Press, 2000) Gerhard Fiesler Werke, in Kassel, famously known for producing the Storche light liaison aircraft, as well as Fi 103 V-1 Buzz Bomb, proposed several jet aircraft that were to be launched using large booster rockets. No prototype was constructed. Focke Wulf Flugzeugbau made by far the largest contribution to the aircraft design collection this book covers, with 41 projects, most to be powered by turbojet or ramjet engines. Focke Wulf's design sophistication shows, and several designs found their way into post-war aircraft. In particular, the Ta 183 Huckebein, with its sharply swept wings and high tail ultimately became the SAAB 29A Tunnin, the MiG 15 and MiG 17, and Argentina's Pulqui. Similar features were incorporated into postwar designs from the Yakovlev Design Bureau. Included, also, were piston-powered pusher designs as well as several asymmetric design proposals similar to those described above. Ramjet powered aircraft featuring large tail-mounted combustion chambers appear to have had particular appeal to Focke Wulf's designers. Also included is the famous VTOL Triebflügel, with its ramjet-tipped helicopter-like propeller blades rotating around the fuselage. There are several swept-wing, turbojet-powered bomber designs, as well. Each of these is worth a visit, if only to see what the first generation of advanced aircraft designers believed what would be its future, and the Focke Wulf section is an excellent place to start. The remainder of this book covers designs by Gothaer Waggonfabrik, Ernst Heinkel, Henschel Flugzeugwerke, Hütter, and Junkers. Gotha, manufacturer of trainers and light transports, produced several designs based on flying wings, sharply swept, powered by twin turbojets, typically in an over and under configuration. The Go 229B-1 two-seat nightfighter had its jet engines placed horizontally and closely resembled its single-seated cohort, the G0 229A-0 that was under flight development at the close of the war. Meyer expresses great enthusiasm for the design, noting its radar-dampening characteristics, and that the "stealthy" qualities were only fully realized in the United States some forty years later, but again failing to mention that such performance became possible only when computerized flight controls became available. Ernst Heinkel AG was a principal producer of combat aircraft that included bombers, fighters, seaplanes, and the first jet aircraft, the He 178 and He 280. Although eclipsed by Messerschmitt to produce the first operational jet fighter, the Me 262, Heinkel was directed to produce a light-weight fighter known as the He 162 Salamander, units of which were preparing for combat operations as the war ended. In fact, sources indicate that a Hawker Tempest was shot down by a Salamander on May 4, 1945. In all, some 800 Salamanders were under construction at the close of hostilities, and approximately one hundred were on assignment to combat units. Of the 23 Heinkel designs, 11 are variants of the Salamander design, some with swept wings (forward-swept, as well as aft), vee tails, or with jet engines below as well as above the fuselage. The remaining design proposals, indeed the Henschel and Junkers proposals are similar in layout to those described above; and quite frankly, at a certain point, these designs become redundant. There are a few interesting designs, such as the Heinkel "Lerche" and "Wespe" point defense fighters with their ducted-fan engine layouts and annular wings; but the remainder are much like those that preceded them. So what can we conclude about advanced aviation design in wartime Germany? Innovative, it certainly was, and many of the designs were aesthetically attractive in the way, it is said, that if something looks good, the likelihood is that it will fly well also. On the other hand, many of these designs would not survive into either detailed design, wind tunnel, or mock-up stages because their design features were incompatible with operational conditions (viz., belly-mounted turbojets prone to ingesting foreign objects); and even if a design were aerodynamically sound and free of aerodynamic deficiencies (almost never the case!), the cost of getting it mass-produced and to combat units was effectively beyond reach, and any new production had the effect of diminishing resources available for equipment then in service. Contrasting the dream-like quality of these designs with the tactical situation the Luftwaffe actually faced, there appears to have been a huge disconnect between the RLM and reality. The idea that turbojet engines, or even Argus pulse-jet engines could be cobbled onto any sort of swept-wing design and turn it into a combat aircraft is ludicrous. But such was frequently the case in a government and military establishment where personal power and influence often called the tune, to the detriment of the entire enterprise. It would be as if Germany was expending its resources on lottery tickets, hoping against hope that the gamble would somehow pay off. The question has to be then, whether these efforts, either singly or collectively, contributed to Germany's war effort, and my answer would be that they did not. For historians of aero technology, these advanced aircraft designs are meaningful beyond being historical curiosities, as they point the way toward how successor military establishments in both the East and the West went about turning these initial efforts into mature technologies. In the Soviet Union, German design influence persisted much more strongly than in the West, and for reasons that had to do with the much greater distance the Soviet Union had to travel to achieve parity with its former allies, now opponents in organizing Postwar Europe. German aero engineers and technicians found ready employment there. For the Soviets, the strategic problems were different, being predominantly defensive in character, and thus more amenable to adapting captured German aero technologies to its purposes, of which their post-war generation of jet fighters are excellent examples. The same cannot be said about the West, where highly talented aero engineers, such as Hans Mulhopp, formerly employed by Focke Wulf, could not find suitable employment. In fairness to the West, it must be noted that post-war cutbacks in defense spending made job opportunities scarce, at least until 1948, when the wartime alliance between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union disintegrated. Thereafter, the new strategic situation faced by the United States and its NATO allies following the Soviet Union's acquisition of nuclear weaponry caused them to adopt a policy of political containment with nuclear deterrence as the weapon of choice. This reliance on strategic forces rendered the talents and experience of Germany's wartime aircraft designers largely irrelevant. Nevertheless, a great deal of captured engineering data found its way into American aviation development, principally involving high-aspect ratio swept wing designs and podded engines used in the B-47 and B-52 programs. Convair's delta-wing aircraft designs may also have benefited as well. North American Aviation's F-86 program clearly benefited from German-developed data on the benefits of swept wing design. Some British designs, such as the de Havilland Vampire and Venom series of aircraft show a familial resemblance to the Focke Wulf Fw 226 Flitzer (Whizzer); but evidence appears to show that the two designs were in fact independently developed contemporaries. In the 1950s, the resurrected French aviation industry also fielded designs that bore strong resemblance to wartime German efforts. In most cases, however, German-inspired designs were soon supplanted by later ones bearing only a superficial resemblance to the former (although when I see an F-4 Phantom, I can't help but think that a Messerschmitt Me 262HG lies somewhere in its design heritage). In the end it really didn't matter what Germany had in the way of advanced technology because none of it was far enough advanced to make a difference. If the purpose of advanced technology was to provide a means of destroying the American and British bomber fleets, jet aircraft were essentially irrelevant as they arrived two years too late, and in far too few numbers to change the tide of battle. Short-term technological advantages enjoyed by German aircraft dissipated quickly as American and British aero engineering establishments rapidly developed aircraft with similar capabilities, and in far greater quantities. Beginning mid-1942, the Allies would out-produce and out-man anything Germany and its allies could field; and from 1943 onward, Germany could not count on facing opponents whose leadership, training, and equipment were inferior to its own, as had so often been the case in the first two years of the war. Much more importantly, Germany's opponents were united and resolute about continuing the war until Germany was defeated. In January 1943, at Casablanca, the United States and Great Britain, by demanding Germany's unconditional surrender, closed the door to any negotiated settlement to the war, and once Allied armies were on the continent, Germany's fate was sealed. Perhaps, had some decisions been made differently, Germany might have been able to hold out longer, but probably not as long as some might think. I enjoyed this book, which is why it took me as much time as it did to write this review. As an historian, I am much less enamored with the "Luftwaffe '46" idea than some who tend to think of this design history as a form of mental war-gaming in isolation from history as it actually occurred. Those wanting a work that gives a basic overview of this subject will also like it too. Modelers will also like it because it presents aircraft in plausible tactical marking that can be used with model kits that are currently available. Scratchbuilders will welcome this book as it will inspire a multitude of modeling projects that are unlikely to be kitted anytime soon. Thanks to Specialty Press for this review copy. [Ed. Read Volume 2 review on this site].

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