Germany's Forgotten Heavy Bomber - Dornier Do 19 

Armstrong Whitworth Whitley, looks like.

Yes, there's a specific look to those inter-war big aircraft. It extends to the French and Russian designs if you mask off the nose and cockpit. I think it reflects the demands on contemporary technology to make such a size of beast airworthy. Metal spars bracing the structure against the stresses of mostly-level flight. The change in look into WW2 (Rounder fuselage section, deeper wings) reflect improved technology, but also bracing teh craft for harsher manoeuvres, and against being shot at.

But flying straight!

Yes, after it'd had a furtive behind the hangar 'rendevous' with a Halifax.

Appreciate that a lot, thankyou!

Glad you enjoyed it, felt I had to go a bit more in depth to the politics as it's sort of the central factor in the whole story of the aircraft.

Huh, I didn't see that before but you're right!

@@aviationdeepdive The Stirling prototype wasn't even the same scale as the production aircraft i'v made a video about talking about Shorts will i see the S23 on here in the near future?

But they did though, they did setup and maintain a strategic bomber force - made up of over 1,000 Heinkel He 177s.

@@endi3386the Germans my have made 1,000 Heinkel 177s, but they never operated anywhere near that many. Meanwhile, the Allies produced 12,731 B-17s, 18,500 B-24s, 3,970 B-29, 7,377 Lancasters, and 2371 Stirlings. That is what's called a viable strategic bomber force. The most noteworthy use of the Heinkel He 177 was its use as a cargo carrier during the Soviet siege of Stalingrad, and because of continuing engine failures, it failed in that role.

At the time the decision to cancel the Do 19 and Ju 89 were taken Germany was in a militarily precarious situation with both Poland and France much stronger and easily able to invade Germany (on their own not in unison) especially if aided by Britain. It's no good having long range aircraft to bomb beyond the Urals or interdict British Convoys mid transatlantic from almost land locked Germany if troops and tanks are rolling across the border. . The belief is that many fighters and tactical aircraft would be needed to support the German army. It turns out to be a wrong decision in the long term. The Do 19 and Ju 89 would have evolved well with refinements and Jumo 211/DB601/DB605 engines. The Ju 89/Do 19 were cancelled but it was argue that German could have 4 engines bombers if they could be made to serve as tactical aircraft. This then led to the Ju 88, Ju 288 and He 177 dive bomber requirements. In the end the Lotfe 7 computing bomb sight and the StuVi 5B shallow dive bombing sight made dive bombing redundant by 1942 as these techniques were more accurate. Fw 200 that attacked Convoy Faith in 1942 managed to get a 3 direct hits in only 5 attack runs against moving convoy ships from 15,000ft. The two runs that missed were against warships that maneuvered out of the way of the falling bombs (25 seconds fall time) -The Luftwaffe supported the German Navy very poorly. Do 19/Ju 89 would have made a huge difference in 1942 ass they attacked convoys from a safe altitude for almost a year before escort carriers came in.

It's a mistake to try and extrapolate a single variable from Soviet operations and try to apply that to Germany at the time. There are so many thousands of variables at play that that comparison is not relevant. The claim that Germany would not have been able to win the early campaigns without tactical bombers is also a little too black and white. it is interesting that you pick the Soviet Union as an example, a country famous in WW2 for having essentially no strategic bombers. The Pe-8 is really the only one, and only 93 were produced. It was not suggested to get rid of every tactical bomber and replace it with strategic bombers, but it has been suggested that the lack of a reliable, sizeable strategic bomber force significantly harmed Germany. Losing air superiority would also certainly not affect heavy bombers as bad as tactical bombers, because by their nature tactical bombers fly lower altitude against tactical targets, and are thus far harder to defend and more vulnerable. High altitude formations are much harder to reach, and also significantly easier to defend for fighter escort. I don't think anybody is suggesting that Germany would have won the war or anything like that (that was over as soon as the US joined the party), but just that the the lack of a strategic bomber force meant that they could never put a huge amount of pressure on enemy industry, whilst Germany always had a huge amount of pressure on hers. Also keep in mind, the quotations are give are not necessarily my opinions - they are excerpts from letters and conversations from Luftwaffe officials or sources.

@@aviationdeepdive "it is interesting that you pick the Soviet Union as an example, a country famous in WW2 for having essentially no strategic bombers. The Pe-8 is really the only one, and only 93 were produced." And over 800 TB-3, getting old by WWII, but still definitely in use. And thousands of Il-4 that were medium bombers, but also used for strategic missions. I picked USSR because it was the most directly comparable. "The claim that Germany would not have been able to win the early campaigns without tactical bombers is also a little too black and white." It's simple fact. Germany was heavily reliant on having lots of support from the airforce during 1939 and 1940. And to get enough heavy bombers to be able to do ANYTHING useful, you need several hundred. And even being gracious about it, for every heavy bomber, you lose two medium bombers. Or even worse, more than 4 times as many light bombers like Stukas. "It was not suggested to get rid of every tactical bomber and replace it with strategic bombers" And? Germany had great difficulty maintaining enough aircraft operational even as it was. "but it has been suggested that the lack of a reliable, sizeable strategic bomber force significantly harmed Germany." Yes, by people that pretends that you can just switch out, the same way they argue that Germany should have just gone with an equal number of Tiger tanks instead of Pz-IIIs and Pz-IVs. Heavy bombers require 3 times the support infrastructure of medium bombers, while actually doing much less damage per plane, due to the lower accuracy and fewer missions flown over time. "Losing air superiority would also certainly not affect heavy bombers as bad as tactical bombers, because by their nature tactical bombers fly lower altitude against tactical targets, and are thus far harder to defend and more vulnerable. High altitude formations are much harder to reach, and also significantly easier to defend for fighter escort." What fighter escorts? Germany had NOTHING that would be suitable to fly as heavy bomber escorts. And yes it would affect them as badly, because they would be even more vulnerable while taking off and landing, while they would be spotted on radar even earlier, negating that advantage during the attack. "but just that the the lack of a strategic bomber force meant that they could never put a huge amount of pressure on enemy industry, whilst Germany always had a huge amount of pressure on hers." Yes, but here, once again we have the critical part of this concept. That the German industry was put under pressure SOLELY because the wallies employed THOUSANDS of aircrafts in doing so. And even with that HUGE amount of resources employed, the actual damage done to the German INDUSTRY was fairly low most of the time, while the amount of losses taken to the wallies bomber forces were MAJOR. Don't forget, several times, it was considered whether keeping up the bombing campaign was worth it at all or not. The ONLY REASON that the wallied bombing campaign was not stopped several of those times was because it was the only excuse the wallies had to tell Stalin they were DOING something. The amount of resources used by the wallied bombing campaign overall far FAR exceeds the amount of damage they caused to the German industry. It wasn't until 1944 when Germany was already essentially defeated and wallied conducted their "wipe cities from the map" raids that their effects on German industry became actually severe and worth the effort. Don't forget, German industrial production INCREASED all the way up to 1944. And most of the time, when industry was hit, the machinetools were too massive to take critical damage, so unless a bomb struck tools bullseye, sometimes they could be back in function just hours later and at worst it rarely took over two weeks to repair them. Oh no, this is why strategic bombing overall is a BAD idea. Because it's not the industry you're bombing, you're terrorbombing the people. The industry can also be hidden away, as the Germans did with a lot of critical production, making them exceptionally difficult to destroy or even find in some cases. There has been many simulations gamed out to test, where the wallies do not invest in heavy bombers. 8 or 9 times out of 10, Germany is defeated faster. Strategic bombing is more emotional than effective.

@@DIREWOLFx75 You've taken this extremely far, I don't need to remind you again that I've quoted Luftwaffe officials and sources, and my personal opinion barely comes into it. Part of the reason why your points don't stand up to scrutiny is because the Luftwaffe DID invest in the resource and manpower intensive infrastructure to maintain and upkeep a strategic bomber force, they just did it in the worst way possible - by mixing doctrines. Over 1,000 Heinkel He 177s were built, an aircraft that had significant design features chosen because of a romanticised ideal of a 'schnellbomber'. At that point in time, there was not a chance in hell that such an aircraft could outrun modern fighters of the day, but they went with it. Not with developments of the Do 19, or the Ju 89, but with the He 177. The simple fact is you act as though as it wasn't done by the Germans, but it was - just terribly ineffectively. By mixing doctrines, their single long range strategic bomber was horrendously ineffective, and so has largely been forgotten. You don't seem to understand that you are not arguing with me, you arguing with the points raised by Luftwaffe officials and the authors in the sources, not me. Apart from the points I've raised above, I don't feel a particular way about how much of a resource gambit strategic bombing is. The main point is, you act as though it would have been a bad idea for the Germans idea to invest in it, and perhaps it was, because they did - and they did it with an aircraft that was far inferior to any 'could-have-been' more standard design. One other point, you said the Germans had nothing that could fly as a fighter escort, but this is just mixing in even more incompetence from the Luftwaffe. The Focke-Wulf Fw 187 was proposed for this very job, and had performance that matched similar fighters of the time with twice the range - so this point is null.

I thought it looked a lot like the Sterling - both the cockpit and the steep angle on the ground.

@@jeffp3415 with a Whitley tail tacked on. Those make me laugh because they always appear to be flying down hill.

I also don't necessarily agree that they 'should' have developed a dedicated strategic bomber, but a part of my main point is that they did - just really badly. They spent the man hours and materials to produce 1,169 Heinkel He 177s - an aircraft that had an identity crisis. A 'strategic bomber' that had elements of the 'schnellbomber' (the concept that the bomber should be faster than the fighter) even though it must have been known fairly early on that the 177 was never going to be faster than fighters of the time. The result was an aircraft that suffered from Schnellbomber issues, without the advantages, and Strategic bomber issues, without the advantages. Had they invested this time and effort into a more traditional route of development such as the Dornier or the Junkers, the results would have been far better, and the doctrine at least consistent. That is the extent to which my personal opinion comes into the video, the rest is simply quotes from Luftwaffe officials or sources.

The He 177 was not a bad plane per se. It was an unfortunate decision to design it as a dive bomber and therefore use a "twin engine" concept with coupled DB606 engines. These coupled engines, like their British counterparts, were extremely problematic. Converted to the four-engined He 177 B variant as planned, the He 177 could have the potential to become a nightmare for the British, as Operation Steinbock demonstrated. But it was much too late and the Allies were at the door.

Of course Germany was right in every respect of how to conduct the war. That’s why they won.😂

@@annoyingbstard9407 They'd have lost even faster if they'd followed a strategic bombing strategy.

@@Splattle101 Everyone respects a RU-vid expert. Carry on..

This one, despite being made for the 'Ural bomber project', would ironically have not been able to fulfil it's purpose (at least initially) as it's range simply wasn't up to it. Although with some more development it probably would have been able to. The Ju 89 had a similarly poor range of 1,600 km (995 mi) but by the end of it's development cycle, it had turned into the Ju 290 with a range of 6,148 km (3,820 mi) - more than enough to reach the Urals and back. So I'm sure in time the Do 19 probably would have grown into it's requirements, but yes it would have used a huge amount of fuel.

Dont forget the Junkers 390 and Heinkel 277/274

"I wonder if Germany did build some long range bombers, could they bomb factories in the Ural mountains, and if so, to what effect ?" Little to none. Just as the Soviet bombing raids against Germany in -41 and -42 were barely noticed, the same or even worse would be true the other way around, because Germany would have just as few bombers, but these would have to fly HIGH, where most of the Soviet fighters were at their best, over predictable routes, face heavy AA fire and be no better at hitting anything than other early war heavy bombers were. And it wouldn't have been until their first failed bombing raid that Germans would even realise just how difficult it is to achieve acceptable accuracy from high altitude heavy bombers. It's one of the reasons USSR mostly quit their attempts at it, because it would simply take far too much resources both building up enough bombers AND to develop a good enough bombsight to make them worth building. Also, every heavy bomber made would mean NOT having at least TWICE as many medium bombers. To have any chance of doing anything beyond rearranging some dirt on the ground, Germany would need at least a few hundred heavy bombers. 200 heavy bombers would mean at minimum 400 fewer medium bombers. That would be a disastrous trade. Because what is often not brought up is the fact that compared to their expenses both building and flying, heavy bombers are exceptionally inefficient. While a Stuka could somewhat reliably deliver half their bombs within 20m from a target, and a medium bomber could put half their bombs within 100m of a target, heavy bombers accuracy was more like 50% within 500m of the target. For certain targets, like largescale refineries, such can be acceptable, but overall, for heavy bombers to have any real effect, you needed overwhelming numbers and air superiority. Germany had absolutely no chance of achieving either over the Urals.

@@DIREWOLFx75 Good answer.

Not in the inter war and early war when the soviets simply had nothing that could reach that altitude reliably to hunt it down

Strategic bombing does not necessarily equal fire bombing or atomic bombing. In this context we strictly refer to it as a method to put pressure and reduce effectiveness of an enemies industry via bombing factories, docks, railroads... etc in an enemy country. Considering that the Luftwaffe had no issue bombing civilians in the Battle of Britain, and then rocketing them with V1 bombs, this 'morality' issue isn't directly relevant to the topic. The reason Germany didn't develop long-range heavies to a large extent was because they didn't place enough emphasis on strategic bombing of enemy industry, which was a mistake, and it was too late by the time they recognised it.

@@aviationdeepdive Nonsense.