The BoB wasn't about fighter vs fighter. The RAF prime goal was to attack bombers. Bomber losses did count and they counted more than fighter losses.

Imagine if the LW only sent fighters over? LOL! Think maybe they should have done it that way?

As for a mauling, Sept 15th when the RAF was supposed to have been worn down they did just what to the massed attack that day?

For whatever reason, Hitler was forced to leave the back door open and that did seal the doom of the Third Reich. So who won?

Sure it was. Fighters are the only aircraft capable of winning and holding air superiority. The mission of the Luftwaffe was to gain and hold that air superiority over the invasion area.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...4/ai_74582443/

Yes, I agree. The German logistical system was not prepared to handle a protracted campaign. They simply could not replace losses at the rate the RAF' system could thanks to some brilliant pre-war planning.

So even though the RAF on a tactical level suffered higher losses in air to air combat, on a strategic level, they bled the Luftwaffe dry.

Nooot entirely true. The German strategy was heavily bent on disabling the British airfields with bombers by cratering them and destroying planes on them. Which they did quite efficiently. So efficiently that the air defence of Southern England was on the brink of collapse...until some stray German bomber accidentally dropped its bombs in the London suburbs. Churchill ordered a retaliation for attacking civilian targets.

After the British retaliation strikes on German cities, angered Hitler ordered the bombers concentrate on Britain's cities, mainly London, which of course let the British repair the fields and continue operating them.

Biiig mistake. I seriously believe that there might have been a very different outcome to the battle if this hadn't happened... But that's just pure speculation :)

Now that is some pathetic sheet! Pure postwar-propaganda.
Sometimes I'm pretty glad, that I am living in the 'land that lost'. :rolleyes:

As things played out the fact is that the Luftwaffe failed to gain air superiority, a pre-requisite for an invasion attempt and therefore failed strategically.

Tactically the issue was undecided. The RAF refused to be drawn into a fighter v fighter struggle and concentrated on attacks on the bombers, which were the only thing that could do damage. Dowding carefully managed the strength and fighting efficiency of the RAF by holding units back and rotating units out of the southeast sector.

Now the big "what if" -- If the German forces had decided to attempt an invasion and if the Luftwaffe could prevent the Royal Navy intervening then the RAF would have been forced into a fighter v fighter conflict for air supremacy over the channel coast. Things may then have gone very differently.

Planes can be replaced far quicker than pilots and crew. The LW lost a lot of trained pilots and crew -for no real gain- in the BoB. How many of those had been glider pilots since they were kids, knowing energy and maneuver in ways most power pilots don't learn for a long time?

There is also the morale loss to the entire German military. They were stopped for the first time. But that's okay since they got used to it in time to ;earn the new lessons; How to Lose Ground 101, 201, etc.

It is same in most countries. I saw the other day where a museum worker was writing an article on the "P47 problem" trying to attribute the performance of the P47 to the destruction of the Luftwaffe.

I agree with him that the P47 is type of aircraft that shot down most of the Luftwaffe and bore the brunt of that task.

However, the USAAF could have practically flown paper airplanes and beat the Luftwaffe under the conditions of 1944 with the numerical superiority and pilot quality advantage in the Allies possession.

It was men and not machines that won the day, just like the Battle of Britain. My hat is off to the pilots of the RAF who served in that time.

Churchill was right in calling them "the Few". If you examine the data, it was a meat grinder for the FC pilots. The world should be thankful for the lucky few who survived and those who gave all of their tomorrows.

I have a version of history, that I would like to simply throw into the room here, not knowing if its same kind of propaganda like above or not. It was however teached to me by a medium (I don't know, which, TV or books) and although I never bet much on it, it has influenced my thinking and so I'd still like to see it discussed.

That version goes in short following:

FC was indeed near to be downed at one point of the battle (lack of pilots and/or planes) and only the tactical changing of the Luftwaffes orders (to attack cities, not airfields anymore) save it from being extinguished.
That change was probably ingnited by a Ju88, that dropped its bombs accidentially over London, which was avenged by RAF bombing Berlin in (one of) the next night. Since then Hitler gaver order to attack cities to counter that terror with terror.

I bet its wrong in detail, but what about it in the general layout?

Correct as far as I know but the BIG mistake that the Luftwaffe made was not hitting the radar as they didnt know how important Chain Home was ;) By the way this thread is not like the one that Odin made on the Ubizoo. He was very disappointed Britain wasnt invaded and conquered.

Who is not?

http://www.google.de/url?source=imgr...TiihJ1A7VCqVGQ


LOL, just kidding!

What is wrong with beans on toast??????? on the other hand dont tell me :)

Maybe had something to do with the day when all British reserves were committed. Perhaps that day the LW had sent all theirs too? One more raid would have gone through untouched and the limit of resistance would have been seen.

Best luck for the British was that the German Leader was no good at being Mr. Cool and Collected.

What you are saying is correct as far as the action taken by the Luftwaffe. That does not change the fact the LW mission was to gain air superiority over the invasion area.

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/ETO/...-German-A.html

Ah.. I seem to have missed that post from Untamo ... so it seems to be at least a spread knowledge. Thanks.

Britain didn't loose because of only one strayed german bomber?
As a consequence you could say, it would have lost? Thats the interesting point.

Funny, if you think it through in all it's consequences, this one german bomber maybe changed the outcome of the entire war.

Whose to say. In my opinion they would have lost.

I see Germany got lucky in the fact all of her opponents up until England were even more unprepared for war than she was.....

The Luftwaffe logistical system was just not up to the task of gaining air superiority over England.

Germany was taking losses at a much lower rate than the RAF but still the rate was more than Germany could sustain.

In fact the German logistical system was so poor that even before the Battle of Britain, German pilot losses were more than they could sustain. Germany had a shortage of training resources and pilots before the war even began.

I see the fundamental failure in the German logistical system is the fact the Geschwader's owned the airplanes. When an aircraft was damaged and required depot level maintenance, it stayed on the Geschwaders books and counted against it's strength until it was repaired. It simply left the fighting units without an airplane while the airplane was in maintenance.

The British system had a separate organization that was responsible for fixing anything but minor damage. If the airframe was going to be down for the next days operations, it was released from the Squadron's and that maintenance organization would issue out an operational replacement almost immediately.

This meant that while FC was taking much heavier losses than the LW, the FC Squadrons were almost always at higher organizational readiness and could keep more airplanes in the fight than the Germans.

It would have taken a huge land invasion for Germany to defeat Britain. All the German battles for superiority from the air failed in the BOB.

German arrogance was superior to their stupidity for not scrutinizing the British tenacity, resources and ability to defend "their island". The Germans did not do a sensible accounting to determine whether they could win.

Hitler was surrounded by Yes men, and dolts, with few exceptions. The Luftwaffe's record was always backed up by land forces. This was ignored by Hitler. The arrogant Hitler and Hermann Göring were full of cheese and confidence.

Everything the Luftwaffe could muster was used against England and results were rarely acceptable. The lightning air war just didn't cut it with the bulldog tenacity of the British... to never give up.

It would take some very powerful arguments or debate to convince anyone that Germany achieved any kind of victory in the Battle of Britain.

So lose, quit, walkaway, find something else to do could never be considered a victory. Unless victory meant something entirely different than it is explained in a dictionary.

Undoubtedly... the Brits won the Battle fo Britain.

Let's say that winning was easier because of it.

It doesn't necessarily follow. Most of the aircraft were off the fighter bases by the time the bombers came over, and there were bases further north they could get to if their own bases were incapable of receiving them.

It would IMHO have been at least another month for things to become impossible if the bases had been continually bombed (though they were becoming uncomfortable at the time Hitler switched), and even that is by no means a certainty. By a couple of months, the autumn weather would have been too rough for the crossing.

If there had been an attempted crossing the British Navy would have been there to fight it, even if that meant losing all their ships, which even with no RAF at all is not IMO that likely.

Why exactly is this school work sheet "Pure postwar-propaganda"? It seems to lay out a basic factual timetable with fairly accurate figures does it not?

The Spitfire and Hurricane were indeed new and faster than the biplanes they had recently replaced. They did give the RAF the edge, the LW could not sustain the rate of attrition that daylight raids entailed. The German onslaught in Western Europe was brought to a halt for the first time.

The following year Hitler led the German nation against Russia and the rest is history..........

I'd be very interested in hearing how this period of history is taught in German schools these days.

If their logistical system was different and they did not tie the airframe to the unit, it would have overcome much of the attrition problems.

They still had pilot shortages but they also never took the emergency measures that England did to fill those shortages. The Luftwaffe fought the campaign with the same pilot pool that started the war.

Dowding with much foresight was shoving anyone who could fly into a fighter cockpit during the battle.

The Luftwaffe was the winner on a tactical level and suffered a lower attrition rate because of it.

Warfare is filled with such examples of forces winning the tactical fight on the battlefield but not achieving a strategic victory. What matters ultimately England was not invaded by the Germans. The Allies are the clear winner in the Battle of Britain.

I agree with your assessment. Galland points out that plans for the invasion were not considered serious by the officers of the German Military.

It certainly reads as post-war propaganda and offers a very myopic view that does not accurately reflect the facts.

No they did not give the RAF the edge. They simply put the aircraft on par. this made things more difficult for the Luftwaffe but it not factual to say the Spitfire and Hurricane won the battle by defeating the Bf-109.

The facts say the tactical battle was a loss for the Hurricane and Spitfire.

http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/8...rationallo.jpg

The Strategic battle was won by the RAF for a number of reasons.

The RAF had the best interception and control procedures in the world. They had more SE fighters and maintained a much higher sortie rate. This was backed up by a brilliant logistical system that allowed their units to maintain very high operational readiness states.

http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/490...ghterstren.jpg

Individual aircraft performance had nothing to do with it at all. The performance margins simply are not large enough.

Crump, before we get into an argument over semantics this is a school work-sheet for, I would presume, nine to eleven year olds. It is not "propaganda", it is factual.

Kids in this age range are taught a basic factual time line. The Spitfire and the Hurricane did give the RAF the edge in the battle. I would imagine the outcome rather different if the RAF had been flying Gladiators. The worksheet nowhere says these planes defeated the '109. It is about the tools the RAF had been newly equipped with.

You are correct that a number of other factors came into play however the carriculum can't cram everything in and for this age range should'nt either. Note how it says "historians are interested". At this age the idea is to equip the kids with the tools they'll need further on in their school career.

I find the use of the word "propaganda" in this thread interesting too. Not something we British need to use too often as we're very rarely subjected to it.

Sure it is...

It builds national pride in British Children. It is not different than "George Washington and Cherry Tree" type stories we get told are fact as children in the United States.

http://en.allexperts.com/q/U-S-Histo...history-20.htm

Every country does this with their children.

That is how I read it.

It definitely leads the reader to make the assumption and paints the picture the Luftwaffe was defeated because of the Spitfire and Hurricane.

http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/7...ewonthebob.jpg


The sheet poses the question question: Why did the RAF win the Battle of Britain?

And it answers the question: "the RAF had the edge over the Luftwaffe with its new faster fighters the Spitfire and Hurricane."

Does all this verbal self abuse really matter?

The Gemans lost, and it's a damn good thing.

[QUOTE=Crumpp;298958]





That is how I read it.

It definitely leads the reader to make the assumption and paints the picture the Luftwaffe was defeated because of the Spitfire and Hurricane.

You read it that way because you're a middle-aged aero-engineer in the mid-west not a nine year old British school kid.

The Luftwaffe was defeated because of the Hurricane and Spitfire, not the Gladiator or Defiant. They inflicted on the LW a rate of attrition it was unable to sustain. The LW task was to establish air superiority over southern England. In this they were defeated. A tactical defeat.
The establishment of air superiority was a prerequisite for any invasion attempt. As this was not established no invasion attempt was made in the summer of 1940. A strategic defeat.

The Spitfire and Hurricane were not put in the air by the "allies" either but by Great Britain and were flown by members of the RAF from Great Britain and it's dominions, a handful of brave Americans and some very determined Czechs and Poles.

These are facts. Not "propaganda."

Are you sure American schools still teach the George Washington thing?

No, it contains wrong information - or at least a bent truth - and the relations are exaggerated. "...the small innocent britain all alone versus the mightly german warfare power..." - in that picture...

But not by the RAF - by The Channel!

Thats what allied politics wanted Germany to do since WW1 ended.

Well thats different... grown up in the GDR (socialistic) I've got taught a quite extreme version of history. Nowadays its a western based sight, but Germany's self chosen role in the world as a 'Offender nation', which has to bow head about our history, hasn't been overcome yet by our politics (at least I feel so). And so the school stuff is not the same, but similar as in that british sheet. Allies won, because we as the bad ones just couldn't win. We... however... don't get teached pride for our country, even if it has nothing to do anymore with the one from 1933-1945. And maybe thats a pity, but maybe not.

Not by the RAF? C'mon. Who honestly believes that the RAF and its tactical situation had nothing to do with defeating the LW?

The LW had its own struggles, that's for sure, by fall 1940 they suffered from lack of resources, lack of experienced pilots and got down-prioritized on the western front. Most pilots during the start of the BoB had atleast 3 years experience. Majority of the resources went east for the Soviet campaign. They were on serious fuel shortage, U.Steinhilper mentioned in his book that they were cut down on fuel and the hourly engine warm ups was stopped because of that shortage and so on. They even started mixing small amounts of fuel in the engine oil to get the performance from the engines needed for a scramble from cold starts. Figured that should save them some drops.

Couple more things about the LW and its tactics. The schwarm formation was good and all but the setup of that schwarm was highly ineffective for the guys not leading it. They used "katschmareks" at the back, which only role was to protect the wing leaders/higher rank and usually they were the most inexperienced pilots. The high scorers like Galland was always under protection from a "katschmarek", usually never the other way around. It was never a collaboration and that cost them dearly. Many claims that those tactics were in fact reducing their pilot stock from the "recruitment side" which explains why they were in such shortage of pilots early on.

Secondly, widespread use of "Freie Jagd" basically served as intel for the RAF and RAF usually routed their wings away from those so that they could focus on bomber formations. LW tipped off the RAF too much by doing that and the LW probably severely underestimated RAFs radar, comms and control systems. LW didn't know how much RAF knew IMO.

And lastly, tactical situation. There were one time where RAF was under heavy pressure and that was up to the end of the airfield raids and bombings. Suddenly the Germans focused on bombing London and cities which resulted in some extra breathing space for the RAF. Besides the fact that UK had more resources, huge tactical advantage, higher production and better recruitment, I guess the LW had a chance. But not with the antique attitudes they struggled with from a less mature air warfare that many pilots from the Legion Condor enforced.

Some pretty good points all around and a very balanced analysis from Crumpp which i mostly agree with, except the propaganda part (i wouldn't call a simplified school assignment meant for 10 year old children that).

On another note:

This is not about fuel economy, it's for making the engine easier to start. When the oil is cold it's more viscous and needs more torque for the engine to fire, placing a strain on the starter motors and/or battery supply in case of failed starts and subsequent retries, not to mention having to wait longer until it warms up because otherwise the oil pressure is too much, pipes burst and oil leaks develop.

By mixing fuel the oil can be diluted and that lowers its viscosity, making the engine easier to start. Eventually, the fuel in the oil gradually burns and/or evaporates and things are back to normal.

The way i read the whole thing is that since they couldn't afford fuel for hourly warm-ups to maintain the engines in a "ready to run" condition, they started using the next best alternative method.

Many aircraft (especially the USAF ones and probably most of them) later in the war had oil dilution switches just for that purpose, so the engineers wouldn't have to manually mix fuel into the oil reservoir. If a pilot expected cold weather during his next start-up and take off or if the plane was to be left with the engine off for a longer period of time, the pilot would set the oil dilution switches to on after landing and keep the engine running for a few minutes before shutting down.

This ensured that on the next start-up, oil would be pre-mixed with fuel and the engine would be easier to start. ;)

According to one of the guys that was there, yes it was. DB601's(or 605's for that matter) never had start problems compared to carburetted allied engines. Fuel savings by thinning out the oil a bit compared to warming up a 35/37L V12 every hour is pretty self explanatory. It was also a great compromise because cold starts with dilluted oil kinda messes up the viscosity quite a bit. Some claimed that the gasoline in the oil would vapourize and ventilate out from the crankcase but they also knew that cold starts with that dilluted oil would put more friction on internal components as opposed to warm ups thus decreasing the engine's operating time between rebuilds/check ups. Which is pretty accurate.

To keep the oil from freezing and there is nothing wrong with that practice. If the oil is too thick, it will not lubricate the engine causing damage on starting. The fuel lowers the viscosity and prevents freezing. As the engine warms up, the fuel vaporizes and escapes out the breather.

Airplane oil was single viscosity and not the multi-viscosity popular today. That being said, there is a trend to return to single viscosity oils. I use good AeroShell 100W single viscosity in my airplanes.

http://www.mountainflying.com/Pages/...nter_woes.html

This was in France, Coquelle airbase in september and october 1940. XXXX wasn't freezing there then. I'll drop a direct quote from Steinhilper himself so that you speculators can focus on something else:

"From the middle of September there was a new procedure whilst our aircraft stood 'at readiness' which showed that supplies were being tightened up on the Channel front. We didn't spot it at the time, but it was probably one of the first signs that High Command was beginning to accept that the battle was over and didn't want to waste any more supplies than absolutely necessary on it.

Normally, when we were in our Stage 1 readiness, the ground crew started the aircraft up every hour to keep the engines warm. This was to keep the engine oil thin and the moving parts ready to go at full power for a scramble. The pilots sat close to the aircraft in deck-chairs, a scene identical to our counterparts, who would be sitting a few miles north across the Channel. It was decided that this constant starting and warming up of engines was a waste of precious fuel and so a technical directive came from the head of Luftwaffe Engineering. In future, as soon as the engines had been warmed up for the first time, two litres of aviation grade petrol were to be poured into the engine to mix with the lubricating oil. Any shortfall on the oil level would then be topped up to just above normal. Then the engine was briefly run again to achieve a good mixture of oil and petrol throughout the lubrication circuit."

From the book "Spitfire on my tail" by Ulrich Steinhilper & Peter Osbourne.

The cold weather start system became standard on German Aircraft. It pumped fuel into a small tank which when full would be emptied into the oil sump at the proper mixture ratio.

Yeah I can hear you say that but that's beside my point which was the original agenda by mixing fuel in the oil towards the end of BoB. If you know anything about engines and oil you also know that dilluted oil, or thinned out with petroleum, decrease its lubrication capabilities up until the temps get high enough to ventilate the petroleum. It was a compromise to improve reaction time. Interesting to hear that it became standard with a mixing tank on German aircraft, do you have any references on that?

When the engine is at lower temperatures, a lower viscosity oil is desirable to keep the top end lubricated.

That is the purpose of the fuel, to lower the viscosity. As the temperature rises, the fuel is vaporized and vented leaving the oil at its pre-mix viscosity.

I honestly do not understand the point you are trying to make.

It is a measure to reduce wear on the engines, too.

Why do think they recommend pickling over ground starts and runs for aircraft engines today that experience more than a few weeks without being flown?

The best thing you can do to keep an airplane healthy is fly it. One of the worst you can do is ground run it up over and over without flying it.

That will cause corrosion and reduce the engine life faster than just letting the airplane sit.

It is as I stated, you simply do not just lower the engine oils viscosity when you mix gasoline products in it. Gasoline also acts as a solvent and that includes decreased oil film pressure resistance, like shear stress and tensile stress capabilities. It doesn't reduce wear in the sense that thinned out oil, using gasoline, works as a lower viscosity purpose refined oil, it makes it more fluid. What you do is that you only lower the viscosity but in the same time you alter its characteristics needed for other things besides flow. That's the difference.

It was good enough for the engineers to include it as the standard winter starting system on all Luftwaffe aircraft.

You can look in Teil 7 of the Flugzeug Handbuch for the FW-190 series for a more complete description.

Germans did not use natural petroleum fuels.....

Their avgas is more like a light oil with a distinctive burned coal smell to it. We have a few gallons to give White One's cockpit an authentic smell, LOL.

It was good enough because it was wartime and things had to be done. That doesn't mean it wasn't a compromise.

Avgas still needs to work as avgas, all gasolines are basically petroleum(oil) products, the biggest difference between oil and gasoline are additives and destillation. For a gasoline engine to run you need fuel with higher energy than oil, for that you need to add ingredients to it. Those ingredients usually also make it work as a solvent. Even though they had a "light oil" etc. they still had to use something that worked as gasoline. No chance in hell those engines put out their full output on "light oil".

While the fuel - oil mix certainly isn't good for the engine, it probably is still better to use it once every two weeks than having the engine being started up every hour for two weeks straight, only to be used once. Also, fuel is only one thing saved, it also saves a load of man hours, which is just as important.

I'm honestly confused about the point being argued :-P

From where i'm standing the whole thing reads like "we don't want to burn fuel warming up every hour, so we just use oil dilution to cut out the warm-up time from a possible scramble sequence".

Compromise or not, it was considered a good enough practice that most if not all USAF warbirds had an oil dilution system as well.

Well, my point regarding fuel was that the oil/fuel mixing stuff on the western front started as a fuel saving measure. Which two of you didn't believe until(hopefully) I posted a direct quote, and from there it went the usual forum way. Picking out one liners from my posts to find something else to argue etc. Either way, I'm done with that topic yo. Let's go back to how the LW got butthurt over BoB 'ol chaps!

Ah, i see...you were arguing the reason behind it while i read it as "fuel savings is a direct consequence of oil dilution"...in any case it makes sense now, cheers :grin:

I had no contention on the fuel savings. I was pointing out that using a fuel oil mix to start the engine once was an improvement over the reduction in service life from continuous starts and ground runs.

You said it was bad for the engine, I pointed out the system became standard because it is better for the engine than the repeated ground runs.

So is this still practiced today? I guess not. How about that. Did you read anything about what I wrote about gasoline and solvent capabilities? How it works with engine oil? Tell you what, put a few drops of oil in your hand, get some on your thumb and index fingers and rub them together, then add a few drops of gasoline on and mix it together with the oil in your hand and repeat. Notice if you have more or less friction in the mixed oil compared to pure oil. That's what your bearings will experience. First few seconds of a cold start is the harshest time of your engine's running life. When it's warm started you still have enough oil in your bearings from the last start, plus the oil is thin enough to transport immediately. Cold oil/drained bearings takes a second or two for oil pressure to build up. You do lower the viscosity but in the same time you sacrifice lube quality. It's more about getting the oil to where you want it, not better lubrication. So yeah, in my world it is a compromise.

Edit* Crap, I was done with this topic yo, see what you didded.

If anyone had the need to keep a piston engine aircraft warmed up at all times to launch an intercept mission without access to prime power....


It certainly would still be in practice!

:)

I srsly doubt that with todays oil/starter/battery/engine quality. Those lumps back then were heavy and crude enough just to crank empty. lol I want one.

Rolls Royce Merlin engines .... crude?

Considering that you today can squeeze out that hp/torque safely from a piston engine half its size, I'd say so.

Internal combustion engines... pretty well done back then.

There are certainly refinements in oils, fuels, computerized ignition systems today, which provide more horsepower.

Even if they had current technology back then we have today their engines wouldn't have done any better than they did. The conditions those old warbirds had to fly under were delimiting.

All types of weather and environmental extremes, shortages of adequate parts, etc. I doubt the screaming little internal combustion engines we have today would have been reliable under such conditions.

Back then horsepower was important, but reliability was just as important.

Take a modern Formula One engine that has such tight tolerances it has to be heated to operating temperature -just to start without being ruined- as an example of the best power/weight IC made, and they are good for one race....

hope no one thinks that all the parts in those exchange easily.

That kind of fit was possible in 1936 too. The tightness of machining then for those engines was high though nowhere as CNC fast as now. But they did have to make the things able to cold start, be fixed relatively quickly, and last just a bit longer.

Perhaps you need to have cut metal yourself to understand just how fine the better AC engines of those times really are. Calling the Merlins crude is like saying that people in the past were stupid because they didn't know what is known by some people now. Yet we can't get a real dialog on global warming....

You want crude, get an old Harley made to 1910 technology -- any made up to perhaps the 60's.

If you want to compare today's F1 engines with older technology, you should compare it with older F1 engines, not aircraft engines. Turbocharged these managed up to about 500 hp from 3 litres displacement in 1939, considerably more than contemporary aircraft engines. Naturally aspirated they were at about 50 hp per litre, today were at about 300.

Why? Formula racing is a very different sport just from the 60's let alone the 30's, not just in the cars but the monnnnney poured into it. Is anyone winning with cars built in old barns in the last 20-30 years?

I've seen the Austrian air-rifle that Lewis and Clark took across the American continent and back. It's nothing as good as an M-1 yet I wouldn't be gauche enough to call it crude. The thing was very fine even for today. And look at those really old musical instruments that didn't have MIDI or pickups of any kind.. crude?

Crude AC engines were the radials they used in early WWI.

You can't know much about engines if you don't realize that any piston engine from the 1940's were crude. F1? Get a grip dude, taking an extreme approach like that and comparing those engines to Merlins just makes you look narrow. One race? Read the F1 regulations for 2011, and also compare how many revolutions those engines makes between tear downs to a Merlin from 1940. We're talkin roughly 19000rpm compared to 2500rpm. I wouldn't be surprised if F1 engines surpass Merlins in terms of longevity through crank revolutions. But put simply, they are not comparable.

I'm not calling the Merlins crude because people back then were stupid, you would probably think like that but I'm saying that Merlins(And DB600 series for that matter) are crude because it was on a lower step on the evolutionary scale. Yes, we still use internal combustion engines and yes it is (mostly) the same principles but when a 3L straight six from BMW can fork out over 300hp/400nm reliable power you gotta wake up and smell the coffee man. There's a reason to why piston engines left fighter aircrafts. They were crude, too much prone to failures and something better came around.

Want a fair comparison? Take a 1940's car engine and compare it to a modern one. Any engine.

Did too.

LOL, I've worked with engineers and machinists from that era back in the 80's. I know fine work when I see it and those Merlins were fine. There were damned few cars then made to the same standards but you can compare a period Rolls to a period Ford any time you want.
Or perhaps some time you can talk with someone who has had a period BMW, Daimler or Merlin apart, seen the craft work and put micrometers and verniers on the actual pieces instead of comparing apples to oranges on a juice-squeezed basis.

The switch to jets is simple. Props lose thrust with increased speed and jets don't. Props start to become brakes around .7 Mach. That's why 50's-modern fighters went to jet power.

As to comparing a 300HP IC engine to a 1200-2000+ HP engine as to redline and power to weight, that is a poor comparison. Or even comparing car motors that when something goes wrong you pull over to the side of the road to AC engines that have to be more reliable, just go ahead but don't expect me to take you seriously because I know better.

Small engines can run much faster than larger engines and they generally need to. The less power you output, the more efficient you can make the engine as well. As you increase size your weight and volumes increase by cubes while load-bearing cross sections are 2D, the strength increases by the square only. It is straight physics that says the smaller can be stronger and faster, it is technology that says how small you can build well. An ant can lift many times it's own weight so that makes humans uselessly weak??

Yes they can and do make finer IC engines nowadays. Pretty much all of them much smaller and gawdawful expensive.

Using the word CRUDE to describe the better engines of those days is an insult to the people who designed and built them. Like I wrote above, you want CRUDE then go look at a 1915 AC engine because those things fit the word without any comparisons needed at all.

I'll just wait till Crumpp weighs in since he has been hands-on with the hardware and seems to know some things about machining as well.

MaxGunz, you're contradicting yourself on a large scale. Us who knows a bit about engines also knows that crude quite often means better reliability. Look at a pushrod 350 SB Chevy for example. I never said they weren't reliable. Who said anything about crude = higher bearing tolerances etc.??? I also didn't study engine mechanics and get a certificate/work as an engine mechanic to argue with tools like yourself on the internet, so this is REALLY the last thing I post about those damn lumps. Do yourself a favour and try to assume that people have an idea of what they post about before you answer them back with tons of lecturing. Should save you some time typing. ;) Sing it to your wife instead.

Kimosabi vs MaxGunz

Straight up, good heated discussion should not lead to personal attacks. You can't call someone a "tool" and not expect counter-attack. I was enjoying the engine discussion, even though off topic.

Save the mud slinging and make your debate without the name calling and personal put down remarks. Otherwise you won't leave a good choice for moderation.

All in all I wish my car got the mileage this silly thread got :rolleyes:

Us that's worked in tool and die, precision machining for years, after years of design school down to materials and strengths wouldn't know a thing about any of that. We're just tools I guess. But for who I don't have the foggiest.

I'll just drag my knuckles along out of this now that the mud has started to fly. :rolleyes:

The designers from the 1940's knew more about high powered piston engine aircraft design and engines than we do today.

Nobody is building 2000 hp (+) piston engine powered aircraft today.


Computer controls, chemical engineering, and materials science have allowed us to build to better engines in some respects today. As far as engine knowledge and engineering, a mechanical engineer from the 1940's would just have to learn today's design tools but there is not any new knowledge we could teach him. We could learn from his experience however!!

Yeah rights and wrongs all over the place. Sorry if I offended you MaxGunz, but I am done here and it is how I roll. Too happy inside to jump back on this. Got some good news today and I'll be dancing with polar bears soon. Yoohooo!

Crumpp, some I agree with and some I don't. I'll leave it at that. Hugz and kizzes. :)

*edit* Nearmiss, I was expecting a counter-attack. It's just that I was done here. Still am lol. Hugz, No kizz for you.

Back around 1970 my father took me to see a co-worker who had built a VW-engine powered airplane in his barn. I was told that they ran lower revs with extra-heavy pistons (he showed a regular VW piston and a special 2x as heavy piston) because as he put it, you don't want the engine to seize up there. The extra weight was for extra inertia -- I was told -- to help keep the piston moving.

Was that just something special to VW engines used in small GA AC?

Perhaps 40 years ago is just ancient history. What differences do more modern regular AC IC engines have from ground car engines?

I have never heard that. I always thought the larger pistons were to increase displacement to increase power.

http://www.eaa.org/experimenter/arti...owerplants.asp

LOL, these were thicker x2 at the head but otherwise the same diameter. Picking both up, it was easy to tell which was twice the weight. He was running the VW engine at around 3000 rpm, not much faster. Maybe just paranoia?

On 4 wheels, 3000 rpm was mid-low end revs for my late 60's Type 3's that I ran in the 80's. 3000 rpm was nowhere near the power end of those. It is the rpms where the gears synchronized and it was possible to shift without using the clutch which LOL was the same speed my 750cc and 650cc bikes did the same. That was a good thing to know when my clutch cable snapped on me one day right in rush hour traffic on rte 13 in Dover, DE. I managed to get from the south end clear up to the bike shop well past the NASCAR "Monster Mile" to buy a new cable and get the thing fixed.

Those old VW engines were very light for what they cranked out. I had one with twin carbs and another with fuel injection. My measure of efficiency is gas mileage, the twin carb engine in the Fastback got 36/gal mostly highway but mixed driving when it was in good tune, and I ran well over the speed limit on highway back then though my pedal to the floor on level road would only get me 75-78 mph. The fuel injected engine only ran in the Squareback body, it got about 30-32 to the gallon with top level speed almost the same. No radiator and that magnesium alloy, and they ran like tops. I had a neighbor who worked on "good cars" who told me that the VW 1600 pancake engine is the same design as in a 914 Posche but with cheaper alloy and looser tolerances. Yet I could still get and hold high revs just fine.

Of course, those were 'crude'. I wish I still had either one.

Instead we've to listen to patriotic modern day kids who believe the US/Brits won the war by themselves.
I doubt anyone would've won against Germany alone, maybe Russia but they would've been defeated if it wasn't for Hitlers foolish misstakes & planning.

Nazi Germany without Japan or Italy against Russia xor America alone would have been a pretty certain loss for Nazi Germany. I think the British Empire might have done it, there were a lot of folks in the Empire, but it would have been a closer thing and very expensive if it was doable at all.

However, such "what if"s are very much speculative fantasy, there is no way of making a real assessment, it didn't happen that way.

And what do Patriotic modern day Swedish kids say about WW2? How Sweden stayed neutral and supplied Germany with high grade Iron Ore?

Best Regards,
MB_Avro

Interesting isn't it... how people make conclusions about others and don't know themselves.

What is that old expression...know thyself?

I'd say it would be the better part of wise for anyone on this international forums to keep their disparaging remarks about other countries to themselves. There just aren't any countries that have done things non-politically. Politics, I am convinced is the enemy of all countries. As citizens and just plain folks we get along very well.

Well said nearmiss.

The thing is that we do have people who think that the US 'won WWI and WWII -- for everyone, by itself, etc' but they are either young or morons or both.

From my experience Max, that condition is not exclusive to US citizens.

The moronosphere is ever increasing in size.

Easy to see given the world condition. But I'm not supposed to go on about other country's morons, just the ones in mine. ;^)

I remember times back since the mid-60's when kids would stand out by the sidewalk and decide who had the best army, navy, air force, bombs, etc. That's what a lot of what I've heard since reminds me of, kids on the sidewalk.

Even if the Luftwaffe had gained air superiority the Kriegsmarine could never have sustained an invasion across the channel in the face of the overwhelming numerical superiority of the Royal Navy.

By the end of August the RN had 3 battleships, a carrier, 8 cruisers and 76 destroyers specifically stationed ready to destroy any invasion fleet. The most distant heavy units were based on the Firth of Forth and could have reached the Dover Straits within 20hrs.

Despite this commitment to home defence greater naval resources still were retained in the north at Scapa Flow and further afield in the Mediterranean.

There can be no doubt, that even in the face of heavy attacks by the Luftwaffe, the RN would have intervened decisively.

Actually all the Royal Navy would have to have done was run destroyers at full speed up and down the Channel and swamp the river barges the Germans were going to use for the crossing. They were never designed for the open sea.

What's the source for this bit? I'm looking for a good read, might be a good one if there's more like that in it.

Summarised here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British...f_World_War_II

There are a number of books on Operation Sealion.
Two I have read, both fairly concise:

• Cox, Richard (1977). Operation Sea Lion. Presidio Press. ISBN 0-89141-015-5
• Macksey, Kenneth (1980). Invasion: The German Invasion of England, July 1940. MacMillan Publishing Co. ISBN 0-02-578030-1

I guess the same as Patriotic modern day US kids would say about WW2, how the US stayed neutral and supplied Britain with just about everything... oh wait, that was different.

I fail to see what is wrong with a neutral country doing business with a warring country just like it did so before the war... its a silly notion about that they were in doing business with THEM and not US. Yeah I guess the Swedes should have realized how morally wrong it was to trade with the loosing side, and should have just waited until the war would end. Who cares if Swedish firms and mines loose their major and only possible business partner, right?

This is so silly that its beyond comprehension, really. It ranks in sillyness with "why did not the US bomb railway lines to Auschwitz" etc.

Brown Brothers Harriman and ITT both had to be stopped from trading with the Nazis in 1942. Sometimes it's hard to stop that sugar from flowing in, yano?

Especially when they don't kill as many.

You almost make it seem like there's a real choice! Was it Goebbels who said tell them they've been attacked?

I couldn't agree more. Would be nice to see a people united though, looks like that part is not doable for most countries.

There was a surprisingly popular movement in the United States to back Germany or at least not help Britain.

The British Admiralty had reverted to the practices of stopping neutral US Flagged ships, detaining cargo and crew at will.

The United States had already fought and won several wars against England for similar behavior in the past.

The Republican Party was platform-committed to staying out and fought getting involved to the point of sending aid. How much of that was because FDR wanted to send aid and was not set against getting involved. But then in 1941 he had information about the possibility of a German atomic bomb that few others in the USA knew of or took seriously.

There was an American Nazi Party operating in the USA with big rallies, etc. The most prominent US member I know of was Charles Lindbergh.

Some of the trading with German corporations (when your 'assets' include what was seized from 'undesirables', right down to the gold in tooth fillings, you can make very sweet deals) that made certain men very rich was behind a lot of the Nazi-backing then. The way that the Nazis dealt with unions was very dear to the hearts of US industrialists.

Most all that changed on Dec 7, 1941. The ones making the big money had to be stopped by law in 1942. Lucky for many that the synthesis of aspirin had been traded for prior to war being declared.

BTW, I've seen documentaries that claim Stalin was the big winner of WWII.

Certainly it was and with good reason. Germany was not violating our sovereignty on a such a wide scale.

http://asisbiz.com/il2/US-Navy-History-WWII-1940.html

IIRC, there was a series of trials and investigations after the war into some of the business practices. In the immediate post war climate, United States citizens were very angry and suspicious at any potential war-profiteering.

Everytime I take an aspirin, I think of Bayer....

http://www.mega.nu/ampp/bayer.html

http://www.propertyandcasualty.com/a...d-NAZI-Do-0001

From "Behind the Vinyl Curtain", DuPont did a deal supplying Ford engines to get the process.

if German invade Britain (operation sealion), they cannot do Operation Barbarossa (invasion of Balkans, Greece, Russia, Ukraine, and continue to middle east)
Not so much men and planes.
Anyway, the FockeWulf FW190A-4 fighter-bomber was not ready for any of boot operation. And they don't have so much FW200 for cover the extreme north objectives over Britain (factory and airfields) , and this include his escort, that need to be Bf109 E-7/Bf109 F-2 and FW190.
Another, ... German never recognized Finland like a allied (at least, to 1941), big mistake. This people are a very good fighters and excellent organized and good Ethic too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea_Lion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barbarossa

pleace, traduce this site, is in spanish
http://www.militar.org.ua/foro/what-...27395-810.html

have a nice day:-P

zacarias kandrachoff

According to Avalon-Hill back in the late 70's, the Finnish military were probably the most elite on average in the world. Their regulars were as good as the elite troops of others. They just did not have enough in the long run.

But from Nazi view, are all or any Finns Arayan?

Anyways...?

I do not have to read the reat of this thread to see the usual posts:rolleyes:

Fact is. The World would most definetly have changed if Germany had not tried to invade Russia and concentrated its efforts on defeating Britain.

After that.(If Germany had succeded) The World was there to be taken.

Access to the Strongest Navy/No Island carrier for US. aircraft/An ability to strike against Russia... Whenever?(USA would not support Russia so easily.)
Africa would easily be Nazi conquered. Due to the unavailability of UK to access to US. Military aid.

USA would be totally isolated from the rest of the World. And therfore be liable for invasion from both East and West once Russia was conquered, in time.(As opposed to Hitler time?)Remember USA would be alone against the Japanese who would also be able to attack Russia.Since UK colonies would be under the control of the German government.

BoB. Surely was. The biggest turning point in WW2.

They had Belgium's Congo earmarked for us. :grin:

In Hitler's future world only blond hair blue eye Arayans would populate the world which shows a (/another) major blind spot in him and followers as Der Fuerer did not fit the profile and should have been shot right from the start!

It was blond hair OR blue eyes. Hitler had the eyes.

He was a twit, certainly, but he was a blue eyed twit.

Really? i never knew this...i always thought it was "blond hair blue eyed people" meaning both?

It was either or both.

In a way it was but not directly. BoB got downprioritized by Germany prior to the Soviet campaign. Before you say " Yes it was, BoB turned the war!!", look into the amount of resources Germany sent to the Eastern front and how much of that was lost. No German soldier ever sat foot on British soil. They lost some aircrafts and pilots but an airforce is roughly just 1/3 of a fully operating war force, and they also put more aircrafts and pilots in to invade Soviet. The winning tactic of the Reich was using Luftwaffe as support, not a spearhead.

If I were to say which was the earliest most decisive factor which brought Germany and Luftwaffe to a halt, I'd have to say the Russian winter 1941-1942.

LOL that explains alot...ive always been confused watching all these ww2 documentaries and movies (der untergang) and seeing all these brown hair people....

Invasion 1940
 

Derek Robinson wrote "Invasion 1940" which reminded us of many facts already alluded to here by the many posters who have contributed to this discussion. Ultimately, he concludes that there never was a serious threat of invasion because the English Channel was not really crossable by towed barges. Tides, currents, shifting sandbars, winds, squalls were all factors that would have rendered an effort to tow 90,000 men and 70,000 horses and all the support materiel useless in and of itself. The Royal Navy was also waiting in the wings for the first sign of such an effort and would simply have run roughshod over all the cables swamping the barges while blowing the German tugboats out of the water. He also makes the point that German air attacks on Royal Navy ships would not have done much damage due to the difficulty in making precise hits especially when being harassed by RAF aircraft.

So when Hitler took his troops to the Eastern Front, he had lost little of his army and ground machinery or horse services which was after all his most powerful force in conquering western Europe. Germany's production facilities were still pouring out aircraft in late 1940 replenishing losses easily.

Hitler's efforts to demoralize the British people by terror bombing did not work as he hoped it might. So the "threat" of invasion was mostly a terrible bluff by an army that was occupying France and getting ready for the treacherous Operation Barbarossa.

The spin that Churchill put on the success of "the Few" was a morale boosting maneuvre that worked well to highlight that not everyone would give in to the Germans. The British population had seen their fighter pilots in action right above their heads unlike their armies either before or later in the war. They revered their heroes for giving them hope and encouragement.

Hitler also figured that if he couldn't invade England, then the Allies probably couldn't invade Europe across the Channel for the same reasons. While he might have been right in 1940, he truly underestimated the might of sea power commanded by the Allies over the next four years.

The Statement Germany did not lose the Battle of Britain is clearly wrong, they did lose the Battle of Britain in the air. They lost the ability and will to operate over the South of England during daylight so by default they lost, as that was one of their key aims and without it an invasion was impossible. If you cannot operate over the SOuth of England in daylight then you stand no chance of achieving control of the air.

There is a second question which is being mixed up and that is, Could Germany have invaded even if the BOB been won and the reply is no, they may have been able to land but almost certainly the RN and lack of specialist resources available would have doomed the invasion to failure.

There is also a theory that Germany didn't really try, yes they did, in the time available and the designs and resources at hand no one could have tried harder. Comment is made about the number of troops assigned. That wasn't the problem, you could have an army twenty times larger but if your boats can only carry X amount then X amount is all you really have to plan and invade with.

...well, Germany certainly didn't 'win', either...
 

If I clearly lost a fistfight with someone, I'd downplay it too when explaining it to my friends, girlfriend, or whatever. I'd have them thinking it was, at a minimum, a draw, while in reality I got the snot beat out of me, despite the fact that I put up a good fight! :grin:

Heck, the Japanese were told by their government that they were decisively winning the war against the United States right up to when the Philippines and Okinawa were invaded.

Hitler thought he could force Churchill to sue for peace. Had Chamberlain still been in charge that would have almost certainly happened, but Winston was having none of it. Any way you look at it, Britain beat Germany over the channel. Period.

+1.

Totally agree.

well they didn't lose technically, they gave up. lol I think the French had something to do with that..

How long before Stern shows?????

Stern?