September 10, 2007
Hitler’s Strategic Bombers Posted by Fredric Smoler at 08:35 AM EST John Steele Gordon asks my opinion of Richard Overy’s Why the Allies Won, which he found compelling. While I do not agree with every single thing Overy says in it, I greatly admire the book, have several times assigned it in two courses I teach, and particularly admire the chapters on bombing, the wartime economies, and the development of new technologies. Overy was originally an immensely impressive specialist on the German war economy and the air war, before branching out to other aspects of the Second World War, and I think those three chapters show that. Mr. Gordon goes on to remark that “had the Germans developed a strategic bomber, capable of heavy loads and long range, the ability of the Soviets to move their armaments factories eastward, out of range of the Luftwaffe, would have been greatly complicated.” I have seen other people speculate to this effect, but I am not sure I agree. Here’s why: The Ural bomber program, advocated by Walter Wever, the Luftwaffe’s chief of staff, and cancelled after his death in 1935 by his successor, Ernst Udet (and not supported by Udet’s successor, Hans Jeschonnek), had produced two prototypes, the Dornier Do19, with a range of 1,600 kilometers, and the Junkers Ju89, with a range of 2,980 kilometers. If the Luftwaffe had deployed any strategic bomber in time for Barbarossa, it would most likely have been one or the other of these. How would they have fared? The distance from Moscow, which the Werhmacht never quite reached, to the great tank factory in the Urals, Chelyabinsk, is 1,919 kilometers, which means that had the Do19 actually gone into production, it would not have had the range to reach the Urals, even if the Wehrmacht had somehow held onto the outskirts of Moscow. The distance from Stalingrad, which the Wehrmact did reach, and most of which, to its sorrow, it for some months occupied, was 1,359 km, which still lets out the Do19, but Ju89s, had they gone into mass production, could have reached Chelyabinsk from either Moscow or Stalingrad. Off the top of my head, the only potential German escort fighter with the range to reach Chelyabinsk from Stalingrad would have been the Me110, a notoriously bad dogfighter. While most Soviet fighters were designed to fight at lower altitudes than the 22,000 foot ceiling of a Ju89, some could at least reach much higher altitudes (the MiG1, available in 1941, could reach 39,000 feet, the LaGG3, also available in 1941, could reach 33,000 feet, as could the Yak 1b, available in 1942), and had the Luftwaffe possessed Ju89s, Soviet designers would have produced fighters designed for higher performance at a suitable altitude—they were very good at their trade. In any case, fairly early in the war we had Lend-Leased the Soviets (among other aircraft) P39s, which had a ceiling of 35,000 feet. Unescorted World War II bombers flying by day and facing capable fighters were effectively on suicide missions; bombers escorted by badly outclassed fighters were in a comparable case (Bf110s used as escorts during the Battle of Britain were not quite flying coffins, but they were very badly outclassed); and for the first couple years of the war, bombers attacking distant targets by night were lucky to drop any bombs within five nautical miles of their targets. Even with significantly better accuracy, you had to drop an awful lot of bombs to do any damage, but Ju89s didn’t carry many bombs. The Ju89 had a theoretical bomb load of 1,600 kg (3,520 lbs.), compared to a B17G’s theoretical capacity of 17,417 lbs. (7900 kg) of bombs (while a B-17 rarely carried more than 2300 kg. In combat, we’ll never know what a Ju89 could actually have carried from Stalingrad to Chelyabinsk). The Luftwaffe was designed for ground support, which early on it did extremely well, and for achieving air superiority over the battlefield, which in 1940 it also did extremely well, so well that Germany achieved, in my opinion very much against the odds, the swift and cheap conquest of France and the resulting domination of the Continent. The resources this victory directly and indirectly secured in turn made Nazi Germany extremely formidable. With limited resources (and many calls on those resources), I think this was the most effective possible approach for the German air force. Had significant resources been diverted into building strategic bombers, that improbable 1940 victory would have been. I think, even less likely.
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