Luftwaffe D-Day?

I’m not suggesting that the weather wasn’t a problem for the RAF (or the USAAF) but it cannot be the reason why the Luftwaffe didn’t attempt large-scale high-altitude photo-reconnaissance operations over Britain during 1943-1944.

The weather over Europe didn’t seem to deter to RAF from high-altitude PR sorties

Are you sure of this? The unit diary of the USAAF 7th Photo Group suggests that the opposite was true.

Sorry, not trying to steal your thunder. 🙂

There is a great story about one of the first PR Spitfires. The ‘designer’ wanted to fit two cameras in the fuselage but the officials from the Air Ministry insisted that to do so would upset the centre of gravity. A Spitfire was duly modified with one camera and flown to Boscombe Down for official trials. When the trials were concluded and the officials satisfied a fuselage panel was removed to reveal lead ballast that simulated the load of a second camera. Subsequent PR Spitfires were fitted with two cameras!

I can’t remember the exact details of this story but it would be nice if it were true.

The short answer is that they did try to a certain extent

http://www.airrecce.co.uk/WW2/recce_ac/LuftAR.html

The Air Ministry were initially very anti using spitfires and ‘Sidney Cottons Air Force’ (‘No 2 camoflage unit’) really was the brainchild of S Cotton,once his 2 sponsors in the A.M had moved on he was very quickly dismissed..the A.M hated his unorthodox methods but by that time the PR spitfires were getting spectacular pictures and I guess their Airships had to concede that perhaps the spits were after all better than the Blenheims they had wanted to continue using.

http://www.airrecce.co.uk/WW2/recce_ac/RAFAR.html

The Luftwaffe link above does appear to support my theory that the JU 86R was a conversion of the P model but am still not 100% sure.

cheers baz

Yes to the above… as I posted in post 24:D:D

Yes, but to quote this excellent website:

The short answer is that they did try to a certain extent

http://www.airrecce.co.uk/WW2/recce_ac/LuftAR.html

Unlike most of the totally reconnaissance Spitfires, the Bf 109 did retain some of its weapons in most of the variants.

And no doubt the armour and radios too…..could it be that the only significant advantage the RAF had was Sidney Cotton?

I think they were – Bf109s fitted with fuselage cameras and minimal armament.

Much of the problem stemmed from the production of Jumos.

Problems with production of the Jumo 205 engines holding up production of high-altitude twin-engined reconnaissance aircraft?

The early PR Spitfires were little more than standard machines without armament, armour or radios but with a camera added; couldn’t any of the standard Luftwaffe fighters have been modified in a similar way to avoid development of special high-altitude aircraft?

I’d never heard of an Arado 240 – until now! Bit of an ugly brute, isn’t it?

The Arado 240 was developed to carry a new type of power-operated gun turret designed by a consortium of Arado, DVL and Rheinmetall-Borsig. The V3 was the first to be fitted with thee new FA-13 barbettes, mounted either side of the fuselage aft of the cockpit each carrying a 7.9 mm MG 81 machine gun. They were not carried on the first two prototypes because of development problems with the FA-13. However this was nothing compared to instability problems with the aircraft themselves.
The completely redesigned V3 was still not satisfactory and received new ailerons, amongst other mods. In late summer ’41 it was sent to 3./Aufklaerungsgruppe Ob.d.L. based in northern France. The FA-13s were removed and replaced by cameras and it made several recce flights over Britain.
Pre-production went up to V-12 with various engines and armament, but plans for 40 production aircraft to be built by Ago Oschersleben were cancelled by Erhard Milch in December 1942.
A final attempt was made in 1944 to utilize its high performance in the recce role over GB when one aircraft was sent to the special recce flight of the supreme commander of the Luftwaffe in France, but its problematic flight characteristics, and the invasion of France caused its demise. Here’s a 3-view diagram of the A-02 which went to Finland.
brgds
Alan

It seems to me that there was a great failing here; the performance of the Bf109 or Fw190 was surely comparable to the Spitfire, German camera technology was certainly capable, and it is a lot easier to fly over Britain from occupied France than it is to fly to Berlin from Britain.

The Luftwaffe must have been aware what the PR Spitfires were doing (some must have been shot-down and examined); so why didn’t the Germans do the same?

Much of the problem stemmed from the production of Jumos. They were dogged from the start, especially with regard to the crankshafts, which were outsourced from the German Highgrade Steelworks, and often not best quality. Parts were also produced by a Swiss firm, which meant problems in providing foreign funding. Many, if not the majority, of Jumos were in fact produced under licence by Mimo – Mitteldeutsche-Motorenwerke in Taucha near Leipzig, which had been established based on the Auto Union car factory in the early thirties. There was no love lost between Jumo in Dessau and Mimo, with BMW also getting their spoke in. The continuous changes of plans from higher up the ladder, plus the need to produce engines for panzers, bombing raids, possibly sabotage, all resulted in a less than satisfactory output.

I’ve simplified somewhat, but have just got hold of three ‘new’ very detailed books on the subject of German aircraft engine production which I am trying to transform into something useful for the thread!

brgds
Alan

a/c tanks do suffer from ‘cold soak’ and an hour or so at 40,000 will take the fuel temperature very low.
That particular spectre does not seem to have been excluded completely yet from the AAIB investigation into the Heathrow 777 engine shutdown accident !!

cheers baz

It’s always intrigued me how they stopped the diesel from waxing at the low temperatures found at such high altitudes ?

That’s a very good question. I think waxing of diesel is usually a problem with starting an engine in extreme cold…..and they wouldn’t be parking a Ju86 overnight at 50,000 feet!

Careful design, or even heating, of the fuel system would have prevented problems or, as has been suggested, an anti-waxing agent could have been added…

…petrol probably…..older diesels are amazingly tolerant of fuel ‘quality’. :diablo:

The type of airplane and camera were less important than the weather over England. Were the skies clear up to 45,000 feet during the week before the Normandy invasion?

The weather over Europe didn’t seem to deter to RAF from high-altitude PR sorties but of course a few photographs of British ports the week before D-Day wouldn’t really have told the Germans very much.

The success of RAF photo-reconnaissance was based on almost continuous coverage of key installations (from before the war) and carefully noting the changes in activity. Many ports would have had invasion craft and many places army units but the Allies put much effort into misinformation for the Germans and without extensive coverage it would be very difficult to know when the invasion would start, and more importantly virtually impossible to say where it would land.

It’s always intrigued me how they stopped the diesel from waxing at the low temperatures found at such high altitudes ?

Presumably by using large quantities of anti-waxing addatives (like they do with AVTUR [jet fuel])…it is a good question though !!
Did they run them on diesel fuel or did they use something more akin to kerosene ?? which is a little lighter.
Modern a/c diesels usually run on AVTUR which is basically kerosene.

cheers baz

Ian

You should have bought the ‘petrol’. 😉

Happy new year.

Mark

Bloody OAP’s 🙂

Happy New Year also

It’s always intrigued me how they stopped the diesel from waxing at the low temperatures found at such high altitudes ?

Ian

You should have bought the ‘petrol’. 😉

Happy new year.

Mark

Moggy,
An R-3 was projected to operate at 52000 ft powered by two 1500 hp Jumo 208 diesel engines Alan

It’s always intrigued me how they stopped the diesel from waxing at the low temperatures found at such high altitudes ?

as moggy posted earlier …the germans knew very well what was coming…they just did not know which areas the allies would land at,as usual we have drifted off that to other stuff

It seems that the German leadership had made up its mind where the invasion was going to take place (Pas de Calais) and therefore most preparations went towards that area. The military heirarchy did not encourage debate of such matters.

I’d never heard of an Arado 240 – until now!

Bit of an ugly brute, isn’t it?

The type of airplane and camera were less important than the weather over England. Were the skies clear up to 45,000 feet during the week before the Normandy invasion?

as moggy posted earlier …the germans knew very well what was coming…they just did not know which areas the allies would land at,as usual we have drifted off that to other stuff :D.

One of the other interesting a/c is the Arado 240…1 or 2 of these a/c were reputed to be doing recce flights over england 1941 – 44.
Eric Brown flew an Ar 240 at Merville in sept 1945 and calculated its cruising speed as 360 mph (TAS) at 20,000′ (Testing for Combat 1994) but this a/c had the appalling handling characteristics that seemed to dog so many Luftwaffe a/c…he stated that an autopilot would have been essential for instrument flying.
When he questioned the 3 mechanics who looked after this a/c they said they believed this a/c had belonged to the SONDERAUFKLARUNGSSTAFFEL (special reconnaissance unit) of C in C luft France.

cheers baz

It seems pretty clear

Fascinating site, thanks for pointing it out.

Moggy

Logically thinking (never catch on 😀 )…the Ju 86 went out of production some years before,so it would make sense to update/convert the old ‘bus’ rather than build new ‘uns.

cheers baz