Das Fehlen einer großen strategischen Bomberflotte der deutschen Luftwaffe im 2. Weltkrieg ist immer wieder Doku-Thema. Doch hätte es überhaupt etwas gebracht?
Begünstigt durch den Absturz ihres Haupt-Befürworters General Wever, (promotete den Gedanken, einen “Ural-Bomber” zu bauen) konzentrierte sich die deutsche Produktion auf mittlere Bomber wie der Heinkel He 111, Junkers Ju 88 sowie Dornier Do 17 und später Do 217. Um mit Görings Worten zu sprechen, “Der Führer fragt mich nicht, wie groß meine Bomber sind, sondern wie viele ich habe.”
Der einzige schwere viermotorige Bomber der Luftwaffe, der in größeren Serien gebaut wurde, das “Reichsfeuerzeug”, die Heinkel He 177, war ein kompletter Fehlschlag, wie allgemein bekannt.
Doch selbst wenn Deutschland im 2. Weltkrieg über eine Flotte viermotoriger schwerer Bomber verfügt hätte, hätte das wirklich viel gebracht? Z.B. hätte die deutsche Luftwaffe nicht über genug Besatzungen verfügt, um die Sowjetunion in die Niederlage zu bomben, geschweige denn über die Ressourcen ausreichend Bomber-Stückzahlen zu produzieren um sie an beiden Fronten wirksam ein zu setzen..
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Germany’s industry was unable to produce a heavy long-haul bomber in such a large series, in order to keep a fleet of more than 1000 heavy bombers in use at the same time, despite high losses. Germany’s industry was also unable to produce the necessary fuel.
The problem of the limited performance of the industry was also known in Berlin and it was the most important argument against heavy horizontal bombers and for Stukas. Stukas did the same job at half the price because of their much better hit rate, so you could build twice as many and thus do twice the damage. While Ju87 was visibly a short-haul aircraft that could not replace a strategic long-haul bomber, there was an overly optimistic assessment in the pre-war period of the performance of future two-engine bombers. At that time, Junkers already managed to sell the crashable Ju88 as virtually equally powerful with four-engine bombers (including propaganda images suggesting a range over the entire British islands) and the expensive failure of Ju288 were just affixed to flagship performances.
The seemingly simple calculation that a crash bomber would have an inaccessible price advantage over horizontal bombers due to its security of meeting was also the reason why every German bomber program of the last pre-war years or the first phase of war should be able to collapse. This demand is the reason for the failure of the He177 and it is the reason why the Do217 was a submotorized two-engineered one that could never prevail against the Ju88.
Even if a large strategic bomber fleet could not be realized for Germany, it would have had a very positive effect on the capabilities of the air force to be able to use a technically mature long-distance bomber at least in small numbers. The Air Force was incapable of reaching Gibraltar, it was incapable of reaching the East-shifted Sovy Union industry and it was incapable of monitoring the Atlantic over a large area.
The Air Force has laboriously and with moderate success tried to close these gaps with Fw200C and He177 and finally a hand full of Ju290. The Fw200 was not powerful enough from the start and had no further development potential. It was barely able to monitor the eastern half of the Atlantic and was practically unable to survive when it hit the counter-resistance. The He177 was never technically reliable, leading to high losses without enemy action and its range was just as inadequate as the Fw200. The huge freighter Ju290 was underengineered and therefore slow and cumbersome, as well as disproportionately expensive for the task as a seafarer and therefore only available in tiny numbers.
A conventional four-engine long-range bomber could have performed these tasks better. He wouldn’t have been a wary either. The war in the east has won a sheer mass, while the war in the west has won the magnetron and high-octane aviation gasoline.
Yes, the absence of a large strategic bomber fleet is often discussed, but the question is whether it really would have made a difference. Even if Germany had had heavy bombers like the “Ural bomber”, it would have missed crews and resources to effectively use them. The Air Force simply did not have enough capacity to effectively bomb both fronts. In the end, it wouldn’t have changed much.
Cheers.
I’m not a historian, but if I’m not mistaken, it was there and London just to surrender.