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Im in 44 as the jap and getting lit up in the air war. My question to you all is, why did it take the japanese so long to come up with aircraft designs that could compete with the allied aircraft? I mean, the corsair comes out in early 43, and it takes 2 1/2 years for the reppu to be designed? What was wrong with jap R&D? If anybody knows of any good books on this, let me know...

by the way, the N1k1 George...which I had some hope for...sucks just as much as the zero against fighters like the P47 and Corsair. I should have kept zero production going longer. At least those planes had more legs...

Thanks and have a nice day!

I'd argue that it wasn't the R & D so much as their industry standards causing the quality of production to decrease as planes became more complicated. Essentially, plane development increased dramatically beyond what the industry could cope with, many planes ended up having engines that never got out of the teething stages. Offhand most I recall had issues with fuel pump pressures being too low at altitude or in general.

Japan skimped on many different things in order to make due with the limited amount of resources they had. Chromium, nickel, etc. were in short supply, which is why you see silly things like those pistols with half the side missing on purpose...

Considering what they had, they did pretty well. Japan couldn't compare to the USA's capacity to make war no matter how you angle it.

The Corsair was well along in development before the war started. It was slated to replace the Wildcat by the end of 1942, but its teething problems caused it to be delayed. When the Corsair looked like it was going to be a problem on carriers, the Navy approached Grumman to come up with an improvement to the Wildcat as a stop gap. The Hellcat was the only US plane for which design started after Pearl Harbor to see combat in any numbers.

The Japanese late war fighters weren't developed until the war began to turn against them. They had to develop new engines as well as airframes. Most of Japan's early war engines were heavily influenced by American designs they had bought before the war. Their domestic engine industry was not only under developed to produce engines in the quantities necessary, but they also were weaker in R&D than the Americans.

Japanese R&D made some amazing strides in a fairly short time. Their carrier fighter went from the Claude to the Zero in one step, while the US Navy went from the Grumman biplane fighters to the Buffalo, and finally to the Wildcat during that same time. Their torpedo bombers went through a similar evolution. The USN was using the TBD at the beginning of the war, while Japan had the Kate. I believe the predecessor to the Kate was a biplane.

They went from copies of American engines to designing their own radials during the war. They also developed their own home grown jet and rocket engines from principles. The Germans sent them plans for the Me-262 and Komet as well as sample engines, but the sub carrying the samples and most of the plans was sunk. They flew their first jet, the Kikka only days before the nuclear attacks. The engines employed were designed entirely in Japan.

Japan had much poorer defense of their industry and suffered much more disruption from US bombing than Germany did. Germany also had time to prepare since the Allied strategic bombing campaigns had a slow start in Europe. Japan went from essentially completely safe skies to seas of B-29s in a very short time. (The US initially tried a few B-29 raids from China before moving to Saipan, but the build up of the B-29 force took a lot less time than the similar campaign in Europe which took nearly 3 years before it hit its stride.)

In late 1944, Japan had a severe earthquake which destroyed some of their factories, making their production problems even worse.

The fact they were able to produce as many late war fighters as they did is a testament to their determination and ingenuity.

Bill

Developping an aircraft from the initial specifications to the mass production was and still is taking years.

And the main problem Japan had was not the bad design of his late-war aircraft but industrial production problems that reduced the performance and serviceability of the aircraft below what was planned.

First, aircraft are not designed by scientists - but by engineers. Japanese scientists were generally superior in quality.
The Japanese assessed they were better able to tackle atomic science than Germany (aided by Italy and Switzerland) was. Although I first believed that was hubris (something the Japanese have as much as many other peoples do - including ours) - it turns out they were right. Their scientists routinely figured out on theoretical grounds values we were unable to calculate - and had to measure imperically. Hydrogen fusion was first thought of in Japan. Japan had more cyclotrons than any nation other than the USA - and their biggest was a twin of ours.

Second, there were inherent limitations on Japanese aircraft design. Foremost among these was engine technology.
Axis nations in general and Japan in particular lacked the power plants to design planes in the same league as many of ours. Witness the "Japanese B-36" project - which required 5000 hp engines: they could design a fantastic airplane
but could not expect engines for it until about 1948. Japan obtained some engine technology from Germany: the Ki-61 is a case where a German engine was used (and that engine was used on several other planes - a fine engine -
it developed only something like 1150 hp - and could not compete with 2000 hp power plants).

Third, Japanese industry was not as efficient as ours. This says nothing about scientists per se - and in part it is a natural function of economy of scale. Japan didn't have large-scale operations, and smaller-scale is inherently less efficient. Japan did make significant improvements in efficiency throughout the war - and it did a relatively better job producing planes for the size of its plant than Germany did. I believe it was TOO good - that is it made TOO MANY planes - and would have been better off to produce lower numbers of planes (which it might hope to properly pilot and fuel) of better performance (because they were using more engines, larger engines, etc).

Fourth, Japan was plagued by a lack of political unity. It is seen in the West and other places - quite wrongly - as a unified state. Japanese society is extraordinarily divided - and this is neither new nor limited to the past. A function of this is that Japanese institutions didn't cooperate well - and that is being very polite: Japanese industrial workers in the same plant had to keep secret things they did for the Army from the Navy - and vice versa!. They refused to standardize even when they used the SAME caliber! They refused to adopt common voltages for aircraft, common radio frequencies, common machine guns, common bombs - the list is endless. They also didn't usually share the same planes - forcing inefficiency on the system. Now this did change partially as the war wore on - but not soon enough or on a large enough scale to turn it around. Further - had this been perfect - Japan still was not likely to win this war - the enemy was too big and too powerful. If you want to explore what happens with more institutional cooperation in terms of aircraft production and allocation in particular - look at RHSEOS.

ORIGINAL: el cid again
First, aircraft are not designed by scientists - but by engineers. Japanese scientists were generally superior in quality.

Engineering is applied science. Science is applied math.

Second, there were inherent limitations on Japanese aircraft design. Foremost among these was engine technology.
Axis nations in general and Japan in particular lacked the power plants to design planes in the same league as many of ours. Witness the "Japanese B-36" project - which required 5000 hp engines: they could design a fantastic airplane
but could not expect engines for it until about 1948. Japan obtained some engine technology from Germany: the Ki-61 is a case where a German engine was used (and that engine was used on several other planes - a fine engine -
it developed only something like 1150 hp - and could not compete with 2000 hp power plants).

Fuel octane ratings made a big difference too. The BMW 801 was not popular among the German RLM because it used 92 octane fuel, which was more expensive to produce. The DB 600 series engines only required 87 octane fuel.

By the end of the war, US and British planes were running up to 140 octane fuel. 100 octane minimum. The western allies were able to get a lot more out of their engine capacity that way. The DB 605 and the Merlin were comparable in performance, but the Merlin was a much smaller and lighter engine.

All the Axis powers suffered from a lack of oil sources and a need to stretch their fuel as far as it would go. All the major Allied powers were sitting on large sources of oil. The US had domestic supplies, the British had the Middle East (which just began to come online before the war), and the USSR had their own domestic supply. The reason the Germans shifted to a southern strategy in the 2nd year of the war in Russia was to grab Russia's oil because they were running out.

Two technologies that require a lot of experience to master is engines and materials (especially metalurgy). The US was the world leader in radials by 1940. Mostly because of the developments in the commercial airline industry in the 2nd half of the 30s. The British and Germans were both very skilled at liquid cooled engines.

Japan made great strides in advancing their engine development during the war, but they were limited by their resource base and industrial capability.

The US was also a leader in metalurgy. Again the forces of the domestic market were pushing those developments. In the last half of the 30s, cars and planes both advanced a long ways technologically. At the Museum of Flight in Seattle they have a display where you can see the quantum jumps in aircraft design in only a couple of years. Many of these advances were possible because of advances in metalurgy.

Japanese metalurgy was fairly good, but it remained behind the US throughout the war. The Zero had a wing spar made of a very strong and light alloy, but it disintegrated after a couple of years. When aircraft restorers set out to put some Zeros back in the air, they had to manufacture new wing spars out of modern materials.

John Kegan talks about the advantage of the American industrial base in one of his books. He compares military trucks fielded by the various nations of the world. He said that a running German or British WW II truck will fetch a hefty price among collectors, but American trucks are a dime a dozen. Part of this is because American trucks were produced in such large numbers, but it's also because they survived in massive numbers. France finally retired their last American Lend Lease trucks in the mid-1970s. 30 years after the end of the war.

The reason for this is the American domestic market. When other nations set out to develop a military truck, they had to start from the ground up. When the US Army wanted a truck, they went to the big 3 auto makers and asked for a militarized version of what was already rolling off their assembly lines. The US auto makers had a lot of experience making trucks tough because they had customers who needed to abuse their trucks day in and day out and have them keep running. American military trucks had a lot more experience behind them than anybody elses. That's why there are still hundreds and possibly thousands of them in running condition 60 years later.

Bill

El cid again:


I disagree with your assessment about german power plants. They were every bit as advanced as british or US designs. It just happened they had to adapt them to quite lower qualities than the ones the Western Allies were able to use.

The DB600 series, the Jumo213 series or the BMW801 series had nothing to envy from British or US powerplants. In some aspects they were better (as with the use of the hidraulic clutch to allow for a variable speed supercharger in the DB600s series, or the kommandoGërat units used in several of their engines), in others not (the british had better multi-stage superchargers-at least until the Jumo213E came around. The US were better at turbosuperchargers- Germany had better designs but didn't had the quality material to mass build them)

The german engines were in the same league as the Western allied ones. Germans were forced to use additives (MW and GM) to achieve the same power as the British or US powerplants did (thus paying a penalty in engine life), but they achieved it. Jumo213 was cleared for 2200hp in Fw190D9s with MW50 use, and there is strong evidence pointing that the JV44 D9s could pull it up to 2400hp using a special modification kit to the supercharger...the engine had an advanced kommandogërat unit, too.

If that doesn't qualify an engine as one of the best of the world in 1944-45, then nothing does .

ORIGINAL: wdolson

Fuel octane ratings made a big difference too. The BMW 801 was not popular among the German RLM because it used 92 octane fuel, which was more expensive to produce. The DB 600 series engines only required 87 octane fuel.

That's an absolute misconception.

BMW801 was cleared for use of both B4 and C3 fuels (87 and 96 octanes respectively). And to be true, from 1943 onwards, the Fw190s ran mostly on B4 only because C3 was scarce and it had to be reserved for the BF109s... That was true for the A series. Fw190A8s all ran on B4, for instance, using C3 fuel only in an aux.tank, fuel which could be injected into the supercharger in a very similar way as with the MW50 additive, to cool down the mix and work as antidetonator. Out of that use, no C3 fuel was used on FW190s since 1943 onwards.

That also was true for the Dora series (Wich flew for most of its life with a combo of B4 fuel and MW50 additive)

The DB600 series also could run on both B4 and C3 but the latter was the most used among them because the gain of performance was better felt in the DB engine and, being an inline, the DB could go through much less abuse than the BMW. There were engines specifically built for one or another type of fuel.

For instance, you had a general -series DB605ASM engine (A series, S- supercharger of the DB603 series, M- cleared for MW50 use). The engine could be optimized for B4 or C3. If it was for the B4 fuel, you would have a DB605ASBM. If it was for the C3, it would be a DB605ASCM.

Same happened with the D series...there were DB605DC or DB depending on the fuel they were optimized to work with. And ,by far, the most common DB engines were of the C variant...that's why the Bf109s needed most of the C3 fuel the Germans could produce.

By the end of the war, US and British planes were running up to 140 octane fuel. 100 octane minimum. The western allies were able to get a lot more out of their engine capacity that way. The DB 605 and the Merlin were comparable in performance, but the Merlin was a much smaller and lighter engine.

The DB605 had reached a stage where it was delivering far more power than the Merlin by 1944. The DB605D of the 109K4 was cleared for 2000hp at take off, while Merlins were still working at 1750hp take off powers. However the DB605 was bigger and heavier than the merlin. It should be compared with the R&R Griffon, not with the Merlin.

The instance of US and British planes using ultra-pure fuel was a very very small one: that fuel was reserved for squadrons used in anti-V1 missions, which needed all the power they could get from their engines ,at any cost. In regular front-line units, the standard was the 100 octane fuel. But it's true that the allied had better octanages through the war, and better fuels overall (the german fuels came from syntetic processation of coal, and the fuel they could achieve from it was of considerably less quality than the one coming from petroleum).

All the Axis powers suffered from a lack of oil sources and a need to stretch their fuel as far as it would go. All the major Allied powers were sitting on large sources of oil. The US had domestic supplies, the British had the Middle East (which just began to come online before the war), and the USSR had their own domestic supply. The reason the Germans shifted to a southern strategy in the 2nd year of the war in Russia was to grab Russia's oil because they were running out.

This is debatable at least. Germany had enough fuel production from her indigenous syntetical oil production, and the production coming from their allies (mostly Rumania). Germany didn't lack any oil in 1942, no matter what Hitler said, and in fact Germany was able to keep her military going for 2 further years without any problems.

And when those problems appeared it was because allied bombings were destroying Germany's own production. Not because her 1942 production couldn't cope with the military needs.

They were stretched?. yes. The total production of the Axis in europe was barely enough to keep their military at full strenght and on war footing. BUt it was enough.


The South strategy of the Germans in 1942, in Russia could've been a war-winner had Hitler not tried to go for the caucasus, but try to concentrate on cutting the volga to the Soviets. Most of the Soviet oil production came from the Caucasus and was moved to the industry through the volga river lanes. Without those lanes, the USSR would've gone through a terrific energetic crysis both in the industry (no energy to build things) and the military (no fuel to run things)...and is very very debatable that they would've been able to stay in the war.

hitler's decision to go for the caucasus too was a cataclysmal error, probably the worse he committed during the whole war. For when doing it, he divided his own forces so neither of them could achieve their respective goals, and then came the failure at the Caucasus, and the debacle at Stalingrad. And he did it without needing to...the proof that Germany didn't need those resources is, as I say, that for a further 2 years (until the 8th AF started its Oil Bombing Campaign) Germany was able to use his armies without too much problem.

Two technologies that require a lot of experience to master is engines and materials (especially metalurgy). The US was the world leader in radials by 1940. Mostly because of the developments in the commercial airline industry in the 2nd half of the 30s. The British and Germans were both very skilled at liquid cooled engines.

I beg to differ. The best Radial in 1940 was the BMW801C.

Then in 1942 came the P&W R2800 which turned the tables, but the best radial powerplant between 1940-1941 was german.


[edit] and while we are at it, let's not forget the sleeve-valve Bristol Centaurus, which was a beauty, and pound by pound, as good as the R2800 was[/edit]

Oupsie, tried to edit and hit the wrong button double post.

You've recieved a really fine set of answers from several folks above, so let me just try an wrap it all up. There was NOTHING inherantly wrong with Japanese Science or Engineering. Lack of overall numbers and a lower level of education in the general populace made them a valuable commodity, but kept them from engaging in many areas as widely or deeply as other nations because they didn't have the resources or the mass consumer demand to drive practical research and engineering in as many fields. Remember, the Japanese solved the problems involved in using oxygen torpedos when no one else could.

What Japan really lacked was the kind of consumer economy that drove the US. Even at the heights of the Depression, the "Okies" of the Grapes of Wrath DROVE West looking for work, and took their radios with them to listen to "Orphan Annie" and the "Fire Side Chats". Japan's Industrial base (what there was of it) was specialized and driven by Government/Military Orders. Right up through the Zero and Oscar, the Military's Pilots wanted "light and agile", so there was no reason to push development of huge and powerful A/C engines. Japan could only afford just so many "toys", so their science and engineering had a rather narrow focus. Where they focused, they were competative, and sometimes even ahead. But EVERYTHING else lagged behind the West. And if something from those areas suddenly turned out to be important, Japan was 20 years behind.

And without a mass consumer economy, Japan lacked the basic engineering and management skills to successfully mass produce weaponry when it became a war of attrition. They had no great Civil Engineering tradition in the 30's...., No TVA or thousands of miles of Government sponsered highways. So they had no Henry Kaiser to take his road and dam building expertise and say "I can build shipyards that will produce 10,000 ton vessels faster than the world has ever seen it done." The Japanese had taken what was basically a third tier economy and, by carefully limiting it's potential to narrow military endevours, tried to compete with first tier economies. It worked to an extent as long as everyone else didn't push. But when the first tier economies geared up for war, they were operating from a broad solid base of scientific, engineering, management, and production experiance. In simple terms, other's were running thier war economies from a broad, stable, and well supported scaffold; while the Japanese were trying to keep up while perched precariously on the top of a stepladder.

Also, Japanese tradition of industrialization was very new compared to that in Western countries. After all, they had been under insolationist Togukawa Shogunate until late 19th century. It's quite impressive that they managed to make modern military andmilitary industry in such a short time...for example beating the Russians in 1904-05. But USA was far ahead in industrialization and US Civil War did add to that in 1860's.

Japan couldn't compare to the USA's capacity to make war no matter how you angle it.

Don't say that too loud. Some folks around here are convinced that Japan would have been able to out-distance the US economy by 1943...

[8|]

And the engine lets you do it, so they must be right... Right?

[:D]

-F-

ORIGINAL: RAM
I disagree with your assessment about german power plants. They were every bit as advanced as british or US designs. It just happened they had to adapt them to quite lower qualities than the ones the Western Allies were able to use.

Sorry, I did not intend to give that impression. German engines were quite good.

The DB600 series, the Jumo213 series or the BMW801 series had nothing to envy from British or US powerplants. In some aspects they were better (as with the use of the hidraulic clutch to allow for a variable speed supercharger in the DB600s series, or the kommandoGërat units used in several of their engines), in others not (the british had better multi-stage superchargers-at least until the Jumo213E came around. The US were better at turbosuperchargers- Germany had better designs but didn't had the quality material to mass build them)

The Germans were also using fuel injection before the US or Britain.

The german engines were in the same league as the Western allied ones. Germans were forced to use additives (MW and GM) to achieve the same power as the British or US powerplants did (thus paying a penalty in engine life), but they achieved it. Jumo213 was cleared for 2200hp in Fw190D9s with MW50 use, and there is strong evidence pointing that the JV44 D9s could pull it up to 2400hp using a special modification kit to the supercharger...the engine had an advanced kommandogërat unit, too.

The western Allies were using MW and GM too.

ORIGINAL: wdolson

Fuel octane ratings made a big difference too. The BMW 801 was not popular among the German RLM because it used 92 octane fuel, which was more expensive to produce. The DB 600 series engines only required 87 octane fuel.

That's an absolute misconception.

I'll have to do some more reading.

By the end of the war, US and British planes were running up to 140 octane fuel. 100 octane minimum. The western allies were able to get a lot more out of their engine capacity that way. The DB 605 and the Merlin were comparable in performance, but the Merlin was a much smaller and lighter engine.

The DB605 had reached a stage where it was delivering far more power than the Merlin by 1944. The DB605D of the 109K4 was cleared for 2000hp at take off, while Merlins were still working at 1750hp take off powers. However the DB605 was bigger and heavier than the merlin. It should be compared with the R&R Griffon, not with the Merlin.

I was thinking of the DB603, which was comparable to the Merlin in output.

The instance of US and British planes using ultra-pure fuel was a very very small one: that fuel was reserved for squadrons used in anti-V1 missions, which needed all the power they could get from their engines ,at any cost. In regular front-line units, the standard was the 100 octane fuel. But it's true that the allied had better octanages through the war, and better fuels overall (the german fuels came from syntetic processation of coal, and the fuel they could achieve from it was of considerably less quality than the one coming from petroleum).

Maybe in Europe. My father was a combat photographer and flew with bomber groups all over the Pacific. He said that 140 octane for even B-25s was normal by mid-1944.

All the Axis powers suffered from a lack of oil sources and a need to stretch their fuel as far as it would go. All the major Allied powers were sitting on large sources of oil. The US had domestic supplies, the British had the Middle East (which just began to come online before the war), and the USSR had their own domestic supply. The reason the Germans shifted to a southern strategy in the 2nd year of the war in Russia was to grab Russia's oil because they were running out.

This is debatable at least. Germany had enough fuel production from her indigenous syntetical oil production, and the production coming from their allies (mostly Rumania). Germany didn't lack any oil in 1942, no matter what Hitler said, and in fact Germany was able to keep her military going for 2 further years without any problems.

The only way Germany survived the loss of Soviet oil was by demechanizing the army. After 1941, the supply units started converting back to horse drawn wagons. By 1943, trucks were mostly out of use for supply purposes except with elite units like the SS and in some units in Italy. By 1944, virtually the entire army used horse drawn wagons.

The oil shortage was real and critical throughout the war. Here is an article on it: http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1981/jul-aug/becker.htm

Two technologies that require a lot of experience to master is engines and materials (especially metalurgy). The US was the world leader in radials by 1940. Mostly because of the developments in the commercial airline industry in the 2nd half of the 30s. The British and Germans were both very skilled at liquid cooled engines.

I beg to differ. The best Radial in 1940 was the BMW801C.

I was thinking about reliability and maintanability too. American radials were very reliable. The early Fw-190s were a maintenance nightmare. The Germans tended to over engineer things.

Bill

hi, wdolson.

The Germans were also using fuel injection before the US or Britain.

not sure if that is completely true. Yep, the DB used direct fuel injection while the Merlin didn't. But the R&R decision not to fit fuel injection in the Merlin had to do with the ability to achieve slightly higher manifold pressures using carburattors ratern than direct injection (or so I read somewhere). Noone thought about negative-G problems at that moment...but they had the means to design the engine with direct fuel injection.

The western Allies were using MW and GM too.

That's true, but they did on a much smaller scale than the germans.

I was thinking of the DB603, which was comparable to the Merlin in output.

The DB603 compared even better against the Merlin. Not a surprise, for it was a powerplant on a very different scale: it had more displacement than the DB605 did (and was heavier as a result, too). And the DB605 already had a displacement comparable to that of the R&R Griffon. The 603 was the "big brother" of the main DB600 series (not counting the disastrous DB606 or 610, wich were in fact twin engines)

By the end of WW2 DB603s achieved power outputs roughly similar to those of the Jumo213, and was better than the Jumo at altitude. We're talking about 2200-to-2300hp outputs here. And the germans expected latter DB603 versions to reach outputs of 2600hp as they believed the engine had room for improvements...

Maybe in Europe. My father was a combat photographer and flew with bomber groups all over the Pacific. He said that 140 octane for even B-25s was normal by mid-1944.

That's surprising ,and a good bit of info...I always thought the frontline fuel used by the allied to be 100/130 octane fuels. 140 is certainly high. Maybe on the very latest months that fuel was more widely used. The V1-chasing squadrons used 150 octane avgas.

BTW and out of curiosity, which was the lean octane rating of the 140 octane allied fuel?...I know the 130 octane fuel had a lean rating of 100, but the 140 one, I have no clue...

anyway, remember that aviation fuel quality depended on more variables than just octanage. The oil the fuel was refined from defined a lot of characteristics the combustible would have. The best fuel for aviation gasoline was the one coming from Indonesia (or so was found during the schneider races) while Americans had a problem at first refining gasoline from their own oil production (those were solved later by changing the way the oil was refined).

German fuel came from coal. This means the german avgas was the "Dirtiest" possible, the quality was quite low. In fact the german engines were mostly built to be able to run this kind of very "dirty" fuel. For instance, the BMW801 aboard the Fw190A3 the British captured in 1942 was ruined after the aircraft was tested with their own fuel (which was significantly better!!!)...after a few hours of testing the plugs of the engine were found to be faulty when they had been faultless on a prior exam of the engine unit...

The only way Germany survived the loss of Soviet oil was by demechanizing the army. After 1941, the supply units started converting back to horse drawn wagons. By 1943, trucks were mostly out of use for supply purposes except with elite units like the SS and in some units in Italy. By 1944, virtually the entire army used horse drawn wagons.

The oil shortage was real and critical throughout the war.

Never said otherwise. I said Germany had problems with oil supply, that's undeniable. What I said is that the assessment of Hitler about Germany needing so desperately the caucasus oil was a gross exageration. Germany was able to fight on for 2 years after he made those comments, on a full scale.

The problem could've been much lesser had Germany moved to a proper war economy since 1940, something germany never did. But anyway, fuel shortages existed but they were never critical until the 8th AF started hitting german oil refineries. After that, everything fell down. Before that, Germany could go on fighting using its own oil sources. So, the Caucasus was not indispensable for german's war economy. First because such a war economy never existed, and second, because that war economy could've worked without that oil...and in fact, it did.


The gradual reduction of trucks within the army may have had something to do with fuel, but not everything, and not by far. German's own vehicle industry coudln't supply the ammount of trucks the Wehrmatch needed. First of all, the Wehrmatch was never a fully motorized army. Only a relatively small fragment of it received the organic transport it was intended to receive. Many of the infantry divisions never were motorized at any apreciable scale,for instance.

Then, remember that in 1942 around a 65% of the trucks used by the germans came from captured stocks!!!!!. When those trucks started to be lost in battle, by exhaustion, or because no replacement parts were available (being of foreign origin), german industry couldn't replace them- and so many german formations had to return to horse-and-wagon transports, leaving the Panzerwaffe and the Waffen-SS as the only really mecanized formations within the Wehrmacht. But while I can accept that indeed this was an advantage when fuel was a scarce resource, I don't really think the whole matter was forced by lack of fuel, but because an inherent lack of production which couldn't cope with the army needs.

I was thinking about reliability and maintanability too. American radials were very reliable. The early Fw-190s were a maintenance nightmare. The Germans tended to over engineer things.

Hmm, don't confuse the plane with the engine. The BMW801 was a perfectly working powerplant by 1940. Static testing proved it. The problem with the 190 installation was never the engine, it was the plane. To prove it is the fact that while the Fw190 received many modifications to end with the overheating troubles, the BMW801C received none. The engine fitted in a Fw190A2 was the same fitted in a Fw190A0. The A0 had terrible overheating problems, the A2 did not.

That Focke-Wulf had serious trouble when fitting it into its new fighter says little about the BMW801 reliability. The problem with the 801 in the 190 was that the 190 had been designed for a totally different powerplant (the eighteen cylinder BMW139), the new engine refrigeration needs were much higher, and the design was unable to cope with the new situation until new ways to refrigerate the aft row of cylinders were found (if you see the bulges protruding from the sides of the Fw190A's cowling, those were put there just because of that reason)


But the powerplant itself, was found to be highly reliable, able to absorb heavy battle damage and return home, and sturdy as a rock. From 1944 onwards the quality of the engines fell down because of poor production standards result of the mass-production needs of the Germans, which made the quality go down in everything they built, but for 1940-1941 it was a superb powerplant, in my opinion the most advanced one in the world, and certainly the best radial of it's time.

ORIGINAL: DDLAfan

Im in 44 as the jap and getting lit up in the air war. My question to you all is, why did it take the japanese so long to come up with aircraft designs that could compete with the allied aircraft? I mean, the corsair comes out in early 43, and it takes 2 1/2 years for the reppu to be designed? What was wrong with jap R&D? If anybody knows of any good books on this, let me know...

by the way, the N1k1 George...which I had some hope for...sucks just as much as the zero against fighters like the P47 and Corsair. I should have kept zero production going longer. At least those planes had more legs...

Thanks and have a nice day!

Actually, from my experience in early '44 in a PBEM, the George is far superior to the hideous Zeke....not even comparable.

Ram - I refer you to a 2006 book just out

Luftwaffe Over America.

Also to The Air War - the comparitive economic study - not that 2 volume picture book by Jablonski.

I am a fan of German aircraft designers in this era - of Messerschmidt and Hoenkel in particular -
and not prone to think or say "everything American - or Anglo - is superior" - and am rather famous for
saying the Axis did this or that better than many Americans or Brits like to think.

Several factors prevented successful development of German bombers of the larger sort: not least among these
is a failure to try during important years. But in the end all analysts conclude Germany lacked the economic
and technical foundation to compete successfully.

Germany did develop a lot of concepts we use today. There was no airfield in Europe big enough for most of the bomber designs of WWII they came up with - but we built even bigger airfields all around the world - and adopted air refueling - and jet engine packs to go under the wings - all in imitation of German WWII era research that fell into our hands (and also into Russian hands). And there is no doubt Germany led the world in jet engine development (even if the first operational jet fighter was British and not German) or that its concepts of jet fighter configuration were superior even to those we used AFTER the war was over (here I refer to swept wings).

Japan did get some engine technology from Germany - but it was in the 1150/1175 hp class - and it only was significant during the midwar period (being an upgrade from the thousand HP engines then being used). They never did get a proper engine in mass service with more than 2200 hp. Germany - which shipped significant amounts of nuclear materials to Japan - and shared many technologies - was unable to outfit Japan with engines able to compete on a timely basis - with a single exception.

Mike has missed an exception in the Japanese system (Manchukuo) - but he correctly described the general nature of the main economic system. A strange and visionary set of generals - without any permission - set out to create something different in the 1930s. They FORBADE by law the Zaibatsu (the eight big Japanese industrial corporations) from operating in Manchukuo. They ADVERTISED successfully for immigrents from Russia, China, Korea and Japan - to go to a fertile and almost empty territory - and attracted 7 figures (millions) from each. DURING the great depression the economy of this entrepot grew at a rate astounding in any period - averaging something like 20% gdp per annum. [Most study of this is done by the Russians - whose view is you must understand your competators and potential enemies. We are content to bad mouth Manchukuo as a puppet regime and wholly ignore what happened there. But what happened there resulted in it being the industrial heart of China after the war.] I had the privilage of working with an engineer (a Russian) who had grown up in this country in the 1930s - and it is amazing to learn about the kinds of things that were possible in a more or less free market state. The planning even extended to something amazing for an Axis power in that era: an attempt to obtain skilled Europen Jewish workers in numbers to help this fledgling economy. Called The Fugu Plan, a book of that name was published not long ago to tell the story of the 6,000 who made the journey - ultimately not to the planned destination - but to Shanghai - where they sat out the war in the former British/Colonial quarter. US policy objected to facilitating this plan (and both financing by US Jews and rights of passage across US territory were required to implement it - once the Russians stopped allowing people to move from Europe to Japan across their territory). This plan didn't work out - but that it was proposed - and attempted - and killed not by Japanese or even German policy - but by American - I find amazing. It shows the extent to which the Japanese wanted to build an economy - and were willing to do so on a multi-ethnic basis. Manchukuo in this period had large numbers of Russians, Chinese, Koreans and Japanese - and could easily have had others.

"Japan did get some engine technology from Germany - but it was in the 1150/1175 hp class - and it only was significant during the midwar period (being an upgrade from the thousand HP engines then being used). They never did get a proper engine in mass service with more than 2200 hp. Germany - which shipped significant amounts of nuclear materials to Japan - and shared many technologies - was unable to outfit Japan with engines able to compete on a timely basis - with a single exception."


CID. I assume here you are refering to the engine and air-frame examples and blueprints that led to the Tony. It's a perfect example of the Japanese problems. Even though it was recieved and implimented in 1942, long before Japan's real production problems became acute, it still suffered from a ton of problems in production and servicing. Ki-61 was a good design, but Japanese industry couldn't adapt, engineer, support, and produce it consistantly and in "mass production" quantities. It always had problems in actual deployment. This problem escalated throughout the war, to the point where even with all the plans and specs, the idea of the Japanese producing a "production model" of any of the German jet A/C is rediculous. Prototypes, yes, but an actual "steady stream" of usuable airplanes, no way.

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

"Japan did get some engine technology from Germany - but it was in the 1150/1175 hp class - and it only was significant during the midwar period (being an upgrade from the thousand HP engines then being used). They never did get a proper engine in mass service with more than 2200 hp. Germany - which shipped significant amounts of nuclear materials to Japan - and shared many technologies - was unable to outfit Japan with engines able to compete on a timely basis - with a single exception."


CID. I assume here you are refering to the engine and air-frame examples and blueprints that led to the Tony. It's a perfect example of the Japanese problems. Even though it was recieved and implimented in 1942, long before Japan's real production problems became acute, it still suffered from a ton of problems in production and servicing. Ki-61 was a good design, but Japanese industry couldn't adapt, engineer, support, and produce it consistantly and in "mass production" quantities. It always had problems in actual deployment. This problem escalated throughout the war, to the point where even with all the plans and specs, the idea of the Japanese producing a "production model" of any of the German jet A/C is rediculous. Prototypes, yes, but an actual "steady stream" of usuable airplanes, no way.

Don't let Gary Grigsby hear such blasphemy guys![:D]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

Engineering is applied science. Science is applied math.

Science is science, the understanding of the way energy is exchanged. Math is not a science it is a language that makes science and other things like accounting and economics more accessable to the human mind.

ORIGINAL: Feinder

Japan couldn't compare to the USA's capacity to make war no matter how you angle it.

Don't say that too loud. Some folks around here are convinced that Japan would have been able to out-distance the US economy by 1943...

[8|]

And the engine lets you do it, so they must be right... Right?

[:D]

-F-

I have often wondered however what would have happened had the US not been attacked and we somehow had managed to stay neutral. WOuld Japan have developed advanced facotories in China and Manchuria? Could they over the course of another 5 years or so significantly expanded their industrial capacity.