Forcing An Unfinished Superplane Into Combat: Focke Wulf Ta 152
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- Опубликовано: 8 сен 2024
- In this video, we take a look at the Focke Wulf Ta 152, a late World War II German "superplane" fighter that, largely, was to serve as a high-altitude interceptor, destroying attacking Allied bombers. We first talk about Germany's propensity for designing and making superweapons, from tanks and artillery that were actually made to ridiculous aircraft designs scribbled out towards the end of the war. We then talk about the Focke Wulf Fw 190 line of fighter aircraft, perhaps Germany's best aircraft in the war, and how they lacked performance at high altitude.
We then talk about the Fw 190D, an attempt to boost high altitude performance, and how that evolved into the Ta 153 and eventually the Ta 152. We talk about how the Ta 152 was initially to be a complete successor to the Fw 190, with fighter, heavy fighter, fighter-bomber, and high-altitude interceptor variants. We go over how each of these variants would differ and how only the high-altitude variant, the Ta 152H, received any significant attention or resources. We end by talking about the very limited run and use of the Ta 152, and how Germany made the wrong move by forcing it into production.
"Chief designer Kurt Tank was flight-testing a Ta 152H when he encountered a flight of roving Mustangs. He simply turned toward home, applied the MW 50 system to boost his engine, and gave his pursuers the slip."
how does a guy named kurt tank become an aircraft designer instead of a tank designer? classic german misallocation of resources.
@@barnabusrex2194 To be a German tank designer he would have to have been named Kurt Panzerkampfwagen…
@@barnabusrex2194 Well that's because his family is named after water "tank" and not landship aka tank which in german would be panzer.
Sure he did…
@@barnabusrex2194
Cos there panzers to a German
Fw190D-x and Ta152 are my fav aircraft of all time - travelled from Aus to the US to see 2 FW190D a few years ago... and if the Ta152 ever gets displayed, I'm on the next plane back...
Are you into flight sim? I fly on DCS World and I fly the 109K which I’m focusing on right now. But I also have the 190 Anton and the Dora which I can’t wait to start on. The 109’s and 190’s are my favorite planes too. 🙂👍
Yes, the "Moskito" is truly one of the most fantastic "for lack of a nail" stories in WW2 history! Which I'm pretty sure you're already familiar with, but for those not, the TA-152 was Focke-Wulf (specifically, the legendary Kurt Tank) response to the British Mosquito wooden-wonder. Goering had wanted a German counter to it ever since the first one was shot down and insisted Kurt Tank immediately copy it. It wasn't that simple, of course, but by 1944 Tank had a flying prototype. Production was even ready to begin on the aircraft.
But British espionage figured out where the wood glue for the "Moskito" was being made, and bombed the glue factory to rubble. There were no substitute products nor was there a Plan B. So the German TA-152 was quietly dropped, never to rise again.
@@robertmaybeth3434
You're getting your aircraft mixed up.
The Focke-Wulf Moskito was the Ta-154.
This video is about the Ta-152 - a development of the FW-190.
Both of those planes, along with the Japanese N1K2 and Ki 84 are my favourite ww2 aircraft. Late Axis prop fighters have some kind of magic to them, they look amazing.
The B29's weren't actually overhead, but they would have been if Germany could have held on a little longer.
So yeah, building a high altitude interceptor like the TA 152 makes perfect sense
And add in the fact that you have to start developing a piece of equipment like this at least a year in advance of ever being able to use it, more like two years.
@@JWZelch Thej B-29 project started before the US got involved in the war. The Generals wanted a “hemispheric defense weapon” that could itself be out of range of any attacking force, but within a few hours could bomb any beach or invasion force. Only after the bomber offensive began was it realized that it also could be a useful strategic bomber.
Had Germany held on a bit longer those B-29's might well have been carrying nukes.
Not to mention that both the BF109 and especially the FW190 did not even feel really comfortable at the altitude the B17s and B24s flew in
What with Germany's crippled production, lack of skilled pilots, and an allied bombing strategy specifically designed to draw out and eliminate the Luftwaffe, it really was an entirely pointless endeavour trying to build these super-fighters. Desperation, alas. Fascinating aircraft though.
Unlike so many other German "super planes", this one actually made some sense. So many others are just wishful thinking.
Not so much wishful thinking but has a way for the company to get one last big military contract before everything fell apart. It also had the benefit of keeping irreplaceable designers from being drafted
And still too little too late. Thanks herr Shecklegruber.
One of my absolute favorite looking aircraft. Thank you for the awesome video!!
Dora was at least as good as the Mustang and latest Spitfire.
@@Schlipperschlopper At least is quite the understatement I would argue, when the US (might have been NACA but I can't quite recall that) tested captured Doras with good quality fuel it outperformed the Mustang-D in certain aspects very clearly as they said.
@@Tacticaviator7 The italian Fiat G56 Centauro with DB603 engine was another superb plane sadly it did not become the Axis standard fighter to replace the BF109
It has the neat sausage like fuselage design
@@ThommyofThenn It was a sublime design and had a very strong airframe for mounting large guns
But hey - The TA152C would have been so incredibly sexy.
The TA152E probably even more so thanks to less bulkiness.
Imagine an H-1 with a DB603N (2958 horsepower). I bet it'd be the fastest prop of WW2.
I respectfully disagree with the assessment that Germans should have focused on FW190D. Had B-29 appeared and had Germany no answer ready, we would call them shortsighted. No plane could save the Reich, but this plane was a rational answer to a potential threat.
There is an entire RUclips industry of armchair historians devoted to painting German attempts to develop improved weapons systems as a waste of time and resources on what they pejoratively label as "super weapons". That is just piling on a shallow criticism. First of all, while an A-bomb might have been a super weapon, a superior fighter or tank is not, and it is natural to pursue them just to keep pace with enemy capabilities. Moreover, Germany faced vastly superior numbers of allied aircraft and tanks, and it would have been irresponsible if they had NOT tried to develop weapons of superior capability to try to outweigh their numerical disadvantages. The allies were lucky that the national-socialist political-industrial complex was so inefficient and did not more rapidly develop such improved aircraft.
@@gort8203 It was the existance of those aircraft (Ta 152 and Me 262) which prevented the use of the B29 in Europe. The development of the B29 was even more expensive than the A-bombs Manhatten Project (so defenetly not a super weopon). The B29 was the most expensive aircraft ever fielded during WWII. The US did not dare to use it agianst Germany, while it could operate almost untouched over Japan. This alone would make the Ta 152 and Me 262 worth all its money and time.
The IS3 appeared on victory parade, germany had Jagtigers and other heavy gun carriers ready. The US and the Brits needed another 5 years to develop Conqueror and M103 , (both of them werent much more reliable than the german late war tanks), while Tortoise and T28/T95 turned out to be absolute failures.
The whole german superweapon narrativ is nonesense.
@@HaVoC117X The B-29 was not needed in Europe. The B-17 and B-24 had more than adequate range for that theatre and there was no intent to use the B-29 there. The B-29 was designed for and used in the Pacific theater. If the war in the ETO had gone on longer AND if it had been needed there it would have been used, but it was needed in the Pacific.
@@gort8203 It wasnt the fact that B17 and B24 could not do the job.
The stragical planing between 1941 and 1943 expected that the first operational B29 were stationed in Egypt on british airbases to attack germany from the south. And if germany was beaten only than they should be deployed in the pacific. This orginal plan was changed in late 1943 early 1944.
Because the B29 was to vulnerable over gemany and the extra range was needed in the pacific.
Of 3700 B29 produced during wwII, 720 were lost, only 147 because of enemy actions. This would have been totally different if this aircraft would have been used over germany. German aircrafts and Flak were way more potent than the Japanese. If the still unreliable B29 also had to deal with combat losses, the operational numbers would be low.
The biggest B29 air raid in 1944 had no more than 90 aircraft- Ususally they attacked Japan wtih 30 to 60 aircraft. Operational numbers were already low.
Nothing compared to the 1000 Bomber raids on germany. The B29 effect over Germany would have been unoticable anyway. Just threatening the most expensive weopon system of the airforce.
@HaVoC117X All that German stuff was junk and you know it. Command, control, communications and sheer numbers busted it.
I remember reading General Closterman's 'The Big Show' and his accounts of fighting a Tempest against the 'long nose' and its deadly thirty millimeter snoutgun...I wish you had produced this documentary sixty years ago...in junior highschool I looked, in vain, for more info about the craft to include in a WW2 aviation project...be well, good poster!
great read, that book..
the info available today is for our enjoyment, unlike the frustrating searches of our youth. My fav is the P-38, but dont ask me for the details of the variants.
I have a DZ of them in my 1/48 model collection one beautiful ship.
There a equal if not better than the P-51 & spitfire 9
@@polloqpolloqmine on the U.S. side is the P-40 E-N
But the mustang is in its own league.
There's a Japanese anima that stars the TA-52 But I can never find the name of the cartoon ?
Worried about the B-29 was a waist just like all the time & money they spent on zimmeret on there tanks to stop Russians from sticking magnet bombs on them. The only ones to use magnetic bombs was the Germans themselves. The Russians never had them😂
*Tanks Ta-152 was basically his FW-190/D9 with lengthened wings....*
It was a bit different structurally, and was quite a bit heavier. It also had an engine that was slightly weaker at low altitudes. The main difference visually besides the wing span and tail is that the wings have been moved forward relative to the cockpit. The front of the cockpit glass on the FW190 ends at about mid-wing-chord. The front of the cockpit glass of the TA152 is at the wing trailing edge or so. The TA152 had about twice the internal fuel capacity or so.
@@M4xPower The engine also got a turbo or turbocharger as far as I can remember , way more efficient at high altitude .
@@5co756 It got 2-stage intercooled supercharger with 3 gears, compared to single stage 2-speed supercharger of D9.
@@5co756 Yeah it had a way more sophisticated supercharger with an intercooler. They did some experiments with a turbo on the FW190 but there was nowhere to put the plumbing. This is why the P38 has booms and the P47 is so chonky. IIRC the turbo FW190C just had pipes outside of the fuselage running from the engine over wings to a fairing under the aircraft that looked something like the P51's radiator. The FW190B was allegedly less clean than that!
@@M4xPower Yeah it was the BV 155 , there were some prototypes with a turbocharger . FW190's and some Bf109's , not the Ta .
Every time I see anything about German war plane production I can't help thinking how incompetent Erich Milch was. He certainly didn't do anything to improve the German chances of winning the war.
And most of the senior leadership!
Thank God for incompetence!
He was being pressured from above by Göring.
So he wasn't entirely to blame
This is not a correcht analysis!
The decisive points were the death of Walther Wever, which meant that Göring was once again the head of the Luftwaffe in day-to-day business, the replacement of Wimmer by Ernst Udet and finally the appointment of Jeschonnek, who was by far the most incompetent idiot in the Luftwaffe's leadership ranks. In 1941 he was still of the opinion that the Luftwaffe would never have to fight above 6,000m. He was also responsible for the training, which completely collapsed from 1942 onwards!
Milch was actually a pretty good administrator- as he helped run Lufthansa pre war. Udet was the disaster.
Loved that plane I must build one with Saito 4 stroke radial
When you do, post it ok RCgroups pls
Depending on the scale size, I'd go kolm multi cylinder inline. A triple would be fitting.
The number of changes that this air frame would tolerate just tells you how great it was.
How's it 'great'?
Great video, very researched & factual with the personal querky touch that makes it engaging :)
Thanks so much for your efforts
Is this the air forces equivalent to Drach? Almost same kind of narrative, style and humor. He got a new sub!
If you want to get *even more* technical look up Greg's airplanes and automobiles
@@chunkblasteryeah I follow him to, he’s a lot like this fella but soooo much in depth detail it’s insane haha
@@CaptainJohn Very good are you also an Ed Nash and Sandbox enjoyer?
@@chunkblaster yes!!! I love Ed Nash!
You'd like Rex's hangar too
Always enjoy your videos. Especially impressed by the fact that you pronounce the German names correctly.
Agree, I cringe every time English speakers mangles many non English names so terrible that I can’t continue to listen.
@@netmansweThink of the names the British soldier gave to German controlled mounds of earth and other strongpoints in the 1914-1918 war.
Anyway, when you travel up the country you get more and more, "What do you mean?"
Pronunciations change. Even names change in some places.
Man i love your channel keep up the good work!
10:00 Another fun fact that probably nudged the scales towards the Jumo 213 was that the DB600 series of engines was in relatively slow supply because Daimler-Benz staunchly refused to give anyone else the production rights, so Bf 109s and 110s (and later a small number Me 410s and Do 217s) took up practically all of the engines available.
Thanks for another great video about a very cool aircraft.You are making one Aussie aviation nerd very happy on a pretty regular basis.Kudos to you,sir.
A big problem in late war Germany was, lack of good quality / quantity fuel, hence the the development of systems to overcome that (water/ methanol) for anti-knock , (nitrous oxide) for better combustion at high altitude
Every street racer in the world looks at a NOS kit on a prop plane and goes, "Hell yeah!"
Here is an easy intro idea: Imagine your essay is due, you wasted all your time on other stuff and have to get it done before tomorrow morning, so you smash two things together. Thats the Fw 190 D, and then refine it a little. Thats the Ta 152.
As Willi Reschke commented,(met him in 1992 along with Walter Loos. Both flew the Ta in Jg301)-"the Ta was my life insurance policy at the end of the war."
Read Eric Browns Test of the plane
My father has recently done paper model of TA152H... Beautiful glider fighter 😅😅😅
I have 2 in 1/72 scale.
In the high altitude model, the pressure kept in the cockpit by pressurization seems quite low, perhaps for structural reasons(?). At the highest design altitude of the plane, having at least some pressurization makes sense, since there even breathing pure oxygen wouldn't have the full needed partial pressure.
I love the wingspan! It has an almost graceful look
One thing that the US did to help spread the rumor was they flew 2 or 3 B29's to England and left them parked on a runway that had frequent German recon airplanes fly over. After the Americans felt it had taken pictures on more than one day the B29's flew to Cairo and eventually to India then over the hump into China for the first Bombing by B29's of Japan.
A new video. my body is ready. (ps, when's the Fw-190 video coming??????)
Learnt something new. Thank you!
My dad was an industrial engineer at General Electric main bomber engine plant in Ft.Wayne ,Ind. in the Turbo /supercharger Division . Management would not let him be drafted as they considered his efforts critical to production . We had to get our bombers up high enough to avoid these German fighters . There were 10 crew members per bomber ! It became a technology race ! Germany drafted some of their engineers earlier in the war which hurt their efforts .
"Vier Indianer am gartenzaun." means = Four Indians at the garden fence. Kurt Tank said it to the tower at (I believe) Langenhagen. I get my info from the Monarch Publications soft-cover book on the subject. He carried no ammo in the plane when he flew it if I remember correctly this occasion. The MW50 water injection AND the GM-1 nitrous were available in some models. Jumo 213E/F was the engine in some models like the 44'-wingspan H model. The short-wing Ta 152C carried a Daimler Benz 603G. If I am not mistaken....the Ta 152H-1 got up to 48,550' using an Italian barograph to capture and peg the altitude-meter as the German unit available at the time only went up to 39,000'! One combat pilot said that it was "intoxicating to fly." "Like a plank seated under your ***" And the main combat directive to operate in combat mode against the bomber formations: climb above the pack and dive completely vertical onto the bombers. The throttle did not even need to be touched in this maneuver as the plane, when pulled "up" after the attack, climbed back up to attack-altitude again with ease. It flew like a glider I think.
I recall that FROG (the model aircraft subsidiary of Tri-Ang/Hornby) marketed a model of the Ta152.
Thanks for the video my man I enjoyed it
Forgot to mention the nasty habit of the 163 of dissolving the pilot.
What an informative story! Thank zou for the size comparison. And the natural voice.
all hail the glorious slenderplane!
Good video information was correct as far as I recall, I was so into this plane when I first learned of its existence, there is a interview with master sergeant Willi Reschke, who flew the 152 in combat with JG301 in the last weeks of the war which is interesting, especially the bounce on the tempests.
Willi was rightly proud of this plane and was dismayed to learn the British had scrapped his personal 152 which is a terrible shame seeing as there is only one intact plane left now.
He took it as the British dident want to acknowledge how good it was , but I think anything with propellers was just old tech by mid 45 and the British did have there own superprops that they dident need to( Martin baker and the supermarine spiteful the latter being capable of 490+mph)put into production because the tempests and spitfires were perfectly capable of doing the job.
There is a complete Ta-152H in the Smithsonian collection. Many years ago I saw it at the storage facility; The Paul Garber facility which was just a bunch of hangers that they let people have limited access to. I was a Boy Scout then and actually knew more of the planes than our guide; who ended up rather annoyed!
I'm glad I'm wrong
i knew they had bits but not a complete airframe
I hope they give it the complete restoration back to its former glory
I have his mount in the Zoukei-Mura 1/32 scale model. Beautiful!
"Willi was rightly proud of this plane and was dismayed to learn the British had scrapped his personal 152 which is a terrible shame seeing as there is only one intact plane left now.
He took it as the British dident want to acknowledge how good it was"
Really? Yet another unsourced post. If you have said source, please post it here. Willi Reschke's own recollections of the Ludwigslust combat contradict each-other (I believe he gave three accounts, all differ). The British didn't see the Ta.152 as anything special because it wasn't And the Tempest out-flew the Ta 152's in that action noted above, and shot one down..
@@paulbantick8266 if you care to find the video you will find him saying that fuckwit
I’ve always been so fascinated with the Ta152 project, both high altitude and ground attack projects. Got a couple books on it that were very interesting.
Another great video, keep it up
Thank you this was very informative
The Dora didn't look weird as this video suggests. In reality the Dora was perhaps the best looking single seat piston engine fighter
I wish you had related the anecdote of Kurt Tank being jumped by an allied fighter when he was test flying the Ta-152, and he merely pushed the throttle forward and escaped at high speed.
"Transitional."
DOUG out
Too few, too late as a fighter but would've been a great photo recon aircraft like the Spitfire PR series. Couldn't have missed the activity along Englands south coast areas in particular during 1943-44.
What a mess. So many numbers and letters. They should have just added super chargers or water meth to the two successful platforms they had and called it a day. Hey pilot, no pressurized cabin but the oxygen and heater work great.
Kurt Tank , the man , the goat!
Thank you, I had missed all the other vareints of the FW 190. my best to you and yours. Leona
The Nitrous Oxide performance booster GM-1: its full name was Goring Mischung 1 (Goering Mixture). Of course, it wasn't developed by Ol' Hermann, but by an engineer named Otto Lutz, in 1940. The Ta 152H was one of the few Luftwaffe aircraft to use it in the latter half of WW 2.
There is a youtube episode from a pilot on the only unit where these planes were used. He says there were 34 or 36 planes & they were in a lot more battles than you suggest. He personally shot down 2 Tempests, a supposedly superior plane, & at the end of the war only 2 units had been lost & they didn't know if they had been shot down or suffered failures. His was the plane taken to England for testing after the was.
By the time they got it, the only thing the Luftwaffe still could do was desperate quick low altitude dogfights. Which the Ta 152 was not designed for.
😊Hello!
And thank you for a very nice video
🤔But I can't really understand your reasoning.
If it was because it would be better to develop the FW190 D, then that is exactly what they did.
The fact that the plane became longer was also to make room for the things you mentioned. 😃
And that wings got longer was exactly for the reason you said. 😃
And not thinking about getting better at higher altitudes would be strange, since they still had nothing more than bombers over Germany to worry about.
It is easy to look back and detect errors, but as this did not affect already set production lines, it did not make a big difference.
In addition, at the same time the production of fighter planes became greater than the training had time to fill with pilots, so therefore I can't see that they did anything wrong in developing the Fw190 A to also become the Ta152 H variant for future higher altitudes.
D The "Dora" variant quickly became so successful for the current situation.
So therefore I don't understand what you thought the developers would take their time for?
They did not disrupt production so that there was a shortage of aircraft.
But you can also say that they could completely turn a blind eye to propeller operation at higher altitudes, when the Me262 and others were under development.
But it wasn't the same people who developed propeller engines and jet engines.
So then it was probably better for everyone to work on improving where they could. So unfortunately, I don't see the Ta 152 H as a waste of resources.
The fact that the production did not quickly increase is probably many reasons for so late in the war, besides, it turned out that there were never any B29's...
Only fighter planes all the way over Germany.🙄
The Ta-152 was being developed for high altitude operations and as a possible interm fighter to protect the airfields used by me 262s from allied fighters that continuously harassed them on takeoff and landings
FW-190 A-D & TA-152 MY all time favorite planes from ww2
Insane weapon load!!!!
I love the dora and ta-152
I remember an account where Tank was flying a prototype Ta 152 to a different location, and was bounced by a group of Mustangs. Tank simply floored the throttle, and the 152 quickly pulled out of gun range.
Do you really believe all those apocryphal stories? On paper several German designs were promising, we'll never know if they would have been in practice. On the other hand many, many allied designs did what it said on the tin, again and again.
So a made up story of a hand made prototype makes you happy?
@@roo72 Some designers can fly, while the average internet commenter never takes off.
@@donallen8414And most tales about Nazi technology and its supposed superiority is made up bullshit
The Ta 152 featured a NEW wing, the space between the main wheel wells is greater than that of the 190 D, it was modular to take the "short" outer wings of the C and the "long" outer wings of the H.
Such interesting designs. You almost wish the war went on longer to see what some of these Wunderwaffe planes could do.
26,000 feet. Apparently, 26,000 feet is the maximum altitude at which human life can be sustained for extended periods - assuming unassisted breathing. There are obvious caveats to that, but still... seems like it would be pretty tough in that air if one were to get a stiff adrenalin jolt.
The cockpit was pressurised to 26,000 ft, but the pilot also used an oxygen mask - pressurised cockpit without a mask is a terrible idea.
thanks for another brilliant video!
Interesting and well researched video. Thank you.
God I love these videos so much, thank you very much!! :)
It was capable of flying at 42,000 ft, yes the Ta 152 or the next generation of the Fw 190-D. It had a top speed of 472 mph. The Tempests didn’t like this aircraft.
It would have been a helluva Reno racer.
The first episode of the 1993 anime, The Cockpit, brought me to this plane.
If you listen to the German Luftwaffe officer explain how it operates to Erhardt von Rheindars, that's one way to describe and hear the details.
Good presentation ❤
One of my favorite aircraft. I have the Zoukei-Mura 1/32 scale kit of the H-1. I hope to build it along with an FW-190A-4 and FW-190D9. Butcher Bird Evolution!
I owned a Ta-152H and flew it for three years. Then, I sold it to Pee-wee Herman in 1985 who promptly landed it gear up and proclaimed, "I meant to do that" Great video.
I mean Germany was basically trying to do anything it could to get overmatch or at least relevancy, because it doesn't take much brainpower to realize that if you produce a quarter the vehicles of your enemies, and they are equal or worse, you lose.
(you lose a total war. Obviously Vietnam and the Taliban won with worse and less equipment, but those were very different wars).
Good program.
I only just learned your channel name stands for "I Hope You Learn Something". I thought it was "I Have Your Low Six"...
There was several ta-152c delivered to front line air group they did fly sorti but them getting into air combat is unsure.
There a story of one shooting down a spitfire over north Germany.
There is no "story" of a TA-152C shooting down a Spitfire.
@nightjarflying how do you mean? You haven't read it?
@@nightjarflying I just came across the story somewhere nothing factual.
Never hear of it again.
@@jerryrichards8172 "nothing factual" - it will be a bul1shit DCS video or the like by some Nazi fanboi. I t d i d ' n t h a p p e n.
Great video. Thanks 👍
I wonder where you got the armament info for the Ta-152B, since I got several books that depict the planned Ta-152B-4/R2 version as an offensive powerhouse with no less than 7 (!) cannons of 20- and 30mm in caliber.
Of course this could just be a case of the designers getting way ahead of themselves in order to please the high hats at the RLM.
This inordinate amount of effort Germany put into purely defensive weapons is the best argument I have seen for the effectiveness of the Allied bombing campaign.
Thanks. Great Video
Designers like Kurt Tank and Dr Lippisch don't get the recognition they deserved. They designed some really great planes, but most would be stuck at prototype stage.
The Germans came out with some weapons far ahead of the time, but time isn’t what they had and these wonder weapons came out too little, too late to make a difference.
Nevertheless it did fly on a couple of reconnaissance and test missions and skipped easily both P51s and Tempests....so it gets the title of the fastest single engine propeller operational fighter of WWII the other being the two engined Do 335 Pfeil
MW 50 had three levels that worked with two additional super chargers. 472 mph
The FW190-D also known as "Dora".
9:28 damn never knew different Focke Wulf variants had speeds over 20,000 feet
The only real superweapon that came out of ww2 was the nuke,others are also important,but the nuke was the ultimate weapon that changed the world for the entire time forward
But only when it was coupled with the A4's progeny.
Yes Kurt Diebner and Manfred von Ardenne built several ones for Germany and they tested a small test version of them near Auschwitz (Wilamowice) and in Ohrdruf Thruringia (army test ground).
Also guided missiles tech started as a superweapon in ww2 and the technology led to the current state of aviation as we know it, and we've technically used far more of those than nukes, which existed primarily as a deterrent for their career
@@neiloflongbeck5705 that was planned and at least tested once in east poland German NOVA DEBA Luftwaffe testground.
The other superweapon? The computer.
The Ta152 was the best, high altitude, air superiority figther.
However, Thunderbolts, Corsairs, Lightnings, and Mustangs could perform escort, interception, ground attack, and air superiority.
If you don't have the fuel to fly rhe Ta152/the Allies can choose to avoid engagement/attack while still on the ground; it's basically just a piston engined ME-262.
The Ta152 was the "best, high altitude, air superiority fighter" only on paper & in your imagination. It never proved itself & it had unfixed faults. The aircraft never engaged the Allies at high altitude so you are relying on post-war tests - tests that noted a number of serious problems.
Beautiful aircraft. Please do the lippisch P13 /14.
The DO-335 would have been quite formidable also.
Can you do a video like this on imperial German aircraft? Like the designs and prototypes that saw little to no action in WW1.
How a MK103 fit inside the nose? It was such a big and heavy cannon, about a 100kgs, and large in bulk as well.
The need for the Dora was recognized immediately the Americans began strategic daytime bombing, but it seemed to take the threat of B-29's over Germany for the design requirements to be given urgent priority. The Dora was coming online at the same time the V1 and V2 missiles were being shot off en masse at London and no other weapons had a higher priority, per Hitler's orders - and these weapons used tons of strategic metals that could have gone elsewhere. So certainly by 1944, lack of resources hobbled every other German weapon, not just the Dora but probably the true wunder-waffens (such as the Me-262) as well.
i forget it OP mentioned it, but the FW-190, while being an excellent fighter, had serious flaws - the most glaring one being poor performance at the high altitudes where the B-17's commonly flew at. This is the main reason why nobody ever gave serious thought to dropping the BF-109 (of which 36,000 were ultimately manufactured). The 109 was an old design which had major problems from the beginning - but German designers throughout the long course of the war, were able to adapt it to almost any role the luftwaffe required it to fulfill.
V1 Good use of resources. V2 terrible use if resources
Projects like the Ta-152 kind of makes me wonder about other "What-If" final evolutions of piston fighter design had the jet programs not have been as successful. Of course a lot of this centers on engine development but it would be interesting nonetheless. For example, what-if Germany had gotten more projects and prototypes around the BMW 802 or 803 Radials or the Jumo 222; Britain with the Rolls-Royce Crecy, etc.
You also could pose other what-if for planned aircraft that were never built for one reason or another. I think the (allegedly) proposed fighter version of the Bugatti Model 100 would have been killer, by looks alone, and I think some of the Polish stuff was promising.
The what if cuts both ways and new developments often find counter-developments. Nothing in war happens in a vacuum.
Most of these projects don't go anywhere because they don't have the pilots or the fuel.
No jet engine => stuck somewhere around 750-800km/h, as prop performance quickly drops toward transsonic speeds.
Rocket fighters and stuff like DH Hornet would be end of evolution.
Now with jet engine, still stuck at about 2500km/h at altitude, because fuel consumption gets insane and planes are melting.
@@WALTERBROADDUS Kind of went without saying, I was just pondering what kind of "wunderwaffen" German engineers would come up with if they had to stick to piston engine development, sort of to counter the real 'Superprops' that came into service Post-War or were canceled like the Sea Fury and XP-72.
@@hoodoo2001 I was (trying) to be concise with a youtube comment on a pointless historical hypothetical. I could sit down and account for every possible factor, but then I would be writing a 100-page Alt-History Novella, instead of browsing the internet.
The Dora was "just" and improved Anton? I don't think so.
You missed the Ta 152e the PR version. Theirs a few photographs after the war of them.
I have to admit. These pilots had a better chance at survival flying these assine planes.
The Allies were in a way, fortunate that Hitler demanded an array of superweapons throughout the war. The Guernsey forts, huge underground bunkers that were never used, the V-2 base with its 15 foot thick roof (that still got bombed), dozens of wierd plane designs. The one thing he never tried that might have worked was using massive seaplanes to bomb the US east coast harbors.
I guess most of the "weird" decisions WRT production focus and all that could be explained by the era during which the Ta was conceived and then rushed into production. That said: When you read from or hear those who actually flew the plane in combat, they were still singing its praises even decades after the war had ended. Willy Reschke called it his "life saver", meaning that he thought if he hadn't flown the 152 during the last few weeks and months of the war, he probably wouldn't have survived. While I don't know how much weight we can give to these personal accounts, he does mention in an interview that can be found here on YT that he and other pilots in his unit thought the 152 was superior to the D-9 in many respects.
Personal accounts are from people who were actually there and did stuff, so I would credit them far more than many "learned" accounts from historians, you also get little snippets that get glossed over in the official accounts, these pilots had extensive knowledge of the aircraft they flew, gained by flying them in combat, a very unforgiving environment, so if those guys say it was good then it was, regardless of the paper experts.
@@CrusaderSports250 That's pretty much the opposite of how things work in RL - for instance: eye-witness-accounts are usually considered the weakest sort of "evidence" in a court of law. The interview I was referring to was done with Reschke as a pretty old man, so with decades between his account and the actual events happening. Plus this whole thing seemed rather personal to him, as he was still pi$$ed off about the Brits scrapping his 152 after they'd finished testing it. He thought they couldn't stand the fact that the 152 was better than most of their planes.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not implying that he was making stuff up or exaggerating things on purpose - but other than the amount of time that had passed (and how the human brain works when it comes to remembering things long term), there are so many other factors that play a role in aerial combat. Pilot quality, chance/luck, etc, etc. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you cannot judge the performance of any machine simply based on the opinion of one person or based on one historical engagement. If that was the case, we would have to assume that the 109 G-6 for example was a highly competitive plane in 43/44 as multiple high scoring LW-aces were flying the type and still racking up kills. From my 20+ years experience in MMO-sims, a non-MW-50-equipped G-6 would always be the last LW-plane I'd choose if I had to go up against mid to late war Allied stuff.
The question that comes to my mind is that with the number ow downed and captured American aircraft, both bombers and fighters, and for the fighters, that would include Lightnings, Thunderbolts and Musangs, why didn't the Germans try to intergrade that American know how into their German fighters for higher altitude performance?
My favourite ww2 fighter
The Bf 109 didn't really have the quite high-altitude problem that the Fw 190 did. The Bf 109F-4 had a service ceiling of 36,000' and the Bf 109G-6 had a service ceiling of of 39,000 feet (about 3,000 feet below those of the P-47 and P-51). By comparison, the Fw 190A-8 had a service ceiling of just under 34,000 feet.
"Practical designs" insert photo of Ferdinand tank destroyer*
Ferdinand had the best kill/death ratio of all tanks in ww2
If you haven't already seen it, I'd recommend checking out the first episode of an anime called "The Cockpit," because it's all about this very plane. I won't spoil the rest!
I have a fw 190 rc a very nice flier.