A US 'Ju-88'

merlin

While the Germans liked to pretend Ju-88 was a German design - crediting it to Junkers cheif designer Dipl. Ing. Zindel, it was in fact designed by W.H. Evers - a US citizen, and Alfred Gasner. Evers after working in the US aircraft industry returned to Germany in 1935, accompanied by Gasner. The two designers were employed by Junkers to design the new bomber. Gasner returned to the US before the prototypes first flight.
WI: They didn't go back to Germany - could the design for the 'Ju-88' (or something similar), have been submitted to the USAAC?
How different could it have been in comparison to the OTL version - apart from the dive-bombing requirement. I could imagine for example a defensive turret behind the cockpit.
What US OTL aircraft could a US '88' be built instead of? Douglas A-20, Martin Maryland and/or Baltimore, & B-25 NA Mitchell?

Ref: Famous Bombers of WW2 Wm Green
 

Sekhmet_D

merlin said:
What US OTL aircraft could a US '88' be built instead of? Douglas A-20, Martin Maryland and/or Baltimore, & B-25 NA Mitchell?
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Maryland, and then Marauder. An American 88 could fulfil the Marauder's torpedo carrying requirement better than the Marauder itself could. The Mitchell design is too good to be supplanted.
 

tomo pauk

merlin said:
While the Germans liked to pretend Ju-88 was a German design - crediting it to Junkers cheif designer Dipl. Ing. Zindel, it was in fact designed by W.H. Evers - a US citizen, and Alfred Gasner.
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A lot of people will pretend that NAA Mustang was an American design, despite the main designer on the project being the German-born Edgar Schmued ...

merlin said:
WI: They didn't go back to Germany - could the design for the 'Ju-88' (or something similar), have been submitted to the USAAC?
How different could it have been in comparison to the OTL version - apart from the dive-bombing requirement. I could imagine for example a defensive turret behind the cockpit.
What US OTL aircraft could a US '88' be built instead of? Douglas A-20, Martin Maryland and/or Baltimore, & B-25 NA Mitchell?
Click to expand...

DB-7 with V-1710s instead of R-1830s? It even has a proper bomb bay, unlike the Ju-88.
 

CV12Hornet

muddyleathers said:
B/c all USAAC multi engines aircraft were powered by radial engines.
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Yeah, but not for any doctrinal reasons. They only had one inline and all the available V-1710s were needed for existing fighter projects. Plus, the V-1710 wasn't as powerful as the R-2600 and R-2800 radials that powered American twin-engine bombers.
 
Nell_Lucifer

Nell_Lucifer

If there was going to be a shortage of V-1710s, what are the chances of utilizing one of the few 24 cylinder engines instead? While less optimal than a V12 you would have less drag than a radial, higher compression and better cooling. The POD is early enough to allow for such an engine to be available for use for any 1938 Ju-88 prototype. If Allison is building the 1710 for fighter aircrafts than perhaps Packard, Lycoming, Continental or Taylor could produce such an engine from 1935 onwards. Eventually getting replaced by the Merlin and perhaps Griffon later on?
 

Gannt the chartist

Its an underpowered piece of junk says the AAC. The best analogue is the SAAB 18 which has Gasner involved originally with Pratt and Whitney engines.

The problem is the twin engined bomber does not fit in with the AAC concept of operations for most of the pre war war and early war ( i.e. after 1939 before 42 period). This is for precision high level bombing of ships a torpedo or dive bomber does not really fit into this.
And the US does not need to develop high end inline engines the real advantage of these is in start to height interceptions. They can be just as good as radials or better but have no inherent advantage. The US has no real need of an interceptor.

By the time the AAC gets the funding to expand the British and French have already settled on the Maryland, Boston and Baltimore, with the Beaufort as the torpedo bomber and the US has a strict limit on the number of types it will procure. A Ju88 is far less capable than the B25 or B26,
 

Gannt the chartist

It would not be built.

Just because its a good German aircraft does not make it a good Allied aircraft. The Allied rough equivalents would be the DB7 and Beaufighter, The only thing it brings is dive bombing, well if the AAC wanted a dive bomber the could have had one, but the dive bomber as a tactical weapon is supplanted by Jabos in allied service most of the time and as a precision weapon, well you have the norden bomb sight which does pickle barrel stuff from much higher.
 

Carl Schwamberger

Gannt the chartist said:
It would not be built.

Just because its a good German aircraft does not make it a good Allied aircraft. The Allied rough equivalents would be the DB7 and Beaufighter, The only thing it brings is dive bombing, well if the AAC wanted a dive bomber the could have had one, but the dive bomber as a tactical weapon is supplanted by Jabos in allied service most of the time and as a precision weapon, well you have the norden bomb sight which does pickle barrel stuff from much higher.
Click to expand...

To expand on that, the AAC & then AAF used a conversion of the Navy SBD to Army specs, and a adaptation of the early Mustang for dive bombing. the latter flew as the A36 Apache, in a few tactical bomber squadrons. Both were phased out in 1944. The Marine Corps adapted the SBD for its own tactical bombing needs. The Marines developed a liking for precision close air support and used the SBD as a tactical bomber into 1945. They loaned one of their air groups with the SBD to the Army for tactical air support of the US 6th and 8th Army and the PI ground combat forces.

For a variety of reasons the AAF decided not to continue with purpose built dive bombers and adapted the new models of single engined fighters and tactical bombers.

Note the forgotten WWII multiengine bomber, the A26 Invader https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_A-26_Invader
 

Gannt the chartist

Carl Schwamberger said:
To expand on that, the AAC & then AAF used a conversion of the Navy SBD to Army specs, and a adaptation of the early Mustang for dive bombing. the latter flew as the A36 Apache, in a few tactical bomber squadrons. Both were phased out in 1944. The Marine Corps adapted the SBD for its own tactical bombing needs. The Marines developed a liking for precision close air support and used the SBD as a tactical bomber into 1945. They loaned one of their air groups with the SBD to the Army for tactical air support of the US 6th and 8th Army and the PI ground combat forces.

For a variety of reasons the AAF decided not to continue with purpose built dive bombers and adapted the new models of single engined fighters and tactical bombers.

Note the forgotten WWII multiengine bomber, the A26 Invader https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_A-26_Invader
Click to expand...
Dive bombers, the Vengeance being another one were quite popular in the Far East amongst US and DUKE forces. But then the Far East was a fairly benign environment, limited air opposition, poor AA and the Dive bomber could be used to hit targets like bridges economically. One bomber one bridge - the target for a STUKA was 50m x 50m so reasonably accurate but not precision and ofc they use ordinary bombs. Europe totally different thing.
 
ennobee

ennobee

The Ju.88 was a run-of-the-mill twin engined light bomber, but designed around the German air doctrines of the time. Any twin-engined light bomber built in the US for the (then) USAAF would have to be designed around the consideration of USAAF 1940 air doctrines so even if it were designed by the same engineers that built the Ju.88, it would still be a totally different plane.

Even leaving our the fact that Germany's standard aircraft engines were inline V.12's while the US typically went for air-cooled radials, there were:

The Luftwaffe preferred to house their complete bomber crew in one big cockpit, officially 'to strengthen their fighting moral'. The USAAF demanded that every crewman had his own workstation, even if that meant the need for extra space

The Luftwaffe also believed in their slow-firing heavy-caliber machine-cannons for defense. Thus allowing the designers to just go for one cannon per stand and place it on a mount rather than in a turret. Ever since the Martin B.10, the US preferred multiple small-caliber fast-firing machine guns in powered turrets.

The USAAF, justifiable or not, believed in the abilities of their Norden gun sight, so far that their doctrine called for high-altitude level bombing.even for precision strikes. On instigation of Ernst Udet, again justifiable or not, the Luftwaffe used dive bombing for high-precision strikes. So their light bombers had to be designed for it.

All this just to say: Even if the USAAF would order their latest twin-engined light bomber straight from Junkers, their design catalog would make it so that the resulting aircraft would look more like a Douglas A.20 then a Ju.88. likewise if North American would propose a design copy of the Ju.88 to the USAAF, the changes it would have to make to the project in order for it to even be considered by the general staff, would ensure that the resulting plane would look more like a B.25 than anything flying in the Luftwaffe at that time.
 
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