- 20 hours ago
For educational purposes
Both German and Japanese "Blitzkriegs" relied on devastat-ing air power to support their mobile forces early in the Sec ond World War.
German, Italian and Japanese bomber forces, veterans of earlier campaigns in Spain, Abyssinia and China, took a heavy toll of Allied troops, aircraft and ships as well as devastating many cities before the tide began to turn against them.
This extraordinary video combines authentic wartime footage with expert commentary by General John S.D.
Eisenhower and aviation authority Christopher Chant, to create a vivid and accurate portrait of these great axis bomb-ing machines.
This video takes you over the battlefields of Europe, the Far East and the world's oceans putting you into the cockpit of the most famous axis aircraft of the war.
Made in cooperation with Britain's Imperial War Museum and the U.S. National Archives, this rare collector's video will be a treasured volume in your military history library.
Both German and Japanese "Blitzkriegs" relied on devastat-ing air power to support their mobile forces early in the Sec ond World War.
German, Italian and Japanese bomber forces, veterans of earlier campaigns in Spain, Abyssinia and China, took a heavy toll of Allied troops, aircraft and ships as well as devastating many cities before the tide began to turn against them.
This extraordinary video combines authentic wartime footage with expert commentary by General John S.D.
Eisenhower and aviation authority Christopher Chant, to create a vivid and accurate portrait of these great axis bomb-ing machines.
This video takes you over the battlefields of Europe, the Far East and the world's oceans putting you into the cockpit of the most famous axis aircraft of the war.
Made in cooperation with Britain's Imperial War Museum and the U.S. National Archives, this rare collector's video will be a treasured volume in your military history library.
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00The End
00:30Oh, my God.
01:00After Hitler repudiated the Treaty of Versailles in 1935,
01:05Germany built up a large and capable armaments industry,
01:08which proved itself well able to turn out large numbers of weapons of all types.
01:13However, the course of the air war soon showed that too little thought had been given
01:17to the development of new generations of warplane.
01:20So the Luftwaffe had to soldier on with types which had mainly been designed before 1939.
01:26The Heinkel 111 was the mainstay of the German medium bomber arm throughout the Second World War,
01:34despite the fact that the prototype flew as early as February 1935.
01:39Though designed from the start as a bomber, the type had ostensibly been developed as a civil transport,
01:45and some early aircraft were indeed delivered as high-speed transports.
01:49The first bomber flew in October 1936,
01:54and over 7,000 were manufactured between then and 1944, when production ceased.
02:00Within the limitations imposed by the small airframe,
02:03the Heinkel 111 was developed into a remarkably effective warplane,
02:07which was used in a variety of roles.
02:10The first variants had a conventional fuselage with a stepped cockpit,
02:13but from early 1939, this was replaced by the more familiar, extensively glazed nose.
02:21This was asymmetric, with the bow machine gun offset to starboard,
02:26so the pilot's forward view was not impeded.
02:30Early versions were powered by a pair of Daimler-Benz engines,
02:34but these were soon replaced in the definitive Heinkel 111H
02:37by more powerful Junker's Jumo 211s,
02:41each producing 1,200 horsepower.
02:44These gave the aircraft a top speed of 270 miles an hour at 20,000 feet,
02:50while its range was some 1,200 miles.
02:53The aircraft normally had a crew of five,
02:56and had defensive armament of five to seven machine guns,
03:00although that in the forward part of the ventral gondola
03:02was often replaced by a 20mm cannon.
03:05During the course of the war,
03:08the 111 equipped 30 Bomber Geschwader.
03:11These were the equivalent of an allied group,
03:14and in turn were subdivided into three or four Kampfgruppen.
03:18Each of about 30 aircraft further divided into three or four Stafeln, or squadrons.
03:24Operationally, they flew in a fairly tight formation
03:27to give overlapping support against enemy fighters,
03:30the smallest formation being the Keter, or flight of three aircraft.
03:36The 111 was used as the testbed for a variety of radar installations,
03:41designed mainly to be fitted to other aircraft.
03:44One of the most successful being the FUG-200 anti-shipping device.
03:49The nose machine gun was replaced by a 20mm cannon in these versions.
03:54The Germans also pioneered the use of radio direction finding as a navigational aid.
04:05The Heinkel 111 was among several bomber types
04:08to use the Nicobain, and later X and Y Gerät systems,
04:12which allowed the aircraft to follow a radio beam to its target.
04:16The Luftwaffe's most infamous success using these methods
04:20was the raid on Coventry on the 14th of November, 1940.
04:24British scientists soon developed means of bending or jamming these beams, though,
04:28sending the bombers off course.
04:31On the actual bombing run, a fairly simple optical sight was used,
04:36but this was adequate to provide accurate bombing from low and medium altitudes.
04:41A typical bomb load was eight 550-pound bombs,
04:45stored in two bays either side of a central gangway.
04:48The 1-111 was also developed as a torpedo bomber
04:55and as a carrier for anti-shipping missiles.
05:02A selector switch on the starboard side of the cockpit
05:05allowed the radio-controlled guidance system to be used
05:08with either the Ruhrstahl X-1 glide bomb,
05:12sometimes known as the Fritz X,
05:14or with the rocket-propelled Henschel 293.
05:18The operator moved into the nose
05:24where the Kale-Strasbourg control unit was installed
05:27and inserted a small lever
05:28which was stowed separately for safety reasons.
05:38Once the target was in sight,
05:40the guidance apparatus was switched on.
05:42Then, when the operator said the word,
05:56the pilot pressed the trigger, releasing the missile.
05:59In this case, a Henschel 293D
06:02which had a television camera in its nose.
06:04Then, the operator guided the missile to its target
06:08using the joystick, just as in many home computer games.
06:12On a typical bombing run over England,
06:24the Heinkels learned to approach at low level over the coastline
06:29in order to lessen the risk of radar detection.
06:45Practically skimming the treetops at times,
06:47they made themselves less vulnerable to fighters or anti-aircraft fire.
06:52Nearing the target, they had to climb to a typical bombing altitude of 6,000 feet,
07:08Closely escorted by Messerschmitt 109 fighters.
07:15Because of their method of stowage,
07:17the bombs dropped out of a Heinkel 111's bomb base tail first,
07:21resulting in the odd wobble
07:23typical of the aircraft's bombing technique.
07:25The Heinkel 111 served in all the German campaigns
07:41from Poland, Norway, France and Britain
07:43to the Balkans, North Africa and Russia
07:46as a bomber, transport, glider tug
07:49and even as the carrier for air-launched V-1 flying bombs,
07:53precursors of today's cruise missiles.
08:23Another pre-war design was the Dornier 17,
08:27which was originally developed as a high-speed mail plane
08:30for the national airline Lufthansa.
08:40First flying in 1934,
08:42the aircraft was aptly nicknamed the Flying Pencil
08:45because of its slim fuselage.
08:47This made the passenger accommodation very cramped
08:50and it was not adopted for civil purposes.
08:54Instead, redesigned with a new nose and twin
08:57instead of single tail planes,
08:59it was adapted as a bomber in 1935
09:01and first saw action with the Condor Legion
09:04during the Spanish Civil War.
09:06Unfortunately, the slender fuselage restricted the size of the bomb bay
09:17and the Dornier 17 could only carry half the Heinkel 111's load.
09:25Various prototypes were built as bombers and reconnaissance aircraft,
09:29the first production variants being designated E and F respectively.
09:34But these were quickly replaced by the M and P models,
09:38powered by 900 horsepower BMW Bramo 323 engines.
09:44These only gave a top speed of 255 miles an hour at 13,000 feet.
09:50But pilots loved the aircraft
09:51because of its delightful handling characteristics.
09:54Range was also limited,
09:56normal tactical radius being only 311 miles.
10:03In an effort to improve matters,
10:04the engines were uprated to 1,000 horsepower in the Z series.
10:09However, the addition of a fifth crew member in the redesigned nose
10:13and an increase in the number of machine guns to between 6 and 8
10:17added so much weight that performance was actually worse,
10:20tactical radius being reduced to 205 miles.
10:25The Dornier 17Z saw its baptism of fire during the Polish campaign in September 1939,
10:32being used to bomb airfields, bridges and troop concentrations.
10:37The aircraft was used similarly during the invasion of the West in May 1940,
10:42although by this time its inadequacies were very apparent
10:46and only nine Kampfgruppen were still equipped with the type during the Battle of Britain.
10:50Due to its limited range, the Dornier 17 was principally used to attack shipping in the English Channel during this period.
10:59The aircraft was next used during the invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece in April 1941,
11:04and then again in June for Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of Russia.
11:11By this time there were only four operational Kampfgruppen,
11:15partly because of heavy losses from fighters and partly because new and improved types of bomber were entering service.
11:21Despite all this, the Dornier 17 remained remarkably popular with its crews until the last machines were withdrawn from service in November 1942.
11:30This particular machine is rigged with cine cameras to make part of a propaganda film.
11:39The national gravitation
11:50The national death of Ganderthal
11:52The national death of Ganderthal
11:54The national death of Ganderthal
11:55THE END
12:25For operations at the aircraft's service ceiling of 27,000 feet, oxygen masks had to be worn.
12:55THE END
13:25The Dornier 215, powered first by Nome Rhone radials, and then by 1,075 horsepower Daimler-Benz inline engines, was an unsuccessful replacement for the 17.
13:43And the 112 that were built saw their principal service as reconnaissance aircraft.
13:49THE END
13:51Much more successful was the Dornier 217, which was, in essence, a scaled-up 215.
13:57The development of a larger version of the Dornier 17 had begun in 1937, with the first flight a year later.
14:05But the aircraft didn't enter service until late in 1940, because it took two years to find and fit a suitable power plant.
14:13From a distance, the 217 and 17 appear virtually identical, but the new aircraft was both longer and had a greater wingspan.
14:23More importantly, it was powered by BMW Radial or Daimler-Benz inline engines, of between 1,580 and 1,750 horsepower.
14:33These gave a high top speed of up to 348 miles an hour, and a greatly increased range, even without fuel drop tanks, of 1,300 miles.
14:43On top of this, the 217 could carry 8,818 pounds of bombs and missiles, externally and internally.
14:55A greater load than any other German bomber of the period.
15:02For defence, the aircraft was usually fitted with a single 15-millimeter cannon, and between five and seven machine guns.
15:09The Dornier 217 had a crew of four, and continued in service right to the end of the war, equipping nine bomber groups.
15:21It was also used very successfully as a night fighter, anti-shipping and reconnaissance aircraft.
15:26Squadrons of 217s were deployed against targets in England, as well as being used in Russia and in the Mediterranean,
15:38after the Allied invasion of Sicily and Italy in 1943.
15:42Looking more like a fighter than a bomber, the single-seat Henschel 123 was the Luftwaffe's last operational biplane.
15:59First flown in the spring of 1935, it had been planned as a dive bomber, but entered service as a close ground support type.
16:06It saw its first combat in Spain in 1937, and subsequently in Poland, France and Russia, up to the middle of 1944,
16:18by which time the 60 airframes built had all been used up.
16:23It was a remarkably agile and robust aircraft, although the 880 horsepower BMW radial engine only gave it a top speed of just over 200 miles an hour.
16:39It could deliver four 110-pound bombs, and had two forward-firing machine guns for self-defence or straffing enemy troops.
16:53It was especially appreciated by the German army, because it could operate from rough strips close to the front line,
16:59so it could provide almost immediate aerial support in crisis situations.
17:04Although it was very vulnerable to enemy fighters, it could absorb a great deal of punishment from anti-aircraft fire, which endeared it to its pilots.
17:17The Junkers 86 was planned, like the Heinkel 111, as a civil transport, as well as a bomber, and saw service in both roles.
17:24It first flew in 1934, and for its time was a technically advanced aeroplane with diesel engines.
17:31One old-fashioned aspect, though, was the provision of a retractable ventral turret for one of its three defensive machine guns,
17:39the others being in the nose and the dorsal cockpit.
17:43Unlike earlier Junkers aircraft, the 86 had smooth rather than corrugated metal skinning, as well as a retractable main undercarriage.
17:54The first operational bomber variant was the 86D, which saw action in Spain.
17:59It proved very vulnerable to enemy fighters, though.
18:02So the E-model was provided with 800 horsepower BMW engines, instead of the earlier 600 horsepower Junkers Jumo types.
18:12These increased speed from 186 to 202 miles an hour.
18:17The four-man Junkers 86E could carry either four 550-pound or 16 110-pound bombs,
18:27but was obsolescent at the start of the Second World War, and was withdrawn from service as a bomber after the Polish campaign.
18:35Rather more significant was the Junkers 86P model.
18:48Seeing that the earlier variants were unsatisfactory as bombers,
18:52in 1939 Junkers started work on a high-altitude version,
18:56with a fully pressurised cockpit and wingspan increased to 84 feet from 73 feet 10 inches.
19:05First flown in 1940, it was powered by two 950 horsepower Jumo 207 supercharged diesel engines.
19:28The 86P could reach an altitude of almost 40,000 feet, with a cruising speed of 160 miles an hour, carrying a 2,205-pound bomb load.
19:52As a bomber it proved no more successful than its predecessors though,
19:59and after several had been shot down by high-altitude Spitfires, it was relegated to reconnaissance duties in Russia.
20:05A few 86Ps were further modified, and given the type designation 86R.
20:13These had a wingspan of just under 105 feet, engines uprated to 1,000 horsepower with nitrous oxide boosting,
20:22and four-bladed propellers, which enabled them to reach 47,230 feet.
20:28The Junkers 86R saw limited service during 1943 and 1944.
20:37Italy entered the Second World War in 1940, with only a small industrial base,
20:43and this, coupled with an obsolete concept of air power, made most Italian warplanes inferior to their allied counterparts.
21:02The Italian Air Force did, however, field some adequate medium bombers, among them the Kant Z-1007 Alcione, or Kingfisher.
21:19The Alcione was a five-seat land plane development of the Z-506 twin-float seaplane, and first flew in 1937.
21:28Deliveries to the Regia Aeronautica began in 1939, the first 35 aircraft being powered by 840 horsepower Isottofrascini inline engines.
21:40As they had only four 7.7mm machine guns for self-defence, they were clearly both underpowered and undergunned,
21:56so a number of modifications were rushed through.
21:59These resulted in the Z-1007 beast, with a longer fuselage and larger wings.
22:07New 1,000 horsepower Piaggio radial engines were installed, which gave a top speed of 283 miles an hour.
22:15In addition, two of the guns were replaced by heavier weapons of 12.7mm calibre.
22:22The heavy machine gun in the dorsal turret was aerodynamically counterbalanced by a metal tube of the same dimensions,
22:29so the turret could be traversed manually.
22:32Later in the production run, which eventually ran to nine batches, the single vertical tail surface was replaced by a twin-tail unit.
22:42The Alcione was the most important Italian bomber of the Second World War, after the SM-79,
22:48and as an alternative to its 4,410 pound bomb load, could alternatively carry a pair of 1,000 pound anti-shipping torpedoes.
22:58In 1942, Kant introduced an improved version, with 1,175 horsepower Piaggio radial engines,
23:06and bomb load reduced to 2,205 pounds to give higher performance and longer range.
23:14In all, 526 Alcones were built, seeing service from North Africa and the Balkans to the depths of Russia.
23:22A few were briefly stationed even in France, to help the Luftwaffe's attacks on British targets.
23:28The aircraft proved very vulnerable to Allied fighters in the Mediterranean theatre,
23:33but their crews soldiered on bravely until the armistice in September 1943,
23:38many thereafter serving alongside British and American bomber squadrons.
23:43The Savoia Marchetti SM-79 Sparviero, or Sparrowhawk, was without doubt Italy's best medium bomber during the Second World War.
23:56Designed originally as a six-seater civil transport, the SM-79 first flew in 1934,
24:02and over the next half-dozen years established several new world flying records,
24:07in addition to winning the prestigious Istres-Damascus-Paris air race in 1937.
24:13It entered service as a bomber with the Radia Aeronautica in 1936,
24:18powered by three 780 horsepower Alfa Romeo radial engines.
24:23These were later replaced by 1,000 or 1,030 horsepower Piaggio or Fiat radials,
24:30giving a top speed of 267 miles an hour at 1,300 feet.
24:36The Sparviero, with its defensive armament of three 12.7 and one 7.7 millimetre machine guns,
24:43proved its worth during the Spanish Civil War.
24:46Its crews, rather unkindly, nicknamed the aircraft Gobbo Maladetto, or Damned Hunchback,
24:53because of its rather ungainly appearance.
24:56But this didn't detract from its effectiveness.
24:59The Sparviero was of unusual mixed construction with steel, light alloy, wood and fabric components.
25:07This, however, gave it great structural integrity,
25:10which was highly appreciated by the men who flew it in all weathers over the Mediterranean.
25:16It had a flight crew of four and carried 2,750 pounds of bombs.
25:21At the beginning of the war, 594 were in service with 14 Stormi, or groups, each of four squadrons.
25:29In total, 1,215 were built for the Air Force, plus a large number of others for export.
25:35The aircraft took part in the Italian invasions of Albania and Greece,
25:40in the North and East African campaigns, in Russia, and most significantly during the Siege of Malta.
25:48The SM-79 was particularly successful as an anti-shipping aircraft,
25:53and was arguably the best land-based torpedo bomber of the war.
25:57In this role, carrying a single 18-inch torpedo under the fuselage,
26:02they did an enormous amount of damage to Allied convoys on the Malta and North Africa runs,
26:07particularly the pedestal convoy in August 1942.
26:18When Japan entered the war with the infamous attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941,
26:23the country had a large and well-equipped army and navy, each with its own air force.
26:29The Japanese enjoyed the benefits of combat experience from the full-scale war
26:33which had been raging in China since 1937.
26:36They rode an initial tide of enormous success as combined forces struck against the Americans
26:42in the Hawaiian and the Philippine Islands,
26:45against the British Imperial forces in Burma and Malaya,
26:48and against the Dutch in the East Indies.
26:50Ultimately, however, Japan couldn't match the manpower strength and industrial muscle
26:56of her implacable enemies, and was slowly driven to total defeat.
27:00At Pearl Harbour, Japanese aircraft damaged eight battleships, leaving five sunk or sinking,
27:07as well as destroying six other ships and 188 American aircraft.
27:12The army and navy air forces preceded the ground troops everywhere,
27:16using a combination of level bombers, dive bombers and torpedo bombers in shock attack waves,
27:22which within days left a swathe of burning buildings, wrecked aircraft and equipment,
27:28and a flood of refugees with nowhere to go.
27:31One of the principal aircraft in the initial assault was the Kawasaki Ki-48 light bomber,
27:46codenamed Lily by the Allies.
27:48It had been developed after border encounters with the Soviet Tupolev SB-2 during the late 1930s,
27:57and was designed to match the same specification.
28:00The Lily went into production in 1939,
28:03and nearly 2,000 were built between then and late 1944.
28:07It was an inadequate aircraft with only three machine guns for protection against enemy fighters.
28:13Early versions powered by 950 horsepower Nakajima radial engines could only carry 660 pounds of bombs.
28:22But the introduction of the 1150 horsepower radials in 1942 increased this to 1,764 pounds.
28:32The Lily had a high top speed of 298 to 314 miles an hour, depending on power plant,
28:39but still needed all the fighter escort it could get.
28:46Much more successful was the Imperial Japanese Navy's Mitsubishi G-3M,
28:51which the Allies codenamed Nell.
28:54This was one of the two most important Japanese bombers of the war,
28:58and played a key role in the attacks on Pearl Harbor, Hong Kong, Rangoon and Singapore.
29:03Greatly influenced by the Junkers 86, it was a twin-engined medium bomber,
29:12initially powered by 750 horsepower Hero Type 91s,
29:17but later by progressively more powerful Hinsei radials of between 830 and ultimately 1300 horsepower.
29:25These gave the aircraft a top speed of up to 258 miles an hour.
29:35Given the vast distances of the Pacific Ocean though, range was more important than speed,
29:40and the aircraft was designed first and foremost with this in mind.
29:44Compared with German aircraft of similar size and configuration,
29:48a maximum range of almost 3900 miles in the final M3 production version was a considerable achievement.
29:57This performance made it a strategic bomber in all but name,
30:00although the payload was low at 1764 pounds of bombs or a single 18-inch torpedo.
30:08But something had to be sacrificed in order to give this range,
30:23and it was the lack of self-sealing fuel tanks or armour protection for the crew,
30:28which made the Nell so vulnerable to enemy fire.
30:31Even the provision of a 20mm cannon in the dorsal turret,
30:41in addition to up to four machine guns,
30:43was not enough to keep enemy fighters at bay.
30:49The Mitsubishi G3M made its operational debut in July 1937,
30:53taking off from bases on the island of Formosa, now called Taiwan,
30:58for deep penetration missions into mainland China.
31:02Just over four years later,
31:03it was attacking Allied installations all over the Far East and Pacific region.
31:09The Pacific War was principally a naval one,
31:11so oil refineries and dockyards were the primary targets of Japanese aggression in the early stages.
31:18These scenes give a vivid impression of the effectiveness of Japanese bombers
31:22against targets which had practically no anti-aircraft guns,
31:26at a time when Allied fighters were virtually non-existent due to the pressures of the war in Europe.
31:35Firefighting teams were run ragged,
31:37and the loss of irreplaceable stores seriously hindered the Allied effort to rally under the blows,
31:43and begin to make a comeback.
31:45The feat for which the G3M Nell is best remembered, however,
31:54is its part in the sinking of the British battleship Prince of Wales,
31:57and the battlecruiser Repulse on the 10th of December 1941.
32:14This wartime reconstruction shows how aircraft operating from Indochina found and attacked the two capital ships
32:23after their position had been reported by a Japanese submarine.
32:27About 90 level bombers, dive bombers and torpedo bombers were involved in attacks lasting some two hours.
32:40The effect on British morale was similar to that on the American nation three days earlier,
32:59and showed, above all, the vulnerability of capital ships unsupported by aircraft carriers.
33:18Mitsubishi G4Ms, codenamed Betty, also took part in the attacks on the Prince of Wales and Repulse.
33:24This aircraft, which had a single vertical tail surface instead of the G3Ms II,
33:31was developed by the same design team as a naval attack bomber.
33:42In all, 2,446 were built,
33:45making it numerically the most important of all Japanese bomber types.
33:49Range was again a principal requirement,
33:52so the wings were packed with 1,078 gallons of fuel,
33:57and everything possible was done to lighten the structure.
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34:13So at that time they exerted plenty of competitors and stuff to ensure someone istiyorum.
34:16And that was completely Gentry,
34:18we flew to fighter this tank with fulloric anywhere,
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34:21And that drive is an absolutely Malaysian squared,
34:24and that's a casual part ofbait area with all theех Spare-square- blonde
34:26This flimsy construction, coupled with the lack of armour or self-sealing fuel tanks,
34:36made the Betty extremely prone to catching fire or breaking up in the air when attacked by Allied fighters.
34:43And its unfortunate crews nicknamed it the One-Shot Lighter.
34:47The prototype first flew in 1939, and the aircraft saw its operational debut over China.
34:55120 G4Ms took part in the assault on Pearl Harbour,
34:59and the aircraft also conducted several raids against the northern Australian port of Darwin,
35:04which was an important staging post for Allied troops and supplies.
35:09Powered by a pair of 1530-horsepower Kassai 11 or 15 radial engines,
35:15the G4M1 Betty had a range of 2,300 miles, carrying a 1,764-pound bomb load.
35:24It carried a crew of seven, and had a defensive armament of four machine guns,
35:29plus a 20-millimeter cannon in the tail.
35:32After the Solomon Islands campaign in August 1942,
35:36the aircraft was re-engined with 1,800 horsepower radials.
35:40Fuel capacity was increased still further, and the bomb load raised to 2,205 pounds.
35:47In addition, two extra machine guns were fitted in the nose,
35:51and the dorsal machine gun was replaced by a 20-millimeter cannon.
35:561,154 G4 M2s were built, compared with 1,200 M1s.
36:03The final version was the M3, only 60 of which were built in 1944-45.
36:10This rare sequence from the camera guns of American fighters
36:14highlights the Betty's propensity to catch fire or break up in the air
36:19after being hit by a stream of heavy-caliber machine gun fire.
36:22The German Junkers 88, seen here being fuelled and bombed up for a mission,
36:30was certainly the most versatile warplane of the Second World War.
36:34It was arguably the best bomber the Luftwaffe possessed,
36:37and like the de Havilland Mosquito, with which it's often compared,
36:41provided sterling service as a night fighter and reconnaissance aircraft as well.
36:46It was also used as a land-based torpedo bomber over the Mediterranean and North Sea,
36:52and as a tank buster in Russia.
36:55Junkers 88 production continued right through the war, and over 15,000 were built.
37:01The type resulted from a 1935 specification for a high-speed bomber,
37:06and the first prototype flew in December 1936, powered by Daimler-Benz engines.
37:12These proved unsatisfactory and were replaced by Junkers Jumo radials.
37:17After a number of other prototypes and pre-production aircraft had been evaluated,
37:22the first 88A1 bombers began entering service towards the end of 1939.
37:28These were powered by 1,200-horsepower Jumo 211 radial engines,
37:33which gave a top speed of 286 miles an hour.
37:37The bomb load was 3,967 pounds,
37:42bombs being carried both internally and externally.
37:46Later in the A-Series production run,
37:49which ran to 17 sub-variants built by six different companies,
37:53more powerful 1,350-horsepower engines were introduced.
37:57These allowed the aircraft to carry 7,935 pounds of bombs,
38:04but speed was slightly reduced.
38:07Junkers 88s were active against British shipping from the beginning of the war,
38:12but although they took part in the invasion of Norway in April 1940,
38:17the aircraft was a rare sight over the skies of France next month.
38:21Its real testing time came during the Battle of Britain,
38:24when eight Gruppen were deployed.
38:26Because of its comparatively high speed,
38:29the Junkers 88s suffered a lower loss rate
38:31than the slower Heinkel 111s and Dornier 17s.
38:36However, the fact that the crew of four were grouped closely together
38:39in the extensively glazed nose
38:41did give British fighter pilots a nicely concentrated target.
38:46The Germans were conscious of this fact,
38:48and the Junkers 88 series was fitted with increasingly heavy defensive armament.
38:52In the A4 version, for example,
38:55this comprised between five and seven light and heavy machine guns
38:59in the nose, the rear of the cockpit, and the ventral gondola.
39:03The next bomber variant was the Model C,
39:06which saw service as a night intruder.
39:09But as operations against Britain began to tail off in 1941,
39:13most Junkers 88 bombers were moved east
39:16for the invasions of Greece and Yugoslavia,
39:18the airborne assault on Crete,
39:20and the attack on Russia.
39:22The Junkers 88 was designed from the outset
39:25to be able to operate as a dive bomber
39:27as well as a level bomber,
39:29and its wings were fitted with dive brakes.
39:31The aircraft attacked in a 60-degree dive,
39:44dropping their external 550 or 1,000-pound bombs
39:48from an altitude of about 3,000 feet.
39:51The pilot determined the moment of bomb release
39:54using an illuminated ringside.
39:56329,000 feet.
39:5931,000 feet.
40:0328.
40:0725.
40:1122.
40:1519.
40:1816.
40:2113.
40:2213.
40:2213.
40:2314.
40:24Once the bombs were away, the elevators automatically turned to the full-up position to pull the aircraft out of its dive, eliminating the danger of target fixation.
40:54The Junkers 88 was heavily committed in the war against Russia, and often operated from extemporised airfields, where essential supplies of bombs and fuel had to be flown in by Junkers 52 transports.
41:20This allowed the 88s to support fast-moving ground forces from bases close to the front line.
41:26The versatility of the type is shown by its ability to undertake semi-strategic tasks, such as the bombing of Moscow, as well as purely tactical missions against enemy tanks, trains and troop convoys.
41:39By the middle of the war, there was no doubt that the survivability of the Junkers 88A was being compromised by the improved performance of Allied fighters, including new Soviet types.
41:58The Junkers design team thus evolved the 88S high-speed model, powered by two 1730 horsepower BMW radial engines, which gave a top speed of 379 miles an hour, or 382 miles an hour, with nitrous oxide boosting.
42:16The crew was reduced to three, the ventral gondola being removed, and a new smoothly glazed nose fitted, while defensive armament was reduced to a single rearward-firing machine gun.
42:28These soldiered on alongside the earlier A models until the end of the war.
42:34From the middle of 1943, the Junkers 88 bomber groups were progressively withdrawn from the Russian front to counter the Allied invasion of Sicily and Italy.
42:52In the following summer, they were moved again, this time to France, to bomb the Allied beachhead in Normandy.
42:58They also operated in hit and run intruder missions over England.
43:03But by this stage of the war, the German bomber force had effectively ceased to exist,
43:08and most of the Junkers 88's left were night fighter versions with airborne interception radar.
43:14The massive Fokker-Wulf 200 Condor is best remembered as the Skurdebžel rod and the Junkers 88's left.
43:37The massive Fokker-Wulf 200 Condor is best remembered as the scourge of Allied shipping
43:45in the North Atlantic in the hands of KG-40, but it was in fact originally designed as
43:51a long-range civil transport.
43:54The first of three prototypes flew in July 1937, and these aircraft soon set a number
43:59of impressive range records.
44:02It wasn't long before consideration was given to the type's potential as a maritime
44:06reconnaissance bomber, with a long gondola added under the fuselage for the bomb bay and
44:11observation positions.
44:14The type's main operational floor was a weak structure behind the wing, and several aircraft
44:19broke their backs in heavy landings.
44:23The first military Condor was powered by four 850 horsepower BMW radial engines, but these
44:29were uprated to 1,000 horsepower in the definitive 200C3 version.
44:36These gave a cruising speed of 208 miles an hour and a range of 2,200 miles.
44:42The crew of 8 frequently had to endure patrols of up to 14 hours duration over the bleak Atlantic.
44:49One story that the captain of an Allied ship asked the pilot of a Condor to fly around the
44:54other way because he was making him dizzy is almost certainly apocryphal though.
45:00For defensive purposes, the Condor was fitted with two 20mm cannon and four machine guns,
45:06while the maximum load of bombs or mines carried, both internally and externally, was 4,626 pounds.
45:14Later variants of the aircraft were also equipped to launch a pair of Henschel 293 radio-controlled
45:20anti-shipping missiles.
45:25The Heinkel 177 Greif, or Griffin, was the only German heavy bomber to see widespread service
45:31during the Second World War.
45:34It was also the Luftwaffe's sole attempt to create a truly strategic bomber, but fell far
45:39short of the demands the war imposed.
45:43The Greif was developed from a 1938 requirement for a bomber capable of carrying a 4,410-pound
45:49bomb load over a radius of 1,000 miles at a speed of 310 miles an hour.
45:56Finding a suitable power plant proved the biggest problem, delaying the aircraft's entry into
46:01service until the middle of 1942.
46:05The solution Heinkel designers came up with was to couple two Daimler-Benz inline engines
46:11together in each nacelle.
46:13Thus, while the 177 looks as though it's twin-engined because it only has two propellers, it was actually
46:19four-engined.
46:22The twinned engines each produced 2,700 horsepower to give a top speed of 303 miles an hour at
46:29just under 20,000 feet, but normal cruising speed was only 258 miles an hour.
46:35One of the ideas in using double engines was to reduce drag, but in practice they proved
46:41mechanically troublesome and prone to catching fire.
46:44Nevertheless, the Heinkel designers far exceeded their brief and produced an aeroplane with a range
46:49of over 3,000 miles and the ability to carry an internal and external bomb load of up to
46:5513,230 pounds.
46:59For self-defense, the six-man 177 was typically fitted with a 20-millimeter cannon, plus two
47:04heavy and three light machine guns.
47:08The Heinkel 177 was an attractive mid-wing design, produced in four main models, including
47:14anti-shipping variants armed with torpedoes or Henschel 293 missiles or tank busters with
47:21a 50 or 75-millimeter cannon.
47:23The aircraft also served as a transport on the Eastern Front.
47:28It served with nine bomber groups and played a significant part in the so-called mini-blitz
47:33against England in the first half of 1944, attacking London and southern ports where the D-Day
47:39Armada was being assembled on several occasions.
47:43The last 177s saw the last act of the war played out in the east.
47:48A projected high-altitude version with a pressurized cabin never got beyond the prototype stage.
47:57Appropriately named the Blitz or Lightning, the Arado 234 was the world's first jet-powered
48:03bomber, resulting from a 1940 requirement for a high-speed reconnaissance aircraft with jet
48:09propulsion.
48:10The first prototype didn't fly until June 1943, and the aircraft only began entering
48:16service in July 1944.
48:19The prototypes took off on three-wheeled trolleys, which were jettisoned at 200 feet, and landed
48:25on a retractable central skid.
48:27The reason was that early jet engines were so thirsty that virtually all the available
48:32fuselage volume had to be occupied by fuel tanks, so there was no room for undercarriage.
48:40In the air, the Blitz was a graceful aeroplane.
48:43Despite its use of straight wings rather than ones which were even moderately swept, the Arado
48:48Blitz was a remarkable achievement, and typical of the inventiveness of German aircraft designers
48:54in the later stages of the war.
48:56The production bomber version, the 234B, had a top speed of 457 miles an hour at 30,000
49:04feet, far outstripping any piston-engined fighter.
49:08It was a single-seater, and not only was the cabin pressurised, but the pilot even had an
49:13ejector seat.
49:15Due to the lack of space in the narrow fuselage, the weapons load of 3,307 pounds of bombs, or
49:21rockets, was carried on underwing pylons.
49:27Because of the very long landing run using the skid, braking parachutes were introduced
49:32early in the programme.
49:34Even this didn't solve all the problems, because the aircraft then had to be reloaded onto a
49:39trolley before it could be moved.
49:41Nor were attempts at landing with the three-wheeled trolley still in place very successful.
49:47So in the end the fuselage was widened, and a tricycle undercarriage adopted for production
49:52models.
49:53The resulting loss of fuel space restricted range to just over a thousand miles, even
49:58with rocket-assisted takeoff.
50:01To extend this, experiments were even carried out with the aircraft towing a winged fuel tank
50:07behind it like a glider.
50:10An unusual feature of the 234 was the provision of twin remote-controlled 20mm cannon fixed in
50:16the rear fuselage to fire backwards at any pursuing fighter lucky enough to get close.
50:23The production totaled 210 aircraft, most powered by Junker's Jumo axial flow turbo jets, delivering
50:301980 pounds of thrust.
50:33Some night fighter versions had 1760 horsepower BMW turbo jets instead.
50:41Operations using the Blitz were severely limited by Germany's acute fuel shortage towards the
50:46end of the war.
50:47They did however see action during the Battle of the Bulge, and in attacks against the American
50:52bridgehead across the Rhine at Remargen, but were eventually grounded for lack of fuel.
51:02The Junker's 87 is universally known as the Stuka, the word being an abbreviation of
51:08Sturzkampfflugzeug, the German name for a dive bomber.
51:13The Stuka was probably the most decisive weapon wielded by the Germans at the beginning of the
51:17Second World War, for psychological as well as purely military reasons.
51:21An enduring image of Germany's Blitzkrieg successes between 1939 and 1941 is the shape of the
51:29crank-winged Stuka powering downhill in a near vertical dive, accompanied by the nerve-shattering
51:36scream of the sirens attached to its landing gear legs.
51:43As such, the Stuka was an essential component of the aerial artillery which blasted open the
51:58path for Germany's fast-moving panzer forces.
52:01At the same time, the Stuka, with its pinpoint bombing accuracy, was by its very threat an
52:07important weapon in lowering the morale of troops facing German attack.
52:11It also made a major contribution to the hordes of civilian refugees who streamed away from
52:17threatened areas and clogged the roads which could otherwise have been used by the armies
52:21facing the German onslaught.
52:24The Junkers 87 was planned after Germany learned of the effectiveness of dive-bombing experiments
52:29by the Americans.
52:31The first version, which appeared in 1935, had twin vertical tail surfaces and, ironically,
52:37in view of what was to follow, was powered by a Rolls-Royce Kestrel engine.
52:43Other prototypes featured a single vertical tail surface and Junkers engines.
52:49The first production variant, the 87A, entered service in early 1937 with a 640 horsepower
52:56Jumo 610C.
52:59This model was used with great success during the Spanish Civil War and paved the way for
53:03the first definitive variant, the Junkers 87B, in 1938.
53:09This had an uprated 1,200 horsepower Jumo engine, which enabled the aircraft to carry
53:14an 1,100-pound bomb load instead of the 87A's 550 pounds.
53:20The 87B had a top speed of 237 miles an hour and a range fully loaded of 372 miles.
53:28The main bomb was carried in a crutch under the fuselage that swung it clear of the propeller
53:33as it was released.
53:37The 9 Stuka Gruppen played a major role in the Polish and French campaigns of 1939 and
53:431940.
53:44Some 340 aircraft spearheading and supporting the panzer divisions, attacking bridges, crossroads,
53:51airfields and troop concentrations.
53:54The pilot had a dive angle indicator in his side window and, as on the Junkers 88, a device
54:00was fitted to pull the aircraft out of its dive automatically as soon as the bomb was released.
54:06During these early campaigns, the Luftwaffe enjoyed the benefit of local air superiority.
54:11But when it came to the Battle of Britain, the Stuka's shortcomings were finally revealed.
54:17With only two forward-firing machine guns and a single gun in the rear of the cockpit, the
54:23Stuka couldn't defend itself against British fighters.
54:26It was as a Stuka pilot that Hans Rudel eventually became the most highly decorated officer in the
54:32German armed forces.
54:35The final dive bomber variant was the 87D, which began entering service late in 1941.
54:42This model was cleaned up aerodynamically with a new nose and cockpit, was fitted with extra
54:48armour protection and had twin machine guns fitted in the cockpit rear.
54:55None of these factors could alter the vulnerability of the Stuka, except under conditions of complete
55:01German air superiority, a condition that became increasingly scarce.
55:07From 1942, it was principally used for ground attack work in Russia, some aircraft being fitted
55:12with under-wing anti-tank guns instead of bombs.
55:16By 1944, the writing was on the wall for Germany.
55:31Much serious fighting still had to take place as the Allies closed in, but German bombers could
55:37no longer survive against modern fighters, such as the American Thunderbolt, Lightning and
55:42Mustang, or the British Typhoon and Tempest.
55:46The Germans made frantic efforts to get new aircraft of their own into service, but losses
55:52among veteran air crews were horrendous, and in the end, it was all in vain.
55:58On top of this, the increasing fuel crisis meant that large numbers of aircraft were grounded
56:04and fell easy prey to the swarms of Allied fighter bombers, which roamed virtually at will
56:10after D-Day.
56:12German's turn was next.
56:15The Axis powers had opened the lid to this Pandora's box of destruction, but had failed
56:22to learn from their own successes, and now had to pay the price.
56:27The Axis powers had opened the lid to this pandemic, and had to reveal the hail of mid-game
56:30of the
56:35****
56:39THE END
57:09THE END
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