5 Luftwaffe 'Ideas' That Worked...Sort of
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- Опубліковано 8 сер 2018
- You'll find many strange and 'wonderful' ideas in the repertoire of the Luftwaffe, many of which never worked. So, let's check out five that did actually work...just that they had no real use.
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Forschungsanstalt Graf Zeppelin, Erprobung SG 113 A, Brf. Nr. 107 gKdos
Forschungsanstalt Graf Zeppelin, Brief an Chefing, Temme, 3.1.45
SG 116 Zellendusche, Unt. 177 WKW
Munitionsbericht WKWm 12/43 | 64/43 | 142/43 | 163/43 | 165/43 | 198/44 | 218/44 | 245/44 | 271/44 | 299/44 | 307/44 | 360/44 | 368/44 | 406/45
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Music and Sfx from Epidemic Sound
![⚜ | German Guided Weapons - Facts, Myths & Common Misconceptions [Fritz-X | Hs293]](/img/n.gif)
"The Germans weren't the only ones to put flamethrowers on aircraft, buts that another story "
*TELL US THE STORY*
JAWOLL! BISMARCK MACH HINNE! ;)
LupusAries Da fehlt ein Alter
@Boar Vessel lmao is this a general meme or are you from SPQR-Posting?
Davi Lu just a general meme. Never heard of SPQR posting but I shall investigate.
@The King lol
THANK YOU for mentioning the logistical requirements of replacing established kit. So many comments and videos deride the use of existing gear, demanding without ever understanding the upheaval brought about by genuinely new technology.
Wiggum Esquilax
I have heard it said that the German pilots who used the anti ship guided bomb, were reluctant to report how successful it was because they knew the upheaval that might follow.
So why didn't they call it 'Spitfire'?
I guess they didn't want to get sued for copyright infringement...
The Luftwaffe don't want to be a laughing stock from the Army and Navy since they lost Battle of Britain. :P
You mean Spit-fire right?
OI MATE YOU GOT A LOOICENCE FOR THAT NAME.
FEUERSCHPUCKER
Goering: we need ideas for our bombers defense
Hans: *grabs ze flamenwerfer*
Gets the Nebelwerfer
Hans jump on the plane!
Japanese hans version
@Military_Aviation_History I wouldn't call the 6 tube rocket magazine a gatling gun, but rather a revolver, a good old-fashion Texan 6-shooter!
True that, would have been a better analogy
Nathaniel you mean an RBFRR=Really Big Fucking Rocket Revolver? ;)
Yeehaw lol
gatling gun ahahaha total fail
@Military Aviation History would've surely been :))
lel
:]
Commits aerodynamic heresy
Space marine intensifies
Flying bricks!
METAL BAWKES
Get me closer I want to purge them with my Flamer!!!
jackisme 1993 the flamer attached to your plane?
Andrew Birdsell well it's either that or a really big chainsword attached to each wing of my Thunderhawk :)
gatling 210 mm rocket launcher on a plane
yes where do i buy one
the a10 of ww2
More like a 210mm rocket revolver since each barrel holds a rocket.
"True enough, throw enough rockets at the Yankees and something is bound to go up like it's the 4th of July"
Oh my god this is my new favorite quote lol
10. April 1945
110 Lancasters attacked in the evening the outer districts of Leipzig. Leutnant Kelb started his Me 163, armed with Korffs vertical armament. Feldwebel Höver from the Funkleitstelle was watching Kelbs attack with a strong FlaK telescope. He vouch, how Kelb bypassed the leading bomber underneath at verry close range. At this moment, the bomber dispersed in a cloud of fire and smoke. A nearby flying Lancasters looked like they got also suffered damage. Kelb first climbed and than steered his aircraft in a steep dive towards the range of the own anti aircraft defense of Brandis airport, chased by a pair of P-51- and landed safley. His plane was litterd at the tail with small holes from the debris of the exploded Lancaster. After his own words, he bypassed the bomber at 10m or 20m underneath and all 8 tubes fired their 5cm grenades after the sensor detected the shadow of the bomber. His Me 163 got a "slap" at the tail and turned into a climb, but was shortly after at Kelbs full control. This was the one and only fight with this weapon. Also on it was, like many other things, the motto: To less - to late.....
Wolfgang Späthe "Der streng geheime Vogel" page 292/293
5:58
...Nigel had not cleared leather when a rocket fairly ripped
And the kraut's aim was deadly, with the big iron on his hip,
Big iron on his hip...
Kayraaa2 but the real question is if he heard the masters call.
Marty Robbins would be proud.
...And the notches on his cockpit numbered one and nineteen more
who else clicked on this video primarily because of the "flamethrower on a plane" thumbnail?
MidnightSt me.
happened to me too, idk why it keeps bringing me to this shit video
LUFTFLAMMEWURFER!
@@zaney3728 It's not a shit video tho
I didn’t read the title so I thought that was the only reason.
The Me 410 with the 6 tube rotating 21 cm Rocket launcher (Gatling Style) neatly installed in the forward weapons bay is my Favourite!
yeah that was badass its flying nebelwerfer i had no idea
Blunderwaffe?
Dude.
Dunderwaffe?
NICE.
Bluffwaffe?
1274627 26e66262 Wunderwaffle
Can you elaborate on that "private fleet" of He-100's a bit more? Were they part of the Luftwaffe or did ol' Heinkel just say "F this. I'm starting my own little air campaign!"?
Probably used them for the industry protection squadron.
He used a few of them to protect his own factories.
Military Aviation History Thanks for the answer. Did other factories have this too, Dornier or Messerschmitt for example?
Yes, most aircraft factories operated dedicated industry protection sqadrons manned by factory staff. In the Focke Wulf ISS for instance the planes were piloted by the factory test pilots, some scoring kills against B-17s.
Thanks man! Although i consider myself well versed with WW2 planes, this was news to me!
Amazing video as always Bis! Your videos perfectly fit my interests, thank you! Keep it up!
Now that’s how you get someone to click on a video
Wat click bait
your profile pic looks like it saying that
You know the flamethrower could actually work in a similar way to that trick that Galland pulled once while being chased down in a dive.
He fired all his guns, and the tracers made the enemy think they were shot at from behind which then made them pull out.
(It's an anecdote in Fighter Combat Tacttics and Maneuvering.)
You could use the flamethrower similarly, light it up, push over into a dive, and dive away, make the enemy think you are damaged. Or combine it with a roll.
However that is me thinking creatively on how to use that piece of equipment instead of them having that intention.
Except it didn't. The pilots reported that it attracted unwanted attention from British fighters and they went for it because they thought it was already in trouble.
@@thethirdman225 A bomber flying straight or a fighter diving and rolling, simulating an out of control damaged aircraft?
Just for clarification.
@@LupusAries Oh, you meant a fighter equipped with this? Sorry, I didn't realise. No, I was talking about the Do-17, which was a bomber.
@@thethirdman225 Yeah, that was me trying to hypothesize a possible scenario where you could use this.
Or how to make it possibly work.
As for Bombers in level flight, yeah agreed, everyone would go for the easy kill.
I'm nit sure any bomber bar the stuka would have the structural speed and the reactivity to pull that off.
P.S. no worries, I got that, no offense taken.
When you explained that the evaporation cooling system required a large area, I felt it would have been significantly better to have shown the X-ray view of the He 100 in War Thunder, which shows some of the internals of the aircraft, including the evaporation cooling system. This would have helped new viewers visualize the problem; the cooling system took the area of the entire wing and even parts of the waist and tail area.
From what I read the revolver rocket launcher was also dropped because it caused heavy structural damages on the Me-410
"True enough, throw enough rockets at the Yankees and something is bound to go up like it's the 4th of July."
Perfect description.
One of the major problems of the flamethrower fitted to a bomber as defence was at altitude the flame admitted was not impressive, and it had the effect of making enemy fighter pilots think the plane was in trouble, therefore attracting them to the bomber instead of driving them away. This is what happened when it was tested operationally on a Do 17 during the Battle Of Britain.
plus the British had a tendency to not do as the Germans anticipated, instead attacking from the rear, front, and top rather than getting into a chase.
I love the video's you post Bismarck, it teaches me the technological geniuses and failures of the Second World War, keep up your fantastic stuff buddy. It's truly brilliant!
Im surprised the Japanese didn’t put bayonets on there aircraft.
There was a German anti zeppelin plane with a huge bayonet you can find on Wikipedia I think In the wunderwaffen page
The Me-323 was an idea that the USAF saw through to a viable weapon with the AC-47 and later the AC-130. There were/are very good weapons systems.
That AC-47 was just Spooky.
Anyone else think the YB-40 would make a fun Rank IV premium for the US tree in war thunder?
Sir, you are nasty...
hey, unlike the skywhale, this thing actually saw combat a few times.
also, I think it lost most of its bomb load, if not all of it
I suggested Old 666 for it. Which is kiiiinda like the YB-40, just without the second dorsal turret. And has a fixed MG for the pilot to use. dakkadakkadakkadakka. And yeah, no bomb-load. A superheavy fighter. XD
Yeah, the germans...., we either love them for their crazy projects or their good engineering capabilities :D.
Tse germans, the living proof to the idiom, that there is a fine line between genius and madness.
WWII Germans made equipment that could out-perform anything under ideal conditions. But in WWII, there were no ideal conditions.
"Ideal conditions," only ever happen in a lab. And even then, something's gonna fuck up.
@@Neuttah conditions that were not ideal like "being constantly carpet bombed" while being short on materials, labour and fuel.
Under ideal conditions German technology got people
into space instead of just one way rockets to London
Hoo boy, this'll take a while.
Allrighty, first off, when I meant "Ideal conditions," I meant conditions for actual use, not production. (See also: Fucking mud-frozen interleaved roadwheels).
Second off, even under ideal conditions, as Germany was at its relative peak and about to set the world aflame (So, you know, 1939, if it's not obvious):
-At least two other countries had superior small arms technology (M1 Garand, and also the SVT-38 was also up for mass-adoption until...shit happened. G-41 will be a stillbirth until German designers get their hands on the SVT-40)
-Just about everyone short of Italy, Japan*, and the US* had technologically superior tanks in one way or another, even when doctrine impeded on their specifications.
*And they're islands, why would they?
-Aviation, at last, a field where they were somewhat decent. Their tactical bombing is either 1st or 2nd best in the world, and their fighters are about equal to the ones belonging to the countries that can afford to develop their own.
And their Strategic bombers? No.
-Navally...look, their submarines weren't strictly the best, they were just the best that the Kriegsmarine had to offer.
*And now, for the grand finale of the rockets you so conveniently brought up.*
Wernher took patents from an American engineer, scaled them up with a big wad of resources from a desperate industrialised regime that had severely underrated its opponents, and made, at best, a third-rate alternative to a strategic bomber that killed more workers than targets.
As it was, German dabbling with rocketry did help kick-start the major superpowers' rocket programs, but at best it made a few things happen a few years earlier. I'd say JFK's martyrdom was a bigger factor in the Moon landing than Von Braun's tinkering with potato rockets.
And even then, that's under the assumption that the war didn't actually set large liquid-fuel rocket development back because most countries had more important things to do.
*Thank you for posting all of your videos. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!*
hearing him saying 6:03 - 6:07 with that accent made me smile. That wouldn't out of place in a war movie.
Just a random thought. Suppose you have a small explosive attached to the tail of your fighter, sort of a claymore-like design. When chased by another fighter, the pilot detonates this, and a cloud of shrapnel puffs out at the path of the chaser. A shotgun blast, even.
How I'd imagine a flamethrower on a plane.
Fighter: *gets a little ballsy*
Bomber: SUCK MY FIRE
Bismarck playing war thunder? What universe am I in?
In all fairness to it it has some of the aircraft he was talking about and he doesn't really loose much by playing it quickly for the sake of footage.
Your in a universe where tanks write comments
well, huh, he didnt play it. war thunder is a grindfest, would take ages to get to any plane.
tank, you mean tank. the planes are a pathetically quick and easy grind compared to them.
@@fatmanicy4292 not only tanks but bears as well
So exactly right that many people underestimate the difficulty of starting a factory and building things. We see that all around us today on Kickstarter campaigns that have no possibility of ever producing a working product affordably.
I would have thought the idea behind a flame-thrower would be to make the aircraft appear to burn, and make attacking planes stop attacking, thinking the flameplane was basically dead.
Edit: see TheThirdMan in the comments. This idea does not work.
No that would not work as the size of the flame would not look like a damaged air craft fooling no one!
@Desmond Bagley But then everybody would be shooting at it, trying to get a kill or assit out of it... Well, in war thunder it does.
DatOneCommie IronGEAR well this is real life not wt (late reply)
It would have been VERY INTERESTING for defense of a night intruder!
The Japanese Zero's engine belched a cloud of smoke when the pilot engaged war emergency power. It did fool some American pilots the first time they saw it.
0:50
Star Wars Death Star trench run anyone?
He got it \o/
Military Aviation History
“Yaahooo
You’re all clear kid”
Let's cut across the axis to draw some fire! ;) :P
George Corbett "Great shot kid that was one in a million!"
I am so happy you are using war thunder for visuals now!
God, I love War Thunder and History so much and you managed to mesh together two of my favorite things into one channel. Never in my life has a game been more frustrating to master yet so fulfilling knowing that I am playing against PC players
Thanks for the video. I love hearing about strange things during WW2.
ROCKET REVOLVER
Sar Ptolemy sounds fun.
i love the look of those interwar racers with their surface radiators giving them such smooth lines.
Me 2
Enjoy your channel great content. Just found it and subscribed. Love military history .
I didn’t know any of these! I’m learning! Thanks!
After being outclassed by your enemy, time is not on your side to test new weapons at all...
Nice work as per usual, I'd heard of a few of these already; but more information is more information and this video provides that in abundance! :)
Using repurposed heavy AC as gunships actually did work out in the end but with cargo planes instead of bombers and used against ground targets. The AC-47 and AC-130 which is still in use.
The RAF put a 150mm howitzer on a Mosquito, think it had 8 rounds, and working air to ground rockets on a Typhoon. The Bleinheim had an up looking gun during the battle of Britain.
6:00 I don't know why but the way this was phrased was hilarious
Rear facing flame throwers were used to great effect by James Bond in "You Only Live Twice", where they were fitted to a Wallis autogyro.
Yaass! These sort of vids keep me going, great work. Keep it up!
This is one of the best military aircraft channels out there !!!
That's because Chris does proper academic-grade research. He doesn't just watch a few UA-cam videos and then make his own. Also, like any good historian, he doesn't let things like personal preferences cloud his judgement. He doesn't indulge in "what ifs" and he seeks authoritative sources and interviews them instead of just spouting information and opinion. Best of all, he sees history as an ongoing thing, rather than something which has an absolute framework and he doesn't see simple answers to complex problems.
There are shit tons of "history" channels out there. Chris, Bernhard Kast and one or two others, like Tank Chats guys to a lesser extent, are the only ones I trust.
TheThirdMan Thanks for the input brother !!
Always remember: people who have stupid ideads also have great ideas. People who don't have stupid ideas usually also don't have good ones.
As the saying goes, there's a fine line between genius and insanity
Flame thrower aircraft armament? Made me think of diesel punk straight away.
FIRE ON THE LEFT WING!
Why didnt they just nake the 162 into a fireball?
Oh wait...
wow the flamethrower planes are LIT literally
You got to love the thoughts of Hermann Göring, Mad as a box of frogs!
Hey Bismarck what, if any, mods do you use for IL-2 1946 to gather that footage?
I use SAS/UP in IL-1946
Check out BAT too of youre into il2 '46. I think ive been playing the il2 series for more than half my life now!
@@MilitaryAviationHistory Oh cool. I tried BAT fairly recently. I think it's the largest mod I've ever seen.
Production considerations is why the Sherman tank stayed in service so long. Considerations mostly had to do with US railroads. How wide are the tunnels? How much could a bridge support?
Mark Felton has an episode about a british pilot who intercepted a flight of german bombers heading for buckingham palace. one of the bombers used a tail mounted flamethrower on him. it did not ignite but the oil from the flamethrower temporarily blinded the british pilot. However, he persevered and shot down two enemy aircraft and took out the remaining enemy by ramming.
Mark Felton's version of events is extremely coloured, as are many of his videos. He's almost turning into a modern day Franz Kurowski. If you want to find out about what happened in that exchange, read _"Battle of Britain Day: September 15 1940"_ by Dr Alfred Price. The German pilot of the Dornier was Fw. Rolf Heitsch and the British Pilot was Sgt Ray Holmes.
Many years ago I read about an (I believe) American system that allowed planes to drop flak bombs. The idea was to fly above, and in front of, an enemy bomber formation. Then drop these, creating a screen of flak that would damage the bombers, or at least break up the formation.
Apparently it was never introduced because it just wasn't practical late in the war when it got beyond the prototype stage.
Does anyone know if it, with any nation, got beyond the experimental stage?
So far I know was that a German tactic. Planes carried bombs and dropped the over a formation. The bombs exploded in a special altitude and harmed so the Bombers. I have readen that in the book ,, I flew for the Führer''
most of the weapons on this list show that they understood the problem, but due to technology limitations the ultimate result was something that failed to do what it was pitched as, telling pilots they give them an automatic gun trigger, but then put the system in such a way you had to make a very specific underside pass.
Flamethrowers on aircraft have always been there, as non self sealing fuel tanks. They might not have been all that practical though.
Very creative ideas from scientists who had family as hostages.
Building on the flamethrower idea, did anybody ever try using such tools as well as ejection of scrap metal/spare parts to fool enemies into thinking the aircraft was destroyed?
If damaged but still okay, you could release flames and scrap from some canisters in your plane and enter a spin-dive to trick the enemy into thinking he got you, then he moves on, you can pull back up and surprise him.
Yes, that trick was used by u boats . They sometimes created oil films by dumping waste oil and pushed out debris through a torpedo tube.
Great video and research! Really enjoyed this one.
It's Wunderwaffe time! Most of those ideas are so dumb, it hurts.
Finally a list that is not the same thing over and over!
Thank you for the all of history that you share.
Thank you for sharing your knowlege!
Me-323 Gunship: Spooky...I'm your cousin
AC-130 Spooky Gunship series: HOLY CRAP
more like im your great uncle
About evaporation cooling. Its also worth noting that by 1939 it was found out that using very warm cooling liquid in a smal space could make it give more thrust than it would give aerodynamic drag. Making the evaporation cooling totaly useless.
Looking at the P51D having a very pronounced solution like this. But also most german planes did have it in late war.
In WW1 the Germans made an aircraft-mounted flamethrower. It was Patent 324694. According to the patent, it was mounted on two seaters, and the gunner operated it.
Well done - have seen a few "wonder weapons" and you have come up with some that i have not seen before. And efficiently presented. ("Efficient?" Of course it's efficient. It's Bismarck trying to fool us with his new pseudonym.)
It’d have been cool to use flamethrowers on Stuka’s during the Battle of Britain. They’d be running from the siren anyway.
outstanding video...but what about one on Knoke bombing the bombers and "the fat mans" response.
Interesting information: there was probably no lack of imagination to invent technology that would give you an edge during war time. Indeed, one could argue that enemy combatants would "steal" ideas from the other by reverse engineering whatever was captured in battle to their advantage, spurring more ideas.. And in peacetime, some of those ideas would become cutting edge technology for peaceful uses, e.g. rocket technology for space exploration, satellites, weather forecasting, etc. Would like to see if you could put together a story of some of these inventions used in peacetime. Thanks.
I had a guidebook to Luftwaffe aircraft designs that had a lot of design ideas that never made it off the drawing boards. One that I have always wanted to know more about was an idea for a ramjet fighter powered by coal. Ever heard of this one? If so, how about an episode on that idea?
Aerodynamic heresy was the name of my kite themed punk band in high school.
Flamethrowers on a plane 🤔
Speechless
Lol
I recently reread an account by the RAF pilot who, during the Battle of Britain, rammed his aircraft into a German bomber which was trying to attack Buckingham Palace. As he was trying to attack the bomber his windscreen became covered in oil. It looks like the bomber was trying to use the flamethrower but it failed to ignite.
Great Job!
The Luftwaffe was overtasked and overwhelmed. Herman Goring was a terrible wartime commander. Pilot competence standards collapsed under the pressure.
I've always thought a flamethrower/smokescreen combined with a steep dive would be a decent defense measure to make a trailing fighter believe your plane was out of the fight
I love the smell of bordflammenwerfer in the morning. ..
The Germans also experimented with a wire guided air to air rocket, designed in theory to be able to down an allied bomber beyond their defensive firepower. Had a small joystick in the cockpit and a flare so the pilot could see it.
I would have used the flamethrower to pretend my plane was going down to trick pilots and get away.
I thought the flamethrower on the airplane was to mimic being successfully shootdown by the enemy so you could reverse the situation...
I guess the flame thrower idea could be some sort of make shift smoke screen, but even then it seems like a very poor idea after all ignoring the ground attack option.
None the less, it is very impressive to see what out of the box solutions people can come up with.
Love how the Germans were willing to try out new ideas and invest in R&D.....kudu's to them!
And you think what? That the Allies weren't?
The Bordflammenwerfer feels more like a lizard losing its tail. "Not sure what I did, but this bomber has burst into flames. I think I'll leave him alone."
small flame thrower on bombers hidden behind engines, pilot can trigger them by pushing a button
when engaged by enemy fighters, fire the flame thrower and pretend to be falling out of the sky, fighters have very limited ammo pool and would likely to assume that you're going down and not engage you further
when enemy fighter loses interest and start to engage other targets, turn off flame thrower and sneakily rejoin the formation
Remember that aircraft engines need air intakes to function*, and that flames consume oxygen. Firing a flamethrower near your engine could turn your attempt to play possum into the real thing.
Second, deliberately putting your aircraft into a flat spin is very risky: again, if you don't recover quickly enough, you'll crash for real.
Finally, even if you could somehow engineer said flamethrower not to damage the engine or starve it of oxygen, your idea wouldn't work at all for two reasons:
1. The Allies outnumbered the Germans in the sky many times over. They had no shortage of fighters and men to fly them. When one side outnumbers the other 5:1 in the sky, the former's pilots can follow their opponents to the ground to confirm their kills.
2. People will catch on to your perfidious tactics, and they will likely be so offended that they'll keep shooting at any plane that looks like it is going down--again, the allied air forces had the planes, pilots, and ammo to spare. They may also start shooting your pilots in their parachutes as well... and they'd deserve it for using such underhanded tactics. What you suggest is equivalent to how the Japanese used to feign surrender then attack approaching Allied troops.
*The exception would be the Me262's rocket engines, which had their own oxidizers. Given how scary N-stoff and T-stoff were to handle, however, I don't think that adding yet _another_ source of flames and explosions on top of the ammunition is a good idea.
So when are you going to do a video on WW2 German night fighters and the radar and other electronic equipment that was used on them???.
Anyone else confused on why nobody in WW2 put 1 or two flak cannons in a plane. I feel like that would be very effective vs bombers
You do know that those bombers tended to be accompanied by fighters, right? And those fighter pilots love nothing more than slow, lumbering heavy fighters that can't climb, dive, or outturn them.
Also, look up how much a "flak cannon" (I presume you are referring to the FlaK 36, the famous "88") weighs, and you'll see why nobody thought of putting something like that on a plane. There _were_ some attempts to fit 7.5 cm and even 8.8 cm cannons on aircraft for tank-busting, but this was generally a bad idea because it made the aircraft extremely slow, difficult to handle, and easy prey for any fighters and even ground defenses. (I do believe that the Germans considered putting an 8.8 cm cannon in the Ju-88 bomber, but they wisely never pursued that idea after seeing how badly the version with a 7.5 cm cannon performed.)
The best weapon against bombers in WWII would have been proximity fuzes, which the Germans failed to develop for some mysterious reason. Now, _that_ fact confuses me given their other remarkable technological advancements during the war.
Id think bomber pilots would maybe appreciate some kind of decoy smoke, make the enemy think they scored a hit on the engines maybe they leave you alone.
I always thought flamethrowers on a helicopter could make some sort of sense.
They worked, but had no use... Seems like a lot innovations are joining this trajectory in the present day!
Thank you for the knowledge!
Best, IC
Now this is what I like to see
Hans, I have an Idea. What if we put a flamethrower on our bomber?
OOF
The American and British late model Mustangs and Spitfires Made Flame Throwers out of Luftwaffe Aircraft !
A good term for such cooling systems is "phase change" since it relies upon a change of state (liquid-gas) to operate.
Well when every bullet is incendiary and you have 8 machine guns like the spitfire or P47 then you kinda already have a flame thrower
I seem to recall something about German attempts to mount flame throwers on two seaters for trench strafing in WWI, does that ring any bells or was I merely misinformed or had my wires crossed?