Germany's Forgotten WW2 Bombers, and Why They Failed | Junkers Ju 90, 290 & 390
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- Опубліковано 7 чер 2024
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Today we're taking a look at the giant Junkers transports. Most people know about the Messerschmitt 323 'Gigant', but less are aware of the huge aircraft developed by Junkers.
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Printed Sources & Websites:
Nowarra, H. J. (1997). JUNKERS Ju 290 - Ju 390 etc. Schiffer Military Publishing.
Hitchcock, T. (1975). Monogram Close-Up 3: Junkers Ju 290. Monogram Aviation Publications.
Smith, J.R.; Kay, Anthony L. (1990). German aircraft of the Second World War
Regnat, K. H. (2004). Junkers Ju 90. Ian Allan Publishing.
www.historyofwar.org/articles/...
www.asisbiz.com/il2/Ju-52/Ju-...
0:00 Intro
2:35 Design Origins
4:23 Ju 90 Development
10:29 Ju 290 Development
15:54 The Experimental Ju 390
18:59 Ju 90 & 290 Service History - Наука та технологія
Check out Ikarus Art here → ikarusart.net/ and use the code REX to get 10% off your order.
F.A.Q Section
Q: Do you take aircraft requests?
A: I have a list of aircraft I plan to cover, but feel free to add to it with suggestions:)
Q: Why do you use imperial measurements for some videos, and metric for others?
A: I do this based on country of manufacture. Imperial measurements for Britain and the U.S, metric for the rest of the world, but I include text in my videos that convert it for both.
Q: Will you include video footage in your videos, or just photos?
A: Video footage is very expensive to licence, if I can find footage in the public domain I will try to use it, but a lot of it is hoarded by licencing studies (British Pathe, Periscope films etc). In the future I may be able to afford clips :)
Q: Why do you sometimes feature images/screenshots from flight simulators?
A: Sometimes there are not a lot of photos available for certain aircraft, so I substitute this with digital images that are as accurate as possible.
Audio is great, couldn't even tell there was any issues
F xactly
If you take an interest in less known airforces, perhaps the Swedish line-up of J-22, B-17 and B-18 could fill your spare time?
Could you cover the Soviet Cold War fighters and bombers like the Tu-95, Mig-15, Mig-17, Mig-21, Mig-23, Mig-29?
I am not sure if you already covered the Shinden?
Additional information: All photos of the Ju 390 V2 (registration RC+DA) that show it in flight are photomontages created after the war. Quasi a joke of German students, which very quickly became a self-runner. The Ju 390 V2 never left the ground
So, this is the 390 V1 at 16:35 and then clearly states the V2 was never flown.
@@scootergeorge7089 I know he mentioned that. My main point was that two of the most famous photos of the Ju 390 (V2 in flight) are fake.
@@stoneman8387 - Excellent point!
Wish I had a computer program that could make a 10 12 or 16 engine stretched version. Maybe in Lufthansa colors
@@Dilley_G45 🤣
No, I wasn't sitting here refreshing the screen. Why do you ask?
😊
😊👍
I wasn't expecting to chuckle during this video, but you made that happen!
*sees a video is uploaded an hour ago*
ooh something new and fresh, wonder what the first impressions were
*Too comment two hours ago*
Wait what?
15:56 ah yes the JU-390. Anyone who remembers "Secret Weapons Over Normandy" would remember the JU-390 being used by Nemesis; be glad James Chase and the Battlehawks destroyed them using the then ultra secret XF5U.
It's a relief to know there would be a solution. In reality, it was the failure of novice pilot Weaver (a former army officer learning to fly) to unlock the ailerons of his He.70 (an awfully hot aircraft for a newbie) before taking off solo. That was just as effective at ending the Ural Bomber program.
My literal childhood
Whenever I think of Ju-390, I think of that game.
And if all the T-34s you're escorting get destroyed except the leader he yells "I can't do it alone. I must have air support!"
My 13 year old self heard that alot trying to beat that level (edit, I'm 31 now)
@@loveofmangos001 That guy sounded like he was shitting himself down there so I always felt bad for him.
I'll watch all of it later.
A late friend of mine was the chief test pilot, Versuchflieger, of the 390.
That was Flugkapitän Hans Pancherz. He also made the worlds second ejection in a real scenario with the 290 I think. Later he was supposed to break the sound barrier with the Ju 248, but that never happened as we all know.
Best Greetings from Sweden.
Thank you for your info. Something to research for me.
@@stephenkayser3147 There is a lot unknown about "onkel" Hans. Like when the Russians tried 2 times to kidnap him and his family in the American sector in Berlin. That's how he ended up in Sweden, eventually working for my father to Hans retirement.
Also, speaking of gigantic German planes, why not cover the BV-222 and bv-238 flying boats?
Definitely planning to! :D
These were not boats they were planes not planes and roads
@@TimPerfetto teehee!... 🤣
@@jehoiakimelidoronila5450 Tee hee pee poo piss pot butt
And BV-9000, designed to airlift Bismark-class battleships
I would like to say thank you so much for this upload I am at work watching this and have searched far and wide for a video of the ju290 and ju90 airplanes and the 390 I really appreciate the time you took to creat this great work
My grandfather was a test pilot for the Ju 90 series - one of the very few who survived. One of my favorite stories of his (apart from the crash with one of those giants) was the wind speed testing at 3000 m at the tip of the opened rear cargo/parachute bay door. Secured by a washing line (sic!).
the plane at 2.37 - the D-AALU. That was "my grandfather's" plane. The one that went down, killing two, leaving my grandfather and two colleagues as survivors. "Der Große Dessauer" (as from the Junkers testing facility in the town of Dessau) - seeing the picture at 2:39 brings back memories. The picture hung on the wall in his house, next to him sitting in the cockpit and next to that the "Kesselring Plakette" for his supply flights in the mediterranean campaign. And the outfit leftover from his crash, kept for good luck in the cellar still with some drops of ancient blood on the leather... Yep. That was quite a long time ago.
9:47 the wind speed testing was done at the tip of that very ramp. Remember: washing line only. Parachutes were scoffed at. I still cannot say wether this was bravery or sheer folly. Both, I guess.
Thank you so much for covering this plane it's been a long time favorite of mine and critically underrated
Problem is these planes were time expensive on the German Heavy Presses. For every one of these they built, they could build 10 FW190A8 fighter bombers or 10 BF109's.
These bombers had no clear and useful use case and Germany needed fighter bombers more.
@@brokeandtired how do you built 10 fw 190 with 4 bmw 801s?
As you can see, they were ordered in limited numbers. But they were good at their intended role. But mostly overlooked, unlike the He 177, which was much more troublesome.
You can also built multiple spitfires for every lancaster or multiple p47 for every B29.
@@HaVoC117X You do realize that MULTIPLE smaller parts can be pressed at the same time and the Bombers were bigger, harder to make a mass production line for and had far more and larger parts. The sheer process of even moving a wing spar took longer and was harder to do than a fighter one.
The Germans had mass production of engines down to an artform, they were churning out at a massive rate.
The bigger the plane the harder it gets to even put them together.
They could press out the fighter parts quicker, do them in bulk, assemble them faster than any mega bomber. On rare raw materials alone the mega bombers were a waste.
Overkill for a tactical bomber and by 1943 they had zero chance of successfully surviving and conducting a bombing raid in the day against even British factories.
The FW190's or BF109 could be assembly line made, these mega bombers were so big would have to be hand crafted piece by piece and slowly using what few hand craftsmen Germany had left
@@HaVoC117X You can also built multiple spitfires for every Lancaster, P-47, or B-29. Huh? You realize the P-47, though rather large, the Jug was a single engine fighter.
@@brokeandtired you do realize that the ju 290 is a little smaller than a b29 and little larger than a lancaster. This is not a gigantic nazi super weopon.
Ever heard of the fighter emergency program, reserving bmw 801 strictly for fighter production?
The Luftwaffe was such a mess, especially in procurement that it's almost surprising they didn't insist that the 290 and 390 were able to dive bomb...
Excellent work as always, on an indeed quite forgotten but interesting giant. I would have liked though that you would drop a word about the JU290Z, the projected zwilling version reminiscent of the very real He-111Z
Walther Wever that's a name everyone should remember. That's the name of the Luftwaffe's heavy bomber proponent. He was the driving force behind their heavy bomber development. So why didn't they pursue a similar path to that of the US and Britain? Because he was the chief advocate for heavy, long range bombers, while the majority of the Luftwaffe was more in favor of medium long range bombers and CAS. So when he died on June 3rd 1936, Germany's chief heavy bomber advocate died as well. The rest is history.
Jesus I wasn't expecting the captain to have as little information about how the plane rapidly disassembled itself lol
Something similar happened with the second flight of the Curtiss Wright XC-76 Caravan but in that case, there were no survivors.
Just goes to show how quickly things went to heck, imagen sitting in your pilot seat and the next you are floating to the ground 😮
@@scootergeorge7089 YAY, my favorite worse aircraft ever. Though you mean C-76 Caravan. See my username 😉
@@C76Caravan Oops. My bad. I knew it was the C-76 but brain farted. First flight was one circle of the field and set her down. Was shaking itself to pieces. After the war, CW tried to interest the Air Force in a failed four engine jet attack aircraft as a four engine jet night fighter. The F-89 won out and CW was out of designing and building aircraft. A dismal turn of events for a company with roots going back the the Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss.
Early concept of an ejection seat. Instead of launching the pilot in the air by rockets, the airplane disintegrates around him.
I just discovered your channel and now I'm obsessed and will be watching all of the videos. Great Job dude!
One of my favorite subjects, awesome that you covered it!
If there one thing that I love about military history from small arms to ships and planes is how underrated the importance of industrial capacity is. Could Germany have gotten to the point of building actual fleets of these planes is a question that could go in a dozen directions as one figures out resources, transportation, factories, etc...
a dozen directions? how could they have done it? really, even with all of europe citizens as slave labor, they would'nt have enough diggers for their underground plants, let alone the material to built them... and with what fuel to fly them?
In a nut shell it all comes down to money.
@@owen368 Not so much when you’re using slave labour.
Amateurs discuss tactics, professionals discuss logistics.
Another 290 survived and ended up in Farnborough, England. What test purpose it forefilled there (if any) I don't know but it ended up dumped in Happy Valley, where it appeared in photos of a public "Captured Enemy Aircraft Types" exhibition around 1948 before, presumably, being disposed of as scrap.
started the revell amazing model of the ju290... it looks excellent... I've got lots of info on these - you nailed it.. (as usual).. great addition to your canon.
As a huge fan of WWII planes since I was a kid this was very informative and I learned something new...
Excellent compilation that nobody has ever seen, Great work!!!
Ty. Great photos!
Voice sounded fine, Rex. Thank you for covering this aircraft.
I really enjoy your detailed work.
Thank you for another very informative video. Well done!
Good job Rex. As a kid in the sixties I got into model building and became aware of many Luftwaffe aircraft. And I collected a decent reference library but apparently missed out on these aircraft. Sad to see that the one flown to Wright Field was destroyed. What were they thinking?
That’s one of the planes that I wish was preserved. Of course there are a lot of others but this was a significant aircraft.
The thought process was probably "ugh this thing is so big. Where are we gonna keep it? I know, we'll just scrap it, not like anyone's gonna miss it."
Americans were not fond of the Germans and had no interest in preserving their history.
The best book, "Warplanes of the Third Reich" William Green.
@@highjumpstudios2384 Even if it wasn't big, it would still have been scrapped, most likely. There were a crap ton of planes and other gear from a variety of nations, in a huge quantity of types, and, well, they were just tools which had served their purpose.
The designation "der große Dessauer" was a word play on "der alte Dessauer", Leopold von Anhalt-Dessau, who was the oldest but one of the best generals of the early reign of Frederick the Great. Junkers' production plant was in Dessau
The old Dessauer was his English nickname among the Prussian troops.
Thank you for the video and hard work!
Interesting video. The most talked about German four engine plane seems to be the 'Condor' FW200 as it is always spoken about in convoy search and observation reporting. Other than the Gigantic I wasn't aware that Germany produced such aircraft that you spoke about in this video.
Outstanding video
Thoroughly researched! Fascinating history
I love that the videos are getting longer. Thank you!
Great video as always. Good info on little known planes.
Great video as always!
I would love to see a video from you about the B25 Mitchell!
Thanks for this one, I love the rumors around the 390.
Thank you for the great video!
Great research!
Great video!
I was thinking of a subject, German aircraft company owners vs the nazis. I know Hugo Junkers hated them and they took over his company, Focke said to have been driven out of Focke-Wulf and joined up with Achgelis. And the one I joked about recently, Claude Dornier being half French and making planes as bad as he could get away with for the nazis, was there anything in that in real life?
Nah, the french just cant make anything good, except cheese and wine... 😆
@@HarborLockRoadThe Mirage IIIC would like a word…
@@HarborLockRoad & bread, & coldcuts, & ....
@@sivalon1 Wasn't it based on an English jet fighter?
I think history has shown that the French are more than capable of engineering a good guillotine.
Hi Rex, great video as always!
Now a friendly reminder to make a video about the Handley Page HP42.
The Luftwaffe was conceived as a tactical support arm of the army. Their perceived role involved comparatively short range coupled with after the initial successes, defensive armament. Indeed, after 1943 they were almost always in the defensive, so no real need for these types of aircraft.
Exactly right. German war tactics called for quick, mobile, decisive strikes of overwhelming force. They had no need of heavy long range bombers. Not until Stalin moved Soviet industry beyond the Ural mountains did the need for them become apparent. According to plan Stalin should have never gotten the chance to do so. But as we know, the plan didn't go quite as planned.
TY for your hard work 🙂
Another Fantastic aircraft history lesson.
This was excellent, hubby & I really enjoyed it. What a shame none of them made it into a museum or two. 😢
It's nice to see I'm not the only person who likes the Anson. Now, do they do a Dragon Rapide...
The Rapide is definitely something we’d like to do down the road 😊
@@ikarusart did you guys do the 290 here which was also used for the box art 1/72 Revell model kit? Nice kit and artwork.
Excellent documentary.
1 of my favorite aircraft from WW 2 , Thanks !
My other favorites are the P-61 Black Widow night fighter , TBM Avenger Torpedo Bomber , B-17 , A-26 invader
Wow! Smashing designs. Classic, refined looks.
love the videos, pls keep them coming =)
That Ikarus Art is really nice!!!!❤
Fascinating! THANKS
A few remarks. To my knollige the Gigant was the Me 323. The glider drived transport with 6 Gnome-Rône engines. The picture of the DB600 sits upside down, it is an iverted V12.
I love your knollige about planes and i am anticipatng the realease of a new video.
That would be 'knowledge', Henk. Poets je Engels even een beetje op.
@@MrLBPug
Verder nog wat toe te voegen? Of kun je alleen taalkundig wat bijdragen? Ik gebruik Engels ontzettend weinig dus dan slipt er nog wel eens een foutje tussendoor. Ik zal maar zeggen, dank voor de heads-up.
Best video research to date. Congratulations.
I had no idea about this, thank you for the lesson.
Awesome channel!!!
Thank you.
A great looking aircraft.
Cheers
No worries! Sounds great...and it's the information that I'm here for and, sadly, not the sweet, lullaby sound of your voice😊
Well done for cutting through the Ju 390 myths.
Thanks! love the artwork I just picked up the Corsairs print
So glad to hear it!
@@ikarusart will you be releasing new prints soon?
@@TiberiusMaximus Yes absolutely, we're growing as fast as we can in terms of artwork variation. We've got a Spitfire, 109, P-47 and P-51 artwork in the works!
Very good number for the late 1930's and only 10000' less than a modern civil airliner can travel.I think that the highest,well based on from when backseat screens have shown location, height,etc prior to that I have been on 707's and 747's and you couldn't tell how high they got,is 41000' on a A 380.
Also on a SAA Boeing 747, crossing the Indian Ocean on route from Hong Kong to Johannesburg. As well as a SAA Boeing 737-200 on route between Kimberley, Upington and Keetmanshoop. For me, as a passenger, that was a unbelievably beautiful sight. I could see across the whole subcontinent of Southern Africa.
I remember seeing these in the first video game I played, secret weapons over Normandy, man that’s a call back
Your videos are as always looked forward to and informative. Keep up the great work.
Had never heard of this aircraft until I watched this video, very interesting.
Very interesting video. I was thoroughly surprised to find out that Greece flew such an aircraft for a while. The drawing of Archimedes S.1 with greek insignia looks so strange to me...
Amazing video on some obscure planes. P2V-1 through 7 series?
Great video
Captain Kinderman must have been one very surprised puppy. Having an aircraft complete a RUD* is simply not on the books during proving flights especially with an aircraft of that size.
I'll bet he didn't have to spend any money on beer that night. Every pilot in the place would buy him a beer and they'd all want to hear everything about it. He'd probably need a few after that day!
*Rapid Unplanned Disassembly
Great job done with your talent for, aviation history 💯👏...... I learned much more about the German Luftwaffa mistake of not having a long range bomber...
Great vid wee bit late but great Subject , and Flow narration..
Those big Junkers had definite aesthetic appeal.
A fascinating tale: thanks.
Oh weird, Rex is my doppleganger. Huh, they say everyone has one. Well hello from Kansas! Loving the channel, Drach brought me here!
Good video!!
What's funny is that "Ikarus" (your sponsor's name) was an aaircraft design and manufacturing company here, in Yugoslavia, which made the first experimental Yugoslav mini-jets .. also did a lot of other stuff for our aviation
This was awesome.
Four dorsal turrets seems like a bad idea the middle two would have their arc of fire impacted by the front and rear turret.
I've always been a fan of aviation art.
Also seaborne art.
Fun fact: A Ju 90 was used to tow the Me 321 giant glider. According to my sources, the giant glider even required to be equipped with take-off rocket pods. tldr, the Ju 90, despite being one of the most powerful aircraft available, wasnt enough to effectively pull the glider. I think Rex had covered the He-111Z in another video. I brought this up because of the aircraft in question.
The A8 and B2 have so many dorsal turrets, they start looking like shitposts fake blueprints ^^
7:42 interesting that very new passenger aircraft do go with more like this type of nose than one that was found on dc3 and kind of dominated ever since
This brings me back to my Secret Weapons over Normandy days...
Its crazy how huge the tail is on this series of aircraft
Another awesome video, Rex! I find the Ju390 a fascinating plane ever since I say it in a video game when I was a kid.
By the way, you put the picture of the DB601 upside down on purpose, didn't you?
That video game was Secret Weapons Over Normandy, wasn't it? That's where I first saw it
@@nlap9 Yup, that's the one!
It really is a shame none of these beautiful huge aircraft have survived in a museum
OK! That covers the need for the "Uralbomber". Next we need a "Antarktistransporter".
5 people before me.... and I was a few minutes after upload!
Rex... if that is your real name... you know you're loved!
@RexsHangar could I ask for the source point for the story about the Ju 290 A7 that was sent back to America?
21:12 Every time I see that photo to the left. I think of the movie scenes from Star Wars Return of the Jedi with Darth Vader or the Emperor walking down the ramp of the imperial shuttle
You have to take into account the *purpose* of a 4 engine long range strategic bomber. Unlike the RAF and later USAF German military never intended to refer to strategic bombing of large areas but rather use a short and mid range bomber fleet for tactical support of ground forces, mainly the new motorised and armoured units. Even politically there was no desire to obtain such a fleet since Hitler at post-Versailles disarmament conferences spoke for an international condemnation of what was known since 1925 as "obliteration bombing" (conduced by RAF against insurgencies in India). The goal was to be able to rely on air support that could take out tactical targets instead of levelling entire areas.
From this perspective there's no failure here because there never was demand for it.
Great video. Note: There are pics of a captured Ju-290? from 1945 that might be the one that was reference by you flying from Europe to US that still exist.
Sadly the '290 "A.4" you mention @ 12:47 is in fact an "A.7" not an "A.4" - (it's the captured "Alles Kaput" USA example)
How I wish (after all that hassle transporting it across the Atlantic Ocean) that someone had the foresight to save it
I remember seeing several razor-sharp images of "Alles Kaput" flying over America & appearing at an airshow too.
Luckily I bought both versions of the Revell kit ("A.5" and "A.7") the latter I blagged for £25.00 at a local kit-fair
The latter kit is also the one ('A.7') shown at 12:47 in the video - (clearly with it's postwar "star & bar" insignia)
Greatly enjoyed the video! I'd like to point out that Ju is actually pronounced Yu for proper pronunciation for the shortened of Junkers
In the 1970's I was lucky enough to have the entire Above and Beyond book series which tried to list every production aircraft type. Perhaps this is why I don't remember these models from the books as they were never listed.
The Ju290 was also more successful than the FW 200 in that it didn't come apart on landing or in the air. I've never seen the internals of a Ju290, but I know that the Condor had its main fuel tanks arranged in what was the passenger cabin, so maybe that was too much stress there on the poor airframe.
Could you strengthen the Fw-200 Condor's airframe?
@@merafirewing6591 Apparently they did in making a military version of the airliner, but not enough. The 290 was designed to also be a heavy transport with a loading ramp under the fuselage, so the strengthening that resulted seemed to stop the problems that the 200 had.
"Suddenly found himself in the open air on his parachute...."
Love it!🤣🤣🤣
A guy I worked with had an airfix (?) model of a Ju290 in 1:72 scale. When he resigned and moved away, the secretary trashed it before I could claim it. :(
-
Yeah , it'll be the "Revell" kit (most likely A.5 "See-adler" or "Sea Eagle"), as AIRFIX have never made one
I've still got BOTH versions (A.5 & A.7) and as yet, unmade Lovely kit BTW & hard to find, today
"Vertical stabilizer was enlarged to improve controlability!" Checking that off of my interwar bingo card.
Has there ever been a new aircraft design that didn’t need a bigger vertical stabilizer? Where does that unwarranted optimism come from?
Extraordinary! I thought I kew every active-duty German WW II airplanes ever produced and used. I stand happily corrected. Now, when will Airfix make at least one Ju-390 model at least in 1/72 scale model available? Of course, 1/48 would be spectacular!
It would be spectacular, but a headache to display it. I remember Monogram made a 1/48 B 36 (perhaps they still make it ?). Price excepted, I was always thinking how it would be nice to display it in a small apartment😁. Perhaps flying, suspended with invisible rope to the ceiling.
I’m leaving a comment for the UA-cam Algo because this video is very well made, but I’m still confused about German flights to Manchuria during the war. I thought the Italians were the only ones to pull off a mission to the Japanese? No worries, lots of interesting design and operational history, particularly on the Ju 290.
That was my understanding as well.
The RAF had a captured A-2 WK No 110157 which as Air Ministry 57 was displayed at Farnborough after the war and I think Winkle Brown tested it.
Hey Rex,
05:52 - is the DB600 pic upside down ?
06:04 - As I understand it, the BMW 132 was a licensed produced P+W Hornet, not a copy.
When did the wing planform and the undercarriage change?
The nose modifications to these aircraft really look to me like abominations.
They look like quick hacks 'grafted on' to avoid redesigning the nose properly to accommodate extra ordnance etc. I guess that was probably motivated by desperation as the war was not going well. As for 4 dorsal cannon turrets, one can only imagine the extra weight these would have cost and that maybe the designers had failed to learn the lesson from the Battle of Britain that large aircraft really could not defend themselves - they needed a fighter escort. To be fair it took the USAAF until the Schweinfurt-Regensburg raids in Oct 1943 to appreciate this.
29:57 - I don't think it was that Germany's aviation industry preferred smaller aircraft designs - the He-177A, Me-264 as well as the Junkers 90 family attest to their ability to design competitive airframes, if not their capacity to mass produce them. I suspect it had more to do with the OKW seeing the Luftwaffe as essentially an aerial support service for the army - i.e. a tactical rather than a strategic force - and that the prodigious aircraft numbers produced during the war were only accomplished with Germany's airframe and engine production resources being stretched to the limit. Also these aircraft needed higher powered engines like the Jumo 222 which never materialized when needed (which killed the Bomber B program and the FW-191).
Consequently those in charge preferred larger numbers of twin engine aircraft rather than limited resources being expended on producing 4 engine ones, despite the long range advantages. This would rapidly come back to bite them in the Atlantic and Russian theatres. To me that shows that after the death of Walter Wever, how limited the vision of the high command was - especially Goering - and the RLM, when they killed the Ju-90 and Do-19 which had shown real promise.
That's the way I understand it anyway.
Thanks for the video. These aircraft are rarely discussed and almost unknown.
The Junkers 390 was featured as a secret super bomber in the video game Secret Weapons Over Normandy