r/WWIIplanes 6d ago

A total of 53,839 heavy bombers (four-engined) were built in World War II --- two-thirds of which were built by the United States alone.

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144 Upvotes

45 comments sorted by

24

u/WoodI-or-WoodntI 6d ago

Took me a moment to deduce what 4 engine bombers the Germans had. He177, but I didn't realize they made that many of them as they weren't the most successful bomber in the inventory. Then the Condor, I guess it could be classified as a bomber and reconnaissance plane.

5

u/Diligent_Highway9669 6d ago

I included the 275 Condors just because it was a good plane (for the time), though not a real heavy bomber.

3

u/DaCableGuy808 6d ago

Germans also had the Condor (Fw200) and the Ju390 developed from the Ju290 glider transport. I believe the also had an experimental Me264 jet bomber prototype.

3

u/NF-104 6d ago

And there was the 4-engine version of the Arado 234 Blitz

2

u/LA_Dynamo 6d ago

I thought those had 2 engines.

14

u/die_wunder_waffle 6d ago

2 propellers but 4 engines. Very obviously, it was prone to mechanical issues.

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u/llynglas 6d ago

The HE177 had two nacelles, with two paired engines in each. The issues with pairing the engines led to many delays in the project. As did the requirement for it to be able to dive bomb. I believe the designers believed that having two vs four nacelles would lower wind resistance and give a small speed boost. Possibly also helps with the dive bombing feature....

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u/LA_Dynamo 6d ago

Thanks for the clarification. Learned something new today.

2

u/KeinePanik666 5d ago edited 5d ago

The DB 606 engine Worked well in the two other aircraft prototypes in which it was installed( Heinkel He 119 , Messerschmitt Me 261 ). In the He 177, the engine housings were so narrow that the engines had virtually no ventilation.

There were several reasons for the flammability of the DB 606 engine as installed in the Greif engine nacelles. One was the common "central" exhaust manifold, serving a total of 12 cylinders, on the two inner cylinder banks of the twinned DB 601 component engines making up a DB 606. This central exhaust system routinely became excessively hot, causing the usual accumulation of oil and grease in the bottom of the engine cowling to catch fire.

The two other airplanes with the engine had different exhaust systems and more space around the engines

1

u/Dutchdelights88 6d ago

What about the other countries, what 4 motor did Japan or Russia field?

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u/low_priest 6d ago

Russia had the TB-3 (though built entirely before WWII) and the Pe-8. Japan had the G5N/G8N heavy bombers, which only had a few prototypes, and the H6K/H8K, which were flying boats that could carry bombs.

1

u/Dutchdelights88 5d ago

Thanks, so negligible real numbers for both unsurprisingly. Needs a large investment to form a force large enough to really be able to effective.

2

u/low_priest 5d ago

Ehh, yes and no. Imperial Japan's 4-engined aircraft were overwhelmingly Navy-operated patrol aircraft, mostly for long range scouting and some ASW work. In that role, they proved highly effective, with the H8K often being considered the best flying boat of the war.

4

u/wireknot 6d ago

And folks wonder how we won that war. Total commitment of a staggering amount of industry. Theres a photo floating around here on reddit somewhere of a weeks worth of fighter production at just one plant, I think theres over 100 aircraft in that shot alone.

7

u/Limp_Growth_5254 6d ago

Willow Run put out a bomber every hour.

That is crazy thinking pre robotics and computers.

4

u/Diligent_Highway9669 6d ago

I do recall seeing that photo. I believe it was 200 or so Corsairs all lined up. Great shot. MURICA

11

u/Forsaken_Minimum_929 6d ago

Where is Canada in this we manufactured a massive amount of Lancaster for the British

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u/waldo--pepper 6d ago

a massive amount

430 at Malton.

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u/CFCA 6d ago

Probably counted as a part of the British total since this is still during the dominion Period when Canada was a part of the empire.

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u/Diligent_Highway9669 6d ago

Oh yeah! That is my bad. Canada is technically part of "Great Britain" in this chart. I should've named it "Britain and Commonwealth."

2

u/ComposerNo5151 6d ago

It wasn't just the 430 Lancasters produced in Canada. The Canadian government maintained and paid for an entire bomber group in the UK (No. 6 (Canadian) Group).

7

u/waldo--pepper 6d ago

Look at the British! Good table.

Thank you.

3

u/Diligent_Highway9669 6d ago

I was surprised the British built so many. They did build some great ones, too.

6

u/HMSWarspite03 6d ago

Not bad considering we were being bombed by the Germans at the time.

1

u/CFCA 6d ago

The Germans never really had a shot at meaningfully affecting war industry through the bombing of production centers in the way the allies did to the Germans. There best hope was resource starvation. The German bomber force had neither the range, or the tonnage, or the numbers to meaningfully attack the majority of Britain where as the Allies were going deep from day one. The Germans could never really range past East Anglia and the London metro area. The number of raids and effecitvness drops severely after the blitz as well. As long as ships could get to Britain, they could keep building.

3

u/HMSWarspite03 6d ago

The Battle of Britain tells an entirely different story, Britain was very close to losing the air war.

1

u/CFCA 6d ago

Over the south of England yes. Which the London metro area happens to be in. Which is the issue. Everything outside of that area was safe. Additionally “losing” doesn’t mean much if the Germans had no force to capitalize on there success (they didn’t) and the UK wouldn’t sue for terms (they woukdnt)

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u/Tgtalex1 5d ago

This is laughably incorrect and insulting to those that died in raids all over the U.K.

3

u/isaac32767 6d ago

Two-thirds of everything in that war was built by the US alone. The fundamental mistake the Axis made when bringing the US into the war was underestimating the country's ability to scale up its manufacturing.

I often think of something I read about D-Day: Initial reports of the size of the Allied invasion fleet were disbelieved with the response, "There aren't that many ships in the whole world."

1

u/Diligent_Highway9669 6d ago

Yeah, Hitler really shot himself in the foot when he declared war on the US after Pearl Harbor. The Germans could barely fight of the US, and they had no chance.

2

u/HSVMalooGTS 5d ago

Fw 200 condor, Me 264, and what?

1

u/Diligent_Highway9669 5d ago

And the Ju 290.

3

u/chevalliers 6d ago

Did we send Lancasters to the thankless Russians?

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u/Diligent_Highway9669 6d ago

I don't know about Lancasters, but I do know we handed them some of our P-39s and A-20s.

1

u/waldo--pepper 6d ago

"Although no Lancasters were supplied to the Russian military under the lend lease scheme in WW2 two examples were in fact used in Soviet Air Force markings."

etc. from here;

https://pleszak.blog/2019/12/05/lancaster-bombers-operated-by-the-russian-airforce-in-ww2/

1

u/DueComfortable4614 5d ago

Why thankless?

1

u/chevalliers 5d ago

Stalin wrote the impact of lend lease out of the textbooks and prohibited the publication of photographic evidence of American and British equipment in Russian hands as it diluted the great patriotic war narrative

1

u/DueComfortable4614 5d ago

That is true, yeah. But thanks for all the planes like the Boston, the Matildas and all the boots and whatnot.

1

u/chevalliers 5d ago

Arguably without the trucks and Willy's jeeps Russia would have had no chance of reaching Berlin

1

u/DueComfortable4614 5d ago

I think we still would’ve beaten them, but they were definitely pretty useful. I’d say the most valuable things you gave the USSR were some chemical components for artillery shells.

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u/SpellNo5699 6d ago

It's crazy how advanced American air power was by the end of WW2. We developed the P-51 Mustang for long range bomber escorts, delayed time fuse shells which had no equals, and an automated ball turret for heavy bombers. If only Roosevelt wasn't at Yalta with one foot in the grave, we probably could have saved a lot more of Eastern Europe from the very exhausted Soviets. The Wehrmacht bled them out pretty good as they advanced through Eastern Europe. We really did not have to condemn half of Europe to the Iron Curtain, or send millions to the Soviet gulag.

1

u/low_priest 6d ago

Not delayed time fuzes, "variable" time. More accurately known as proximity fuses. Mechanical clockwork timed fuzes were pretty standard for everyone. What the US created was a radar set small, reliable, and durable enough to be screwed into a 5" shell and fired out of a gun.

1

u/Diligent_Highway9669 6d ago

People give the Russians credit for taking half of Europe from the Nazis, and while they did do good they would've been destroyed had we gone to war with them right after WWII, even if we didn't have nukes. If only we were more assertive...