Aircraft of The Battle of Britain - Bomber Aircraft - German Bomber Aircraft

German Bomber Aircraft

The Luftwaffe in 1940 primarily relied on three twin-engined medium bombers: the Dornier Do 17, the Heinkel He 111 and the Junkers Ju 88. Despite the Luftwaffe being in the possession of advanced gyroscopic bomb sights, the Lotfernrohr 7 for daylight bombing and electronic navigational aids like the Knickebein, X-Gerät and Y-Gerät for noctural bombing, there were some very fundamental limitations to the accuracy of bombing from level flight, and there was no guarantee that such attacks could achieve success on small or difficult targets such as radar stations. For precision attack emphasis was placed on the development of aircraft which could utilise the technique of dive bombing for which the Junkers Ju 87 Stuka was specifically designed. The Junkers Ju 88 was fitted with external dive brakes and a control system, similar to those of the Ju 87 and could carry out a dive bombing role, although it was primarily used as a level bomber. The light bomb loads carried by the Ju 87 had been used to great effect during the Battle of France. However, the Ju 87 was slow and possessed inadequate defences. Furthermore, it could not be effectively protected by fighters, because of its low speed and the very low altitudes at which it ended its dive bomb attacks. The Stuka depended on air superiority, the very thing being contested over Britain. It was therefore withdrawn from attacks on Britain in August after prohibitive losses, leaving the Luftwaffe short of precision ground-attack aircraft.

Another constraint was imposed by the light armament carried by the Luftwaffe bombers. At the start of the battle they were still armed with an average of three hand held MG 15 light machine guns, which were supplied by 75 round "saddle" magazines. When faced with concentrated attacks by modern fighters such as the Hurricane and Spitfire this proved totally inadequate. Although many of the Luftwaffe gunners were well trained and capable of hitting a fast moving fighter the damage done was seldom enough to stop the attack in time to prevent heavy damage being done to the bomber. The high rate of fire of the MG 15 meant that the small magazines emptied quickly; the time taken to reload often gave a fighter the time it needed to make a successful attack. Efforts had been made to increase the number of defensive weapons, but this also meant that because the weapons were hand-held either more crew members were needed in each aircraft, or the existing crew members could be overworked. It was a problem which was never to be fully resolved and the Luftwaffe bombers had to rely on the ability of their fighters to protect their formations.

The bombers did enjoy some advantages. As more armour plate was added in vital areas, crew members became less vulnerable. Their fuel tanks were also well protected by layers of self-sealing rubber, although the tracer ammunition which was carried by RAF fighters could sometimes ignite fuel vapour in empty tanks.

The He 111 was nearly 100 mph slower than the Spitfire and didn't present much of a challenge to catch, although the heavy armour for the crew stations, self-sealing fuel tanks and progressively uprated defensive armament meant that it was still a challenge to shoot down. It was the most numerous German bomber type during the Battle, and was capable of delivering 2000 kg of bombs to the target, carried in an internal bomb bay - usually eight 250 kg bombs, stored vertically. Subsequent variants allowed further increase in the bomb load and the maximum size of bombs carried, with external bomb racks. The state-of-the art Lotfe gyroscoping bomb sight fitted to the Heinkel allowed for reasonable accuracy, for a level bomber. The main versions of the He-111 in use were the Jumo engined H-1, H-2 and H-3 and the DB 601 powered P-2 and P-4. Small numbers of the aircraft, called H-1x and H-3x, were equipped with Knickebein and X-Gerät and were used by Kampfgruppe 100 (KGr. 100) at night during the closing stages of the battle. Y-Gerät equipped H-5y of III. Gruppe Kampfgeschwader 26 began to take part in the Blitz of the winter of 1940-1941.

The Do 17Z was an older type of German bomber that was no longer in production by the start of the Battle. Still, many Kampfgeschwadern still operated the Dornier, known as "the flying pencil" due to its sleek fuselage. Its air-cooled radial BMW engines meant that many of these aircraft were able to survive fighter attack because there was no vulnerable cooling system to disable. The Dornier was also manoeuvrable, and as a result was popular in the Luftwaffe. The main problem with the Dornier was its limited 200 mile combat range, when fully loaded with bombs. Its bomb carrying capacity was also limited to 2,205 lbs. Older versions of the Do 17, mainly the E-1, were still used for weather reconnaissance duties.

Of the four types of bomber used by the Luftwaffe the Ju 88 was considered to be the most difficult to shoot down. As a bomber it was relatively manoeuvrable and, especially at low altitudes with no bomb load, it was fast enough to ensure that a Spitfire engaged in a tail-chase would be hard pressed to catch up. It could carry up to 3,000 kg of bombs. However, only small sized 50 and 70 kg bombs, up to a total weight of 1,400 kg, could be carried internally, while larger bombs had to be carried on external racks, causing considerable drag. The Ju 88 was also extremely versatile, being fitted with both the Lotfe gyroscoping bomb sight and Stuvi dive sight as well as retractable dive brakes. The front machine gun could be locked fixed to fire forwards, and could be used for strafing runs. Thus the Ju 88, dubbed as the "Big Stuka", was equally at home when it came to level or dive bombing or low-level attacks. The versions of the Ju 88 used during the battle were the A-1 and the A-5; the latter incorporated several improvements, including an increased wingspan and uprated armament. The Ju 88 C-1 heavy fighter version was also used in small numbers.

In reality, the Ju 88, although operating in smaller numbers than the Do 17 and He 111, suffered the highest losses of the three German bomber types. Losses of Do 17 and He 111s amounted to 132 and 252 machines destroyed respectively, while 313 Ju 88s were lost.

I./KG 40 was equipped with a small number of the four-engined Focke Wulf Fw 200s, which were used to attack shipping and to provide long-range reconnaissance around the British Isles and out into the Atlantic Ocean.