Bomber B - The Schnellbomber Concept

The Schnellbomber Concept

In 1936, the Reich Air Ministry had started the competition for the first purpose-designed schnellbomber, a bomber fast enough to simply outrun the defending fighters. It was thought that, with the limited power available, the bomber's two engines would mean it would always be faster than a single-engined fighter. This point was "proven" in the 1936 Air Races in Zürich, where the Dornier Do 17 outran contemporary fighter designs from across Europe.

Later that year, the Reich Air Ministry selected the Junkers Ju 88 over a number of competitors to become their first purpose-designed schnellbomber. However the tradeoffs made for speed were serious; the Ju 88 was a small aircraft, carrying a fairly light load in its small bomb bay. This could be addressed by adding additional load on external racks, but doing so dramatically reduced performance due to increased drag. In addition, the limited engine power meant that the plane could not lift a reasonable warload and the fuel needed to carry it any distance, dramatically limiting its combat effectiveness. In order to make up for its shortcomings, a number of slower aircraft, such as the Heinkel He 111 and Dornier Do 17, were pressed into service to fill particular performance niches, a problem no one in the Luftwaffe was at all happy with.

The Ju 88 was just entering service when Germany's own high-power "hyper engine" class powerplants started bench testing. Daimler-Benz offered the DB 604, designed with a quartet of six-cylinder-long cylinder banks as an X engine liquid-cooled powerplant, and Junkers their Jumo 222 six-bank, liquid-cooled, 24-cylinder "multibank" inline style engine, both of which planned on delivering 2,500 hp (1840 kW) to start with. Compared to the Jumo 211s in the Ju 88, a pair of such engines in a bomber's airframe would more than double the power when compared to a pair of the earlier inverted V12 powerplants, upwards to 5,000 hp (3680 kW). With this sort of power, a significantly more capable design could be built, one with considerably larger internal space for a much large bombload, more fuel for longer range, and even better speed.