Re: Would the P-72 Have Made Any Difference?


"Eunometic" <eunometic@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1139148528.854923.211220@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Paul J. Adam wrote:
In message <MPG.1e4dc6a54687c14898c4c3@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Tank
Fixer <paul.deekat.carrier@xxxxxxxxx> writes
In article <1138959313.750113.266680@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
on 3 Feb 2006 01:35:13 -0800,
Rob Arndt teuton263@xxxxxxx attempted to say .....
p.s. One must also account for German weaponry upgrades such as the
X-4
AAM and Mauser MK-213 revolver cannon installations.

What do they build them out of ?
Fairy dust ?

The great unobtanium mines of southern Bavaria would surely have
provided...


You've both touched on an interesting subject.

I suspect that the German aviation industry could keep going from the
recycled caracasses of downed allied and German aircraft. What was
essential to sustain this is that the German aicraft that was to be
built out of the allied aircraft would use less metal.

Lots of luck building engines and avionics from scrap
metal


To this end large amounts of wood and plastic were substituted in
German aircraft. Tail fins, flaps, undercarriage doors etc were all
made out of wood. The Ta 152 received an all wooden wing apart from the
steel spars and Junkers engines all seemed to use wooden propellers.

The X-4 missile had fins made out of carboard and glue. I suppose we
can dignify that with the term CFRP (Cardboard Fibre Reinforced
Plastic). The Germans had a 'points system' of scoring the efficiency
of a weapon against the manhours and kinds of materials used. Metals
definetly subtracted points and metals such as nickel,
chromium,tungsten and other refractories particularly so. The smaller
but similar X-7 antitank missile was made of even less 'strategic'
material.

The He 162 had an all wooden wet wing. The twin spar were made out of
Ty-Bu a wood-bakelite laminate that avoided the Hughes "Spruce Goose"
and Mosquitos problem of using a too high a grade of wood that would
become 'strategic' by increased demand.

Well given that the Mosquito was outstandingly successful and the
He-162 was a flying disaster area this is an odd conclusion. Of the
40 He-162's delivered to the Luftwaffe 13 were lost in a month and
10 pilots killed, most in flying accidents. At this rate of loss the
Allied air forces could have stayed in bed and waited for the Luftwaffe
to wipe itself out.

The fueselage was all
aluminium since the complexity of moutings for guns, undercarriage
access, engine and attachment points were too complicated for an all
wood designe that needed to be ready very quickly.

And yet DeHavilland did so with the Mosquito getting the prototype in the
air less than a year after design began and only 10 months later it entered
service.

Keith


.

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