he-177 a-5 german bomber

[tunnelrat]

IMO given how HTC isn't in the market of adding annoyances for no good reason, I think when we have a WW2 plane that would suddenly become a wonder-plane without those annoyances shouldn't be added to the game. I'm honestly not even sold that the 177 falls under that category, despite all the gushing in this forum over the many years, but it would benefit more than any other plane (me163 included) from the lack of spontaneous mission-ending failures.

You aren't describing the He-177-A5, which was by far the most produced model.

All research I can find on this aircraft seems to point to the original series being a disaster, the later series being improved and actually ready for front-line service.  That it was subsequently grounded (along with the rest of the Luftwaffe bombers) is not indicative of the performance of the later models.

[jag88]

Man, people should really read a bit more before making inaccurate statements.

The B-29s engines had a magnesium crankcase, when the faulty engines overheated caught fire the magnesium would eventually do so too leading to the collapse of the entire wing!

On the other hand, the leakage problems were eradicated on the A-5 and fires became non-existent once ground and air crews were adequately trained. Not to mention that the wing was significantly strengthened which allowed them to confidently undertake shallow dives, something than even the A3s were already doing in January 1944.

In the end the type had a 90% availability rate in some Gruppe, an improvement even from the 80% rate of II/KG40 in early 1944 which operated even A3s with considerable less problems than other Gruppe.  As I said before, the machine was green and so were the personnel and logistics as well, and all those factors together made the debut of the He-177 a troublesome one, but those defects were overcome within a year and the machine was certainly far more reliable than some people wish to believe.

You can find the references on Griehl,  pp 131 and 151.


JAG