Here's something from aIRDOC He-177 by manfred griehl:
"Due to massive engine problems, and I.KG 100 losing 15 aircraft on three missions over england alone, there were almost as many losses due to the susceptible engine problems as there were to pilot error and now mostly inexperienced crews, not to mention the losses to enemy action". I Gruppe KG100 has been formed from teh I./KG 4 with 14 He 177A-3. After heavy losses during the Battle of France the numbers available to KG 100 was reduced to 36. A large part of the Geschwader and its HQ units were disbanded with only a single Gruppe Active.
However the aircraft were exempted from daily operational and collected for a large force employment against allied ships and land targets but this operation never happened.
So 80% of the aircraft didn't even make it to the target, turned back due to excessive weight - engine failure, inexperienced crews and susceptible engine problems and its ok?
The B-29 is one thing, the He-177 was plagued its entire life span and couldn't even get 5 planes to a target area without problems.
I have no clue, sure whatever insult you want to throw around - fact is the me-163 was safer getting a pilot in the air and land then the He-177 was for a crew to fly in.
Sad fact is the HE-177 will be added in Aces high, If we had the Me-163 then the He-177 deserves its place along side of it.
Oh... because if an aircraft hastily thrown into service using inexperienced aircrew, undertrained ground crews and untested aircraft does bad it means it ALWAYS did as bad, right? And also means that the subsequent A5 model was just as bad as well, right?
Lets see, form Griehl:
"One positive aspect of the operations was that the operational safety and reliability of the He I77A-3 had been improved, doing away with the need for the usual six- and 12fi-hour control checks. The regular 25-, 50- and 75-hour inspections were now completely sufficient, with special attention being paid to servicing of the coupled powerplants after 50 flying hours.
According to the technicians, the He 177 service-ability rate of II/ KG 40 was frequently in the order of 80 per cent; a great improvement over the 30 per cent or so recorded during the Gruppe's training phase, when flying operations were noticeably affected by moisture in the air which led to frequent accidental earthing of onboard electrical equipment. In contrast to the situation with I/KG 40, only one aircraft assigned to II /KG 40 was lost due to powerplant failure.
During operations against Great Britain there had been numerous power-plant problems, caused mainly by the undertrained aircrews overstraining the engines. On the positive side, the Bordeaux-Merignac-based Grippe had carried out the first He 177 long-range flight (lasting 12fi hours) and proposed to increase the aircraft's range still further by using 900-hr (198 Imp gal) underwing auxiliary fuel tanks.
Despite this overload, but obviously helped by the even stressing of both powerplants during the long-range flights, it had proved possible to operate engines for up to 115 flying hours without any problems." Here is the first hint for many of the problems. More:
"The Technical School of Luftflotte 2 responsible for training ground personnel at Fassberg had two He 177s for instructional purposes, these being the second A-0 built by Arado and an A-1. In June 1943, IV/ KG 40 also had only two He 177 training aircraft, both A-0s, to instruct its crews on this new long-range bomber. The number was increased during the second half of 1943 with the arrival of 12 Kehl-equipped and several other He 177s; but due to the aforementioned grounding of all He 177s between February and May, training could not restart until October. A good seven months had been lost.
Early in 1944, the training unit was transferred to Lechfeld. A more serious problem was the lack of operationally experienced aircrews for instructional purposes. Due to the high loss rate II/KG 40 could not transfer any experienced crews to IV/KG 40 until March 1944, when two crews were made available for this vital task.
As a result of this personnel shortage, 24 aircrews had to be handed over to I and II / KG 40 after only 15 hours of instruction on the He 177. Not only that; none of the new crews could complete their 'special weapon' training while at IV/KG 40 for lack of a proper bombing range. On 14 April 1944 IV/KG 40 had a total of 35 He 177A-0 / -1 /-3s, of which only 13 were serviceable.
There were six instructors to train the young crews on the Fw 200, and 10 others for the He 177 — a total of just 16 instructors for no less than 80 student crews! Matters were made worse by the low serviceability of the He 177s used for training purposes due to the lack of replacement power-plants, and the loss of new-build He 177s as a result of enemy air raids."Now from Price:
"In many cases, the crews involved were relatively young and inexperienced. The largest number of returnees came From the KG 100 combat group, I/KG 100: no less than 14 of its crews abandoned their mission and returned home early. More than anything else, most of the pilots living He 177s initially had no idea about the bomber's prescribed engine revs and highest permissible climbing speeds. The inevitable resulting powerplant overstressing led to no less than seven crashes and engine fires. Other crews undercut the minimum permissible speed, stalled and crashed. Prior to that, problems had arisen due to the sudden move to a new base at short notice, which had left too little time for comprehensive servicing of the A-3s assigned."
And:
"During these operations, von Riesen's crews had little trouble from overheating engines.
By now the various modifications had greatly reduced the possibility of this happening. Furthermore the root cause of so many of the fires –over-rough use of the throttles and holding high power settings for too long—was now well known: the KG I pilots had been advised of the danger and avoided it.
When engine fires did occur, it was usually the result of engine mishandling by inexperienced pilots."This last bit was regarding the KG1 missions over Russia during the summer of 1944, where they had up to 87 He-177 bombing a single target. So not even 5 aircraft, huh?
By September 1944 II/KG100 had a 90% serviceability rate with their A5s, a far cry for previous months, but by then lack of fuel meant the bomber groups were grounded.
And where in your quote is excessive weight mentioned? Or is that a notion that you just tried to slip through with no factual support...
