Originally posted by crabofix:
Ram
Am I wrong when I say HO instead of GO?
So its really Bf262 and fw152 too?
Thought LW changed their way of planenames from maker to designer.
Guess I must have got that wrong.
Sorry to say it, Crabo, but you did got that wrong. Horten brothers never had,by far, the prestige earned by Dr. Willy Messerchmitt, or Kurt Tank. And the only plane called after his creator was the Ta152...
Bf was called after "Bayerische Flugzeugwerke", then changed to Messerchmitt...why?...That was a long story of hate and political matters...It was because the fact that Erhard Milch (minister of armaments and aviation on prewar and first years of the war )hated Dr Willy Messerchmitt so much,and the hatred was in two ways.. in 1933 B.F. designed a training aircraft for Romanian air forces, and RLM (Reichsluftfahrtministerium-State Ministry of Aviation, then leaded by Milch) took is as a serious offense; to make a long story short, lets say that RLM put bans on all and every B.F. design so the company was near breaking.
When the Luftwaffe called for a new fighter for its Jagdwaffe, Arado, B.F., Focke-Wulf and Heinkel presented designs. The designs were the Ar 80V1, Fw159 V1,He112 V1, and bf109 V1. Arado and Focke Wulf designs were wiped out from the competition by the He112 and Bf109. After that the story is known, the designation of Bf109 as main fighter of LW, and the He112 as sort of backup...and all that with fierce opposition of Erhard Milch, and his Air ministry. (This says a lot about the 109 design...was so excellent plane that, even the politicians, couldnt hinder it).
After that succesfull design, Goering called for the Zerstorer concept, and B.F. answered with the Bf110...The plane was really good in its task (for the time, of course
) and Messerchmitt earned a great reputation in Germany.
When war started, and all saw the incredible performance of Bf110 and Bf109 over Poland and France, and the good role played by 109 over Britain, Dr. Willy Messerchmitt earned nearly divine reputation...then HE changed the name of HIS COMPANY to Messerchmitt...and with that name change, the plane designations changed, too, from BF to ME...RLM never said a word about that change, was something of Messerchmitt itself, sorta SLAP on the face of Milch.(And a BIG resounding SLAP, BTW
)
Milch played an awful role on German industry develop. When Albert Speer came in, in 1943, Germany's industry really growed up incredibly...but too late for the "One thousand years Reich". Anyway without Speer on the Armament Ministry,(He was a clever and competent minister, and he had people like Guderian as his advicers.)it is doubtful that Germany's war effort could've survived until so late as it did.
In contrast with the Messerchmitt Me109 example, Ta152 designation was proposed by RLM itself, in honour of Kurt Tank. The plane was called "Focke Wulf Ta152", not "Tank Ta152"...Messerchmitt changed his company's name...Tank was only a designer, the company was always Focke Wulf (and I think it STILL is focke wulf
)
Some history notes from a WWII nut
some day we'll really talk about curious things, as why Ta152 wasnt built in great numbers on late 1944 (it could've been done), or why Fw190C series with the excellent DB603 engine never passed the prototype, althoug it was clearly a winner...
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Ram, out
Fw190D9? Ta152H1? The truth is out thereJG2 "Richthofen" 
[This message has been edited by RAM (edited 04-18-2000).]
