"Chief designer Kurt Tank was flight-testing a Ta 152H when he encountered a flight of roving Mustangs. He simply turned toward home, applied the MW 50 system to boost his engine, and gave his pursuers the slip."
@@Schlipperschlopper At least is quite the understatement I would argue, when the US (might have been NACA but I can't quite recall that) tested captured Doras with good quality fuel it outperformed the Mustang-D in certain aspects very clearly as they said.
@@Tacticaviator7 The italian Fiat G56 Centauro with DB603 engine was another superb plane sadly it did not become the Axis standard fighter to replace the BF109
Fw190D-x and Ta152 are my fav aircraft of all time - travelled from Aus to the US to see 2 FW190D a few years ago... and if the Ta152 ever gets displayed, I'm on the next plane back...
Are you into flight sim? I fly on DCS World and I fly the 109K which I’m focusing on right now. But I also have the 190 Anton and the Dora which I can’t wait to start on. The 109’s and 190’s are my favorite planes too. 🙂👍
Yes, the "Moskito" is truly one of the most fantastic "for lack of a nail" stories in WW2 history! Which I'm pretty sure you're already familiar with, but for those not, the TA-152 was Focke-Wulf (specifically, the legendary Kurt Tank) response to the British Mosquito wooden-wonder. Goering had wanted a German counter to it ever since the first one was shot down and insisted Kurt Tank immediately copy it. It wasn't that simple, of course, but by 1944 Tank had a flying prototype. Production was even ready to begin on the aircraft. But British espionage figured out where the wood glue for the "Moskito" was being made, and bombed the glue factory to rubble. There were no substitute products nor was there a Plan B. So the German TA-152 was quietly dropped, never to rise again.
@@robertmaybeth3434 You're getting your aircraft mixed up. The Focke-Wulf Moskito was the Ta-154. This video is about the Ta-152 - a development of the FW-190.
Both of those planes, along with the Japanese N1K2 and Ki 84 are my favourite ww2 aircraft. Late Axis prop fighters have some kind of magic to them, they look amazing.
One aspect to be pondered. Kurt Tank, when initially designing the Fw 190 wanted to equip his new fighter with an inline engine. He wanted to use the DB 603, as he saw it as the best design with the best development prospects. Unfortunately RLM denied the use of inline engines, as those were needed for bombers. So he went with a radial design and used the BMW 801. Later in war the use of inline engines in form of the Jumo 213 became possible. So he used it for the Fw 190 D, which was (in Tank‘s thinking) only a stopgap, an in between between the A and Ta 152. As DB 603‘s were not in surplus, they designed the „Power Egg“ design, in fact the possibility to use either the Jumo 213 or the DB 603 on the same aircraft interchangeably. The engines were shipped to the production plant as a „bolt on“ unit, in fact everything firewall forward, including radiator and cowling, hoses and wiring ready to connect. Tank always saw and intended the Ta 152 (with DB 603) as a replacement for the Fw 190 A (and F), not the Fw 190 D. As the development was initiated late in war, production numbers were quite low. As the production lines were in the eastern part of Germany, the advance of the Russian Army terminated the production. Had Tank been able to use those inline engines when designing the Fw 190 (though the DB 603 had its own teething problems), the Ta 152 might have been started earlier and produced in higher numbers. But RLM decided as they did. In the end the Ta 152, due to its late appearance and very low numbers, made no difference at all.
My Grandfather an ex Stuka rear gunner retrained to be a BMW801 mechanic in late 1944 at the master mechanic school in Munich, He was a sergeant major going to be 31 years old in February 1945 and about 10 years in service since joining in 1935. He was an old hand by then compared to the teenagers entering the ranks of the Luftwaffe at the end of the war. So he seen a lot in his decade in peace time and when the war started.. His current unit SG151 was mainly training new pilots and used in ground attack roles in Yugoslavia. Possibly intercepting B-17s flying in the region too. He probably was familiar with the inner workings of the Jumo 211 from his Stalingrad airlift days with the HE111 but never the Jumo 213.
A big problem in late war Germany was, lack of good quality / quantity fuel, hence the the development of systems to overcome that (water/ methanol) for anti-knock , (nitrous oxide) for better combustion at high altitude
I remember reading General Closterman's 'The Big Show' and his accounts of fighting a Tempest against the 'long nose' and its deadly thirty millimeter snoutgun...I wish you had produced this documentary sixty years ago...in junior highschool I looked, in vain, for more info about the craft to include in a WW2 aviation project...be well, good poster!
the info available today is for our enjoyment, unlike the frustrating searches of our youth. My fav is the P-38, but dont ask me for the details of the variants.
There's a Japanese anima that stars the TA-52 But I can never find the name of the cartoon ? Worried about the B-29 was a waist just like all the time & money they spent on zimmeret on there tanks to stop Russians from sticking magnet bombs on them. The only ones to use magnetic bombs was the Germans themselves. The Russians never had them😂
The B29's weren't actually overhead, but they would have been if Germany could have held on a little longer. So yeah, building a high altitude interceptor like the TA 152 makes perfect sense
And add in the fact that you have to start developing a piece of equipment like this at least a year in advance of ever being able to use it, more like two years.
@@JWZelch Thej B-29 project started before the US got involved in the war. The Generals wanted a “hemispheric defense weapon” that could itself be out of range of any attacking force, but within a few hours could bomb any beach or invasion force. Only after the bomber offensive began was it realized that it also could be a useful strategic bomber.
What with Germany's crippled production, lack of skilled pilots, and an allied bombing strategy specifically designed to draw out and eliminate the Luftwaffe, it really was an entirely pointless endeavour trying to build these super-fighters. Desperation, alas. Fascinating aircraft though.
Thanks for another great video about a very cool aircraft.You are making one Aussie aviation nerd very happy on a pretty regular basis.Kudos to you,sir.
As soon as the 8th AAF started getting two stage turbo-supercharged B17s, P47s and P38s in their inventory, ready or not, a smarter guy than Goring would've made a priority of this early on so that a reliable conventional interceptor would be ready for a worse case scenario. It was our lucky star that must've intervened to cloud our adversaries with an initial string of victories so that a 'worst case scenario' wasn't within their realm of possibilities until it came to be only too late for a response.
I respectfully disagree with the assessment that Germans should have focused on FW190D. Had B-29 appeared and had Germany no answer ready, we would call them shortsighted. No plane could save the Reich, but this plane was a rational answer to a potential threat.
There is an entire TH-cam industry of armchair historians devoted to painting German attempts to develop improved weapons systems as a waste of time and resources on what they pejoratively label as "super weapons". That is just piling on a shallow criticism. First of all, while an A-bomb might have been a super weapon, a superior fighter or tank is not, and it is natural to pursue them just to keep pace with enemy capabilities. Moreover, Germany faced vastly superior numbers of allied aircraft and tanks, and it would have been irresponsible if they had NOT tried to develop weapons of superior capability to try to outweigh their numerical disadvantages. The allies were lucky that the national-socialist political-industrial complex was so inefficient and did not more rapidly develop such improved aircraft.
@@gort8203 It was the existance of those aircraft (Ta 152 and Me 262) which prevented the use of the B29 in Europe. The development of the B29 was even more expensive than the A-bombs Manhatten Project (so defenetly not a super weopon). The B29 was the most expensive aircraft ever fielded during WWII. The US did not dare to use it agianst Germany, while it could operate almost untouched over Japan. This alone would make the Ta 152 and Me 262 worth all its money and time. The IS3 appeared on victory parade, germany had Jagtigers and other heavy gun carriers ready. The US and the Brits needed another 5 years to develop Conqueror and M103 , (both of them werent much more reliable than the german late war tanks), while Tortoise and T28/T95 turned out to be absolute failures. The whole german superweapon narrativ is nonesense.
@@HaVoC117X The B-29 was not needed in Europe. The B-17 and B-24 had more than adequate range for that theatre and there was no intent to use the B-29 there. The B-29 was designed for and used in the Pacific theater. If the war in the ETO had gone on longer AND if it had been needed there it would have been used, but it was needed in the Pacific.
@@gort8203 It wasnt the fact that B17 and B24 could not do the job. The stragical planing between 1941 and 1943 expected that the first operational B29 were stationed in Egypt on british airbases to attack germany from the south. And if germany was beaten only than they should be deployed in the pacific. This orginal plan was changed in late 1943 early 1944. Because the B29 was to vulnerable over gemany and the extra range was needed in the pacific. Of 3700 B29 produced during wwII, 720 were lost, only 147 because of enemy actions. This would have been totally different if this aircraft would have been used over germany. German aircrafts and Flak were way more potent than the Japanese. If the still unreliable B29 also had to deal with combat losses, the operational numbers would be low. The biggest B29 air raid in 1944 had no more than 90 aircraft- Ususally they attacked Japan wtih 30 to 60 aircraft. Operational numbers were already low. Nothing compared to the 1000 Bomber raids on germany. The B29 effect over Germany would have been unoticable anyway. Just threatening the most expensive weopon system of the airforce.
"Vier Indianer am gartenzaun." means = Four Indians at the garden fence. Kurt Tank said it to the tower at (I believe) Langenhagen. I get my info from the Monarch Publications soft-cover book on the subject. He carried no ammo in the plane when he flew it if I remember correctly this occasion. The MW50 water injection AND the GM-1 nitrous were available in some models. Jumo 213E/F was the engine in some models like the 44'-wingspan H model. The short-wing Ta 152C carried a Daimler Benz 603G. If I am not mistaken....the Ta 152H-1 got up to 48,550' using an Italian barograph to capture and peg the altitude-meter as the German unit available at the time only went up to 39,000'! One combat pilot said that it was "intoxicating to fly." "Like a plank seated under your ***" And the main combat directive to operate in combat mode against the bomber formations: climb above the pack and dive completely vertical onto the bombers. The throttle did not even need to be touched in this maneuver as the plane, when pulled "up" after the attack, climbed back up to attack-altitude again with ease. It flew like a glider I think.
One thing that the US did to help spread the rumor was they flew 2 or 3 B29's to England and left them parked on a runway that had frequent German recon airplanes fly over. After the Americans felt it had taken pictures on more than one day the B29's flew to Cairo and eventually to India then over the hump into China for the first Bombing by B29's of Japan.
As Willi Reschke commented,(met him in 1992 along with Walter Loos. Both flew the Ta in Jg301)-"the Ta was my life insurance policy at the end of the war."
Not so much wishful thinking but has a way for the company to get one last big military contract before everything fell apart. It also had the benefit of keeping irreplaceable designers from being drafted
Still one of the best looking planes of WW2 and one of my favs. I bought a flying model kit decades ago but never finished it. Now retired so maybe....
If I had a choice, as a German pilot, The Focke Wulf FW 190 would easily be my first choice. Not only a great performer, also a very attractive airframe, a genuinely beautiful design.
Good video information was correct as far as I recall, I was so into this plane when I first learned of its existence, there is a interview with master sergeant Willi Reschke, who flew the 152 in combat with JG301 in the last weeks of the war which is interesting, especially the bounce on the tempests. Willi was rightly proud of this plane and was dismayed to learn the British had scrapped his personal 152 which is a terrible shame seeing as there is only one intact plane left now. He took it as the British dident want to acknowledge how good it was , but I think anything with propellers was just old tech by mid 45 and the British did have there own superprops that they dident need to( Martin baker and the supermarine spiteful the latter being capable of 490+mph)put into production because the tempests and spitfires were perfectly capable of doing the job.
There is a complete Ta-152H in the Smithsonian collection. Many years ago I saw it at the storage facility; The Paul Garber facility which was just a bunch of hangers that they let people have limited access to. I was a Boy Scout then and actually knew more of the planes than our guide; who ended up rather annoyed!
"Willi was rightly proud of this plane and was dismayed to learn the British had scrapped his personal 152 which is a terrible shame seeing as there is only one intact plane left now. He took it as the British dident want to acknowledge how good it was" Really? Yet another unsourced post. If you have said source, please post it here. Willi Reschke's own recollections of the Ludwigslust combat contradict each-other (I believe he gave three accounts, all differ). The British didn't see the Ta.152 as anything special because it wasn't And the Tempest out-flew the Ta 152's in that action noted above, and shot one down..
In the high altitude model, the pressure kept in the cockpit by pressurization seems quite low, perhaps for structural reasons(?). At the highest design altitude of the plane, having at least some pressurization makes sense, since there even breathing pure oxygen wouldn't have the full needed partial pressure.
I’ve always been so fascinated with the Ta152 project, both high altitude and ground attack projects. Got a couple books on it that were very interesting.
Every time I see anything about German war plane production I can't help thinking how incompetent Erich Milch was. He certainly didn't do anything to improve the German chances of winning the war.
This is not a correcht analysis! The decisive points were the death of Walther Wever, which meant that Göring was once again the head of the Luftwaffe in day-to-day business, the replacement of Wimmer by Ernst Udet and finally the appointment of Jeschonnek, who was by far the most incompetent idiot in the Luftwaffe's leadership ranks. In 1941 he was still of the opinion that the Luftwaffe would never have to fight above 6,000m. He was also responsible for the training, which completely collapsed from 1942 onwards!
10:00 Another fun fact that probably nudged the scales towards the Jumo 213 was that the DB600 series of engines was in relatively slow supply because Daimler-Benz staunchly refused to give anyone else the production rights, so Bf 109s and 110s (and later a small number Me 410s and Do 217s) took up practically all of the engines available.
The DB engines were built in licence in japan, italy and romania. So I call bushit on your story. What is true though, is that it was decided that any alternative to the BF-109 need to have a different engine, to avoid manufacturing bottlenecks and supply chain issues.
@@mischewski73 Yeah, Japan, Romania and Italy produced them for their own planes. Duh. Within Germany it was Daimler-Benz or bust. And as you might observe, the Fw 190, the literal alternative to the Bf 109, has a different engine, in every single variant, from the A and F variants with the BMW 801 to the Dora with the Jumo 213. The only planes with DB600 type engines in Germany were still the Bf 109, Bf 110 and the Me 210/410 with only some sporadic use on other airframes like the Do 217.
There is a youtube episode from a pilot on the only unit where these planes were used. He says there were 34 or 36 planes & they were in a lot more battles than you suggest. He personally shot down 2 Tempests, a supposedly superior plane, & at the end of the war only 2 units had been lost & they didn't know if they had been shot down or suffered failures. His was the plane taken to England for testing after the was.
My dad was an industrial engineer at General Electric main bomber engine plant in Ft.Wayne ,Ind. in the Turbo /supercharger Division . Management would not let him be drafted as they considered his efforts critical to production . We had to get our bombers up high enough to avoid these German fighters . There were 10 crew members per bomber ! It became a technology race ! Germany drafted some of their engineers earlier in the war which hurt their efforts .
It was a bit different structurally, and was quite a bit heavier. It also had an engine that was slightly weaker at low altitudes. The main difference visually besides the wing span and tail is that the wings have been moved forward relative to the cockpit. The front of the cockpit glass on the FW190 ends at about mid-wing-chord. The front of the cockpit glass of the TA152 is at the wing trailing edge or so. The TA152 had about twice the internal fuel capacity or so.
@@5co756 Yeah it had a way more sophisticated supercharger with an intercooler. They did some experiments with a turbo on the FW190 but there was nowhere to put the plumbing. This is why the P38 has booms and the P47 is so chonky. IIRC the turbo FW190C just had pipes outside of the fuselage running from the engine over wings to a fairing under the aircraft that looked something like the P51's radiator. The FW190B was allegedly less clean than that!
I wish you had related the anecdote of Kurt Tank being jumped by an allied fighter when he was test flying the Ta-152, and he merely pushed the throttle forward and escaped at high speed.
at 2:55 the "Natter" picture. I just found it to funny that the plane in the background apparently has "Alles Kaputt" written as its nose art. Or in english "Everythingˋs broken" or when used more colloquial "Everythingˋs F**ked"
@FiveCentsPlease I doubt that. At the very least it was painted by someone who was fluent in German to the point of knowing colloquials So it might still be post war tho
@@AlphaHorst This is the well-known Ju-290A-4 W.Nr. 0165 that was flown from Czechoslovakia on 8-May-1945 to surrender to the Allies at München-Riem. It was piloted by Hptm. Heinz Braun who also carried a large passenger load of Luftwaffe staff with him. The aircraft ended up with Watson's Whizzers group and it was decided to fly it to the US. Pilot Braun remained as pilot/instructor to ferry the plane to France and POW Luftwaffe mechanics prepared the aircraft and changed several engines. US radio equipment was also installed. The plane was photographed after surrender with US markings but without the "Alles Kaput" graphic. Most likely it was painted by the Allies or Luftwaffe POWs having fun.
The focus on the FW190D vs the Ta152 makes sense. The Western Front dealt with high altitude strategic bombing. But, the Eastern Front was entirely low to mid altitude tactical combat. A high altitude airplane would only be useful for recon against the Soviets. The Germans needed something useful NOW. The FW190D would be useful on both fronts until the B-29 showed up. Still, an excellent video that shows how the Luftwaffe development process had become such a quagmire.
@@netmansweThink of the names the British soldier gave to German controlled mounds of earth and other strongpoints in the 1914-1918 war. Anyway, when you travel up the country you get more and more, "What do you mean?" Pronunciations change. Even names change in some places.
Funny you don’t mention the memoirs of ace Willi Reschke who demonstrated his ‘Ta’ 152 H at Farnborough post war. It wasn’t just a ‘match’ with allied fighters, he said, but head and shoulders above, and his life insurance, even at very low altitudes.
The super aircraft problem was that they were being developed in parallel, some since even before WW2. The procurement authorities never picked winners and built them at scale, dumping the worst ones
The Ta 152 featured a NEW wing, the space between the main wheel wells is greater than that of the 190 D, it was modular to take the "short" outer wings of the C and the "long" outer wings of the H.
The first episode of the 1993 anime, The Cockpit, brought me to this plane. If you listen to the German Luftwaffe officer explain how it operates to Erhardt von Rheindars, that's one way to describe and hear the details.
The Nitrous Oxide performance booster GM-1: its full name was Goring Mischung 1 (Goering Mixture). Of course, it wasn't developed by Ol' Hermann, but by an engineer named Otto Lutz, in 1940. The Ta 152H was one of the few Luftwaffe aircraft to use it in the latter half of WW 2.
One of my favorite aircraft. I have the Zoukei-Mura 1/32 scale kit of the H-1. I hope to build it along with an FW-190A-4 and FW-190D9. Butcher Bird Evolution!
😊Hello! And thank you for a very nice video 🤔But I can't really understand your reasoning. If it was because it would be better to develop the FW190 D, then that is exactly what they did. The fact that the plane became longer was also to make room for the things you mentioned. 😃 And that wings got longer was exactly for the reason you said. 😃 And not thinking about getting better at higher altitudes would be strange, since they still had nothing more than bombers over Germany to worry about. It is easy to look back and detect errors, but as this did not affect already set production lines, it did not make a big difference. In addition, at the same time the production of fighter planes became greater than the training had time to fill with pilots, so therefore I can't see that they did anything wrong in developing the Fw190 A to also become the Ta152 H variant for future higher altitudes. D The "Dora" variant quickly became so successful for the current situation. So therefore I don't understand what you thought the developers would take their time for? They did not disrupt production so that there was a shortage of aircraft. But you can also say that they could completely turn a blind eye to propeller operation at higher altitudes, when the Me262 and others were under development. But it wasn't the same people who developed propeller engines and jet engines. So then it was probably better for everyone to work on improving where they could. So unfortunately, I don't see the Ta 152 H as a waste of resources. The fact that the production did not quickly increase is probably many reasons for so late in the war, besides, it turned out that there were never any B29's... Only fighter planes all the way over Germany.🙄
The Ta-152 was being developed for high altitude operations and as a possible interm fighter to protect the airfields used by me 262s from allied fighters that continuously harassed them on takeoff and landings
Hey man what about adding a short edited walk around the plane before you take off if you can in the game? Just to give a short intro of like the pilot going around the plane. Maybe before that have a edited slide, that’s made to look like a ww2 film or presentation, basically you’d show us slides in black and white saying what the mission is and what is expected to happen, as if the audience is the pilots for the mission you show us. So for more planned mission the short bit of slides would be in the film style but if it’s a rapid response type situation then maybe just have the text on a piece of paper. You could even make a letter in real life, just saying “German, JU-87 Stuka’s in coming. Scrabble day time squadrons 32 now. Location English Channel.” Put the open letter next to a red phone then go into the game play. Idk just something to think about to add some stuff to the already cool vids.
I wonder where you got the armament info for the Ta-152B, since I got several books that depict the planned Ta-152B-4/R2 version as an offensive powerhouse with no less than 7 (!) cannons of 20- and 30mm in caliber. Of course this could just be a case of the designers getting way ahead of themselves in order to please the high hats at the RLM.
Btw all the FW 190 D or „Dora“ models were just a stopgap to begin with…to build a „bridge“ till the TA152 was ready for action. And yeah, the problems with the TA 152 H prototypes were severe…seems like forced labor as well as being bombed all the time and having a shortage of resources weren’t a good basis for high quality prototype building…🤷🏻♂️😂 The very few TA 152s that saw service at the very end of the war (if not plaqued by problems caused by poor construction quality) were love by their pilots and showed very good performance…there is an interview in existence of a German pilot that flew the TA 152 H at the very end and he describes how it performed against the planes of the allied forces, his name is Willi Reschke and the video has English subs…
I remember an account where Tank was flying a prototype Ta 152 to a different location, and was bounced by a group of Mustangs. Tank simply floored the throttle, and the 152 quickly pulled out of gun range.
Do you really believe all those apocryphal stories? On paper several German designs were promising, we'll never know if they would have been in practice. On the other hand many, many allied designs did what it said on the tin, again and again.
There was several ta-152c delivered to front line air group they did fly sorti but them getting into air combat is unsure. There a story of one shooting down a spitfire over north Germany.
Too few, too late as a fighter but would've been a great photo recon aircraft like the Spitfire PR series. Couldn't have missed the activity along Englands south coast areas in particular during 1943-44.
26,000 feet. Apparently, 26,000 feet is the maximum altitude at which human life can be sustained for extended periods - assuming unassisted breathing. There are obvious caveats to that, but still... seems like it would be pretty tough in that air if one were to get a stiff adrenalin jolt.
I wonder if wider wings would have made the Dora better as well. Not as wide as the Ta-152H of course, but adding maybe a feet or two. Losing a few Km/h but adding stability in turns!
@18:40 ... "as it would be a high altitude fighter it would not have the ability to carry explosives" ... can you explain please (the link between "high altitude" and "the ability to carry explosives") ? possibly you mean as a high altitude fighter it would not be expected to be a bomber ?
If you make a special "high altitude" fighter, performance is everything, why reduce the peformence with unnecessary reinforcement for hardpoints you will not use.
@@PunkinsSan Most German planes carried their big bombs under the belly , they were trimmed to be as light as possible . Also it keeps the weight at the center of mass , but it makes no sense on a high altitude fighter to carry bombs .
I mean Germany was basically trying to do anything it could to get overmatch or at least relevancy, because it doesn't take much brainpower to realize that if you produce a quarter the vehicles of your enemies, and they are equal or worse, you lose.
So, in the end, perhaps Ta-152 B would be a better option against allied bombers, since the ultra high altitude planes the germans expected to fight didn't come and couldn't really fly that high anyway.
I owned a Ta-152H and flew it for three years. Then, I sold it to Pee-wee Herman in 1985 who promptly landed it gear up and proclaimed, "I meant to do that" Great video.
@@sivalon1 The British had both of the captured Ta-152 examples and gave one to the US. They scrapped their other example unfortunately. I still think it might be buried at Farnborough.
I guess most of the "weird" decisions WRT production focus and all that could be explained by the era during which the Ta was conceived and then rushed into production. That said: When you read from or hear those who actually flew the plane in combat, they were still singing its praises even decades after the war had ended. Willy Reschke called it his "life saver", meaning that he thought if he hadn't flown the 152 during the last few weeks and months of the war, he probably wouldn't have survived. While I don't know how much weight we can give to these personal accounts, he does mention in an interview that can be found here on YT that he and other pilots in his unit thought the 152 was superior to the D-9 in many respects.
Personal accounts are from people who were actually there and did stuff, so I would credit them far more than many "learned" accounts from historians, you also get little snippets that get glossed over in the official accounts, these pilots had extensive knowledge of the aircraft they flew, gained by flying them in combat, a very unforgiving environment, so if those guys say it was good then it was, regardless of the paper experts.
@@CrusaderSports250 That's pretty much the opposite of how things work in RL - for instance: eye-witness-accounts are usually considered the weakest sort of "evidence" in a court of law. The interview I was referring to was done with Reschke as a pretty old man, so with decades between his account and the actual events happening. Plus this whole thing seemed rather personal to him, as he was still pi$$ed off about the Brits scrapping his 152 after they'd finished testing it. He thought they couldn't stand the fact that the 152 was better than most of their planes. Don't get me wrong: I'm not implying that he was making stuff up or exaggerating things on purpose - but other than the amount of time that had passed (and how the human brain works when it comes to remembering things long term), there are so many other factors that play a role in aerial combat. Pilot quality, chance/luck, etc, etc. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you cannot judge the performance of any machine simply based on the opinion of one person or based on one historical engagement. If that was the case, we would have to assume that the 109 G-6 for example was a highly competitive plane in 43/44 as multiple high scoring LW-aces were flying the type and still racking up kills. From my 20+ years experience in MMO-sims, a non-MW-50-equipped G-6 would always be the last LW-plane I'd choose if I had to go up against mid to late war Allied stuff.
"Total Air Supremacy?" LOL. P-47M's were the cats meow at altitude and at best the Germans could only equal it's performance...and the P-51H's were on the way had the war continued.
That was impossible in terms of raw materials! The Third Reich suffered from a shortage of tungsten throughout the war and you can't mass-produce turbochargers without enough tungsten!
3:55 "Thus never having a completed prototype". Say what? The first BV-155 V1 flew in Sept '44 and the V2 flew in Feb '45. And the pic at 3:55 is the V2 prototype!! Cheers
Designers like Kurt Tank and Dr Lippisch don't get the recognition they deserved. They designed some really great planes, but most would be stuck at prototype stage.
"Chief designer Kurt Tank was flight-testing a Ta 152H when he encountered a flight of roving Mustangs. He simply turned toward home, applied the MW 50 system to boost his engine, and gave his pursuers the slip."
how does a guy named kurt tank become an aircraft designer instead of a tank designer? classic german misallocation of resources.
@@barnabusrex2194 To be a German tank designer he would have to have been named Kurt Panzerkampfwagen…
@@barnabusrex2194 Well that's because his family is named after water "tank" and not landship aka tank which in german would be panzer.
Sure he did…
@@barnabusrex2194
Cos there panzers to a German
One of my absolute favorite looking aircraft. Thank you for the awesome video!!
Dora was at least as good as the Mustang and latest Spitfire.
@@Schlipperschlopper At least is quite the understatement I would argue, when the US (might have been NACA but I can't quite recall that) tested captured Doras with good quality fuel it outperformed the Mustang-D in certain aspects very clearly as they said.
@@Tacticaviator7 The italian Fiat G56 Centauro with DB603 engine was another superb plane sadly it did not become the Axis standard fighter to replace the BF109
It has the neat sausage like fuselage design
@@ThommyofThenn It was a sublime design and had a very strong airframe for mounting large guns
Fw190D-x and Ta152 are my fav aircraft of all time - travelled from Aus to the US to see 2 FW190D a few years ago... and if the Ta152 ever gets displayed, I'm on the next plane back...
Are you into flight sim? I fly on DCS World and I fly the 109K which I’m focusing on right now. But I also have the 190 Anton and the Dora which I can’t wait to start on. The 109’s and 190’s are my favorite planes too. 🙂👍
Yes, the "Moskito" is truly one of the most fantastic "for lack of a nail" stories in WW2 history! Which I'm pretty sure you're already familiar with, but for those not, the TA-152 was Focke-Wulf (specifically, the legendary Kurt Tank) response to the British Mosquito wooden-wonder. Goering had wanted a German counter to it ever since the first one was shot down and insisted Kurt Tank immediately copy it. It wasn't that simple, of course, but by 1944 Tank had a flying prototype. Production was even ready to begin on the aircraft.
But British espionage figured out where the wood glue for the "Moskito" was being made, and bombed the glue factory to rubble. There were no substitute products nor was there a Plan B. So the German TA-152 was quietly dropped, never to rise again.
@@robertmaybeth3434
You're getting your aircraft mixed up.
The Focke-Wulf Moskito was the Ta-154.
This video is about the Ta-152 - a development of the FW-190.
Both of those planes, along with the Japanese N1K2 and Ki 84 are my favourite ww2 aircraft. Late Axis prop fighters have some kind of magic to them, they look amazing.
@@hashteraksgage3281They do indeed. The Ki-100 and the Ki-83 look sick too!
One aspect to be pondered. Kurt Tank, when initially designing the Fw 190 wanted to equip his new fighter with an inline engine. He wanted to use the DB 603, as he saw it as the best design with the best development prospects. Unfortunately RLM denied the use of inline engines, as those were needed for bombers. So he went with a radial design and used the BMW 801. Later in war the use of inline engines in form of the Jumo 213 became possible. So he used it for the Fw 190 D, which was (in Tank‘s thinking) only a stopgap, an in between between the A and Ta 152. As DB 603‘s were not in surplus, they designed the „Power Egg“ design, in fact the possibility to use either the Jumo 213 or the DB 603 on the same aircraft interchangeably. The engines were shipped to the production plant as a „bolt on“ unit, in fact everything firewall forward, including radiator and cowling, hoses and wiring ready to connect. Tank always saw and intended the Ta 152 (with DB 603) as a replacement for the Fw 190 A (and F), not the Fw 190 D.
As the development was initiated late in war, production numbers were quite low. As the production lines were in the eastern part of Germany, the advance of the Russian Army terminated the production.
Had Tank been able to use those inline engines when designing the Fw 190 (though the DB 603 had its own teething problems), the Ta 152 might have been started earlier and produced in higher numbers. But RLM decided as they did. In the end the Ta 152, due to its late appearance and very low numbers, made no difference at all.
Great video, very researched & factual with the personal querky touch that makes it engaging :)
Thanks so much for your efforts
My Grandfather an ex Stuka rear gunner retrained to be a BMW801 mechanic in late 1944 at the master mechanic school in Munich, He was a sergeant major going to be 31 years old in February 1945 and about 10 years in service since joining in 1935. He was an old hand by then compared to the teenagers entering the ranks of the Luftwaffe at the end of the war. So he seen a lot in his decade in peace time and when the war started.. His current unit SG151 was mainly training new pilots and used in ground attack roles in Yugoslavia. Possibly intercepting B-17s flying in the region too.
He probably was familiar with the inner workings of the Jumo 211 from his Stalingrad airlift days with the HE111 but never the Jumo 213.
A big problem in late war Germany was, lack of good quality / quantity fuel, hence the the development of systems to overcome that (water/ methanol) for anti-knock , (nitrous oxide) for better combustion at high altitude
I remember reading General Closterman's 'The Big Show' and his accounts of fighting a Tempest against the 'long nose' and its deadly thirty millimeter snoutgun...I wish you had produced this documentary sixty years ago...in junior highschool I looked, in vain, for more info about the craft to include in a WW2 aviation project...be well, good poster!
great read, that book..
the info available today is for our enjoyment, unlike the frustrating searches of our youth. My fav is the P-38, but dont ask me for the details of the variants.
I have a DZ of them in my 1/48 model collection one beautiful ship.
There a equal if not better than the P-51 & spitfire 9
@@polloqpolloqmine on the U.S. side is the P-40 E-N
But the mustang is in its own league.
There's a Japanese anima that stars the TA-52 But I can never find the name of the cartoon ?
Worried about the B-29 was a waist just like all the time & money they spent on zimmeret on there tanks to stop Russians from sticking magnet bombs on them. The only ones to use magnetic bombs was the Germans themselves. The Russians never had them😂
The B29's weren't actually overhead, but they would have been if Germany could have held on a little longer.
So yeah, building a high altitude interceptor like the TA 152 makes perfect sense
And add in the fact that you have to start developing a piece of equipment like this at least a year in advance of ever being able to use it, more like two years.
@@JWZelch Thej B-29 project started before the US got involved in the war. The Generals wanted a “hemispheric defense weapon” that could itself be out of range of any attacking force, but within a few hours could bomb any beach or invasion force. Only after the bomber offensive began was it realized that it also could be a useful strategic bomber.
Had Germany held on a bit longer those B-29's might well have been carrying nukes.
Not to mention that both the BF109 and especially the FW190 did not even feel really comfortable at the altitude the B17s and B24s flew in
What with Germany's crippled production, lack of skilled pilots, and an allied bombing strategy specifically designed to draw out and eliminate the Luftwaffe, it really was an entirely pointless endeavour trying to build these super-fighters. Desperation, alas. Fascinating aircraft though.
But hey - The TA152C would have been so incredibly sexy.
The TA152E probably even more so thanks to less bulkiness.
Imagine an H-1 with a DB603N (2958 horsepower). I bet it'd be the fastest prop of WW2.
@@N9197U Yep , the only projected DB 603 N would have been THE engine
Thanks for another great video about a very cool aircraft.You are making one Aussie aviation nerd very happy on a pretty regular basis.Kudos to you,sir.
As soon as the 8th AAF started getting two stage turbo-supercharged B17s, P47s and P38s in their inventory, ready or not, a smarter guy than Goring would've made a priority of this early on so that a reliable conventional interceptor would be ready for a worse case scenario.
It was our lucky star that must've intervened to cloud our adversaries with an initial string of victories so that a 'worst case scenario' wasn't within their realm of possibilities until it came to be only too late for a response.
I respectfully disagree with the assessment that Germans should have focused on FW190D. Had B-29 appeared and had Germany no answer ready, we would call them shortsighted. No plane could save the Reich, but this plane was a rational answer to a potential threat.
There is an entire TH-cam industry of armchair historians devoted to painting German attempts to develop improved weapons systems as a waste of time and resources on what they pejoratively label as "super weapons". That is just piling on a shallow criticism. First of all, while an A-bomb might have been a super weapon, a superior fighter or tank is not, and it is natural to pursue them just to keep pace with enemy capabilities. Moreover, Germany faced vastly superior numbers of allied aircraft and tanks, and it would have been irresponsible if they had NOT tried to develop weapons of superior capability to try to outweigh their numerical disadvantages. The allies were lucky that the national-socialist political-industrial complex was so inefficient and did not more rapidly develop such improved aircraft.
@@gort8203 It was the existance of those aircraft (Ta 152 and Me 262) which prevented the use of the B29 in Europe. The development of the B29 was even more expensive than the A-bombs Manhatten Project (so defenetly not a super weopon). The B29 was the most expensive aircraft ever fielded during WWII. The US did not dare to use it agianst Germany, while it could operate almost untouched over Japan. This alone would make the Ta 152 and Me 262 worth all its money and time.
The IS3 appeared on victory parade, germany had Jagtigers and other heavy gun carriers ready. The US and the Brits needed another 5 years to develop Conqueror and M103 , (both of them werent much more reliable than the german late war tanks), while Tortoise and T28/T95 turned out to be absolute failures.
The whole german superweapon narrativ is nonesense.
@@HaVoC117X The B-29 was not needed in Europe. The B-17 and B-24 had more than adequate range for that theatre and there was no intent to use the B-29 there. The B-29 was designed for and used in the Pacific theater. If the war in the ETO had gone on longer AND if it had been needed there it would have been used, but it was needed in the Pacific.
@@gort8203 It wasnt the fact that B17 and B24 could not do the job.
The stragical planing between 1941 and 1943 expected that the first operational B29 were stationed in Egypt on british airbases to attack germany from the south. And if germany was beaten only than they should be deployed in the pacific. This orginal plan was changed in late 1943 early 1944.
Because the B29 was to vulnerable over gemany and the extra range was needed in the pacific.
Of 3700 B29 produced during wwII, 720 were lost, only 147 because of enemy actions. This would have been totally different if this aircraft would have been used over germany. German aircrafts and Flak were way more potent than the Japanese. If the still unreliable B29 also had to deal with combat losses, the operational numbers would be low.
The biggest B29 air raid in 1944 had no more than 90 aircraft- Ususally they attacked Japan wtih 30 to 60 aircraft. Operational numbers were already low.
Nothing compared to the 1000 Bomber raids on germany. The B29 effect over Germany would have been unoticable anyway. Just threatening the most expensive weopon system of the airforce.
@HaVoC117X All that German stuff was junk and you know it. Command, control, communications and sheer numbers busted it.
"Vier Indianer am gartenzaun." means = Four Indians at the garden fence. Kurt Tank said it to the tower at (I believe) Langenhagen. I get my info from the Monarch Publications soft-cover book on the subject. He carried no ammo in the plane when he flew it if I remember correctly this occasion. The MW50 water injection AND the GM-1 nitrous were available in some models. Jumo 213E/F was the engine in some models like the 44'-wingspan H model. The short-wing Ta 152C carried a Daimler Benz 603G. If I am not mistaken....the Ta 152H-1 got up to 48,550' using an Italian barograph to capture and peg the altitude-meter as the German unit available at the time only went up to 39,000'! One combat pilot said that it was "intoxicating to fly." "Like a plank seated under your ***" And the main combat directive to operate in combat mode against the bomber formations: climb above the pack and dive completely vertical onto the bombers. The throttle did not even need to be touched in this maneuver as the plane, when pulled "up" after the attack, climbed back up to attack-altitude again with ease. It flew like a glider I think.
One thing that the US did to help spread the rumor was they flew 2 or 3 B29's to England and left them parked on a runway that had frequent German recon airplanes fly over. After the Americans felt it had taken pictures on more than one day the B29's flew to Cairo and eventually to India then over the hump into China for the first Bombing by B29's of Japan.
Every street racer in the world looks at a NOS kit on a prop plane and goes, "Hell yeah!"
As Willi Reschke commented,(met him in 1992 along with Walter Loos. Both flew the Ta in Jg301)-"the Ta was my life insurance policy at the end of the war."
Is this the air forces equivalent to Drach? Almost same kind of narrative, style and humor. He got a new sub!
If you want to get *even more* technical look up Greg's airplanes and automobiles
@@chunkblasteryeah I follow him to, he’s a lot like this fella but soooo much in depth detail it’s insane haha
@@CaptainJohn Very good are you also an Ed Nash and Sandbox enjoyer?
@@chunkblaster yes!!! I love Ed Nash!
You'd like Rex's hangar too
Unlike so many other German "super planes", this one actually made some sense. So many others are just wishful thinking.
Not so much wishful thinking but has a way for the company to get one last big military contract before everything fell apart. It also had the benefit of keeping irreplaceable designers from being drafted
And still too little too late. Thanks herr Shecklegruber.
I hope you are not including the 262 among those.
They were in hurry + not much materials at the end
The entire war was wishful thinking and lack of good choices. There was no path to victory that wasn't ridiculously improbable.
Loved that plane I must build one with Saito 4 stroke radial
When you do, post it ok RCgroups pls
Depending on the scale size, I'd go kolm multi cylinder inline. A triple would be fitting.
Thanks for the video my man I enjoyed it
Still one of the best looking planes of WW2 and one of my favs. I bought a flying model kit decades ago but never finished it. Now retired so maybe....
If I had a choice, as a German pilot, The Focke Wulf FW 190 would easily be my first choice. Not only a great performer, also a very attractive airframe, a genuinely beautiful design.
I love the wingspan! It has an almost graceful look
Good video information was correct as far as I recall, I was so into this plane when I first learned of its existence, there is a interview with master sergeant Willi Reschke, who flew the 152 in combat with JG301 in the last weeks of the war which is interesting, especially the bounce on the tempests.
Willi was rightly proud of this plane and was dismayed to learn the British had scrapped his personal 152 which is a terrible shame seeing as there is only one intact plane left now.
He took it as the British dident want to acknowledge how good it was , but I think anything with propellers was just old tech by mid 45 and the British did have there own superprops that they dident need to( Martin baker and the supermarine spiteful the latter being capable of 490+mph)put into production because the tempests and spitfires were perfectly capable of doing the job.
There is a complete Ta-152H in the Smithsonian collection. Many years ago I saw it at the storage facility; The Paul Garber facility which was just a bunch of hangers that they let people have limited access to. I was a Boy Scout then and actually knew more of the planes than our guide; who ended up rather annoyed!
I'm glad I'm wrong
i knew they had bits but not a complete airframe
I hope they give it the complete restoration back to its former glory
I have his mount in the Zoukei-Mura 1/32 scale model. Beautiful!
"Willi was rightly proud of this plane and was dismayed to learn the British had scrapped his personal 152 which is a terrible shame seeing as there is only one intact plane left now.
He took it as the British dident want to acknowledge how good it was"
Really? Yet another unsourced post. If you have said source, please post it here. Willi Reschke's own recollections of the Ludwigslust combat contradict each-other (I believe he gave three accounts, all differ). The British didn't see the Ta.152 as anything special because it wasn't And the Tempest out-flew the Ta 152's in that action noted above, and shot one down..
@@paulbantick8266 if you care to find the video you will find him saying that fuckwit
What an informative story! Thank zou for the size comparison. And the natural voice.
The number of changes that this air frame would tolerate just tells you how great it was.
How's it 'great'?
Thank you, I had missed all the other vareints of the FW 190. my best to you and yours. Leona
Man i love your channel keep up the good work!
In the high altitude model, the pressure kept in the cockpit by pressurization seems quite low, perhaps for structural reasons(?). At the highest design altitude of the plane, having at least some pressurization makes sense, since there even breathing pure oxygen wouldn't have the full needed partial pressure.
Very good video. Thoroughly enjoyed the content.
Another great video, keep it up
This made me realize that as a kid, I always saw the Fw-190D, and I never processed how stubby the actual Fw-190 was
I’ve always been so fascinated with the Ta152 project, both high altitude and ground attack projects. Got a couple books on it that were very interesting.
Every time I see anything about German war plane production I can't help thinking how incompetent Erich Milch was. He certainly didn't do anything to improve the German chances of winning the war.
And most of the senior leadership!
Thank God for incompetence!
He was being pressured from above by Göring.
So he wasn't entirely to blame
This is not a correcht analysis!
The decisive points were the death of Walther Wever, which meant that Göring was once again the head of the Luftwaffe in day-to-day business, the replacement of Wimmer by Ernst Udet and finally the appointment of Jeschonnek, who was by far the most incompetent idiot in the Luftwaffe's leadership ranks. In 1941 he was still of the opinion that the Luftwaffe would never have to fight above 6,000m. He was also responsible for the training, which completely collapsed from 1942 onwards!
Milch was actually a pretty good administrator- as he helped run Lufthansa pre war. Udet was the disaster.
Thank you this was very informative
10:00 Another fun fact that probably nudged the scales towards the Jumo 213 was that the DB600 series of engines was in relatively slow supply because Daimler-Benz staunchly refused to give anyone else the production rights, so Bf 109s and 110s (and later a small number Me 410s and Do 217s) took up practically all of the engines available.
Most of Germany in ww2 seems like they could have done better if it wasn’t for personal feuds and incompetence
+@builder396 The DB-605 was produced under license by Fiat in Italy during WW2, as well as by Volvo briefly after WW2.
The DB engines were built in licence in japan, italy and romania. So I call bushit on your story.
What is true though, is that it was decided that any alternative to the BF-109 need to have a different engine, to avoid manufacturing bottlenecks and supply chain issues.
@@mischewski73 Yeah, Japan, Romania and Italy produced them for their own planes. Duh. Within Germany it was Daimler-Benz or bust.
And as you might observe, the Fw 190, the literal alternative to the Bf 109, has a different engine, in every single variant, from the A and F variants with the BMW 801 to the Dora with the Jumo 213.
The only planes with DB600 type engines in Germany were still the Bf 109, Bf 110 and the Me 210/410 with only some sporadic use on other airframes like the Do 217.
There is a youtube episode from a pilot on the only unit where these planes were used. He says there were 34 or 36 planes & they were in a lot more battles than you suggest. He personally shot down 2 Tempests, a supposedly superior plane, & at the end of the war only 2 units had been lost & they didn't know if they had been shot down or suffered failures. His was the plane taken to England for testing after the was.
My dad was an industrial engineer at General Electric main bomber engine plant in Ft.Wayne ,Ind. in the Turbo /supercharger Division . Management would not let him be drafted as they considered his efforts critical to production . We had to get our bombers up high enough to avoid these German fighters . There were 10 crew members per bomber ! It became a technology race ! Germany drafted some of their engineers earlier in the war which hurt their efforts .
*Tanks Ta-152 was basically his FW-190/D9 with lengthened wings....*
It was a bit different structurally, and was quite a bit heavier. It also had an engine that was slightly weaker at low altitudes. The main difference visually besides the wing span and tail is that the wings have been moved forward relative to the cockpit. The front of the cockpit glass on the FW190 ends at about mid-wing-chord. The front of the cockpit glass of the TA152 is at the wing trailing edge or so. The TA152 had about twice the internal fuel capacity or so.
@@M4xPower The engine also got a turbo or turbocharger as far as I can remember , way more efficient at high altitude .
@@5co756 It got 2-stage intercooled supercharger with 3 gears, compared to single stage 2-speed supercharger of D9.
@@5co756 Yeah it had a way more sophisticated supercharger with an intercooler. They did some experiments with a turbo on the FW190 but there was nowhere to put the plumbing. This is why the P38 has booms and the P47 is so chonky. IIRC the turbo FW190C just had pipes outside of the fuselage running from the engine over wings to a fairing under the aircraft that looked something like the P51's radiator. The FW190B was allegedly less clean than that!
@@M4xPower Yeah it was the BV 155 , there were some prototypes with a turbocharger . FW190's and some Bf109's , not the Ta .
My father has recently done paper model of TA152H... Beautiful glider fighter 😅😅😅
I have 2 in 1/72 scale.
I wish you had related the anecdote of Kurt Tank being jumped by an allied fighter when he was test flying the Ta-152, and he merely pushed the throttle forward and escaped at high speed.
I recall that FROG (the model aircraft subsidiary of Tri-Ang/Hornby) marketed a model of the Ta152.
at 2:55 the "Natter" picture. I just found it to funny that the plane in the background apparently has "Alles Kaputt" written as its nose art. Or in english "Everythingˋs broken" or when used more colloquial "Everythingˋs F**ked"
+@AlphaHorst "Alles Kaputt" was painted on it by the Allies after it was captured.
@FiveCentsPlease I doubt that. At the very least it was painted by someone who was fluent in German to the point of knowing colloquials
So it might still be post war tho
@@AlphaHorst This is the well-known Ju-290A-4 W.Nr. 0165 that was flown from Czechoslovakia on 8-May-1945 to surrender to the Allies at München-Riem. It was piloted by Hptm. Heinz Braun who also carried a large passenger load of Luftwaffe staff with him. The aircraft ended up with Watson's Whizzers group and it was decided to fly it to the US. Pilot Braun remained as pilot/instructor to ferry the plane to France and POW Luftwaffe mechanics prepared the aircraft and changed several engines. US radio equipment was also installed. The plane was photographed after surrender with US markings but without the "Alles Kaput" graphic. Most likely it was painted by the Allies or Luftwaffe POWs having fun.
I saw the 190 in Hamilton Canada at the Warplane Heritage Museum in 2014. Beautiful ❤️
The focus on the FW190D vs the Ta152 makes sense. The Western Front dealt with high altitude strategic bombing. But, the Eastern Front was entirely low to mid altitude tactical combat. A high altitude airplane would only be useful for recon against the Soviets. The Germans needed something useful NOW. The FW190D would be useful on both fronts until the B-29 showed up.
Still, an excellent video that shows how the Luftwaffe development process had become such a quagmire.
Always enjoy your videos. Especially impressed by the fact that you pronounce the German names correctly.
Agree, I cringe every time English speakers mangles many non English names so terrible that I can’t continue to listen.
@@netmansweThink of the names the British soldier gave to German controlled mounds of earth and other strongpoints in the 1914-1918 war.
Anyway, when you travel up the country you get more and more, "What do you mean?"
Pronunciations change. Even names change in some places.
The 190 is by far my favorite straight fighter of the war.
The P-47 is my favorite all-around plane though.
The 190, especially the later A Variants, saw extensive use as Strike Fighters
Learnt something new. Thank you!
Funny you don’t mention the memoirs of ace Willi Reschke who demonstrated his ‘Ta’ 152 H at Farnborough post war. It wasn’t just a ‘match’ with allied fighters, he said, but head and shoulders above, and his life insurance, even at very low altitudes.
thanks for another brilliant video!
A new video. my body is ready. (ps, when's the Fw-190 video coming??????)
18:14 isn’t this about an Interceptor so why are you talking about bomb abilities?
Greg's air and auto channels has a very detailed videi on the Ta152. With speeds at different altitude charts.
Interesting and well researched video. Thank you.
The super aircraft problem was that they were being developed in parallel, some since even before WW2. The procurement authorities never picked winners and built them at scale, dumping the worst ones
2:04 the German obsession with building rolling bomb targets never ceases to surprise me
God I love these videos so much, thank you very much!! :)
The Ta 152 featured a NEW wing, the space between the main wheel wells is greater than that of the 190 D, it was modular to take the "short" outer wings of the C and the "long" outer wings of the H.
The first episode of the 1993 anime, The Cockpit, brought me to this plane.
If you listen to the German Luftwaffe officer explain how it operates to Erhardt von Rheindars, that's one way to describe and hear the details.
The Nitrous Oxide performance booster GM-1: its full name was Goring Mischung 1 (Goering Mixture). Of course, it wasn't developed by Ol' Hermann, but by an engineer named Otto Lutz, in 1940. The Ta 152H was one of the few Luftwaffe aircraft to use it in the latter half of WW 2.
Always makes me laugh 😂😂
Good presentation ❤
Such bright people in the comments...
Thanks brother.
Kurt Tank was caught by a flight of P51D during a test flight in TA152. He was able to easily outpace them.
Forgot to mention the nasty habit of the 163 of dissolving the pilot.
all hail the glorious slenderplane!
Good program.
One of my favorite aircraft. I have the Zoukei-Mura 1/32 scale kit of the H-1. I hope to build it along with an FW-190A-4 and FW-190D9. Butcher Bird Evolution!
😊Hello!
And thank you for a very nice video
🤔But I can't really understand your reasoning.
If it was because it would be better to develop the FW190 D, then that is exactly what they did.
The fact that the plane became longer was also to make room for the things you mentioned. 😃
And that wings got longer was exactly for the reason you said. 😃
And not thinking about getting better at higher altitudes would be strange, since they still had nothing more than bombers over Germany to worry about.
It is easy to look back and detect errors, but as this did not affect already set production lines, it did not make a big difference.
In addition, at the same time the production of fighter planes became greater than the training had time to fill with pilots, so therefore I can't see that they did anything wrong in developing the Fw190 A to also become the Ta152 H variant for future higher altitudes.
D The "Dora" variant quickly became so successful for the current situation.
So therefore I don't understand what you thought the developers would take their time for?
They did not disrupt production so that there was a shortage of aircraft.
But you can also say that they could completely turn a blind eye to propeller operation at higher altitudes, when the Me262 and others were under development.
But it wasn't the same people who developed propeller engines and jet engines.
So then it was probably better for everyone to work on improving where they could. So unfortunately, I don't see the Ta 152 H as a waste of resources.
The fact that the production did not quickly increase is probably many reasons for so late in the war, besides, it turned out that there were never any B29's...
Only fighter planes all the way over Germany.🙄
The Ta-152 was being developed for high altitude operations and as a possible interm fighter to protect the airfields used by me 262s from allied fighters that continuously harassed them on takeoff and landings
Hey man what about adding a short edited walk around the plane before you take off if you can in the game? Just to give a short intro of like the pilot going around the plane. Maybe before that have a edited slide, that’s made to look like a ww2 film or presentation, basically you’d show us slides in black and white saying what the mission is and what is expected to happen, as if the audience is the pilots for the mission you show us. So for more planned mission the short bit of slides would be in the film style but if it’s a rapid response type situation then maybe just have the text on a piece of paper. You could even make a letter in real life, just saying “German, JU-87 Stuka’s in coming. Scrabble day time squadrons 32 now. Location English Channel.” Put the open letter next to a red phone then go into the game play. Idk just something to think about to add some stuff to the already cool vids.
Insane weapon load!!!!
I wonder where you got the armament info for the Ta-152B, since I got several books that depict the planned Ta-152B-4/R2 version as an offensive powerhouse with no less than 7 (!) cannons of 20- and 30mm in caliber.
Of course this could just be a case of the designers getting way ahead of themselves in order to please the high hats at the RLM.
Beautiful aircraft. Please do the lippisch P13 /14.
Thanks. Great Video
Great video. Thanks 👍
FW-190 A-D & TA-152 MY all time favorite planes from ww2
Btw all the FW 190 D or „Dora“ models were just a stopgap to begin with…to build a „bridge“ till the TA152 was ready for action.
And yeah, the problems with the TA 152 H prototypes were severe…seems like forced labor as well as being bombed all the time and having a shortage of resources weren’t a good basis for high quality prototype building…🤷🏻♂️😂
The very few TA 152s that saw service at the very end of the war (if not plaqued by problems caused by poor construction quality) were love by their pilots and showed very good performance…there is an interview in existence of a German pilot that flew the TA 152 H at the very end and he describes how it performed against the planes of the allied forces, his name is Willi Reschke and the video has English subs…
You missed the Ta 152e the PR version. Theirs a few photographs after the war of them.
Kurt Tank , the man , the goat!
I remember an account where Tank was flying a prototype Ta 152 to a different location, and was bounced by a group of Mustangs. Tank simply floored the throttle, and the 152 quickly pulled out of gun range.
Do you really believe all those apocryphal stories? On paper several German designs were promising, we'll never know if they would have been in practice. On the other hand many, many allied designs did what it said on the tin, again and again.
So a made up story of a hand made prototype makes you happy?
@@roo72 Some designers can fly, while the average internet commenter never takes off.
@@donallen8414And most tales about Nazi technology and its supposed superiority is made up bullshit
Can you do a video like this on imperial German aircraft? Like the designs and prototypes that saw little to no action in WW1.
9:28 damn never knew different Focke Wulf variants had speeds over 20,000 feet
There was several ta-152c delivered to front line air group they did fly sorti but them getting into air combat is unsure.
There a story of one shooting down a spitfire over north Germany.
There is no "story" of a TA-152C shooting down a Spitfire.
@nightjarflying how do you mean? You haven't read it?
@@nightjarflying I just came across the story somewhere nothing factual.
Never hear of it again.
@@jerryrichards8172 "nothing factual" - it will be a bul1shit DCS video or the like by some Nazi fanboi. I t d i d ' n t h a p p e n.
Too few, too late as a fighter but would've been a great photo recon aircraft like the Spitfire PR series. Couldn't have missed the activity along Englands south coast areas in particular during 1943-44.
26,000 feet. Apparently, 26,000 feet is the maximum altitude at which human life can be sustained for extended periods - assuming unassisted breathing. There are obvious caveats to that, but still... seems like it would be pretty tough in that air if one were to get a stiff adrenalin jolt.
The cockpit was pressurised to 26,000 ft, but the pilot also used an oxygen mask - pressurised cockpit without a mask is a terrible idea.
I love the dora and ta-152
I wonder if wider wings would have made the Dora better as well. Not as wide as the Ta-152H of course, but adding maybe a feet or two. Losing a few Km/h but adding stability in turns!
@18:40 ... "as it would be a high altitude fighter it would not have the ability to carry explosives" ... can you explain please (the link between "high altitude" and "the ability to carry explosives") ? possibly you mean as a high altitude fighter it would not be expected to be a bomber ?
These long wings were too fragile to carry anything heavy on them.
If you make a special "high altitude" fighter, performance is everything, why reduce the peformence with unnecessary reinforcement for hardpoints you will not use.
@@kirgan1000 see above reply ...
You would not want to use it as a fighter bomber.
@@PunkinsSan Most German planes carried their big bombs under the belly , they were trimmed to be as light as possible . Also it keeps the weight at the center of mass , but it makes no sense on a high altitude fighter to carry bombs .
I mean Germany was basically trying to do anything it could to get overmatch or at least relevancy, because it doesn't take much brainpower to realize that if you produce a quarter the vehicles of your enemies, and they are equal or worse, you lose.
(you lose a total war. Obviously Vietnam and the Taliban won with worse and less equipment, but those were very different wars).
So, in the end, perhaps Ta-152 B would be a better option against allied bombers, since the ultra high altitude planes the germans expected to fight didn't come and couldn't really fly that high anyway.
Could you do a video on the Dornier Do-335 "Ant-eater", please?
"Transitional."
DOUG out
I owned a Ta-152H and flew it for three years. Then, I sold it to Pee-wee Herman in 1985 who promptly landed it gear up and proclaimed, "I meant to do that" Great video.
Are there any of these planes left today in museums or air shows? Would love to see one.
The Smithsonian Air & Space Museum has the world's only one, awaiting restoration,
@@sivalon1I hope it gets restored some day. I will fly out just to see it.
@@sivalon1 The British had both of the captured Ta-152 examples and gave one to the US. They scrapped their other example unfortunately. I still think it might be buried at Farnborough.
I guess most of the "weird" decisions WRT production focus and all that could be explained by the era during which the Ta was conceived and then rushed into production. That said: When you read from or hear those who actually flew the plane in combat, they were still singing its praises even decades after the war had ended. Willy Reschke called it his "life saver", meaning that he thought if he hadn't flown the 152 during the last few weeks and months of the war, he probably wouldn't have survived. While I don't know how much weight we can give to these personal accounts, he does mention in an interview that can be found here on YT that he and other pilots in his unit thought the 152 was superior to the D-9 in many respects.
Personal accounts are from people who were actually there and did stuff, so I would credit them far more than many "learned" accounts from historians, you also get little snippets that get glossed over in the official accounts, these pilots had extensive knowledge of the aircraft they flew, gained by flying them in combat, a very unforgiving environment, so if those guys say it was good then it was, regardless of the paper experts.
@@CrusaderSports250 That's pretty much the opposite of how things work in RL - for instance: eye-witness-accounts are usually considered the weakest sort of "evidence" in a court of law. The interview I was referring to was done with Reschke as a pretty old man, so with decades between his account and the actual events happening. Plus this whole thing seemed rather personal to him, as he was still pi$$ed off about the Brits scrapping his 152 after they'd finished testing it. He thought they couldn't stand the fact that the 152 was better than most of their planes.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not implying that he was making stuff up or exaggerating things on purpose - but other than the amount of time that had passed (and how the human brain works when it comes to remembering things long term), there are so many other factors that play a role in aerial combat. Pilot quality, chance/luck, etc, etc. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you cannot judge the performance of any machine simply based on the opinion of one person or based on one historical engagement. If that was the case, we would have to assume that the 109 G-6 for example was a highly competitive plane in 43/44 as multiple high scoring LW-aces were flying the type and still racking up kills. From my 20+ years experience in MMO-sims, a non-MW-50-equipped G-6 would always be the last LW-plane I'd choose if I had to go up against mid to late war Allied stuff.
German Luftwaffe's lack of aerial turbocharger development program prevented total aerial superacy in the high altitudes.
"Total Air Supremacy?" LOL. P-47M's were the cats meow at altitude and at best the Germans could only equal it's performance...and the P-51H's were on the way had the war continued.
The lack of high octane fuel is a more serious matter.
@@hoodoo2001those planes wouldn't have mattered much when the first reliable jets entered the stage
That was impossible in terms of raw materials!
The Third Reich suffered from a shortage of tungsten throughout the war and you can't mass-produce turbochargers without enough tungsten!
@@carstenlaun1026 I still think a bigger issue is the lack of high octane fuel.
3:55 "Thus never having a completed prototype". Say what? The first BV-155 V1 flew in Sept '44 and the V2 flew in Feb '45. And the pic at 3:55 is the V2 prototype!! Cheers
How come i cant find an IL2 "flying tank" video on thsi chanel!?
MW 50 had three levels that worked with two additional super chargers. 472 mph
Designers like Kurt Tank and Dr Lippisch don't get the recognition they deserved. They designed some really great planes, but most would be stuck at prototype stage.