What if you take a photo of your Me 264 and immediately ask what is this? Most people will probably answer without hesitation: "B-29!" The truth, however, is that this was a great achievement of the Nazi German aviation industry, and a successful test flight was conducted as early as December 23, 1942, only four months after the first flight of the B-29 prototype. Of course, the Me 264 is different from the Yankees' B-29. If you look closely, you will find that this difference is not only reflected in the emblem, but also in everything from the design idea to the body structure, compared with the B-29, the Nazi giant bird has a larger body, greater ambition, and completely surpasses the B-29 in performance.
Thousands of calls began to come out
It all started in 1937. Despite the lack of experience in the design of large aircraft, Messerschmitt FlugzeughbauG .m.b.H. embarked on several ambitious long-range aircraft projects with great enthusiasm. Project 1062 was a large aircraft designed for record long-range flights and strategic reconnaissance missions, but at the same time, the company's other similar project, Project 1061 (P.1061, long-range bombing, transportation), was one step ahead of schedule. So in order to avoid wasting resources, Messerschmitt Aircraft Design soon decided to merge "Project 1062" into "Project 1061", thus giving the latter the mission capabilities of the former. In this way, the revised "Project 1061" became a huge aircraft that needed to support the entire 20,000-kilometer range with 4 engines, and the missions carried out ranged from bombing, transportation, reconnaissance to atmospheric sampling, etc., and if it could become a reality, the aircraft would be an unprecedented milestone in all aspects.
However, due to the heavy design tasks of messerschmidt aircraft design company at that time and the relatively small scale of the company, it could only deploy extremely limited manpower and material resources to carry out "Project 1061" under the premise of ensuring that the progress of the two key models of Bf 109 and Bf 110 was not affected. In this way, in an intermittent state, there was no improvement until 1940, and in fact the company's leader, Dr. Messerschmidt, only regarded it as a pre-research project, with the aim of increasing the technical reserve rather than putting it into production. However, this situation took a turn for the worse in August of that year (i.e., two months after the end of the Battle of France), when the German Admiralty sent a letter to RLM on August 10, 1940, asking whether the German aircraft manufacturing industry could provide it with a long-range aircraft with a range of more than 6,000 kilometers and the ability to take off from a German coastal airport to central Africa (referring to the former colonies of the Second German Empire), because with the end of the major war victories on the Western European continent, The Nazis began to seek to get involved in colonial problems outside Europe. At the same time, the RLM itself was considering for the Luftwaffe an intercontinental bomber with a range of at least 12,000 kilometers, capable of taking off from an airfield on the Atlantic coast of France and reaching the North American continent without landing on the ground, in preparation for the inevitable war with the United States of America. Since the demand for ultra-long-range aircraft on both sides was clear and urgent, RLM officially issued the relevant demand specifications to the domestic aviation industry on October 10, 1940. In this context, the development of "Project 1061" began to accelerate, and on December 20, 1940, Dr. Willie Messerschmidt convened the company's key designers Wolfgang Degel, Paul Konrad, Waldemar Voigt and others to set up a special design team for the project. Since then, the development of "Project 1061" has begun to be on the right track.
However, after careful study by Dr. Messerschmidt and his design team, it was believed that if the envisaged use intention was to be truly realized, some of the indicators proposed by RLM in Spec were not completely reasonable, so the initial indicator of the adjusted project was a transition range of more than 20,000 kilometers, and the inner bomb bay of the belly alone had a carrying capacity of at least 5,000 kilograms of bombs, and at the expense of part of the range and the lifting performance, it could also use the underwing pylon to carry part of the load. In addition, Dr. Messerschmidt also pointed out that Project 1061 must not only have the ability to play a 100% military role in wartime, but also have sufficient potential to develop into an intercontinental civil aviation aircraft in the post-war peaceful environment. In fact, the requirements for "Project 1061" within Messerschmidt are higher and more demanding than RLM.
In early 1941, RLM contracted the merged Messerschmidt company for the construction of six prototypes of Project 1061 and assigned an official model, the Me 264, to the upcoming giant aircraft. According to RLM's plan, if the six prototypes proved their capabilities in test flights, the construction order for another 24 official production models would soon be issued to the Luftwaffe as the most basic means of carrying out a threatening attack on the U.S. mainland. On the other hand, as a backup of the 4-engine scheme, another 6-engine version of the Me 264 was also synchronized within Messerschmidt, whose internal project code was "Engineering 1075" (P.1075). Considering that the workload at Messerschmidt was close to saturation, RLM specifically asked the Amsterdam-based company Fokker in the Netherlands to take on part of the design work.
On January 22, 1941, under the guidance of Goering's famous idea of "everything that can fly is under my control", the Luftwaffe General Staff inserted a long-range submarine support aircraft program that was originally equipped with naval aviation, and a series of giant aircraft that had been built or were still on the drawing board were pulled out as candidates for such naval aircraft, such as the Falk WolfFW 200 "Condor", the Heinkel He 177, the Blom & Foss BV 222 and the Me 264. Although Messerschmidt's plan had not yet been cut in an aluminum plate, the Me 264 still stood out from the crowd with the astonishing paper data, and the Luftwaffe immediately saw the Me 264 as the best alternative to the long-range submarine support aircraft program among the many flying giants. But as a result, due to the expansion of the types of combat missions, a large number of modifications to the Me 264 were proposed by the Messerschmidt design team, which focused on how to improve endurance and cope with the sharp rise in the maximum take-off weight, some of which still sounded full of creativity today: for example, in order to extend the range, some people proposed that one Me264 tow another fully loaded aircraft, and after half the range, the mission aircraft would then decouple and continue flying on its own power Or simply change some Me 264s to tankers for aerial refueling for their duty crews; and in order to adapt to the likely overloaded take-off state, some suggest that the original Me 264 be modified to a 6-round scheme and install take-off booster rockets... As such suggestions were gradually absorbed into the design of the Me 264, the project began to transition from a rough outline to an increasingly clear reality, which made it possible to calculate the actual performance it might eventually achieve with greater precision – about 18,100 km at a standard mission payload of 5,000 kg, and up to about 26,000 km in no-load!
Me264 in War Thunder
However, when the Me 264 program progressed in an orderly manner until early 1942, things changed. As in the autumn of 1936 (when Milch, Kesselring, and Udert joined forces to forcibly suspend the so-called Ural heavy bomber program), in early 1942 Milch, Secretary of State of the German Ministry of Aviation, began drastically cutting any project that would not be effective in the short term, and the Me 264 was originally on the blacklist of the Secretary of State. However, things changed because of Hans Jeschonnek, the chief of the Luftwaffe's general staff at the time, and the underlying reasons were complex and dramatic.
Originally, because Yeschonnek had a good personal relationship with the German ace pilot Richterhofen, the latter, as the most authoritative expert and staunchest advocate of tactical aviation construction, had a deep influence on Yeschonenek, thus indirectly influencing the operational thinking and tactical system of the entire air force - that is to say, Yeschonenek himself was a supporter of the idea of a tactical air force rather than a strategic air force, which should have been completely consistent with Mirsch, and Me 264 should have been dismissed. On the other hand, although Jessonnek and Mirch were once good friends, they later turned against each other. When Kesselring was the chief of the general staff, Mirsch once used the excuse of the high training accident to try Major Yesunnek, who was still the captain of the brigade at the time, but Kesselring refused. Although it is not clear what exactly the two friends are fighting against each other, this is definitely a factor for Goering when appointing Jeshuannek as chief of the general staff. So in this way, the two were tit-for-tat on the issue of the Me264, and finally as a result of the competition, the Me 264 project was miraculously saved, although the number of prototypes was reduced from the original 6 to 3, but this result was already very ideal for the Me 264. In fact, because Mirch is not a fighter pilot, he is from civil aviation, so he is more sensitive and more serious, plus Mirch is a very capable administrative official, and he has thought about everything, so basically the relationship between the chief of the general staff of the air force and him is very tense.
While the Me 264 escaped the disaster, messerschmidt's crisis on the project was far from over. Due to the urgent need for planned intercontinental bombers to take over the war situation that began to deteriorate in 1942, and considering that Messerschmidt may be inexperienced in the development of large aircraft, on February 28, 1942, the Me264 project was ordered by RLM to be handed over to Dawner, but because the latter was also overwhelmed by overloaded research and development tasks, the episode lasted only a few days before it was terminated, and the Me 264 finally returned to its mother's home. Since then, RLM has also planned to hand over the Me 264 to Wesser, but ultimately failed for the same reason.
However, Mirch did not intend to let go of the Me 264 so easily. On 24 April 1942, in order to examine the true progress of the Me 264 project on the ground, a special committee led by Air Force Colonel Petersen was organized at the headquarters of Messerschmidt in Augsburg, but this apparently ill-intentioned committee was dismayed to find that if the Me 264 prototype was actually built, the aircraft would be at least 90% as claimed by Messerschmidt. That is to say, Dr. Messerschmidt is not empty talk, Me 264 is not only advanced in terms of indicators but also more feasible. Interestingly, "coincidentally" on the same day, Dr. Willie Messerschmidt formally submitted a written proposal to the Luftwaffe to use the Me 264 for the "Atlantic Mission" to carry out harassing terrorist bombings of U.S. east coast cities. Soon after, on May 7, 1942, a very detailed report on the Prototype Me 264 was presented to the Luftwaffe Staff, and the details of the Me 264 began to surface.
The Maximum takeoff weight of the Me 264 will be 45,000 kg, with a full-load state range of up to 13,000 km if driven by 4 Yumo Jumo 211J engines, while its range will increase to 14,000 km if 4 BMW 801 engines are used, while the most advanced aerial refueling technology will be used to further extend the range, Dr Messerschmidt claims that his company has mastered the key technology for aerial refueling of heavy aircraft. It should be noted that aerial refueling is very noteworthy, because on May 16, 1942, 10 days after the detailed report of the Me 264 was submitted, a seminar was held under the personal auspices of the Chief of the General Staff of the Luftwaffe, Jessionnek, on all current long-range aircraft projects, which mainly discussed the general technical development direction of these models. And in addition to being able to carry out harassing terrorist bombings on the U.S. mainland, they were able to carry out strategic bombing missions in the hinterland of Siberia and near equatorial Africa, and the most important outcome of the conference was to require, in the form of an order, that all long-range aircraft programs with a range of more than 13,500 kilometers must take into account aerial refueling technology. However, considering Yeschonek's attitude toward aerial refueling technology in February 1942 – although the Luftwaffe had successfully tested between an FW 58 and a Ju 90, Jeshuarnek remained skeptical – the results of the May meeting made it clear that the attitude of the Chief of the General Staff had clearly changed in just 3 months, which was extremely rare in the light of Yesunnek's usual stubborn character. So in every way, the purpose of the meeting seems to be to set a high technical threshold for ultra-long-range aircraft projects other than the Me 264, so that limited resources can be concentrated on the Messerschmidts, thus ensuring the success of the Me 264
In this way, after a series of twists and turns, the construction of the Me 264 prototype finally began. Initially, it was hoped that the Me 264 v1 prototype would be built and begin test flights by October 10, 1942, but this expectation soon proved to be overly optimistic: by mid-August 1942, due to the VDM's landing gear and Junkers' engine delivery schedule, it was clear that the Me 264 v1 would not be able to make its maiden flight before October 10, 1942. As a result, skepticism about the Me 264 program within the RLM and Luftwaffe staff began to become more active, and of course, from the ju 290 and Ju 390 examples, such skepticism is not entirely justified. Even so, however, the progress of the Me 264v1 prototype could only be slowly advanced in Augsburg. Finally, on December 23, 1942, the Me 264 v1 (military registration number RE+EN, factory assembly number 264000001) was finally ready for the first flight.
That afternoon, after a long glide, the Me 264 began her maiden voyage. The plane lasted about 22 minutes, during which time the landing gear was locked in a lying state for safety reasons. However, despite such caution, there was a problem during the landing at the end of the flight, and the fuselage was damaged due to a failure of the landing gear braking system until the end of the runway before the aircraft came to a near-overturning stop. After a month of repairs, considering that augsburg's runway length was limited and might not be able to meet the test flight requirements of such a giant aircraft, the follow-up test mission of the Me 264 v1 was transferred to Lechfeld, but since there was only one hangar that could accommodate such a huge aircraft, it was not an ideal test place for the Me 264, and it was obvious that if all three prototypes were completed, they would not all be crowded here for testing.
Unveil the veil
However, before continuing to introduce the test flight of the Me 264, we must first look at what the Me 264 is really like. In simple terms, the Me 264 is an unusually "clean" all-metal semi-hard shell structure with a monoplane, double-tail layout of four giant aircraft, and its overall aerodynamic shape is designed to be clean and clean without dragging mud and water. The all-metal structure fuselage, which has a circular cross-section as a whole, is divided from beginning to end into several parts, such as a fully transparent "fancy room" inlaid glass nose with a full field of view, a cockpit, a crew lounge, and a personnel passage to the tail above the internal bomb bay. Because bombers needed to open the bomb bay at high altitude to drop bombs, it was impractical to use a fully pressurized through-channel chamber, and Messerschmidt decided to pressurize only the cockpit and the mid-body with personnel, so all self-defense weapons were required to be able to be operated remotely. Easy to operate, the whole aircraft using analog circuit transmission system for control, the only pilot can control the main is the wing tail on a few pieces of movable wing surface, and then there is the throttle valve, other such as engine speed, intake, mixing rate, etc. are automatic control, from the greatest extent to reduce the difficulty of driving the aircraft, which in the late war in the German qualified multi-engine aircraft pilots in the case of serious lack of resources is a huge advantage.
Interior of the B-29 cockpit (top), Me 264 cockpit interior (bottom)
Since two different engine configurations, namely the Jumo 211J and BMW 801, Metserschmidt plans to design the engine compartment of the Me 264 in order to adapt well to the actual supply of engines at the time of production. However, since the Jumo 211J-1 was installed on the Me 264 v1 prototype (at least until May 1944), and this 12-cylinder liquid-cooled engine was actually the standard power of the Ju 88A-4, in order to speed up the overall progress of the project, Messerschmitt simply copied the engine nacelle of the Ju 88A-4 with the radiator to the Me 264 intact, in fact Messerschmidt chose it very correctly, Ju The 88A-4's large-diameter cylindrical engine nacelle can also be crammed into a BMW801 series air-cooled engine, and because the nacelle uses a head ring radiator for the water-cooled engine, no matter what type of engine the Me 264 actually uses, it looks like an air-cooled engine from the outside.
Wing design is the top priority of the development of the Me 264, because the existing airfoil design is not suitable for this unprecedented monster, they are either too much cruising resistance or stall characteristics are too poor, and the cruising resistance and stall characteristics can meet the requirements of the airfoil can not produce enough lift during take-off, once adopted, there will be no airport in the world can meet its extraordinary take-off and running distance, for this Messerschmidt company in the Me 264 wing design can be described as painstaking, for Me 264 has developed a trapezoidal straight wing with a large leading edge swept angle, with a total length of 43 meters and a wing area of 127.7 square meters, the main feature of which is that the front edge of the wing section is thick, and the maximum relative thickness is 34%. Since most of the area is laminar flow, so the drag is small, not only to obtain good high-speed cruising performance, but more importantly, to postpone the stall to a greater angle of attack, so as to have a good high lift-to-drag ratio performance, and in order to further solve the problem of take-off and landing lift. Messerschmidt has set up a set of Fuller flaps on the hind edge of the wing, when the flaps are fully deployed, the full wing area can be increased by 20%, with good low-speed handling, after the flaps are retracted, the wing resistance is very low, can achieve a higher cruising speed.
In fact, in addition to the airfoil, the structure of the entire wing is also extremely complex, first of all, all 4 engines are half-buried in the wing in the form of an engine nacelle, while the engine compartment is designed to reduce air resistance as much as possible, in addition to extending the rear section of the engine compartment on the inside of the wing to increase the flap efficiency, the oil radiator and supercharger intercooler are placed directly under the engine air intake to reduce the windward area; secondly, all the fuel tanks are also all set inside the wing structure. Among them, 14 fuel tanks were set up in the outer section of the wing and 8 in the inner section, with a total volume of 44,000 liters. In order to ensure that such a heavy giant wing can have sufficient structural strength, Messerschmidt Company specially selected a 3-wing beam structure, that is, 1 main wing beam and 2 auxiliary wing beams running through the entire wing are all supported by the fuselage frame, and the wing beam itself is made of the whole aluminum cold extrusion molding, so the structural strength is abnormal. However, although the me 264 wing is more complex in structural design, its installation method is more traditional, first buried in the fuselage shoulder position of the wing mid-section structure, both ends extend the fuselage, and then with the two sides of the wing components for rigid connection, thereby reducing the difficulty of production and assembly, so as to achieve the perfect combination of advanced and productive.
It should be noted that the Me 264 can also be seen as an attempt by Messerschmidt to an all-electric aircraft, and all of its control wings, including flaps, ailerons, elevators, and rudders, are controlled by an electric servo mechanism rather than a hydraulic acting cylinder, but this design is somewhat aggressive in terms of technical style, which is somewhat inconsistent with the overall stable technical route of the Me 264.
Me 264 v1 front view
Me 264 v1 in ground preparation before the first flight
The advanced front three-point landing gear can be seen as another technical highlight of the Me 264. In the early German aircraft, the model with the front three-point landing gear was very rare, mainly because the weight of this landing gear structure was heavier, but considering the unprecedented take-off weight of the Me 264 (more than 55,000 kg), the front wheel of the front three-point landing gear was far away from the center of gravity under the nose, which avoided the danger of "taking the big top" when the aircraft braked. Coupled with the fact that the two main wheels are symmetrically arranged behind the center of gravity, the left and right main wheels have a certain distance to ensure that the aircraft will not tip over when taxiing on the ground. Moreover, when the aircraft was taxiing and parking on the ground, the fuselage was basically in a horizontal position, which was easy to load and unload, so Messerschmitt finally decided to try the first three-point landing gear on the Me 264.
But to accommodate the ever-increasing maximum takeoff weight, the main landing gear of the Me 264 v1 is incomprehensible that it uses a huge single wheel. Because the main landing gear was too large to fit into the engine nacelle, a separate landing gear compartment had to be opened inside the wing, but this further increased the complexity of the wing structure and reduced the number of fuel tanks that could be placed in the wing, which directly affected the endurance [inset]. The nose of the nose of the Nose Landing Gear, although the Me 264 v1 used a smaller two-wheeled nose gear structure at the beginning of the ground test, but the test pilots soon found that although the tremor problems that had been worried about during the high-speed slide did not occur, the Me 264 was very poorly maneuverable on the ground, and the result was to choose a giant tire for the Me 264's nose gear. The landing gear will eventually be fully integrated into the cockpit in a backward 90-degree manner, thus making the already narrow cockpit space more stretched and detrimental to the airtightness of the pressurized cockpit. The Me 264's instrument panel makes direct use of the back of the raised landing gear compartment.
Because the combat flight altitude of the Me 264 is usually close to 10,000 meters, the outside temperature is minus 50 degrees, coupled with the fully pressurized crew compartment design, it is impossible to use the traditional man-operated turret, so the remote control turret system is used. A total of 5 turrets were installed on the prototype fuselage, one in the front and one in the front and one in the back of the fuselage, one in front of and behind the abdomen, and the last one was the tail turret, each turret was equipped with two 12.7mm machine guns, and the tail turret added a 20mm gun, all of which were aimed by the gunner through the circumferential mirror and operated remotely. For such a huge aircraft, it is obvious that only 2 or 3 people can not guarantee its normal operation, so the crew of the Me 264 is expected to be as many as 10 to 14 people, including the co-pilot, navigator, bombardier, mechanic, wireless signal operator, radar operator and 5 to 7 gunners. The bombardier is placed at the front of the nose along with the bomb-throwing and firing sights; the front co-pilot sits side-by-side behind the bombardier, surrounded by bulletproof steel plates and bulletproof glass; the mechanic, radio operator, and navigator are next to the cockpit; the rear-end booster compartment is the position of four gunners and radar operators, all protected by armored partitions; the tail gunner sits in a separate pressurized chamber at the rear, and can only enter and exit the tail cabin when flying non-pressurized. However, because it was only used for flight testing, the Me 264 v1 was equipped with neither radar nor tail turret. Finally, it should be added that in order to fly for the best performance and minimize drag, all the gaps in the Me 264 v1 body shell are flattened with sludge, and some uneven spots caused by manufacturing process problems are polished and polished.
Me 264 v1 main landing gear
In January 1943, Messerschmidt was largely assembled for the last two Me 264 prototypes, and since they were prototypes, the differences in the details of the three aircraft abounded. Among them, the Me 264 v2 not only extended the wing tips to improve the torsion ratio and reduce induced resistance, the main landing gear was changed to a two-wheel structure, and also provided nearly 1000 kg of armored steel plate protection for each key component. However, the life of the Me 264v2 was unexpectedly short, and it was just dragged to the test runway when it was attacked by Allied air strikes, and even the landing gear became a pile of debris before it left the ground. As for the Me 264 v3 is actually the first pre-production aircraft in the Me 264A-0 series, compared with the two prototypes of the V1/V2, the Me 264 v3 has a large difference from the size of the airframe to the internal airborne equipment, but because the Me 264 v1 found many problems in the test flight, coupled with the RLM's attitude towards the entire project, all of which delayed the me 264 v3's factory time, the result was that the aircraft could not wait for the moment of rushing to the blue sky in the endless process of repeated modifications A bomb that fell from the sky ended the life of Me 264 v3 that had not yet begun. But because it was the first pre-production aircraft built to quasi-production standards, and also the first prototype of the Me 264A (ultra-long-range strategic reconnaissance aircraft), the Me 264 v3 was more interesting than the Me 264 v1, which had already become a reality.
Persistent threats
Since then, the test flight of the Me 264 has been in full swing, although there are many small problems, but it is still in the normal category, but this does not mean that the future of this giant aircraft is bright. In fact, the fate of the Me 264 was under serious threat at this time, and the cause of the incident came from the German Navy. Karl Doenitz, commander of the German Navy's U-Boat Force, and the Naval Staff, who have long been candidates for the long-range submarine support aircraft program, admire Fokker Wolff's Ta 400 rather than the Me 264, perhaps because the Me 264's self-proclaimed performance is too exaggerated to disgust the always pragmatic Dönitz, so even if the Ta 400 will not be tested until 1946 at the earliest, the German Navy has no intention of accepting the Me that has become a reality 264, preferring the Slightly Inferior Ju 290/390 or He 177 as a temporary transition.
Of course, the naval attitude could not have posed a mortal threat to the survival of the Me 264 program, but with the recent official appearance of the US 8th Air Force over the European continent, the Luftwaffe Chief of Staff Jeschonnek began to feel that things were not good, and the very existence of the Me 264 began to waver. In 1942, the Luftwaffe General Staff had not paid enough attention to the air defense situation on the mainland, and Jessionek felt that it was too much to invest 360 fighters to defend Imperial airspace, because these aircraft were needed on both the Eastern Front and the Mediterranean, and from 1943 onwards, the U.S. Strategic Air Force was fully engaged in air raids on Germany, forming a division of labor with the Royal Air Force for large-scale precision bombing during the day and a division of labor specifically for terrorist bombing of large targets in the city at night. Faced with the prospect of a terrible future, Yeshuanek finally changed his mind and began to prioritize home air defense. But in this way, the Me 264 naturally became the culprit in the devouring of resources, and if it continued to survive, Messerschmidt's behemoth would undoubtedly be the biggest threat to the expansion of fighter production. Coupled with Mirch's incitement, the Messerschmidt company officially received a telex notice from RLM in May 1943, and the Me 264 project was canceled.
However, Dr. Messerschmidt himself was puzzled and surprised by this new situation, because a week before the notice was received, the Luftwaffe General Staff had placed special emphasis on the need to hurry up and complete the commissioning of the Me 264 v3. Reluctantly, Messerschmidt simply used his personal connections to contact Hitler directly, reporting to him on the actual progress of the Me 264 project, hoping that the latter would intervene in the RLM decision. On July 8, 1943, Hitler held a special meeting for this purpose at rasthenburg's base camp (the "Wolf's Lair") in East Prussia, which included Goering, Milch, Dr. Messerschmidt, Jeschneneck, and others, at which Dr. Messerschmidt and Milch and Yeschonnek almost turned their faces over the Me 264, and finally it was the "Führer" himself who promised that he would ensure the continued existence of the Me 264 project, and only then did the controversy settle down.
However, Hitler's support for the Me-264 was limited, and he demanded that the Me-264 be developed only as a long-range submarine support aircraft from now on, rather than abandoning the intention of bombing the East Coast of the United States with the aircraft. Hitler's decision was inextricably linked to the development of the war situation at that time. First of all, since the beginning of the war, the Allies have specially organized forces to study effective tactics against the "wolf pack tactics", dispatched large-scale anti-submarine aircraft and ships, and flexibly used "sniper", "encirclement", "booby trap" and other means to dismember the "wolf pack", especially the use of the latest radar to search for German submarines. Ignoring the improvement of the Allied reconnaissance and early warning capabilities, Dönitz still assembled a large group of submarines in the Atlantic, intending to completely cut off the Allied transport lines in the Atlantic, but as the Allied anti-submarine capabilities continued to increase, Dönitz's wolf pack was constantly weakened, and this situation finally reached a peak in May 1943, when Dönitz's "wolf pack" was broken off its backbone - more than 30 ships were sunk in a month. As a result, all German submarines in the Atlantic had to be recalled, and wolf pack tactics faced the possibility of complete failure. In this case, a long-range aircraft that can effectively cooperate with submarine operations and improve the tactical combat efficiency of wolf packs is naturally greatly favored by Hitler (the effectiveness of long-range aircraft and submarine forces has been confirmed by the actual combat experience of the Fw 200).
On the other hand, Hitler gave up bombing the cities on the east coast of the United States in consideration that with the resources of Germany, the Me 264, a huge aircraft, could not be mass-produced, and that with such a small number of aircraft to do an intercontinental long-range attack on the United States, in addition to arousing stronger resistance among the American people, it would not be able to cause any substantial damage to the overall military machine of the United States. As a result, when the two causes were combined, Hitler castrated the Me 264, an unprecedented giant aircraft.
But no matter what, the Me 264 finally escaped another disaster. A day after the meeting at Rasthenburg base camp, RLM Secretary of State Mirsch formally signed the document to legalize the Me 264. However, in order to make room for the Me 410 production line, all the assembly fixtures prepared for the Me 264 were transferred from Augsburg to Gersthofen, but before the production line in Gösthofen was fully established, Messerschmidt received orders from RLM to concentrate on mass production of the Me 262, and in order to make way for the Me 262 again, Milch started the idea of the Me 264 again. Unfortunately, this time Goering was also on Milch's side, and the Me 264 project was "temporarily" suspended. However, the me264's biggest competitor, the Falk Wolf Ta 400, also failed to win the competition, and on the second day that the Me 264 project was frozen, the Ta 400 received the same order for similar reasons as the Me 264 , to make way for the production of the Fw 190D-9 and Ta 152.
However, in order to officially end the life of the Me 264 aviation behemoth, it is not enough to "freeze" it without a good reason. So on June 29, 1944, the Luftwaffe Equipment Testing and Training Command conducted a final assessment of the two giant bomber projects of the Me264 and Ju 390, which had already been prototyped, and the evaluation report concluded that "if these two aircraft are fully configured for military purposes, their full load status will greatly exceed the design minimum limit for maximum take-off weight, and the actual deployability of these two aircraft will be very doubtful." The report actually set the tone for the final announcement of the Me 264, but for the entire Me 264 project, the trouble did not stop there. During an air raid on July 18, 1944, the only flying prototype, the Me 264 v1, along with the Me 264 v3/v4, which had already completed most of the assembly work on the production line, was destroyed by bombing, along with nearly 80% of the assembly fixtures destroyed. On September 23, 1944, During a meeting with Hitler, Dönitz again made it clear that he did not intend to accept the Me 264, which became the last straw that broke the backbone of the camel. In the end, under the double blow of both internal and external aspects, the aviation monster could no longer get up, and on October 18, 1944, a paper "1944 Imperial Air Ministry No. 2 Instruction" officially ended the Me 264 project that lasted for eight years.
Covered up scenarios
Although the story of the Me 264 ended on October 18, 1944, it was only after the war that it was discovered that as an ambitious and huge project of Messerschmidt, the several prototypes that had been built were far from the entirety of the Me 264 project, that is, the Me 264v1 could not be directly equated with the Me 264 project, and the relationship between the whole and the subset may be more vivid in the relationship between them. In fact, within Messerschmidt, the Me 264 project is an umbrella term for a series of giant bomber programs designed to bypass the cumbersome formalities of project approval and avoid the trouble that may be encountered when declaring a project to RLM. The Me 264 v1, which has already been tested, is only the tip of the iceberg, and the really wonderful things are actually under the cover of the Me 264, a simple number, on messerschmidt's drawing board.
Long before the first Me 264 prototype was launched, various proposals for the further development of the project were constantly emerging within Messerschmidt. If in addition to some details differences, Me 264 v1 and v2 can basically be regarded as the same Me264 project type, then from the v3, v4 prototype, Me 264 began to appear various variants. The biggest difference between the planned V4 and the previous prototypes is that it will be equipped with four BMW 801 E engines with better high-altitude performance, and unusually, although it is an air-piston engine, the BMW 801 E will be equipped with a two-stage two-speed turbocharger in addition to the GM-1 emergency power enhancement. Because the BMW 801 E's paper performance was so satisfactory, Messerschmidt had other ideas for the Me 264 v4, one of which was to use it as an ultra-long-range paratrooper transport airdrop across the Atlantic Ocean to airdrop 12 to 17 heavily armed paratroopers into the heart of the United States like Louisiana. Messerschmidt believed that by removing all armor and self-defense weapons (only one FLH 151Z unmanned remote-controlled turret remained in the tail) and relying on the excellent performance of the BMW 801 E, the Me 264 v4 could fully achieve the goal of getting the German paratroopers' military boots to the American continent.
As for another version of the Me 264 v4, the hybrid solution was added to 4 BMW BMW 801E modified engines (the turbocharger was removed and replaced by a supercharger) and 2 Jumo 004 jet engines were added as auxiliary power, in fact, considering that the turbocharger technology in Germany throughout World War II has not been passed, mainly due to the problem of heat-resistant alloys of the compressor, Messerschmidt has a better attitude towards this hybrid version than the BMW 801 The E version was more serious and submitted to the RLM as a formal version of the Me 264 v4, and even considered a Me 328 pulse jet-powered escort fighter for the Me 264 v4 in a towed manner.
More than the Me 264 v4 scheme, which is already close to taking shape, is less clear, but also more fascinating because of its mysteriousness. In fact, the structure of the body of all Me 264 projects is basically the same, the main difference is in the different engine selection configurations, such as 4 Jumo 004C turbojet engine versions, 2 to 4 BMW 028 turboprop engine versions, and 2 BMW 018 turbojet engine versions. But in these plans, I am afraid that none of them have adopted the idea of using steam turbine engines. Driven by a steam boiler fueled by a mixture of coal and oil, the entire turbo powertrain will output 6,000 horsepower to drive two giant propellers with a diameter of 5.32 meters. Although this steam power scheme sounds a bit strange, considering that the steam engine can maintain a constant power output level at any height and the reliability is extremely high and the technical level is fully mature, coupled with the me 264 body size also has enough space to place the boiler, it is actually a very feasible solution.
In fact, Messerschmidt was so serious about the steam-powered version of the Me 264 that it had even entered the stage of detailed planning: the steam turbine was designed by Junkers, with a specification of 1100 mm long and 600 to 650 mm wide, roughly equivalent to the size of a Jumo 213 engine The boiler part was designed by Professor Rosseo of G.m.b.H. Messerschmidt for this gas boiler, the requirements of Messerschmidt for this gas boiler are that the bore diameter is 1.2 meters, equipped with a condensing heat exchanger and an air preheater to improve the thermal efficiency of the boiler, the weight-to-power ratio is 0.7 kg/hp, and at a rated pressure of 15 atmospheres, 4 such boilers can drive a turbine with a constant output of 6000 horsepower. In addition to the two core parts of the boiler and turbine, the complete steam turbine power system also includes accessories such as boiler feed pump, auxiliary turbine, ventilation fan, condenser, spool valve steam distribution mechanism and speed regulation mechanism.
As for the propeller scheme with the steam turbine, there are two, one is 5.33 meters in diameter, when the steam boiler reaches the maximum pressure, the propeller speed is 400 to 500 rpm / s; the second is 1.98 meters in diameter, when the steam boiler reaches the maximum pressure, the propeller speed is 6000 rpm / s. According to the design, this steam power unit can be fueled by a mixture of 65% solid coal and 35% liquid crude oil, or completely fueled by 100% crude oil. According to Professor Rosseo, the advantages of long-range aircraft powered by steam turbines are simply too numerous: gas steam turbines inherit the characteristics of steam engines with steam as working fluids, while using condensers to reduce the advantages of exhaust steam pressure, abandoning the disadvantages of reciprocating motion and intermittent steam intake, greatly improving the efficiency of work; maintaining a constant power output at any height; even for ultra-long-distance flight, steam power can be operated at 100% full load from beginning to end; if high-quality light oil is fueled, The maximum pressure of the boiler was available within 5 to 10 seconds; the sensitivity to temperature differences was poor; high reliability, long overhaul intervals and simple maintenance requirements; simple and agile control; the aviation gas steam turbines did not have to consider the complicated transmission gear set because it did not involve reversing; and most importantly, due to the failure of the plan to seize the Oil Producing Region of the Soviet Caucasus during the war, Germany had almost no other access to oil except the Romanian oil fields, The synthetic high-quality lightweight fuel is expensive, not to mention the production is also extremely limited, in this case, the German reserves of coal resources are more rational use, naturally by the Nazi German high-level mentioned to the degree of considerable importance, which is also in addition to bypassing the ultra-long-range heavy aircraft engine technology bottleneck, Me 264 steam (turbine) power version of the emergence of another important reason.
As an industrial power based on machinery manufacturing, the technical level of German steam turbines needless to say, and according to the analysis of German government data seized after the war, Nazi Germany has also made considerable achievements in the development of hydrogenation of synthetic fuels with solid carbon-containing raw materials for military gas boilers, which provides the most basic technical guarantee for the steam turbine power version of Me264 to become a reality. Considering that German lignite reserves are large, with a coal seam thickness and an average depth of 200 to 300 feet, which can be obtained using the open pit mining method and are very inexpensive to obtain, Messerschmidt particularly emphasized that the steam version of Me264 will mainly use fuels processed from lignite.
Of course, Messerschmidt's theoretical analysis of the use of steam power may be the way to go, but the thought of bombing the United States with a coal-burning "steam engine" still scares RLM officials not lightly, but because the wonderful prospect of moving steam power to the aircraft is too tempting, under direct pressure from the top, the research on the steam turbine power unit for the Me264 has been proceeding slowly and methodically, even after the entire Me 264 project was canceled. As a sub-project it still existed, as of the end of April 1945, including a complete gas boiler, main turbine blades, combustion air pump, condensing pump, etc. most of the components of the gas steam boiler turbine power system have been manufactured, if it were not for the collapse of the Third Reich a month later, the turbines under construction were not completed, we are likely to see the world's first steam aviation power unit appear in late 1945 or 1946. It is worth mentioning that although similar gas turbine-powered aircraft did not get further development after the war, its concept gave considerable inspiration to the United States and the Soviet Union, which were divided into technical data or physical objects, and directly contributed to the emergence of nuclear-steam turbine-powered models such as the B-36 nuclear power tester.
When the Me 264 v1 was truly successful in test flights, Messerschmidt soon moved the Me 264 into a dedicated reconnaissance/bombing category. Among them, the heavily armed long-range reconnaissance me 264 is called the Me 264A - although the pre-production version of the Me 264A is the Me 264 v3, but in fact, there is a certain difference between the planned mass production Me 264A and the Me 264 v3. The aircraft is powered by four Jumo 222-piston engines, with three Rb 50/30 telephoto cameras (ZEISS lenses) as the main reconnaissance equipment, and one MG 130/2 (back), one DHL 151Z (back), one MG 151 (belly/tail) and two MG 131 remote control turrets (on both sides of the fuselage) on the back, belly and fuselage sides, respectively, which are very powerful in self-defense. In fact, RLM wants the Me264A to have a true intercontinental reconnaissance capability. According to a study published by RLM on April 27, 1942, this so-called intercontinental reconnaissance capability specifically refers to: taking off from the territory of mainland Germany, its combat radius to the east should be able to cover Baku (the capital of the Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan), Magnitogorsk (the upper Ural River city in the Soviet Union) and other areas; to the south, it should be able to cover Dakar (senegal's capital), Bathurst (Bathurst, The gambia capital banjul, Lagos (nigerian capital), Aden (Yemen), and southern Iran; to the west, its combat radius should cover the North American continent, of which New York, Washington and New Jersey are naturally included, but Ohio, Pennsylvania, and even Indiana are also required. In addition, RLM plans to build Me264A bases on some of the islands in the northeastern Philippines, where the giant bomber can take off to reconnoiter australia, India, and much of the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
Unlike the Me 264A, which is equipped with four Jumo 222 piston engines, the bombed Me 264B was actually developed on the basis of the hybrid version of the Me 264 v4, but its self-defense firepower configuration is basically similar to the Me 264A, except that the machine gun model in the belly turret is changed from MG 151 to MG 131. Due to the addition of two Jumo 004C jet-powered auxiliary engines, the maximum take-off weight elastic range of the Me 264B is very large, and if only four BMW 801 E are started, its maximum take-off weight is 48100 kg, and when all 6 engines are started together, its maximum take-off weight is 49900 kg, and the difference between the two values is considerable. It should be said that in terms of flight performance alone, the two Jumo 004C jet engines add a lot of color to the Me264B, and its maximum level flight speed can thus reach the level of 690 km / h (6700 meters altitude), and the maximum effective lift limit is jumped to 14500 meters in one fell swoop, of course, this requires strict sealing and supercharging of all crew compartments, which is very difficult technically, but according to the test of DFS 228, Germany has fully mastered the key technology of the high-altitude pressurized cockpit. At that time, the world's aviation industry was absolutely at the forefront.
However, everything has a pro and a disadvantage, because the turbojet engine is a well-known oil tiger, so if the Me 264B wants to fly to the target area with the payload steadily, the two Jumo 004Cs can not be turned on for a long time, otherwise there is a possibility of going to the sea to feed the sharks. According to Messerschmidt's calculations, in the 3000 kg payload state, the Me 264B can fly with piston power alone, and if it is flown in the hybrid state opened by Jumo 004C, carrying the same weight of mission load, the giant bird can only fly 8500 kilometers, and the range shrinkage is as much as 3000 kilometers. In fact, the Jumo 004C appeared on the Me 264B more out of a helpless move of turbocharger technology, which is aimed at providing the Me 264B with an effective high-altitude flight emergency power during the process of entering and exiting the enemy air defense area.
As for the Naval version of the Me 264B, it is different from the Air Force version of the Me 264B. Although the choice of model is basically not a voice, the Me 264 was actually forced by Goering to the Navy, but this does not mean that the opinion of the Shanghai Army on the specific configuration of the aircraft is completely ineffective. The Navy Me 264B also featured a hybrid form of four piston engines with two turbojet engines, but the Jumo 222E/F replaced the BMW 801 E, and the Navy Me 264B briefly considered abandoning two Jumo 004C auxiliary jet engines. Because the Navy Me 264B has a completely different special purpose from the Air Force type - to cooperate with the U-boat wolf pack, mainly responsible for reconnaissance, communication and guidance of attacks, and has a certain long-range anti-ship capability by carrying guided missiles such as Bv.246 hail gliding bombs, the Navy requires their Me 264B to have a greater mission payload capacity and a 360-degree omnidirectional self-defense firepower configuration, for which Messerschmidt plans to be a naval Me All remote-controlled turrets of the 264B are fully retrofitted with the MG 213 twin-mounted multi-barrel Gatling cannon.
However, according to a post-war document identified as September 9, 1943, the Me 264's scheme was much simpler than the one listed above, which complicated the basic context of the Me 264 project. In fact, Messerschmidt not only considered a variety of different engine models for the Me 264 project, but also a variety of powerplant layouts, but most of them belong to the "black plan" that is not officially recognized.
Unlike the Me 264 v1, which lined four engine nacelles in a row on the wing, these unofficial schemes also included the conventional layout of the Me 264/6M scheme (later renamed me 364) that expanded to 6 rounds on the basis of the Me 264 v1, but more often the front and rear series or propulsion hybrid layout schemes including 4 piston engines, as well as the "unconventional" schemes such as the wing-hang 4-engine pure jet layout (Jumo 004C). It is worth noting that Messerschmidt company for the Me 264/4 Jumo004C scheme is very serious, for its redesign of a new T-tail, the advantage of this tail is that by making full use of the back sweep of the vertical tail, the position of the flat tail can be pushed backward as far as possible, to achieve the purpose of bringing the maximum control torque with a small flat tail area (weight, actuator power), thereby reducing the structural weight and reducing the large induced resistance brought by the original double vertical tail design. However, according to Messerschmidt's calculations, although the pure jet-powered Me 264/4 Jumo 004C can achieve better high-altitude and high-speed performance, due to the high fuel consumption of the turbojet engine and the lack of experience in the layout of the wing-mounted engine, it is impossible to solve the interference problem between the wing and the engine pod, which greatly affects the maximum load and range of the Me 264/4 Jumo 004C. And according to the wind tunnel test, the seemingly ingenious T-tail, not only has no predetermined drag reduction effect, but also has a large angle of attack at take-off, because the wing forms an occlusion to the flat tail, it is very easy to cause a deep stall, and what is worse is that this tail design provides little or no stall warning when the rear wing surface vibrates, and it is not easy to change out, and as a result, Messerschmidt has to temporarily beat the Me 264/4 Jumo 004C into the cold palace.
The hybrid version of the Me 264 in series (top) and push (bottom) layouts, two Jumo 004C jet engines are placed at the base of the wings
However, no matter how ingeniously conceived these schemes were, they remained on paper forever with the end of the Me 264 project on October 18, 1944, and the only thing that became a reality was the lone Me 264 v1. Surprisingly, though, although the entire project had been cancelled by RLM, at least within Messerschmidt, the Me 264 project continued under the guise of a telematics machine until December 1944. Objectively speaking, the paper performance of this ultra-long-range communication machine is quite impressive - it can fly 12,000 kilometers away in a payload of 4,000 kilograms, but the problem is that whether such a luxurious communication machine is needed in the war situation that Germany was facing at that time is a big question, obviously messerschmidt's purpose is not to be drunk, in fact, the existence of this final Me 264 is only to avoid its engineers being forcibly recruited, and the result is irrelevant. 5 months later, the Third Reich collapsed and the story of Me 264 came to an end.