Development of German Warplanes in WWI A Centennial Perspective on Great War Airplanes and Seaplanes.pdf

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Development of German
Warplanes in WWI
A CENTENNIAL PERSPECTIVE ON GREAT WAR AIRPLANES AND SEAPLANES
Jack Herris
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
The intention of this work is to describe and illustrate the development of German aircraft of WWI
and to provide context for understanding the design and procurement of these aircraft. Within the
German Army,
Idflieg
(Inspektion
der Fliegertruppen
– Inspectorate of military aviation) issued
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requirements for aircraft types to industry, determined wich
aircraft and aero engines were to be produced and in what
quantity, and assigned aero engines to airframe manufacturers.
Within the German Empire the state of Bavaria retained limited
autonomy and sponsored the Pfalz Flugzeug Werke and the Rapp,
later BMW, aero-engine producers that were located in Bavaria.
Regardless,
Idflieg
had the final say in assignment of aero engines
to airframe manufacturers, and
Idflieg
determined the policies and
production of the German aviation industry.
Pre-War Industrial Potential
Country
Population, including
Colonies, Millions
51.4
66.3
117.7
90.1
422.7
178
690.8
Annual Steel
Production (Million
Tons)
2.6
17
19.6
4.3
10
4
18.3
Austria-Hungary
Germany
Total Central Powers
France
The Antagonists
At the start of the war, the major combatants were the Central
Powers (Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire) on one side,
and the Allies (the British Empire, France, and Imperial Russia) on
the other. As the war progressed, Bulgaria and the Ottoman
Empire joined the Central Powers, and Italy and, much later, the
United States joined the Allies.
The adjacent table shows the population and annual steel
production, an important measure of industrialization, for the key
powers at the start of hostilities. From these figures it is clear that
Germany and the other Central Powers were at a great
disadvantage in manpower in a war of attrition, and the Great War
certainly developed into a war of attrition.
Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire were primarily land
powers; both had huge and powerful armies. Germany also had a
large navy, while her ally had a small navy. Russia and France also
had large armies, and France also had a substantial navy. In
contrast, Great Britain was the world’s leading sea power yet had
only a small army. The Royal Navy’s imposition of a distant
2
United Kingdom
Russian Empire
Total Allies
Note 1: Bulgaria and Turkey later joined the Central Powers; neither had significant industry and
neither built aircraft during the war; all their aircraft were imported from Germany.
Note 2: Italy, Belgium, and later the United States must be added to the Allies. Belgium was over-
run in the first days of the war, but Italy had a large population and a moderate industrial base.
When America joined the Allies, it alone had 103 million people and produced three times as much
steel as Germany and Austria-Hungary combined.
blockade the German High Seas Fleet was unable to break cut
Germany off from access to imported raw materials while assuring
the Allies had access to the world’s raw materials. In the long term,
the Royal Navy’s distant blockade starved Germany of resources
and ensured her defeat. Given the great imbalance in access to
important raw materials and manpower, German defeat seems
inevitable; the remarkable aspect is how Germany could manage
to avoid defeat for so long.
The great imbalance in access to raw materials and manpower
meant that, soon after the initial German advance in France and
Belgium stalled into static trench warfare, the Germans realized
they lacked the resources available to the Allies and always would.
A German victory would necessarily depend on defeating the
Allied armies in the field, especially on the Western Front, rather
than winning a war of attrition. Unfortunately for Germany, there
was no way to avoid a war of attrition, a war Germany could not
win.
The impact of German manpower and material inferiority on
German aviation was especially important to our story. In
particular, permanent numerical inferiority forced the
Luftstreitkräfte
(German Air Service) on the strategic defensive
early in the war and kept it there until the armistice. Numerical
inferiority placed a priority on technical superiority, but achieving
and maintaining technical superiority was difficult as both sides
developed their aviation technology, tactics, and production as
quickly as possible. In fact, technical superiority moved back and
forth between Germany and the Allies, but the Allies consistently
retained the numerical advantage.
The table above right shows the aviation strength for key
combatants at the beginning of the war. However, this was of
transient importance as these primitive aircraft were quickly
destroyed or worn out. More important was the ability of industry
to replace these losses.
The table at right summarizes aviation production during the war.
Aero engines, with their myriad of precision parts that must fit and
work well together, are much harder to design and produce than
Aviation Strength at the Start of the War
Country
Austria-Hungary
Germany
Total Central Powers
France
Russia
United Kingdom
Total Allies
Airplanes
79
232
311
162
244
113
519
Airships
3
12
15
6
14
6
26
WWI Aviation Production
Country
Austria-Hungary
Germany
Total Central Powers
France
Italy
Russia
United Kingdom
United States
Total Allies
Total all countries
Airplanes
5,286
50,296
55,582
51,700
11,986
5,607
52,027
10,980
132,300
187,882
Aero Engines
4,902
43,486
48,388
92,386
14,849
1,511
41,034
32,420
182,200
230,588
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airframes. Consequently, production of aero engines was the
limiting factor in aircraft production. For example Russia, despite
her huge army, was a minor aviation power because her lack of
industrialization limited her aero engine production to far below
requirements. Most aero engines used in Russia had to be
imported from France. France exceeded all other powers in aero
engine production and was critical to her allies for aero engines,
completed aircraft, and aircraft and aero-engine designs that could
be built under license.
Germany’s situation lay between these extremes. Her production
of aero engines was much less than desired and was easily
exceeded by her airframe production, requiring re-cycling of aero
engines to boost production. Worse yet, among Germany’s allies
only the Austro-Hungarian Empire built warplanes and aero
engines, and those in inadequate numbers. This meant German
aviation production, already insufficient for her own needs, had
also to support her other allies, further stressing the German
aviation effort.
As the war progressed, aircraft and aircrews became more capable
and the importance of aviation continually increased. This put
increasing demands on the aviation industries of all combatants,
and German aviation production increasingly fell behind the
French, British, and eventually the Americans, all of whom had
access to far greater material and manpower resources.
limited number of competent airframes and aero engines and
maximizing production of those types. Contemporary
photographs generally show Allied squadrons composed of a
single aircraft type except when evaluating or transitioning to a
new type.
In contrast,
Idflieg,
faced with permanent numerical inferiority,
tried to maximize aircraft performance by producing airframes
optimized for their roles. Contemporary photographs of German
units, especially two-seater units, normally show a variety of
different aircraft types, with different types assigned to different
operational roles. This helps account for the great variety of
different German aircraft types, about 650 different designs,
compared to about 400 different aircraft types produced by France
and about 300 by Great Britain despite the greater number of
aircraft the Allies produced.
The comparatively large number of different designs by all
combatants was also a result of the need to constantly try new
concepts in flight; no computer simulations were available to
explore design variations. Fokker alone produced 75 different
aircraft types during the war in a constant search for better
performance and combat effectiveness.
Idflieg
attempted to limit the impact of numerical inferiority in the
air by producing reliable, standard engines for maximum
availability. For example, the six-cylinder Mercedes D.III engine
that powered most German fighter designs was one of the most
reliable of the time, enabling most assigned aircraft to fly on any
given day. In contrast, the excellent Hispano-Suiza V-8 engine,
which powered the best Allied fighters, was frequently available
Procurement Philosophy
The increasing demands on aviation and the different situations
regarding available resources resulted in different procurement
philosophies. The resource-rich Allies focused on developing a
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