Wendigo
Banned
What if in the Anglo American Nazi War TL Hitler has a moment of sanity and doesn't waste massive resources and time on the Horten Brothers Flying Wing design at the cost of the development of other superior aircraft?
What would this mean for the air campaign once the Hot War started and the Allies invaded?
Relevant excerpt from AANW:
What would this mean for the air campaign once the Hot War started and the Allies invaded?
Relevant excerpt from AANW:
The Allies also benefited greatly from Hitler’s devotion to the design firm of the Horten Brothers. The Hortens had a long, ultimately failed, fascination with the “Flying Wing” concept, similar to that of American designer Jack Northrop. The flying wing was a seductive design since it, in theory, offered so many advantages over conventional designs, which included a vertical stabilizer. The design concept was eventually found to have so many serious stability issues that it was found to be unusable in combat, something that was determined by the U.S. at a cost of nearly $100 million dollars and two air crews, but was not accepted by the Nazi Party for nearly six years and close to RM 2,000 million of investment (well over five times the amount spent by the United States out of a Reich air research & development budget roughly a quarter the size of the U.S. program). The money and manpower used on the Horton Brothers designs set back or eliminated several far more promising, albeit conventional, designs from Focke-Wulf (which had its Ta-183 delayed for nearly four years), Heinkel, Junkers, and Messerschmitt (including the death of the very promising P-1108/I jet bomber project). Had any of these design companies received the support provided to the Horton Brothers Ho X fighter-bomber or Ho XVIII long-range bomber between 1945 and 1953, the Allies would have faced a far more capable Luftwaffe.