Yes, in fact our B-25 did better with the lightened 75mm gun developed for the
General Chaffee tank, and it was good at sinking Japanese shipping, i.e., “one shot, one boat; two shots, two boats…”.[:D]
Tom [C):-)]
I read that the He 274 (as said, closely related to the He 277) was actually a member of the French Air Force until 1953! If you’re lucky enough to read “Famous Bombers of WWII” (don’t know the author) it has a two-page spread of both a He-177 three view, and pictures of about 14 various designs (side schematics, like the one in the first post). Some of the proposed varients of the He 277 towards the end are absolutely crazy! (Turrets everywhere, redesigned nose and tail) Seeing just those, you’d never guess it was derived from the He-177.
I may have found a scheme, one of two at least. Both have white basecoats, while one has a very strange gray splinter and the other has large green splotches. We shall have to see.
I wonder if some aftermarket armor company makes an aftermarket 1/72 75mm gun barrel. It seems a bit poetic turning a groundpounder’s gun on itself. [:D]
Whoops… Mike - apologies for appearing to tell you to shut up! No offence intended, and none taken, I hope. I am now VERY interested in this bird, and have seen it for 13GBPs in Hannants. As money’s too tight to mention at the moment, and I need a new set of jockey wheels and a middle ring for the chainset of my mountain bike however, I guess it won’t be entering my stash in the very near future [:(]
Yeah, the He-274V1 (A derivative of the He-177 with four single engines, to erradicate the He-177’s problems), was almost finished, but the allies captured the factory in 1944, the Gerrman tried to destroy it, but they couldn’t… at last, the French finished it and renamed it as AAS 01A
He 177s used as ground attack a/c on the Eastern front would likely retain the original bomber camouflage but would get the markings of whatever unit they were attached to.
Also the amount of paint needed to paint such a large a/c as the He 177 would likely exhaust the Units paint supplies. At that stage of the war shortages of supplies were getting to be the norm, paint included.
In the book ‘‘Luftwaffe Over Czech Territory 1945’’ there is a couple photos of a He 177 with four seperate engines that look like Jumo 222s, and two very large drop tanks are attached to the wings. Also it has the single fin and rudder like regular production He 177s had.
Matrixone
I’m not sure, but I think that might be a 277 - they split up the engines to cope with the frequent fires that were a result of the 2 engines per nacelle on the 177. It’s a MONSTER of a plane, that one.