The Battle of Britain Five Months That Changed History, May—October 1940 by James Holland (z-lib.org).epub

support of the ground forces, rather than a strategic, independent massbombing
role. He was little interested in air transportation and greatly
favoured the dive-bombers, which he believed were the only types of
aircraft capable of achieving precision bombing. The Junkers 87 Stuka had
won the main dive-bomber contract, but from 1938 the priority for
production and development was the Junkers 88, the Heinkel 177 and the
Messerschmitt 210, an improved version of the 110. The Heinkel was a
heavy, long-range bomber and had the unique design of four engines but
only two propellers. The Ju 88 was a twin-engine machine, but had been
conceived as a long-range, high-speed bomber. Both these aircraft
suggested more of a strategic bombing role for the Luftwaffe, which was at
odds with Jeschonnek’s views of how air power should best be used.
Perhaps unsurprisingly then, both Jeschonnek and Udet were behind
changes to the specifications for the Ju 88, which they agreed needed diving
capability. This, however, shattered its original design aims. In fact, some
25,000 changes were made to the original design. The result was endless
delays and an aircraft that, by 1940, had a flying weight not of six tonnes,
as had been originally planned, but well over double that. The heavier it
became, the slower it became; at 269 mph, it was only fractionally faster
than the Heinkel and Dornier mainstays. High-speed it was not; nor were
there many of them. Milch described it as a ‘flying barn door’.
Thus it wasn’t only the British who were struggling to get their best
aircraft produced in enough numbers. The He 177 programme also fell
behind because of the delays to the Ju 88, and the Me 210 was eventually
scrapped altogether. Instead, the bulk of the bomber force was made up
with Heinkel 111s and Dornier 17s, both of which were state of the art in
the mid-1930s, but by 1940 were already beginning to seem a little underarmed
and under-protected, as well as not manoeuvrable enough, and they
were capable of carrying only comparatively small bomb loads.
The Me 109 had been given the nod for single-engine fighter
production, even though Heinkel had produced a model, the He 112, which
was 50 mph faster. When Heinkel protested, Udet’s office forbade him to
pursue the matter. The second-string fighter was to be the cumbersome
twin-engine Me 110. It just so happened that not only was Professor
Messerschmitt Hitler’s favourite designer, but he was also a personal friend
of Udet’s. Development of the world’s first jet-propelled aircraft, the He