Ju 52 as a bomber?

[Spitfires Forever]

Just got through watching footage of the SCW and lo and behold, I saw what was clearly a Ju 52 dropping what were no doubt fuselage mounted bombs. What a great subject for the Monogram/ Revell kit. Anyone out there with information on the Ju 52 mit der bomben?

Danke minen comeraden

Edited April 26, 2013 by Spitfires Forever

[Steven Eisenman]

The ju 52 had internal bomb bay. I'm looking for the info. Cannot recal ever seeing one with external bomb load.

[Spitfires Forever]

The ju 52 had internal bomb bay. I'm looking for the info. Cannot recal ever seeing one with external bomb load.

Thanks Steven, it was hard to tell where the bombs were coming from because of the shadows so prominent in old B and W movies. The footage is on YouTube, the film called Condor Legion, 1939 Pt 2. I wonder if the Ju 52 was used in the same capacity during the early stages of WWII? more than likely not, I am sure there were sufficient amounts of Do 17's, Ju 88, 87, and 86's along with

Heinkle's to fill the need. I have never really delved to deeply into the SCW, but I have found it quite intriguing. I have several early Me 109"s and several bi-planes in line for SCW livery. A Ju 52 would be a nice touch, and the Pro Modler version seems to have the proper decals. I wonder if I can find wheel spats to make the earlier version of the 52?

cheers

[MikeC]

IIRC there was at least one boxing of the Revell/Monogram kit with appropriate parts and decals to build a Kondor Legion bomber - can anyone confirm or otherwise?

[Max Headroom]

Try this from the LSP website where someone built. 1/32 vac form. Page 3 (oo err!) has details of the dustbin and three internal bomb racks.

http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?showtopic=33963&st=0

Hope this helps

Trevor

[Vesa Jussila]

Good morning!

Ju52 was used for bombing in late 30's. Here is one picture: http://home.scarlet.be/~js026706/militaria/marklinjunkers.htm. I have heard that those used as bomber had strengthened fuselage. I try to find more information about that later today.

Bomber version had also a gunner position under the wing. This is clearly visible in some photos from period.

Br. Vesa

.

Edited April 26, 2013 by Vesa Jussila

[GrzeM]

Ju 52 was standard Luftwaffe bomber before Do 17, He 111 and Ju 86 generation. Internal, vertical bomb bays were standarised and removable, there are statements from Legion Condor that these were often mounted or removed, according to the needs (transport or bombing missions).

Ju 52 were used in big numbers for carpet bombing of Warsaw (my city) in September 1939, mostly with small-caliber incendiaries. However losses due to AA artillery were so big that Command officially forbad using Junkers as a bomber (about 23-27 September IIRC).

It is very probable that Warsaw Royal Castle fire, so well known from period photos of American journalists, was caused by Ju 52.

There is pretty famous Ju 52 bomber with name "Uwaga!" ("Attention!" in Polish) - which originated from the first word of Polish radio warnings about the raids.

September 1939 photo:

...and many others here, on odkrywca.pl, Polish explorer's forum:

http://odkrywca.pl/samoloty-niemieckie-39-czesc-druga,711202.html#711202

...and first part of the topic:

http://odkrywca.pl/samoloty-niemieckie-39-quot-,115351.html#115351

[bil]

I'm sure that at least one of the 1/48 Monogram/Revell boxings included the ventral dustbin (not my scale). In the one true scale, there is a CPM16 Classic Planes (Germany) kit, comprising Heller moldings with conversion parts and decals for the bomber version (http://www.classic-plane-mrr.de/index_e.html - Catalogue/Classic Plane), along with a lot of interesting other stuff.

I'm sure I read somewhere that transport versions were used as "bombers" with crew shovelling incendaries out of the cabin doors over Poland (or was it Spain?).

Edited April 26, 2013 by bil

[Iain Ogilvie]

Am building one in 1:32 - currently parked - but the thread has a lot of images/info on the bombers:

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/29502-132-junkers-ju-52-spanish-civil-war-bomber/

Iain

[GrzeM]

The story about "shoveling" incendiaries comes from 1939 September (Poland) but is kind of rhetoric exageration and has been many times disputed and rejected.

[Spitfires Forever]

Thanks for all the information, I always enjoy the discussions and never fail to learn something new. It would seem that the use of the Ju-52 in the early stages of WWII as a bomber would suggest overconfidence and/or air superiority? Since we are on the subject of JU52's what aircraft were the inspiration for the "Tante Ju"? I assumed it was the Ford Tri-motor, which in turn inspired the Fokker, which influenced the design of the Junkers. My son said it was actually the Italian designs. What is the pedigree of the Ju-52?

Cheers

[Vesa Jussila]

I think you can clearly say that Ju 52 is own design it own right. Junkers designed many commercial planes between the wars and it's model G24 was some-kind of ancestor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_G_24

And G31 was following G24 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_G_31

Originally Ju 52 was designed as a single engined plane and was known as Ju52/1m, but lack of performance led to develop three engined version Ju53/3m.

Ju52 production started 1931 if I remember correctly (Someone might correct me) and Italian plane you maybe are referring to is Savoia-Marchetti S73 and production of that started 1935. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savoia-Marchetti_S.73

I think in 30's three engines was safety feature and for that reason was used in many designs like Fokker, Junkers, Savoia-Marchetti.

Br. Vesa

[Test Graham]

You can trace the development of the Ju52 further back, to Junkers initial designs during WW1 and the world's first metal airliner, the F13. Which begat the W33 and W34, and the Ju52 almost in a direct line of growth. The F and G series proceeded in parallel. The key design parameters were all-metal structures with corrugated skin to carry the loads. The use of a stressed-skin structure placed them well ahead of their contemporaries.

Fokker's development line in his transports was with wooden structures and thick wings, also following on from his wartime designs. The designs also grew from single-engined airlines of the immediately post-war period. Probably the last significant aircraft to use these methods was the Avro Anson, following Avro's licence production of Fokker designs.

If anything it was the Ford which was inspired by these designs, having no direct design predecessors and conceptually being a metal version of the Fokker designs (though this should not perhaps be exaggerated). The Fokkers, despite considerable achievements in exploratory flights, airline service and even military use, had suffered from a poor reputation in the USA following a number of failures blamed on their wooden construction.

[MikeC]

... the Pro Modler version seems to have the proper decals. I wonder if I can find wheel spats to make the earlier version of the 52?

cheers

IIRC there was at least one boxing of the Revell/Monogram kit with appropriate parts and decals to build a Kondor Legion bomber - can anyone confirm or otherwise?

Well silly me! I've just thought to check my kit: lo and behold, it is the Pro-Modeller boxing, and not only does it have the decals for a SCW version, it has the "dustbin" gun turret and the wheel spats.

So it's the Revell-Mongram Pro-Modeller kit, #5944, that you want.

Edited April 29, 2013 by MikeC

[Spitfires Forever]

Well silly me! I've just thought to check my kit: lo and behold, it is the Pro-Modeller boxing, and not only does it have the decals for a SCW version, it has the "dustbin" gun turret and the wheel spats.

So it's the Revell-Mongram Pro-Modeller kit, #5944, that you want.

Thanks for confirming my decision to buy the pro modeler kit.

Cheers

[Panoz]

The ju 52 had internal bomb bay. I'm looking for the info. Cannot recal ever seeing one with external bomb load.

I once saw (on TV) a video of two Armee de l'Air AAC-1 "Toucan" bombing the Viet-Minh in Indochina.

Bombs were in underfuselage racks...Unfortunately I haven't been able to find that video again.

[justplanecrazy]

I have photos of the French Toucan bomb arrangement, can be found on the net if you look. Not sure if the bombs are of French or possibly Japanese origin.

Here is the one close up I have, downloaded from the net but cannot remember the source;

Nick

Edited May 22, 2013 by justplanecrazy

[Panoz]

I have photos of the French Toucan bomb arrangement, can be found on the net if you look. Not sure if the bombs are of French or possibly Japanese origin.

Here is the one close up I have, downloaded from the net but cannot remember the source;

Nick

Great. Thanks a lot.

[Steven Eisenman]

Ju 52 was standard Luftwaffe bomber before Do 17, He 111 and Ju 86 generation. Internal, vertical bomb bays were standarised and removable, there are statements from Legion Condor that these were often mounted or removed, according to the needs (transport or bombing missions).

Ju 52 were used in big numbers for carpet bombing of Warsaw (my city) in September 1939, mostly with small-caliber incendiaries. However losses due to AA artillery were so big that Command officially forbad using Junkers as a bomber (about 23-27 September IIRC).

It is very probable that Warsaw Royal Castle fire, so well known from period photos of American journalists, was caused by Ju 52.

Perhaps you can provide some better refewrence. By 1939, the Ju 52 was quite obsolete as a bomber. Even in Spain it was replaced as a bomber by He 111s and Do 17s.

By September '39, only one unit had the Ju 52, and they were basically staff aircraft.

Even the early Do 17Zs had entered into service for the attack on Poland.

The Ju 52 was basically an interinm bomber and multi-purpose aircraft.

[dogsbody]

Scroll about half-way down the page to see a photo of the internal bomb rack:

http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?showtopic=33963&page=3

[Don McIntyre]

Is the Toucan still in the Deutches Museum in Munich? When I was there in the late 70s it was in an aluminum (looked brush-painted to me) finish with French markings. I don't know if that one had the external bomb racks or not.

[GrahamB]

Hi,

I've quite a few Ju52 references and can't recall any photo or text that conclusively shows external racks - even if they were for some other load and not bombs. There may be one case of mis-identification but I'll go and find it. There was a big programme in the late 1930s to convert the night-bomber g3es to transports by removing the internal (vertical) racks and installing a wide cargo door on the starboard side but some g3es seemed to have missed this process and there are images of internal bomb racks still inside Ju52s as late as the Crete operation - operating as quickly-drafted-in transports (probably without wide cargo doors).

Cheers,

GrahamB.

Edited May 22, 2013 by GrahamB