Heinkel He 111
German medium bomber

Heinkel He 111

Heinkel He 111
Type: medium bomber (later also torpedo bomber, glider tug and missle launcher).
History: A natural twin-engined outgrowth of the He 70, the first He 111 was a graceful machine with elliptical wings and tail, secretly flown as a bomber but revealed to the world a year later as a civil airliner. Powered by 660hp BMW VI engines, it had typical armament of three manually aimed machine guns but the useful bomb load of 2,200lb (1,000kg) stowed nose-up in eight cells in the centre fuselage. In 1937 a number of generally similar machines secretly flew photo-reconnaissance missions over Britain, France and the Soviet Union, in the guise of airliners of Deutsche Lufthansa.

He 111 H-2 pathfinder aircraft of KGr100 flew over Britian.

In the same year the He 111 B-1 came into Luftwaffe service, with two 880hp Daimler-Benz DB 600C engines, while a vast new factory was built at Oranienburg solely to make later versions. In February 1937 operations began with the Legion Condor in Spain with considerable success, flight performance being improved in the B-2 by 950hp DB 600CG engines which were retained in the C series. The D was faster with the 1.000hp Jumo 211 A-1, also used in the He 111 F in which a new straight-edged wing was introduced. To a considerable degree the success of the early elliptical-winged He 111 bombers in Spain misled the Luftwaffe into considering that nothing could withstand the onslaught of their huge fleets of medium bombers. These aircraft - the trim Do 17, the broad-winged He 111 and the high-performance Ju 88 - were all extremely advanced by the standards of the mid-1930s when they were designed. They were faster than the single-seat fighters of that era and, so the argument went, therefore did not need much defensive armament. So the three machine guns carried by the first He 111 bombers in 1936 stayed unchanged until, in the Battle of Britain, the He 111 was hacked down with ease, its only defence being its toughness and ability to come back after being shot to pieces.

The nosecap gunner of a He 111 has a Spitfire in sight during the Battle of Britain.

The inevitable result was that more and more defensive guns were added, needing a fifth or even a sixth crew-member. Coupled with incessant growth in equipment and armour the result was deteriorating performance, so that the record-breaker of 1936-38 became the lumbering sitting duck of 1942-45. Yet the He 111 was built in ever-greater numbers, virtually all the later sub-types being members of the prolific H-series. Variations were legion, including versions with large barrage-balloon deflectors, several kinds of missiles (including a V-1 tucked under the left wing root), while a few were completed as saboteur transports.

From the autumn of 1944 the only effective strategic bomber force of the Luftwaffe was KG 53 which operated Heinkel He 111's equipped to launch Fi103 flying bombs (V-1).

All the modifications found necessary and incorporated after the H-6 series were brought together in the H-16 main series produced from 1942. The H-16/R1 had an MG 131 machine gun mounted in an electrically-operated dorsal turret. With a towing coupling - in fact a rigid coupling for heavy gliders - it was given the designation H-16/R2, and the R3 was a pathfinder with heavier armour and reduced bomb-carrying capacity.

One of the major variants was the He 111 H-16, some of which were used in a pathfinder role.

The most numerous version was the H-6, and the extraordinary He 111Z (Zwilling) glider tug of 1942 consisted of two H-6s joined by a common centre wing carrying a fifth engine. Right to the end of the war the RLM and German industry failed to find a replacement for the old 'Spaten' (spade) and the total produced in Germany and Romania was at least 6,086 and possibly more than 7,000. Merlin-engined C.2111 versions continued in production in Spain until 1956.

Users: China, Germany, Hungary, Iraq, Romania (license-production at Fabrica de Avione SET), Spain (license-production of H-16 at CASA), Turkey.

This dramatic picture was taken from a Heinkel He 111 over Russia early in 1942, and shows men of the Red Army column scurrying for cover as the aircraft swept in for a bombing and strafing attack. The He 111 was about twice the height of the telepgraph poles, at approximately 30ft.

Heinkel He 111 torpedo bomber is landing after a unsuccessful mission (the torpedos are still under the fuselage) on the airport of Iraklion (Crete) in 1942.

3d model of Heinkel He 111.

This 3d model is a current element of the WW2 game WW2 Total. The data for production, movement and combat of the Axis and Allies units are here !