Page "Luftwaffe" Paragraph 68

A significant failure in terms of technological development was not to develop a long-range bomber and capable long-range fighters during this period leaving the Luftwaffe unable to conduct a meaningful strategic bombing campaign throughout the war.

However, this does not take into the account that Germany's economic situation suffered from limited resources – mainly raw materials like oil and aluminium – which did not provide for much beyond a tactical air force.

Thus the Luftwaffe's reliance on tactical mid-range, twin engined medium bombers and short range dive-bombers was a rational option under these circumstances.

It might also be argued that the Luftwaffe's Kampfgeschwader were perfectly capable of attacking strategic targets, but the lack of a capable long range escort fighter left the bombers unable to carry out their missions effectively against determined and well organised fighter opposition.

The largest failure for the Kampfgeschwader, however, was saddling them with an aircraft meant to be as big and as apparently capable as any Allied four-engined " heavy bomber " – the perpetually-troubled Heinkel He 177 – which had been condemned to being designed to carry out moderate angle dive bombing missions from the day that the RLM accepted it for production in November 1937, making it overweight from the start, and mandating design features that led its " welded-together engines ", a pair of cumbersome Daimler-Benz DB 606 " power systems ", to perpetually catching fire in flight during operational missons over both the Eastern Front and the United Kingdom.

It was not until the concluding months of 1943 that the only realized attempt to build a " true four engined " version of the A-series He 177, the He 177B emerged with only three airworthy prototypes produced by early 1944, some three years after the first flights of the Avro Lancaster prototypes, the most commonly encountered RAF bomber pounding Germany on strategic night raids from 1942 to the end of the war in Europe.