I was reading about the Spitfire variants and saw that the Spitfire Mark V's development was apparently rushed due to fears that the Ju 86 pressurized bomber could fly higher than any of the British interceptors of the time.
I hadn't heard of the Ju 86 being employed in combat so I looked up the ceiling and sure enough, it was extremely high, around 42 000 feet. This is higher than all but the latest Spitfires, which kind of begs the question of why didn't the Luftwaffe do this? Also seems strange that they would have used He 111s and Ju 88s in the original battle, with their low service ceilings, when they had the alternative to use aircraft that could fly this high (the Ju 86 had been in development considerably earlier than 1940)
Was bomber production not a high enough priority? In my research some high level Luftwaffe officials like Adolf Galland claimed they were always fighting uphill when arguing for increased fighter production, and that bomber production was the priority even into 1942 and 1943 when you'd assume fighters would be the focus.
Any clarification on this would be helpful, including whether the premises are actually true or not. Thanks!
Hitting something from 42,000 feet is not easy without guided weapons. The Americans couldn't do it in 1945 over Japan, either.
Germany never put a strong emphasis into a strategic bomber arm. From the 1930's on, the Luftwaffe was primarily a close support and tactical air force, and a very good one, but didn't put enough emphasis into building heavy strategic bombers until it was too late because they felt that they didn't need to. Much of Europe took the wrong lessons from the Spanish Civil War, because of the rapid development of fighter aircraft like the Bf-109 and Spitfire immediately afterwards. Guernica, while relatively small, captivated public and military attention, and was carried out predominantly by converted German Ju-52 transports, not even dedicated bomber aircraft. The Luftwaffe was meant to a) support the army in Blitzkrieg and b) be used as a terror weapon, and expensive, pressurized bombers weren't necessary for either of these goals as Germany focused on creating an air force completely from scratch in the 1930's. '
Germany's inability to produce a viable heavy bomber was mainly doctrinal. They focused on the idea of the "schnellbomber" in 1930's, which would rely on speed and versatility. The Do-17 and Ju-88 were excellent aircraft in this regard in 1937-1938, but once high performance fighters came around they were unsuited for sustained strategic bombing. The later He-177 was an excellent heavy bomber when it worked, but development meandered along for years under demanding and sometimes contradictory specifications to meet this versatile schnellbomber concept (the aircraft needed to be able dive bomb, for example), and other issues like teething troubles with the coupled engines delayed it's entry into service. By the time late 1943 rolled around and it was ready, the military situation had changed and bombers were the last things that Germany needed, and as such bomber production was drastically cut back in favor of fighters to defend the Reich.
Long story short, the lack of a German heavy bomber was because of an idea that Luftwaffe planners that didn't work out, unlike others. The concept itself was sound, I suppose, but by 1940, because of advanced in fighter technology, the schnellbombers weren't very schnell. The Luftwaffe never gave up on the idea, and late models like the Ju-388, Ar-234, and He-177 were excellent aircraft, but weren't available in anything near enough numbers, and by the time they were ready there wasn't much point or ability to making their numbers sufficient. And even if the fast-bomber concept would have worked militarily, light and fast aircraft couldn't have carried heavy enough payloads to conduct a serious strategic bombing campaign. The British Mosquito, for example, was exceptionally fast and in many ways fit this German concept, but could not have conducted the bombing of Germany on its own.