A great article. These aircraft carried out over 1,200 successful resupply missions to North Africa. Yet the are only remembered for the 2 missions that went wrong.
Those transport aircraft losses were pretty nasty. Not only that, because the Luftwaffe's air transport needs had gone up so much (the failed Stalingrad airlift was not too long before this), the service had pulled a lot of its instructor pilots from Germany to do these missions. A lot of them were killed.
@@geordiedog1749 True. Denmark-Norway JU-52 losses at 150, Netherlands 125, Balkans-Crete 170, and North African Campaign at 150 losses. Not sure how many were lost after 1943 have not gotten that far yet, out of 4800+ built in total till 1952. Between 1934-35 the Luftwaffe received 453. 3,244 were produced during the conflict between 1939-1944. Production resumed after the war for a few countries.
@@Gromit801 AKtuALlly "Black April" was just the last desperate straw when the Axis had already lost all its logistic lines to Tunisia. So they were forced to try to fly fuel in on Gigants and... you know how that turned out...
Gotta hand it to Messerschmitt and those brave Luftwaffe airmen: an ambitious design, fantastic ship and harrowing missions. Had an elderly neighbor years ago whose husband had flown them; imagine the stories! Wonderful footage; would love to see more!
I find the fact that any plane can lift a half track into the air amazing. I imagine that most of those featured ended up splattered all over the med on 18th April 1943.
Unbelievable fotage, messerschmitt me 323 always amazed me. To see that the Germans were also able to have huge aircrafts like this is very interesting.
Didn't USAAF P-40's intercept a bunch of these over the MED with almost no fighter escort and shoot down many of them? I seem to recall an incident like that.
People talk about the B17 gunships, but apparently there were a few gunship versions of these, with added turrets, more auto cannon, and tons of additional armor.
At the time, the German couldn't have it with more powerful models of French engines nor the bmw 801/jumo 211 etc. These elegant giants became easy kills to even allie's b-24 boomers.
A great article. These aircraft carried out over 1,200 successful resupply missions to North Africa. Yet the are only remembered for the 2 missions that went wrong.
Those transport aircraft losses were pretty nasty. Not only that, because the Luftwaffe's air transport needs had gone up so much (the failed Stalingrad airlift was not too long before this), the service had pulled a lot of its instructor pilots from Germany to do these missions. A lot of them were killed.
Yeah, but boy! did they go wrong!!
@@geordiedog1749 True. Denmark-Norway JU-52 losses at 150, Netherlands 125, Balkans-Crete 170, and North African Campaign at 150 losses. Not sure how many were lost after 1943 have not gotten that far yet, out of 4800+ built in total till 1952. Between 1934-35 the Luftwaffe received 453. 3,244 were produced during the conflict between 1939-1944. Production resumed after the war for a few countries.
Went wrong? The Luftwaffe’s ability to resupply Rommel essentially ceased to exist.
@@Gromit801 AKtuALlly "Black April" was just the last desperate straw when the Axis had already lost all its logistic lines to Tunisia. So they were forced to try to fly fuel in on Gigants and... you know how that turned out...
Taking steel-tube-and-fabric aircraft construction to an extreme!
This channel continues to deliver rare and interesting content
Gotta hand it to Messerschmitt and those brave Luftwaffe airmen: an ambitious design, fantastic ship and harrowing missions. Had an elderly neighbor years ago whose husband had flown them; imagine the stories! Wonderful footage; would love to see more!
Awesome thanks for posting this. 👍👍🇦🇺
Great find!
thank you very much for this great footage.🌹🌹
I find the fact that any plane can lift a half track into the air amazing. I imagine that most of those featured ended up splattered all over the med on 18th April 1943.
The fact that you managed to find _video_ of these flying is amazing.
What archives did you have to dig through to find the clips?
us archives has lots of this
This is a very common and well known bit of footage
Amazing!!
Unbelievable fotage, messerschmitt me 323 always amazed me. To see that the Germans were also able to have huge aircrafts like this is very interesting.
yes, Dornier Do X, Junkers Ju 290/390. Any 6-Mot on the allied side?
It was the grandfather of Guppy.
In case you were wondering where the phrase 'staying under the radar' comes from... 0:34 - 0:47
0:36 nice parallax effect; it looks a bit like the plane is levitating
Something of a deathtrap if you met any opposition!
Wow, did they fly low! Such a cool airplane.
1:20 -20 мм flak?
It looks like it, with barrel removed.
Didn't USAAF P-40's intercept a bunch of these over the MED with almost no fighter escort and shoot down many of them? I seem to recall an incident like that.
It was the SAAF, RAAF, RAF and Polish P40s and Spitfires. czcams.com/video/bs0HCo8VuX4/video.htmlsi=coJ_LqhR-Ah48NO8
Первый транспортный самолёт в мире с загрузкой тяжёлой техники и личного состава с головы !!!
People talk about the B17 gunships, but apparently there were a few gunship versions of these, with added turrets, more auto cannon, and tons of additional armor.
Wrong.... Never happened
I wonder if these clips came before or after the April massacre. There weren't too many left after that.
The C 130 of its day
that is definetly not true.
@@jensole8939 Same mission. Heavy cargo lift.
immagini molto molto belle. Però fu una mattanza
LMFAO 😮
So they could fly!?
'No, just AI.'
@@kiereluurs1243 Damn, those Nazis were clever
Nothing's changed
At the time, the German couldn't have it with more powerful models of French engines nor the bmw 801/jumo 211 etc. These elegant giants became easy kills to even allie's b-24 boomers.
what powerful engines from France do you have in mind?
@@augustiner3821 It was the Gnome-Rhône 14R, around 1570hp. But it was said that this engine stopped developing since the occupation of France.