Junkers Ju 290A-7 - From Luxury Airliner to Superbomber

That’s a lot of 20mm guns o_O

+1 would love to see this in game. Alles Kaputt decal too maybe lol

Good job in defeating gaijin by getting this Ju 290 A-7 suggestion approved since I have also been trying to do the same with my slightly superior suggestion since September 2023 with no results. Anyway, two questions:

1.) Do you mind if I add all my stuff to your topic? Done
2.) Will you also suggest the related Junkers Ju 290 A-8 as well?:

5 Likes

The Junkers Ju 290 A-7 was one of the final bomber models of the Ju 290 series. Equipped with the powerful BMW 801 engine, it was a development of the previous Junkers Ju 90 transport, which itself stemmed from the Junkers Ju 89 bomber. The decision to adapt the Ju 290 for maritime patrol had resulted from a demand from the Fliegerführer Atlantik for an aircraft with adequate endurance to reconnoiter far out over the Atlantic to accurately plot enemy convoys and assemble and marshal U-boat packs for favorable interception. The Focke Wulf Fw 200 was becoming increasingly vulnerable in this role with the steady improvement in the defensive capabilities of enemy convoys. The Ju 290 differed from its predecessors primarily in its engines, larger, more simplified wings, longer fuselage, new horizontal/vertical stabilizers, & greatly increased endurance. The Ju 290 featured a reinforced airframe, guided munitions, heavy firepower, radar, & a maximum speed of nearly 450 km/h. Armed with an MG 151 in the A, B, C1, F, & H-Stands (nose, dorsal, fwd gondola, side, & tail) and an MG 131 in the C2-Stand (rear gondola), its bomb load, carried externally on three ETC 2000 bomb racks, comprised of the following loads:

3 x 1,000 kg
2 x PC 1400X
3 x Hs 293
1 x Hs 294
2 x Hs 293

In War Thunder, the Ju 290 A-7 would be a 1944-1945 late war aircraft as the game’s only German maritime patrol bomber, the Fw 200 C-1, is completely out of place for late war maps or events/scenarios & completely inappropriate for this game. In fact, the Fw 200 C-1 should be removed & replaced by a proper Ju 290 A-7 & Fw 200 C-4, as the C-1 was nothing more than an unsuitable, rare, interim development or stopgap model which has absolutely no business being in this game. About 13 Ju 290 A-7 were produced throughout 1944 with an unknown number of components & mock-ups in various states of construction before the program was terminated. This suggestion is specifically for the Junkers Ju 290 A-7 bomber. Main features of the Ju 290 A-7 would be:

~450 km/h maximum speed
Powerful BMW 801
Trapoklappe
Reinforced airframe
Kehlkansel nose equipped with Kehl-Straßburg
Predominantly cannon armament
Improved armor protection
Ability to carry the Hs 293, Hs 294, & PC 1400X
Maximum bomb load of 3,000 kg

Some more information:

Sources/Manuals:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1853103640
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0883656663
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000WAOUBI
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0760722838
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1854094092
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0764302973
https://www.amazon.fr/dp/3790904503
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1857800923

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0914144030
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1902109155
https://www.amazon.com/dp/3763760334
https://www.amazon.com/dp/3925505253
https://www.amazon.com/dp/3613012243
https://www.amazon.com/dp/3763754679
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1472831799
https://www.amazon.com/dp/147283982X
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1475140827

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1291292691
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KP17KPC
https://www.scribd.com/document/192777875/Flugzeug-Classic-Special-4
https://www.amazon.com/dp/3860708678
http://www.indianamilitary.org/FreemanAAF/Aircraft%20-%20German/FE%203400-Ju290A4/3400.htm
http://www.vrtulnik.cz/ww2/ju_290.htm

7 Likes

My guy, half the challenge of making a suggestion is finding the information, the other half is presenting it in a readable and digestible manner.

Infodumping 80+ pages of specs, diagrams and pictures in 3 different languages is not the way to go about it, and it definitely doesn’t make your suggestion superior to the original.

A very good suggestion can be written on one good primary or two good secondary sources.

14 Likes

Please for the love of god use spoilers

#this: [details=“Spoiler”]
This text will be hidden
[/details]

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If you have trouble understanding all that information, then that is a problem on your end. I have always done my suggestions in this fashion which you can clearly see in my other topics:
Links:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

If you do not like this layout, then avert your eyes. These 80+ pages of specs, diagrams and pictures are intended for gaijin, not you. Gaijin has a deliberate and nasty tendency to omit ordnance, wing/external racks, & weapons, most especially on German bombers. No one wants gaijin’s incorrect interpretation (most recent offender: Zerstörer 45) of a “Junkers Ju 290 A-7” without its wing racks, armed only with a single SC 250 under the fuselage, equipped with incorrect or missing armament such as machine guns instead of MG 151/20 cannon & missing F-Stand weapons, or modeled with incorrect engines, weight, & performance. We already have garbage like that in the form of incorrect crap such as the Ju 87 D-3/5, Ju 88 A-4, He 111 H-6, He 111 H-16, He 115 C-1, Hs 129 B-2, Ho 229 V3, BV 238 V4, Me 264 V3, Ju 288 ‘C’, Me 410 A/B, Sd. Kfz. 251/10 and so on…

3 Likes

If you have trouble understanding all that information, then that might be a problem on your end. I have always done my suggestions using this layout which you can clearly see in my other topics:

Good job defeating gaijin by getting this suggestion for the Junkers Ju 290 A-7 approved since I have also been trying to do the same with my slightly superior suggestion since September 2023 with no results

Maybe if you tried a less infodumping approach you could get the suggestion passed without struggling for an entire year? Once you get the hang of the formatting that the mods want to see you can get suggestions approved first time no problem at all.

These 80+ pages of specs, diagrams and pictures are intended for gaijin, not you.

So tuck them away in a nicely foldered (hidden with spoilers tag) ‘sources’ section, so anybody who wants to peek at the technical details can, and those who aren’t as interested don’t have to scroll past 80 pages to get to the comments.

Or ignore this advice and continue not being able to get a simple suggestion passed for an entire year, it’s up to you to be honest, I don’t mind.

5 Likes

A +1 from me, would be neat to see. From what I recall this particular aircraft was once slated to be preserved by the nascent National Air Museum, however, it later ended up scrapped like a lot of other stuff much to the annoyance of Paul Garber.

I was considering making a suggestion for the A-8 variant, but I was hesitant, as not nearly as many were produced as the A-7 variant. I’ll consider making a separate suggestion, but I have other plans at the moment.

Also, wonderful research!

1 Like

That’s the main reason I was so interested in it! The amount of guns is stunning, making it a dangerous opponent for enemy fighters if piloted by someone who knows how to aim the turrets.

The ETC 2000 bomb rack could be equipped with an adapter for 4 x 50 kg bombs each so 12 x 50 kg should be a possible payload for the 290:

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I want

would this be able to carry the larger bombs germany made?

Respectfully,
maybe it is time to change how you do it?

1 Like

Well, obviously, since the ETC 2000 rack can carry 1 x Hs 294 which has the weight of about 2,176 kg as well as instances on other aircraft such as the Heinkel He 111 H-6, which could carry up to a 2,500 kg bomb using the same ETC 2000 rack. In addition, SC 250 & SC 500 bombs could also be carried by the ETC 2000 rack:

Declined. Gaijin had no problems approving my other topics, which are pretty much identical to this one. I think that the only “problem” that they had was with this sentence:

ahh that’s good to see that it could carry the 2500kg bomb then

Theoretically yes. The point was that the bombrack itself is most definitely capable of carrying the SC 2500, but what about the actual aircraft itself? Is there enough ground clearance for a 1 x 2,500 kg bomb under the fuselage? Would RATO be required? Would flying over the ocean for many hours just to drop a single SC 2500 (overkill) on a royal rust bucket be worth it when you can use smaller bombs to potentially destroy 3x more vessels?

Any progress with an A-8 suggestion?

1 Like