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The Blohm und Voss Bv 237 was a design for an asymmetric dive-bomber largely based on the earlier Bv 141 reconnaissance aircraft.
The Bv 141 had carried its single engine in a long boom that ended in the tail plane. The glazed crew compartment was to its right, connected by a short central wing section. This gave the crew an excellent view, but did complicate the development of the aircraft, and by 1943 it had been abandoned.
Dr-Ing Richad Vogt's design team at Blohm und Voss continued to work on asymmetric aircraft. Work on project P.177 began in 1942. This would have been a single-seat dive bomber or two man ground attack aircraft, with the pilot in a more standard right-hand nacelle, heavily protected by armour, and the engine in the main boom on the left, following the same basic layout as the Bv 141. Bombs were to be carried below the wings. The ground attack version would have carried up to 8 guns, while the dive-bomber had two forward and two rear firing guns as well as up to 2,205lb of bombs. The proposed B-1 version was also to carry a Jumo 004B jet engine in a third nacelle.
Blohm und Voss were given a production order for the P.177, as the Bv 237 early in 1943. After the bombing raids on Hamburg in the summer of 1943 development was suspended for a period, but it soon resumed. One key element of the design was the use of wood and steel in place of light metals, which by 1944 were in short supply in Germany. Blohm und Voss were working on ways to simply the overall production of the aircraft, which was expected to begin in mid-1945, but towards the end of 1944 the plans for a pre-production 0-series of aircraft was cancelled, leaving the project at the mock-up stage.
Aircraft of the Luftwaffe 1935-1945, Jean-Denis G.G. Lepage.
Combines a good background history of the Luftwaffe with a comprehensive examination of its aircraft, from the biplanes of the mid 1930s to the main wartime aircraft and on to the seemingly unending range of experimental designs that wasted so much effort towards the end of the war. A useful general guide that provides an impressively wide range of information on almost every element of the Luftwaffe
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