A myth about the Me 262?

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davparlr said:
It was in the ball park among first generation jets but in 1950 the F-86 and Mig 15 were both operational.
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They werent available for the Swiss to buy though. I very much doubt the Soviets would have sold Migs to the Swiss and the USAF needed every plane that North American could produce.
 
Sorry about my comments guys, I got a little annoyed with this:
yadayada
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I still stand by my assertion that the Me 262's impact on WW2 was nowhere near as great as many like to think it was, nor could it have been. By far its greatest impact was in the basic design, not its combat role and there is much evidence to support this, including countless interviews with pilots etc that all state, to a man that the 262 was terrific to fly and they loved the speed advantage it had over everything else, but it was essentially unreliable and too troublesome to be an effective warplane. This doesn't take away from the enormous effort put in by the guys of Ekdo 262, Kommando Nowotny et all, but it could not have had any further influence on things. Its biggest influence was in what it offered to the Allies post war in terms of research into jet technology.

In saying that however, I also don't believe that the Allied jets could not have provided a credible defence against the German ones; their disadvantages would not have been as much of a hindrance as what we like to believe. There's not doubt the 262 was a better design, but the Allied jets - in spite of their faults were more reliable.

This is the myth of the Me 262; that it could have affected far reaching change on the course of the war. It simply could not have in the state it was in.
 
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When the forum's search feature is restored, type in "Me262" and see all the various debates about the Me262...it will always one of those enigmas that fuel debates...

Bottom line is that Germany was too slow to recognize and support it's jet technology. They had access to both Axial and Centrifugal designs early on. They also had access to at least two very competitive airframe designs that would have proven themselves IF they had seized the opportunity early on.

Pushing the He280 aside and then allowing the development of the Me262 to crawl along like it did was yet another sad indicator that Germany's leadership was sadly lacking. And once Germany realized the war situation was becoming dire, then the Me262 became a priority. That was like putting a bandaid on a sucking chest wound.

Could the jets have made a difference for the German war effort? Yes ONLY if they had taken advantage of the technology WHEN it was first offered to the RLM.

Could they have won the war? NO they could not have. Nothing could save Germany from itself. The ONLY way the He280 or Me262 could have saved Germany, is if they killed Hitler and his top staff...

All the arguing about the Me262 versus this jet or that jet or dragging the war on for another year etc. is just putting off the inevitable. Even if Willy produced his HG series, or the Ta183 or the Ho229 were to appear, they would still have to deal with the Allies and thier ability to out produce Germany industry.

The very same Me262 versus (insert aircraft type here) argument is the same as the age-old argument of Tiger versus (insert tank type here) argument. They were as advanced as they were innovative, but stood about as much chance of survival as a Wolf Spider in a Fire Ant colony.
 
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I think the potential of the 262 propagates the myth. Had these aircraft entered service 2 years earlier could Germany have won the war? Questionable for sure. No doubt the war would have lasted longer but by how much? The same outcome? With the war prolonged, would this have set Germany up as a B-29 target (or B-32) target? In the end would Germany had been the first atomic bomb target? A lot of "what ifs."

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that Hitler's meddling in some respects did give the 262 priority as a bomber, eventually expediting its introduction, however in the wrong role. I believe this gave Ekdo 262, Kommando Nowotny time and resources to continue to "test" this aircraft while actively engaging the enemy. That alone created a major impact in the allied bombing strategy that enabled Germany to fight on into early 1945 IMO.

During the discussion about the "First Jet Fighter Unit," (not to beat this horse to death again), by the LW's own unit designations, the British could hold the bragging rights of having the world's first operational jet fighter "COMBAT" unit. The first German "COMBAT" unit to operate the 262 was KG51. During my research I've come across some discussion about KG51 receiving around 7 262s as early as 20 July 1944, one day before 616 squadron became operational. If true, it seems that JG51 didn't do much with these aircraft until mid August, one has to question why? Lack of fuel? Trained pilots? If anyone has anything to add, I'm all ears! (Erich are you out there? )
 
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My guess would that it had alot to do with training, the 262 was a tricky machine...even the early prototypes were tough to fly. The tail-drager prototype would run off the runway because the angle of the aircraft was cancelling it's lift. It wasn't until a test pilot "stabbed" the breaks, bringing the nose down, did the 262 get airborn. Of course that problem was fixed by designing a nosegear into the airframe.
 
I recall reading accounts about the pilots learning to fly it. There were several challenges they faced, like the longer takeoff/landing distances and the higher speeds required to land. The rate of closure to target was another.

One serious operating proceedure they needed to pay close attention to, was on the earlier models regarding the throttle. Many of the pilots were used to rapid throttle response and occasionally forgot to "measure" thier throttle position when operating the 262, leading to engine failure. This problem was addressed in later models but was a real dangerous situation for pilots that didn't have time in with the 262.

Once they became familiar with the 262, flying it was "as though angels were pushing" according to Galland.
 
Yes ONLY if they had taken advantage of the technology WHEN it was first offered to the RLM.
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As much as I agree with you Bill, we are entering 'what if' territory here, which is always problematic and raises as many questions as the ones we attempt to answer by proposing the question in the first place. It could be argued also that had the British placed Whittle in a position to build his engines earlier then Britain might have had a jet fighter earlier than the Germans. See what I mean?
 
Sure, it may be considered a "what if" but in light of Germany's capabilities, it certainly would have changed the face of the air war as the jets took to the skies early in the war.

But the Allies would have countered this threat with hardware and tactics of thier own as did happen throughout the war whenever any new hardware surfaced on the battlefield.

So like I said, would it have changed things if they did showed up earlier, you bet. Would they have won the war? Certainly not.
 
Yep, I don't disagree, Bill, a good summary. My concern with introducing 'what if' scenarios is that although the 'what if' questions we can pose are almost limitless, the answers are not and are governed by applicable laws; re-writing history is not easy and what actually happened and circumstances surrounding that has to play into any answer given to a 'what if' question - that is if the answer is to be based on reality and not just total fantasy. Too many people overlook this.
 
I agree.
If we look at the development of the Bf109, for example, we'll see how Willy was able to develop the aircraft after winning the competition and then hurried it to the front during the Spanish civil war with the help of the RLM.

Had he been able to get the same backing by the RLM in the early years with the Me262 project, it would have advanced much more rapidly. And of course, the same can be said for Heinkel, who had the He280 presented before the Me262.

A conclusion could be drawn from results of aircraft the RLM backed, and then look at the state of the supplies that the Luftwaffe had available early on, before resources became stretched thin (fuel, rubber, raw materials, bombing of manufacturing centers) and it can give a person a rough idea of how this may have changed things to a certain degree.

So while it's still in the realm of "what if", it's one that can be looked at with a reasonable amount of credibility.
 
Yes, I agree with you on that example, Bill. Part of the problem with such examples, however is also why decisions are made or not made in the first instance, often the reason might be obscure, but reasonable nonethelss. In this case, why was the decision taken not to back the Me 262 - unlike the Bf 109 and what made the RLM make the decision they did, for example.

This is why I struggle with accepting 'what ifs'! It's never as easy as we purport it to be.

Also, the more I learn about history, the more I can understand why things happened the way they did, which makes inventing scenarios even more difficult for me!
 
The absence of air-brakes on the Me-262 delayed its introduction into operations, just by itself and by a sizeable amount, I think.
It made landing procedures more complicated and more stricts too, which must have accounted also to a number of operational losses to the prawling Allied fighters. Accidents during its 'erpropung' time probably too. I read somewhere that German pilots in their training course had to practise take-off and land circuits on some propeller a/c with the gas throttle fixed in an intermediary position, quite a difficult exercise when you think of it. All this was time consuming. And it lasted until the end.

Allied engineers did not shy on putting air-brakes in their wonder-super-fast new machines (some doubts about the very first Meteors?) and I've always wondered why none of the German ones ever considered it. I can only understand that they were somehow 'blinded' by the speed-speed-speed aura their new babies were promising, coupled with the stress of producing some wonder weapons radical enough to impress events... They forgot the humble and the practical, the help for landing.
[edit : also the fact that 'air-brakes' were considered as 'dive-brakes' in Germany, as circumtances had it. So : "no dive-brakes on my 280", 262, Blitz or Volksjäger, or even Henshel 132 and that was it. A mistake.]
The Go-229 being the one exception, and it comes more as a demand from the flying wing's control system, from an outsider gliders' builder anyway.
I think it hampered the deployment of the 262s, all in all by more than weeks... and remained time consuming until the end.
 
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I keep reading that the RLM didn't back the Me 262. Has anyone got any figures for how much it did invest in the type and/or jet engines in general? I don't really see any evidence to back up the contention.

In 1939 Germany was the only major power to have embarked on an official development programme for aircraft gas-turbine engines and a parallel programme to investigate their application to military airframes.

After the prototype Me 262s less than staggeringly successful early flights in mid 1942, Milch, in December 1942 issued a top secret order, probably more in hope than expectation.

"The absolute demand for qualitative superiority of Luftwaffe equipment, over that of enemy countries, has led me to order the creation of an urgent production and development programme under the code word Vulkan.
Tasks proceeding under this code word have absolute over riding priority within the Luftwaffe.
The programme encompasses jet propelled aircraft and guided missiles, including associated equipment and the ground organisation necessary to support these activities.
A request has been made to the Reichminister for Armaments and Munitions to extend the legal force of the code word Vulkan throughout the entire armaments field. Development of some of the following equipment is already taking place under priority 'DE'. "


'DE' was already the highest production status that could be ordered within the German armaments industry. The Me 262 programme, already included under Vulkan received this on 22nd January 1943,only six months after Wendel had slammed on the brakes of Me 262 V3 in order to raise the tail (the fuselage blanked the elevators which had no authority even at what we now call V1) and heaved the aircraft into the air.

In March 1943, a year and a bit before the Me 262 was entering service in a fashion only one prototype was flying!. This was largely the fault of Messerschmitt, not Hitler, Goering or the RLM. There were many reasons, from Messerschmitt's point of view conflict between development of the Me 262 and Me 209 was used as an excuse. Production proposals were also low. On 4th February 1943 a target of 40-50 aircraft per month until early 1945 was agreed.
The fact that so many were actually built and that any actually saw combat in WW2 is a minor miracle.

It is an uncomfortable truth for some that the Me 262 was not developed in time to have any kind of strategic impact on the war not because of muddling by the RLM, over riding orders from Hitler or delays and prevarication from the Messerschmitt company. It failed because the Germans, under all the other pressures of war time production, did not have the time or ability to make it work properly within the time constraints of the latter half of WW2. The undoubted lead that Germany enjoyed at the out break of the war had been eroded and was never exploited.

Cheers

Steve
 
FLYBOYJ said:
It was still a test unit (not my opinion, but what the LW called it), not a Jagdgeschwader and all this came AFTER 616 squadron was flying the Meteor MK 1 and after KG51 was flying the 262.
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So which RAF unit was performing operational trials with the Meteor before 616 Squadron? I believe none... So either the British units role was just the same as the German one, or the British were really desperate pressing the Meteor into "operational" service without any trial... which is hard to believe.

As noted its just a playing with semantics, the Luftwaffe tended to use Erprobungskommando/Gruppe quite a lot for new planes, just as it tended to use the term "Sonder" (special) quite a lot for standard items. See Erprobungsgruppe 210 - a unit that was supposed to test the Me 210 but in fact it was a fully operational pin-point ground attack unit with 110s, flying special combat missions during the BoB, i.e. against radar stations. There was little Erprobung and even less 210 in the activities of that unit, still it was called like that.

The British also had the habit of creating ghost units - Squadrons were created on paper as operational ones but in reality receiving a full compliment of aircraft only many months later, and still spending a few months to familirize pilots with new planes. But yeah on paper in was "fully operational combat squadron" from day one. See for example the first Spitfire squadron, created sometime in the spring of 1938 iirc, but not even having a full a/c compliment until about the winter. The Spitfire XIV was supposed to have entered production in October 1943 - that is, if you consider two (IIRC) converted Mark VIIIs as "production" aircraft, following by many months of no production. Quite obviously, they were prototypes, but just like the 262/Meteor, there is a lot of national pride and semantics involved with who was "first".
 

Not true - the Meteor was first tested at Moreton Valence and later Farnborough by test units with dedicated test pilots. They did not fly any operational missions and were not attached to any operational squadron. The first lot of meteor Is were turned over to 616 Squadron as earlier mentioned.

I am aware of Erprobungsgruppe 210, bottom line they were a test unit, not a JG or KG. Again, this is by the LW's own designation, not mine.


What are the numbers of these squadrons? Do you have dates when they were operating and the dates these alledged prototypes arrived and were flown in combat?
 
I will have to consult my books Flyboy, if its very important - they are not available to me. But my opinion is that there is little to tell between an operational trial unit flying combat missions and a combat unit flying operational trials. The RAF just does not seem to bother with designating operational trial squadrons as such. All were called squadron, and I believe there were just a couple of "test flights" etc., usually for flying enemy equipment.
 
Hello Stona, I also wondered the claim that 262 didn't have RLM backing, difficult to believe when in Jan 44 there were 23 pre-production machines waiting for their engines, would that had been any more helpful for Germany to have hundreds of 262s waiting for their engines?

Juha
 

A very good point. The RLM did back the Me 262 it was regarded as a top priority project. Messerschmitt themselves did not and sought clarification in early 1943 (I'd need to dig out some old files to give an exact date) which they received.
The Me 262 airframe was not new technology, in fact it is a fairly typical Messerschmitt airframe. The new technology lay in the engines and this is also where the problems were.
People need to make a more honest appraisal of the state of development of the engines fitted to "operational" Me 262s. In other countries they would have been years away from operational use. It was the technical difficulties involved in the development of turbojets that prevented their production in quantity until well into 1944. Once the Germans got going they produced plenty, 6,000 Jumo 004s, which is impressive, even if they didn't work very well or for very long.

On another popular myth I can find no evidence that Galland ever stated in an official capacity during the war that the Me 262 should be reserved as a fighter. In the letter he wrote to Goering after he tested the Me 262 at Augsburg in May 1943 he wrote.

"Conclusion :a) Me 209 to be discontinued
b)Total fighter production to switch from the Fw 190 with BMW 801 to the Fw 190 with DB 603 and Jumo 213 respectively.
c) The construction and industrial capacities thus released to be concentrated on the Me 262, with immediate effect."

He was very keen on the Me 262 he wrote "The aircraft represents an enormous leap forward, it would give us an unimaginable lead over the enemy if he adheres to the piston engine". I can't find anywhere he said it should be reserved as a fighter and bomber interceptor until he started revising the history of the Luftwaffe post war.

Cheers

Steve
 
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The first Spitfire squadron was 19 squadron. It formed in 1915, disbanded in 1919, reformed in 1923. It was an operational squadron in 1938, equipped with the Gloster Guantlet, when it began converting to Spitfires.

RAF squadrons were not declared operational until they were equipped and ready for operations.

The Spitfire XIV was supposed to have entered production in October 1943 - that is, if you consider two (IIRC) converted Mark VIIIs as "production" aircraft, following by many months of no production.
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I count 20 Spitfire XIVs that had their first flights before the end of 1943: RB140, RB141, RB142, RB143, RB144, RB145, RB146, RB147, RB148, RB149, RB150, RB151, RB152, RB153, RB154, RB155, RB156, RB157, RB158, RB159
 
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