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That being said, the RLM should have left it alone to be a heavy fighter - but Oh No!, let's make it into a bomber or stick a big ass cannon in the nose.
The German Jet program was really never pushed from the onset by the RLM.
Von Ohain and Heinkel demonstrated their jet engine in '37 and got a yawn from the RLM.
Heinkel presented the He178 in '39 and got a collective yawn.
Heinkel presented a production ready combat fighter (He280) in Spring of '41 and again, got a collective yawn.
Enter the Me262, which because of the jet engine issue (industry wide), finally flew with jet power in '42 and all of a sudden, created mild interest.
Not excitement, mind you, but at least it was something - five years after the RLM was literally handed the Holy Grail of powered flight.
By then, it was too late and we know how it all turned out.
*if* the RLM took Von Ohain's presentation seriously and devoted realistic R&D backing for Jet engine development, things would ha e been a bit different.
Yeah, I understand that it was a slow-roller to start with. I still think the rush-job that happened once the writing was on the wall bespeaks overasking the engines. I think that was as important, in a bad way, as the digression into different combat roles.
Apply plenty of hindsalt to my opinion. I'm just some numpty online.
The LW should have devoted more resources earlier. That they didn't meant that when they dialed up production, the plane was quite simply too big an ask for the industry. In that sense, it fitsAkuma 's conditions of overcomplex and overspecifications, both.
Bear in mind that the RLM could have made the jet engine program a priority *if* they wanted to. In 1937, war was still a few years away an plenty of time to develop the Hirth, Jumo and BMW engines.Actually there is another very important reason that they didn't jump on the 'Jets' program, and that is economics. The German GDP at that time was roughly 40% of the American. If they wanted to give the Me-262 program the funding it needed for development on the scale of what the BF-109 or the JU-88 had received, it would have required drastic spending cuts in other aircraft programs. If an aircraft of the 262s potential came out of an American design department it's most likely that moneys would have been made available.
Hey GrauGeist,
re your post#21:Good Rant!
I have read contemporary (1920s-1930s) aviation books and magazines, both originals and republications, most of them of American origin whenever possible. A handful of them came from the UK and there was a smattering of German. These included both fictional and non fictional matter. Whenever ideas about the future of flight propulsion was discussed in them there appeared to be two lines of thought. One believed in improvements of piston engines and Propellors while the other, equally large group, posited the possibility of turbine technology. Exponents of this latter group used the advances in warship propulsion as a rough analogy. Specifically they pointed to the vast improvement in performance of steam turbines over the steam piston engines that had been the norm in the leading navies. The argument was that some form of turbine might be developed that would give a comparable advance in aviation over the then existing aircraft piston engines. With this in mind I find the idea of German aviation being somewhat lackadaisical towards Jet Turbines as curious.Bear in mind that the RLM could have made the jet engine program a priority *if* they wanted to. In 1937, war was still a few years away an plenty of time to develop the Hirth, Jumo and BMW engines.
Meanwhile, the RLM was encouraging all sorts of experimental Daimler and Junkers engine designs that were too complex and eventual failures.
Add to that, the political posturing and in-fighting within the RLM that hampered the jet engine program.
So in reality, it wasn't a matter if having enough money but instead, taking the technology seriously.
Thank you, Sir!
Yes, I've never understood what the USAAF was thinking with the P-61. If they wanted a Nightfighter they could have put radar on a suitably modified A-20 or something along those lines. They might have purchased some Mosquito's and Radared them up. There were a number of aircraft already in the inventory that might have been suitable for night fighting missions. Oh well, they probably had money to burn and the P-61 was a convenient project to let them do so. Note: I did some checking and found that the A-20 had been modified as a night fighter and given the designation P-70. Apparently it was good at middle and low altitudes but lacked high altitude capability. I believe the A-26 was capable of high altitude performance.The P-61 is tops on my 'overbuilt' list. Too big to be a dogfighter, too slow to keep up with late-war German fighters, remote controlled turret requiring an extra crewman and caused turbulence unless it was pointed straight ahead.
Actually there is another very important reason that they didn't jump on the 'Jets' program, and that is economics.
Yeah, I question that highly, as Germany in the late 30's was devoting a considerable anount of money to their military budget and even after the war started, they were spending ridiculous amounts of money on U-Boats, Tanks and Aircraft, etc.Do you have any credible evidence of that?!?
'The Wages of Destruction' by Adam Tooze. 'The Vampire Economy' by Gunter Reimann. One of the most common mistake's made by everyone before and during WWII was what is known as 'Mirror Imaging', that is the idea that your enemy or potential enemy has the same technological and logistic capabilities as you do. Even when such differences were acknowledged, they were not considered so great that they were not outweighed by some other advantage. A small but important group of Japanese leaders knew that they could not match the wartime economic capabilities of the United States but were equally convinced that Japanese cultural and spiritual superiority would make up for any deficit. Likewise in Germany the Nazi party was always going on about how 'Morale' could overcome any shortcomings in military material. I once read the following analogous economic comparison between America, Great Britain and Germany; (I have to paraphrase).Do you have any credible evidence of that?!?
Sorry but I don't buy this and all this rambling proves nothing. Yes, it was quite clear to all combatants the manufacturing capability of the US and it's economic capabilities. GrauGeist pointed out in his earlier post that the RLM had a huge defense budget and would have had no problem developing the turbine engine earlier had Nazi leaders seen it's full potential. Materials would have been a challenge and also remember that slave labor would have been a factor as well. The fact is no one fully embraced turbine powered aircraft until it was shown that this technology was able to out perform the contemporary piston engine combat aircraft of the day.'The Wages of Destruction' by Adam Tooze. 'The Vampire Economy' by Gunter Reimann. One of the most common mistake's made by everyone before and during WWII was what is known as 'Mirror Imaging', that is the idea that your enemy or potential enemy has the same technological and logistic capabilities as you do. Even when such differences were acknowledged, they were not considered so great that they were not outweighed by some other advantage. A small but important group of Japanese leaders knew that they could not match the wartime economic capabilities of the United States but were equally convinced that Japanese cultural and spiritual superiority would make up for any deficit. Likewise in Germany the Nazi party was always going on about how 'Morale' could overcome any shortcomings in military material. I once read the following analogous economic comparison between America, Great Britain and Germany; (I have to paraphrase).
'Towards the end of the 1930's in well developed industrial countries, people living in the middle classes could afford the following; a Refrigerator, a Radio and an Automobile. In America a middle class family could afford all three, in Great Britain, two out of the three and in Germany, one out of the three.'
When Winston Churchill spoke of America as a 'Steam Boiler able to generate unimaginable amounts of power', he was speaking of economic as well as military capability. WWII proved he was right.
Glad you brought up Russia. With the fall of the Soviet Union their archives were opened to historical researchers to a much greater degree than previously, including records on the Soviet Union itself and not just the Czarist regimes of the past. The reason that they were not out of the running is that starting with the takeover by the Communist Party the bulk of their GDP went into military spending. As a consequence there was effectively no middle class in Russia. There were either the workers or the 'party members'. In a way you might say that the latter might be a stand in for the middle class. The Soviets sacrificed the Russian peoples standard of living for a defensive and, hopefully in their view, offensive capability to be exercised when the Proletariat arose. I have read that on both military and internal security which was considered part of the military that 75% of the budget was spent on military and related expenditures.Interesting analogy about the refrigerator, automobile and radio.
However, a nation's ability to wage war really shouldn't be compared to personal amenities, otherwise the Soviet Union would have been out of the running from the start.
In regards to Germany's jet development:
How would it affect the war had the RLM embraced jet engine development from the start?
Simply put, they would have still lost the war.
However, the face of the air war would have changed considerably. The US and Britain would have needed to accelerate their jet programs to counter the Luftwaffe's inventory.
How the Soviet Union would have responded? I'm not sure. Perhaps reverse engineering a downed German fighter or perhaps Lend Lease would have provided aircraft/engines to help them catch up.
Italy (as noted earlier) was working on their own technology and may have received help from Germany.
However, in the Pacific, the vast distances would prove to be a challenge to first generation jet aircraft.
Just a follow up. It is only within the last decade or so that historians are taking a close look at the German economy under Hitler. The degree to which the Nazi's subordinated military spending to public spending in order to insure a reasonably comfortable standard of living for the populace in the years leading up to and during WWII is shocking. Huge is obviously an elastic term and one might compare Germany's spending in the years leading up to WWII to Russia's spending during the same period. Clearly if Germany had spent money to that degree they certainly would have been able to advance their Jet Turbine programs more easily. They would have been stockpiling or coming up with viable substitutes for scarce materials. While slave labor during the war was a factor of mass production after the successful completion of developments, it had nothing to do with the initial developments before the war.Sorry but I don't buy this and all this rambling proves nothing. Yes, it was quite clear to all combatants the manufacturing capability of the US and it's economic capabilities. GrauGeist pointed out in his earlier post that the RLM had a huge defense budget and would have had no problem developing the turbine engine earlier had Nazi leaders seen it's full potential. Materials would have been a challenge and also remember that slave labor would have been a factor as well. The fact is no one fully embraced turbine powered aircraft until it was shown that this technology was able to out perform the contemporary piston engine combat aircraft of the day.
Bottom line, $ wasn't an issue, foresight was.