Dogfight: Me 262 vs. Meteor

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All other things being equal (eg geometry, mass density) the vibrational frequency is a function of the modulus of elasticity. That's only about 10% different for mild steel and stainless. The harmonics shouldn't be an important issue.
...The dominant factor in preventing quality engines was the inadequate supply of nickel and to a lesser extent chromium; design issues were definitely there such as poor fuel control (leading to overheats and flameouts) but it's hard to blame the engines lack of refinement since the overheats due to fuel overdosing could have been tolerated with better alloys. A vast engineering effort went into reducing the nickel requirements of the engine down to about 6.0 kg/unit. On its own this distracted much talent away from the basics. The pioneer in jet engines in Germany and effectively the world was Heinkel and one reason they failed to get orders was that they were not as far down the path of reducing nickel consumption as the other manufacturers.

A case in point is the combustion chamber cans. There were six of these arranged as a ring around the shaft, they were initially made of a heat and corrosion resistant high nickel and chromium content austenitic alloys (basically a fancy stainless steel). In order to reduce demand for these metals the cans were made out of ordinary carbon steel with an aluminium oxide coating (effectively ceramics). Thus these can needed to be replaced at least every 25 hours. In fact the cans often burned through. Even eliminating the nickel but retaining the chromium would have improved this enormously. Another case in point is the translating exhaust cone which was also of ordinary steel and distorted under heat and stress to block the engine.
Re: Me 262 Mythology
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In retrospect, rather than building around 1400 poor-quality machines, they should have limited production to 500 high-quality units.
That would have been more than adequate to destroy the USAAF bomber force even if only half could get into the air at any given time?
 
Zyzygie said:
...That would have been more than adequate to destroy the USAAF bomber force even if only half could get into the air at any given time?
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Even if the Luftwaffe had 1,000 Me262s fully equipped with all the fuel they needed, endless ammo supply, all the qualified pilots to fly them and an endless supply of parts, the Allies still would have overwhelmed them with the 1,000 plus bomber stream and hundreds of fighters on escort rotation and the rest on CAP missions.

And this was each day...
 
The biggest causes for losses had nothing to do with enemy action, or the airworthiness of the me 262. Losses would occur at a more or less predictable rate based on non-combat attrition. Once the Allies achieved air superiority, ther was nothing the LW could do. they could have been flying f-104s for all the good it would do. 1000 Me 262s over a 1 year production run, give or take, aint going to change the basic dynamics of the situation.
 

The Me 262s took out something like 500 Allied aircraft,mostly USAAF bombers. If the LW was able to get an average 200 (six times actual) 262s in the air each day, we could expect the USAAF to lose in the order of 2000+. With that sort of attrition rate they would have packed up and go home:
"...Meanwhile, the losses to the bomb groups continued unabated. During the week prior to Black Thursday, the Eighth Air Force lost nearly 90 bombers on three missions. It was obvious to everyone, including the Germans, that not even America's vast resources could sustain such losses indefinitely."​

"As expected, bomber crew morale began to falter as the losses piled up. The situation was aggravated somewhat by the Luftwaffe tactic of targeting one particular bomb group for heavy losses or, if possible, extinction, The 100th Bomb Group (BG) earned the nickname 'Bloody 100th' after it lost 12 out of 13 aircraft following an October 10 Munster mission, while the 492nd BG, a B-24 outfit, was nearly wiped out after becoming a 'marked group' the following year."

"Joseph W. Baggs, 384th BG lead bombardier, recalled that as early as August only eight of the group's original crews were left. Four days before Mission 115, the 381st BG's medical officer wrote that 'morale is the lowest that has yet been observed...'
World War II: Eighth Air Force Raid on Schweinfurt | HistoryNet​

Also if Germany had not tried to pursue the counterproductive V2 project (see previous posts), much more resources would have been available for fighters. More 262s would have meant fewer 88mm flak guns required and hence release for anti tank duty. (10,000 were dedicated to anti aircraft duty).
The vicious circle would arguably been broken, and with it Allied air superiority.
 
trouble is you are comparing totally un-escorted bombers in mid/late 1943 to escorted bombers in late 1944. The Jets cannot totally ignore the escorts and even more important, by Oct/Nov of 1944 Allied fighters were based on the Continent putting them that much closer to the German fighter fields to harass the Germans take-off and landing.
large scale us of the jets didn't happen until the March of 1945 at which point even shooting down 2000 allied bombers wasn't going to change anything. Different tactics would have come rapidly before such losses were reached. perhaps including tactical bombers to attack any known (or even suspected) German air fields/bases along the routes of the main bomber forces shortly before the big bomers showed up. Low level raids suitable backed up by their own fighters borrowed form tactical air force units?

From Wiki so take it for what it is worth : " During March, Me 262 fighter units were able, for the first time, to mount large-scale attacks on Allied bomber formations. On 18 March 1945, 37 Me 262s of JG 7 intercepted a force of 1,221 bombers and 632 escorting fighters. They shot down 12 bombers and one fighter for the loss of three Me 262s."
Please note that the late 1944 and early 1945 raids were vastly larger than the 1943 raids. The main raid referred to in your quote was 379 bombers to start with and only about 220-230 made it to the target. Germans waited until the escorts had turned back (due to short range) to attack.
 
You are not factoring in attrition.

How many Me262s were lost to operational incidents: catastrophic failure of engine and landing/takeoff error?
How many Me262s were lost to Allied fighters?

The number is considerable. The Me262 was fearsome to bombers and occasionally an Allied PRU or fighter, but it could NOT maintain Axis air supremacy. The Luftwaffe simply did not have a fighter that could offer the magic solution to preserve a safe operating theater for the Me262. And the Me262 was not a fighter, it was a "heavy fighter" (interceptor). The only chance the Luftwaffe had for a suitable top cover for the Me262, was perhaps the He280, but due to a series of events, the He280, which was a true fighter in the sense of the word, did not have the engines available for it for which it was designed.

So the bottom line, is the Me262 had to operate in a hostile environment, even if there were 1,000 Me262s, they would have still fell victim to the Allied fighters. Bear in mind, that as the war was progressing, the Allied piston fighters were becoming even deadlier not to mention that the day was coming that the Allied jets would soon appear.

For every Allied aircraft that fell, another was ready to take it's place, for every Luftwaffe aircraft that fell, there was nothing.

From 1943 onwards, the Luftwaffe was playing end game, there is no working around that fact.
 
Zyzygie said:
The Me 262s took out something like 500 Allied aircraft,mostly USAAF bombers..
Click to expand...

In fact the pilots of Me 262 made 445 CLAIMS, including those made as probable, for allied aircraft of all types, both by day and night. Since the Luftwaffe's claims system had more or less collapsed by late 1944 not even that organisation confirmed them all.
It is always difficult to accurately assess claims, but one thing is certain, whichever air force you look at, the claims will largely exceed the enemy's actual losses.

127 of those CLAIMS were for single engine fighters, I've counted all the Mosquitoes and a few IL-2s as bombers. Roughly 1 in 3 CLAIMS were for fighters.

On the other hand we can confirm 454 losses to all causes for the Me 262. Their losses are similar to, just exceeding, their claims! It was the Germans who couldn't afford to trade their jets at anything like that ratio. More worryingly we know that at least 149 of the 464 pilots known to have flown the Me 262 died doing so. I haven't even counted the handful of MIAs, just those that were definitely killed flying the type. That's a loss rate of 32%.

USAAF pilots CLAIMED 168 Me 262s destroyed and a similar number damaged. RAF pilots CLAIMED 31 Me 262s destroyed, and even more damaged. In total, Allied fighter pilots CLAIMED to have shot down 199 Me 262s and damaged a similar number. Even if we accept claims as losses the Me 262 had a 2:1 ratio over the allied fighters, something the allies could afford and the Germans could not, particularly when the appalling accident rate is added into the equation.

The bold is to emphasise that claims are not actual losses.

Some perspective on the numbers.
The first allied aircraft was shot down by an Me 262 in July 1944, the last on 8th May 1945, a total of 10 months for the 445 claims.
In July and August 1944, just 2 months, German flak shot down more 8th and 15th AF aircraft (475) than the Me 262 did in its entire 10 months of operations.
The Me 262 was no more a game changing, war winning, weapon than the 8.8cm flak cannon was.

Cheers

Steve
 
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So what do missions which were relatively early in the air campaign and flown without escorts and, by comparison with 1944-45 standards, a small attacking force, have to do with jet interceptor issues that wouldn't come up for six months to a year? If you're looking for documentation to back up your position, this isn't it. In fact the quotes you referenced have no bearing at all as far as I can see on what you're trying to prove. About the only thing they illustrate is how badly the Eighth Air Force needed the Mustang and how much it was needed six months earlier than it arrived. It's a bit of a stretch to use losses to piston engine fighters/flak when talking about how jets were going to win the air war.
 
Another rather unfortunate stretch when imagining 200 Me 262s in the air at one time is providing pilots for them. The initial intakes of Me 262 pilots came from zerstorer and bomber units as they were often more highly qualified and comfortable with multi engine types. They were a resource diminishing to vanishing by late 1944. The piston engine fighter units were severely diluted already, often comprising a small core of experienced pilots and many barely qualified. The situation was so bad in some units that the youngsters were not allowed to fly operationally, the only obvious way to save their lives. It would be impossible to transfer the experienced few to the Me 262 units without destroying the already limited efficiency of their units.
Cheers
Steve
 

There was some 10000 of the 8,8cm Flak (56 cal barrel) around in mid-44, and perhaps twice as much 2 and 3.7 cm guns. Plus a number of 10.5, 12.8 and long-barrel 8.8cm pieces. Manned by 2 milions men?
 
Something like that. The figure I have for personnel in the third quarter of 1944 is a bit lower at 1,110,900, 40% of whom were not Luftwaffe personnel.
Flak guns are cheap compared to jet fighters and their crews are much more quickly, cheaply and easily trained. A very high proportion of personnel operating search lights were women. There were no female fighter pilots Training a gunner, radar or search light operator required very little fuel at all.
The Wermacht did invest considerable resources into the Luftwaffe's flak arm, but then it was effective. Well over half the USAAF's aircraft losses in Europe were to flak rather than fighters (5,400 and 4,300 respectively).
In the first four months of 1944, before an Me 262 had claimed an allied aircraft, the 8th and 15th Air Forces lost 315 heavy bombers to flak and had an astonishing 10,653 damaged. These are NOT claims, these are the USAAF's acknowledged losses.
Cheers
Steve
 
With how much, 25000 Flak vs. 500 LW fighters in 1944 West of Oder? 50:1 ratio? Where the heavy Flak downs 315/120= 2.6 US heavy bombers a day. The Flak uses a pinch of fuel, but they use capacities of chemical industry, that needed to provide explosive filler and propellant charge for Flak ammo. Plus steel for shells, plus copper for fuses; casings can be re-used, though. It took, by 1944, 16000 (16 thousand) of heavy shells to kill one bomber. That is, if we take 13 kg of war material per shell, 208000 kg (208 metric tons) per a destroyed bomber.
One fire control radar per 2-3 batteries? With 12000 of heavy flak (from 7.5 to 12.8 cm), 4-8 guns per battery, 2000 batteries, 700-1000 radars, without covering for losses. Quite a number for a country lacking copper.
Granted, they were managing to damage bombers, but a significant number of those bombers will be back in less than a week. We know for sure that, once Luftwaffe fighter arm was punched out of the game, that USAF bomber losses plumetted from, unsustainable, 2-digit numbers dow to 2-3%. This is where heavy Flak racked up it's numbers vs. fighter arm, plus light Flak results.

added: cheap and quick to train Falk crews were one of reasons why the number of heavy shells needed to kill an aircraft jumped frrom 4000 in 1942 to 16000 in 1944
 
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On the otherhand, how much time and material to manufacture a single fighter: airframe, weapons, engine, electrical and so on.

what is the matierial required for one 88 shell versus a full loadout for a Fw190A-8 (MG and cannon) - in otherwords, an 88 shell needing a single casing, primer, fuse, warhead versus each round made for the Fw190's MGs and 30mm.
 
Steve, Grau and Tomo,

Since you are looking at weapons systems (weapon, operator, training and costs) would not the Limfac (limiting factor) remain the Luftwaffe pilot? The German manufacturing machine produced everything except a good CINC (let's not bite off more than we can chew or over commit), fuel (the oil fields needed to be "taken and held" while production of well trained crews / troops ramped up), and pilots. I'm sure there are more but inline with the current vein of this thread that regardless of what and how much was made without fuel or operators the Axis versus Allies production "war" was lost.

Comments?

Cheers,
Biff
 
Choices need to be established in a timely manner - where to spend the resources, with best bang for buck being the metric. Luftwaffe, the key (with Heer) for victory needs fuel both for operations and for training of new pilots, that are of course necessity. Flak does not contribute to the victory that much, while consuming huge manpower and material resources. Those resources are 'black' metalurgy (iron mostly), 'colored' metalurgy (copper, aluminum mostly), the resources of chemical industry (1st the need to construct the factories, then the raw materials needed for explosives and propellent charges), precision instruments (for fuses), electronics (radars, radios, cables). Manpower is needed in factories and in operation of Flak. Million to million and half of just heavy Flak shells need to be transported. Germany also provides aircraft for it's allies, Flak won't do it. Flak can't provide escort.

Basically - channel the resources in greater expansion of oil industry, both natural and synthetic. More pilots with longer training will make something with aircraft they flew, starting from 1940 on. Produce mostly light Flak, like the UK, USA and SU did, maybe 1/5th-1/4 of historical heavy Flak. Pre-war trained gun crews need to stay in the Flak arm as much as possible, they will make shells fired count. Expand the night fighter arm.

Granted, once Germany is in the war with 3 major empires or 'empires', they stand slim to no chances.
 
Biff, it's true that Germany had no reserve of pilots.

A glaring example would be the airlift to supply the beseiged forces at Stalingrad. They were pulling in secondary bomber pilots, flight instructors (and thier aircraft) and anyone qualified on multi-engine, to man the transports. A great deal of valuable instructors were lost during this disaster, as well as much needed aircraft.

As the war progressed, raw materials were still in plentiful quantities for production of certain items, but essentials like oil and rubber were not. The domestic refineries and synthetic fuel/oil production centers were being bombed relentlessly and this led to fuel shortages not only in the much needed supply infrastructure, but at pilot school and the front line.

So the Luftwaffe not only had a shortage of pilots, but they had aircraft sitting idle on the line waiting for fuel, R&R parts (because not only was fuel in short supply for transports but they were being ravaged by Allied GA missions which caused huge delays in getting parts to the front - if ever) and dwindling skilled crewmen to keep the aircraft going.

There's alot of late/post war photos of Luftwaffe aircraft on airfeilds sitting there missing an engine, lifted on stanchions waiting for replacement tires or clustered around a service facility waiting for parts that never arrived.

I may have mentioned it before, but the Me262s weren't warmed up on the ramp, they were towed out to the line by a vehicle and started as their turn came in the que, having just enough spin-time to get the engines up to temp before T/O.
 
Quality wasn't the issue (the decline in quality was more due to worsening war conditions than anything) it was sheer time/engineering resources to get functional engines into mass production. In 1942 it SEEMED like the 004 was nearing mass production, but a bunch of unexpected problems came from resonance issues when using different materials (the thermal and mechanical stress issues with using mild steel and stainless steel in the construction without rare/proprietary turbine alloys -and LOTS more stainless steel for the combustion chambers and such, were all expected, it was the vibration issues that caught them off guard).

The 003 hit many longer delays in refining their design and the 006 (HeS 30) was cancelled outright in 1942 when it was catching up in development at a very rapid pace compared to the 003/004. (the various HeS 8 derivatives might also have proven somewhat useful, less so the diagonal compressor one, but possibly the low bypass single-spool turbofan development) In hindsight of course, Jumo should have never been compelled to absorb the Junkers aircraft team's development (Wagner and Muller's works -that went to Heinkel) to be abandoned in favor of only focusing on the 004, that cost at least a year in development time for what became the 006, and was less solidly funded/supported than it could have been at Junkers. (let alone with the potential sharing of information between the Junkers and Jumo teams, including combustion chamber and turbine design -the compressor was the big contrast there, the 004 trading weight and efficiency for extreme simplicity of production using rather crude stamped compressor blades of an impulse type vs the reaction blading of the 006 which required precision machining -though used a great deal less material for its smaller diameter and only 5-stage compressor to the 004's 8 stages for similar mass flow, compression, and thrust -the combustion chambers and turbine design would have had the most overlap)

Now, the only other workaround for pushing the 004 into mass production sooner would have been to retain the costly proprietary 004A's turbine alloy, but shift to cost reduced components everywhere else (and stretch those 100 proproduction 004As into several hundred or more). Alternatively, another proprietary alloy that was less centered on scarce materials but similar in resonant characteristics might have been an interim workaround. Cobalt and molybdenum content would be the critical components to omit, but an alloy very high in nickel would have been practical mid-war before the German Nickel supply was cut off from Finland. (very late war they had almost no Nickel available, but earlier in the war it was far, far more plentiful than chromium to the extent the latter was easily the limiting factor for high temperature alloys -especially if you're willing to curtail certain competing industries using those metals, preferably not aircraft piston engine production though -also note they'd have had even more Nickel if their transportation network to Finland was better; the big bottleneck was getting finish ore to German plants) A Nimonic type alloy with very high nickel content (and roughly the same chromium content as stainless steels like Tinadur and Cromadur) should have been feasible early to mid war, or later war if they'd maintained their alliance with Finland longer. (such alloys had been considered by Krupp pre-war, but witheld from mass production in favor of Tinadur -primarily- due to the questionable availability of Nickel and relative lack of need for super high nickel content alloys -most major practical applications pre-war favored the more typical stainless steel characteristics Tinadur offered -also note those high-nickel alloys considered didn't include cobalt and molybdenum, just higher portions of Nickel with the same general composition of metals in Tinadur -Nickel, Iron, Chromium, Titanium- but with far less iron, very similar to Nimonic developments in the UK but unlike the turbine Alloys GE was using in the US which I believe had been employing significant cobalt and molybdenum content)

Halford/De Havilland's turbine developments for the Goblin were also somewhat more in line with German developments as far as not using Nimonic to solve their turbine heat/strength problems. (I believe reducing turbine inlet temperature as well as RPM and overall stresses on the turbine -exhaust gas flow relative to blade area and such- and using more available high temperature/oxidation resistant alloys, while apparently also adopting hollow turbine blades post-war for the Goblin II's increased turbine inlet temperature along with aerodynamic improvements and improvements in the diffuser and combustion chamber )



That said, the Me 262 doesn't solve night bombing issues, and success in repelling USAAF precision bombing operations likely just means a transition to British night carpet bombing tactics. The Germans needed a really potent night interception force (and coordination with ground radar) more than they needed jet powered day interceptors.
 
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GrauGeist said:
I may have mentioned it before, but the Me262s weren't warmed up on the ramp, they were towed out to the line by a vehicle and started as their turn came in the que, having just enough spin-time to get the engines up to temp before T/O.
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fastmongrel said:
Was that to save fuel or engine life.
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In many if not most turbine engines, there is little "warm-up" time needed unlike a recip. Cool down during shut down - different story.

This is from Zeno - the POH developed by the AAF for captured Me 262 operation. Although there is a paragraph about "warm up" and ground test, there is no specific warm up parameter, the only requirement was ensuring the exhaust temp didn't exceed 650 C.

http://zenoswarbirdvideos.com/Images/Me262/262PilotHandbook.pdf
 
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fastmongrel said:
Was that to save fuel or engine life.
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For fuel conservation

When the engines start, you have to watch the pyrometers (exhaust temp) stabilize and then bring the engine RPMs up to level.

While the Rydell expedited the process as opposed to an electronic start, it still saved a great deal of fuel starting the engines on the flightline and then on to a direct T/O instead of startup back on the ramp and taxiing into the que.

By the way, I was given a training video years ago that has an awesome step-by-step start up procedure. I can't find a copy of it on the internet, but I did come across a great vintage Luftwaffe training overview video that's really worth watching!

 
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