Experimental German planes

[J dog]

Ok Let's say the Germans won WW2 and the Korean war still happened no matter any world changes after that. Would the German experimental planes or fastest planes be capable of taking on MiG -15s or Sabres? This is not me saying that the Germans could win the war though this is just me asking a question. Please comment and please make things appropriate and respectful towards others opinions!

 

[Jack_Hill]

I guess, if Germany had won WWII, MiG15 and F86 would simply not even had ever existed.
A kind of Tank, Messerschmitt, Junker, Dornier, etc...monopole should have take place instead.

 

[A4K]

Exactly. The MiG 15 was a culmination of development of the Fw Ta 183 design, and the swept wings of the F-86 were results of testing Me 262 wings- they were originally designed in usual straight wing format.

 

[J dog]

Ok I should have been more clear. Let's say against all the odds these planes were still created no matter the changes Germany made. I know that these would have no chance because Germany would have kept a tight shift and banned the making of war planes. That aside all the planes were to still be made and another war was started Germany's planes vs Sabre and Mig 15 and all the other Mig and Us jet and prop fighters would they have the speed, agility and altitude to duel with these planes. Just ignore anything outside like the developement and the rules and just focus on the planes themselves. Just ignore all of the obvious and focus on their performence.

 

[J dog]

sorry!

 

[Jack_Hill]

Then, yes, even if your proposal is a really severe "what if". Imaginating German industry having continue to develop, at this times, some very high performances a/c, it could give : close to, or supersonic aircrafts.
Reliable, powerfull afterburning engines.
Highly modern, clean aerodynamics with reasonnable (or more) maniability.
Hard hitting, very high RoF and accuracy canons, coupled with high precision (at last) gyro (+radar ?) gunsights.
hard hitting, low to medium range self guided missiles.
Kind of fully operational Me P-1101, Ho229, He162 or Ta183 indeed.
Or better, depending on politics and budgets.
We can too imagine such fighter aircrafts Geschwaders under, say, Erich Hartmann, heinz Barr or Adolf Galland command.
But not against MiG15 or F86.
Meteors, F80, maybe better...
Other than German techs would have rushed reaching the level by this time and, why not, with success, with many skilled, experienced pilots and leaders too...

 

[R Pope]

Given such a scenario, I would think the German aircraft industry would have made similar forward strides and developed second and third generation planes as capable as the Sabre and Mig, which were, after all, second generation jets themselves, based on captured German first gen planes.

 

[Wurger]

A moved thread from another section....

 

[wuzak]

If the Germans win the war then the Soviets have been defeated, so there will be no Soviet aircraft industry. I suppose it also means that the UK is occupied, and the US is also subjugated.

How the latter could happen I don't know. The US were developing platforms such as the B-36 for the eventuality that the UK fell to Germany, and bombing missions would have to be flown from the continental USA.

I suppose Germany winning the war would help Japan keep capture territories in South East Asia. And even if they were kicked out by the US, the Soviets had been defeated by Germany, so Korea would not have been divided into north and south and there would be no Korean war.

 

[davebender]

SNECMA Atar - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
If Germany remains a sovereign nation I assume BMW would continue development of BMW003 engine and follow on design would look a lot like the SNECMA Atar. BMW engine would compete with HeS 011 and advanced versions of Jumo 004 for contract to power the new swept wing German fighter aircraft.

 

[GrauGeist]

The F-86 and the MiG-15 definately would have never happened if the Germans avoided being defeated. But then again, the Korean war would have never happened then, either. Korea was the result of the unrest perpetuated by occupying Japanese forces and the Communist Chinese would have been busy fighting the Japanese occupation and the Chinese Nationalists, not invading (assumably still Japanese occupied) Korea.

However, it would be interesting to see how the Luftwaffe's aircraft developed at the rate they were going. The Me262A1a was Willy's first step towards the 262's eventual goal, the Me262 HGIII. There were also some very modern designs in the development stages from several manufacturers that held alot of promise: He P.1079a, Fw Projekt VII "Flitzer", Bv P.211.01, Me P.1100/II, Junkers jet-powered ground attack (un-named) project to replace the Hs129, Do P.256 and of course, the ones that were in service or nearly in service by war's end.

Then again, the Japanese were on the verge of having jet aircraft as well (Nakajima Kikka, KI-201, etc)

The skies would have certainly been different.

 

[tyrodtom]

Just because Germany was ahead in swept wing research in 1944-45 doesn't mean no one else couldn't do some study of it also.
Once WW2 was over, and the Allies had access to a lot of German research information, it saved them a lot of time and money, but that doesn't mean it couldn't have been done without that German research.

 

[Shortround6]

The Americans and British not only had large aircraft industries, by 1944/45 they had large research establishments (not always the same thing). Once their own jet fighters ran into drag problems in the 500+ mph range and they noticed German aircraft with swept wings they would have tried models in their wind tunnels and found out pretty quickly why the Germans were using swept wings. The Americans would have caught up to the Germans pretty quickly. Not because the Americans were any smarter but because the Americans would have had a lot more people working on the projects. The population of Germany in 1940 (including annexed Austria, Memelland, and the Sudetenland) was just over 80 million. The population of the US in 1940 was about 132 million. Throw in the populations of England and the British commonwealth and the Allies had a lot more people to draw engineers and research people from.
Just when in the years from 1945 to 1950 the F-86 would have appeared may be subject to debate but the US and Britain would not be using (or planning) solely straight wing aircraft in 1949/50.

 

[delcyros]

Swept wing research was publicly aviable due to the conference in Rome just prior the outbreak of ww2. Unfortunately, nobody noticed it until beeing forced to by reaching the transsonic realm. Even then it caused a lot of problems, representing basically a tradeoff between low-speed and high-speed realm. What You gain in the high speed realm, the layout has to give up in the low speed realm, complicating the technical application of swept wings. It requires sound structural design and use of very sophisticated high lift aids to work.
The allies were certainly capable to develop their own solutions on that. It may have required more time and money and thus may give an initial lead to the Luftwaffe but there cannot be a doubt that this would only be temporary.
US procurement policy was to prefer the P-80A as initial jet of late 1945/1946 to be augmented by Republics XP-86 which would appear not before 1947 in numbers. Its not entirely clear that the NA XP-86 (straight wing version) would have continued as the prototype didn´t provided for more speed than the existing P-80 and XP-84, which also had the benefit of beeing more advanced in stage of development.
The UK was preferring the Meteor and Vampire. However, any design on the drawing board intended to replace these A/C likely would have benefitted from swept wing designs. Critical Mach speed was the most limiting factor and thus, it is reasonable to assume the allies to concentrate their efforts to delete this obstacle and I cannot see why we should assume that they should be incapable of it.

I personally don´t think that population represents a useful measurement for engeneering questions in this timeframe. Otherwise China would be cutting edge. It´s a question of how many engeneerers were aviable and how skilled they were. Also how much basic theory had been worked out, and of course, how many ressources were directed to these efforts.

 

[davebender]

I would not make that assumption. We are cutting edge in some areas and rather backward in other areas.

For example, how many years were required for American small arms to catch up with MG42 machinegun? One could argue we still haven't as our current M240 and M249 machineguns were both designed by Fabrique Nationale.

 

[GrauGeist]

Another point regarding the Allied Jet designs...look at thier aircraft designs both existing and experimental before they were able to capture the German's designs and test data. The years directly following the defeat of the Axis saw a leap in Allied aircraft design for a reason.

 

[Shortround6]

I personally don´t think that population represents a useful measurement for engeneering questions in this timeframe. Otherwise China would be cutting edge. It´s a question of how many engeneerers were aviable and how skilled they were. Also how much basic theory had been worked out, and of course, how many ressources were directed to these efforts.

If you have populations that are educated to about the same level it provides a reference point or frame work. Obviously 100 million people (or more) who are effectively illiterate (no matter how intelligent) do not offer much help. With the US population about 60% higher than the greater German population it would take a much higher average education in Germany to over balance the population difference.
The population is also an indicator (one of many) of how many resources are available. You not only need lead engineers ( or idea men) but hundreds if not thousands of background engineers/draftsmen/calculators to turn the ideas into reality. Without computers all stress analysis and other calculations were done by rows of engineers (low level) sitting at desks with adding machines and slide rules.

The US had gone from about 12/13 wind tunnels prewar to about 40 by the end of the war with many of them located at collages and universities.

 

[fastmongrel]

You only have to look at the work that companies like Miles and Bell did to realise that any lead the Germans had would have been only temporary. Allied research was concentrated on refining the weapons that were winning the war, the Germans were desperately looking for a wonder weapon that would stop them losing.

Desperation will do wonders for ingenuity if the boot had been on the other foot I am sure a Miles Sparrowhawk Mk1a powered by a Rolls Royce afterburning Nene and carrying Red Flash Missiles would have been flying pretty quick.

 

[oldcrowcv63]

Just because Germany was ahead in swept wing research in 1944-45 doesn't mean no one else couldn't do some study of it also.
Once WW2 was over, and the Allies had access to a lot of German research information, it saved them a lot of time and money, but that doesn't mean it couldn't have been done without that German research.

The Americans and British not only had large aircraft industries, by 1944/45 they had large research establishments (not always the same thing). Once their own jet fighters ran into drag problems in the 500+ mph range and they noticed German aircraft with swept wings they would have tried models in their wind tunnels and found out pretty quickly why the Germans were using swept wings. The Americans would have caught up to the Germans pretty quickly. Not because the Americans were any smarter but because the Americans would have had a lot more people working on the projects. The population of Germany in 1940 (including annexed Austria, Memelland, and the Sudetenland) was just over 80 million. The population of the US in 1940 was about 132 million. Throw in the populations of England and the British commonwealth and the Allies had a lot more people to draw engineers and research people from.
Just when in the years from 1945 to 1950 the F-86 would have appeared may be subject to debate but the US and Britain would not be using (or planning) solely straight wing aircraft in 1949/50.

I would not make that assumption. We are cutting edge in some areas and rather backward in other areas.

I think these are good points. It is my understanding that the foremost aspect of the German contribution to the adoption of swept wing technology was the experimental data they had accumulated in wind tunnels flight tests and operations. Wikipedia states that in early 1945 NACA engineer R.T. Jones duplicated the German theoretical work reported in 1935 by German engineer Buseman in Italy. By May 1945, wind tunnel models had shown that swept wings produced a significant drag reduction. I don't know whether this was duplicated in Britain but it does appear they adopted the technology very rapidly. Not terribly surprising considering their own seminal work in the area of jet engines and propelled aircraft was nearly apace with the Reich's while establishing the basis for US work in the field.

In the context of german vs allied technology and research, I am not sure backward in some ares is quite accurate. I would perhaps say more resistant to deviate from what appeared to be more promising paths. Recips and straight wings still seemed to be showing some promise in the high speed to transonic realm, including greater endurance and acceleration and also performance that exceeded early jets and apparently that approaching the faster second generation (262). The XP-47J coming within ~40 mph of the 262, IIRC. The flirtation with hybrid engines was ascendent. Assuming a nazi victory seems a stretch considering the US had the bomb at the end and the reich's research was floundering. I could more easily imagine a drawn out war with the US attempting to liberate an occupied Europe or some sort of negotiated truce or cease fire with England surviving unoccupied. The straight winged P-80 is typically reported as having double the legs of the Me-262 and a similar speed. While it was perhaps a tad slower in its earliest incarnation, the P-80 had a much shorter development period had not yet achieved its full potential while the 262 had been operational for a longer period and was suffering from the deprivation brought about due to its war torn axis environment. In the event that there was a delay in the war's conclusion and time and material for continued development of both aircraft, the results would have been interesting but I believe that prospect has been beaten to death in the pages of the forum.

 

[delcyros]

If you have populations that are educated to about the same level it provides a reference point or frame work. Obviously 100 million people (or more) who are effectively illiterate (no matter how intelligent) do not offer much help. With the US population about 60% higher than the greater German population it would take a much higher average education in Germany to over balance the population difference.
The population is also an indicator (one of many) of how many resources are available. You not only need lead engineers ( or idea men) but hundreds if not thousands of background engineers/draftsmen/calculators to turn the ideas into reality. Without computers all stress analysis and other calculations were done by rows of engineers (low level) sitting at desks with adding machines and slide rules.

The US had gone from about 12/13 wind tunnels prewar to about 40 by the end of the war with many of them located at collages and universities.

Actually, this is more or less speculative what You wrote. As I said, not the whole population but the size of the technological ressources is important, particularely that devoted primarely for aerodynamic research. You need to work out the number of those employed in the US and Germany in this field to get an idea about this. It takes years to train an aeronautical engeneerer, not months. It takes a great deal of expertise in addition to academic training to become a contributing engeneerer in aeronautic industries. Finally, it takes ressources and the correct decision of research question to extract meaningful results. Population, even literate population is not a helpful indicator for a rapid catchup in cutting edge technology, sorry, I don´t buy this idea.

Wrt wind tunnels, for the issues under question in high speed aircraft, You don´t need 40 subsonic wind tunnels, You need windtunnels operating in the transsonic and supersonic realm. Germany was in posession of them, the NACA not until it ot access to german ones and established it´s first domestic one in the late 40´s.