plan_D said:
P-51H and P-47M in escort, the Ta-152 could have dealt with them.
You say that so confidently. What makes you think the Ta-152 would have "dealt with" the P-51H or P-47M? By VE day, there were already more than twice as many P-51H's flying as Ta152 airframes laid down (ie: given a werknumber), and 7 times as many as Germany had been able to actually field.
The P-51H had a higher top speed (at a lower altitude, they were about equal at around 30,000-33,000 feet), could sustain higher speeds longer, had a better fighter vs. fighter armament, better visablity, a much better gunsight, better rate of roll, superior dive and zoom performance, and the pilot had a G-suit.
Typical combat would have been engaged at around 35,000-40,000 feet from which it would have descended, with the P-51H gaining hugely from its radiator thrust in the dive, giving it a huge relative power advantage at the bottom of the dives.
P-47M's likewise performed very well at 35,000 feet, and the tech from the P-47J would probably have been fully applied to a later model P-47 had the B-29 been deployed to Europe as a very high altitude bomber.
Only if the Ta had been produced in huge numbers would it have been able to "deal with" the P-47M and P-51H, and since it was much harder to manufacture this was not going to happen, even if Germany had not been crippled by Allied bombing.
plan_D said:
Since when could Germany not produce Me-262s? Is it me, or did they actually produce -262s that claimed a lot of bombers...
Ummm... lets see.... Germany laid down some 2500 Me262's, finished at least 1500 of those, but could only produce enough engines for 300 of those to actually fly. Of those 300, excluding those which were damaged or destroyed by the allies, the average engine life was about 5-7 hours, including about 2 hours of initial testing. So you tell me, could Germany produce the Me262? Seems to me the more appropriate assessment is that it tried to do so and failed.
Here's the complete list of Me262 kills, confirmed by post war cross reference:
29: Kurt Welter
24: Georg-Peter Eder
16: Heinz Bär, Rudi Rademacher, Franz Schall,
12: Erich Rudorffer, Hermann Buchner,
11: Karl Schnörrer,
8: Theodor Weißenberger, Walter Schuck, Heinrich Ehrler, Feldwebel Büttner (Erprobungskommando Nowotny), Feldwebel Lennartz (Erprobungskommando Nowotny), Günther Wegmann
7: Adolf Galland
6: Johannes Steinhoff, Fritz Müller,
5: Wolfgang Späte, Hans Grünberg, Klaus Neumann, Helmut Baudach, Gefreiter Heim, Leutnant Schreiber (Erprobungskommando Nowotny),
4: Wilhelm Steinmann,
3: Rudolf Sinner, --- Munz,
2: Walter Nowotny, Hans Waldmann, Walter Krupinski, Oberleutnant Bley (Erprobungskommando Nowotny), Oberfeldwebel Göbel (Erprobungskommando Nowotny), Walther Dahl, Heinz Gutmann
1: Wilhelm Herget, Gottfried Fährmann, Leo Schuhmacher, Erich Hohagen
In almost a year of combat, those 300 Me262's managed a total of 253 kills (including all plane types) -- not very impressive.
=S=
Lunatic