Fw better then Me-262?

My impression is that we're getting closer to an agreement. From the start of this discussion I've noticed that our opinions are not all that different. I think we just put emphasis on different aspects of the discussion. I agree with most of the points you make, just not with the conclusion that come from them.

"And I'll ask you this for the second time, where and how did Me 262s lose fights due to structural problems?"
Again I never said that the aircraft did that. I said over time it would and that is fact because of the construction.

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Oh no, this is you not understanding me, not the other way around. My point was: "ok, it had structural problems but did this lead to Me 262 losing fights?" So that's why I asked "where and how did ..." Because if it didn't lead to this, then I think it's irrelevant in the discussion of the Me 262 being the best fighter of 1944/45.

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:

And where is proof that they were not built to last. Show me facts of construction. I can only think of one and that is the Me-262 and it was constructed very poorly. Actually I take that back all aircraft from 1944 on were constructed poorly.

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Exactly!!

I would not have mass produced the Me-262 until it was ready...

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I think you've got a good point there. But when I think about it, there are rarely complex aircraft that are ready when put into mass production. Just look at the Fw 190, He 177, B-26, B-29, P-80, Typhoon, Tempest, La-7, ...
I don't know ... but perhaps it's because these were considered to be 'ready enough' to warrant mass production.
Given the situation the Luftwaffe was in: too few pilots and fuel to use large amounts of aircraft, wouldn't it be better to use those few resources in a fighter which - although it is difficult to maintain and needs new parts for its engines after 10 hours - is a better fighter than the ones which are flying now, in the Luftwaffe or in the allied AFs?
Remember, that with less operational fighters, there are more resources for ground crews. If there was something that was still working in 1945 it was the Luftwaffe ground personnel because they had less work pressure due to less flights/missions.

Being shot down is not a fact pertaining to construction of the aircraft.

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Well, it leads to a construction policy. If you expect your fighters to last for 5 years as in peacetime, you'll build them different than when you lose them after 5 months. It was no longer cost effective to build aircraft according to pre-war standards, but it took until Speer took over before industrials were forced to adapt their construction techniques.
(Shortly thereafter quality dropped even further and way below the lowest standards but this was not intended but forced upon the German industry by a shortage of materials and qualified and motivated personnel.)

Kris

Don't know if you've seen this, but it's a rather interesting read.

http://www.zenoswarbirdvideos.com/Images/Me262/ME262PILOTDEBRIEF.pdf

Have it already but still a great read

Civettone said:

My impression is that we're getting closer to an agreement. From the start of this discussion I've noticed that our opinions are not all that different. I think we just put emphasis on different aspects of the discussion. I agree with most of the points you make, just not with the conclusion that come from them.

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Quite possibly. I dont think we will ever agree with the conclusion. It has been an interesting read either way. We will have to drink some belgian beer and discuss this more over a few drinks.

Civettone said:

Oh no, this is you not understanding me, not the other way around. My point was: "ok, it had structural problems but did this lead to Me 262 losing fights?" So that's why I asked "where and how did ..." Because if it didn't lead to this, then I think it's irrelevant in the discussion of the Me 262 being the best fighter of 1944/45.

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And I told you initially no it would not, however given some time it would have had structural failures. This is a factor in what can be considered best or not.

Civettone said:

I think you've got a good point there. But when I think about it, there are rarely complex aircraft that are ready when put into mass production. Just look at the Fw 190, He 177, B-26, B-29, P-80, Typhoon, Tempest, La-7, ...
I don't know ... but perhaps it's because these were considered to be 'ready enough' to warrant mass production.
Given the situation the Luftwaffe was in: too few pilots and fuel to use large amounts of aircraft, wouldn't it be better to use those few resources in a fighter which - although it is difficult to maintain and needs new parts for its engines after 10 hours - is a better fighter than the ones which are flying now, in the Luftwaffe or in the allied AFs?
Remember, that with less operational fighters, there are more resources for ground crews. If there was something that was still working in 1945 it was the Luftwaffe ground personnel because they had less work pressure due to less flights/missions.

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You see that is where I disagree with you. I think it is better to put up lots of good fighters that are on the same page for the most part as the allied aircraft. Use the Me-262s but send them up after the bombers and use the mass amounts of Fw-190s and Bf-109s that you have to fight the P-51s and Spitfires.

Civettone said:

Well, it leads to a construction policy. If you expect your fighters to last for 5 years as in peacetime, you'll build them different than when you lose them after 5 months. It was no longer cost effective to build aircraft according to pre-war standards, but it took until Speer took over before industrials were forced to adapt their construction techniques.
(Shortly thereafter quality dropped even further and way below the lowest standards but this was not intended but forced upon the German industry by a shortage of materials and qualified and motivated personnel.)

Kris

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And I dont agree with that. That is a big mistake in my opinion. Poor construction leads to an aircraft that can take less damage and can not perform as well.

I understand they had shortage of materials and so forth but it is a very bad idea.

Alder the IL 2 was very poorly constructed(plus mixed construction) but look how much damage it could withstand. An IL2 under restoration shown numerous examples of poor work practies such as angle iron riveted on top of domed riverts.

Speer trying to increase aircraft production was incensed by the German aero industries insistance of building parts to exacting tolerances which did not require it. They were still polishing the welds off the FW190 tailwheel legs towards the end of 43, they also produced the finest built bomber seats of any nation even towards the end of the war.

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:

Quite possibly. I dont think we will ever agree with the conclusion. It has been an interesting read either way. We will have to drink some belgian beer and discuss this more over a few drinks.

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Yeah, I've also said my piece Was a good discussion.
Looking forward to the beer. Have you ever tried Duvel?


Kris

Yes I have tried a few. It is not bad.

The Fw-190 and the Me-262 engaged in out different sorts of attacks. The Fw-190 conducted a more traditional Bf-109 style attack where it attacked and then it kept in the fight. The Me-262 on the other hand had a sort of slashing attack where it would attack and then it would need to go round again. Typically the Me-262 has a lower kill-rate because of closing-speed and the lack of time to fire at the target to finish it off. Therefore it is really very difficult to compare these two aircraft as they were both designed for a different type of fight.

HealzDevo said:

The Fw-190 and the Me-262 engaged in out different sorts of attacks. The Fw-190 conducted a more traditional Bf-109 style attack where it attacked and then it kept in the fight. The Me-262 on the other hand had a sort of slashing attack where it would attack and then it would need to go round again. Typically the Me-262 has a lower kill-rate because of closing-speed and the lack of time to fire at the target to finish it off. Therefore it is really very difficult to compare these two aircraft as they were both designed for a different type of fight.

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Really? And what source to you base this brilliant information from?

His 'brilliant' mind

Video game...

The Me-262 could stay and fight as-well, as long as it kept the speed high - prefereably above 500 km/h.

Still being at that speed 500km/h plus dictates a high closing speed and thus there is a shorter period to fire. You said yourself that the Me-262 stayed at high speed. Therefore this would indicate that it would need to turn around at the end of its run. It has a very low kill ratio because there was very little time to aim and fire the guns at the opposition. In contrast the Fw-190 was slower and a better platform for dog-fighting. You look at the stats and think for yourself about what it would mean in a fight with a Spitfire or a Mustang of the time. That is my logical way of looking at things but I am open to being proved wrong if you can...

Devo, read back the thread: the kill ratio of the 262 is still uncertain, but it seems likely that is in the range of 2.5-3.5 : 1 , and this includes the 262 losses related to 'landing target practice' kills that should not be counted as combat losses (they were due to a situation independent from the aircraft performances: we all know that 262 needed a long glide for landing, but honestly take any other aircraft: Fw190, P51, P47, Spit etc., put 8-10 fighters on her tail strafing it during landing and figure out the chances of survival...)

So even taking the 'unfair' figures the kill ratio of the 262 is far from 'very low', it is more in the range of 'quite high' in absolute and 'surprisingly high' if we consider that the 262 usually entered combat outnumbered 10 or 20:1 and often crippled by fuel shortage (one of the choices of the 262 comanders was 'do we fly with 15 machines with full tank or 30 machines with half fuel?'

And this with all the machine related problems that we all know: unreliable engines, quality production issues etc.

Your point of the short firing time available is correct, but it does not seems that the effectiveness was impacted very much.
Consider also that the 262 had 6 times more firepower than a P51D, so even it had 1/3 of firing time available because of the higher speed it still delivered anyway twice as firepower...

FLYBOYJ said:

Really? And what source to you base this brilliant information from?

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It's based on the same premise as all the other brilliant info on this web site!

Theroy and conjecture! All just battles of opinion and statistical information.
A waste of time.

BTW: How many Migs have you killed?

Yakpilot said:

It's based on the same premise as all the other brilliant info on this web site!

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8)

Yakpilot said:

Theroy and conjecture! All just battles of opinion and statistical information.
A waste of time.

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Especially if some comes on here not knowing what they are talking about...

Yakpilot said:

BTW: How many Migs have you killed?

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None - But actually I got an L-39, a T-33 while flying an L-29 and a C-172 (while flying a Cherokee 160) - mock combat of course but I was in their six long enough to toss a brick at them if I had one with me....

Agreed with the excellent comment from Parmigiano. I´ll just add it also speaks of the quality of German pilots during that part of the conflict.

As several guys here know, i have serious doubts regarding the accuracy of that comment that points out all new fighter pilots in the Luftwaffe were so terribly trained during the last year of the war their chances were marginal once in the air.

Even some German accounts i´ve read seem to point in a similar direction; but i also wonder if there is some sort of "psychology of the defeated" that leads to producing accounts that are not quite accurate, and also after having been bombarded by the accounts of the victors in the years following the end of the war their mindsets get "adjusted".

That indeed many German rookies died after having flown a fistful of missions does not mean they were "ill-trained", at all. Nobody has yet managed to indicate a clear correlation between Luftwaffe losses during 44-45 and the "ill-training" of new pilots.

Is it known how many RAF fighter pilots perished at the hands of the Luftwaffe after having flown two, or three missions? You bet that if a number could be known many here would be shocked.

Training certainly got shortened in the Luftwaffe, but never to send ill-trained rookies en mass to face the allied aerial onslaught.

The allies seem to infer the scenarios in the PTO and the ETO could be about identical in this department. That the Japanese indeed sent huge numbers of pilots that beyond take off could hardly do anything does not mean a similar thing happened in the ETO.

This new pilot training issue reminds me of the allied depicting of the Bf 109 G-6, even described in some accounts as "nearly obsolete", "outclassed", "slow speed"...someone somewhere got a wrong account -or made it up-, commenced reproducing it, and several others did the same picked the same erroneous data... (The G-6 was faster than the Spitfire Mk. V which was the RAF mainstay when the G-6 was serving in large numbers.)

It is public domain several German veteran fighter pilots "experten" like Heinz Bär, even Zerstörer pilots like Fritz Stehle, underwent succesful conversion to fly the Me 262, but also a large number of not so veteran pilots including rookies virtually commenced their pilot careers as jet pilots and manned the craft quite well in combar action.

So, if all rookies were barely trained during the last year of the war, then the Me 262 would not have the number of aerial victories in the record; also add a few hundreds of kills that are not confirmed, and might not be confirmed, but that could have occurred, and you know they were not ill-trained.

I don't think there's much doubt about that. There are figures available that show how the pilot training dropped significantly and how the number of combat losses (and non-combat losses) rose shortly thereafter. I don't see why these shouldn't be related.
You have a point when you say that much information is allied prop but it's not like everything is. Discussing aircraft like the Bf 109G-6 is always partially subjective. For training all you have to do is look at training hours (and doctrine).
Finally I also think that you had better rookies than others. Some have natural talents. But I think that 99% of the rookies were easy meat for American fighter pilots. There are more than enough witness acounts on both sides to back this up.

Kris

Onto the domains of the "Off-Topic" creature now.

I have documents and papers that illustrate losses of the Luftwaffe during 1944. Shown is indeed a significant increase in losses.

But how does that exactly prove the peak of losses is a consequence of poor training?

The most dramatic moment for losses as shown on such papers commences by spring´s end, 1944. A time when German production of fighter aircraft was by the way being significantly increased.

What about rookies still in the process of developing combat experience finding themselves fighting a numerically superior enemy with competitive craft and pilots -many of them rookies too-?

The very well trained pilots of the USAAF too enter service with zero combat experience and not only the German guys.

Come on, even many of those guys who served their tour over Europe and went back home did not have the experience of thousands of German fliers who flew for several years.

Without the numbers displayed by the 8th AF over western europe the quality of their training gets pushed down to a secondary type of issue. There probalbly lies the point: the USAAF could combine adequate numbers of pilots and craft while by mid 1944 the Germans were no longer capable of achieving it. Sufficient and more than valid to defeat the enemy. Just do not come and tell me you were shooting down "turkeys".

A greatly trained P-51 pilot could end his days screaming and burning in his cockpit if ambushed or cornered by 6 or 7 not so greatly trained Bf 109 guys, as it did happen over the Normandy front several times, just like a seasoned Luftwaffe experte could get shot down by 7 P-51 well trained rookies.

Some basics: a pilot with better training has to a good extent better chances of performing fairly well once engaged in actual combat if compared with a guy with less training. We agree on that.

Still, when i see lists of claims i see names of German pilots claiming their first or second victories during November and December of 1944, as well as during 1945. After trying to find and cross those names on other lists and records of Luftwaffe flyers it could be deducted those were guys flying their very first combat missions. Filing a claim during such period means the guy entered a melee against the USAAF engaging the enemy and returned to base claiming he had destroyed an enemy plane. By late 1944 the numerical superiority of the allies was even more critical, so was the fuel issue in the Luftwaffe. And those new pilots were not "propaganda" tools for Herr Goebbels.

So there was a good number of naturally talented pilots available to the Luftwaffe by war´s end. See the claims of JG 7 and you will realize the victories are pretty well distributed among its pilots. Many did not reach the allied standard of "ace" because they did not shot down more than 5 enemy planes.

That "target rich environment" -a hell of phrase coined there- should not apply here. A poorly trained individual will immediately get shot down when flying in that type of environment.

Pilot training is a very important topic for the latter parts of 1944-45 in the ETO.... To say the green pilots of the Luftwaffe were ill-trained is not the phrase I would use.... Under-trained is appropriate...

There wasnt significant fuel for the amount of flight hours needed to make a new pilot proficient enough to go into a combat unit on equal terms with the new Allied pilots...

Many many times Ive read and talked about this... Staffelkaptains and the like would travel to these training fields and be disgusted with the amount of training these guys were getting... Sometimes, once they got to their respective combat assignments, there wasnt enough time to get them familiarized with their new aircraft prior to combat operations...

I could go on and on concerning this...