German 262's shot down

[drgondog]

are you including the mid air collisions? IIRC there were 2 or 3 of those between 262s and 51s. i know of 1 for sure but thought i read of a couple others. would award a plane to both sides??

I would have to dig out the Encounter Reports. If there was no witness, there would be no claim or credit and I don't recall offhand. There are so very few German "J" reports from 1945 attched to the MACRs that I could not get a cross correlation.

 

[Erich]

Bill if you are talking about Fla 2cm and 3.7cm from 262 A/F's in 45 then it would be the RAF tackling KG 51 at it's bases of Rheine and Hopsten and JG 7 with the US and Soviets at Brandenburg-Briest / Brandis, later at Prague-Rusin and Saatz. you mention the other A/F's which were piston engine A/F's. As I mentioned in earlier post(s) JG 7 had the necessary Fla hidden within the trees and man made support towers, KG 51 and 54 did not quite have the heavier Fla emplacements nor the few recon units and experimental/factory defense units.

 

[CobberKane]

Cobber - in the winter/spring 1945 the collapse of terrritory by the Allies had one serious 'unintended' consequence. The withdrawal from airfields into a much more concentrated area brought a much higher concentration of 20mm flak to airfields like Letnany, Straubing, Oberpfhaffenhofen, Lechfeld, etc. The first three weeks of April 1945 strafing losses far exceeded the prior 5 months of strafing losses combined for 8th AF FC. For my father's group - which had the highest number of strafing credits for any fighter Group during WWII, you have to go back to August 1944, during heavy CAS in support of the breakout, to exceed April 1945.

Yes, I've heard this. Something like a quad 20mm cannon array is hard to hit and easy to transport, so it makes sense that a retreating army would have more and more of them to allocate in defense of fewer and fewer assets - like the airfields from which the ME262s operated.

 

[drgondog]

Bill if you are talking about Fla 2cm and 3.7cm from 262 A/F's in 45 then it would be the RAF tackling KG 51 at it's bases of Rheine and Hopsten and JG 7 with the US and Soviets at Brandenburg-Briest / Brandis, later at Prague-Rusin and Saatz. you mention the other A/F's which were piston engine A/F's. As I mentioned in earlier post(s) JG 7 had the necessary Fla hidden within the trees and man made support towers, KG 51 and 54 did not quite have the heavier Fla emplacements nor the few recon units and experimental/factory defense units.

Erich - the 355th destroyed 262s on the ground at Kitzingen, Lechfeld, Neuberg and Linz in the SE corner during April

 

[Erich]

test fields actually Bill, Kitazingen was home of part of NJG 6 units, 262's were landing everywhere and kaput, the pilots fled.......