How would the Allies have dealt with large numbers of ME 262s?

[parsifal]

Another intriguing thread that goes off topic regularly, but I find those tangents more interesting than the original post. Not sure why anybody wants to argue the toss about Me 262/meteor comparisons; the original 262 1a was superior in performance to its Mk 1 meteor "rival'.

I dont think any in the "Meteor" camp are arguing that. Conversely, Meteor I production was just 20 machines

It does appear that that post war variants of allied jets get mixed up with the original models at times during these lively discussions. Please correct me, but I believe that the original combatants 616 squadron, accounted for only 16 V1's ( compared to countless shot down by piston engine fighters), plus a number of retreating German ground columns. I believe a handful of parked Luftwaffe aircraft were also accounted for as they stood helpless on the ground. There was one actual air to air with a Fiesler Storch (!!!), but the Storch easily evaded the meteor, and actually landed, enabling the crew to escape. The Storch was then strafed as it stood immobile as well. Didn't Eric Brown state that the 262 would have made "cats meat" out of the meteor, and didn't Adolf Galland say much the same some years later.

Thats all true....for the meteor I, but the Meteor III that followed it and the first main production version was a vast improvement, and the meteor 4 was, in most assessments, superior to the me 262. The reason that post war versions of the Meteor are being dredged up goes to the original assumption that the 262 was made ready and properly operational from the beginning of 1944. Thats a fair enough hypothetical, but one has to consider what the allies might do if priority had been given to the 262. I think it entirely plausible that the Meteor and Vampire programs would be also pushed forward in a similar way. There was no technological or resourcing reason why this could not be done....its just that the allies didnt really have much of a need for a fully worked up jet in WWII

And I would not denigrate the Meteor performance too loudly. Whilst the meteor could be described as just useless, the Me 262 could be described as less than that. 1400 Me 262s were produced, 200 were operational, and 150 (estimated0 allied aircraft shot down. That is anything but a stellar performance.

They both flew the respective planes, and did not read about them in some Osprey book. As for the first operational meteors, their 20 mm cannons jammed on their first mission, and continued to do so on a regular basis for the remainder of their service.

The second part of the statement is just untrue. Yhe gu jamming problem had been solved by November, and the Meteor I remained in service until February, or march (I would have to check)

The meteor went on to serve with distinction post war, and certainly improved with subsequent Mk's, but in its original ww2 form, it was outclassed by the Me 262.

Only on paper. In actual service, the 262 was a failure, worse than the Meteor.

And to answer the original question.....the most amount of 262's to fly in one day was only about 50 (records are slightly inaccurate here). If they were to put up 300 or so, it would have been carnage.

There is zero evidence to support that claim, and quite a bit of circumstantial evidence to disprove it. The case in point is the deployment of the MIG-15 in 1950....initially 125 or so deplyed,rapidly increased to around 3-400. Engaged mostly WWII era prop bombers for the first year, could only manage to shoot down 140 such bombers in its first year of sevice, and flown by expereienced pilots

 

[Erich]

Greg

please start another thread on JG 301 Ta's, I can probably release thought s that will not detract from my work. as to confirmation the OKL did not count any ore victories past November of 44 for any Jagdgruppe. Reschke told me he had the losses for JG 301 but nowhere even close the victory tallies in total

 

[awack]

Again, where is this shown? At what speeds are we talking about?

Test pilot captain Eric Brown of Britain, is the one who conducted the test of the me 262, again it was at 5000ft at 400 mph the result was 3.8 seconds for one complete roll, it was the 2 seat model, he also gave stick forces.

 

[swampyankee]

Test pilot captain Eric Brown of Britain, is the one who conducted the test of the me 262, again it was at 5000ft at 400 mph the result was 3.8 seconds for one complete roll, it was the 2 seat model, he also gave stick forces.

One complete roll in 3.8 seconds is a bit less than 95 degrees/second. Since a single datum is useless, I found some data, on a thread long ago but not far away (http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/av...teristics-wwii-fighters-36397.html#post995858) a report was found: http://naca.central.cranfield.ac.uk/reports/1947/naca-report-868.pdf.

Glad he recorded all the data. Now, could we have a citation?

 

[awack]

On page 252 FROM Wings of the Luftwaffe, The normal range of flight characteristics from aerobatic maneuvers to the stall revealed the Me 262 as a very responsive and docile aeroplane, leaving one with a confident impression of a first class combat aircraft for both fighter and ground attack roles. Harmony of controls was pleasant, with a stick force per 'g' of 2.72 kg (6lb) at mid-CG position and a roll rate of 360 degrees in 3.8 seconds at 645 km/h (400 mph) at 1525m (5000 ft)."

 

[GregP]

If the data are accurate, that is pretty good. Now all we need is a V-N diagram (sometimes called V-g diagram ... speed versus g-load factor) so we know how many g's the 262 could pull at what speed. I KNOW it exists ... the question is can we FIND it?

 

[Juha]

On page 252 FROM Wings of the Luftwaffe, The normal range of flight characteristics from aerobatic maneuvers to the stall revealed the Me 262 as a very responsive and docile aeroplane, leaving one with a confident impression of a first class combat aircraft for both fighter and ground attack roles. Harmony of controls was pleasant, with a stick force per 'g' of 2.72 kg (6lb) at mid-CG position and a roll rate of 360 degrees in 3.8 seconds at 645 km/h (400 mph) at 1525m (5000 ft)."

Thanks for pointing that out!
so 95deg/sec at 400mph at 5000ft, P-51B-1 had appr. 85deg/sec at 400mph IAS at 10 000ft with 50-pound stick force. If Brown's speed is also IAS it up to the stick force, with higher stick force P-51B-1 would have rolled faster at 400mph, but probably still slightly slower.

Juha

 

[GregP]

Funny, the pilot's manual says no aerobatics are authorized. That means positive g-at all times instead of staying upright. If you are upside down and have 1-g positive, the occupant won't know it until your speed builds up and you have to exceed about 2.5 g to pull out before impacting the earth.

I am grateful for the numbers but a bit skeptical as to why a jet with two heavy masses out on the wings should out-roll a piston fighter with no heavy masses out on the wings ...

Maybe so. I'll look for pilot reports to confirm it.

 

[pattern14]

I dont think any in the "Meteor" camp are arguing that. Conversely, Meteor I production was just 20 machines




Thats all true....for the meteor I, but the Meteor III that followed it and the first main production version was a vast improvement, and the meteor 4 was, in most assessments, superior to the me 262. The reason that post war versions of the Meteor are being dredged up goes to the original assumption that the 262 was made ready and properly operational from the beginning of 1944. Thats a fair enough hypothetical, but one has to consider what the allies might do if priority had been given to the 262. I think it entirely plausible that the Meteor and Vampire programs would be also pushed forward in a similar way. There was no technological or resourcing reason why this could not be done....its just that the allies didnt really have much of a need for a fully worked up jet in WWII

And I would not denigrate the Meteor performance too loudly. Whilst the meteor could be described as just useless, the Me 262 could be described as less than that. 1400 Me 262s were produced, 200 were operational, and 150 (estimated0 allied aircraft shot down. That is anything but a stellar performance.





The second part of the statement is just untrue. Yhe gu jamming problem had been solved by November, and the Meteor I remained in service until February, or march (I would have to check)




Only on paper. In actual service, the 262 was a failure, worse than the Meteor.




There is zero evidence to support that claim, and quite a bit of circumstantial evidence to disprove it. The case in point is the deployment of the MIG-15 in 1950....initially 125 or so deplyed,rapidly increased to around 3-400. Engaged mostly WWII era prop bombers for the first year, could only manage to shoot down 140 such bombers in its first year of sevice, and flown by expereienced pilots

Thanks for clarifying the cannon jamming problem. The info I had appeared to suggest it was an ongoing isssue. I disagree totally with the Mig 15 scenario etc. That conflict and the circumstances were very different to what was happennning over Germany 5 years earlier, but that is probably best discussed in another thread at this stage ( should make for a lively debate!). The Me 262 was a generation ahead aerodynamically, and the British scoffed at german research documents regarding swept wings. They did not even have a swept wing production fighter until the next decade, lagging behind the Russians and the U.S., and never really catching up ever since. As far as the Me 262 being a failure, I'm trying to work out in what aspect. It failed to win the war for the Nazi's, but apart from that did very well for itself. It produced 22 jet aces for a start, while the Meteor failed to produce even one. Made from poor quality materials using semi skilled labour in forest factories, training pilots under the most trying of circumstances, and managing to score kills while completely and totally out numbered in every instance. If we talk failure, the meteor failed to down a single enemy aircraft, and YP 80 failed to even get into the picture. I really don't get into the "what if" thing; the Me 262 was a remarkable achievement.

 

[Juha]

... They did not even have a swept wing production fighter until the next decade, lagging behind the Russians and the U.S.,

and Sweden

and never really catching up ever since.

How about BAC Lightning

As far as the Me 262 being a failure, I'm trying to work out in what aspect. It failed to win the war for the Nazi's, but apart from that did very well for itself. It produced 22 jet aces for a start, while the Meteor failed to produce even one. Made from poor quality materials using semi skilled labour in forest factories, training pilots under the most trying of circumstances, and managing to score kills while completely and totally out numbered in every instance. If we talk failure, the meteor failed to down a single enemy aircraft, and YP 80 failed to even get into the picture. I really don't get into the "what if" thing; the Me 262 was a remarkable achievement.

And what planes Meteor could have shot down? When it was operating over England there was not much "trade" around but V-1s. When 616 moved to Continent, it wasn't at first allowed to fly over enemy held territory. When that was eventually allowed, there were not many LW planes around. It was opposite to Me-262 it flew in "over-rich" target enviroment. And I'm not keen on what was claimed, much more important is what reallywas achieved. Me 262 achieved maybe 2 - 3:1 victory ratio and part of the 262 losses were Jabos, that wasn't bad in those circumstances but not exceptional. Finns did much better with Fokker D.XXIs, Gladiators, MS.406s and Fiat G.50s during the Winter War against similar odds but against different AF.

Juha

 

[parsifal]

I disagree totally with the Mig 15 scenario etc. That conflict and the circumstances were very different to what was happennning over Germany 5 years earlier, but that is probably best discussed in another thread at this stage ( should make for a lively debate!).

I agree, but what was happening in Germany 5 years earlier was that the LW was expending a truckload of its ever decreasing resources on its Jet program, and in the context of the war, getting nowhere fast. Korea was the first conflict where jet technologies were effectively applied, and the the last war where missiles were not the dominant weapons. The MIG enjoyed a similar performance advantage over its targets as the Me 262 enjoyed, better probably, plus it was a reliable mount, with plenty of fuel and good pilots. it was not as hopelessly outnumbered as the Me 262, and could operate from relatively secure bases because the Korean conflict was a geographically limited conflict. If anything, therefore, the advantages of the MIG were far greater than those endured by the 262. Didnt make any measurable difference to the loss rates of its opponents however. these are the basic observed facts. Moreover that is entirely consistent with every major conflict up until the introduction of the ultra modern missile and tracking technologies. Quality does not equal increased kills. Other factors do that. Not even in Russia was the Jagd gruppen the main killer of Russian aircraft, neither was the VVS, or the USAAF or the RAF the main killer of the LW. Most aircraft were lost for reasons other than enemy action, with only one exception of circumstance. If one side had fighters, and the other did not, then there was a massacre. if both sides have fighters, the opposing fighters tended to cancel each other out, more or less. That rule does not apply in the modern era, where electronics changes everything. neither does it apply when the technology of one side is so overwhelming that it trumps everything. Unfortunately for the Germans, there is no evidence of that ever happening with the 262, similalry there is no evidence of it happening with the Mig-15. In fact it was a generally rare event in WW2, the technology difference was simply not enough to register that effect. To give some persepective there are often wildly optimistic figures given for Russian losses during the war, whilst german losses are minimised....but this falls apart when the overall loss rates to all causes are looked at. in that scenario, total german losses are similar to those lost by the russians

The Me 262 was a generation ahead aerodynamically, and the British scoffed at german research documents regarding swept wings.

Err nope and nope. no denying the meteor was not particulalry clean, but the vampoire in my opinion was closer aerodynamically to the German aircraft. I dont know if any "scoffing was going on, just an underestimation of its importance.

They did not even have a swept wing production fighter until the next decade, lagging behind the Russians and the U.S., and never really catching up ever since.

nope, not right either, after the war the scimitar, the Lightning, even the harrier, were equal to their contemporaiers in terms of aerodynamics.

As far as the Me 262 being a failure, I'm trying to work out in what aspect. It failed to win the war for the Nazi's, but apart from that did very well for itself. It produced 22 jet aces for a start, while the Meteor failed to produce even one.

Claimed aces, not confirmed aces. theres a difference. Operationally, it managed to shoot down 150 enemy aircraft in the air, whilst losing a similar number itself, as a fighter, thats less than an adequate performance. More to the point, of the 1400 produced, less than 200 were operational, moreover for most of its service life if there were 200 operational, typically 25 might be servicable, on a good day. What were the serviceability rates of say Me 109s at this time. I think the LW would have been far better off just churning out more 109s or FWs at the end (early 44 onward). they would have improved their availability rates vastly if they had, and a much higher allied loss rate would have ensured. If they had produced 2000 extra 109s as a result of not building the 262, and we assume an overall serrvi8ceability rate for proven types of 70% (more or less the rate applicable to the LW as a whole in '44), and the exchange rate of around 2 losses for each shoot down, then the allies would have sufereed 1000 losses from the extra 109s, instead of the 150 they lost from the 262s.

Made from poor quality materials using semi skilled labour in forest factories, training pilots under the most trying of circumstances, and managing to score kills while completely and totally out numbered in every instance.

All indicative of a rushed entry to service. If the Germans had put in a greater effort to get their jets going properly, then so too would the allies, because the need was there. If we assume effective delivery of the 262, with the bugs ironed out in early 1944, then my estimated realisitc service delivery for the Meteor I would be about Feb 44, the Meteor II April 44, and the Meteor 4 July 44. We could expect a Meteor 8 delivery from some time in 45, and so it goes on. There is no solution to Germany's problem via rtechnogy. its a post war myth.

If we talk failure, the meteor failed to down a single enemy aircraft, and YP 80 failed to even get into the picture. I really don't get into the "what if" thing; the Me 262 was a remarkable achievement.

Your being more than a little inconsistent. Your saying, in one breath....."what if the 262 had a better run as far as serviceability and availability was concerned", and then, in the same breath are saying " I really am not going to consider any hypothetical extrapolation for the allies!!!" that is a totally inconsistent approach. Facts are these, if we want to eliminate all "what ifs"....the 262 had enormous resources spent on it. It was a technical marvel, and a near total operational failure. by comparison, the meteor had far less resources spent on it, but was an operational irrelvance in the context of the war. which is worse...spend a bucket and get nothing, or spend a little (as insurance) and get nothing????

 

[stona]

The Me 262 also killed more of its pilots than all the allied air forces combined. That's probably not one for the success column.

From all the statistics I've seen "most" aircraft were not lost for reasons other than enemy action. I'd rate the ratio as about 3:2 very generally occasionally reaching close to parity. That is a lot but not most. There are a myriad of factors affecting this ratio.

Here's a table for the Luftwaffe since we're talking Me 262.

Cheers

Steve

 

[GregP]

Parsifal, the Harrier HAD no contemporaries at first (but was pretty clean anyway) except the Yak-38 which did NOTHING in its entire service career. They produced 718 Harriers, was introduced in 1969, and served until recently.

No other jump jets flew in service until the Yak-38, introduced in 1976 but flew in 1971. They only made 231 of them before removing them from service in 1991.

The Yak-141 didn't fly until 1987 and they made 2.

Next production jump jet is the F-35.

 

[pattern14]

Before I post again, could some one please tell me how I just get particular lines or paragraphs to appear in those neat boxes like Parsifal has, instead of replying with the whole previous post. It would make replying a lot more concise, as my comments are not coming across as clear as I would like. I don't see my posts as being inconsistent at all; the original thread was how would the allies have dealt with large numbers of Me 262's? I don't believe I mentioned a better run or serviceability, just more of them would have caused carnage. None of the "what if's" happened anyway. When you are fighting a war you have already lost, you do desperate things to try and salvage anything at all, and Hitlers rhetoric about his wonder weapons was just that. If you talk wasted money and resources, look more closely at the He 162, which was a total failure operationally, and claimed nothing. The Me 262 achieved combat success while the piston engined Luft planes could do nothing in those final months in early 1945. Read Smith and Creeks 4 volume series on the Me 262, and Gallands, "The first and the Last". When it all boils down to it, all we have to go on, is something some one else has written.

 

[fastmongrel]

Strictly speaking Greg the Harrier is still the only VTOL aircraft ever to enter (or likely to enter in the next 30 years) service. The fact that Vertical take off wasnt efficent and only really ever took place at airshows is irrelavent it could do it if needed. Its STOVL competitors have never even come close to Harriers ability to take off from a small space.

 

[GregP]

Parsifal,

That is a great retort if I ever saw one.

The jets did relatively nothing but get a lot of accolades ... that they don't deserve. I agree and think that the reason the P-80 never got into combat (DID get into WWII service in Italy ... at least 4 P-80's since we have a pic of them over Mount Vesuvius during the war) was a LOT more due to the USA not seeing the need to use them and possibly compromise the technology if one was forced down over Axis territory.

They WERE available, like the Sabres in Korea were ... which WERE dispatched when needed. It was NOT that they were unavailable or could not have been accelerated in development if required to face a real jet threat from the Germans ... they COULD have been but weren't required to win the war.

 

[parsifal]

Before I post again, could some one please tell me how I just get particular lines or paragraphs to appear in those neat boxes like Parsifal has, instead of replying with the whole previous post.

Hi Pattern

Theres different ways of doing it, but what I do is firstly hit "reply with quote", this will bring up the entire quote of the other member. then I delete the bits i dont want, including the leading and ending "quote" . i then highlight the bits of the text i want to respond to and press the button 2nd on the right (immediately to the left of the button with the tick and the "ABC". If you hold the cursor over it, it says "wrap

Tags around selected text". Now you can put in your reply. You can repeat this as many times as you want.

You can also go back and fix your posts after youve relesed them, byt hitting the "edit" button.

Its a nice system and easy to get the hang of.

if you dont do things right you can get some weird looking texts.

Hope that helps mate

 

[parsifal]

From all the statistics I've seen "most" aircraft were not lost for reasons other than enemy action. I'd rate the ratio as about 3:2 very generally occasionally reaching close to parity. That is a lot but not most. There are a myriad of factors affecting this ratio.

I would concede that makes it look that combat losses look like they are the dominant factor. however there is an enormous hole for several nations that I just cant reconcile. Russian l;osses for example. Conventional history puts their losses to combat at 40000, but total losses at nearly 1160000. German disparities are even more inexplicable ....around 30000 lost in combat, but over 100000 lost in total. this just doesnt correlate to the table youve posted.

I dont profess to know the answer to this, but is anything but simple

 

[fastmongrel]

Theres a multi quote button but I have never found how it works I just do what Parsifal does

 

[Milosh]

Greg, 2 YP-80s went to Italy and 2 went to England.

YP-80As 44-83026 and 44-83027 were shipped to England in mid-December 1944, but 44-83026 crashed on its second flight at Burtonwood, England, killing its pilot, Major Frederick Borsodi. 44-83027 was modified by Rolls-Royce to flight test the B-41, the prototype of the Nene turbojet. On November 14, 1945, it was destroyed in a crash landing after an engine failure. 44-83028 and 44-83029 were shipped to the Mediterranean. They actually flew some operational sorties, but they never encountered any enemy aircraft.