How would the Allies have dealt with large numbers of ME 262s? (1 Viewer)

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but the allies would need to continue development up to the F8 standard. Historically the F8 did not appear until 1950,

You don't need the F8, the F4 will do very nicely. First flown 15th Aug 1945 it soon hit 570mph at 10,000ft. The early production versions had the big wing but the short span version and specification 11/46 written around it Nov 1946 ( At least one prototype already flying)
 
Another difference between the Tempest and the Meteor. If flying side by side and both chopped throttle the propeller acts like a speed brake and the prop plane gets behind the jet in just a few seconds. IF the Meteor uses it's speed brakes it godd drop behind the Tempest but needed to retract the speed brakes quickly to keep form dropping out of range. Me 262 did not have speed brakes but I guess they could be fitted?
 
IMHO, speed/air brakes were one of the things the 262 needed most - with them, it could've made landings at slightly higher rpms thrusts, and perhaps still made landing easier by using them to lower the approach speed quicker once fully deployed as touch down neared just prior to flaring... but they were never fitted or perhaps not even envisaged in this way so not designed for the swallow/stormbird at that time/yet and following the then idea that airbrakes were usually only for diving with...
 
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But there is no easy fix against the Me 262

Why not? As others have stated, both the Americans and British were developing jets and don't forget, Me 262s were shot down by Allied piston engined fighters, just like Fw 190s were shot down by pilots flying the inferior Spitfire V. You are also forgetting the numerous issues the 262 had whilst under development; its engines were put into production before they were reliable enough for mass production, one reason why - Allied bombing for one thing. Also, how many 262s are we talking here? Germany did not have infinite supplies and could only build a certain number of aircraft at any given time - the number not being fixed but variable depending on how well they were doing against, well, Allied bombing for one thing. With more jets, something else would have to give. Also, essential industries surrounding aircraft production would be attacked, blockaded or what have you by the Allies.

When the British first learned about the 262 the prospect of German jets scared them witless; in a paper written in late 43 or mid 44 (I think) there was a prediction that the Germans would be able to field up to 1,000 jet and rocket (Me 163) fighters by the end of 1944, but in September 1944 a report revealed after the British experienced combat with the Me 262 for the first time how to combat the type; one of the recommendations was to attack them as they took off and were on finals for landing, a recommendation was destruction of their airfields as well. And this was from very early experiences in combat.

From wreckage of a crashed example recovered in France the British made assumptions about its performance form its engines and fuel capacity and got it pretty well spot on - one aircraft that had potential to combat the Me 262 that was mentioned was the Hawker Tempest. While the 262 was faster and it was recommended not to dive away, Allied aircraft could out manoeuvre the German jet and its throttle response time was far longer than that of piston fighters. If this actually happened in real WW2, then why would it not have happened in fantasy WW2?

Having more jets might have been a curse than a gift for the LW since the 262 was a far less flexible a machine compared to the Fw 190 and Bf 109, Ju 88, Bf 110, He 111, Ju 87 - these aircraft were the mainstay of the LW at the beginning of the war (except the Fw 190) and until the very end. Their versatility of use and widespread use in different theatres enabled the LW to achieve incredible advances without the need for 'wunder waffen'. They were the staple of the German air war effort. Take some of them away and you have a less effective force across the board - in theory.

The Allies had no 'wonder weapons' (umm, apart from the atomic bomb) and as we know German aircraft were the match for and better than their Allied contemporaries in many cases. The Allied forces were not invincible, but as I pointed out earlier, their rate of production was greater by a country mile than anything the Germans could do.
 
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While the 262 was faster and it was recommended not to dive away, Allied aircraft could out manoeuvre the German jet and its throttle response time was far longer than that of piston fighters. If this actually happened in real WW2, then why would it not have happened in fantasy WW2?

The Japanese and Italians used to think the same thing.

I'm skeptical of the "airfield combat" proposal. If it was possible to catch Me 262s on final, it was possible to catch any LW piston engine plane.
 
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I'm skeptical of the "airfield combat" proposal. If it was possible to catch Me 262s on final, it was possible to catch any LW piston engine plane.

The early German jets had poor throttle response, you can't just bang the power levers to the wall like on a piston fighter; they also required a greater distance to approach to landing. On take off with full power, pulling the aircraft into sharp manoeuvres would most likely stall the engines and cause flameout, as would rapid lever movement to throttle down.

The Allies did do this against jet fighters.
 
I'm aware of this and didn't mentioned. But did so because what I'm thinking is a plane like the 109 on final. What it can do against a P-51 diving on it at high speed?
 
Here is a rather telling account by Herbert Altner flying a Me 262B-1a/U-1 night fighter against Mosquitoes;

"One night as we were being led to an intercept course with a formation of Mosquitoes, I got a really nasty shock as I picked out an enemy aircraft and got my sights on him. I went to full power and before I knew what was happening, I was nearly on top of him. I must have throttled back a bit too quickly because both engines flamed out. Not being able to restart them and with the aircraft about to go into a crash dive, my WO and I had to make a quick exit from our stricken craft."

From Eric Brown;

"Whilst obviously proud of the Me 262, the German pilots were also somewhat apprehensive of it, especially the two seat night fighting version! As far as we could ascertain, their worries were two-fold. Firstly, the turbo-jets were unreliable and had, we were told, an overhaul life of no more than 25 hours. This was bad enough, but all the technical records had been hurriedly destroyed before our arrival, and thus we had no means of knowing how many flying hours any of the engines fitted to these abandoned Me 262s had on them! Secondly, the single-engine safety speed on take-off was rather daunting - an engine failure before 180 mph (290 km/h) had been attained produced dire results. In fact, accidents fatalities on Me 262s had been apalling, particularly among the night fighter boys flying the heavier model, although there had also been just as fair a share of nasty prangs with the single-seat version laden with bombs."
 
What it can do against a P-51 diving on it at high speed?

From what I've read, the Allied pilots were cautioned against entering into a diving competition at/from altitude with the 262 as it would certainly out run the piston fighters, but if caught near the ground at low power settings, head for the deck and hope you survive the inevitable crash.
 
From what I've read, the Allied pilots were cautioned against entering into a diving competition at/from altitude with the 262 as it would certainly out run the piston fighters, but if caught near the ground at low power settings, head for the deck and hope you survive the inevitable crash.

What I'm talking is why the 262 could be caught (and thus countered) on it's final approches, and the LW piston fighters could not? I understand that the jets had a longer approach, but I still see a landing 109 vulnerable to a diving P-51. Anti-aircraft fire comes come to mind here. Perhaps the jets, by their longer approch, could be shoot down exposing the Allied fighters less to the airdrome's AA batteries, and therefore the same tactic was not applied against the German piston fighters with the same enthusiasm (since they could be countered with less risk in the air).
 
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On "final" not much. A few miles from the airfield and with a bit of altitude and flaps and gear still up perhaps a bit more, still not good but some sort of evasive maneuver is possible but no guarantee of survival. The Jet has a longer and higher "final". The Jets even had problems with a balked landing, not ever time but enough that comments are made about it.

According to Brown (corrections welcome) the landing gear was lowered at about 250mph ( max speed for lowering was 310) then throttle the engines back up some, lower flap to 20 degrees at 225mph, turn in at 185mph, go to full flap at about 155mph and cross the airfield boundary at 125mph. While the last two numbers are close enough to the FW 190 as to make no real difference the FW 190 didn't start lowering flaps and under carriage until around 150-160mph and the turn in was done at about 155mph also.

To be fair the Allied Jets needed careful handling at this time also. It was partly this lack of throttle response and low thrust that helped prompt some of the piston + Jet aircraft ( cruising range was another consideration).
Some of this went away fairly quickly, the engines got a little less sensitive to throttle movement and thrust improved by leaps and bounds. The Meteor I had 1600lb thrust engines, the III went for 2000lb thrust engines and the MK IV of 1946 had 3500lb thrust engines. The P-80A started with 3850lb engines and later blocks got 4000lb engines, early planes were brought up to the new standard, P-80Bs got water/methanol injection and 4500lb and the P-80C got 4600lbs dry and 5200lbs wet.
 
What I'm talking is why the 262 could be caught (and thus countered) on it's final approches, and the LW piston fighters could not? I understand that the jets had a longer approach, but I still see a landing 109 vulnerable to a diving P-51. Anti-aircraft fire comes come to mind here. Perhaps the jets, by their longer approch, could be shoot down exposing the Allied fighters less to the airdrome's AA batteries, and therefore the same tactic was not applied against the German piston fighters with the same enthusiasm (since they could be countered with less risk in the air).

The short answer is that any fighter, conventional or jet, is highly vulnerable during take of and landing. The allies absolutely targeted conventional german fighters while landing.I've read many accounts of LW pilots low in fuel and with no alternative comming in to land while the P-51 were circling ablove, just waiting to pick them off. At this point any plane is low and slow. If it is attacked, the pilot has no alternative but to pour on the coals and wait, and waiting while someone is shooting at you gets you killed. The situation would have been bad enough in an Fw190 or Bf109 where the pilot can at least firewall the throttle and will get be able to get some manouvorability back at intermediate speed, if he survives that long. In the 262 he has to line up from much furhter out and spend much longer on approach, and if he is attacked he can't jam the throttle foward, he has to softly softly ease it open while the jet crawls up to a manouvering speed much higher than for the prop driven aircraft, all the while getting hosed with .50 cals or 20mms. A 262 on approach with a Temest two thousand feet above it would be dead meat, unless all that light flak along the flight path could protect it - which happened often enough that the RAF eventually abandoned the tactic.
 
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They will until Allies land an invasion force along channel coast. Germany needs that space for forward deployment of air raid warning units and night fighter units.

But they didn't on Bomber Command so why the USAAF? I agree that they came close, but in the long term that's not good enough.

Cheers

Steve
 
What I'm talking is why the 262 could be caught (and thus countered) on its final approches

The LW learned that this aspect of the 262's flight envelope was a particularly vulnerable one and based Fw 190Ds at some of their bases as well as basing flak guns along the runway glidepaths; these 'Flak Alleys' accounted for more than a few Allied aircraft that followed the jets in. The RAF carried out 'Rat Catching' ops in Tempests with the intention of catching 262s on finals, but Tempest losses were high and these were halted.

Regarding the 262 fitted with air brakes, I found a quote by Adolf Galland on the very same subject whilst doing a bit of reading;

"It is often reported that our jets suffered due to lacking speed brakes. Of this requirement I cannot agree. On the contrary. I'd have done everything to not develop engine stall, because if we had not flown at the 150 kts higher speed than any Allied aircraft, then we would have lost our advantage. To re-accelerate the Me 262 having slowed down took a long, long time because of the relatively low thrust. So, if we had had speed brakes, and our pilots when attacking the bombers had used them in order to reduce the speed, they would have lost all superiority."

I also read that post-war in trials, a Tempest and 262 were put in the air together and it was found that the Tempest could keep up with the 262 for a few seconds or more on accelerating to high speed, but once the Jumos got going, the 262 then left the British fighter behind. One essential issue with the Me 262 was that it was underpowered.

Like Shortround states, the 262 was not unique as a jet in some of its foibles; its just that these things were highlighted because of the Allies taking advantage of its known weaknesses, which is what would also happen in our fantasy WW2 scenario of increased 262s earlier. Something that is roundly agreed on by experts - i.e. former LW pilots, scientists etc is that the 262 was not ready for combat when it entered service.
 
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One point that hasn't been made is that in this scenario, with the Me 262 arriving approximately a year earlier, the LW has both the Me 262 and Bf 109/Fw 190 equipped units together with enough fuel to fly both and initially few P-51s over its bases. This gives it the opportunity to start dissimilar combat training and learn what works and what doesn't work at low cost while its opponents have to learn it in real combat.

If the Me 262 can learn how to make life difficult for American piston engined escorts, some Me 262 may attack the escorts over the Netherlands to try to force them to release their drop tanks. We might imagine a Me 262 derivative with 4xMG 151s being used for that task as the lower weight and higher velocity guns should help.
 
It is often suggested that the Luftwaffe should have made an early interception of the escorts either escorting the bombers or on their way to their relay point. It seems logical that forcing them to drop tanks would be to the Luftwaffe's advantage. What might seem logical is not always so in the larger tactical scenario. The 8th Air Force itself understood why the Germans did not maintain this tactic, it was rarely attempted.
From the 8th AF official history.

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The last sentence is telling. The primary target of the interception, just like for the RAF during the Battle of Britain, was the bombers. Tangling with escorts simply left the bombers unmolested and was exactly what the USAAF wanted.

Douhet wrote:

"The air arm defends on attack for its own best defence. When it resorts to defence it will eventually face defeat."

In the case of the Luftwaffe in WW2 he was right.

Cheers

Steve
 
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I am not sure that the LW attempts to engage the escorts with piston engined fighters is relevant. It would have been hard to "make him pay dearly" if the attack was by say four Me 262s that could disengage at will. I also suspect that the LW failure to engage escorts was due to the same problems that confounded attempts to attack the LW with big wings during the BoB. Again formations of four Me 262 would not have to wait to form up but could simply go and make attacks on anything that they could see or be directed towards.
 

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