me 262 attacks

[GrauGeist]

Doesnt that bring problems in that the 262 engines didnt like big changes in air flow and didnt accelerate very well so they are vulnerable to flaming out for a short time during and after the brakes have been operated. Dropping a big dive brake is going to throw your aim right off as the plane pitches up or down and wastse valuable time getting the target picture back.

I believe that the idea suggested was more like fences that would allow the Me262 to be able to slow enough to have more time to acquire without having to adjust the throttle.

And having brakes wouldn't hurt aim any more than dive brakes did on the Ju87, A-36 or SBD...you advance to your target, deploy brakes and then adjust aim.

 

[Andrew Arthy]

Hi,

Adding up daytime Me 262 claims by all Luftwaffe units, here are the highest scoring days:

03.03.45: 10 (2 B-24, 5 B-17)
15.03.45: 10 (5 B-24, 3 B-17)
18.03.45: 17 (12 B-17)
19.03.45: 12 (8 B-17)
21.03.45: 18 (14 B-17, 1 B-24)
22.03.45: 15 (13 B-17)
24.03.45: 21 (3 B-24, 14 B-17)
25.03.45: 10 (5 B-24)
31.03.45: 23 (16 Lancaster, 3 B-17, 2 B-24)
04.04.45: 19 (13 B-17, 1 B-24, 1 B-26)
08.04.45: 11 (1 Lancaster, 7 B-17)
10.04.45: 31 (23 B-17)
17.04.45: 22 (20 B-17, 1 B-26)
27.04.45: 11

These are only German claims, and may not match up with actual Allied losses. I totalled 446 daytime Me 262 victories, but of course sources aren't complete for 1945.

Cheers,
Andrew A.

 

[Juha]

Hello Andrew
Interesting info as always. Accordingto Chorley, BC lost 8 Lancs and 3 Halis during the daytime attack on Hamburg on 31.3., some probably to flak but according to Chorley 2 Halis and 4 Lancs were lost to Me 262s, reasons to other losses not given, some probably at least some of them were also lost to jets.

Juha

 

[GregP]

'With 1 German test pilot killed in launch and no operational missions to its credit, I don't think I'm underestimating the Natter at all. In fact, I said I wished they'd built more of them, which would make for more Nazi casualties.

Maybe we could have talked them into holding Natter pylon races. Get to the first pylon and you win! We could halt the war for awhile and watch the races.

 

[stona]

The Natter might have been a very effective weapon against day time bomber formations had the Germans had time to develop it and get it into service. They didn't so it's a moot point. Steve

 

[GregP]

I was only poking fun at it's observed state of development. You could say much the same for the Kyushu J7W or any of a number of other built but really unfinished or untested aircraft. In the USA they did almost the same thing with the Vought XF5U-1. It was built and completed, but never flown! How ridiculous is that?

 

[GrauGeist]

I was only poking fun at it's observed state of development. You could say much the same for the Kyushu J7W or any of a number of other built but really unfinished or untested aircraft. In the USA they did almost the same thing with the Vought XF5U-1. It was built and completed, but never flown! How ridiculous is that?

Actually, the Vought V-173 did fly, many times. Even Charles Lindberg flew it and said he enjoyed it's ease of handling. The developed version of the V-173 (XF5U) simply wasn't needed as it's development was over-run by jet technology.

 

[GregP]

I didn't mention the V-173, I said Vought XF54U-1.

The V-173 had two 80 hp Continental 4-cylinder engines while the XF5U-1 had a pair of 1,350 HP R-2000 radials. It's like the difference between an 80 HP Rotatx-powered light plane such as an Aircam and P-38 Lightning.

versus

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Lockheed_P-38_Lightning_USAF.JPG

I realize the XF5U-1 was over it's projected development time and a bit over budget but, having finished the aircraft, it borders on criminal not to have tested it. Whoever made that decision should have been fired and barred from Government service.

 

[GrauGeist]

Thread drift...

 

[GregP]

Yup ... my fault, too. Couldn't resist the jab at the Natter.

 

[Milosh]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfpTDOAfj7Y

 

[pbehn]

Could the P80 have been rushed into "emergency" deployment towards the end of '44?

As I understand it the opposite happened the P 80 was in effect grounded because so many test pilots and aircraft had met a nasty end. Others here will surely be more competent to answer, but as I see it the range of early jets was so small that any meeting would have to be contrived. In the last days of the war the 262 was attacking bombers and no jet in ww2 was ever capable of escorting a bomber. You could try going for them as they take off and land from forward bases in Holland and Germany but would it be worth the effort?

 

[GrauGeist]

The closest any jets came to encountering each other during the war, was when Ar234s bombed the base where the Meteors of 616 Squadron were stationed.

 

[GregP]

Thanks for the V-173 clip, Milosh. Though I've seen it, it was years ago and it is good to see unconventional planes fly and succeed when they are expected to fail.

I concur and don;t belive it would be likely to have jets meet in WWII combat mostly due to range limitations. However, as the allies moved in for the end, it SHOULD have been possible ... except for the fact that last-ditch defsinces are not conducive to supporting new technologies, especially with spare parts, so there were probably few Me 262's available for combat in the last 2 - 3 months of the war and the ones that were probably were used to attack bombers in a lost cause.

If the Germans had been able to amass a few Me 262's at one airfield, it would also have attracted a lot of attention from hordes of marauding fighters in 1945. By way of example, we averaged 198 enemy planes destroyed on the ground in 1944, with a high of 527 in APril 1944. We averaged 884 in 1945 through May with a high of 3,703 (not a misprint) in April of 1945 (only 15 in May!). So anything moving in March to May of 1945 was just swarmed upon and hosed with many aerial guns.

So any real effort wopuld have had to be sometime in 1943 - 1944, with the best chances in 1943. I don't think they had the engines at that time, no matter the "what-if," but I could be mistaken. Maybe if they had supported the jet harder, earlier, it could have happened. Conversely, if the British had done the same, it could have gone the other way, too. Likewise, if we had started making the Merlin earlier, it could have been a different war, too. What about a 2-stage, Merlin-powered P-40, with bubble canopy a year earlier? Didn't happen, either.

 

[GrauGeist]

The Me262, along with all other Luftwaffe types, were flying until the very last days of the war.

The limiting factor was not so much the amount of Allied fighters in the skies, but the extreme lack of fuel and materials to keep the aircraft in operation. However, they were up there.

The last Luftwaffe victories of the European theater were on 8 May 1945:

That morning, Gerhard Thyben of 7./Jg54 encountered a Pe-2 with his Fw190A-8 and shot it down (while his chief mechanic was in the radio compartment!).

That afternoon, Fritz Stehle of 2./Jg7 encountered a P-39 afternoon on 8 May 1945 with his Me262, shooting it down. The Russian pilot was mladshiy leytenant Sergey Stepanov of 129 GIAP (22 GIAD), KIA.

Both Thyben and Stehle were in the process of retreating when they were forced into defensive action.

 

[GregP]

I realize they were up there Graugeist, but with 3,700 aircraft destroyed on the ground in April alone (far and away the highest number of the war), it wasn't like they were up there in large numbers or were even deployed in large numbers in one place. They were up there one or two at a time, desperately trying to find a target that was vulnerable while not attracting 20 enemy fighters at the same time.

The fuel and propeller shortages were real, but artiificial. Germany HAD fuel and props, but couldn't get fuel from the refineries to the storage faciliaties or from the storage facilities to the front line airfields. Same with props. No real shortage, just a shortage where the front-line aircraft were based. Anything moving, especially around the airfields, on the ground was a target by March 1945.

 

[GrauGeist]

Germany didn't have that much fuel, as they had suffered serious damage to their fuel production facilities and weren't able to restore the sites fast enough to get production up to any sustainable quantity.

With the loss of the Rumanian oil production to the Red Army in late summer of 1944, they were operating only by a narrow margin. This meant that not only would the Luftwaffe be effected, but the Wehrmacht and the Kreigsmarine. Add to that, the demand for fuel by the transport, medical and staff within the military. In the civilian world...well, good luck with that...

 

[Milosh]

Luftwaffe Order of Battle
9 April 1945
Serviceable Aircraft Strengths
Single-engined fighters 1305
Night fighters 485
Ground-attack aircraft 712
Night harassment aircraft 215
Multi-engined bombers 37
Long-range reconaissance aircraft 143
Short-range and army cooperation aircraft 309
Coastal aircraft 45
Transport aircraft 10
Misc. aircraft (KG 200) 70
Total 3331

This is further broken down for units, Luftwaffe Orders of Battle 1945

Worth the read,
Strategy for Defeat: The Luftwaffe 1939-1945
Strategy for Defeat: The Luftwaffe 1933-1945

The German oil supply was tight throughout the war, and was a controlling factor in military operations. The chief source of supply, and the only source for aviation gasoline, was 13 synthetic plants together with a small production from three additional ones that started operations in 1944. The major sources of products refined from crude oil were the Ploesti oil fields in Rumania and the Hungarian fields which together accounted for about a quarter of the total supply of liquid fuels in 1943. In addition, there was a small but significant Austrian and domestic production. The refineries at Ploesti were attacked, beginning with a daring and costly low-level attack in August 1943. These had only limited effects; deliveries increased until April 1944 when the attacks were resumed. The 1944 attacks, together with mining of the Danube, materially reduced Rumanian deliveries. In August 1944, Russian occupation eliminated this source of supply and dependence on the synthetic plants became even greater than before.

United States Strategic Bombing Survey: Summary Report (European War)

 

[stona]

The tell tale sign is that German oil consumption closely mirrored their production. They didn't manage to maintain meaningful reserves post Barbarossa.
They used what they had, which meant that it had to be divided between the various services.
Here's the USSBS's chart for what the Americans call 'aviation gasoline', which follows the same pattern.

From Barbarossa onwards the Luftwaffe NEVER had enough aviation fuel. The Luftwaffe command that suffered the most severe rationing was Training Command which had catastrophic consequences in 1943/44.

Cheers

Steve

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Could the P80 have been rushed into "emergency" deployment towards the end of '44?

In actuality it was - while the first few models were still in test flight stage Lockheed received a contract for 500 examples, this was in early 1944 IIRC. During the summer of 1944 flight prototype production and flight testing was ongoing but there were delays in getting the engines to Lockheed. Additionally there were issues that sprung up during flight testing (no stall warning) that had to be addressed. The first 13 prototypes weren't delivered to the USAAF till September 1944. I don't think anyone could have made this happen any quicker and IMO, the later crashes came about because of the frantic pace to get this aircraft in service.

As I understand it the opposite happened the P 80 was in effect grounded because so many test pilots and aircraft had met a nasty end. Others here will surely be more competent to answer, but as I see it the range of early jets was so small that any meeting would have to be contrived. In the last days of the war the 262 was attacking bombers and no jet in ww2 was ever capable of escorting a bomber. You could try going for them as they take off and land from forward bases in Holland and Germany but would it be worth the effort?

During flight testing of the P-80 there were probably dozens of IFE's and precautionary landings but there were only 3 noteworthy mishaps during test flights that resulted in injury or death. Milo Burcham was killed on 20 Oct 1944 when his P-80 flamed out over North Hollywood CA. During March of 1945, Tony Levier was severely injured when his aircraft shed a turbine disk over Rosamond CA., and the most famous P-80 flight test mishap occurred Aug 6, 1945 when Richard Bong was killed trying to bail out of a P-80 during takeoff from Burbank CA.

There were 4 other P-80 crashes of during late 1944/ early1945 that involved delivered production aircraft. An XF-14 (YP-80 converted to a reconnaissance aircraft) collided with a B-25 over Muroc. On July 4, 1945 a P-80 crashed during an air show in San Diego. On Aug 2, 1945 a YP-80 belonging to the 1st Fighter Group blew up over Kentucky - this was one of the test aircraft Sent to Italy in December 1944, and on 16 September 1945 a P-80 crashed at Eglin AFB after reporting problems during flight.