Me 262.... (1 Viewer)

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With the exception of the rocket-powered interceptors, didn't the Germans stick bombs on all their fighters? Even the desperately needed Dornier Do 335 was fitted for bombs.

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I never imagined that fitting some bomb racks delayed the Me 262. Now, had the Me 262 been delayed to fit an internal bomb bay like on the Do 335 we might have a case to fault bomber desires for a later launch date.
 
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Even the desperately needed Dornier Do 335 was fitted for bombs.
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That may be seeing it somewhat backwards, the Do-335 was originally concieved as a high speed bomber. In 1942 the role of fighter-bomber or zerstörer was added, before the desperate need for it in the fighter role was readily apparent. Even if the writing was on the wall after December 1941, that appears far clearer in the retrospectoscope.
 
There were other issues.

How do you aim the bombs?

A steep dive can be difficult, there are no air brakes, the bombs tend to slipstream.

The normal way was to set a second cross hair on a Revi 16 guns sight, dive on the target at a predetermined angle and pullup and release the bomb when the second cross hair is on target. The pullup is at a height determined by an alarm on the altimeter or perhaps by the stedometric range finder. Pilots needed good maths.

One answer was a toss bombing sight the TSA 2D. The pilot aims in a shallow dive with his gun sight. The bomb sight takes in air speed data, sink rate data from a variometer or radar altimeter and altitude from the altimeter or FuG 101a radar altimeter. When the target release solution is 'acquired' by the bomb sight a flasher and buzzer tells the pilot to pull up, during this time and accelerometer tracks the aircraft. The bombs are released automatically in their arc. It was in operational evaluation at the end of the war with KG51.

The sight was not ready for even ordinary Jabo fighter bombers at the time of the Normandy landings. One reason may have been that the Luftwaffe had preferred to wait for the more accurate TSA 2D than the earlier TSA 2. Was that a bad decision not in keeping with the Fuhrers directive to prepare for the invasion?

Fw 190A made some attacks using Werfer-Granate 21 rockets, also known as the BR 2. The fuel tank jettison being hastily rigged up as a fire button. A few landing craft were hit, This rocket was an adaption of the bombardment rocket that had been designed for an ballistic attack. Because it was spin stabilised it spun of 5 degrees to the side due to the magnus effect and this had to be compensated in the sight.

Rockets should have been ready as well as toss bombing sights.

Some Me 262 bombers did eventually received TSA 2D but I suspect the aircraft still needed air brakes.

The Me 262 as a reconnaissance aircraft would have had more dramatic effects than anything else. As it was it took several weeks before a Ar 234 over flew the Cherbourg Peninsula and revealed the size of the allied beachhead.
 
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With the exception of the rocket-powered interceptors, didn't the Germans stick bombs on all their fighters?

Good point! I have thought of it myself. The BF-109 and FW-190 were small airplanes, smaller than their Allied counterparts and they carried bombs. The Me-262 was not only much larger but was made out of steel.

In reality, in his Me-262 book David Baker points out that the Me-262 was sold as a multirole aircraft from the beginning. The Germans were all agog over the DH98 Mossie. It was a bomber, it was a fighter, it was a fighter bomber, it was a recon aircraft. Willey said his new airplane could do all of that and then some.

The bomber versus fighter controversy came from Adloph Galland. Most German fighter pilots could not fly on instruments and the Germans had no bomber forces left by the time the 262 showed up in trivial numbers. So the logical thing was to use multi-engined bomber pilots in the 262. This frosted Galland big time, since he saw the bomber pilots getting the hottest fighter airplane the Luftwaffe had.

Over 30 years later the F-117 received an "F" designation because the TAC Commander said that no self-respecting fighter pilot would fly anything with a "B" designation and he wanted only the top TAC pilots to fly the F-117. Never mind that it would never do air to air or CAS!
 
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