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delcyros said:(to P-80 performance That´s probable.
The high command of the Luftwaffe (OKL) shares this view. They expected the Me-262 to be inferior in case of the advent of the first allied jet designs.
There are several reasons for this. The most important was the unfavourable position of the engines in underwing nacelles and the engines itself. Most others have been discussed above. I do estimate that the P-80 is a better dogfighter (in particular comparison to the Me-262 A). Just tried to outline that the very first US jets to encounter Me-262 in mid or late of 1945 would have a bad surprise because of different jet handlings (engine controll, stall behavior, ENERGY MANAGEMENT -as you say!). The Me-262 would have been flown by pilots which knew about the problems and which have considerable combat experience in a jet plane. But I don´t doubt that the generally well trained US pilots could keep up with them in short time and from this point on the benefits of the P-80 would weight twice. On the other hand what would a Me-262 look like in late 1945? In terms of speed it could close the gap to the P-80 with either more powerful engines or more swept back wings. How would design react to the P-80 advent? And what also is very important: How would the US designers modify the P-80, how about their engine development, the P-84 and so on.
I think that radial (or centrifugal flow) engines are excellent in the timeframe from 1940 to 1946. They are more reliable, they do not weight as much as axial engines and they are not that fuel gulping. Their development on the other side is limited (the Nene to name). Good working axial engines have been avaiable much later (and benefitted from german design much), their development would cost the UK and US designers a considerable time (1946 is more probable than 1945, while very early working axial flow engines have been avaiable sooner, but haven´t been succesful), while german jet engines design have been on the right way. Remember that the the SU produced very succesful axial engines based on the BMW-018 design! And that are the mid fifties...
delcyros said:Maybe I have been misunderstable, RG, I don´t wanted to say that a F-86 is inferior to the MiG-15. (actually I had F-80´s and Meteors in mind, when I spoke of "inferior" planes) I believe that MiG-15 and F-86 are somehow comparable planes, each has advantages on their own (the F-86 maybe a few more), a really "classic" combination.
The interesting Lockheed projects are paper projects (as many of the german like Triebflügel, Sänger and so on...far away from beeing useful designs). The F-84 isn´t.
The producability is another problem. In general spoken, the US had clearly the largest industrial capabilities and a very advanced basic tooling level (as pointed out above several times by RG). In a production "race" between german jets and US jets, I would like to bid my money on the US. But how about real numbers? 1433 Me-262, around 200 Ar-234, 364 Me-163 and 114 He-162 have been produced during ww2, 5000 Jumo-004 B (30% useful) and 800 BMW-003A and E (70% useful) produced. The Kahla underground facility in Thuringia was about to begin serial production at VE-day (estimated 1250 Me-262 in a month) Languste and Wien underground facilities produced at wars end 200 He-162 a month (accelerating), with some 800 airframes waiting for engines at wars end (estimated output in mid 1945: 1000 planes, each) and there have been a huge dispersal program taken effect. From my point of view the strategic bombing campaign is much overrated (regarding it´s effect on weapon industries) because of Speers dispersal program. The deliveries of planes, tanks and guns have been extremely high in 1944 (even with bombing campaign), and the few months of 1945 produced even more than the comparable months in 1944! Production reduced at the point, where terretory was occupated by allied ground troops, not that much because of the bombing campaign. Another story is the fuel bombing campaign...
I think that the Luftwaffe could keep it´s numerical advantage in jets up to late 1945.
The next point goes to the maneoverabilty. This depends on the speed. The higher the speed, the better the Me-262 is (compared to the P-80).
delcyros said:However, it is hard to ignore the advantages (speed, agility, air brake, weapon systems) of the P-80 over the Me-262, if you factor them properly you will find a lot of reasons why a P-80A could outmatch a Me-262.
Glider said:The debate between the P80 and the Me262 is an interesting one, but can I ask for peoples opinion of the Meteor III as a comparison to the 262 or the Mk 4 against the P80.
I say this as they seem to be the best comparison timescale wise.
To start off with,
Weapons
I believe that the 20m Mk V is better than either the 0.5 in the P80 or the 30mm in the 262. Its rate of fire was 12.5 rds per second compared with 13 rds per second of the 0.5. in other words no difference at all. MV was 830 m/s compared with 890 which is a little less but not a disaster. The weight of the shell is 130 grammes compared with 43 in the 0.5 which would help with the slightly lower MV and improve the trajectory. The weight of fire is probably 4 to 1 in favour of the 20mm. When you add the difference in explosive content in each shell and its case closed.
Agility
Mk 3 would be a decent match for the 262 but roll could be difficult as the controls were made heavy to reduce the chances of stressing the aircraft.
Mk 4 sorted these problems out and had a noticable increase in its power but would almost certainly lose out to the P80 in the agility stakes but would probably do well in the vertical axix due to its additional power. In Korea the Meteor was outclassed by the F86 and Mig 15 as a fighter but found its mark in GA due to the additional thrust.
Range
For a jet fighter of the period I think the Meteor did quite well
Pilots
For the purposes of this I think we have to assume that the pilots are well matched.
An aside. Eric Brown the Test Pilot considered the He 162 to be the best jet fighter at the end of the war. It should be noted that he was probably the only pilot with combat experience who had flown all the jets then in existance both, British, German and American.
As ever all comments welcome
Glider said:FJ, Thanks for your comments. Don't yuou just wish you could have toys like this!!