MOST OVERRATED AIRCRAFT OF WWII (4 Viewers)

[Thorlifter]

Really the ONLY knock on the 262 was take off and landing performance and long term engine reliability, but that was hardly the 262's fault. It was simply the growing pains of advanced technology. Once the Jumo's spooled up, the plane was very good, wicked fast, and heavily armed!!!!

 

[michaelmaltby]

... it must have been very frustrating for the 'experten' to be so vulnerable on landings and take-offs

 

[stona]

How is the Me262 considered over-rated?

I agree that today it is not overrated.However, I would argue that there were some influential officers in the Luftwaffe who overrated it in 1944/45. It was not the war winning (should that be war saving?) machine that they thought it could be. Germany would have needed to produce many thousands of them, and provided the pilots to fly them, to have had any significant impact on the air war, and they would still have lost the war anyway.
Cheers
Steve

 

[Thorlifter]

Steve, I agree that the influential leaders assessment of the 262 was over rated and that there wasn't enough planes and pilots to make Germany victorious, but that doesn't make the plane over rated.

 

[stona]

I don't think we overrate it today. With hindsight we can make realistic assessments of its capabilities and limitations. We know it was a sign post to the future, though not in itself the future.

I think today some do overrate its influence on subsequent aircraft design.

Some Germans overrated it at the time, I'm just pointing out that its contemporaries did this. They saw it in similar terms to other wonder weapons, something we will hardly do today.

Cheers

Steve

 

[airminded88]

There is one key figure who certainly underrated its potential as a lethal bomber destroyer and as such killed any further advantage it could had provided to the LW in their defense of the reich: Hitler

 

[stona]

There is one key figure who certainly underrated its potential as a lethal bomber destroyer and as such killed any further advantage it could had provided to the LW in their defense of the reich: Hitler

Hitler saw it as a fast bomber and saw the advancing Allied armies, particularly those of the Soviet Union, as the most deadly threat to Germany.
It is not surprising that the Luftwaffe saw the Allied bombers as the main threat to Germany, nor that Hitler saw the Allied armies as the main threat.
In this case Hitler was probably correct, it was those Soviet armies that fought their way into Berlin. The loss of territories denied Germany more resources than all the efforts of the combined bombing offensive. I suspect, however, that most members of a modern WW2 aircraft forum will probably take the same view as the Luftwaffe did
Cheers
Steve

 

[GrauGeist]

The problem with the Me262 as a "Schnell Bomber" was that was not designed for that role - stopping it's production and then redesigning it for that role was a terrible mistake and created a great deal of delays.

Especially in light of the fact that the Ar234 was already in the works and was introduced into service just a few months after the Me262 was put into service at Lechfeld.

If anything about the Me262 is to be considered over rated, it would be the German Leadership's intelligence...

 

[stona]

The P-47, Typhoon and many others were not designed as bombers. Messerschmitt himself told the leadership that he could convert the Me 262 to this role, he was never one to mistake which way the wind was blowing or to miss out on an opportunity. He was more responsible for the delays than any other person or organisation.
I'm not suggesting that the Jabo role was the most appropriate for the Me 262, but I can understand why the decision to go down this route was taken. In a dire situation, when confronted by several threats, you apply the best of limited means to confront the one which you rate as the most immediate and dangerous of them. It was NOT an irrational decision taken by a deluded leader, as is so often and simplistically asserted in many standard histories.
We suffer from the post war tub thumping of men like Galland and many others in this respect, always attempting to distance the most thoroughly Nazi of all the services (excepting of course organs of the party, SA, SS etc) from the regime and to deflect responsibility for its failings on to others, unable to defend themselves.
I am no apologist for Nazism, but discounting the failings of entire programmes and blaming them on a delusional or even insane leadership does nothing to help explain the history.
Cheers
Steve

 

[GrauGeist]

However, if we go back and look at Willy's original designs and concept, there was no provision for hardpoints for bombs under the nose until Der Fuhrer had an epiphany.

He (Willy) had already adjusted the wing design to adjust the CoG during it's development...but when Hitler asked him if he could make it into a bomber, just imagine the awkward silence while he formulated the correct answer...

The Me262, like a good many of the excellent designs that came off the drawing board of Messerschmitt, Heinkel, et. al. ended up spawning countless variants that were costly, time consuming and created ruinous delays.

 

[Denniss]

The problem with the Me262 as a "Schnell Bomber" was that was not designed for that role - stopping it's production and then redesigning it for that role was a terrible mistake and created a great deal of delays.

Especially in light of the fact that the Ar234 was already in the works and was introduced into service just a few months after the Me262 was put into service at Lechfeld.

If anything about the Me262 is to be considered over rated, it would be the German Leadership's intelligence...

Sorry but that's a common myth, production was neither stopped nor the 262 redesigned. 262 was always held back by availability of its engines.

 

[GrauGeist]

Sorry but that's a common myth, production was neither stopped nor the 262 redesigned. 262 was always held back by availability of its engines.

Nonsense...they were not just taking completed A-1a aircraft, removing two Mk108 cannon and sticking hardpoints under the nose at random, and sending them on their way.

 

[Venturi]

Because it represented a technological evolution in aviation, the Me262 was a great plane. Especially if you ignored the fuel consumption, abysmal power and acceleration at low speeds, 12hr engine lifespan, and propensity to catch fire if throttled up too fast. It provided top speeds and climbrate which no prop plane of the era could match.

The more germane question is, exactly what was asked. Is the 262 over-rated? Over rated does not mean bad. It doesn't even mean mediocre. It could theoretically encompass very good aircraft. It just means, rated better than it actually was.

The point was made in a recent scholarly work, The German War, (recommended) that the disproportionately expensive weapons like the Me262 were most useful as moral support for the Deutsche Volk, who desperately needed to believe in something which could deliver them from the doom of the collapsing fronts and the daily bombings. People need hope and Hitler was a shrewd, if inhuman, man.

 

[stona]

The point was made in a recent scholarly work, The German War, (recommended) that the disproportionately expensive weapons like the Me262 were most useful as moral support for the Deutsche Volk, who desperately needed to believe in something which could deliver them from the doom of the collapsing fronts and the daily bombings..

This is why the Me 262 tended to be lumped in with other wonder weapons. The Luftwaffe presented (and presents) a united front, that by using the type as a fighter bomber rather than an out and out fighter, a chance to turn the air war in the West was lost. This was nonsense then and it is nonsense now. It is in this sense that the aircraft was overrated at the time.

The decision by Hitler to develop the Me 262 as a fighter bomber was taken sometime after a demonstration he saw on 26th November 1943, flown by the Me 262 V-6 (the V-4 flown by Bauer suffered a flame out on take off and did not perform). It was confirmed in a telegram to Goering on 5th December. I'm afraid that the argument that this somehow upset ongoing fighter production, bolting ETC racks onto existing fighters does not stand up, given this timeline. This is around the time that the Me 262 V-8 and V-10 were delivered to the flight testing centre at Rechlin and before any series production.

A more rational programme for an out and out interceptor might have been the He 162. It was never properly developed, but crucially it only used one engine, and it was the engines which were the major impediment to all jet programmes.
Willy Messerschmitt is on the record as strongly objecting to the He 162 programme (but then he would), and others including Galland did too. The RLM/Luftwaffe always suffered from confused priorities, this was just one more example.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Denniss]

Nonsense...they were not just taking completed A-1a aircraft, removing two Mk108 cannon and sticking hardpoints under the nose at random, and sending them on their way.

Get your facts right. The airframe was basically ready for production in later 43 but the engines were only available in numbers by spring/summer 44.
And they actually built two models in 1944 as the normal A-1a and the FB version A-2a, from late 44 on they just produced the A-1a which they could adapt to FB role by removing/installing required equipment.

 

[Juha2]

However, if we go back and look at Willy's original designs and concept, there was no provision for hardpoints for bombs under the nose until Der Fuhrer had an epiphany.

He (Willy) had already adjusted the wing design to adjust the CoG during it's development...but when Hitler asked him if he could make it into a bomber, just imagine the awkward silence while he formulated the correct answer...

The Me262, like a good many of the excellent designs that came off the drawing board of Messerschmitt, Heinkel, et. al. ended up spawning countless variants that were costly, time consuming and created ruinous delays.

Not true, the Project proposal IV of Messerschmitt AG dated on May 8 1943 was for "Me 262 Jäger und Jabo". It gave for first time detailed plans for series production for Me 262 versions existing at that time and as we know Jabo = fighter bomber. As a Jabo 262 would have had a max bomb load of 700 kg.


It seems that the main reason for the delay besides the problems in the jet engine development was Willy, who desperately wanted to put Me 209 back to production plans and even went to Hitler to critize 262 and praise 209 and succeeded to get 209 reinstalled to the production plan and then took resources away from 262 development to 209 development.

And the future deployment of Ar 234 didn't destroy Hitler's logic for a Me 262 Jabo. His main aim was to have a plane capable to hit the Allied forces on D-Day, not 3 months later.


And IMHO even excellent planes can be over-rated, be it Supermarine Spitfire, Bf 109F-4, P-51D, Ta-152 or Me-262.

 

[stona]

Juha is correct about the Me 209. On 27th June 1943 Willy Messerschmitt argued against mass production of the Me 262 in a meeting with Hitler, and succeeded in obtaining a Fuhrer Order overturning Milch's earlier (25th May) cancellation of the Me 209!

This is all about timing. The Me 262 was conceived as a fighter and that is what was intended with the issuing of the initial order for five prototypes (V series) and twenty pre-production (0 series) aircraft, on 25th July 1941.

Plans for various bomber versions certainly date from early 1943, Messerschmitt had some inkling of what might be required. As I said before, he wasn't one to mistake which way the wind was blowing.
This is hardly surprising, given the terms of Protokoll Nr. 9 of 4th March 1943.

"...as per the Fuhrer Befehl, every fighter must henceforth be capable of performing in the fighter-bomber role. An installation capable of carrying 500 KG bombs is foreseen for the Me 262, according to drawing Nr.II/141."

The order had been issued in February 1943 and covered all fighter aircraft, it was as a result of this that the first project for a fighter bomber version of the Me 262 was started on 26th March 1943.

When Hitler made his comments to Goering, on 27th October, about jet fighter bombers screaming at top speed along the beaches to attack an Allied invasion, the plans for a fighter bomber had been in existence for at least seven months. Ten days earlier the V6 had flown for the first time (the first aircraft to have a fully retractable tricycle undercarriage and the first to be fitted with Jumo 004 B-0 engines). We are still a distance from series production.

The fighter bomber capability was not imposed on an a fighter already in production, it predated it by a considerable period. It was a requirement, at least theoretically, for all Luftwaffe fighters in the face of the threats to which I alluded in an earlier post. The Anglo-American bombing offensive was not the only, nor the most deadly, threat to face Germany at this time. The Me 262 was in no way singled out for some kind of special treatment in this respect. Being an aircraft still in development it should have been easier to convert it for a fighter bomber role than other aircraft already in service, particularly as its designer kept insisting that it could easily be done!

I know sometimes it seems almost a shame to allow the facts to get in the way of the 'mad Fuhrer and his idiotic decisions' school of history, but 70+ years after the events we should be looking at more balanced views.

Cheers

Steve

 

[drgondog]

I learned more about the politics behind the Me 262 in the last 24 hours than I ever knew/believed before.

 

[stona]

I'd also add, regarding the engine situation, that whilst it is true that the 900 engines promised by Junkers for 1943 never materialised, Messerschmitt AG only had plans to build ten (that's just ten) V series aircraft in that year.

To give an idea of the way in which the company dragged its feet, in January 1943 it proposed a jet powered version of the Me 109, the Bf 109 TL (based on a combination of parts from the Me 155 and Me 309) as it feared problems with the Me 262. This came to nothing, but wasted more time. All the evidence suggests that neither Messerschmitt himself, nor the company, were fully behind the Me 262 project until it was too late. Over a year later, in March 1944, Messerschmitt was still complaining that the RLM had hampered development of the Me 262 by not having determined the priority of the type, despite the Me 262 being given the highest priority (DE) on 22nd January 1943. Messerschmitt simply ignored this and accorded a higher priority internally to the Me 209 project, which by his own admission resulted in a reduction in the Me 262 design work and delayed that project by months.

Cheers

Steve

 

[pbehn]

Please also bear in mind that in Germany in 1944/45 it was more important to be involved in a "project" than not to be, there were approximtely 200 people working on plans for the breitspurbahn broad gauge railway throughout the war. Not being involved in a project could result in a rifle being thrust into your hand.