Resolved. German jets were a waste of time and effort

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The Basket said:
Youre missing my point.

In 1942 the Germans did not know the war would end in 1945.

So research and development was worthwhile.
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Point made...

Hindsight is 20/20.

It's obvious that German jets were too little too late, but given the situation Germany was in I really can't fault the development and deployment of early jets.
 
If the Germans fielded the Me-262 a year earlier that also means it would have potentially shared this with the Japanese. How would this have affected the war in the Pacific?
 
olbrat said:
If the Germans fielded the Me-262 a year earlier that also means it would have potentially shared this with the Japanese. How would this have affected the war in the Pacific?
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As events proved, it was extremely difficult for Germany and Japan to share aircraft designs and innovations across 10,000 miles of Allied-invested ocean. At one time or another plans for Japanese construction of Fw200's, He177B's, He-100's, and Me163's fell apart - and I have also read a plan for German license manufacture of the Ki46 recconnaissance plane also died. So the odds are not good.

If they had somehow managed this, it would have had no effect on the war in the Pacific itself. With its limited range and requirement for long airstrips the 262 would have been no help in the island wars.

If Japan could have built and fielded even 100 Me-262's in the home defense role, it would have given them a much more effective interceptor able to combat the B-29 at high altitudes. Once the USAAF switched to night firebombing, however, this advantage would be lost.

My guess is that, only if they could actually get ahold of actual Me-262s, not just designs, would the scheme work for Japan in 1943-45. Although comparing the Me-163 to the Me-262 is like comparing rotten apples with tasty oranges, Japan's inability to transform Me-163 design plans into a servicable locally built interceptor does not indicate they could do any better making their own variants of the much more sophisticated Me-262 from design data. Plus, the Japanese were working on their own locally built jet designs not dissimilar to the 262 in basic configuration. These were probably more directly suited to Japanese manufacturing techniques..
 
FLYBOYJ said:
Please explain....
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I may be wrong, but the Kikka made more use of non-strategic materials and alloys, and the locally produced engines were simpler and - as a result lower powered. But as I said, I may be wrong.
 
zoomar said:
I may be wrong, but the Kikka made more use of non-strategic materials and alloys, and the locally produced engines were simpler and - as a result lower powered. But as I said, I may be wrong.
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You're talking materials and the Germans used non strategic as well. Manufacturing techniques, the way the aircraft were physically assembled for the most part varied little during WW2. There may have been different processes for materials (ie. heat treating, chemical conversion coatings and the wood processing and bonding techniques for the Mosquito or Soviet aircraft) but when they came together, especially metal aircraft, it was just about the same.
 
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Nooo, not the History Channel! Seriously, you are correct. This is a technical possibility. However, it is just as likely the submarines would be spotted and sunk by the US or British somewhere between Japan and Germany and back again. This is exacly what happened to a German submarine carrying an Me-163 to Japan. Realistically there is no way the Germans and Japanese could exchange enough actual airplanes with each other to supply each other with "lend lease" equipment without flying them there via a polar or central asian route. Actually this was successfully done on a few instances with Ju-290s I seem to remember.
 
I understand your point zoomar, however if the jets/technology appeared a year earlier the allies would not have had the same control over the air and sea in the Pacific and may not have been as much of a threat.
 
olbrat said:
I understand your point zoomar, however if the jets/technology appeared a year earlier the allies would not have had the same control over the air and sea in the Pacific and may not have been as much of a threat.
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I don't quite see how German jets in 1942-43 would have had much affect on sea control and the ability of the allies to patrol the oceans between Germany and Japan. Germany had no aircraft carriers - and its questionable if the small carriers proposed for the Kreigsmarine could have operated jet aircraft anyway. Since we are presuming the Japanese would be getting their jet aircraft from Germany, I don't see how we can imagine the Japanese having jets on their carriers by 1942-43 - plus they lost the biggest ones at Midway in June 1942. The jet engines of the time would not be suitable for long range maritime bombers. Even if you could magically give the Germans a force of jet-powered Ju-287 medium bombers in 1942 instead of their Fw200 squadrons, I don't see how this would do much to affect Allied dominance over the sea routes and choke points between Japan and Germany the allies dominated. I just don't understand your argument.
 
zoomar: There's no argument really. My original question was to find out what effect jets coming a year earlier to Japan would be. If there's no effect, it's cool with me. I'm just curious. Your answers have been very informative.

I agree with you about them not having much effect in sea battles. But as a land-based defensive weapon for the larger islands and mainland Japan they could possibly have countered the B-17's (hindered the incendiary bombings) and the B-29's (maybe no A-Bomb). I think that, as in Europe it may have prolonged the war, but not turned the tide.
 
Although they did not change the war too much effect, I think the information gathered by studying the German aircraft after the war was of some importance.
 

Certainly agree there. Bunches of Me-262s would probably do wonders for the Japanese interceptor force, which completely lacked powerful bomber destroyers that could reach the altitudes and speeds at which the B-29 operated. It certainly wouldn't have changed the outcome of the Pacific War but would have prolonged it. As you suggest, if the Japanese still had a credible interceptor force in August 1945 it would probably have changed how, when, and where the USAAF decided to deply its first A-Bomb, since it's hard to imagine flying Enola Gay and a few photo planes by themselves over Japan if there could be a squadron of Me-262s about. One quibble. I'm not sure the B-17 was a major bomber against the Japanese home islands, I believe it was the B-24 that handled the bulk of the load before the 29 came on board.
 
Messy1 said:
Although they did not change the war too much effect, I think the information gathered by studying the German aircraft after the war was of some importance.
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This is a very perceptive comment. The real influence of German experimentation with jet propelled high speed warplanes is shown by the fact that the Korean War was fought by Mig15s and F-86s, instead of Mig-9s and F-80's. No doubt some will argue with this, but I'm pretty sure that the suite of design traits that made the Mig15 and F-86 the planes they were would not have occured that soon in operational US or Soviet planes without access to the preceeding German work on swept wings, jet engines, mach tolerences, etc.
 
I find it funny that people argue against the jets and pro late war German piston types like the Dora.

The jets were to some degree successful when taking into account the situation they operated in. Although reliable loss figures are hard to come by for those closing months of the war, from what I gathered so far they had a kill ratio slightly in their favour even as late as 1945.

The Doras in reality didn't fare significantly better than the Focke Wulfs A-8/9s or the Bf 109 Gs: They were shot down in masses. Of course people are going to say it's because the jets got the elite pilots but I think the same is true for the Dora and not all of the KG Me 262 pilots can be considered expert fighter pilots (and they still had some success).

Oh and while we're at it, of all the factors that led to the quick defeat of the LW starting late 1943 and ending in mid 1944 my theory is that the inferior performance figures were actually the least important.
 
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A couple of points.

As damaging as the firebombing campaign was, the crucial card for the B-29 was ability to carry the atomic bombs to Japan and drop them. Strip them away and deliver the tow eapons at night with relatively little success in night interception by Japan - and the ultimate result (psychological) would probably be the same.

I also agree the Ta 152 very important - but disregard it a a major 'difference maker'. It would require the capability of the airframe with a skilled pilot to gain and edge - and the latter was in short supply. The Allies on the other hand had thousands of fighters 'nearly as good' and thousands of pilots far better than the average Luftwaffe pilot in 1945.

The 262 was a better bomber killer (IMO) than a Ta 152 could hope to achieve, and could be flown by a person of less compelling skills to attack a bomber stream -

I'm not saying a Me 262 couldn't shoot a night raiding B-29 down but remember they didn't even bother coming up after the two ship missions of Enola Gay and later Bock's Car during the daylight.Me 262s would have (should have) brought down many B-29s during the early stages when they were bombing at 28-30K during the day, but the Japanese air defenses were essentially worthless at night when the 29's were at low altitude - and well within the performance envelope of even a zero..

The B-29 was also very effective at ythe last stages in shipping interdiction, a mission for which the 262 would not have been effective at disrupting..

As to B-17s they were basically done in the Pacific after the Solomons campaign - the PTO was basically all B-24 ops after that until Guam came on-line for the B-29s. The B-29 ops out of China were pretty ineffectual.

Back to the thread. IMO it would have been stupid to NOT develop the German jets - the Luftawaffde had to have a game changer with a quantum leap in capability to have a remote chance of recovering air superiority in the West - and the East wasn't hurting them strategically until the continuously over ran important targets on the ground.

War in PTO was entirely different - and the 262 would have been less of a threat until Japan was being assaulted directly.
 
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The truth, I think is that ultimately the Allied Command was very frightened of these jets. A lot of raids on airfields destroyed these expensive aircraft on the ground. On the air it was probably very hard to get a bead on them, considering how fast they were moving, course this would have made gunnery from them that much more difficult. I wouldn't have been surprised if the Germans hadn't been working on a solution to the problem of high-speed gunnery. Ultimately though, the Mustang did have a challenge actually getting into position to shoot down the enemy due to the zoom and scoot tactics of the Me-262. The Me-163 could be argued to have been less useful and more dangerous.
 
I just think the task was simply far too great.
Early jets or not.
I can't see any credible way to take on the whole final allied side and win in the way Germany her (few relatively weak European) allies did and given the distance to Japan.

Enigma more than anything sealed the deal allowing for the application of maximum effective destructive force at almost every turn by the western allies after 1940.

This was almost replicated by the Soviet conventional spies (along with - if true - some incredibly involved German leaking which was supposed to lead the Russians up the garden path to a final master-stroke that never came - see 'Hitler's Traitor' by Louis Kilzer), although by 1944 their vast productive capacity was simply overwhelming whatever technical edge the Germans possessed.
 
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