That's key point: it's impossible to single-out the particular design out of the enviroement it operated, if we asses the advantage it brought. Me-262 did have any major issue against himself, so, as Kris stated, the Germans wouldn't be able to capitalize even if they've fielded the F-22 in late 44.
Which fighter brought the biggest new advantage when introduced?
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That's key point: it's impossible to single-out the particular design out of the enviroement it operated, if we asses the advantage it brought. Me-262 did have any major issue against himself, so, as Kris stated, the Germans wouldn't be able to capitalize even if they've fielded the F-22 in late 44.
sorry i don't understand, if each operational 262 shoot down 60 allied plane they shoot down in all 6000 allied not 600 (a part that 100 operational in a given time is not the same that in all there were been 100 262 operational)
FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
And you are correct!!! -
Even at 6 (six) VI - it still doesn't add up. Large Me 262 formations weren't being fielded until late in the war and at that you were only talking 30 or more aircraft. It seems the best months for the 262 was April/ May of 45' and even then its evident that the LW did not shoot down anywhere close to 600 aircraft with the 262. As a matter of fact the highest "exaggerated" source I've found gives the 262 510 claims.
And you are correct!!! -
Even at 6 (six) VI - it still doesn't add up. Large Me 262 formations weren't being fielded until late in the war and at that you were only talking 30 or more aircraft. It seems the best months for the 262 was April/ May of 45' and even then its evident that the LW did not shoot down anywhere close to 600 aircraft with the 262. As a matter of fact the highest "exaggerated" source I've found gives the 262 510 claims.
out consideration on claims and source a little note on numbers:
if 100 262 were operation in a give time it's easy that many more 262 became operational with LW
put only half production became operational (obv. not in same given time) there is less a kill for each 262.
drgondog
Major
The first D did not arrive in ETO until late May and were not in significant percentage until August. 8th AF were still flying about 20% B's in February 1945.
Yes, the 4, 352, 354, 355 and 357 FG's were all flying P-51B-1s through -7's with some -10's in December 1943 though May 1944.
The question is which brought the biggest new advantage when introduced. So it's a comparison of the situation before and after that a/c was introduced. If the non-plane factors didn't change significantly at the same time the new plane was introduced, then they aren't relevant to what advantage it provided over the plane the same side was using just prior to that. I think that's basic logic.
Type 96's and Zeroes faced a basically similarly non-plane situation but the Zero completely changed the balance of air power from moderate overall advantage to total dominance. Late model Bf109/Fw190's and the Me 262 all faced a basically similar non-plane situation and the Me 262 had some (though not radically) more success v bombers but even less v fighters than the 109/190 had had just before in the basically the same situation otherwise. The Zero provided more new advantage when introduced, simple.
The argument that 'biggest new advantage' really means biggest increase in aerodynamic performance (or speed, since the 262 wasn't superior to pistons in every aspect of performance), even if it couldn't be exploited effectively, is shaky IMO, but not clearly illogical. But the argument that 109/190/262 all faced a tough situation so that fact means the 262 created more of an advantage over the 109/190 is clearly illogical.
Joe
Despite JoeB's claim LW kill claims made flying the Me262 seem surprisingly accurate.
According to LW records Me262's lost in action numbered less than 100, around 60 being lost in the air (USAAF fighter claimed 66 Me262s), and of those the majority was while taking off or landing. And according to LW records they claimed 509 to 600 + Allied aircraft.
450 Allied aircraft were claimed shot down by JG7 alone, most on the eastern front, of which there are many more victories which were never claimed. Around 125 to 150 kills have been confirmed by cross examination as losses to Me262's in the west. Furthermore JV44 claimed 56 Allied aircraft shot down, 47 of which have been confirmed by cross examination as-well.
So a 6:1 kill ratio for the Me262 seems not only true, but conservative at that when one considers the many Soviet a/c shot down which werent even claimed.
As the situation got more and more desperate for the LW they in the end stopped writing claims for their victories alltogether, the whole exercise seeming pointless.
P. Source: Manfred Boehme
Erich knows far more on this than any of us here though, so I hope he'll step in and clear this whole matter up
According to LW records Me262's lost in action numbered less than 100, around 60 being lost in the air (USAAF fighter claimed 66 Me262s), and of those the majority was while taking off or landing. And according to LW records they claimed 509 to 600 + Allied aircraft.
450 Allied aircraft were claimed shot down by JG7 alone, most on the eastern front, of which there are many more victories which were never claimed. Around 125 to 150 kills have been confirmed by cross examination as losses to Me262's in the west. Furthermore JV44 claimed 56 Allied aircraft shot down, 47 of which have been confirmed by cross examination as-well.
So a 6:1 kill ratio for the Me262 seems not only true, but conservative at that when one considers the many Soviet a/c shot down which werent even claimed.
As the situation got more and more desperate for the LW they in the end stopped writing claims for their victories alltogether, the whole exercise seeming pointless.
P. Source: Manfred Boehme
Erich knows far more on this than any of us here though, so I hope he'll step in and clear this whole matter up
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drgondog
Major
Despite JoeB's claim LW kill claims made flying the Me262 seem surprisingly accurate.
According to LW records Me262's lost in action numbered less than 100, around 60 being lost in the air (USAAF fighter claimed 66 Me262s), and of those the majority was while taking off or landing. And according to LW records they claimed 509 to 600 + Allied aircraft.
Erich knows far more on this than any of us here though, so I hope he'll step in and clear this whole matter up
Soren - the Awards (not claims) for 8th AF 262 scores were 116.5-9-131. These totals do not include 9th AF or RAF TAC or 15th AF or VVS.
the 354th FG for example were awarded 6-0-3 Me 262s.
The souce for 8th AF is USAF 85 and cross correlated with 8th AF VCB to pinpoint 'award' to 'type'.
Which LW records are you referring to in context of actual losses?
It is entirely possible that the 8th AF overclaimed/awarded but equally possible that the total air losses for Me 262 will never be known due to loss of data in November 1944 - May 1945.
About operational advantage, one should not forget the Bf109E. Until the Germans met the RAF over the British isle, the Bf109 was tremendously superior over all opposition, claiming victory over at least 7 airforces, including British Hurricanes in France.
drgondog
Major
Joe - I tend to agree your points save one. The Me 262 could choose to enter a fight with extremely high delta in speed and firepower - or equally to disengage if it kept its airspeed up. Its aerodynamic attributes were exceptional and greater than any piston engine fighter.
The Zero was not particularly superior aerodynamically speaking and achieved its manueverability advantage due to compromising hit survivabilty by draconian reductions in weight. Unlike most contemporary Allied fighters (P-38, F6F, F4U, etc) it did not possess a fundamental 'growth of mission capability' via increased Hp.
The US fighters reduced the ability of the Zero's manueverability advantage simply by being enormously faster in level flight and dive and zoom and maintaining operational performance at high altitude to SL. These fighter could engage/disengage with perhaps nearly the same advantage as a 262 to a Mustang
The Zero entered the war with great advantage in 'envelope' superiority but did not have compelling speed advantage to engage and pursue at will - actually the Mustang (B-D) was closer to the latter capability vs the 109/190 than the Zero vs Spit of P-40 or F4F.
Having said this I still favor the Zero as one of the two or three that offered the greatest intial performance 'difference maker' along with P-51B and Me 262.
Hi Bill,
I trust you on the USAAF claims as you're the expert on this board when it comes to this. My data is from Boehme, who writes that the USAAF by far shot down the most Me262's, fighter pilots alone claiming 66 Me262's in the air. IIRC bomber gunners claimed a pretty large numbers as-well, but most of those were almost certainly not true shoot downs. The rest as I understand it were lost to Allied strafing bombing runs as-well as accidents of all kinds.
I trust you on the USAAF claims as you're the expert on this board when it comes to this. My data is from Boehme, who writes that the USAAF by far shot down the most Me262's, fighter pilots alone claiming 66 Me262's in the air. IIRC bomber gunners claimed a pretty large numbers as-well, but most of those were almost certainly not true shoot downs. The rest as I understand it were lost to Allied strafing bombing runs as-well as accidents of all kinds.
Shortround6
Major General
the Zero did and didn't " possess a fundamental ''growth of mission capability' via increased Hp."
The airframe may have possessed the growth potential, at least with suitable modifications, as shown by the A6M8 prototypes at the end of the war. It would have required sacrificing the cowl guns though. It apparently was the Sakae engine that didn't possess much growth potential.
A change to the Kinsei engine much earlier offers some interesting "what if" performance changes.
trading shorter range for aprox. a 10% power gain in 1942 may not have been worthwhile but the Kinsei engine seemed to offer more potential for growth.
drgondog
Major
Strictly speaking you are right - but it was a significant mod to change engines and re-design wing to enable the hardpoints. Also it took until spring 45 to get this airplane flying with the new engine. The firepower loss due to the much larger cowl and ducting re-design seems less of an issue - and at the time it was flown it would have still been hopelessly outclassed wouldn't it?
The Japanese were making much more capable fighters in the Ki 84/100 and N1K1/2 series by the time the A6M was redesigned for bigger engine.
So, I feel the statement stands as I was focused on the aerodynamics and implied upgrade potential while maintaining the lines. The Mustang by comparison upgraded from P-51A with 1100 hp to P-51H w/2200 hp (1650-11 version ONLY) with essentially the 'same' lines. (I know I am stretching a point here - but take the F4U-1 to F4U-5 or Fw 190A1 to Fw 190D-13 in contrast for similar aerodynamics, w/significant growth in Hp and significant mission capability growth with same basic airframe)
Contrast the Mission Profiles of the original introduction to the final production versions of each. The Zero was by far the poorest example of improvements to introduced purpose and capability to final version mission capability in same timeframe?
So, during the mission critical opportunity to maintain some level of performance match against the F6F, F4U, etc growth versions - it didn't.
I do not know when the Kinsei engine was actually developed enough to consider the upgrade to create the A6M8so it may have been a priority decision?
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Shortround6
Major General
I really have no Idea why the Japanese Navy insisted the Mitsubishi Zero use a Nakajima engine for so long, especially when the Nakajima engine showed so little progress in power output. I have read that that Mitsubishi engineers wanted to put in the Mitsubishi engine much earlier but were over ruled. Truth or revisionist history?
Fuel economy and range held to be more important than speed and climb?
I believe the engine used in the Ki 100 was the same engine used in the A6M8 so I think that a Zero with that engine might have been able to perform close to the Ki-100. Of course with the pilot situation in 1944 even a year early introduction of the A6M8 wouldn't have changed things much.
I suspect the Japanese were severely limited by the number of engineers available. trying to develop the J2M Raidan and the A7M Reppu might not have left enough enough talent to improve the Zero in a timely manner.
I believe the Japanese tried to develop more new fighters from 1939 on than the British did. Perhaps they were hoping for another big leap in performance rather than steady steady progress, I don't know. I do think teat multiplicity of projects slowed them all down and held back the development of the Zero.
I could be wrong and the Zero airframe might not have been strong enough to take even a 1500hp engine in squadron use. Just not enough information.
Fuel economy and range held to be more important than speed and climb?
I believe the engine used in the Ki 100 was the same engine used in the A6M8 so I think that a Zero with that engine might have been able to perform close to the Ki-100. Of course with the pilot situation in 1944 even a year early introduction of the A6M8 wouldn't have changed things much.
I suspect the Japanese were severely limited by the number of engineers available. trying to develop the J2M Raidan and the A7M Reppu might not have left enough enough talent to improve the Zero in a timely manner.
I believe the Japanese tried to develop more new fighters from 1939 on than the British did. Perhaps they were hoping for another big leap in performance rather than steady steady progress, I don't know. I do think teat multiplicity of projects slowed them all down and held back the development of the Zero.
I could be wrong and the Zero airframe might not have been strong enough to take even a 1500hp engine in squadron use. Just not enough information.
drgondog
Major
Good questions.
The introduction of that much increased torque would lead the structures guys to immediately look at the rudder size for low speed flight control and look at the Torque carry through structure for the tail for asymmetrical loads in high speed flight - which in turn makes them look at all the longeron/shear panel design going forward.
The intro of the Merlin caused problems on the B-D Mustangs due to torque and focused on the asymmetric load issues on the airframe for diving turns, slow and snap rolls - which were never really completely solved until the P-51H redesign.
It would not have been a simple 'bolt on and go' as far as engine mounts and cowl design.
drgondog
Major
The question is 'where did Boehme parse the data?'
The awards(credits - not claims) for just five of the fifteen 8th AF FG's totalled 65.5. The Mustang accounted for all of the 8th AF totals except for the 56th FG's 4.5 and 78th FG 1.0.
357(18.5), 55th (16), 78th (12), 339th (11) and 361st (8) Mustangs totalled 65.5 Me 262 Awards..the rest of the 10 FG's totalled another 50 and that leaves bombers, 15th AF, RAF TAC and 9th AF with no accounting in the final totals.
Soren - we know that award systems were not perfect but I suspect USAAF data a lot better than LW data in the Nov-May timeframe?
FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
I welcome Erich in this discussion as he brought this up on another thread...
JV 44s kills were over a 40 day period and well documented. JG7 CLAIMED about 60 aircraft by Feb. 1945. So now we'll bring the elusive Soviet records into this....
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parsifal
Colonel
Hi Joe
Im not sure that I can fully accept your argument on this.....I tend to look at this in a mathematical sense to get an idea of the effect of the extraneous factors.
The actions of the allies like bombing, airfield suppression and the like are "reverse" force multipliers. In other words the force multipliers applying to the Luftweaffe in late'44 and early '45 are less than one, perhaps even approaching zero. If a combat value is assigned to a given type, say 6 for the Me109gs and say 10 for the me 262s, then if no force multipliers are at work, the Me 262 formations should be 40% more efficient at thair job, compared to the me 109 formations. However, if the force multipliers were reduced to zero (ie, the entire force is permanently grounded), then the combat effectiveness for both the 109 and the 262, are both the same, that is zero. As the Force multiplier effect approaches zero, the differences between the 109 and the 262 whilst proportionately still 40%, are going to narrow to such small differences in absolute terms as to be undetectable. If each force is 100 strong, but only 5% can get airborne, and each aircraft that gets airborne can shoot down say 1/10 of the aircraft then the5 109s (with a value of 6) will shoot down 3 aircraft per 100, whilst the 262 would shoot down 5 per 100. Whilst the qualitative relationship remains in tact, in real terms the difference is so small as to be negligible.
Force multipliers are crucial to the overall assessment of a types effectiveness. i take your point about the late war Zekes suffereing the same problems, but I see that as only reinforcing the theory, rather than disprovinbg it.
Regards
Michael
FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
Me 262 Combat Diary by Foreman and Harvey states that only 2 Yak-9s were claimed by 262s. I don't have the text in front of me so we're looking at another 398 Soviet aircraft (of mixed types) claimed by JG7. Hmmmm........
JoeB, feel free to chime in any time!
