Which jet was better, the Me 262 or the Gloster Meteor?

[beaupower32]

Over all this is a intresting thread. I have really enjoyed reading it, but on the other hand....


The only real losers of any war are the brave young and women who lost their lives. That includes every nation that has ever fought (Germany, England, USA, Ect....).

 

[Magnon]

My apologies for slighting the German people.

If anyone had done their research on the development of Nimonic alloy, on which this dispute hangs, they would have seen that the team which developed it ironically was led by Leonard Bessemer Pfeil, who was of anglo-german descent.

A great pity the Brits and the Germans couldn't have been working together on the development of the jet...


In support of my thesis that this alloy was crucial in the development of the jet aircraft, Siemens developed the first German gas turbine after the war and they used Nimonic blades. They are stilll using it in the combustor chambers in the Tornado stationary gas turbine:

Google <Siemens Tornado Nimonic Turbine>

 

[Kurfürst]

He strikes me as a permabanned member returning for more trouble...

In any case, the Germans simply made a stratetic choice with those serieal production Jumo 004B engines, and a right one. The pre-series Jumo 004A was built with ample use of alloys, and had a lifespan of 200+ hours.

The Germans had only limited supplies of these alloys, and the avarage fighter's lifespan was far shorter, 20-40 hours at best. It was a logical decision that for mass production and deployment in combat, an engine that didn't use strategic materials much and would last about 50 hours was sufficient - the avarage fighter was a statistically a loss long before its engines could give trouble, nevermind the fact that huge amounts of the Jumo 004 were produced (ca 8000 iirc) and the worn engine could be readily swapped for a new one in half an hour or so.

People seem to forget these were not airliners designed for decades of operation and with economy in mind, but expandable tools of war with a lifespan measured in a few dozen hours at best...

 

[beaupower32]

Good post Kurfürst.


I am amazed that the Germans considered the planes basically as being lost before they ever were. Do you know anywhere I can find more information on this. I would like to read up on it some.

 

[Magnon]

Comparing the Me 262 to a Meteor is like comparing apples to oranges.

The Me 262 was designed as a bomber destroyer, meant to be fast enough to evade escorting fighters. The Meteor was designed primarily as a dogfighter (hence the Me calibration on the gunsights).

It was counterproductive for the Me 262 to try to get into a dog fight, because of the relatively high maneuverabilty of contempory fighters such as the Mustang, the low velocity of the Me 262 cannon, and the relative lack of strategic advantage in destroying a fighter.

Even Adolf Galland, who was an ace, was shot up by a Mustang and forced to crash land at the end of the war (refer to his book The First and the Last).

 

[riacrato]

There is no fundamental difference in the specifications for either of the two fighters.

Design began before the war and the 1st prototype flew long before serious strategic bombing campaigns with escort fighters proved the then current LW fighter portfolio to be inadequate. The heavy armament was simply an adaption to air war reality.

 

[Waynos]

The Meteor was not designed for dogfighting. It was designed as a bomber interceptor incorporating experience from the BoB and the Blitz, the main advantage of its jet engines were not higher performance per se (as has been pointed out by others) but better and more consistent performance higher up than the average prop fighter.

To this end, spec F.9/40, called for a speed of 430mph at 30,000ft and an armament of 6 20mm cannon (later amended to four) and Gloster were advised to collaborate with Westland and use the pressure cabin being developed for the Welkin.

following the end of the blitz the requirement for it went away and so priority was reduced as the RAF chased higher performance fighters like the Griffon Spitfire and the Sabre powered Tempest, until the V-1 raids began and it was wanted again.

 

[Soren]

The Me262 was designed as a fighter, and featured great maneuverability at high speeds.

Furthermore Galland wasn't shot up in a dogfight, he was bounced.

 

[Magnon]

A quote from Adolf Galland's "The First and the Last" regarding the Me 262s proposed use as a "blitz bomber":

"According to its flying properties and its safety conditions it was highly unsuited for an aimed-bomb release; diving or gliding were out of the question because of the unavoidable excess of the permissable top speed. At speeds of over 600 mph the aircraft became uncontrollable. At low altitudes the fuel consumption was so high that the operative range became unprofitably small; therefore low level attacks were out of the question. There remained high-altitude bombing, yet here the target had to be at least the size of a large town to be hit with certainty under the given conditions."​

The Meteor was used in both ground attack and fighter roles in Korea.

 

[Magnon]

The Soviets had access to both British and German jet engine technology immediately after WW II. They chose to copy the British:

"The Soviet Union arrived at the jet age with German JUMO-004 and BMW-003 jet engines, but especially access to English Rolls-Royce Nene I and Derwent V engines in the years 1947 and 1948 meant major progress in Soviet aviation engine technology. Both of the English engines were copied and improved. In series production especially the MiG-15 profited from this new technology. In the Korean War it showed better climb and curve performance ratings than for instance its American opponent Sabre F-86."​

Ref J Lindberg. Copyright © 1997-2006 Fighter Tactics Academy.

The British had also been working on axial flow compressors at Metropolitan Vickers from 1939. The result was the 3500 lb thrust Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire.

 

[evangilder]

The Meteor was used in both ground attack and fighter roles in Korea.

That may be so, but the majority of those were F 8 versions, which were 5 years after WWII. A lot changed in those 5 years. If the Me 262 had 5 additional years of service and development, it too would have been quite different.

 

[Magnon]

It was also used in a ground attack role in the low countries during WW 2.

 

[Waynos]

Regarding Soviet jets. They chose the Nene for their short term needs as we were all too willing to give it away freely but based their long term research on German engine designs, all the Soviet axial engines used in the 1950's on types like the MiG 21, Tu-16 etc were rooted in captured German tech that was indegenously developed at leisure, thanks to us allowing them to ("there's no hurry old boy, here, have a few hundred nenes. You can copy it too, if you like).

An interesting footnote regarding the Meteor (because I love things like this) regards the tail of the Meteor F.8.

The F.8 tail was originally no different from every previous Meteor, though its handling and longitudinal stability was adversely affected by the extra fuselage length and the effect of the the fuel tanks emptying moving the cg.

Purely by chance the solution was found. The revised tail of the new E.10/44 single engine fighter was fitted to a development Meteor F.8 for flight trials for that programme and the improvement it brought to the Meteor was so profound it was immediately ordered that all F.8's currently on order would be completed in the same fashion.

Just imagine if turbo-prop powered Lincolns or Jet Viscounts had resulted in the same way

 

[red admiral]

, all the Soviet axial engines used in the 1950's on types like the MiG 21, Tu-16 etc were rooted in captured German tech that was indegenously developed at leisure, thanks to us allowing them to.

I don't think that is the case. Only the Klimov series of engines seem to be rooted in exterior designs (RD-10 copy of RD-10, RD-20 copy of BMW 003, RD-500 Derwent V, RD-45 Nene) most being produced as simple copies until the VK-1 which was a scaled up version of the Nene. Even so, simply copying the designs didn't work that great at first, producing nickel superalloys like Nimonic 80 took a few years to achieve. Come the early 1950s and things are away for fully developing their own designs.

Most used were the Lyulka series, rooted in Lyulka's own prewar and wartime designs with seemingly little German influence. Same for the Tumansky series of engines. These were the series that were pushed through the 1950s.

The real problems were hot section materials, the research behind which was helped by having Derwent and Nene engines, but their own developments shouldn't be discounted. You can't simply look at a turbine blade and say "it was made from this material, manufactured in this way" and then go away and do the same yourself.

 

[Waynos]

Well I certainly cannot argue that point with any confidence as my post was based on a book I read, rather than my own research.

It simply stated that captured German engines were analysed and the results forwarded to the Soviet firms developing new axial engines so that they could benefit from German research and findings. My post may read as if I was calling them copies, which I was not, but the book claimed that the long term programme in the USSR benefitted from German axial research and the use of British centrifugal types bought them the time to do it thoroughly.

 

[red admiral]

It would be undeniably useful to read German (or any others) research around the topic. It's always good to see how others approach the same problems. It's difficult to say that this had any large contribution to Soviet turbojet development. At the same time the British help with long term problems shouldn't be overstated. It gave them two engines (RD-500 and RD-45) that immediately worked well without problems (excepting lifetime issues due to Soviet materials) to power a number of prototype jet aircraft. The couple of years afterwards, the engines were studied and improved types emerged that were more suitable for Soviet use. At the same time, materials being developed to give better lifetime as those couldn't be simply copied from the British engines. By 1950 the pieces came together with the VK-1 series.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

It was also used in a ground attack role in the low countries during WW 2.

Besides bouncing some V-1s that is all it was used for...

 

[parsifal]

You cannot get a meaningful picture of the Meteors capabilities, during WWII, because of its extremely limited deployment. It seems to me that the British made sure they could build Jet technologies, just in case they were needed, and then more or less left the technology at that experimental state until after the war. To determine the true potentialities of the Meteor one has to look at its postwar applications, but then that raises the tricky question of what might have happened to the me 262 if it had been allowed to develop postwar in the same fashion.

My opinion, based on very little admittedly is that the Me 262 had the advantages of speed, and firepower, it seems likley that the Meteor could outturn the 262. I dont know about dive or climb characteristics. Whilst the Me 262 had a firepower advanatage, the Meteor carried more than enough punch to deliver lethal blows in a short space of time. It seems a lot would depend on the combat situation and the pilots flying the aircraft in that fight.....

 

[Colin1]

If we're venturing into Luft46 territory
the Me262 may well not have survived that long post-war, or rather, might have been replaced quickly by something more generally capable. The Ta183 raises its contentious head once more...

Previous post was pretty much on the button, it's trickier than it looks; the best of the Meteor was post-war but the Me262 (personal opinion) may well have been rapidly supplanted by something else.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I have to agree with both parsifal and Colin here.

I think that if you compare the WW2 variants here, the Me 262 has the edge because of its armament and performance. The Meteor progressed very fine after the war, but you can not really compare those to the Me 262. At the same time the Me 262 in my opinion had more room to progress had the war continued. Now having said that, as Colin said I believe that the 262 would have quickly been replaced by aircraft that were much better such as the Ta 183 and the P.1101. Of course this is purely "What If"...