Zyzygie’s Mumbles and Rambles

[GrauGeist]

I'm not just talking out my hat...statiatics bear out that West Germany had a higher attrition rate than other nations and a high-position horizontal stabilizer is not the issue, it's the mission profile versus hardware intention that's the core of the problem. The Mig-21 had a high-mount horizontal stab and it didn't have flight profile issues, the C-5 had a high-mount horizontal stab and it didn't have flight profile issues - the list goes on...

 

[Zyzygie]

"...The Germans did pioneering work on air-cooling and heat and corrosion resistant coating and they would have succeeded with ceramics (they latterly did in 1946 design and in 1947 commission a power turbine that used the Jumo 004 compressor, ceramic inlet nozzles and water cooled turbine). Incidently J79 used ceramic turbine blades for the LP stage..."


I suspect that this was just a ceramic coating for use in a highly corrosive marine environment:

Marinization of The General Electric LM1500 Gas Turbine


" Parts in the front end of the gas generator operating at a temperature of 450 F or less were given two coats of phenol-formaldehyde thermosetting resin coating known by the trade name of Heresite• Parts in the higher temperature regions (450 to 1000 F) were given two coats of an aluminum-silicone paint. Such items as gearboxes and other external low-temperature parts were given a zinc-chromate primer and two coats of black enamel The first-stage turbine nozzle and the first-stage buckets were coated with a U. S. Bureau of Standards ceramic coating known as A418.

 

[Zyzygie]

I can't find any evidence of successful application of ceramics to turbine blading in World War 2 in Germany or anywhere else. Can you point me to it?

"...Before the Nazi regime took power in Germany, Ernst Schmidt was a leading thermodynamics researcher and academic; the dimensionless number formed by the ratio of momentum and mass diffusivities is named after Schmidt. With the war on, Schmidt led a program at the top-secret German Aviation Research Institute—which in German is compounded into Luftfahrtforschungsanstalt and abbreviated LFA—to adapt ceramics to jet engine construction."
"Schmidt quickly abandoned any effort to use ceramic rotor blades because of their brittleness in tension and problems associated with their attachment. He also considered, briefly, the construction of a turbine in which the casing rotated and the rotor was stationary, much like the WWI French Gnome rotary piston engine. In that way the rotating airfoils would be put under secure compression instead of tenuous tension."
"The ceramic gas turbine work at LFA did lead to turbine stator development, with Degussa and Siemens Neuhaus furnishing alumina stators. Those, however, proved to be relatively sensitive to heat shock."
"Thus, despite the pioneering German work on gas turbine ceramics, there is no evidence that ceramics were used in the gas paths of any of the approximately 7,000 production jet engines built by Germany by the end of WWII. Turbine airfoils were made of metal alloys, and air-cooled when necessary."

"A ceramic formed by silicon carbide decomposes at 4,950 ̊F, well above current turbine gas path temperatures."​

The LEAP engine.
Photo: GE Aviation
"The challenges involved in developing ceramic rotating parts for a gas turbine have persisted in the decades since. As David Richerson pointed out in a 2004 paper, ceramics introduce a wide spectrum of challenges in the high temperature ranges found within gas turbines. For instance, how do you go about designing and fabricating components using these brittle materials in such high stress and possibly high impact applications? There's virtually no margin for error: a cracked rotating ceramic turbine blade can suddenly fail, taking out other blades and causing total engine failure..."

Hot PlatesFor as Long as There have been Jet Engines, Engineers have been Trying to Perfect Ceramic Turbine Parts. If Only Ceramics didn't Fail so Catastrophically. | Mechanical Engineering | ASME Digital Collection

 

[swampyankee]

Aft swept wings tend to stall from the tips because the wing's vortex field causes the tips to be more highly loaded than the roots; the XF-91 had that inverse taper to reduce this effect and bring the lift coefficient down at the top.

Inertial coupling was found to happen with the F-100, although that probably wasn't the first. Aircraft where most of the mass is carried in the fuselage are prone to some form of inertial coupling; this probably includes all modern fighters

 

[Graeme]

What did American pilots think of the Meteor I ?

 

[GrauGeist]

1400 Me 262s we're built and only about 20-40 could get into the air on a given day. Adolf Galland said that if he had had a couple of hundred he could have stopped the bombing.

It's been posted MANY times why the Me262 (and other Luftwaffe aircraft) were not able to operate an-masse by war's end and if you'd take time out from your CnP fest and read a bit, you'd know why.

The Luftwaffe was out of fuel, oil and tires. They were scraping the barrel for new pilots...pilots who were literally put in the cockpit after a few hours of training (also because no fuel for trainer aircraft).
The Luftwaffe was hard-pressed to get supplies and replacement aircraft to the front (both new and returns from the repair depot) because the infrastructure was being scoured by Allied fighters and bombers.

The list goes on, but the Me262 was not grounded solely on engine issues. Not even close.

 

[Zyzygie]

It's been posted MANY times why the Me262 (and other Luftwaffe aircraft) were not able to operate an-masse by war's end and if you'd take time out from your CnP fest and read a bit, you'd know why.

The Luftwaffe was out of fuel, oil and tires. They were scraping the barrel for new pilots...pilots who were literally put in the cockpit after a few hours of training (also because no fuel for trainer aircraft).
The Luftwaffe was hard-pressed to get supplies and replacement aircraft to the front (both new and returns from the repair depot) because the infrastructure was being scoured by Allied fighters and bombers.

The list goes on, but the Me262 was not grounded solely on engine issues. Not even close.

If more Me 262s (like 200) were in the air, the bombing would have stopped, allowing more fuel and resources to flow through.
But a "chicken and egg" problem...

 

[GrauGeist]

It would have taken far more than that to even slow the tide and they would have had to operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week to slow the US bombers by day and RAF bombers by night with the occasional Soviet bombers making an appearence.

Add to that not only the light bombers (day and night) but also the escort fighters and free-ranging fight-bombers.

 

[Zyzygie]

So the P-80 was eventually developed to a speed of 624 mph in 1947:

"On 19 June 1947, it was flown by Colonel Albert Boyd to a new world speed record of 623.73 mph (1,004.2 km/h), equaling Heini Dittmar's 623 mph (1,004 km/h) unofficial record velocity in one of the Me 163A liquid-fueled rocket fighter prototypes, set on 2 October 1941 after being towed to the height for the attempt."

 

[Zyzygie]

It would have taken far more than that to even slow the tide and they would have had to operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week to slow the US bombers by day and RAF bombers by night with the occasional Soviet bombers making an appearence.

Add to that not only the light bombers (day and night) but also the escort fighters and free-ranging fight-bombers.

"...During these last weeks of the War we were able to fit out some aircraft with additional weapons, which gave a greater firing power to the ME-262: R4M rockets of 3-cm. caliber, and 500-g. explosivies. A single hit from these was enough to bring down a multiengined bomber. They were fixed beneath the wing in two racks that carried 24 rockets. In a feverish hurry our mechanics and servicing crew loaded up a few jet fighters. I took off in one of them. In the district of Landsberg on the Lech I met a formation of about 16 Marauders. We called these twin-engined bombers Halbstarke. I opened from a distance of about 600 yards, firing in half a second a salvo of 24 rockets into the close flying formation. I observed two certain hits. One bomber immediately caught fire and exploded; a second lost large parts of its right tail unit and wing and began to spiral earthward. In the meantime the three other planes that had taken off with me had also attacked successfully. My accompanying pilot, Edward Schallnoser, who once over Riem had rammed a Lightning because in his excitement he could not fire, waded into the Marauders with all his rockets. That evening he reported back to his quarters, parachute under his arm and a twisted leg. Our impression of the efficiency of this new weapon was indescribable. The rockets could be fired outside the effective range of the defensive fire of the bombers. A well-aimed salvo would probably hit several bombers simultaneously. That was the way to break up formations. But this was the end of April, 1945! In the middle of our breakup, at the beginning of our collapse! It does not bear thinking about what we could have done had we had those jet fighters, 3-cm. quick-firing cannons, and 5-cm. rockets years ago—before our war potential had been smashed, before indescribable misery had come over Germany through the raids. We dared not think about it. Now we could do nothing but fly and fight and do our duty as fighter pilots to the last..."

Galland, Adolf. The First and The Last (pp. 159-160). David Rehak. Kindle Edition.

It looks like 200 reliable Me 262s with R4M rockets would do quite nicely, actually...

 

[swampyankee]

"...During these last weeks of the War we were able to fit out some aircraft with additional weapons, which gave a greater firing power to the ME-262: R4M rockets of 3-cm. caliber, and 500-g. explosivies. A single hit from these was enough to bring down a multiengined bomber. They were fixed beneath the wing in two racks that carried 24 rockets. In a feverish hurry our mechanics and servicing crew loaded up a few jet fighters. I took off in one of them. In the district of Landsberg on the Lech I met a formation of about 16 Marauders. We called these twin-engined bombers Halbstarke. I opened from a distance of about 600 yards, firing in half a second a salvo of 24 rockets into the close flying formation. I observed two certain hits. One bomber immediately caught fire and exploded; a second lost large parts of its right tail unit and wing and began to spiral earthward. In the meantime the three other planes that had taken off with me had also attacked successfully. My accompanying pilot, Edward Schallnoser, who once over Riem had rammed a Lightning because in his excitement he could not fire, waded into the Marauders with all his rockets. That evening he reported back to his quarters, parachute under his arm and a twisted leg. Our impression of the efficiency of this new weapon was indescribable. The rockets could be fired outside the effective range of the defensive fire of the bombers. A well-aimed salvo would probably hit several bombers simultaneously. That was the way to break up formations. But this was the end of April, 1945! In the middle of our breakup, at the beginning of our collapse! It does not bear thinking about what we could have done had we had those jet fighters, 3-cm. quick-firing cannons, and 5-cm. rockets years ago—before our war potential had been smashed, before indescribable misery had come over Germany through the raids. We dared not think about it. Now we could do nothing but fly and fight and do our duty as fighter pilots to the last..."

Galland, Adolf. The First and The Last (pp. 159-160). David Rehak. Kindle Edition.

It looks like 200 reliable Me 262s with R4M rockets would do quite nicely, actually...

The P-80 was very close to service, as was the atomic bomb. The original target was Germany.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

The F-80 that set the 1947 speed records was modified. F-80R

 

[Peter Gunn]

"...During these last weeks of the War we were able to fit out some aircraft with additional weapons, which gave a greater firing power to the ME-262: R4M rockets of 3-cm. caliber, and 500-g. explosivies. A single hit from these was enough to bring down a multiengined bomber. They were fixed beneath the wing in two racks that carried 24 rockets. In a feverish hurry our mechanics and servicing crew loaded up a few jet fighters. I took off in one of them. In the district of Landsberg on the Lech I met a formation of about 16 Marauders. We called these twin-engined bombers Halbstarke. I opened from a distance of about 600 yards, firing in half a second a salvo of 24 rockets into the close flying formation. I observed two certain hits. One bomber immediately caught fire and exploded; a second lost large parts of its right tail unit and wing and began to spiral earthward. In the meantime the three other planes that had taken off with me had also attacked successfully. My accompanying pilot, Edward Schallnoser, who once over Riem had rammed a Lightning because in his excitement he could not fire, waded into the Marauders with all his rockets. That evening he reported back to his quarters, parachute under his arm and a twisted leg. Our impression of the efficiency of this new weapon was indescribable. The rockets could be fired outside the effective range of the defensive fire of the bombers. A well-aimed salvo would probably hit several bombers simultaneously. That was the way to break up formations. But this was the end of April, 1945! In the middle of our breakup, at the beginning of our collapse! It does not bear thinking about what we could have done had we had those jet fighters, 3-cm. quick-firing cannons, and 5-cm. rockets years ago—before our war potential had been smashed, before indescribable misery had come over Germany through the raids. We dared not think about it. Now we could do nothing but fly and fight and do our duty as fighter pilots to the last..."

Galland, Adolf. The First and The Last (pp. 159-160). David Rehak. Kindle Edition.

It looks like 200 reliable Me 262s with R4M rockets would do quite nicely, actually...

Not like Galland hasn't been known to stretch the blanket a bit and not to put to fine a point on it but it does bear thinking about the regime he was fighting for (and lamenting the "indescribable misery"). I'd say ask the Jewish population of Germany what they thought but the answer is probably obvious.

Not meaning to soapbox, but I don't give a fig who says it, anytime one of the old German soldaten starts lamenting "what could have been" I REALLY want to give them five to the snot locker regardless of who they were.

 

[nuuumannn]

The Battle of the Atlantic was well and truly over by 1944. The horse had well and truly bolted.

The Germans couldn't have been so precient and stated that. By 1944, the Type XXI was entering production and service and promised to change the landscape - it was extraordinarily innovative, along with advanced propusion systems and other technologies, the Germans weren't yet giving up on their U-boats. Despite the material shortages, they weren't giving up.

If more Me 262s (like 200) were in the air,

Yeah, was never gonna happen. I read a report that the British wrote during the war and they guesstimated that at any given time, availability was very low for Me 262s based on encounters. Let's face it, after Bodenplatte, the Luftwaffe was a spent force and over enemy territory the numbers of aircraft and frequency of encounters lessened dramatically in late 1944 onwards. Over the heart of the Reich of course the interceptors were still gonna put up a fight, but in nowhere near the numbers required to overcome the Allies.

There was so much that Germany lacked by the end of '44 and early '45 that it didn't matter how many advanced aircraft or submarines they had, there wasn't any logistical support to maintaining the war machine they had created. By May 1945, the factories were full of unfinished aeroplanes, submarines etc, but so much was missing - engines, tyres, fittings, and who was gonna operate them and in what kind of environment? The Russians were surrounding Berlin in April 1945 and the combined Allied effort was at the German border at the beginning of the year.

I know this sounds like a contraditction to the text about the Battle of the Atlantic, but despite their position, there wasn't any way the Germans were going to admit to defeat, despite any material shortage.

 

[Zyzygie]

The Luftwaffe and the sad lack of strategic priority:

THE DEFEAT OF THE GERMAN AIR FORCE
The United States Strategic Bombing Survey

 

[Zyzygie]

Not enough fighters was a problem!

One too many Fuhrers was another.

A REFLECTION ON THE CAUSES OF THE GERMAN DEFEAT
by GENERALOBERST LOTHAR RENDULIC


Summary.

Germany lost the last war for purely military reasons:

I. Blunders of the High Command, especially Adolf Hitler:

1. Excessive self-confidence of Adolf Hitler.
2. Overrating of importance of holding territory. (Wrong impressions gained from World War I.)
3. Increasing mistrust of Generals.
4. Wrong ideas on air warfare. (Wrong development of the Air Force, too few fighters!)
5. Commanding officers of the Waffen-SS units mostly insufficiently trained and not prepared for their tasks.

II. Wrong Employment of Manpower. No total Mobilization. Wrong Distribution of available Manpower:

1. Disregard of the Army (neglecting the fact that the Army has to bear the main burden of all fighting).
2. Excessive manpower used in all administrative and economic civilian offices and in the whole apparatus of the N.S.D.A.P. (especially the miscellaneous organizations of Himmler, Reich Labor Service and others).
3. Four completely separate components of the Armed Forces with special agencies for supply, etc.
4. Insufficient replacements for the Army in spite of the heavy losses. Preference given to the Air Force and the Waffen-SS, not only in quantity but also in quality.

["...While reflecting on the above described facts, I recall a statement in the book of the British General Fuller "Erinnerungen eines bedenksamen Soldaten" ("Memories of a Studious Soldier").* Fuller is citing Herodotus who attributes the following saying to a Persian of the 6th centuary B.C. (quoting from memory): "No one believes in warnings, no matter how true they may be. Many of us Persians know the danger, but the distress of our country compels us to follow our leader and to do everything he asks us to do. Truly, it is the greatest of all evils of man to have knowledge of many things and nevertheless have no power to act." "

"These words, more than 2500 years old, express the military tragedy of Germany..."]

Lothar Rendulic was an army group commander in the Wehrmacht during World War II. Rendulic was one of three Austrians who rose to the rank of Generaloberst in the German armed forces. The other two were Alexander Löhr and Erhard Raus. Rendulic was tried at the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials in 1948.

 

[Zyzygie]

THE BEST ENEMY MONEY CAN BUY
By Antony C. Sutton

MIG Fighters with Rolls-Royce Turbojets

"...In 1946 the Soviets bought fifty-five Rolls-Royce centrifugal compressor type turbojets — twenty-five Nenes and thirty Derwents. These Rolls-Royce engines, the most advanced in the world for the time, were well suited to Soviet production methods and introduced the Soviets to the use of a centrifugal turbojet. Up to 1947 Russian jets were all of the axial-flow type based on German designs. These Rolls-Royce turbines proved to be the best possible equipment for the MiG-15, which was designed by Siegfried Gunther and put into serial production under the name of the Soviet designers Mikoyan and Gurevich. Gunther was brought to Moscow and appointed chief designer in the construction office in Podberezhye.
Two versions of the Rolls-Royce engines were produced at Engine Plant No. 45 near Moscow from 1948 to the late 1950s. The plant was toured in 1956 by U.S. Air Force General Nathan Twining, who noted that it contained machine tools from the United States and Germany, and had 3,000 workers engaged in producing the Rolls-Royce Nene."

"In 1951 the American counterpart to this Rolls-Royce engine was the Pratt & Whitney J-42 Turbo-Wasp, based on the Nene, but not then in quantity production. When the Korean War broke out in 1950, therefore, the Russians had thousands of improved Rolls-Royce Nene engines in service powering MiG-15s, whereas the U.S. Air Force had only a few hundred F-86A Sabres with comparable engines. Several engines from MiG-15s captured in Korea were evaluated by the United States Air Force. Reports were prepared by engineers of Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Division of United Aircraft Corporation, the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory. We know from these analyses that by 1951 the Soviets had two versions of the original Rolls-Royce Nene in production quantities. The first version, the RD-45 that powered an early MiG-15, was a direct copy of the original Rolls-Royce Nene and delivered 5,000 pounds of thrust. The second version of the RD-45 delivered 6,000 pounds of static thrust at sea level and 6,750 pounds of thrust with water injection. The turbine blades in the Soviet RD-45 engines were made of a stainless steel alloy of the Nimonic-80 type, while the burner liner and swirl vanes were made of Nimonic-75. Parts of the Nene sold to
Russia in 1948 were fabricated from Nimonic alloys — "Nimonic" being the registered trademark of Henry Wiggin and Company of Birmingham, England. Both Nimonic-75 and Nimonic-80 were developed by Mond Nickel about 1940, and the specifications had previously been published by the Ministry of Supply in the United Kingdom on the grounds that it was nonstrategic information."

"The RD-45 (Nene) was produced in Moscow and also at Magadan from 1951 onwards, at Khabarovsk, at Ufa Plant No. 21, and at the Kiev Plant No. 43 from 1951 until sometime after 1958..."


In the Museum: The Mystery of the MiG | History | Air & Space Magazine
Siegfried Günther and the MiG 15:

"...And though the MiG was ... manufactured in Russia, it has German roots. After World War II, German engineers who had been working on a jet fighter for their own government found themselves suddenly without an employer. So the Soviet Union offered several thousand engineers and technicians security and employment in exchange for their expertise. Among the German aeronautical designers exported to Russia were many who had worked for the Luftwaffe on airplanes, including noted German designer Siegfried Günther, who is thought to have worked on the MiG-15."

"Whatever its origins, the MiG-15 was a superb airplane, able to outperform any of the American-made piston-engine and first-generation jet aircraft (such as the F-80) that challenged it during the Korean War. It wasn't until early 1953, after F-86 Sabres had been on the scene, that the United States achieved complete air superiority. The two fighters were fairly evenly matched, though the MiG had a faster climb rate, higher operating ceiling, and tighter turning rate at altitude. But the Korean and Chinese pilots who flew MiG-15s were no match for the far more experienced and better trained Sabre pilots, who started downing MiGs at a prodigious rate..."

 

[bada]

Wel, this went into the fubar zone, it started with a simple aircraft duel and it ended with UsaAF47, Korea War, Material engeneering and Political opinions.
All too far from the 262...
Even if there is good stuff about the Metal engeneering, most of the stuff is OT and looks like a crusade against the 262, loosing all the credibility.
So just to get back to the initial past: 262 vs Meteor MkIII
Acceleration: Me262
Speed : Me262
Maneuvrability:Me262
Firepower (Raw Power): Me262
Ergonomics: Me262

As a Combat airframe, the 262 was ready to fulfill it's role in44/45.
the Meteor wasn't even able to do it in 46 with updated engines..

A very interesting video here:

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Wel, this went into the fubar zone, it started with a simple aircraft duel and it ended with UsaAF47, Korea War, Material engeneering and Political opinions.
All too far from the 262...
Even if there is good stuff about the Metal engeneering, most of the stuff is OT and looks like a crusade against the 262, loosing all the credibility.
So just to get back to the initial past: 262 vs Meteor MkIII
Acceleration: Me262
Speed : Me262
Maneuvrability:Me262
Firepower (Raw Power): Me262
Ergonomics: Me262

As a Combat airframe, the 262 was ready to fulfill it's role in44/45.
the Meteor wasn't even able to do it in 46 with updated engines..

A very interesting video here:

Hense why the title changed...

 

[Zyzygie]