Re: Me 262 Mythology

On Feb 19, 12:02 am, Rob Arndt <teuton...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
On Feb 18, 8:04 pm, Dan <B24...@xxxxxxx> wrote:



vaughn wrote:
"Scott M. Kozel" <koze...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:15e3e33c-a76d-446e-8d49-fb6d8f912a7e@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
webpa <we...@xxxxxxx> wrote:

Neither in practice nor potentially, was it "very nearly game-
changing".

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but in this case I disagree.
Simply put, the Me 262 made every other fighter plane in the world obsolete
within a very short period of time, and put the future of every other
warplane into question. Yes, all that would have eventually happened
anyhow, but the Me 262 accelerated the process by a factor of (probably)
years. If that isn't "game changing", then we need to discuss definitions.

Vaughn

If the "game" was the war it most certainly not a "game changer" as
there was no real effect on the war. In terms of fighter development it
was a "game changer" primarily as a proof of concept.

Gan, U.S. Air Force, retired- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Oh boy, here comes the *** again.

Almost every definative resource on the Me-262 makes it clear that it
was the most advanced a/c by the end of WW2 and that it could not win
the air war regardless due to Allied NUMERICAL SUPERIORITY. You can
try to play the engines game, or the Hitler order for bomber (which
was disobeyed), or Hitler delaying advanced secret weapons, or
developing new tactics, or lack of fuel, or whatever... but the plane
started as Me P.1065 in 1938, BEFORE WW2 and the historic He-178
flight in August 1939. The engines were not ready for early use in the
war, true, but Messerschmitt had the airframes produced awaiting them
and when they did become available the Germans did the very best under
the worst conditions possible, especially round-the-clock bombing and
lack of strategic metals.

You cannot call the a/c a prototype as 1,433 of them were produced in
various models for various roles: fighter, fighter-bomber, bomber,
recon, bomber destroyer, night fighter, and interceptor. There were
plenty of A and B models, a few Cs, and the sub-variants. The problem
was that only 200 max ever made it into combat and the new jet had
bugs to work out as well as the usual training accidents. However,
that did not prevent the 262 from shooting down and strafing anywhere
from 509-785 a/c depending on the source.

The a/c could have been cancelled many times from 1938-45 but several
key people kept it alive and it had the power to break through the
escorts and down the bombers. It clearly was a potent threat against
the USAAF and RAF and so they adopted the practice of pouncing on the
jets on T/O and landing, strafing every single one on the ground, and
destroying the rail yards that affected transport of the 262. Why do
you think so much less than hundreds of them were available in 1945?
The rail losses were about 50% of production= 700+ lost to bombing.
The Allies had to scavenge them where they found them in forests,
bunkers, the remaining hangars, anywhere they were dispersed of those
that remained, or in units that surrendered.

But still the 262 brought the jet into modern combat and with it the
R4M rockets which were to be replaced by the Mauser MK-213 revolver
cannon and X-4 AAMs within months of Germany's surrender. Same for
more powerful Jumos and the He S 011. The 262 gave the victorious
Allies the swept wing, axial-flow turbojets, the new revolver cannons,
and AAM technology.

In huge numbers equal to the Allies the 262 could have changed the air
war, most definately. They would have been joined by the He-162, Fw Ta
183, Me P.1101 and Go-229 as well. You can call the He-162, Germany's
second jet fighter, an experiment due to mere weeks of fighting and
2-4 kills to show for it... but not the combat-proven Me-262. Think
JV-44 and try to assert that it could not be a "game changer".

Even after WW2, the Me-262 proved superior to the P-80 in a one-vs-one
test and poor old Hap Arnold had to use his influence to keep the
plane out of the public air races against the P-80 when Hughes wanted
to race his.

No matter what you say, the 262 was beaten by numbers, the avg combat
of no more than 37 (55-60 max) Me-262s at any given time vs 1000+
bombers plus 500+ escorts!!! That they scored as high as they did is a
testament to the brave LW fighter pilots that showed the full
potential of the 262. Just a hand-full of Me-262 aces shot down 77
Allied a/c by themselves!

So save the unfounded Me-262 "mythology" bull*** for some
unintelligent flag-waving vet. But wait, why is it that most of those
bomber and fighter vets that actually had combat with the 262 rate it
so highly as well as the Allied Intel teams and those at Wright
Field??? Answer that, fool.

Now go troll somewhere else or at least read a good ref on the history
of the Me-262. You'll find these key words in almost all of them:
ALLIED NUMERICAL SUPERIORITY ultimately was the cause of the Me-262's
loss of advantage as a jet fighter- not the engine history, nor
Hitler's meddling, nor even the small numbers available for combat.

Rob

....

Even after WW2, the Me-262 proved superior to the P-80 in a one-vs-one
test and poor old Hap Arnold had to use his influence to keep the
plane out of the public air races against the P-80 when Hughes wanted
to race his.

Still waiting for one iota of credible proof that any of that is more
than a figment of Arndt's fertile imagination.

But while we're waiting, there's some interesting references available
to substitute for all the arm waving about the "superiority" of one
design over another available from:

http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/

Posted there are scans of the original documents:

Flight Test Division Memorandum
Report Serial No. TSFTE-2009
26 August 1946

Performance Tests on the Lockheed
P-80 A-1 Airplane, AAF No. 44-85044

http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/p-80/P-80.html
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/p-80/P-80A-85075.pdf

and

Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough
Note on the performance in flight of
the German jet-propelled aircraft
Messerschmidtt 262, Heinkel 162 and Arado 234

R.A.E Tech. Note No 235/5 October, 1945

http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/me262/RAE-german-jets.pdf

Excellent site - highly recommended. Loads of original data on a
significant number of WWII designs.
.

Loading