Re: more military channel madness


"PaPaPeng" <PaPaPeng@xxxxxxxxx> wrote...

"TMOliver" <tmoliverjrFIX@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


"Ray O'Hara" <mary.palmucci@xxxxxxx> wrote ....


they also marked down the ME-262 bcause it had the "design flaw" that
allowed hovering P-51s to be able to shoot it down while taking off and
landing. the fact that any plane i vulnerable while taking off or
landing
is
lost on them.

sometimes i watch it to just to see the latest outrage to history and
common sense.

The HC would have given the Me262 higher marks had the Germans built
underground airfields from which the 262s could have operated with
impunity.
Unfortunately, there was simply not enough slave labor available to
excavate
runways tunnels, and departure and approach vaults. Of course, with wind
direction of a lesser problem, a single large arched opening would have
served for climbout and long final.....


I would believe the Me 262's short range and poor serviceability made
it necessary for them to be based in exposed forward airbases. These
airbases were rapidly overrun by that stage of the war and therefore
changed frequently. Luxuries like strong airfield defense, bombproof
hangers and caves would have been impossible to plan for let alone
build.

It's almost frightening to contemplate that collectively and individually
ray and PaPingPong exhibit such parallel incapacity for intelligence or
irony.

You do comprehend Pong(ent), that by late '44, "exposed forward airbases"
for the Germans included just about every existing runway in the daily
rapidly shrinking territory remaining within the control of the Reich.
Obviously, with little to fear from streams or dribbles of Soviet strategic
bombers, the Me262s were based anywhere along the potential threat axis (in
this case two axes, counting bombers operating out of Italy, although I
don't recall reading of any operational commitment of Me262s to the defense
of targets located in the former Austria).

For practical purpose, a strip on the outskirts of Berlin would have been
almost as exposed a forward base as any in the West. Obviously, some
"exposed forward bases", especially those within easy range of Allied TACAIR
operating out of forward bases on the Continent would have been poor choices
for basing Me262s, which for all their speed would have been far slower to
get airborne (and out of the way, because they simply weren't designed or
even modestly effective for low altitude dog-fighting) in the face of the
brief warning available in the face of low altitude fighter bomber sweeps.
Losing Me262s on the tarmac was not the intent of the Luftwaffe. The
combination of the need for quicker response and reasonable protection for
interceptors certainly contributing to the design and deployment of the
Komet(Me163), vertically launched and designed to glide to an available
field, plus small enough to transport to a launch site. Hamstringing the
planning and operational history of the Me262, was the adamant position by
H*tler that the a/c operate in a strike role, rather than be employed as a
defensive asset. Had the a/c been able to be deployed and become
operational 3-6 mos. earlier (contrary to H*tler's demands) its operational
history might have been quite different.

On the other hand, a combination of entirely inadequate turbine blade life
combined with modest production capacity, the training/skill levels required
to operate the bird and the logistics problems regarding fuel (supply and
transport) made the Me262 little more than one of those "footnotes" in the
larger panorama of the conflict, more important than Baka Bombs, but not by
much in the grand scheme of things....

That's why I, amused and bemused, spent a few seconds and keystrokes on a
cartoonish and fantastic proposal for giant underground airstrips with
enormous cavernous departure and approach chambers, aware that Bedlamites
like you and ray could not help but rise to the bait.

As that old Boston lawyer Welsh once asked of "Tailgunner Joe", "Have you no
shame, Senator?"

TMO


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