The Volksjäger comes earlier

Here! The best of two worlds!

 

Such a horrible waste of jet aircraft, lol

 

I honestly did not know that the Spitfire (and most WW2 piston engined aircraft) had such short engine life.

 

same here

 

The Spitfire was officially rated at 100 hours operational service. Many eventually exceeded that. But, at the time most aircraft were expected to last just a relative handful of operational sorties.
Most piston engined fighters had to undergo extensive inspections after a sortie where the aircraft was flown in combat and the throttle pushed to "war power" "though the wire" (a reference to pushing the throttle beyond the maximum safe power setting).

 

How is that an advantage? I'd think it easier and cheaper to overhaul or produce a new engine than to produce a new engine and plane.

Do you have some sources to back this up? IE that most Spitfires didn't last 100 hours in service.

 

Reduces the maintenance requirements greatly. No engine changes, no major repairs. Use it and throw it away. Given Germany's manpower and technicial shortages that is an advantage; particularly when non-strategic materials are involved.

Sorry, 240 hours operational life expectancy. Combat life expectancy was 100 or less hours. That's what I get for doing this stuff off the cuff. See: From the Cockpit, Spitfire by W. Cdr T. F. Neil DFC*, AFC, AE.

He also notes several times that ones rebuilt at the 240 hour mark were far more prone to breakdowns and engine failures. I get the impression that wartime rebuilds were not widely trusted.

 

Well the AWACs Ju-88s do not have to close on the Lancasters in that they are not actually attacking them, just radar directing other aircraft to do that, so they are not exposed to the Lancaster's armament, not saying you said they were, just pointing that out, for clarity's sake. In respect of a Nightfigher Ju-88 they had to close in on a target Lancaster aircraft so that it would be close enough and in the right position to open fire on the Lancaster, the Awacs Ju-88 does not have to do that. Since the Ju-88 is now just being used in the AWACs role, rather than in a nightfighter role, this would seem to make it more difficult for the British Mosquitos to attack the Ju-88s, than if they used as nightfighters. Furthermore, I can not see any reason why, one could not assign a Volksjager to the AWACs Ju-88 as a protection escort .

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

 

At the same time it greatly increases both material consumption and logistics requirements. Depending on the density of planes at a particular base it may not decrease the need for trained mechanics either.

 

What I like about the He 162 is the fact that you can make about 5000 a month... (that's 1945 standard, imagine 1944) so waste one engine.. get into another one. Germany did have plenty of wood to make them.

Of course, finding the fuel to power 5000 jets could be a problem, plus the ammo and pilots.

 

How about looking at in this way. Say the He-163 Salamander had been designed much earlier say at the end on 1943 after it is proven that that the Me-262 cannot be produced ib sufficeint quatities and that the burden still falls back to the Me-109 to take on the allied air forces.

Say Heinkel comes up with the proposal T.A Gardner refers to but much earlier, and add that Adolf Hitler loves the aircraft and is convinced that the role of the aircraft is that of a dedicated bomber interceptor and that Albert Speer is able to get production up to 2000 a month by June 1944, also pilot training is simplified and that the first operational Geschwaders come on line in August and that there are several thousand ready to deploy.

Pilots are ordered to target the bombers only while leaving the escorts to the Me-109 and Fw-190, what would the result of say a USAAF bomber raid be if say out of 1200+ bombers set out for a mission only a handful make it back and that it eventually becomes too much for the allies to continue operations over continental Europe as losses are anything up say 60% +.

Then there is the possibility of deployment on the Eastern Front with thousands of these aircraft taking on the much slower soviet aircraft and their bombers. But in the end would it lead Germany to win the war maybe not.

v.R