What if the Me-262 was created earlier?

And manoeuvrability? Would they be able to dogfight with the Spits?

 

remember this and it is very simple, during the initial US bombing campaign it must be said the US General staff were a bunch of inept idiots. Had the day LW fighter force been equipped to counter the heavy bomber thrusts in early 43 and in fact the whole of 43 the is a real good chance the bomber war would of been stopped cold or at least there would of had to been a complete revision of US bomber tactics, the same would of gone for the RAF at night.

The 262 did not have the range even with drop tanks to cover over England and back even from forward bases in Holland and norhern France

 

The Me-262 had more or less 1.000 km range, when the Bf-109 E4 had around 650 km, if I'm not mistaking.

Flying time is another issue.
I don't know the figures about the speed (and marginaly alt) at which this 1.000 km range was tested. Maybe the 262s would not have been able to stay in the combat zone for much longer than the 109s did during BoB.

But I'm sure they would not have turn fought with the Spits.

They would have dived against the Spits chasing the Geman bombers and therefore predictible, made a pass with their huge firepower, climbed back without the RAF fighters being able to follow, and so on : boom n' zoom.
This was one of German fighter pilots favored tactic when their planes started the fight with an energy advantage (in speed and/or alt.).

And of course this would have totaly changed the war : the incredible German heavy bomber fleet (thousands of four engined bombers) would have reduced England to a pile of rubbles

More seriously, even with all the Me-262 of the world, I don't see the Luftwaffe achieving any strategic bombing victory with their limited Junkers and Heinkels fleet.

 

agreed with the zoom and climb tactics for the existing 262 unit(s) well at least at first, had the war continued or had the techs been able to come up with more sleek designs followed by enclosed larger fuel cells and these two points were in the drawing rooms for 1945 late and into 1946. Even with a new design refit the 262 still with flat out unapproachable speed it could not turn with piston driven machines the radius was just too wide and we have numerous accounts of Allied fighter jocks getting in between the turn and shooting the jets out of the skies

 

For what fuel?

 

I go back to the earlier war years when the newer designs were still on the drawing boards. Also there was never a depletion of jet fuel for the 262. for the Komet yes. Plenty of pilots in 1945 wishing for their chance, and actually a shortage of 262's till the late spring of 45 when JV 44 got a host of A-2's from defunct jet bomber/fighter units ad did not know what to do with them..........262's were lying everywhere at wars end

 

One thing after reading the official 8th Army Air Force Encyclopeia on daily missions, the only unit active at the onset in August 1942 was the 15th medium bomber squadron and it carried out mainly hit and run raids, the main offensive did not begin until early 1943. Just suppose we by say January 1943 we had a complete Fliegerfuhrer worth of Me-262 say 200 to 300, plus an additional 700 to 800 Fw-190 as frontline interceptors and they hit a bomber wing in one hit and manage to wipe out hundreds of aircraft going in and going to their targets and instead of say 5% casualty rate say it rises to 25 to 30 per cent and not 46,000+ aircrew dead but half a million, would the public back home USA continue to put up with those losses.

 

It still comes down to the same issue: What is the Allied response? Germany is not going to build and deploy 200 or 300 Me 262 in a vacuum. The Allies will respond. A second problem will be the German penchant for deploying new technology in small quantity early in the production cycle. I would expect the Luftwaffe to first deploy the Me 262 in our scenario in small numbers, saw a gruppen of 30 to 50 aircraft after working up in squadron strength with as few as a dozen flying in a semi-operational status with a proving unit.
The Allies as a result would have as much as 6 to 8 months warning that this jet was moving into operational use and another 6 to 8 where its use was in very limited numbers.
If the US and or Britain cannot come up with and deploy a jet of their own I would be very surprised.
Also, there are other possibilities:

The Allies adopt stand-off weapons. They push into service a glide bomb, ballistic air launched missile, cruise missile, or other similar weapon allowing a bomber to attack its target at some distance limiting its penetration depth in to enemy territory.

The Allies change tactics. They go to all night time bombing and ramp up the countermeasures war to target German electronics more thoroughly. This negates much of the advantage the jet was to give as it is now a mediocre night fighter rather than a dangerous day fighter. The Germans would be forced to come up with a new design that was a better night fighter.
Or, the Allies make jet bases a priority target bombing and attacking them on the ground rather than in the air.

The Allies accept that for a short term period they must limit their air offensive due to the superiority of the German jet. Again, they simply limit operations and change tactics.

In every case the Germans gain a very temporary advantage that is first countered and then met by the Allies. The Me 262 will not win the air war on its own and really does not change the strategic equation in the least.

 

truth in your words but what time frame of the war ? the Allies had the sole advantage in the day hours but not the night as we suspect even in 1945 as the a/c sat the fuel reserves dried up and the compression of the Reich in general the tarmacs being eliminated/ any nf sitting in broad daylight was hammered by mg and cannon fire even with the heavy use of branchs and other natural camo. would this of been the case in 1942, or my inkling that I have mentioned previously the Fernenacht missions over England in 41 blasting the English bases to pieces, obviously a big what if had it or if it had been possible to continue ~ I digress

 

Some think that Germany in 1942/43 was in as bad a shape circe 1945, not so, what my senario is that after Messerchmitt had cancelled the Me-109 programme in say 1941 and began tooling up to produce the Me-262 in say early 1942 and say had four factories throughout Germany with a total daily production of 12 per day, within 12 month that equates to 3,400+ Me-262's by say mid 1943 on the front line, this is in conjunction with at least several thousand Fw-190, this is when the USAAF and the RAF began to seriously launch raids into Germany, could you imagine the sight of US bomber crews confronted wit the sight of several hundred Me-262 attacking a bomberwing with their 30mm cannon and that casualty rates are in the order of say 40% or higher per raid. It could become so dangerous for daylight raids that it might delay the air offensive on Germany for years until the Allies came up with an effective countermeasure, and even with this the Germans were still planning improved versions of Jet interceptors in years to come, i can say without total air superiorority over Europe, The invasion of Italy and Operation Overlord could not take place.

 

This still ignores the Allied reaction. First, the in the US the British had given them the full designs for Whittle's turbojets in October 1941. GE Schenectady was at that point instructed to build a 6 million square foot facility for turbojet production. Note, this plant was to be bigger than the Junkers Dessau plant, the largest aircraft and engine plant in Germany at the time and to produce nothing but jet engines.
Allis-Chalmers was assigned the deHavilland Goblin engine and manufacture it under licsense
Additionally, Westinghouse also began turbojet research and production.
Getting back to GE: In addition to starting with the British Whittle engine GE rapidly began to design and built much more powerful turbojets: February 1943, the I-14 at 1,400 lbs thrust, superceeded a few months later by the I-16 at 1600 lbs. The I-40 started design in June 1943 and first ran in Jan 44 developing 4,000 lbs of thrust.
Other designs included the TG 100 through 140 series out of Schenectady. The TG 140 became the post war J-35
Westinghouse meantime was developing engines for the US Navy. Their first, the 19A ran in March 1943.
Concurrent with this such designers as Clarence Johnson at Lockheed were proposing much faster aircraft such as Johnson's L-133/L-100 that proposed a speed of 625 mph at 50,000 feet.
In addition, by 1944 the USAAF had proposals in place for jet fighters and bombers carrying up to 30,000 lbs at 546 knots and 45,000 feet at a time when they barely had any jets at all flying. Again, it comes down to need versus development.
So, while the Germans held a slight lead in getting engines into service, they were quickly overtaken by Allied developments in that field. In aerodynamics they maintained their lead by virtue of better near sonic and supersonic windtunnel testing facilities that gave them a better understanding of swept wings. However, had the 262 and other jets entered service earlier the US and British would have no doubt quickly followed that lead and closed the narrow margin that gave the Germans.
Also, because unlike the Germans the US was far ahead in practical aircraft pressurization systems it was likely that they would have also drawn ahead in the altitude game quickly. The Germans tried pressurization on a number of their aircraft but with the exception of a handful of specialist reconnissance types were never able to get such systems to work satisfactorily.
I would also surmise that if the Germans were producing a mere, and I mean mere 12 Me 262 a day the US would have built 12 of their jet fighter an hour if necessary. After all, Ford at Willow Run was producing a B-24 an hour in 1944. Junkers Dessau was producing the comparably complex Ju 290 at the same time at a rate of between 1 and 2 a month.
One has to realise that the Allies knew they were winning and they were smart enough to concentrate on systems that were good enough to win rather than on perpetually trying to get the best system in service like the Germans.

 

But if you can compress time for the Germans you have to give the Allies a similar advantage to be fair.

Otherwise sooner or later you are going to get an What-If postulating the F-86 and the MiG-15 in 1944, all fighting against the same side this time!

What's wrong with that, it's just a matter of postulating.

 

I have to agree with your analysis. Essentially, the only far reaching effect that an early introduction of the Me-262 could have is on how long WWII in Europe would last. I think the timeline would've been lengthened but the Me-262 wouldn't be a war winning weapon.

 

You are again correct (Odin give me strength) we could do that and yes we could have threads with the F-86 and MiG-15, why don't you construct one with this "what if". And there is nothing wrong with your postulation, but I have to address the Original thread on the Me-262 being in service by mid 1942 and i have gone someway to run with the spirit of the thread, while others have chosen to knock it down with every opportunity they get, i have even suggested that Messerschmitt cancels the Me-109 series to free up production lines and even suggested at least 6 month tooling up time for those production times, and daily output, which could have being achieved.

T.A Gardner, i will say you answer has one theme in that and that is timing and you have stated some impressive facts but with the initial deployment of the 8th and 9th USAAF in Britain would still be guarded by conventional piston aircraft and if using your information any timeline were to happen then the earliest time any US Jet could enter the war in Europe would be by mid 1945 at the earliest. Thus giving at the Me-262 at least two years start as a fully operational jet fighter. As i have stated if by mid 1943 the Luftwaffe could put up at anyone time 3,400+ Me-262's and not to mention the several thousands of Fw-190A-01 into the Allied bomber formations, it would decimate any allied attack, you mentioned that the B-24 Liberator was coming off the production line at one an hour, that is fine but what would happen if say on a daily basis 100+ B-24's were being shot down, thus outstripping losses to production 4 to 1, and we include B-17's in that as well.

 

Roddoss,

you still have to face Hitler and his order for creating a fighter bomber...

Also you will have to find the pilot teachers as during Stalingrad Göring simply sent the invaluable men to fly the cargo planes to Stalingrad and the losses were simply shocking in that sector.

Just some facts that originally were either stopping the creation of me-262 into a fighter plane or putting men without proper training in the air.

(Me 262 is fine but personally I prefer the possibility of the ground-to-air missile, jus wonder if the money and resources that went to V1 and v2 and V3 was put into such things...)

 

In all fairness, I have to say this sounds entirely reasonable and respectable (forgot the damn pills again!).

But we have to take into account that one of the principles by which the Internet rules itself is: "Every thread in every forum will soonner or later become off-topic and totally divergent from the wishes of the originator". I'm sorry, but this is how it works.

 

I lack the knowledge to figure this out because I don't know the actual numbers of German fighters (109s and 190s) devoted to german air defense in january 1943.

But of course, of loss rate of 25-30% would probably mean the end to the bomb raids, especialy because their results would have been hard to weight v/s the weight of the losses.

 

The problem here is one of logistics again. If, for example, we use the above numbers.... 12 Me 262 produced a day.... and we combine this with the historical evidence that 2% per day are non-combat write offs (eg., accidents, damaged beyond repair, service life runs out etc.) then the Luftwaffe at most will have 600 of these aircraft in service. Why? Because at 2% per day you are losing 12 aircraft a day operationally after 50 days of production which equals 600 aircraft. Therefore, at that point production equals losses and reaches equilibrium.
When you add the historical rate of 2% per day combat losses this reduces the sustainable level to 300 aircraft.
Now, if we also throw in the engine situation things even get worse. Junkers historically built about 6000 engines in just over a year and a half or about 300 per month or about 10 per day. To build 12 Me 262 per day Junkers has to almost triple its production of engines. To compound this, since the Jumo 004 had a service life of about 10 hours this means at best every Me 262 can fly about 5 missions before having to have its engines changed or about 20% of the available fleet of Me 262 need engine changes per day. If we have a fleet of just 300 then we need an additional 120 engines per day in addition to that necessary to meet new production or another increase of 12 times the historical level taking us to a level of 15 times original production to keep these aircraft flying.
If we throw in the fuel situation, we find that the Me 262 takes about 2 metric tons of fuel per sorte. A fleet of 600 would use 1200 tons per day if all were flying. In 1942 the German petroleum industry was hovering around 250,000 metric tons of fuel production per month. This would mean the Me 262 fleet of 300 to 600 aircraft would be consuming 10 to 20% of all the fuel in Germany to remain flying regularly. That is a huge chunk of their production to devote to a very small number of aircraft.
On the whole, the Me 262 is logistically an unsustainable system for the Germans. It takes too much fuel, is too unreliable, and will never have the numbers in service as a result to significantly impact the outcome of the war.

Amateurs discuss technology. Professionals discuss strategy and tactics. Experts discuss logistics.

 

I'll throw a few more monkey wrenches into this as well:

1. While the Mk 108 cannon was developed in 1940 it did not enter production until mid 1942 and was not readily available until late in that year. It is likely that an Me 262 built in early 1942 would have had to have had another gun installed like the MG 151 20mm.

2. The Me 262 has a take off speed of about 190 knots in a 15 kt headwind with a run of about 3,200 feet. Landing speed was about 200 knots with a roll out of 1,750 feet. There are few airfields of that period that are sufficently long to allow operation of the Me 262. This would have required a substancial effort on the German's part to upgrade their airbases to allow it to operate.

3. The Jumo 004 started development in 1939. October 1940 saw its first test run. Problems with its design persisted through January 1942. Continued design refinements and problems delayed production until mid-1943 with the production model the 004B. On the plus side it required virtually no critical metals and only about 700 manhours to produce.
The BMW 003 is not available until mid 1944 in production although a few pilot models are ready by mid 1943. The HeS 001 is insufficently powerful enough and has serious leak problems with its fuel system so it too is no alternative.

4. There are quite a few other German jet projects competing for production such as the Arado 234. These will also have an impact on engine availablity, fuel, raw materials, etc. Will these be terminated to ensure Me 262 production?

Once more there are many more problems that come up with the very limited production capacity (by comparison to Germany's opponets) of the German aircraft industry that would force the Me 262 to remain in very limited service simply because it is not possible to produce them in the kind of quantities necessary and keep them in operational service.