Why did they get rid of them?

This thread has nothing to do with battles, but rather the technology used during the war. I think we can all agree Germany had some of the coolest planes during WWII, but why is it when the Allies captured them that they scraped a lot of them?

 

I would like to know just what (besides museums) use they would have that they weren't put to? The Me-109s that survived were continued in use by certain nations. Ironically a license built version was flown by the new Israeli state, they got them from Spain I think. The Yugoslavs kept a few German planes in service post-war if I'm not mistaken. The 262s really weren't worth much other than as items of interest to dismantle and inspect, with the exception of the few which were taken to Ohio and flown by Watson's Whizzers to evaluate them.

There weren't too many of the others left post-war, most ended up in aluminium salvage and such. Germany needed the metals more than other nations needed the products. I think the same can be said of what the Soviets did with the planes they captured. Took them apart, studied them, and applied the "good ideas" and rejected the crud.

 

They had no need of them and why should you have a lot of them in stock? They picked out the most interesting technologies like the V2, the Horten N9 or the Ufo´s and the flying Bell for its engines and the rocket backpacks and so on.

 

Spain, Israel and the Arab states were the biggest post war users, most bought through spain and czechoslovakia and france. also some survived in the balkans and scandinavia for some years. a fair few went to south east asia as well. The French used several, and even carried on manufacturing FW190 and Ju88 clones for a few years along with a few others. South America ended up with a few as well.

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=98874

the Spanish air force ones are the planes mostly used int he Battle of Britain film.

 

Israel bought the Czech Avia S199 Me109G clone that had been built for the Czech National Air Guard, asembled on the 109 production lines at Prague-Cakovice that survived the war...and fitted with a Junkers Jumo 211F engine. It was an atrocious aircraft - bad balance factors, unstable, had the 109's gondlooping propensity...and talking of props...the legendary "Mickey Mouse's Ears" VS11 prop was unsuited to the engine charateristics. But it was A/ cheap and B/ the Czechs would sell to anybody...!

The Spanish were building their OWN version of the G, the Hispano Ha-112 "Buchon", first with Hispano-Suiza then RR Merlin engines. These were the "109s" used in The Battle Of Britain, and stars of many airshows since. They were far faster than the Avias, and tho' they look funny in LW colours in the film they look great in their Spanish service colours; the 1940-era livery emphasises the "chin" of the Merlin radiator.

The Czechs also, with Soviet permision, assembled the remaining Me262 parts at Letnany and Cheb, and built 17 assorted single and two-seater Avia S92 Turbinas across three years until 1949. They never really reached "series" production, but the Czech National Air Guard mustered a full squadron of them for a year in 1950.

EDIT: interestingly for the fans of What-Ifs....the Czechs flew one of these with the BMW jet motors....then reverted to the Jumo 004 fitment

 

Thanks for the data "phylo...", don't ask me why I thought that Spain built the ones Israel used. Just confused I guess.

 

Argentina used StG/MP 44s right up through the Falklands war. The thing you have to consider about Germany is that they had better ideas than they did actual products (with exceptions). While their technology appeared all cool and bitchin' it didn't function to the utmost of it's potential; nowhere is this more apparent than in their "Wonder Weapons".

Had Germany focused less on making "silver bullets*" and more on making regular bullets I am sure things could be quite different.

*
The term has been adopted into a general metaphor, where "silver bullet" refers to any straightforward solution perceived to have extreme effectiveness. The phrase typically appears with an expectation that some new technology or practice will easily cure a major prevailing problem, such as lowering carbon emissions. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_bullet )

 

And Thompsons! I remember seeing some straaaange stuff in those piles of surrendered weapons...

Period small arms cropped up ALL over the world, the K98 was the rifle of choice in SO many brush wars for half a century, Interarm of Birmingham sold out all the British Army's WWII small arms bit by bit. The Indians were making and using SMLE variants until ten years or so ago, and there are still K98 clone production lines in Yugoslavia - as well as hundreds of thousands of wartime and postwar versions reconditioned in former Warsaw Pact nations.

On the subject of aircraft however....you have to remember some important factors....

1/ a HUGE percentage of what the Allies found at the end of the war were airframes uncompleted for want of strategic spares or engines...thousands of aircraft needing repair that hadn't got it....aircraft that hadn't flown for months, like trainers and transport aircraft laid up under the Jan 1945 moritorium on anything but very essential flights if it wasn't combat ops etc....so many of them were dirty, rusted/corroded hulks.

2/ In "modern" Western European air combat, the prop fighter and bomber became technically obsolete on the day the Me262 made its first kill; for decades prop aircraft remained in second-line or training service, or were passed on/sold on during the Cold War to nations that wouldn't be facing anything better ....but there was an incredible dash to jet aircraft for as many purposes as possible in 1945-50.

People didn't WANT those obsolete aircraft; it wasn't just the German stuff...Allied aircraft were simply dumped by the thousand too! RAN carriers returning to Oz in 1945 for instance, having dashed to form part of the Allied invasion force for OLYMPIC/CORONET...their crews simply pushed dozens of brand new aircraft that hadn't flown a single operational sortie off the fantail outside Sydney Roads'!

3/ Remember....all that aluminimum in many alloyed forms was SO valuable for other uses post-war; all those new concrete apartment blocks in French Channel ports that had rebar from Normandy panzers in their walls needed something to make all those aluminium windowframes from!

 

Western fighters were also quite available after the war and much easier to get parts for. The decent German fighters were that much if any superior to the allied ones either.

 

Were the German planes cooler than Spitfires, P-47s, P-51s, P-38s and Corsairs? They certainly weren't better, that's for sure.

 

I would say the FW190-D9 and the 262 in particular were superior to any allied aircraft. The 335 Dornier was also looking very promising before its career was cut short. (Not making any friends here i know!) My take on the question would be that the 262 for example was extremely maintenance intensive - the engines needed to be stripped every ten hours! and only had an operational life of about 100 hours in total - from memory. There was a glut of aircraft at the time, only those that had support and sale documents were considered for passing on or saving. One doesn't buy a car from a company thats just gone out of business. Also, many of the german aircraft were at least partially constructed by slave labour during the end...and inferior technicians, leading to some pretty "scrappy" looking aircraft coming off the construction line. It also wasn't "cool" to fly anything german straight after the war...The allies won, so they must have the best, coolest aircraft right? Its a good question with many answers.

 

German small arms are a case in point for over engineering. Many were made from stamped steel parts that fitted together quite closely. Operationally, this was fine under ideal conditions, but on a practical level, it meant there was little, if any, 'slippage' between the working parts. This meant that if you got any of the working parts dirty, or the ammunition itself, the weapon refused to work.

How much this applied to other products of German manufacture I'm not sure. But Russian small arms, more loosely put together, did not suffer from this malady, as a general rule.

Can we apply this same circumstance to post-war usage of German larger equipment? Found wanting as either too complex, un-maintainable under operational conditions, or simply too expensive to reproduce in quantity, let alone supply a spare parts chain for?

 

Not be argumentative; but, I don't know of any German pistols which were made from stamped parts. The MP44 and the MG42 were stamped, Lugers, P38s and most other German weapons were all machined.

 

Aircrafts are more maintenance intensive than small arms or tanks. It makes no sense to keep a fleet of dying aircrafts when you can buy new ones and keep them supported with spare parts.

 

Really? Especially from the view point of a post war country? The Me262 would have been a disaster. Way too costly to train with. Was the FW190 really that much if at all better than a P-51 or a Corsair? Especially if consider price, availability, and RAM cost (not to mention part availability). Even if you look at the time frame while the above may have been better in some roles they were clearly inferior in others.

I think this is the key. The US inparticular had a lot of surplus aircraft that it was willing to sell cheap and the aircraft or at least the parts were still available and often in production.
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Exactly.

I'm not sure this played much of a role in the selection of what arms to buy.

Nothing I've seen indicates this. While there might have been too few mechanics the Germans still had a pretty good rep in that department from my reading.

Again not sure this played much of a role. Allied aircraft were for the most part just more practicle.

 

I'll say the 262 was pretty sweet, but it suffered heavily from mechanical problems. Same with the Komet, which probably has to be my favorite jet, but those things were pretty nuts.

 

- Wouldn't have been too difficult for Grumman/North American/Curtiss to re-tool and use some captured/imancipated techs to work on them. The money was in US aircraft, regardless of their inherant inferiority and age of design. Thge first hand-full of US jets were woeful in comparison. People didn't want Nazi sleds, they wanted Uncle Sam's shiney birds.



Nothing I've seen indicates this. While there might have been too few mechanics the Germans still had a pretty good rep in that department from my reading.

- Mechanics were getting blown up along with their factories, plus were being stretched, plus were disserting...The "field factories" were regularly using mechanics from the balkans as a filler...Slave labour was brought in for the same reasons. There are photos of the sort of aircraft coming off these lines...Peices missing, others ill-fitted etc etc Aircraft were checked for sabotage and anyone found guilty instantly shot...but plenty of crap got through!

Again not sure this played much of a role. Allied aircraft were for the most part just more practicle.[/QUOTE]

The glut (in the States) and that they were more practicle as an option are the TWO best answers i think, yes.

 

Other than being of foreign manufacture and the attendent difficulties with that, what possible use did a bunch of obsolesent and obsolete piston engined aircraft have for any other air force? The US and Britain were procuring jets by 1945. Those pretty much pointed the way to the future. As for the war itself, their own aircraft on which their pilots and maintenance crews were well trained and the supply system stocked to keep operating were every bit as good as the German stuff that was being captured. So, there was zero motivation to retain the German equipment except a few for evaluation and experimentation.

 

You do realize that El Salvador and Honduras flew Corsairs and Mustangs up in to the 60's. France flew A-26's and Bearcats in Indochina and I believe Spain was still building Me 109 and 190's through the 50's. Much of the surplus US and Allied Armor went to Israel where it served through the 6 Day War.

Remember: Obsolete=Cheaper

 

- Even Australia was flying Mustangs into the Korean war (replaced by meteors...peices of crap). And an added reminder of how good the German aircraft were...The Bearcat was an attempt at copying the FW190...flew after the war....
And the Spanish 109s were peices of crap too (i'm on a roll here!) Don't know about the 190s, didn't know they made them.