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Why did they get rid of them?

Discussion in 'Air War in Western Europe 1939 - 1945' started by Sturmpioniere, Oct 31, 2010.

  1. mcoffee

    mcoffee Son-of-a-Gun(ner)

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    An attempt to copy? No

    Inspired by? Possibly, although the extent of the inspiration is subject to debate.

    The legend has it that Bob Hall went to England "in early '43" and flew a captured FW 190 and reported back to Leroy Grumman something to the effect "if we put an R-2800 in that airframe, we'd have a world beater". Some of the more authoritive sources that have looked at the legend say Hall did not fly the FW 190 until September '43, and had already been working on the concept of a light-weight fighter for the R-2800 prior to the trip. And, if the September '43 date is accurate, that was two months after Leroy Grumman had written a memo outlining the design parameters for the Bearcat.
     
  2. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    Not all that difficult but it due to having to start up the line and the small number of parts they would have been expensive.
    Not if you consider the logistics and RAM aspects they weren't.
     
  3. CAC

    CAC Ace of Spades

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    Sorry mate, not an expert here....RAM?
    And logistics? (not bagging, just not sure what you mean).
     
  4. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    Sorry Reliability And Maintainability. It's a major driver for availabilty. I.e. if you have 100 planes but due to breakdowns, parts shortages, and repair difficulties only 50 are available for use you may be in worse shape than an opponent who has say 120 inferior planes but 100 of them are available. The RAM factors are inherent at least to a considerable extent in the actual end item (plane, tank, etc). Spare parts availability is a function of logistics as is such things as having fuel where it's needed.
    Perfectly valid questions. I sometimes am less that clear and especially with the number of acronyms floating around (some of them overloaded) I need to be called on it when it's not clear.
     
  5. CAC

    CAC Ace of Spades

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    Ah, thanks mate! I'm here to learn (and talk some sh*t) and i've been doing both since coming on line! Thanks for answering.
     
  6. formerjughead

    formerjughead The Cooler King

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    Try and keep a balance between the two and if given the chance concentrate more on the former and less on the latter....glad you're having fun!
     
  7. phylo_roadking

    phylo_roadking Member

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    One other thing to remember is....the Me262 wasn't THAT good in comparison with upcoming Allied aircraft by the end of the war; it was VERY soon going to be equalled by the wartime-designed DH Venom which had been flying in 1943 and was in squadron service by 1946, delayed a tad as a result of the war ending! And it didn't have the Me262's flameout issues, it's weak undercarriage, etc, etc...
     
  8. CAC

    CAC Ace of Spades

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    And it also wasn't conceived in 1934, as was the 262. Who compares to "upcoming" aircraft? Theres never going to be an arguement there.
     
  9. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    Well consider if you want a cheap fighter at the end of the war with a guarantee of spare parts the allied planes look pretty good. If you want a jet then if you wait a little you can get one with superior performance and reliability compared to the Me-262. If you look at keeping a plane more than a couple of years and plan to do any significant training I think you'll find that reliaiblity and maintainability issues come to dominate the costs. That was indeed part of the problem with post war Soviet equipment as well. It's design focused on using it in battle and didn't look as much at overall cost to own which was a factor in the eyes of the western allies.
     
  10. phylo_roadking

    phylo_roadking Member

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    Who compares "upcoming aircraft"? This isn't the right thread for an appraisal of the entire history of military aircraft sales by U.S. companies to Nato members LOL The 1950s/60s/70s are chockfull of instances of this!
     
  11. CAC

    CAC Ace of Spades

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    Yeah, of course. i meant when comparing what was the best aircraft, one can't bring in a "upcoming aircraft" as an answer. Obviously when deciding the next aircraft to purchase, a comparison to what one already has is the intelligent thing to do.
     
  12. George Patton

    George Patton Canadian Refugee

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    Notable allied planes that were nearly combat-ready at the end of the war include:

    Lockheed P-80:
    4 were in Europe by 1945, although they were soon grounded due to a fatal crash. It had issues with the engine, but most issues were solved by the end of the year, and could have been entered into combat even with its current state had the need arisen. There were several hundred in various stages of production near the end of 1945. In service until the mid-50s, and the T-33 trainer variant remains in service with many users to this day.

    Specs: (TOP SPEED 965km/h, RANGE 1930km, CEILING 14000m, CLIMB RATE 23.5m/s)

    DeHavilland Vampire
    Had a lengthy testing period (first flight 1943), and by the end of the war was a relativity issue-free aircraft. The first production airframe flew in April of 1945, but it never saw combat. Served in the RAF until the mid-50s.

    Specs: (TOP SPEED 866km/h, RANGE 1960km, CEILING 13000m, CLIMB RATE 24.5m/s)

    Compare those to the Me-262:
    TOP SPEED 900km/h RANGE 1000km CEILING 11500m CLIMB RATE 20m/s

    While very similar, you cannot forget the reliability issues the Me-262 had. Also keep in mind the Germans had been developing jet aircraft for many more years than the allies, with, arguably, more intensity. By the time the Me-262 entered service, the Luftwaffe had been working on fixing problems related to the aircraft for years. Although the Germans had many "fantastic" aircraft either on the production lines or on the drawing boards (such as the Horten flying wing); these were dogged by inferior parts, production disruptions and poor safety records. Yes, on paper they may look excellent and ahead of their time, but in reality most were little more than test planes with cannons added to them that were rushed into service in the hopes of victory. For instance, the He-162 was known for engine flame-outs and structural failures (notably the wings breaking off). Designing a plane is only 40% of what it takes to get it into production - the rest is dedicating to fine-tuning and fixing problems, which the Germans often had difficulty moving these fixes from the factory to the production craft. Where German aircraft good on paper? yes; vastly superior? no.

    I think the most notable thing that came out of the German aircraft industry was inspiration, not necessarily the individual designs. German ideas such as swept-wings and flying-wings were thoroughly investigated in the post-war period by allied nations, and were incorporated into many aircraft which emerged as much superior designs. With the advent of these new planes, there was no need for the now-inferior World War Two German aircraft. One merely has to look at designs such as the F-86 Sabre and MiG-15 for evidence of this.
     
  13. CAC

    CAC Ace of Spades

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    Interesting post...(The Vampire was only ever considered an average aircraft, despite its sales record.) The 262 DID have issues, mainly with the 001 engines...this is cutting edge stuff poeple! (The latest freak'n A380 just had a major engine problem - This happens). The 005s were on there way. The problem they also had was with inferior techs and workers which plagued the 262 in the latter part of the war, a bit different from the US techs working un-hindered, un-bombed and not facing invasion. The "designs" were beautiful, they did work, just the execution was lacking.
    Many german designs were incorporated into latter allied aircraft - The F-86 Sabre is a good example of a German design re-worked and had some "love" put into it, something the germans had no time for, literally.
    The Aliies took WAY too long to take up the swept wing design (der!) Not trusting the german's design method. Shows plenty of ignorance in my book, they should have KNOWN the benefits of wing sweeping. I agree with your point about inspiration though, that, the germans certainly were.
     
  14. George Patton

    George Patton Canadian Refugee

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    Yes, and this is part of the reason why I argue most of the designs were nothing more than test planes with weapons attached. The Germans certainly had some of the best aircraft engineers in the world (look at the efforts launched into rounding them up and putting them to work in US/Soviet factories in 1945), but their efforts were crippled by the allies and their own leadership. Many pushed by jet fighters in 1939, but Hitler was so confident of victory following his early successes that he canned the projects. It wasn't until when things started to turn bad that the jet projects were revived.

    Absolutely. The Germans had a substainstial lead in swept wing technology (Adolf Busermann proposed the idea in 1935) and later German fighter designs (notably Kurt Tank's & Hans Multhopp's Ta-183) incorporated swept wings. Post-war, many pushed for swept-wing designs. Some notable proponents included North American Aviaiton and Boeing, who quickly re-designed their F-86 and B-47, during 1945, to include swept wings based on captured German research. Yes, I would say that the allies took too long to investigate swept-wings (there was limited research into the topic during WWII), and it wasn't done intensely until they received captured German documents and personnel. Even so, their findings were often met with ridicule -- when something is new in the scientific world, many times others are slow to adopt it, and this is no exception.
     
  15. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    I thought that the Germans used swept wings on the Me-262 for reasons other than later aircraft. I've seen it discussed but forget the details.
     
  16. George Patton

    George Patton Canadian Refugee

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    Quick research reveals that the wings were swept (although not a "true" swept wing - for example the wings on the DC-3 had a similar sweep angle) to move "the center of lift properly relative to the center of mass, not for the aerodynamic benefit" when the engines were found to be heavier than expected. Later German planes (like the Ta183, Me P1101, etc) utilized a swept-wing design for increased performance and handling at higher speeds.
     
  17. phylo_roadking

    phylo_roadking Member

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    This I'd question; in peacetime...

    1/ I'd be more interesting in looking at what a prospective opponent might have or be expected to have!

    2/ I'd be more interested in a degree of futureproofing - looking for the most advanced aircraft you can obtain for the money, to allow you to retain it in service competitively for a longer time...

    ...that's if you're buying instead of building for yourself; for then you're forced into compromises with respect to what you can produce.

    The RAF (perhaps incorrectly) viewed the Meteor as an interceptor and the vampire as a ground attack aircraft; in THAT capacity it DID see combat, in the Malayan Emergency.

    Indian Air Force vampires also saw ground attack use in 1965 in the Indo-Pakistani War of that year; it was there, 12-15 years or so out of date, that it came up badly against F-86 Sabres with modern air-to-air missiles.

    The Rhodesian Air Force also used them as ground attack aircraft in Aden in 1957-61, and in the same role from UDI to the end of the conflict in 1979.
     
  18. FtrPlt

    FtrPlt Member

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    To go back to the original question: why scrap them?
    Other than a few examples flight tested and their technologies evaluated, there simply was no purpose/reason for keeping any Axis aircraft around. From the US viewpoint, we certainly didn't need them. We were already trying to dispose of tens of thousands of our own aircraft. We actually paid the Germans to burn hundreds of late-model P-51 Mustangs after the war, rather than bring them home.

    The P-80 first flew in 1944 and was already in full production before the war ended. With our own jet, there was no need to consider operating 'enemy' aircraft. I'm sure any 'liberated technology' from the Me-262 reappeared in the swept-wing versions of the F-84, which entered service in 1947 and the F-86 a few years after that.

    Aircraft technology had progressed to such an extent that anything from WW2 was hopelessly obsolete by 1950 -- a mere 5 years later.
     
  19. CAC

    CAC Ace of Spades

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    "anything from WW2 was hopelessly obsolete by 1950" - Whilst i agree with the gist of your point, this is not quite correct. The corsair for one springs to mind...also the Mustang was used in Korea...(single and twin). I don't think it was aircraft tech that had progressed so fast,(many immediate post war aircraft were conceived in WW2) but ENGINE tech is what obseleted many aircraft (although in some cases the new engine COULD have been placed in an older airframe).
     
  20. T. A. Gardner

    T. A. Gardner Genuine Chief

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    Yea, but the difference is like going to the local auto parts store and telling them you need parts for a 1960 Ford F-150 pick up versus telling them you need parts for a 1960 BMW..... See which is easier and cheaper to get parts for.....
     

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