Is the me262 that great?

ya point

If they devolped the me262 earlier they could have modifided it before 44 but it still dosen't solve the probleam of fuel and pilots :smok: :kill:

 

One of the biggest problems with the Me262 was the engines, the Geramn metallurgy of the time just wasn't up to it. The engines only had about about a 25 hour life. They neede a lot more development time.

 

Could someone please explain to me the intricacies of aerial combat? I do have quite a number of questions which need clarification.

Would an me262 have been effective aganist more agile opponents (such as most primary Allied fighters) if they could use their superior maneouverability to evade firing passes from the me262s?

Why would an me262 even bother letting itself get dragged into a dogfight? Wouldn't it have been better for it to fire once, turn one large round, then fire again. With its superior speed this shouldn't be too much of a problem. How much faster could it fly than most Allied planes?

 

Considering that most me262's were armed with low velocity 30mm guns, they aren't that effective against smaller, nimbler opponents.

Allied fighters managed 700++ km/h while ME262 managed to get 800++ km/h. Around 100km/h difference, depending on altitude. Allied fighters definitely couldn't outrun it so ME262 could do that one large round and fire again. But we have to remember that allied fighters shoot shells and bullets travelling 3000++ km/h
So ME262 is not invulnerable to enemy fighters, no matter how much faster it was.

 

The experience of WW2 showed that performance was far more important than manouevrability. Just look at what happened to the Spitfire and the Bf 109. As the war proceeded they got much heavier and less manouevrable, but they got faster - which meant that they could dictate the terms of an engagement. The faster plane can always catch the slower one if he wants to fight, or he can escape from it if he doesn't. If agility had mattered, the biplane would have reigned supreme.

In the Pacific, no Allied plane could match the agility of the Zero, so they adopted different tactics which made use of their superior speed, and the Zero was dead meat thereafter (apart from the odd encounter when a skilled Zero pilot met up with an inexperienced Allied one).

So the Me 262 was superior to the Allied fighters in a one-on-one combat (it did of course suffer problems of short range and weak engines, but that's a different matter). Yes, the low-velocity MK 108 cannon were not ideal for fighter-v-fighter combat, but they did have the compensation that one hit would generally blow a fighter out of the sky, whereas the US fighters usually had to score many hits with 50 cals (the RAF's 4x20mm setup was the best compromise all-round).

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion
forum

 

Much better manuverablity might keep you alive but it isn't going to allow you to win fighter to fighter combat.

 

That is the popular opinion, yes. Galland thought so, and I might have been a little hasty about Milch, I seem to recall that he was also in favour of producing the Me 262 as a pure fighter/interceptor. I guess I have to look through my books again.

The production of the Me 262 was premature. Both the aircraft and its engines suffered from numerous troubles. One of the most limiting was the fact that the Me 262 was very unstable at high speeds, and high speed was its only advantage over Allied fighters. It was also found difficult to shoot down bombers with.

 

da thoyght

I heard that it shot some enemy planes yet hardly any me-262 survived the war :kill: :roll:

 

Re: da thoyght

they are more than you think!!!

 

There wasn't all that much intricacy to it. Speed was king, with rate of climb, diving speed, and service ceiling also very important. The planes that had a speed/altitude advantage could dictate wether or not there would be a combat. Once engaged in combat the most important factors were the weight and rate of fire and gun platform stability.

Many planes were shoot down without ever seeing their attacker in zoom and boom (high speed dive from above) attacks.

Turn and roll rates were only of momentary importance. Dog fighting was something most pilots (but not the Japanese) were taught to avoid.

 

Re: da thoyght

surviving me 262:

deutsches museum, munich , germany
me 262 a-1b, wk/ nr 500071

aerospace museum cosford, shropshire ,england
me 262 a-1a wk/ nr 112372

johannesburg war museum, johannesburg, south africa
me 262 b-1a wk/ nr 110305
( the only surviving night figther)

australia war memorial, canberra australia
me 262 a-2a wk/ nr 500200

naval air station willow grove, pennsylvania
me 262 b-1a wk/ nr 110639
( this plane was fully restored and used to build 5 replicas)

national air and space museum, washington,dc usa
me 262 a-1a wk/ nr 500491

usaf museum, dayton ,ohio, usa
me 262 a-1a wk/ nr unknown

planes of fame museum, chino, california, usa
me 262 a-1a/u3 wk/ nr unknown

 

I can agree with most of what you said, there were however, sometimes when dog fighting was the main type of battle. As in the Battle of Britain.

 

That's because the opposing fighters were closely matched in performance and handling (well, the Spitfire and Bf 109 were anyway) so a one-on-one contest between them frequently became a dogfight.

If either had been much faster than the other, they wouldn't have bothered with dogfighting but would have used the speed to 'bounce' the enemy then get away.

The problem with dogfighting is that it was a lottery. That's why many high-scoring aces avoided them like the plague.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion
forum

 

True, however, sometimes it became a necessity to dogfight even against mismatched aircraft. Although speed in itself is not a deciding factor, most aircraft in WW2 only had a short amount of ammo, if you didn't hit first time then you relied on manoeuvrability to evade or get behind. yes speed gave a very important advantage but I don't believe it to be the be all and end all.

 

I didn't say there was none
i meant compared to other planes e.g. spitfire, :angry: P47

 

rare birds are:
ta 152
he 219
ar 234
ho 229
do 335
only one per plane exist today

 

Most fighters shot down in WW2 were 'bounced' and never saw their enemy. Hartmann, the highest scorer of all, preferred to attack in this way (he also liked to get within 50m so he couldn't miss) but if his first attack failed, he didn't dogfight - he used his superior attack speed to pull away to a safe distance, where he sized up the situation and decided whether or not another attack was worthwhile against an alerted enemy or whether it was better to look for an easier target.

Dogfighting is very romantic but it gets even the best aces killed. Hartmann survived the war despite fighting through most of it.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion
forum

 

Also the HP Halifax (one plane recoostructed out of ,any others now complete at Elvington, Yorkshire) and a host of planes like the Skua that do not even have 1 surviving example.

Not many me 262s survived, but then not many were built. That a fairly high percentage of them survived is mostly down to the fact that most of them did not fly...

 

quite interesting

 

you lot are missing the point about the war. No single weapon that Germany could mass produce would have made a difference. The Maus, The Walther U Boat, the ME 262, V2 etc.

It was doomed in that it faced the infinate low tech production and manpower of Russia and the massive high tech production of the USA. It could never have out produced either singulary let alone both. And numbers count far more when technoligies are not completly advanced.

Whilst the ME 262 would have been effective against daylight bomber raids and also good at picking of fighter patrols, what effect do you think it would have against 1000 night bombers?

Also the allies were developing it's own high speed jet fighters so within 6 months of it's appearence in numbers counter measures/planes would start to appear. Germany would then need to invent another ground breaking plane.

FNG