Is the me262 that great?

none of the allied jets can cope with the me 262

 

They didn't really have to. if the Me 262 had been available in quantity the first Allied response would have been to step up the actions which they were taking anyway - to hit the planes on or near their airfields, including launching frequent night raids on their bases. The focus of the escort fighters would therefore have switched to attacks on the jets before they could wind up to full speed and get at the bombers.

The worst-case scenario would have been to switch to night bombing, especially with large numbers of Mosquitos which were very hard to detect and catch.

In any case, even if the Me 262 dominated the skies, Germany would still have lost. The war was won on the ground, mainly by the massed hordes of the Soviet Army.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion
forum

 

Pretty much - however, if Germany had had a full fleet of Walther U-boats instead of the gunk they had in 1939, IMO they could have cut the Atlantic link before America really got involved, which means Britain is out of the war.
We have discussed before how tricky the US would find it to defeat Germany without a land base to work from (please no discussion here!), though whether Hitler would bother declaring war after knocking out Britain... (yes, he probably would!). With a relatively safe West Front, and the whole of Europe to work with) Germany could do fairly well against the CCCP...

 

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.

There's another (Airworthy!) Halifax in Canada (Although it's unfortunately never likely to get airbourne again as it's been sealed into its hangar, and there is a Skua that was recovered from a lake in Norway, I believe it is a total Wreck and has been preserved as such, but it is nevertheless a surviving example. Of the Short Stirling however nothing much apart from a collection of artifacts exists (A group are trying to produce a scale "model" of one) and there is a 1/1 "model" Defiant in addition to another preserved in the same manner as the Skua.

Back on topic, I agree with FNG wholeheartedly, no single piece of equipment could have won the war for Germany, despite what is often suggested.

The Me262 could not have been made available much earlier than it was in actual fact, but even if it had it was far from invulnerable. Aircraft like the P-51, Spitfire MkXIV and P-47 could neutralise the Me262's speed advantage with a 5,000ft height advantage, so really all the Allied fighters had to do in practice was fly 5 or 6,000ft above the bombers they were escorting and they had one good pass at the Me262s. The Me262 was far less invulnerable than popularly supposed.

Oh, and the P-80 and later Meteors (MkIII and later I think, not too sure about that, but they entered service just post-war), and Vampires would have been more than capable of dealing with an Me262, any one of these could have had it's development accelerated if the need required to be a wartime adversary for the Me262, if it had become a serious problem.

 

would the me262 have been more effective if it was designed as a fighter not a fighter/bomber?

 

[/quote]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.

 

Hi TigerHoogy, welcome to the forum!

The Me-262 was never really a fighter, it was an interceptor to combat the USAAF bombing raids. Hence the high-calibre, low-velocity guns.

As a fighter-bomber it would have proved very useful, as it was very tricky (but no way impossible) for the Allies to intercept. Look at how well the Arado 234 did.

The longer the war goes on the less chance Germany has of winning.
They simply did not have the resources (human and material) that the Allies had.

And if the war did drag on to 1946, the Allies would be using Pershings, Centurians and IS-3s, all equal or superior to any German tank. In the air it would be the same story (no fuel or pilots for the Luftwaffe to fly the planes), but even if you miraculously have the Luftwaffe flying with hundreds of jets, you simply have Meteors, Vampires and P-80s on the Allied side.

Germany could not hope to ever win the war. And asking for peace without inconditional surrender was not gioing to get them anywhere - especially not with Stalin.

 

Or to put it in less technical terms

they were up the creek without a paddle

 

no question no single german wonder weapon wich came out in the last year could win the war(because of the a- bomb) but a combination of them and an early mass production togheter with the right strategy would end up in a blood shed for allied air crews sailors and soldiers
once the me -262 was at speed she was untouchable for allied fighters
and her 30mm mk-108 would blew up every fighter by one hit and even if not do you think german engeniers werenr able to fit in other fighter optimized guns into the me- 262 like 6 mk 151/20 inmstead of the 4 mk-108

 

Wrong, with a 5,000ft height advantage the Tempest, Spitfire, Thunderbolt and Mustang (To name a few) were all capable of catching the Me262, it was not untouchable.

And that's when its engines worked.

If they hit, and it was a big if. They were unreliable and the Me262 itself incapable of turning with another fighter to keep it in its gunsight. I think 4 20mms is a more realistic alternative fit than 6, there simply isn't that much room in the nose of an Me262. In any case the same applies, in a turn the Me262 wouldn't be capable of keeping an Allied fighter in its sights.

 

... but they could not be any more effective earlier because the engines still would not work.

This is a big problem, and there is no way round it.


As for being untouchable at speed - I think that this has been debunked.
Yes, at high speed and in a straight line they were much harder to intercept. But far from impossible. I do think that several were actually shot down by fighters in mid-air...


But the bottom line is this - IF you can get the engines to work by 1943, and if all other objections are swept aside, and the Luftwaffe starts recieving them in large numbers, and IF this proves a big problem to the RAF/USAAF (unlikely, they still have a numerical advantage and historically did develop tactics to deal effectively with the Me262) then what would happen?

Britain would speed up its own jet programme and you would have Me262s combatted by the slightly inferior Meteor and then the far superior Vampire (both of which had far more reliable engines).


Ho hum.


To my mind the only feasable super-weapon that could and should have been introduced earlier was the more advanced U-boat types. Both the schnorkel and the Walther hull & propulsion methods were available before WW2, but none were adopted until way too late.

 

What he said.

 

I don't know if I'm allowed to write this, but I happen to know that a Skua in a relatively complete condition has been located, and that there are plans of recovering it. It wont happen in a while, however, as the group which at the moment are involved have other priorities and because no funding is available at present.

 

You are - that is great news and I look forward to the raising.

Unfortunatly it is a little off-topic, so I will have to drag your name through the dirt in the 3-word story.

 

Excellent news! Norway is proving a veritable gold mine for WWII aircraft, IIRC in the last year or two a couple of He111s were recovered from a lake there too, and a couple of Ju88s were found abandoned fairly recently too.

 

It might actually be a piece of 'inside information', that's why I wrote that I didn't know if I was allowed to write about it. But I think it's alright. I wont tell about the present project though, at least not until I get a green light.

Is that what happens when you go off-topic ?

You get dragged through the dirt in the 3-word story ?

 

This is how we discipline Admin members!

 

would it off made a big difference if Germany didn't attack U.S.S.R
:kill:

 

Yes, because Stalin would attack Germany.

 

Well, would he....????