What if ? The Allied Air Forces of 1946

It could be argued that (in general) the luftwaffe had better planes anyway in '45, and they were also definitely outnumbered. And that helped them how?
Have a check on Lanchester, roughly combat power of a force varies as the square of its strength. So for example, if the Luftwaffe has fighters twice as good as the allies (I'm making numbers up to illustrate a point, bear with me), but only a quarter as many:
Luftwaffe 20 a/c = 40 combat eff = 1600 combat power
Allies 80 a/c = 80 combat eff = 6400 combat power
Means the luftwaffe is effectively outnumbered 4 to one. Each Luftwaffe aircraft has to fight four times as effectively as it's actually capable of doing. (Very rough illustration :lol: )
We had air superiority (verging on dominance) and there wasn't an aircraft design on the Nazi drawing boards that could change that. They were losing territory, aircraft, pilots and production facilities all the time.
"The ultimate in air superiority is a tank in the middle of the runway" - Alfred Price
That said i do like some of the proposals, and the series of three "Luftwaffe Secret Projects" books are a very interesting read.

 

And, of course, by 1945 (let alone 1946) the Germans were fast running out of petrol and pilots. You could give them the USAF of 2005 and they would still lose air superiority if they canot actually fuel or pilot more than a handful of planes.

 

I really cannot agree with this at all.

The Germans were completely out of pilots for a start, I fail to see what any order of Goering's was going to do to redress that one.

They did not have access to the metals necessary to make the alloys that were essential to the reliability of their Jet engines. This was not a teething problem, this was a major factor limiting the potential of the Luftwaffe jet types.

Similarly they had neither the capacity to train personel or the existing personel to service the Jet engines, whilst a piston engine can be serviced by a motor mechanic with some conversion training, jet engines required a whole new generation of mechanics. Germany simply did not have the manpower to spare.

If Germany had dragged the war out another year there was no way they were going to completely replace their piston engine types by even the start of 1946. That would be completely impractical and I'm afraid one of Goering's more ambitious pipe-dreams (Probably dreamt up to keep himself in a job whilst the Luftwaffe was grounded).

Even if they had, I disagree that they would have still outclassed the Allies.

The immediate post war Meteors (F.4s and F.8s I think) were easily a match for the Me262, the Vampire superior to it and the P.80 at the very least a match.

Nothing the Germans were likely to be able to produce would have been significantly superior to those if at all, and bear in mind that it was the immenence of VE day that caused Allied R&D to slow down and projects be cancelled or delayed. If VE day wasn't likely to occur much before summer 1946 I don't think its unfair to suggest that many of the Allied postwar types would appear in service earlier.

I think your obsession with German superiority clouds your judgement.

 

what do you mean
aircraft specifications belive me a me 262 or a focke wulf hückebein with out child illnisses cant be touched by any allied prop fighter exept during start or landing but every plane is vunreable in this phase
a tempest or even a hurricane can kill an f-22 when they caught him during landing approach and attacking from above

 

They can go faster in a straight line than a Tempest, yes.
But they cannot fly as far, cannot turn as tightly, their armament is very poor for fighter vs fighter (high-caliber low-velocity).

And, as pointed out above, by 1946 the Allies would have the Vampire in service, which would be equal or superior to the 262 & huckebien (which would be grounded anyway due to malfunctioning engines, lack of fuel & no pilot!)

 

I couldn't have put it better myself!

 

So your ideal-all-conquering fighter would be an SR-71 (or YF-12A as it was faster) with a machine gun?
An air war is not about running away from the bad guy, it's about knocking him out of the sky, or not letting him into the sky in the first place, ref: the quote from Alfred Price.
Turning radius depends upon air speed (among other things) the faster you go the wider the turn. So a 262 or Ta-183 could get to a fight quickly, but would be turning wider. Oooh, given the choice would you rather be turning fast and wide or slow and tight. Clue, being inside someone's turning circle gives opportunities for shots, being outside someone's turning circle means your guns have to shoot backwards/ sideways.

 

Wrong, a Spitfire MkXIV, Mustang, Tempest, Thunderbolt and Lightning were all capable of catching an Me262 at altitude with around a 5,000ft height advantage.

Allied pilots knew what altitude the Me262s would be at (The same as the bombers they were going to intercept), so it's a fairly simple matter to place a high escort to catch the jets. Get one in a turning fight and that's it.

Me262s were actually shot down in aerial combat, I'm not talking take-off or landing runs, actual air to air combat. They were not untouchable.

You keep mentioning these teething troubles (Childish troubles?), let me repeat. Germany did not have the metals required to get any kind of reliability out of the jet engines. It's not a matter of teething troubles, it's a matter of metalurgy. Without the correct metals regardless of the abilities of the pilots, mechanics and availability of fuel the engines were always going to be eating their own turbine blades after between 5-50 hours.

Come up with the metal, you can cure the problems. The problem is Germany could get access to this metal. So you are still going to have these "childish troubles" in 1946.

Unless you have a magic wand to wave over this problem?

 

it doesent depent on how tight you can turn if you are so fast that you can engage and abort every time you want
you must be crazy if you are a me 262 pilot and starting dogfights with tempis or a mustis in ww1 manoverbility was most important in ww2 it was the speed and today its the performance of the radar and the bvr missles you can carry
simor your right the metal situation where still bad in 1946 but i dont know why its so hard for you to exept that the germans build the finest aircrafts well the majority was average and even outclassed by some allied fighters but the few jets they got or even the ta 152 were clearly better than their allied counterparts
to make it clear in 1946 90%of germanys frontline fighters were jets
while the allies were just about 10% of jets in their lines but these 10% were made up allready the one third of germanys jets and you can ask every former fighterpilots of ww2 and they will all confirm you that the tempi or musti were exelent but no match for a me 262 or he -162 etc.

 

True, but a slash and crash attack will only work so many times. A limited number of 262s going against large formations of prop fighters will inevitably put the 262 in front of a lot of guns. Statistics demand there will be hits. Continued slashing attacks eat up fuel and engine time. If you maintain high speed then you're going to be so far away after the first attack and turn round that the speed advantage is used to catch up, giving sufficient opportunity for the enemy to line up on you as you make the second attack.

So why the masive outrage when the USAF took delivery of the F-16. Every other air force took one look and said "why can't we have a dogfighter" So why the requirement for manoeuvre capability in Rafale, Gripen, F-22, Eurofighter Typhoon, MiG 29, Su 27. BVR is ONLY useful if you KNOW that the guy you're locking on to is DEFINITELY a bandit. Bogies being splashed by BVR is a no-no. Radars can be jammed or degraded. A fighter can only carry so many missiles - if you have 8 AMRAAM and there are 11 bad guys then I believe the correct military terminology is "sh*t out of luck"

finest?? I think you'll have more takers than you care for on that point :lol: Define finest. They were (asuming you mean most-technologically advanced), as has been said, of limited engine life, limited utility, limited applicability (Me 163 killed more of its own pilots than combat did IIRC - correct me if I'm wrong somebody) and a monstrous waste of resources.

define better. Faster yes, more manoeuverable no, better suited to air combat, no. (Ta 152 possibly excepted - I like Kurt Tank's designs :lol: )

can you provide figures? And even if guaranteed true they still got stomped, no?

Chuck Yeager for one would not be included in that "all" you claim. I've met a few fighter pilots, I've seen interviews, I've read memoirs, and very few (none that I recall) have ever said that the Tempest or the Mustang were "no match".
Even if all of the above were true and Germany did indeed have the "best" aircraft consider the following:
I have read the reports from a joint exercise (RAF vs USAF) where a Lightning F.6 ate an F-16 in air-to-air combat, and a later exercise where an F-15 got his head handed to him by a Tornado ADV in ACM!
The F-5s of the Aggressor regularly chewed up and spat out F-15, F-16 and F-14. It's their job (sort of - it's their job to teach others to be as good as them).
It is very rarely the aircraft that counts in the end. It's a case of pilot skill, knowledge of his aircraft and the enemy's and tactics. And the luftwaffe had lost most of its best pilots by '45.
Oh, just noticed you said

just to clarify, is that a misprint for 1945, in which case see my comments above, or is it part of our hypothetical history and you mean 1946? In which case if the Luftwaffe in '46 is going to be 90% jet then allow us to invent figures for strength and types in service for the RAF/ USAF/Red air force (PVO?). Give me MB.5s, Bearcats and dH Hornets please, yum.

 

when i say speed or bvr missels are most important today or in ww2 doesnt mean manouverbilty count nothing it just means its secondary
you took the f-16 or the efa yes they are good dogfighters but if you ask any airforce commanders everybody will tell you that manouverbilty is important but the mainthing in a modern fighter is the radar and the bvr missles there is no doubt the reason why efa or rafale are goood dogfighters is for the case that all missles were already shot but a modern fighter avoids dogfight because he has the advatage of engagin without being seen same tactic in ww2 when the germans jets engage and than gain height for the next engagement or heading home
ok maybe you heard and read this but the books and magazines i read with many interview partners from ww2 saing the me is the best and a pilots choise

 

and after heading home they get stuffed by the 4 'stangs they couldn't take out.
I'd like to compare books and magazines, which ones do you read?
For my self, anything by Bill Gunston, sad loss he was a nice bloke (but his Russian pronunciation was rubbish :lol: ), Alfred Price, Mike Spick isn't too bad, auto/biographies (bearing in mind some are "padded out" - Big Show for example by Clostermann)
Magazines; Air International, Air Forces Monthly, Air Enthusiast, Flypast, Aeroplane Monthly, Air Combat, Flight, Defence Helicopter (obviously not WWII and subscription only, but they did do an article on Hurricane vs Spit manoueverability many yeras ago), Aviation Week and anything else I see on the shelf, including some French and Russian ones, Cosmavtika i Aviatsiya and Voyenni Vestnik/ Aviation Herald spring to mind most readily. Oh, and the odd issue of that Israeli one, I forget the title.

 

Ok, let's put this in simple terms.

No German jet engine could be relied upon to work in combat at 100% WEP, the German 30mm cannon that these jets were equipped with could not be relied upon to work in combat (And had a maximum of about 11 seconds fire for the top pair of guns in an Me262, 9 for the bottem and as little as 5 or 6 seconds for an He162), that's a pretty poor combination for a start.

The allies could neutralise the speed advantage of the German jets two ways, first off the speed of the bombers nose to nose attacks meant the German jets had to fly slowly to get the lowest possible closing speed in head on attacks negating the advantage of their top speed overall when their engines worked properly.

Second, the allies knew what altitude the Me262s would be coming in at, add 5,000 ft and they have enough to catch them. This is reality, a US pilot in a Thunderbolt (Capt Finnegan) wounded Adolf Galland in his Me262 with precisely this tactic.

The Me262 was a good bomber interceptor when everything worked properly, but it was a poor dogfighter, had poor weapons in fighter vs fighter combat, had poor undercarriage, poor range and poor reliability.

Contrast this to the Mustang, it had good range, good reliability, good all round weapons, good dogfighter. Ditto the P-38, Spitfire, Tempest...

At the risk of repition: Allied piston engine fighters shot down Me262s in actual air-to-air combat, the German jets were not untouchable in real life, never mind an alternative history!

The only thing that they are weaker than the Me262 in is maximum speed and as has already been mentioned even when the fuel was available that couldn't be relied upon because of the engines and could be negated with an altitude advantage, and that is with the Allied aircraft in service in summer 1944!

Now add the speed advantages of the P-80, Meteor F.8 or Vampire, and the German jets advantages even on paper are looking pretty poor, and that is even without considering reliablility of power plant, engine, fuel supply, pilot quality or availability of maintenance technicians.

If you want to know what I'd rather be flying in 1944, Me262 or P-51, it's a Mustang. I know I can trust my engine, I know I can trust my guns. Thats two important factors the Me262 pilot hasn't got. Ever wonder why Hartmann chose his Bf109 over the chance of flying a Me262 with Jv44? I guess even Germany's Ace of Aces didn't believe in the superiority of the Me262 over existing piston engine planes.

By 1946 I would chose a P-80, Meteor or Vampire over Me262/Fw183 without hesitation. They have everything the piston engine planes have, plus the speed, although not the range of the Mustang/MkXIV (centreline tank version), however by then range would not have been that crucial anyway.

 

Another thought occurs:
the majority of air-air kills were achieved on targets that didn't see the attacker, so 262 etc gives a slight advantage in that they can close quicker from further out, compounding the problem. But, if a 262 misses, or is spotted then all a prop job has to do is turn and the 262 has missed (well in theory :lol: ) and the 262's only options are
1) get into a knife fight and get splashed or
2) disengage and try to re-acquire, against a pack of now-aware targets, taking time to wear out the engines.
they couldn't engage and abort every time they wanted due to engine life and the fact that they were outnumbered everytime they went up. It's far easier to get the drop in 1 v 1 than it it is 1 v 10 situation and the numbers involved were far nearer the latter figure than the first.
Turning into an attacker throws off his shot and if the attacker is considerably faster the the less you have to turn to make him either stall out or chicken out, and although I haven't seen figures I'd imagine the sweep of the 262 wing would exacerbate tip stall and raise the turn radius in comparison to an equivalent-speed straight-wing type.

and if a BVR is seen coming in (RWR, IR warning etc) it is relatively easy to lose, it is no longer under power and any turns will deplete its energy to the point of just dropping out of the sky, likwise if you light someone up with a radar they can turn towards you for a return shot or turn away to lose themselves. Missiles are not, and never have been, wonder weapons. They're the aerial equivalent of throwing stones at someone before getting into a fist fight, they might hit and scare him off, they might hit and put him out of the fight, but if they don't do either then you either get punched or run.

modern fighters do not avoid dogfighting, except for those types designed during the period when it was believed the missile would solve all problems. The F-15 was designed to manoeuvre, it's only that size because it was intended to fight over somebody else's country - true :lol: , the F-14 was to a lesser extent due to its role as fleet defence missile carrier (and it still kicked the F-15's butt on the first meeting - something the USAF didn't like being spread around), the F-16 was designed purely as a dogfighter (with short range IR capability). The Tornado ADV was a special case of pure long-range bomber interceptor to destroy Bears, Backfires and Badgers over the North Sea, and still, as posted previously, was capable in the right hands of mixing it and winning against "the best" (and out-accelerating a Lightning!!)
Simon

WEP?? This abbreviation's gone completely out of my head, clarify please.

 

well hartman refused to join jv44 because of his strong bound to jg52 i read toliver constables biographi of him
and why were all modern countries started to build jet planes after ww2
and gathred as much german technologie as they can get
and you are right they had many lacks but i have the view ot 1946
and one hit with the mk-108 was deadly for every fighter in the scene

but what ever even in 1946 the situation of raw materials were still bad or just think about the fuel and many high skilled workers, scinetist, were dead in jail or in another country
i think the corsairs, mustangs, hellcats, tempests were the best fighters in ww2 along with ki-84c fw-190d and la-7
but planes like the me262 go-229 and hückebein were the beging of a new age of air combat jetengine ai radar and homing aa missles
or sams like wasserfall if the germans produced it in masses the wasserfall would kill hundrert of b-17 and b-24 and they had nothing to face this menace or whats the use of 6 good working cal50 guns when an ir missle is fired at you at a range of 2miles from a fighter travelling with 1000kmh .
what i mean is the high tech sytems the germans got were just at the beging it was a totally new world to be reached in the last month of a terrific war were most infrastructure lais in ruins and millions of death at the front and at home so the result was poor but opend the next stage of air combat

 

All modern countries started to build jets before the end of WWII, with the possible exception of the USSR, although Shavrov's Istoria Konstruktsi Samol'yetov v SSSR indicates that they were at least working on designs. They were being built because it was thought at the time they offered an absolute advantage. Not true, but a jet was an excellent interceptor of bombers.
They gathered as much German tech as possible because they wanted to see what the Germans had got... simple as that. Probably one of the German designs that had most impact immediately(ish) post-war was the Mauser MG213C revolver cannon, subsequently used as the basis for the ADEN family, DEFA family and a US cannon (Mk 20?). Do you imagine that if the Germans had beaten Britain they'd have left the research labs alone? It's part of the system, winners get the pickings.

Go-229 didn't see action, and other, allied companies had looked at tail-less designs, Huckebein didn't even get built (check the series of three books, Luftwaffe Secret Projects by Schick and Meyer, Midland publishing , or Dan johnson's website http://www.luft46.com/ - in this case Dan Johnson's website seems to be more reliable than the books , but still worth buying). The British were the first to put a jet fighter into service (but not combat), the Brits had AI radar in Blenheims for crying out loud, and the German AA missiles were wire guided, not IR, with, of all things, acoustic fusing. In fact if you read "Most Secret War" by RV Jones (a Brit scientist) we were working on the possibilities of IR very early on.
6 .50 cal guns are excellent vs a German air-air missile when the P-51 can manouevre and the German can't because he's too busy flying the missile to fly the plane. The missile was an anti-bomber weapon.
Wasserfall was apparently used, some sources report up to 17 were fired from a test site into a formation of B-17s. But I haven't seen any data on hits.
One hit with an MK 108 certainly was deadly against a fighter, but so were multiple hits from 6 50 (although I'm a Hispano fan myself), but the low rate of fire and pathetic muzzle velocity of the MK 108 meant that the 50s were far more likely to hit than the German gun.

no more than did the projects on the drawing boards of other nations, and it could be argued that the introducing of the jets in all nations at the time they were introduced was a step backwards... air combat had to be completely re-thought. The introduction (and associated belief in the supremacy) of AAMs certainly was :lol:

 

While I will sgree that the Allies were unlikely to have more than 10% of their planes as jets in 1946, I doubt that 90% of the Luftwaffe would be jets. For one thing, they were still mass-producing the Bf109 in 1945!
There are many accounts of captured German airfields with literally hundreds of (propellor-driven) aircraft sitting (unharmed) in camoflaged shelters.
To achieve a 90% jet / 10% propellor split the Germans woiuld need to produce many thousand jets in under a year (impossible for their industry) or junk the majority of their propellor aircraft (a waste).

 

I'd say they'd have to do both. Don't forget that both the Bf109G and K were being produced with wooden tail surfaces because strategic light alloys were in such short supply. The requirement to scrap prop planes to get the alloy to build jet airframes and conversion training for pilots and technicians is going to take out a huge portion of the Luftwaffe at any given point in a 45/46 alternative history.

I'll say again what I said initially, the idea of 90% Jets was a Goering pipe-dream, something along the lines of "Don't worry about Paulos' 6th Army, my Luftwaffe will keep them supplied" or "Don't worry about that pesky little island, my Luftwaffe will deal with it".

Goering had a history of making such proclamations without actually consulting the people who would have to carry them out (In this case the Luftwaffe and the German aircraft industry). I would treat this "plan" (If you can call it that) with the suspicion and caution it deserves.

 

well i dont know what really might happend in 1946 but fact is that göring order in feb.45 only to develop jet frontline fighters

 

And I've heard that Speer gave 100% of production of steel for the next three months exclusively to the navy, army and airforce all on the same day . That didn't happen either. If you read histories of the Reich there were orders given (from the very top down right through the command structure) that couldn't possibly have been carried out, but the ones who had to carry out those orders kept quiet about the impossibility due to fear for their jobs and lives.
An order of that sort being given is more an indication of what a poor grasp on reality Goering had, than an indication of future production.