BlitzKreig: Everything

Our Ar234 was never intended to be more than a stop gap ship. In fact in 1940 when it was conceived it was to be a meduim-range recon plane. Arado had some fabulous designs in the wings. The 234A series included only the V1-V7 prototypes. The 234B was the 1st production model. 210 examples were built with a further 19 Ar 234Cs with a small amount of Bs reaching K.G. 76. Erich Sommer flew the first jet reconnaissance mission on August 2, 1944.

The outcome of the war would have ultimately been the same as we know it but it could have dragged on an extra year or more with the resultant loss of more lives. Make no mistake, German industry would have been able to built more jets had it not been for Hitler's indecisiveness alternated by iron will.

i would just like to point out one thing, the tiger tanks and panthers, etc. they were excellent for an armoured assualt, they could endure damage, and had decent speed compared to other tanks in the same caliber, they made excellent tanks in the hands of rommel during his "blitzkreig" through North africa. and yes the garmsn trully had i think the most fundamanetal and great military leaders in history, with rommel, von rundstedt, hitler is actually a fundamental and surprising leader no matter how evil he is, goering, goebbels, all those WWII leaders were nevertheless evil, yet smart and clever.

As for countering the 262 there was no equal face off scenario where piston engine fighters were anywher near on par in one on one. The only success to be had was "rat catching" when the jets were pounced on at takeoff or at landing when they were slow and vulnerable. By diving at high speed and using the inertia produced it was possible to make a firing pass on a jet hoping for damage before he got away.

Yes I'm just reading "American raiders, the race to capture the Luftwaffe secrets", Samuel. He makes it clear that US pilots involved with P-80 jet programme at the end of the war who also got to fly the Me-262 in 1945 , said the German jet was superior in every respect.

Sminkeypinkey.

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If you read what was said at the time you'll see that Hitler was so intent on the Me262 as a bomber (or perhaps more accurately as a fighter-bomber) and why.
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Oh please. The 262 with bombs aboard could be run down from a LOW PERCH with Merlin Spitfires and P-47. NEITHER of which were noted low altitude performers in the scope of the Tempest or Griffon Spits. This plus the KNOWN deficits with the nose gear and the CERTAINTY that the aircraft could not operate from Germany were the remaining secure, jet-worthy, airbased were to be found should have made it blatantly obvious that it was NEVER GOING TO BE THE SOLUTION to the invasion problem.

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The fact that the Me262 was not a competent bomber or that the Arado Ar 234 Blitz was a more capable bomber - having been purpose designed to be one - isn't really relevant to this point.
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Of course it is. Because it was an Arado 234 that ran the first successful recce runs down Omaha beach. Because an Arado with bombs aboard is faster than a 262, at low level.

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.....it's also worth noting that the Ar234a flew for the first time almost 1yr later than the Me262 and needed much work to turn into an operationally suitable type.
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Flight down the beach.

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Once redesigned for operational use (for instance being fitted with a proper undercarriage!) the b (which first flew in march 1944) and would compete throughout it's 'life' for the same scarce Jumo jet engines and never be available in anything like the numbers the Me262 was produced in
(although it's worth remembering that only a small proportion of those planes ever took to the air).
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Gas their ass, nothing else will work and nerve agents or bio would make the single 'lucky pass' worth it. Even as NOTHING else would have.

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The fact remains that the stated theory was that the Me262 was expected to be the only available German aircraft capable of penetrating and surviving the expected allied fighter screen(s) to attack the allied landing areas early enough so as to them disrupt sufficiently and buy time for the German's to respond in force.
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By whom? Messerschmitt knew it wasn't a bomber. The Jagdwaffe knew it wasn't a bomber.

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As for resources?
Well I am always reminded of ifs, buts and maybes.
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No. When you need only sufficient jets to kill sufficient threats to GET THEIR ATTENTION and then drag the escorts off to be slaughtered like sheep (same 18 week pilot training interval remember) you can make it happen. Indeed, at that time the ONLY thing which would let Germany stave off the inevitable until nuked was the immediate and drastic reversal of the situation in the air. Night bombing wasn't the answer. The Nachjagdwaffen had superior kill rates throughout the war and in 1944 these numbers became /tremendous/. Despite chaff, jamming, 100 Grp. and deceptive routing.

If you can roll back the aluminum overcast from daylight bombing you can redefine the tactical picture for your ground forces so that things like Mortaine and Falaise NEVER HAPPEN.

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IMO most comments about 'they coulda' revolve around ignoring their commitments to resource the other theatres they were either fighting in too or were holding.
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IMO, most Americans stick their thumbs between their lips and blow hard trying to puff up their egos on a historical association basis with a FAILED airpower effort in WWII. Rather than apply common sense solutions to butchering 'the grande armada' which, even as was, wasted 90,000 odd airman's lives slaughtering millions of civillians for the purpose of NOT WINNING THE DAMN WAR.

Only profiting 'buy' it.

The tale of Allied and particularly U.S. airpower in the Second World War is nothing if not it's own shameful list of 'woulda coulda shoulda but didn't'. And we had ZERO excuse because we not only had the resources, we had the the EXAMPLE that the Germans had given us.

Go deep. Throw the country into uproar with misleading intimations of presence vs. intent. Disrupt with air and imbedded fires. NEVER make a 'frontal war' out of it.

All are basic Blitz tactics which were _blatantly obvious because they were not German in origin_ going back to Palestine in 1917 and Liddel Hart in the 20's and 30's.

WWII was a conflict engineered for profit, not for victory. Nothign more. Nothing less. When and if the 'historical documents' come out which reflect this in terms of production quotas and bad strategy, it will destroy this nations confidence in their military and political system, completely.


KPl.

ch1466 much as I enjoy your comments you are missing the point here.

The point is not your own assessment & rational of the merits of the Me262 or the Ar234 it is what was said by the people at the time and their assessment and rational.

Hitler was repeatedly assurred that the Me262 could carry bombs and eventually on 23rd May 1944 when he found out it was being built solely as a fighter he flew into the trademark rage which ended up with Milch eventually being sacked and Goering being made responsible for the program.
Hitler is recorded as saying "Never mind! I wanted only one 550lb (250kg) bomb" "I gave an unqualified order, and left nobody in any doubt that the aircraft was to be equipped as a fighter-bomber"

.....and the Ar234?
The first operational reconnaissance mission was 2nd August 1944, in an 'A'.

The 5th & 7th of the A series (which was confined to prototypes only as the production 'A variant' was cancelled) were fitted with cameras but this was hardly an aircraft capable of bombing anything with anything.

The 'B' first saw action on X-mas eve 1944.
In tiny numbers, usual story, far far too little and way way too late to make any difference to the strategic situation, thankfully.

(all from 'World War 2 Fighting Jets; Jeffrey Ethell & Alfred Price', Airlife Publishing Ltd; ISBN 1 85310 406X)

Superior to the P-80A in what way? Perhaps as a bomber destroyer but definitely not as an aircraft. The ME-262 was slower had less range and was difficult to produce. Variants of both the P-80 and the deHavilland Meteor were still in frontline service 10 years later(F-94C). It's trainer versions was still being used by the USAF in the 1980's. I'll grant you that the -262 was definitely a more aerodynamically advanced design but I firmly believe that P-80's would have more than held there own in a dogfight with -262. It scored the first jet to jet aerial combat victory against the Mig -15 which is IMHO a far superior design to the -262. The problem I saw with many of the German aircraft designs of WW2 is that they weren't designed for a mass production scale or rugged field use. The Daimler engine from the Bf-109 was a work of art but was hellatios slow to produce. The massive Wright R-2800 was simple, rugged and easily repaired in the field. The P-47 Thunderbolt and F4U Corsair's were arguably better fighter aircraft than most versions of the Bf-109 or the FW-190 and could be produced for about half the cost. The Germans had a silly notion that they could win the war with intimidation of their technologically superior tanks and planes. The Russian T-34 and American M-26 Pershing put an end to that tank notion. Even the later model upgraded Shermans were giving the Panzer's trouble.

Why don't you get the book from the library and read it ["American Raiders The race to capture the Luftwaffe Secrets", Samuel,2004 ISBN 1-57806-6409-2]. The P-80 jet was destine for the trash heap until the US intell guys got a hold of the Me-262. They had not idea why the Germans were sweeping back the wings even slightly, until they interviewed the German scientist running the windtunnel experiements. Turns out the idea came from American scientists in a conference in 1934 in Europe. The germans grasped the significance of the research, the Americans didn't.

The Whittle engine on the P-80 was worse than the Jumo-004 engine getting a reported 25-50 hours life at the same time the Jumo-004 was up to 100 hours. Thats probably why they lost so many prototypes and test pilots along the way. It was only after the took the Me-262 apart and smuggled the wind tunnels along with the research and the scientists back to the USA that they were able to make the P80 into a decent jet and make the B-47 a desent jet bomber....and catch up on 3-5 years of guided missile research.

The glowing reports of the P-80 performance was deliberate and timely propaganda designed to prevent congress from pulling the plug on the jet programme. As I said the USAF pilots that flew both jets at that time clearly stated the Me-262 was a fighter/interceptor, while the P-80 was piece of crap.

BTW they also said the Arado -234 was more maneuverable than the Me-262.

With all their superior aircraft did the Luftwaffe stop the technically inferior Allies? No, it didn't. The P-80 went through a development process just like every other aircraft in the war and afterwards. I'll stand by my statement. The early P-80 would hold its own against a -262 in jet-to-jet combat. Better yet, lets stick that same -262 against 2 or 3 P-80's. It would have to leave the airspace just as it did against the numerically superior prop planes it faced during the war. During WW2, the Allies knew they had numbers on their side and invested in technologies that would win the war. Ask a Luftwaffe -262 pilot how superior he felt when swarmed by P-51's, P47's, Yak-7's and Spitfire's on takeoff and landing. I read American Raiders. It had a definite politcal slant to it. Did we gain some technology from captured -262's and use it to improve the P-80, hell yes, we did. Let's not forget the Red Air Force either. They were hot after German aircraft technology, too. If there's one thing I learned from American Raiders wasn't about how far we were behind but how much more we got from the Germans then the Soviets did.

If you read the book you'd know it would have taken the US years to catch up on the German jet technology. In the mean time the Luftwaffe would be well past 1000 operational Me-262 inventory ....and what did the USA generals conclude when that happened? Strategic bombing over Germany would be come too costly.

If you studied the German technology , you'd also know that politics played a profound part in the develeopment of these technologies with the 3 year delay imposed by Hitler/Goering to catch up on the lack of a total war economy, which was another political blunder due to Hitlers 1936 gamble, opting for a limited war economy and putting off the total war economy until later....all political descisions that could very well have gone the other way. Like wise the choice of weapons and those ramifications.

Most of this technology was in development from the late 1930s and would have matured into weaponized models by 1942 intime for a overhaul of the Wehrmacht. The 3 year delay mean't few were ready by the end of the war. If this high tech is combined with the similarly overhauled total war economy then by mid war the Germans military production per year should feature....
30-40,000 planes
20,000 tanks & 17,000 halftracks
150,000 vehicles
53,000 Lt flak/IG/RR
25,000 ATG/Med Flak
16,000 arty/hvy flak plus 2500 MRL
400 Uboat size warships and another 50 escort ships plus another 500 coastal craft.

Backed up with resource base comparable to UK/USSR combined [steel- coal -aluminum] and fed by over ~ 16 million tons fuel per year and munitions production of 5 million shells per month [in 1941 historically it was 1/2 million shells per month and fuel production was about 11 million tons].

With this size economy/production, the rest of Europe would have been overrun by 1942 including UK and USSR, thus doubling the German resource base and greatly solving the fuel crunch [possibly 30 million tons by 1944].

Against this back drop the wide spread introduction of high tech weapons like helicopters , rockets & jets through out the navy, airforce and army equipped with guided air to air [Ru-334] and air to surface missiles [Hs-293] along with surface to air missiles [Hs-117] and ATGM [X-7] ; would make any american lead invasion of Europe all but impossible.

Out of that context any bandaid solution would not have altered much but in no way alters the fact that USA were clearly taken by surprise at just how much of a technological lead their enemy had...counting on swams of fighters to attack airfields is hardly a reliable tactict to off set a desperate lack of technology.

I read the book! I've also read several other books about Operation Paperclip and none of them placed the US anywhere near the number of years behind the Germans as claimed by Col. Wolfgang Samuel whose Mother at a minimum collabrated with the German occupiers in Poland. You did read his biography? As I stated the book has a definite political slant to it. The post WW2/Cold War avaition advances in the US were a combination of things not just due to us getting more Nazi scientists. The US invested very heavily in aeronautics, metalurgy and were already well ahead of the Germans by the end of the war in avionics. We had tv guided bombs during WW2 as well. Hughes Aircraft developed the hydraulic flight control systems used in most large military and civilian aircraft like the B-52 completely seperate of the Germans. How about Jack Northrop's flying wings or the Lockheed Skunkworks putting a viable jet aircraft into the air in 100 days? If the Germans could have done it, they would have done it. There was political squabbles on the Allied side, too. They hamstrung Patton to allow Montegomery to try the politically motivated Operation Market Garden to stop the strategically and militarily ineffective V1 and V2 attacks. Patton could have ended the war 2-3 months sooner if he'd been given the supplies diverted to effect Market Garden. Do you seriously think old Uncle Joe was just going to let the Germans just stay in Russian territory? He would have sent ever member of his family to the front if it meant getting to Hitler. I think that we've stayed far from the original thread's point. I suggest you read more on Operation Paperclip from the larger intelligence overview.

They had not idea why the Germans were sweeping back the wings even slightly, until they interviewed the German scientist running the windtunnel experiements. Turns out the idea came from American scientists in a conference in 1934 in Europe. The germans grasped the significance of the research, the Americans didn't.

If this is what the book says about the Me 262 then the book is a flawed source. It has been known for decades that the Me 262 was designed originally with straight wings and they were only swept back as a cg-fix. The aerodynamic benefits were, in this instance, completely incidental.

Take a look at the wings of the Me 262 outboard of the engines and compare them with any other swept wing design of the period, it is actually perfectly obvious that these were not designed to be swept but were just straight wings fitted at an angle.

Another mistake I want to rectify is that the firsy jet on jet action was not a P-80 vs a MiG 15 but was in fact a 616Sqn Meteor against a V-1, this was however a much more one-sided fight

Another thing to bear in mind is that not only was the 'more advanced' shape of the Me 262 in comparison with the allied jets an accident, it was also severely mach limited to the point where, in a dive, a Spitfire XI (Merlin engine) was PROVED to be faster than an Me 262! The 262 topped out at mach 0.82, exactly in accordance with Willy Messerschmitt's own prediction, while the Spitfire achieved mach 0.90, then the highest speed ever recorded in a piston engined aircraft. This result had everything to do with aerodynamics rather than propulsion so you see the 262 wasn't THAT advanced after all.

A Griffon powered Spitfire XIX of 81 Sqn was dived at mach 0.94 in 1951, which record still stands, but the 262 never got any faster.

An earlier poster also wrote about the P-80 and Meteor remaining in service for a decade after the war (actually it was much longer than that). While Germany was in no position to retain the 262 after the war, even if they wanted to, it did however remain in service with the Czech Air Force as the Avia S.92 until 1957.

It is also untrue that the 262 could only be caught by allied fighters if landing or taking off. The 262 was much less manouverable than the Spitfire or P-51 and if they had a height advantage allowing them to dive on the 262's they could quite easily outfly the German jet as long as they kept their speed up.

the gernan tanks and aircraft were all technologically advanced but very expensive and slow to build just like US military weapons now, expensive advance, but slow to build. nevertheless i must note that the tiger tanks and the panzer tanks were true works of art that fitted teh German strategies of blitzkreig and are able to be constructed fast as long as you have fuel to keep them running. the stukas and all the aircraft the luftwaffe used in the beginning of the war were very good for mass production and battle. however from what i'm hearing now i guess the germans focused more on making art than winning a war....

Geman panther tank cost about 130,000 rm . The conversion to US $ is 0.4 so that 130,000 RM Panther was the same as 55,000 US $...looking at this site the average cost of various models of the Sherman were 45,000-55,000 $

www.panzerworld.net...

So what would rather get for your 55,000 $ , a Panther or a Sherman 4A3/76

You can always tell when people are loseing an argument cause the have to resort to slandering the author . One of the most dangerous things is to read an opinion of some one who has read enough books to know some technical details but not enought to grasp just how little they really do know , other than experience first hand. When people cross such a barrier they become more cautious and doubtful.

Now you guys can believe what you want about the P-80 superiortiy over the Me-262. You have read some books, but none of you have flown either plane so you are taking every thing at face value. I would suggest some cultural bais creeps in to substitue for concrete experiences.

For instance do you know that most german fighters were from the Me-109 on were designed as interceptors since that was their conception in Knauss strategic bomber programme of the early 1930s. Me-262 continued that tradition being designed primarily to pass through enemy fighter escorts and attack the only real target of any consquence, the bombers.

So lets despence with that and just relate what the test pilotes reported about both planes that they flew.

Liz McAuley

Me-262 performed slightly better than the F-80 but was a dog as far as handleing characteristics, and a maintenance man's nightmare"

American Raiders pp 21


Chuck Yeager.

"One of them was comparison testing between the Shooting Star and a captured German Me-262 jet fighter....I was facintated to discover that the 262 and shooting star performed identically- the same range , top speed, acceleration, and rate of climb".

American Raiders pp 22.

Bob Strobell [P-47 pilot] said about the P-80/Me-262 comparison flights...

The final test report stated that the comparison tests were pretty close. No enormous advantage of one over the other. I don't really believe that . I think the Me-262 was superior to the P-80 across the board . I flew the 262, and thats what I believe" .other Whiizzers pilots who flew the German jet , like Bob Strobell , felt that the Me-262 was a superior airplane , the very best of its day"

American Raiders, pp 23.


P-80 debacle.

"The Me 262 threat simply never materialised and by the time operation lusty was moving through Hitlers pantry, the YP-80 was still struggling. Trouble began early in the P80 project. IN October 1944 Lockeeds chief test pilot died in a crash of a XP-80".

pp 129 American Raiders...

Col Carter

"So far engine life is limited to 50 hours , with carful 25 hour inspection"

pp130 American Raiders...

McDonald

" Its estimated that at the present rates of production and training , if the program is unchecked the Germans could possibly have roughly 1000 jets operational by mid summer [1945] And this in the absence of appropriate countermeasures this could conceivably make further strategic bombarment of Germany too expensive to continue"

pp 131 American Raiders...

In 1945 atleast 5 x P-80 jets crashed in the hands of test pilots, culminating in a public backlash when Major Bong [Americas greatest flying ace] was killed in August of that year creating a outcry

"That jet technology was just too risky to fly if the test pilots and our top ace could not safely handle the aircraft"

pp 131.

"Lessons learned from the German wind tunnel test data and captured Turbine technology were hastly applied to end the P-80's bad luck streak." Concequences being ... General Arnold " the crisis that had emerged as a result of the recent accidents and especially the loss of Bong, He now faced with serious political threats to cut back, cancel or withdraw funding for the jet programs"

In April May and June 1945 information gathered from German design centers and manufacturing facilities provided a much needed boost to the stalled YP-80 program"

pp132 /133American Raiders

A number of projects originating in 1930 , were halted in 1940 and revived in 1943 when the danger from air bombardment became more acute. Not a single proximity fuse had seen service , and only two could have been placed in mass production within two years"

pp 139





[edit on 3-11-2006 by psteel]

Waynos stated, quite emphatically in my opinion:

Another mistake I want to rectify is that the firsy jet on jet action was not a P-80 vs a MiG 15 but was in fact a 616Sqn Meteor against a V-1, this was however a much more one-sided fight

Waynos, the V1 was not a jet propelled fighter aircraft. It was a
flying bomb and a very crude affair at that.

Your statement alludes to actual combat between the two, but the V1 was an unpiloted aircraft, little more than a fire and forget semi-guided missile.

If you mean that this incident was the first time a jet powered fighter aircraft was used against another jet powered craft, then I concur and you are correct.

However, having said that, I don't think any allied jet fighters in 1945 went head to head with the Me 262 in a straight dog fight, I believe most were shot down as they landed.

Hardly a jet on jet dog fight!

PSteel, I suggest that you get a seat of the pants pilot's opinion who flew both aircraft: Chuck Yeager. He shot down a -262 with a P51. He rated them as even in performance and gave the dogfighting nod the P-80 because of its 6 .50 caliber machine guns.

Do you seriously think that with the impending Cold War that the military brass would cancelled development of jet engine aircraft? After Pearl Harbor, Truman would have let the US fall behind in weapons development?

As so many German Generals said after the war, it was a war of atrition and a war that the German nation couldn't win.

Waynos, the V1 was not a jet propelled fighter aircraft. It was a flying bomb and a very crude affair at that

Where did I say it was a fighter aircraft? I simply stated that this was the first aerial combat in which two jets were on opposing sides. The V-1 was a flying bomb, but it was still a jet, however crude.

Clearly the first dogfight between jet fighters is something quite different, as you say.

616 Sqn were sent to Germany in early 1945 where it was hoped they could come face to face with the Me 262 (which might have been unwise given the performance of the Meteor model then in service), likewise a trials unit of four early P-80's was deployed to northern Italy with its crews hoping for the same thing but the war ended before it could happen for either of them.

Waynos old boy, I said your post alluded to jet v jet dogfighting. I did not say you had said that.

I am a little intrigued as to the start of jet v jet dogfighting. I do not believe it officially happened before the Korean War when Super Sabres went up against MiG 15s.

Is this a correct assumption on my part? Who were the earliest jet Aces? Anyone shed any light on this matter?

Heinz Baar was the First Luftwaffe Jet ace, James Jabara was the first American Jet ace.
Nickoly Sutyagin is listed as the top Russian Ace of the Korean War but I don't know if was the first. Jospeh McConnel is the top US jet ace with 16 aircraft downed. If he hadn't been killed after the Korean War while testing an aircraft, he would have probably added to his score in Vietnam.

Originally posted by fritz
Waynos old boy, I said your post alluded to jet v jet dogfighting. I did not say you had said that.

I am a little intrigued as to the start of jet v jet dogfighting. I do not believe it officially happened before the Korean War when Super Sabres went up against MiG 15s.

Is this a correct assumption on my part? Who were the earliest jet Aces? Anyone shed any light on this matter?

Well, it didn't really allude to anything, I just said 'jet on jet action' which is an accurate way to describe a Meteor shooting down a V-1 I feel. You are of course free to disagree

You are perfectly correct in your assumption that jet v jet dogfighting only began in Korea however so an interesting question I suppose would be "who was the first jet pilot to become an ace whilst fighting against jets ?" I don't know the answer to this, I wouldn't even know if a Meteor pilot would be classed as an ace for shooting down more than three V-1's, let alone if any pilots managed this. I suppose if you start splitting hairs and defining 'ace versus manned jet fighter' as opposed to any other sort of opponent you could come up with all sorts of firsts, and all of them perfectly valid, so it might be a subject worth investigating.

We maybe could find the following;

first jet aircraft to fire its guns (ie on development flights)
first pilot to fire the guns of a jet fighter in anger.
First A2A victory scored by a jet fighter
First A2A victory scored by a jet fighter against another jet aircraft (616Sqn Meteor vs V-1)
First A2A victory scored by a jet fighter against a jet fighter in a dogfight
First jet fighter downed in combat*
first jet fighter to be downed by another jet fighter

This should be a pretty complete timeline if we can do it.

* The first Me 262 shot down in combat fell to the guns of a Spitfire XIV, I don't know if any other kind of jet was shot down before this however.




[edit on 9-11-2006 by waynos]

Some really good post so far and in the hope that we can get back the original topic this summary of "Hitlers panzer's East" raises some interesting points which i believe ( and apparently some of you here) shows that the war in Europe could have been all but over by October or November 1941 with Germany firmly in possession of Moscow.

militera.lib.ru...

Always interesting to consider the what if's if one looks how many years it took the Russians to recover from the damage they suffered in the first eight weeks.

In relation the air war the Allies were losing it ( in terms of resources expended; not to mention lives) till late 1943 and had the Germans realised that the Allies could keep replacing these losses ( if barely by mid 43) they might very well have done more faster. The allies in the end lost twenty two thousand bombers and as many fighters costing them them one hundred and sixty thousand lost in action; i am convinced that without the Russians front the air campaign would not have been feasible at all and that slightly different priorities on the German side would have made early 1943 the norm and not the exception...

Anyways!

Stellar