Impact if Me-262 developed only as a fighter?

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Admiral Beez	Impact if Me-262 developed only as a fighter?	Lead	[-]
Posts: 4459 ( 6-Jul-1973 21:07:43) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Much is said that Hitler's insistence that the Me-262 have bomber capability subsequently delayed the deployment of this aircraft in the bomber interception role. What would have been the impact if Hitler had left all alone and the Me-262 went straight into development as a fighter? Would the Me-262 have entered service earlier? Would it have turned the allied bomber offensive into a shambles? My own thoughts are that the engines would continue to be unreliable and materials required to make them sufficiently scarce, that earlier deployment of the Me-262 would have been difficult, and the overall affect on the bomber offensive would have been limited. Only about 1,400 of the Me-262 were built, so even if we more than double that to 3,000, those aircraft will need to shoot down dozens of bombers each, considering that allied bomber raids could include over a thousand night and/or day bombers at a time. Perhaps if the Me-262 did enter service earlier we'd see the USAF move to night bombing? Last Edited By: Admiral Beez 6-Apr-2008 04:12:50. Edited 1 time.
A G Williams		#1	[-]
Posts: 1681 ( 6-Apr-2008 03:03:30) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I think you've largely answered your own question: the delay has been overplayed, and the only consequence of more Me 262's would have been more bombers shot down, but not enough to make any difference to the war. The USAAF could not easily have switched to night bombing; that requires an entirely different crew training regime. The aircraft were also optimised for daylight bombing (heavy armament and armour, relatively low bombload). And in any case, the daylight bombing campaign kept the Luftwaffe fighter force largely pinned to German skies and wore it down by attrition - worthwhile benefits even if the bombing achieved little. Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk and discussion forum: http://forums.delphiforums.com/autogun/messages/
Ed		#2	[-]
Posts: 2281 ( 6-Apr-2008 20:37:48) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Earlier use of the Me-262 as a fighter would have had a significant impact on daylight bombing by the USAAF's 8th and 15th Air Forces. More B-17F/Gs would have been developed as fight killers (forgot what the designation was). More P-47 and P-51 escorts would have shown up earlier, too. But, the Swallows would have left their mark of additional shot down bombers, esspiecally the B-24s (I have always considered the B-17 to be a tougher airplane, better built, and better gun firing arks for protection.. If Hitler decided to co-developed a Me-262 varient bomber and fighter, he could have repelled the Normandy Invasions much better, as he could have had both in squadron service in mid 1943. Range for a bomber version would not have been a problem and the fighter versions could be escorts (CAP).
jhack	Allied jets deployed	#3	[-]
Posts: 94 ( 7-Apr-2008 01:11:40) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	If the Me-262 had been deployed and started to have a significant impact on the U.S. bombing campaign, I think you would have seen a more rapid deployment of the Meteor and the P-80 to the front lines, and you would have seen the start of the jet-on-jet age in March-May 1945 instead of 1950. The Meteor was in northern europe engaging in ground attack sorties in March of 1945, and was battling the V-1 attacks as early as mid- to late 1944. The Shooting Star had also been deployed to Italy before the war ended in 1945. These fighters could have been moved to forward bases and covered the bombers and the piston fighters if the allies felt the jets were a serious problem.
Admiral Beez		#4	[-]
Posts: 4462 ( 7-Apr-2008 01:40:13) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	But the question really is, did Hitler's interference make a difference? If Hitler keeps his hands and opinions off of the Me-262 program, do we see the necessary engines reach operational readiness earlier and do we see the Me-262 interceptor deployed any earlier and with any greater impact?
bager1968		#5	[-]
Posts: 2884 ( 7-Apr-2008 05:56:43) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Hitler had little if anything to do with the engines or their development in any form, therefore the engines would still be completely unreliable before early 1944 and merely mostly unreliable from then on. Remember, at least half of the problems the Germans had in getting their jet engines to work was materials-related... they simply did NOT have access to the materials that would allow the engines to work for more than a handful of hours before requiring a total rebuild! A change in priorities would not change this, the materials sources simply were not where the Germans could access them by early 1944.
Dcnwilltex		#6	[-]
Posts: 1245 ( 7-Apr-2008 15:30:55) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	The only impact would have been more dead American aircrews. I have to disagree that the Strategic bombing campaign did anything but delay German production and logistics. The 262 is not going to stop the invading ground troops on both fronts nor would it neutralize the overwhelming East and Western Tactical Air Superiority which strangled the Wehrmacht. B.
Admiral Beez		#7	[-]
Posts: 4464 ( 7-Apr-2008 17:03:04) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	How reliable was the Heinkel HeS 3 engine on the Heinkel He 178? While being a very early example of jet engine, presumably in 1938 the Germans had a ready supply of the essential materials to make a good engine.
flyingdutchman1980		#8	[-]
Posts: 51 ( 7-Apr-2008 18:26:12) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Ed wrote: Earlier use of the Me-262 as a fighter would have had a significant impact on daylight bombing by the USAAF's 8th and 15th Air Forces. More B-17F/Gs would have been developed as fight killers (forgot what the designation was). More P-47 and P-51 escorts would have shown up earlier, too. But, the Swallows would have left their mark of additional shot down bombers, esspiecally the B-24s (I have always considered the B-17 to be a tougher airplane, better built, and better gun firing arks for protection.. If Hitler decided to co-developed a Me-262 varient bomber and fighter, he could have repelled the Normandy Invasions much better, as he could have had both in squadron service in mid 1943. Range for a bomber version would not have been a problem and the fighter versions could be escorts (CAP). - Significant impact? Hmm. Instead of having 30ish Me262s available at any moment to use against 1000 bomber raids, maybe the Germans have 60ish Me262 and even less Fw-190s to cover them (you'll have to sacrifice something to get more Me 262's). - Heavy armed B-17's. The B-24, was the faster, higher flying, carrying more, longer ranged, follow up on the B-17. The B-17 fighter killer version which I think you mean, the YB-40 wasn't exactly a smashing success. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YB-40_Flying_Fortress It was also made obsolete by longer ranged escort fighters like the P-51 and P-47. - Lastly, as other posters have pointed out, Germany doesn't have reliable jet engines and the whole it's-Hitler's-fault-there-weren't-more-reliable-Me262's is mostly urban myth.
Dcnwilltex		#9	[-]
Posts: 1246 ( 7-Apr-2008 19:57:20) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	If Hitler decided to co-developed a Me-262 varient bomber and fighter, he could have repelled the Normandy Invasions much better, as he could have had both in squadron service in mid 1943. Range for a bomber version would not have been a problem and the fighter versions could be escorts (CAP). A few dozens sorties by Me-262s on the beach head is not going to affect anything. The Luftwaffe commander would have to move his short legged Me-262 squadrons within Western France placing them within suppression by Medium and other Tactical bombers. The 262 has about 1.5 hours flight duration, so it could not be used for anything other than assigned and designated targets. It's not as though ME-262s are going to be produced off the assembly lines in huge numbers. The Germans did not utilize assembly lines, which was seen as an obscene Capitalist tool antithetical to the Nazi economic philosophy. They produced items in batches of 20. Albert Speer finally convinced Hitler in 1944 that the "soulless mass production" concept was worthwhile but by then the Soviets had seized the Romanian Oil Fields. So they had no fuel when the systems came online. B.
emc		#10	[-]
Posts: 3639 ( 7-Apr-2008 21:34:03) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Ed wrote: Earlier use of the Me-262 as a fighter would have had a significant impact on daylight bombing by the USAAF's 8th and 15th Air Forces. More B-17F/Gs would have been developed as fight killers (forgot what the designation was). More P-47 and P-51 escorts would have shown up earlier, too. But, the Swallows would have left their mark of additional shot down bombers, esspiecally the B-24s (I have always considered the B-17 to be a tougher airplane, better built, and better gun firing arks for protection.. If Hitler decided to co-developed a Me-262 varient bomber and fighter, he could have repelled the Normandy Invasions much better, as he could have had both in squadron service in mid 1943. Range for a bomber version would not have been a problem and the fighter versions could be escorts (CAP). Arguably, the B-17 had some advantages over the B-24, but there were reasons why more B-24's than B-17's were produced, and it wasn't because the weather where Consolidated was headquartered was better: the B-24 was faster and had better payload-range characteristics. Conversely, it seems the B-17 had somewhat better damage tolerance and was somewhat easier to fly. There were 'escort' versions of both the B-17 (as mentioned, the YB-40) and the B-24. Both were rather complete failures. I suspect that studying operations research analyses would reveal that the USAAF may well have been better off -- in the number of aircrew killed and captured -- by designing their bomber aircraft with some fixed guns in the nose and a tail turret, cutting the crew from about ten to about four, getting rid of the drag from all those turrets and the big holes for the waist guns, and picking up quite a bit in speed for the same payload-range characteristics: less time for the enemy fighters to shoot at them, fewer possible passes, etc. After all, OR analyses done for the USN did find that the gunners on dive and torpedo bombers actually increased aircraft losses.

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Impact if Me-262 developed only as a fighter?

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