WI: no Me,-262 and V-2
- Thread starter Otto Kretschmer
- Start date
Those 12 hours mean about six sorties. Even if they can only shoot one bomber in each 6 sorties that still gives a 2 to 1 ratio on engines lost and a 11 to 0 ratio on crew lost.
Fair deal.
The soviets had the same problem with the VK-107 engine. It was reliable for about 10 to 16 hours, but those were very fast hours and with the right pilots, they could probably shot down one or two LW fighters before they junked the engine.
Again, fair deal.
Think of those high performance low reliability engines as the air to air analogue of the special "qualifiyng" engines used in F1 in the 1980s turbo era.
Riain
Banned
This brings up some interesting numbers. I only know Soviet stuff for some reason, but apparently a fighter only averaged 80 hours of flight tome in ww2 and a T34 only 500 hours, any that survived would be sent back for overhaul. The Soviets thought Western tanks with their 2000 hour engines were wasteful in combat but they loved it for teaining. Against 80 hours combat life expectancy 12-25 hours for a jet doesn't look to be too bad. However I think German jet life in ww2 was a moveable feast, with life going down as materials declined but then back up as experience was gained at all steps of the process. I think that's why the sortie peaks were in November 44 and March 45, these were the best months for engine life.
Not at the same time, but someone would have eventually had the bright idea of "Why don't we put this heavy nuclear warhead on a rocket?" And after that, sending stuff to space is a fairly obvious publicity stunt that can be played out for a while, and then sending something to the nearest celestial body is a logical next step.
Personally I think the V1's were pretty good value for money on a weapon by weapon basis (if only because they were cheap once in production) issue is German resource issues mean they never have enough to matter. The allies were already working on their own and were able to reverse engineer a V1 in a matter of months. And if required could have manufactured them in huge numbers (although OTL they were committed to bomber production as their established tech for strategic bombing).
But I disagree with your point about resources spent on shooting them down. Simply because the technology used for shooting them down was much more widely applicable than just shooting V1's down. Radar controlled AAA with proximity fuzes can shoot a lot of things down
The Germans may have had the first working proof of concept for a ballistic missile and where ahead of the game, but ballistic missiles are not a uniquely German technology.
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Even if they could get 400 Me 262 into squadron service, how much difference could they feasibly make when the Allies can put an entire wing of Spitfire/Mustang/Thunderbolt/Tempest over every airbase in Germany?
But isn't that the issue for anything the Germans make?
On the Me-262 in the OP: I think the issues of the German Luftwaffe faced in the 1944-45 aren't just the amount of planes produced, but also the availability of pilots and getting the planes to the airbases. AFAIK they had a large number of ME-262s sitting in their production facilities, but being unable to get them to the airbases and a number of them were even sitting there not being assembled completely.
well yes, but I guess I'm saying the V1 wasn't a particularly egregious example of it (rather the opposite)
Yep, plus with ME-262 a plane that hard to fly and is particularly unforgiving to new pilot magnifies the weaknesses/ difficulties the German pilot training and pilot availability faced
Sure, but if you're concentrating those in the southeast of England to shoot down V-1s, that means that they are not in Europe shooting down tactical aircraft or being used in artillery shells or whatever. Likewise, having Typhoons sitting around to intercept V-1s means that they aren't available for tactical missions where they could have more impact on the actual war.
That concentration in SE England didn't really drive them not being used elsewhere though. they were used in the pacific.
Initially they were not used in Europe but not because they were being horded for anti V1 defence, but because of fears the Germans would recover them and reverse engineer them if they were used over German held positions, but as time went on they were used there as well. The Battle of the Bulge saw their use.
the Typhoons point work both ways as well, yes some plane were diverted for anti V1 work, but those proximity fuzes also meant more planes & pilots could be released from anti V1 work.
So yes teh V1 did take resources to counter (but of course they also took resources to build and deploy) and as i said they were cheap in those strict terms, but looking at OTL it doesn't look like that drove severe restriction on teh allies in NW or Southern Europe.
Frankly teh costs on this stuff were front loaded in teh development and early production.
Well ...dear wcv215 maybe then you might've read :
by any chance (IIRC there's somewhere a possibility to get an free pdf-copy ) ? ... another source on the plane in question ... though I possibly doubt it as it tells the same story as @Peebothuhlu .
However, a tangible source for your arguments aside something assumed "common knowledge" could be helpful following your point of view.
A study of instability in a miniature flying-wing aircraft in high-speed taxi
This study investigates an instability that was observed during high-speed taxi tests of an experimental flying-wing aircraft. In order to resolve the…
www.sciencedirect.com
That's an article about why Flying Wings are unstable even while taxiing. Matlab simulations are explained in detail .
And its instability in flight:
But beyond that, the reason its "common knowledge" is because no one else succeeded. So apparently we're just supposed to take the word of Nazi researchers that their concept totally worked and was completely, 100% amazing, but not so amazing anyone else ever bothered to copy it, and the designers mysteriously never again got their totally amazing project funded by anyone else. Which is why I'm skeptical of any claims about the Horton's capabilities, none of it is backed up by any sort of testing or real-world application.
Riain
Banned
Apparently they did get 400 delivered, although obviously not all were in service at the same time and the number of sorties only went above 50 per day a couple of times.
I'm musing on the best path for German jets, because they're cool, I'm not thinking of them as a way to win the war or even materially alter it by much. You're point about a squadron of piston fighters over every airbase shows the value of the jets, no handful of piston engine aircraft could warrant the allocation of such massive resources, only something as powerful and potentially dangerous as jets could demand such a reaction.
September 1944 Me 262 production was 19 fighters and 72 fighter-bombers. Galland was able to send up some 6 fighters to meet a daylight attack, but this attack destroyed some 60 Me262 fighter-bombers on the ground.
In October 65 fighter-bombers and 52 fighters were produced. In October 1944 Notwony started with 30 Me262s and mounted less than 5 Me262 fighter sorties a day, but were able to get 1 or 2 kills per day, which is a good indicator of the potential of the threat. By the end of the month he had 3 serviceable aircraft, although not mainly due to combat losses, which shows the nature of the weakness at the time.
The problem wasn't potential, it was sortie rates, leave the bombing to the AR234s and have those 91 Sept 44 build jets rack up double digit daily sortie rates and you start to get something. Of course this doesn't win the war for Germany, or really even prolong it, it's just a better use of the available resources.
Riain
Banned
As for the V2, despite all of its well documented drawbacks it did have one thing going for it: it was unstoppable. While air attacks did curtail V2 launches somewhat they were really only stopped when the territory in range of V2 targets was overrun, until then the target areas pretty much had to accept that they were going to eat V2s.
IIUC like the Me262 V2 operations were also a movable feast, despite the hard and fast statements you see on the net like they had X range and Y accuracy.
In terms of range, IIUC with use operators were able to refine the trajectory from what the factory thought was right to what worked in practice and extended the range from ~300km to about 350km. I believe a production version was on the way that pushed the fuel tanks out into the available airframe/casing space and increased range from a nominal 320km to a nominal 480km, however this is a big jump in range which would likely see a major drop off in accuracy.
In terms of accuracy I believe that with the combination of 2 axis strapdown inertial guidance (whatever that means) and radar/radio beam riding the CEP was ~2km down from ~4km earlier.
Now there is one sort of worthwhile military target set greater than 2km in size and 300-350km from Continental Europe: the bomber bases in East Anglia. If anyone has seen photos of these bases there were bombers parked out in the open on taxiways and hardstands, and aircraft are stored full of fuel so fungi doesn't grow in their tanks. This strikes me as the perfect target of a big but inaccurate rocket fired in a salvo, a single hit is likely to take out multiple bombers.
Again like the Me262 not a war winner, or even a war prolonger, but if you have the V2 it might as well be used in worthwhile manner.
IIUC like the Me262 V2 operations were also a movable feast, despite the hard and fast statements you see on the net like they had X range and Y accuracy.
In terms of range, IIUC with use operators were able to refine the trajectory from what the factory thought was right to what worked in practice and extended the range from ~300km to about 350km. I believe a production version was on the way that pushed the fuel tanks out into the available airframe/casing space and increased range from a nominal 320km to a nominal 480km, however this is a big jump in range which would likely see a major drop off in accuracy.
In terms of accuracy I believe that with the combination of 2 axis strapdown inertial guidance (whatever that means) and radar/radio beam riding the CEP was ~2km down from ~4km earlier.
Now there is one sort of worthwhile military target set greater than 2km in size and 300-350km from Continental Europe: the bomber bases in East Anglia. If anyone has seen photos of these bases there were bombers parked out in the open on taxiways and hardstands, and aircraft are stored full of fuel so fungi doesn't grow in their tanks. This strikes me as the perfect target of a big but inaccurate rocket fired in a salvo, a single hit is likely to take out multiple bombers.
Again like the Me262 not a war winner, or even a war prolonger, but if you have the V2 it might as well be used in worthwhile manner.
thaddeus
Donor
they found at least in tests that the twin pulse jets canceled out vibration, which was the obstacle with the V-1 and (any) manned version. lengthening the exhaust aided in higher altitude flight.
of course the whole pulse jet concept is inferior to "proper" jets, and could be considered obsolete from the time of introduction, but it would be useful for the Nazi regime. (there was a small pulse jet pursued due to the simplicity and low cost, projected to carry an 800-lb. bomb(s) )
thaddeus
Donor
the LW never had their version of the RAF Mosquito, I've always speculated on a series of Heinkel recon/bombers ...
HE-119, an alt. HE-219 with two "power systems" (four engines), culminating in an alt. AR-234 jet, an HE-319 or 419 if you will ... with 300 - 400 of each built.