WW2 Question - Hitler with jet fighter

What would air combat be like in world war 2 if germany and the other powers was able to field rocket powered jet fighters during the beginning of world war 2.

I hope this doesn't slide on ASB
 

archaeogeek

Banned
What would air combat be like in world war 2 if germany and the other powers was able to field rocket powered jet fighters during the beginning of world war 2.

I hope this doesn't slide on ASB

Before, or after Hitler runs out of fuel?
 
Ignoring all logistics and technical issues completely, you end up with the air battles of the Korean War taking place 10 years earlier I think. Unless we also assume the ability exists to field large numbers of BVR (Beyond Visual Range) missiles and other guided weapons (along with the technologies to employ and maintain them, of course, which changes things completely) we would see aircraft similar to those developed immediately after WW2, which were generally in the high-subsonic range and continued to be armed with cannon and machine-guns.
In Calbear's thread on the Anglo-American / Nazi war the point is also made that piston-powered aircraft do not simply become irrelevant once jets are available. Especially in the early years of jet aviation, the prop birds have advantages in endurance and the disadvantages in speed are less acute than will be the case later on. In point of fact, jet strike aircraft spend a lot of their time at speeds very similar to those achieved by piston engine aircraft.
One way in which things might be different is that jet fighters might be able to contest the higher altitudes more effectively - this could make the USAAF daylight bombing raids in the later part of the war an even more expensive proposition. Conversely, they might find the reduction in loiter times makes it impossible to act as anything but point-defence interceptors.
 
It will not make much of a difference I am afraid. As an air superiority fighter/interceptor, the German jet planes were too heavy and too unwieldy. They were very good at shooting down bombers, getting in, getting out with their superior speed.

The main problem with the German jet planes were the engines - they were heavy, demanded a lot of very rare materials that Germany faced chronic shortages of and had a very short life before being worn out (counted in the 10s of flight hours). You need to solve the German shortages of materiel and the wear and tear on early jet engines before the Germans can field a large force of jet fighters.

And if the Germans make large scale field tests with jet engines before the war, you can bet the Brits, French and Americans will kickstart their own programs - and they have much better access to rare materials once the war has started.
 
You might try the Spatz...

...Heinkel He162 jet fighter, built in 60 days. Get it up early in the war - almost like a Sabre in performance and could down a Mustang, I understand. Engine in a dorsal pod for rapid replacement. Neat.

Forget the Me163 Komet - a pilot-killer needing exotic fuels and appallingly vulnerable on its return to base.
 
Leaving aside that Germany lost the war at the highest levels of war economy management and grand alliance strategy, and that a serviceable jet engine wasn't practical until 1945 a jet fighter would be great. Its all about using speed to get into position for the firing run, and jets are great at that.

Sorry, I missed the rocket bit. Pure rocket fighters suck dogs balls, I hope that helps.
 
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What would air combat be like in world war 2 if germany and the other powers was able to field rocket powered jet fighters during the beginning of world war 2.

a) The rocket powered Me 163 was a point defence aircraft almost without range. It could not reach the enemys area. Against night bombing it would be useless. Impact - maybe damage an early british bombing campaign. Very little effect.

b) The jet propellered fighters Me 262, He 162 - also small effect. They were bomber killers by weapons and design, not dogfighters. The enemy pilots would learn to keep a "jet watch" and outturn the jet planes. Also, jet fighters demanded far bigger and hardened airfields which would limit their availability. The heavy bomber concept of the US and UK would be very different (which wouldn't be to bad for them), and something like the Mosquito would probably be developed - small and quick but with a decent bomb load.

c) The british would start working on their own jet engine far quicker, and the americans too. The german advantage would only be in effect for some years - they will still not have important alloys, so the German engines will burn our faster and give less power than the US/UK.

Air combat would be very different than IOTL - but the end result the same.
 
Eh, jets are too resource intensive for Germany; she would have just been better off expanding the pilot pool more aggressively earlier, and getting rid of the ME-109 after the E-8 and replacing it with better performing fighters with less prone to accident landing gear

The ME-262 wasn't the most functional of designs either... short range, weak undercarriage, needs hard metal runways, slow accelleration, numerous engine related maintainence and saftey issues... a heavy but very short ranged armament (ie the 30mm cannons, whilst lethal where outranged by the tail and or belly/roof guns of some of the bombers it was chasing)

Unless the Germans get to the second level in nose engine designs (ie TA-183) the ME-262 is a poor investment versus just making FW-190D-9's or ME-109K's
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Rocket aircraft are one of those "gee that should be great" ideas that are not worth a damn in the real world.

If everyone has jets the real difference is quite small. It will be slightly more difficult for the USAF to go onto the offensive and hunt down Luftwaffe fighter assets using bomber formations as bait, but the Americans quickly learned how to kill the early jets by taking advantage of their range and basing limitations. If you look at even the late 1st Generation U.S. designs you will see that the Americans rather quickly developed fighters with top performance and range to reach all of Germany from bases in England (the P-80A had 1,200 miles range, which is enough to escort missions to Berlin, the F9 Panther has 1,300 mile range coming off a a carrier deck and the F2H Banshee was over 1,700 in the same conditions).
 

Bearcat

Banned
What everyone needs in 1939-1941 is not jet fighters: its a late model Spitfire, Sea Fury, Bearcat, Mustang...

You get the idea. A prop fighter that can pwn everything flying in 1940.
 
The biggest problem with any jet or rocket plane introduced at any point during the war isn't going to be any technical aspect of the plane itself, it's going to be the pilots. Pilots trained on propeller trains and gliders will have a tough time transitioning to fighting with jets, and this is a horrible disadvantage for the Axis powers because they don't have a good place to train pilots once the war starts up. Most of Europe is going to have contested airspace and that's not a great environment to train new pilots in. Meanwhile the USSR has vast areas where they can train pilots, the British have Canada, Africa, and Australia, and the US is obvious.

If Germany doesn't have trained jet pilots when the war starts they're going to lose air superiority.

That said, I am a huge fan of the ME-262.
 
In last days of WW2 the German Jet fighters became a nightmare for ally Pilots
luck for them Me 262, He 162 had some problems
Me 262 engine were unreliable
He 162 had only fuel for 30-minute and was pitiless to pilot errors
most victims of Jet fighter ware there own inexperienced Pilots of the Luftwaffe
displayed with a Dogfight of one P-51 mustang who shot down one Me 262 and damaged two others.
the Afroamerican pilot hat chance because the inexperienced German Pilots.
oddly the most amount of destroyed German Jet fighters, was true bombing of there Airfields !

R&D of German Jet Fighter was handicapped by:
Technical problems
incompetence at Reichs Luftfahrt Ministerium under Herman Göring.
defect of material like manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten neede for Jet engine.
Sabotage by concentration camps worker in assembly department
and finaly Adolf Hitler himself !
As he saw the plans for Jet fighter Me 262, he ask "Can this aircraft drop bombs ?"
 
What everyone needs in 1939-1941 is not jet fighters: its a late model Spitfire, Sea Fury, Bearcat, Mustang...

You get the idea. A prop fighter that can pwn everything flying in 1940.

Agreed. The Germans would do much better with an Fw 190 then an Me 262 in 1939.
 
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