As every WWII geek has known since they were a child, if Hitler had just put the Me-262 into production as a fighter instead of as a bomber the allies would have been driven from the skies in 1944. The Nazis would have been triumphant and we’d all be living in The Man in the High Castle.
Fortunately this didn’t happen and today we’re……..um……..oh never mind.
While an amazing technical triumph, I don’t think the Me-262 was going to win the war for Germany.
Sure, us armchair generals can “what if” this to death, but after Stalingrad I just don’t see too many scenarios where Germany comes out on top. Maybe the war in Europe takes longer but I still think the Red Army ends up in Berlin at some point.
Remember, wars are won by the least incompetent side. They made a lot of mistakes but so did we. Imagine if Stalin had actually listened to the warnings that Germany was going to invade and hadn’t been caught with his pants down in 1941.
That doesn’t make the Me-262 Schwalbe “Swallow” any less amazing. Even though “Swallow” isn’t exactly a name designed to strike fear in the hearts of the enemy. The bomber version had the much more awesome sounding title of Sturmvogel ”Storm Bird”.
I didn’t really appreciate just how far ahead of its time the ME-262 was until I got a close look at the wing of an F-86 Sabre. The Sabre’s wing looks an awful lot like the Messerschmitt, right down to the leading-edge slats. Sure enough, a little research tells me that the slats on the F-86 were “inspired” by the ME-262.
What are slats you ask? On some fighter planes, slats deploy during hard turns to help improve maneuverability. Basically they let you have a “clean” wing for going fast in a straight line and a “fat” wing for turning performance. Best of both worlds as it were. They do add drag when they’re out, however. You don’t get something for nothing.
They say a plane will fly like it looks and the Schawlbe reportedly flew very well. The nose gear was a weak point, however, and many were lost when the nose gear collapsed.
The Me-262 had a good 100 mph advantage over the best piston engine fighters of the day. Its four 30 mm cannons could turn a B-17 into scrap metal in seconds. They were so fast that the B-17 gunners had a hard time even tracking them. The addition of air-to-air rockets (R4M) on later versions let the Me-262s attack from outside the range of the bombers’ guns.
While meant for destroying bombers, if properly flown it could easily take on the best piston engine fighters of the day. The key was to use “zoom and boom” tactics against the slower but more maneuverable Mustangs, Spitfires and Yaks. When you look at the kill ratios, however, keep in mind that the jet fighters were usually flown by the very best the Luftwaffe had to offer.
The Junkers Jumo 004 engines were also ahead of their time. They were axial-flow turbojets instead of the centrifugal-flow engines used by the early Allied jets. Compared to the engines on a Gloster Meteor, the Jumo looks like a modern engine while the Rolls Royce Derwent engine looks like a whiskey still. To be fair, the Meteor’s engines lasted 5-10 times as long. Hold that thought.
OK, most of us know the story by now. Hitler delays production of the Me-262 so that it can be converted to a “blitz bomber”. By the time they realize their mistake and turn it into a fighter it’s too little too late.
That’s not really what happened, however.
Most of the delays in the introduction of the ME-262 can be blamed squarely on problems with the engines. The Axial flow engines, while highly advanced, were just a little too far ahead of their time.
Metallurgy hadn’t kept up with engine design and the prototype BMW 003 engines melted faster than Margaret Hamilton in a rainstorm. The improved Junkers Jumo 004 engines used on the production models just melted a little more slowly. The Jumos lasted maybe 10 hours before they turned into slag. If you really babied them you might get 25 flight hours before they melted down.
From a logistics standpoint, engines that blow up after 10 flight hours do not a war-winner make. Armchair generals talk tactics, real generals talk logistics.
If you look at production numbers, they were only able to build these in very small numbers, 20 or so per month, starting in June 1944. Note that the first operational ME-262s were employed as fighters, not bombers, either without Hitler’s knowledge or against his wishes.
By the time there were enough jets and trained pilots to be used in any kind of significant numbers, it was Spring of 1945. Nothing was going to save Germany at that point.
The 262 also used a lot of fuel, which the Germans were notoriously short of late in the war. I’ve read stories of the jet fighters actually being towed to the runway with horses so that they wouldn’t have to burn fuel taxiing the aircraft. The jets used roughly twice as much fuel as a piston engine fighter. Keeping large numbers of them “fed” would have been a problem.
Oddly enough the preferred fuel for the jets was a synthetic made from coal. Maybe that’s where you-know-who gets his love for coal?
They only built around 1,200 of these things and never had more than 200 of them operational at any given time. As good as they were, the jets just weren’t going to make a dent in Allied air operations. By 1944 the United States was producing 3,200 fighters every month.
We won because we smothered the enemy in an avalanche of production, the like of which he had never seen, nor dreamed possible.
William S. Knudsen
How did we fight such superior aircraft? Usually we caught them while they were taking off or landing. To the point that the Luftwaffe had to dedicate piston engine fighters to protect the jets’ airfields.
The first time I saw a jet, I shot it down.
Chuck Yeager
We also made their airfields high priority targets for medium bombers, of which we were building 1,500 a month in 1944.
But let’s suppose the Germans had been able to build more jets and field them earlier than they did. Imagine entire squadrons of German jets decimating Allied bombers in 1943 perhaps.
The American daylight bombing offensive is probably halted and………..then……....well not much if you ask me.
This is where I question just how effective the American daylight bombing campaign actually was. Did it help? Sure. Did it hasten the end of the war? Probably. Did it decide the outcome of the war? Rather doubtful. Was it worth the loss of men and materials? We can argue that one another day (and we will).
Did it destroy the Luftwaffe? Mmmmmmm……….maybe. Let’s just say that if your goal is to run a counter-air campaign there are much better ways to do it. What really destroyed the Luftwaffe is when the escort fighters were allowed to roam freely rather than being stuck with the bombers. At that point you might as well leave the bombers at home.
Had our daylight raids been stopped, we’d have probably switched to night bombing like the British were already doing. This is what happened in Korea when our B-29s first encountered got their asses handed to them by MiG-15 jets. For every move there is a counter-move.
It’s not like our daylight bombing accuracy was all that great anyway. Sure, the legendary Norden bombsight could put a “bomb in a pickle barrel” but you had to be able see the pickle barrel. Anyone who has spent time in Northern Europe knows that it’s cloudy much of the time.
US daylight bombing raids on average put maybe 20% of their bombs within 1000 feet of the target.
Scattering bombs at night probably wouldn’t have been much less effective than scattering them in the daytime. In fact, by late in the war the RAF night bombing was pretty accurate.
We can argue this one all day (and I will in a later diary) but I think at worst, halting the daylight bombing raids just delays the inevitable for Germany.
As long as we’re in science-fiction territory, let’s say this prompts the Americans and British to accelerate the deployment of their own jet fighters. While not as good as the ME-262, the P-80 and Gloster Meteor probably would have been good enough, especially once we started cranking them out like toasters.
”Quantity has its own quality”
I can imagine B-29s escorted by P-80s dropping the atomic bombs on Berlin in August of 1945. Or perhaps the Russians just come rolling into Berlin a little later than they would have. I think the end result is the same.
The idea that Germany would have won if only Hitler hadn’t demanded the ME-262 as a bomber is simply one of those great urban legends of WWII. Regardless of Hitler’s decisions, I just don’t see them being able to build these soon enough and in enough numbers to make a difference.
OK, back to reality.
In 2009 a company in Everett Washington produced five reproduction ME-262s. They were built almost to the exact specifications as the original, with the exception of using modern GE J-85 engines. This is the same engine my T-38 used, minus the afterburner. In the interest of safety they fixed the notoriously weak nose gear and also added modern avionics. Otherwise everything down to the screws is an exact replica. Unfortunately I believe they went out of business so there won’t be any more. All I can find are some old websites from 2009.
While the Me-262 wasn’t going to win the war for Germany, it would go on to inspire a Blue Öyster Cult song and album cover. I used to like these guys back in the day.
Well, you be my witness, how red were the skies
When the fortresses flew for the very last time
It was dark over Westphalia
In April of '45
Me-262 by Blue Öyster Cult
Goes to show just how groundbreaking this thing was if it was inspiring songs 30 years later. It was truly a triumph of German engineering. The F-86 and B-47 can trace their lineage back to the German research that built the Me-262. Thankfully it was never going to be a war-winning weapon for the Third Reich. Otherwise we might be ruled today by a temperamental demagogue fueled by hatred and delusions of grandeur, requiring constant praise and adulation lest anyone incur his wrath.