I’m looking for opinions. I made a post on another site regarding the recent show Hitler’s Stealth Fighter about the Me 262. I wrote that Hitler interferred with production of the 262 because he wanted it developed as a fighter-bomber aircraft. Had he not insisted on this development, the 262 might have been a front line fighter far earlier and possibly affected the outcome of the war.
This is what I have always read about the 262.
Another guy came in and claimed that Hitler’s interference was a myth and that Hitler never insisted on the fighter-bomber variant. He backed himself up by telling about production delays in the Jumo engines, a fact that I was aware of.
I found references in Jane’s Aviation Encyclopedia about Hitler’s interference but the problem with what I found there is that I didn’t see any sourcing. Does anyone have any further tangible evidence one way or the other?
There is a fantast book called ‘Stormbird Rising’ that charts the full history of the 262, right up to the ‘new builds’ that are being made in Texas.
What you say is correct. Hitler saw the 262 as one of his Wonder weapons that would turn the tide against the daylight bombing raids that were crippling Germany. He was, as you say pressing hard to have the plane as a super fast fighter bomber. I think it was Galland who tirelessly fought to keep it as a pure fighter. As for wether they were held back, I dont think this was so. They went straight into combat as soon as the prototypes had proved themselves. I think i even read that one of the test pilots had actually shot someone down while on a test.
The replyer to your post had a point though. There were never enough engines to go round.
finished reading a book a month or two ago that had several pages about the ME-262, and develpment. The book was written by personel that well known in the military world, and what they say should not be taken lightly. The plane was designed as a true fighter, but with fighter bomber capabilities. Hitler wanted it tobe developed as a fighter bomber first, and as a true fighter second. If one goes back and check quotes and references from the German General staff you will see this confirmed many times over.
There was a problem with the engines for sure as their life span was kinda short (30 hours being about as long as it could get, and ten being normal). There were problems getting Jumo-003 engines and another that was still in development. If you will notice at the end of WWII there were ME-262’s just setting around waiting for a pilot.
With or without Hitlers interferance the Germans never had the raw materials to produce metals to withstand the tempatures needed to build a reliable jet engine. Though they new this and the 262 was designed so that the engines could be changed out very quickly. Out of all of the 262 actually produced only a small precentage actually entered combat. The rest sat there waiting for engines or pilots or fuel. The Hiter interferance issue was probally the smallest obstcale to overcome. Still the knowledge they possed about swept wing technology back in 43 was light years ahead of everybody else.
I’ve read the same thing, while viewing a demonstration Hitller asked Goring if it was capable of carrying bombs there was no insistence. Other reliable sources say the opposite and it wasn’t until March of '45 that Hitler relented on the fast bomber concept. We’ll probably never know but either way it was too little, too late. It might have delayed the inevitable but wouldn’t have changed the final outcome of the war.
in 1943 nobody posessed the metalurgy to develope a metal to withstand the heat generated in a jet engine; let alone a multistage compressor setup like the turbojets the Germans had developed. The Whittle engine style seemed to run a little cooler due to the way the compressor stage was setup, but on the other hand developed less power. The Germans used a lot inconell in their engines which will withstand a much higher heat that conventional steels will. But on the otherhand Inconell is very heavy when compaired to the samething made of steel. This weight was brutal on ball bearings. The funny thing about this is that the Germans also were many years ahead of the rest in the development of high nickel and high nickel-chrome steels, but from what I’ve read they used little of it in the jet engine programs (perhaps because of a world wide shortage of nickel and both chrome). This still would have worked very well for them, but on the otherhand is a real bear to machine.
What I have read and seen on documentaries all say that Hitler wanted it as a bomber. Many years ago I spoke with a gentleman who had flown B17’s in Euorope and personally witnessed a 262 desintegrate another Fortress in his formation in a single high speed pass. He said it was an awesome intimitating aircraft.
Read Stephen Ambose’s book on D-Day. He states Hitler envisoned a fleet of Jet powered Jabos dropping bombs on the Allied Invasion force. Flying in dropping their bombs and swooping off while the Allied Air Forces watched helplessly. The irony is that none of the 262s were available on D-Day as fighters as they were all being retro fitted to be fighter Bombers.
According to my research, although Hitler was always interested in it as a bomber, the Luftwaffe, unbenownst to the Fuher, actually developed it as a fighter and bascially blew sunshine up Hitler’s arse concerning that fact…Hitler eventually caught wind of it in early '45 but didn’t do a whole lot about it since it by that time had proven its worth as a fighter…he did insist on many being used in special bombing missions, such as the missions to drop the Remagen bridge, which failed…However, the biggest interferer of the swallow reaching widepread use was the engine availability issue, then the shortage of fuel and pilots…
That brings up a good point Gary. I have not heard alot of talk about how many hours the Whittle engine lasted in the Meteor. I might have to check out now. I do know that after WWII the Russians ran into the same problem. They new how to manufactor a jet engine but they also did not know what types of metal were best suited to make them reliable. In the end they just stole the information from the British and also reversed engeinered the Nein engines they bought from them to use in the Mig’s. While the GE engine that powered the F-86 was much more along the lines of the Jumo engines.
Nothing could change the outcome of the war by the second half of 1942… Germany was on the defensive in the Med and on the Eastern Front by then, as were the Japanese in the Pacific. The Me-262 would have only affected the American daylight bombing campaign, which just flat wasn’t enough to stop an eventual Allied victory… Germany would have been bled white regardless… Moreover, eventually, there would have been a blinding-white flash over Berlin…
At work we did a huge remodeling job back in the early 1990’s that involve removing enough concrete flooring to make a couple super Walmarts. They came accross a block oc concrete that a bull dozer couldn’t begin to move. It was an underground bomb shelter in a very old section of the building. It it there was a ton of paper work concerning engineering development of early jet engines as well as various designs that were in progress. What happened to all that paper work I don’t know but the bomb shelter was emptied and then concreted over as if it never existed. This is a shame as it contained a lot of answers to a lot of questions. They even went so far as to have several 004 engines brought in for examination. Where all that data ended up I don’t know, but I remember all of us looking at it (there were skid loads of it!).
A thought to ponder upon is that if metalugical development had gone unchecked for another 36 months from the time the first jets flew; there might have been some serious problems trying fly a B17 mission in Europe. Stainless steels that were developed for use in high heat areas were in full scle development. By 1948 they were really starting to push jet engines out the door in usable quantities.
Still all this means little when you realize that the Russians were the ones who did the damage in WWII.
Regardless whether Hitler wanted the ME-262 as a fighter, bomber, fighter/bomber, or a mail delivery plane the Allies best ally was Hitler. Many years ago while listening to a Paul Harvey broadcast on the radio he said that the Germans had 1,500 of the ME-262s ready to go but they had neither fuel nor any pilots. Where he got his information I don’t know. I also was watching a, at the time, Discovery Wings program on the ME-262 and it said over 1,400 had been build but that Germany had no fuel or pilots. I read somewhere and I don’t remember where similar data. Does anyone know the actual figure? Having the plane built but no engines in my opinion is no threat. Chuck Yeager, Tom Collins, and Bob Hoover got to fly them and there were other U.S. pilots that flew them back to England as well. Howard Hughes even owned one and flew it around. Does anyone know how many were flown and shipped out of Germany? How many did England get? Last but not least did the U.S. get to fly Japan’s version and evaluate it?
P.S. I’ve been a member for several years (2006) but for some reason my same email and pass word wouldn’t go through so I had to reregister like a newbie
Quoted for truth, but I’d add a couple of nuances. Certainly the metals issue was a problem post-1943, when the Jumo-004 was in development and production. The regime simply did not possess reliable sources of nickel or molybdenum needed to create the advanced jet designs and never did after 1939 with the declaration of war. It ensured that when large scale jet-aircraft production actually became a technical viability at about 1942~44, it could never actually meet the regime’s demands.
However there were two other issues that complicate this matter prior to the production phase. One of the most significant was the failure of the BMW-003 engine that was initially supposed to power the 262, and a whole host of other aircraft, like the Arado 234. The setbacks in its development probably added a year to the 262’s gestation, from mid 1941 to 1942. The first airframe flew in April 1941 with piston engines, the first 003 flight was in November and the BMW engine was dropped in sometime in the summer of '42. It delayed the 262’s introduction by about a year. The Jumo-004 wasn’t perfect in this regard either. Its troubles contributed to their own delays and the lingering problems with operational 262. Much of this involved the poor quality of materials available to designers, as well as the collapsing state of German industry after 1943 due to allied attacks. Of all the factors, technological barriers was likely the most significant.
Another one was the general state of disorganization inside the German aircraft manufacturing industry throughout the war. Goering, Milch and the various aircraft designers sparred over the direction of aircraft development. There just were too many competing designs, and several bad decisions made which pushed back production of the 262 for another two years; from late 1942 to early 1944. Added to that was the efficacy of the Allied bombing raids, which pushed the timetable back even further. Had better decisions been made on where to focus development, it was possible that the 262 might have entered service in the fall of 1943, instead of the spring and summer of 1944.
As soulcrusher noted, Hitler probably was the least notable factor in the 262’s protracted development. His fighter-bomber order probably pushed the aircraft’s operational introduction by three or four months, from May to October. Even then its questionable whether it made a real difference, as 262As were already in ready for production by the spring of 1944. And his interference might have been moot if the fighter was in production by the fall of 1943.
One thing to remember in the midst of all the criticism of how the German’s handled their 262 program: The German’s were the ONLY country to field an operational jet unit during WW2…period…it is easy to concentrate on what they DIDN’T accomplish, but it was a helluva lot more than what the Alies did in this area…
I think you might be a little bias on one side of the argument there Manny[:D]? We all know what might have happened had they had the proper resources when they were developing the jet engine and they were furthur ahead. What is really scary was how far ahead they were in rocket development. No else even had a rocket program. when they were launching V-2 into the outer atmoshphere.
If I’m not mistaken, wasn’t Werner von Braun one of the main players in the German rocket program and then a major contributor in the US Space Program?
Werner Von Braun was the US space program. Everything that we were throwing up into space in the late fifties and sixties can be directly traced back to him. Without him there would have been no US space program. It was the same on the Russian side. All of their rocket designs can be atributed to the Germans that they captured after WWII. These guys never stopped designing rockets. They just changed who they were designing them for.
True, then again you could point at the Manhattan project as being a competing example. While producing a rocket was a technical achievement, the sheer scale of the technical and industrial challenges needed to produce a nuclear bomb were staggering. In five years the United States with Canada and Britain’s assistance created a massive infrastructure employing tens of thousands of individuals based on what was razor’s edge physics only a few years before.
I don’t mean to diminish the achievements of the German rocket program. However when I compare the two I can’t help but be more awestruck by what the U.S. and the allies were able to achieve in that short span of time.