They didn’t. During 1944 they had very few Meteors and they were all based in the UK hunting V-1s. In early 1945 (January IIRC) at least one squadron moved to the continent, being based in the Netherlands. They never met any German jets however, and seem in fact to have spent most of their time dodging Allied anti-aircraft gunners. I’m not sure if they even scored any air-to-air victories or if they were still on anti V-1 duty.
It is also worth noting that IIRC they were forbidden from flying over German-held territory. British jet engines were the most advanced in the world at this point in time, and the government was paranoid about the Germans and IIRC the Russians (crazy considering they later sold their most advanced jets to the Russians immediately postwar) getting hold of British jet technology.
Rather a lot of them really.
For a start, it was extremely manouverable - the official report from RAE Farnborough stated that except for heavy ailerons it was superior to the Spitfire at all levels.
Secondly, it had a massively superior armament for fighter work. The Meteor had 4 fast-firing, high muzzle velocity Hispano Mk.III 20mm cannon. The Me-262 had 4 30mm cannon, but they had a slower cyclic rate of fire and their muzzle velocity was little more than half that of the Hispano cannon. Muzzle velocity is absolutely critical when dogfighting as it makes deflection shooting massively easier. The MK 108 cannon used in the Me-262 were specifically designed to destroy heavy bombers which couldn’t dodge and so deflection shooting was not an issue.
Thirdly, engine reliability. The Me-262 engines had expected average lives of 10 hours or so. If you abuse them (which you WILL during a proper dogfight) that goes way down. The Meteor engines were on the other hand practically bombproof. There are numerous reports of Me-262s limping home on a single engine.
Finally, wing design. The Me-262 had a thick, swept wing. This is the worst of both worlds, forced on them by a late screwup with the engines which made the turbine heavier than expected. To deal with this they had to move the centre of lift backwards, and the only way to do this that late was to add wing sweep outboard of the engines. Because the wings are so thick they don’t reach the sort of speeds where they would benefit from wing sweep (indeed, the Spitfire had a higher critical Mach number than the Me-262). However, there are other aerodynamic problems caused by wing sweep (mainly to do with low speed handling, although some affect you at high speed) that they will suffer from once you start sweeping wings.
