I/m not sure the early meteors had even the little adventage over Me-262.
If it had advantage - why the Britains hided it far from German territory?
They feared to lose the adventage if met the Me-262:D
What advantage had the early Meteor in you mind?
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.
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
The Argentine pilots flew the MK III in UK in 1946 and they had a small surprize…the mark III have a self destroying button in case of being shot down over enemy territory. :shock:
I have no idea how maniobrable was the Me-262A-1a ( gallands said a lot but who kwos) but they have a 170 km/h advantage over the Meteor F Mk 1.
And the Hispano Guns are good but carry less than a half of the explosive paylod of the RB 108 and it jammed a lot, the Hispano used in the Argentine Meteors (Mk III and Mk IV purchased new 1946-47) jammed twice in 1000 rounds.
Not particularly relevant - the F Mk III was the first Meteor to be sent to the continent. Remember also that the F Mk I was in squadron service before the Me-262.
Further details on the Jamming? Sounds a bit dodgy, I know the US built Hispanos had major reliability problems, but the UK built ones (which have a slightly different chamber design) are universally described as “very reliable”. Explosive capacity of the shell is a bit of a red herring too - the 20mm Hispanos only needed a handful of shells to destroy a fighter size target, while a single hit from the Mk 108 was overkill for a fighter. The muzzle velocity penalty however means that you are much more likely to get a fighter kill with the Hispanos than with the Mk 108s. The reverse is true for bombers, of course.
I think the F III have the same max speed of the Mk 1, about 700 km/h.
Remember also that the F Mk I was in squadron service before the Me-262.
True and they achieved the firts kill over aerial vehicle, a V1.
Further details on the Jamming? Sounds a bit dodgy,
The 2 jams after 1000 ( and sometimes worst than that) shots fired is a figure gave by the argentine technical staff wich examinated the armament of the Meteors after several complains of the pilots in 1950.
the 20mm Hispanos only needed a handful of shells to destroy a fighter size target, while a single hit from the Mk 108 was overkill for a fighter. The muzzle velocity penalty however means that you are much more likely to get a fighter kill with the Hispanos than with the Mk 108s. The reverse is true for bombers, of course.
And that is why a Me-262A-1 rarely made a kurvenkampf, they used the “pass” tactic, a pass with the 4 Mk-108 blazing and you are history.
Seems unlikely unless there was a major aerodynamic problem. Total thrust for the Mk I was 3,400lbs and that for the Mk II 4,000 lbs. That’s quite a substantial difference.
Hmmm… strange. The Hispano 20mm was used on just about every late war RAF fighter aircraft (Spitfire, Typhoon, Tempest, Meteor) and I’ve never been aware of reliability problems after 1941 or so. The only reason I can think of besides different standards of what is reliable would be if the Argentines were using US produced Hispano cannon rather than UK produced ones.
Doesn’t work against fighters though - they’re far more vulnerable, even one pass with 8 x .303 Brownings would be enough to shoot one down. Fighters routinely check right behind them, so you would be unlikely to be able to bounce them without being spotted. Once you are spotted, they’ll break out from under you and all of a sudden you’re in a dogfight.
Seems unlikely unless there was a major aerodynamic problem. Total thrust for the Mk I was 3,400lbs and that for the Mk II 4,000 lbs. That’s quite a substantial difference
Oh. I dont had that tip, you have the performance of that type ?
The Hispanos wre Made in UK, as the rest of the plane.
and I’ve never been aware of reliability problems after 1941 or so.
Are you sure about that ? ( late mark Spifire Aces, Osprey publishing)
A fighter was a far more elusive target for the MK 108 in the Me-262 but there was however several fighter kills by the Me-262, I had posted many examples, in the earlier page you got for example the killmarks in Heinz Arnold bird in wich are included two fighters, a P-51 and a P-47.
Hmm, germany clearly needed an interceptor against bombers and they developed and armed the Me262 that way.
Wouldn’t the Meteor and P-80 have rather faced the Ta-183 as the primary air superiority fighter if it had dragged on half a year or so longer?
Perhaps, but remember the Allies were also thinking about the next generation. Development of the F-86 Sabre began in 1944, and also the F-84 was becoming available and the war would have only accelerated development…
Unfortunately not. Trying to find performance figures for early mark Meteors online is downright frustrating. Unfortunately I’m kinda busy right now so can’t start digging around in a decent library which is frankly the only way to get reliable data. I do know that there were aerodynamic problems with the type (front of the canopy and the rear of the engine nacelles IIRC). However, that big a difference in thrust will always produce a performance difference. Figuring out what it is will be non-trivial.
The other point is that because the testing was done by two countries there is no guarantee that the speed figures are directly comparable. I’m not saying that they aren’t, only that the typical online performance figures are a single number for speed, and don’t state what altitude this is measured at, what the air temperature is and if this is on the level or in a dive.
Not totally (where’s Tony Williams when you need him!). However, all references to RAF plots being unhappy with the reliability of their cannon do tend to disappear by 1941 or so. Good article on the Hispanos here.
Possibly not the best of examples - Arnold got rather a lot of fighter victories over the Eastern Front flying propeller engined fighters, implying he was one of the few Experten in the Luftwaffe. Transferred to flying the Me-262 he got two fighters and and five B-17s before being shot down by an escort fighter. To me this implies that the Me-262 was inferior as a fighter to what he had previously been flying.
Unlikely - the Ta-183 was a badly flawed design and nobody ever managed to get the engine slated to power it to work (even the Russians when they had access to all the strategic minerals the Germans didn’t postwar - that’s why they had to approach Rolls-Royce about buying British engines).
There are major, major aerodynamic problems involved in going to swept wings that just don’t become apparent until you start flying prototypes. It took the US and Soviets 4 years after the end of the war to get flawed swept-wing aircraft into service, and these were covered in aerodynamic fixes. On the MiG-15 for instance there were panels on the wing designed to be bent to equalise shock effects - to get around this requires an aircraft wing to be built to massively higher levels of precision than had ever been done before. The Ta-183 drawings etc. show no evidence of the aerodynamic fixes required to get around these problems (wing fences, Kuchemann tips, etc.). This is IMHO good evidence that the Germans simply didn’t know the problems existed (as is the fact that the FMA Pulqui didn’t have any of them in the flying prototypes - clearly Kurt Tank would have included them if he had known they were needed). They would in turn have had to either put a pilot-killer of an aircraft into squadron service at a time when their pilots were getting worse and worse on average, or waited a couple of years while they tried to get their head around the problem. Swept wings are far, far harder than they look to get right.
This board has been a most enjoyable read. I’ve little to offer but a childhood memory. My father once visted a old accquaintance who had been a P51 pilot. We were regaled with the story of how this gentleman had bested a Me262 in air combat. The details are dim memorys now, but it was exciting stuff for my preteen brother & I.
Possibly not the best of examples - Arnold got rather a lot of fighter victories over the Eastern Front flying propeller engined fighters, implying he was one of the few Experten in the Luftwaffe. Transferred to flying the Me-262 he got two fighters and and five B-17s before being shot down by an escort fighter. To me this implies that the Me-262 was inferior as a fighter to what he had previously been flying.
Sorry but I dont understand what you mean there.
“implying he was one of the few Experten in the Luftwaffe”
I dont deny that a piston engine fighter could outmatch the Me-262 at medium speeds but If Arnold shooted down more bombers than fighters is in my opinion because he was more devoted to attack the earlier types. I am not entirely convinced that the Messerschmitt designers planned his aircraft for anti bomber role, I think the RLM did.
Not totally (where’s Tony Williams when you need him!). However, all references to RAF plots being unhappy with the reliability of their cannon do tend to disappear by 1941 or so. Good article on the Hispanos here.
Thanks for the link, Tony is missing lately, I posted the pictures he asked me in “antitank rifles and MGs” but no response. :twisted:
Sorry, should have been clearer. Like everyone else, the Luftwaffe started out the war with a group of pilots whose skills varied, but not by all that much. However, during the war the Luftwaffe and the Western Allies diverged - Luftwaffe policy was to leave their best pilots at the front, while Allied policy was to withdraw them after a certain length of time to have them train new fighter pilots. By 1945, the results of this policy (combined with German fuel shortages) were very obvious. The Allies were still sending up a fairly constant (good) standard of pilot. The Germans were sending up a few very good pilots (known among themselves as “Experten”, and almost universally better than all but a very few Allied pilots) and a lot of very poor pilots who usually got shot down very rapidly indeed. For Arnold to get that many kills he would probably have to be one of the Experten, and so better than any of the Allied pilots he would most likely meet.
True, although given the number of escort fighters available at the time I rather suspect he would have little choice but to engage the fighters after rather a short time among the bombers!
Hmm, from what I’ve heard there is no such thing as an average fighter pilot, you’re either prey or predator up there and even today they are not able to tell the difference before they put x million in the training. The problem with the german training as you said was the fuel shortage. The new allied pilots had more than twice the time in cockpit and received combat training excercises, while the luftwaffe in their desperation somewhat cynically left that a learning by doing thing (in praxis). While it is definatly a good idea to let their experience influence the training (which the germans did as well) imho it was stupid by the US to withdraw all the best pilots after X sorties or kills (don’t know the exact regiment). You don’t necessarily need a top fighter ace to tell freshmen what they should do or train it with them, a good teacher who’s been told what to teach can do that just as well. Though a boost would likely be in morale if the students knew : “Woa, we’ve been trained by Master Obi Wan :D” . A good idea would probably be to use some of the aces to teach the actual teacher to be sure they definatly understood it. Cause my experience with teachers is that some of them definatly didn’t know what they were talking about :mrgreen:
True, but only to an extent. The big difference caused by having experienced combat pilots doing the training is not in the quality of flying but in the tactics the new pilots pick up. There is a world of difference for instance between being taught how to break into an attack properly or keep a lookout by someone who has relied on this to save their life and reading it in a textbook. The lesson may be the same, but the amount of learning taken in is wildly different.
In the UK, it was one tour of duty followed by either leave or a training assignment for a tour, when you went back to the front again. IIRC it was the same with USN/USAAF fighter pilots. The only exception was USAAF bomber crews, early on at least the odds were so badly against them that do one tour and their war was over. Even in Bomber Command (where the odds were arguably even worse) people kept on doing tours one after the other - IIRC some got up to four by the end of the war (one tour = 30 missions, IIRC, probability of survival under 20%).
Ummm… for what it’s worth in my experience (UK Territorial Army) the difference between teachers who have done an operational tour and those who haven’t is like night and day. There is no way that those teachers who haven’t been on ops are anywhere near as good as those who have.
Sure, I didn’t mean to use inexperienced pilots as trainers, they should have combat experience. But if you find a diamond in a pile of coal you should try to use it where it’s best used. The really good pilots are rare and I think it was a good idea to build fighter ace groups, imho the US and UK could’ve easily done the same and still have truckloads of combat experienced pilots.
I’ve also heard something along the line of the “hunter” and “hunted” pilot in an interview held with an elderly WWII RAF ground crewman who was around to see “The Battle of Britain.” He recalled how the ground crews would determine who was going to be the successful combat pilot simply by their body language on the ground prior to missions. I.E. - the “hunted” pilots would often insure their service revolver was loaded, they had a proper life-vest, parachute, survival gear, etc. Whereas the “hunter” pilots would check to insure they had full ammo load for their plane’s guns and would generally act like a Formula 1 racer checking out his car as they went over every aspect of their planes --to insure they were in on top shape. That being said, I think there are studies that indicate that if a pilot survives his first few sorties, than they become much more effective and their survival rate shoots up exponentially.
Training can have a big impact on that and give a rookie pilot a chance to learn something, but the same holds true for infantrymen or anything else as well I suppose. In any case, a while ago I was watching a History Channel program on the “Secret Aircraft of the Luftwaffe,” I think that was the title. I believe it the aircraft was a Heinkel HE-162, but Hitler, or maybe Himmler, had the brilliant idea of using Hitler Youth junge to fly the jet with minimal training. I dunno why they would want to throw away such jets. But I think I’ve either read or seen something that indicated that the flaws in Luftwaffe pilot training extended beyond simple fuel shortages. I think they simply had too few pilots in training when things were going well in 1941-42, and this came back to haunt them in the aerial battle of attrition over Europe. And thus, the cadre of “experten” pilots was too few, and getting fewer by 1943-44, as a result…
A good idea would probably be to use some of the aces to teach the actual teacher to be sure they definatly understood it. Cause my experience with teachers is that some of them definatly didn’t know what they were talking about :mrgreen:
:mad:
:lol:
True, it was definatly a numbers and organisation thing with german pilots as well, especially when they thought they would win. They didn’t even manage to train and bring up sufficient numbers during BoB.
But what I meant is if the British and Americans had kept their 10% top scorers going and used the others who survived their tour to bring up the next generation could’ve been usefull. The 90% can probably handle the basics as teachers just as well as a top ace could, but imho the aces skill is somehow underused as a trainer.
I agree wholeheartedly. The thing you said about teachers BTW is correct IMO.
But I think one should keep in mind (and I detested teaching high school after a while, which is why I essentially quit the “business”) is that teaching is a “doing” skill unto its own. I think I’ve read in the sports pages (specifically about ice hockey in this case) that the best coaches were marginal players of the sport, whereas an “ace” superstar player like Wayne Gretzky can’t really help you become a great player, since he doesn’t really know what made him a great player. So his playing ability may not translate into knowing human nature, or in administration of a training program. He just went out and was, for many reasons, better than everybody else on the ice, mainly because he could think faster (among other things) than any other player. That’s not something one can teach. I suppose this applies to fighter pilots as well but it wasn’t foreseen at the time…