German Me-262 Jet Vs. B-17 Bombers, Combat Effectiveness
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.ย. 2024
- How combat effective was the Me-262 jets in destroying US heavy bombers in WWII? The jets needed to get past the fighter escorts and either fire their 4 Mk-108 30mm autocannons or volley lob R4M rockets at the bomber formations. Bomber gunners and chasing fighter escorts would be engaging the Jet powered bomber interceptors. Would the Jets speed be sufficient during this encounter to ensure survival?
its a damn shame you do not have more exposure on yt. no bs, no personal intro, fare, balanced, and straight to the subject matter. as far as im concerned you are the perfect mold for informative entertainment. thanks bro.
Yeah this guy skips the annoying intros and gets to the point right away. No exaggerations during the video or annoying click bait thumbnail either. Just pure information backed by good sources.
It just takes one video to surf the algorithm.
@@reubensandwich9249 and here we have the guy that wants to argue pointless points.
@@paul123ggggggggg What? You said it was a shame he doesn't have more exposure on YT. The algorithm catches one video and that'll change.
As always, tremendous content, please keep up the good work!
Thanks, will do
I happen to be a fan of the Me 262 and know quite a lot. A couple of things need to be noted about the Me 262 effectiveness and ineffectiveness.
I'll look at shoot down claims, engine reliability and the fire control system of the Me 262
-1 Fighter claiming and over claiming. Post war analysis which married claims against actual losses of the other side was not 10% but more like 50%. This applies to both sides. Me 262 pilots claimed about 450 kills and of these 160 can be married up to losses on the US side (8th and 9th Air forces) as well as RAF and Russian forces. This is about normal. Consider the case of the first Me 262 victory claim which was against an PRU Mosquito that in fact survived. The Luftwaffe pilots intercepted and opened fire against the evasively maneuvering mosquito. A Hatch blew of the Mosquito during the fight either due to a hit or high G forces and the Mosquito lost control as it entered a cloud. From the German pilots point of view he fired at an allied aircraft, stuff blew of and it lost control so he claimed.
-2 The Allied air forces paid great attention and put considerable resources into to suppressing the aircraft. The main way this was done was to deploy the best allied fighters near Luftwaffe Me 262 Airfields. This included Hawker Tempests and P-51 all with RON 110/ PN 150 fuel. Some P-51 even had nitrous oxide. But these aircraft could perform to 400mph at sea level. The Me 262 was vulnerable during takeoff and landing. The Luftwaffe tried to counter this with stripped down Fw 190D9 in garish red and yellow colors designed to ensure they were not shot down by their own FLAK and to attract the Allied fighters away. Since there were allied airfields in France and even German at this time the Luftwaffe Me 262 had to run a gauntlet of many allied fighters.
-3 Engine reliability. The engines of the Me 262 were in an early stage of development and troublesome which impacted on its ability to intercept though improving and likely to be reliable by April 1945. (More on that latter) The First 'test squadron' that operated from about July/August 1944 used Jumo 004B1 engines with solid turbine blades made of a Krupp alloy called Tinidur (30% nickel 20% chromium, 6% titanium balance steel approx traces vanadium) in about November the blades became hollow and air cooled which considerably increase reliability and in Feb 1945 a new allow called Cromadur which replaced scare nickel with manganese came in. Nominally inferior it turned out to be better in use due to ease of maintaining quality. A 60% Nickel content version of Tinidur had been proposed but not proceeded with due to perceived shortages. (The Germans understood that increasing Nickel content increases creep resistance)
-The engine did not have a life of only 25 hours. It had a scheduled MTBO of 25 hours after which the 6 combustion chamber cans were replaced and the turbine was replaced and recycled. The engine would likely last 4 x sets of 25 hour MTBO. The Famous Test Pilot Gerd Lindner once kept the engines on the wing of an Me 262 for 60 hours with careful handling.
-One problem with engines was the basic fuel control system worked via a centrifugal governor set by the pilots throttle which controlled fuel flow only on the basis of engine RPM. This meant that moving the throttle Modern engines could over doze the fuel leading to and engine overheat and or flame out. Modern fuel control system actually measure the airflow and control the fuel/air ratio within limits. Such a device called an accelerator control device or Beschleunigungs Ventile was to enter service in April 7 1945 about a month before the war ended. In reality the device was not complicated and versions of the fuel injection systems used in BMW, Jumo and DB piston engined aircraft could have been used. Another problem was the lack of duplex nozzles which convert to a finer jet and the low flow rates experienced at low throttle settings and high altitude thus ensuring proper atomisation.
-The Early Experten (Note Luftwaffe did not have an ace system) pilots of the Luftwaffe aimed using and ordinary ReVi sight using their experience to aim the correct lead. However Many Me 262 were fitted with the EZ42 Gyro computing sight which could compute the correct lead for the 30mm guns and R4M. The EZ42 had been introduced in 1942 but not put to use till 1944. In the case of the Me 262 it had initially been installed incorrectly (wrong position) which lead to disappoint results and due to the "Experten" was rejected for a while due to the incorrect location of the gyros but it worked very well on the Fw 190D9 and could hit precisely at long distances. It was more accurate than the US K14 due to the telescopic optics and compensation for air density. The Fw 190D9 pilot Oskar Romm recounts how he could hit the cockpits of Yaks and Lavochkins at 500m easily.
The EZ42 (or EZ45) was also to be linked to the FuG 248 3cm ranging radar and Elfe computing device and would have been a monster at attacking US bombers with 30mm, R4M or R100 rockets this as it eliminated the pilots need to dial in the range with his stedometric range finder and simply computed the lead automatically and continuously.
So you can see that an Me 262 with reliable engines and good fire control could have been possible by April 1945. As it was Erhard Milch said that if the Me 262 did not enter the war before 1943 Germany would loose the war. He was probably right as it takes many months to work up an aircraft and iron out the various bugs. Having the Me 262 deal with US bombers was essential BEFORE the Normandy landings. After the landings US air power increases dramatically as air fields in Europe are established and the number of aircraft over Germany becomes so large the Me 262 can not operate effectively.
Your analysis is good. But I think what really hurt the Germans was a lack of experienced pilots. No good having a thousand great planes if only 200 can fly them to get maximum effectiveness. Cheers
Engine life has to be compared to life of a/c there was there a difference
@@BatMan-oe2gh yes chuck Yeager said a good piolt makes a big difference to inferior a/c they are piloting
German gyro gunfights were on 262s as a special version mark but with only 1000 gsights being produced they would have been a rare bird with it
Having 262 and arad 234 for recce over invasion preparations in GB would have been usefull
I know it's like beating a dead horse at this point, but props again to your video quality. In an age of cheap clicks and false information, you're like a breath of fresh air
Your comment is much appreciated
It would interesting to adjust combat effectiveness for weight of numbers. A 1:2 success ratio sounds bad, but is pretty respectable if your facing 10:1 odds.
This is an interesting channel. Covering a very specific subject.
Thanks for your use of well researched primary source material. Excellent video, thanks again!
This content is fabulous. Please slow the delivery down - it takes time to digest all you are saying. I've re-watched several of your presentations and paused regularly throughout as they are so texturally complex. (And fabulous)
Correction: At time stamp 8:52, the value equates to .93%, not .1% as described.
A link to the excellent report adopted in video regarding Battlefield innovations case Studies:
drive.google.com/file/d/1iiuZ1h-lAvuY7oERSQK1aPZF2PTFG_Lp/view?usp=sharing
Interesting analysis, but you seem to completely ignore the main reason the ME-262 was not a game-changer, which is that they almost never flew, and when they did fly, they were VASTLY outnumbered.
Only 300 ME-262s ever saw combat, according to the Smithsonian Air and Space museum, and some of those were ground-attack missions.
I believe the largest interception by ME-262s involved 37 jets vs. 1200 bombers and 600 fighters. The jets still achieved a 4 to 1 kill ratio, destroying 12 bombers and 1 fighter, even though the jets were outnumbered 50 to 1.
As a thought exercise, what plane do you think WOULD be effective that A) Rarely ever flew, B) Was typically outnumbered 100 to 1, and C) had no airfields beyond the reach of enemy fighters? I don't even think fully-equipped F-22 fighters would have fared well under those conditions, and analyzing the ME-262's combat effectiveness while ignoring the fact that it was vastly outnumbered is, in my opinion, such a huge mistake that it makes this analysis faulty from the start.
Imagine 1,000 ME-262s attacking a bomber squadron, instead of just 37, or imagine what we'd think of Mustang fighter planes, if they had always been outnumbered 100 to 1, and were routinely shot down while landing. Would you say that the Mustang is an ineffective weapon, if it had been outnumbered 100 to 1, rarely flew, and was typically shot down while taking off or landing?
@@myblacklab7 usa GBwould have had their jet a/c in combat with 262 if war had dragged on
@@Eric-kn4yn
That's right, although they didn't see action and only flew one mission as reconnaissance aircraft over Italy the Lockheed P80 Shooting Star was flying before the end of the war, it was an aircraft that out performed the ME262 in every aspect especially reliability, if the war did indeed last another year or so they'd have been in the fight hammering ME262's out of the sky at an even higher rate than the P47's and P51's were, and they sure shot down their share of them.
@@Eric-kn4yn Good point, and you are correct, but I believe the relevant narrative that this TH-camr is challenging says that if the Germans had put the ME-262 into full production earlier, that would have resulted in Germany winning the air war, at least until the allies introduced their own jets on a large scale.
The implications of that would be massive - Germany could have moved its 88's to the Eastern Front and most likely obliterated Russia, instead of dedicating most of their 88s to AA duty. Industrial production in Germany would have been boosted many times over, compared to what actually happened when they were bombed into oblivion, and that would mean more tanks, more guns, more fuel, more ME-262s, and more everything for Germany.
And maybe then America would have dropped a nuke from a jet on Berlin in 1946, but it definitely would have changed things!
@@myblacklab7
The US and GB just would have pressed their jets unto service that much quicker and nothing would have changed.
The whole narrative that Germany could have won the war if the ME262 would've entered service a year earlier is nothing more than fanboy fantasies, in response the US would simply have dropped development of aircraft they never wound up using anyways and put those resources into speeding up development and production of it's jets like the P80 Shooting Star that out performed the ME262 in every aspect, they were going to lose one way or the other.
And your theories about 88's being moved to the east and changing everything is nothing but wild speculation along with the narrative that somehow or the other German manufacturers would have pumped out war equipment at even higher numbers than they did, the problem wasn't producing equipment it was manning it, they already had stockpiles of unused ME262's and just about every other weapon they produced built up all around the countryside in Germany, the ME262 entering service a year earlier wouldn't have changed a single thing, the people who've claimed that over the years have only had the wild speculation that it would have without looking at facts like the one's presented in this video, in case you didn't notice the ME262 wasn't an effective weapon, that's just the point here.
Your videos are absolutely excellent. Great!!
It was too little too late. And consumed tremendous resources of manpower and split production. By the time they were operational experienced pilots were hard to come by, and fuel was scarce. The Me-163 was a little different, since it did not use gasoline/kerosene. Also remember the Me-163 could climb from 0 to 30,000ft in 2 minutes(what a ride !), leaving a further 8minutes of fuel. Great channel sir !
Wouldn’t have made much difference. The Allie’s developed countermeasures and would have done so even if the 262 was in production earlier. You don’t win wars by having one type of aircraft
Just a few years later (1958) an F-104A Starfighter would set a time to climb record to 9,000m (29,527 ft) of just 81 seconds.
@@fantabuloussnuffaluffagus in the aircraft world is 1944-1958 like 100years sir ...
@@fantabuloussnuffaluffagus In ww2 the development of new aircraft was staggering. It’s not really surprising that the f104 was capable of that so soon after the war. Especially considering how many sacrifices were made to achieve that climb performance and speed.
With the huge amount of effort devoted to the 262 it shows the problem with that. The Allie’s vastly outpaced the axis powers in developing new aircraft
@@Rokaize the Germans had over 100 different types Of aircraft but one of It’s best bomber killers was the me 262 so yes it would have made a huge difference if it entered production earlier stop talking out your ass
Interesting but it is good to remember that the Me 262A was a pure interceptor as it didn't need to dogfight with the escorts but simply dash trough the bomber formations and zoom the hell out to make, eventually, another pass from another direction. That's the theory but the numbers of the the Me 262A knocked down by the escorts was achieved mostly when they were maneuvering, thus slowing down, attacking from the side or directly from above and often because of the sheer numerical superiority that the German pilots simply didn't see. This is what happened to Adolf Galland. The other issue was was because of the relatively low muzzle velocity rendered it inaccurate beyond 660 yards, coupled with the jet's velocity, which required breaking off at 220 yards to avoid colliding with the target, Me 262 pilots normally commenced firing at 550 yards, within the reach of the 0,50 inches guns, not a very healthy proposition! The gunners of Allied bomber aircraft found their electrically powered gun turrets had difficulties to follow the tremendous speed of this airplane. Lastly, in the hands of experts the Me 262A was not at all a sitting fat turkey to be knocked down as it had good flight characteristics that was considered better than the Me 109G or Fw 190-D9...
Interesting to see it as a 'turkey,' rather than a 'duck'
Good points!
I remember reading a book where one allied pilot said that the ME-262's engines would break down, if the pilot tried to run the jet at full power for any length of time. The allied pilot claimed that he would just chase the ME-262s until their engines failed.
Another well-known issue was that the ME-262 had a pretty short range, and so it was often shot down during takeoff or landing. Additionally, no more than 200 ME-262s were ever in service at the same time, and it is unlikely that many German pilots got much flight time in the ME-262 considering fuel shortages, among other things. So far as I know, there was never any bomber interception by a large formation of ME-262s. Imagine 300 ME-262s intercepting a 1,000 plane bomb group - if that had happened, then we could have a better idea of how effective of an interceptor it was.
If the Germans had invented the F-4 Phantom instead, and produced the same number of F-4 Phantom jets, those jets would have had a lot of similar problems - it's hard to judge a plane when there weren't many produced, where they didn't have anywhere safe to land, where they were dealing with fuel shortages, where they were vastly outnumbered, etc.
I just looked for the largest ME-262 interception and got, " On 18 March 1945, thirty-seven Me 262s of JG 7 intercepted a force of 1,221 bombers and 632 escorting fighters." I mean... gee, I wonder why the ME-262 wasn't a great success.
From what I’ve read the Allies had fighter sweeps that were free to roam and most 262s were ambushed and shot down while they were on finals to land.
It got so bad that the Luftwaffe had to launch FW-190s to act as an escort for the landing 262s.
Me 262 losses were reported as only 100 in air-to-air combat in total. These are figures from the 8th airforce only, the figures do not add up.
Approx 160 destroyed by us fighters however most were either taking off or coming in to land.A few more were shot down by the RAF.
Do the number of Me-262s shot down match the number of losses reported by German sources? How does that compare to the number of Me-262s that were built and operational?
Good point
I looked around a bit at sources I could find quickly. The US Air and Space Museum (The Smithsonium) says that probably over 1500 262s were built, but only about 300 ever saw action as there were many training accidents, problems with the engines and parts, and may of the planes were destroyed in bombing and strafing attacks before they could be distributed to active pilots. I was interested in this because I met a former 262 pilot when I lived in Europe in 1977, he said the biggest issue was that the engines only lasted for about 10 to 12 missions and then had to be overhauled and replaced, so his assigned plane spent most of it's time getting engines refitted. He said his plane was destroyed by a P-51 while on the ground, and his whole unit were reassigned as infantry at that point. He was very interesting, he should have written a book.
So many German records were lost and destroyed in the closing stages of WW2, and the aftermath, that it's really impossible to be definitive about that
@@SeadartVSG yep the engines had to be refitted after around 24h at beast I think
Piston engines had a short life as well. I read that using WEP was an automatic overhaul. I suppose the difference is the ability to service/overhaul the engines on either side. The same pressure that effected all their German production and materiel likely limited the jets. Producing qualified pilots was an issue as well though.
I do wonder if given, say, a few more years, tactics and training would have created a more formidable record for the jets? That’s usually implied in the “too little, too late” comments about the 262.
I love your videos! You are so knowledgeable!
Thanks for another great feature! Something to consider is that even if the Germans had been able to produce really large numbers of Me-262s, where would the pilots come from to fly them? At that stage of the war the type of extensive training program for such a new type just wasn't feasible, plus to operate more jets would mean diverting many more FW-190s to cover their take offs and landings when they were vulnerable to roaming Allied fighters.
Much less the fuel
Only about 250 Me-262s actually saw action, though over 1,000 were built.
A better question would be "where would the fuel come to run them?" I recall that jets used about 2x the amount of fuel as propeller-driven aircraft.
I recently found your videos, they are amazing, now you’re posting a video about my favorite plane ever! Keep up the great work
Very good content! Thank you. 👍
If you can , please, make analysis of effectiveness of Soviet mig-15 against b-29 during Korean war. Because in Soviet Union was shared the assertion that appearance of Mig-15 was total disaster for b-29. Was it true or false?
As always, a very thorough video!
It would be interesting to see how much more of an impact the 262 would've made had they been available for combat a year earlier.
It was impossible because of the lack of heat resistant alloys that delayed so much the production so there was simply no turbojets available. The other great issue was the infamous, for Germany, the halting of the production ordered by Hitler until he received the fighter-bomber version but in reality it was only delayed for a short while...
@Paolo Viti Yes, especially Hitler's order to halt further production of the 262 initially and focus on conventional aircraft, hurt them in the long run.. to an extent.
StEiNeR
@@paoloviti6156 The Jumo 004 was a combustible war asset, just like the precious fuel that was in chronic short supply by 1944. Kerosine was a lot easier to attain than the av-gas required by the reciprocating engines that also contained rare heat-resistant alloys.
@@paulslevinsky580 fact is that it was the chronic shortage of fuel that really stopped the German war machine, both in the air and on land. That said the Jumo 004B could run on three types of fuel:
J-2, standard fuel, a synthetic fuel produced from coal.
Diesel oil and Kerosene have similar properties but Kerosene was used very little by the Germans and only used near the end of the war by the allies
And of course Avio gasoline but was never used as it it was used on aereo engines like the BMW 801A, DB 605 variants and the Jumo 213E...
If they'ed put Drop tanks on P47's they gould have gone to Berlin & back a year earlier.
The problem was the same with the spitfire. The German simply intercepted them early just to get them to drop their tanks.
one of the best channels out there , well done
When you really go down to analise the data a lot of things drastically change.
I enjoy your history videos. The available statistics sure tone down the legend if the ME262! It's also interesting about the numbers of ME262 destroyed in the air versus on the ground. I understand it was common for US fighters to try to catch the jets during take off or landing. Is that correct?
That is indeed correct. Poor low speed acceleration hampered early jets and they were at a significant disadvantage slowed down close to base. Conventional flak and FW190s had to be used to protect jets in close proximity to their operating bases
How many jet interceptors actually attacked bomber formations how many times? You do realize that 50 is 1 percent of 5000, not .1%. Most of the bombers destroyed by jets were shot down near the very end of the war when US fighters could loiter near any airbase in Germany. Rather tendentious analysis.
You are correct. Missed that math error.
The jets just were not that much a war-changing weapon. Plus putting such a short range weapon like the mk-108 30 mm was nonsensical. The jets could fly faster than the bomber gun turrets could track them, but that was no advantage as the jets had to slow down to speeds it could be hit by bomber guns to actually hit the bombers with their guns. They were most effective with rockets.
@@stewartmillen7708 They were absolutely a war-changing weapon - the Germans just never operated them in sizable numbers. I think the most ME-262s to ever intercept a bomber squadron was 37.
If the Germans had produced a similar number of cannon-only F-16s, and they flew as many hours as the ME-262, the F-16s wouldn't have made any appreciable difference either. Heck, even F-16s with sidewinder missiles probably wouldn't have made much difference.
@@myblacklab7 If they had been operated in 'sizeable numbers', where exactly would the Luftwaffe had gotten the gas to fuel them? Me262s burned twice the fuel per distance as a comparable propeller driven plane.
Fuel shortage for Germany wasn't just an issue starting 1944, starting from the bombing campaign targeting the synthetic plants and the loss of the Ploiești oil fields; it was a problem long before that. In fact, one of the reasons why the Germans were limited in the number of armored/mobile divisions they could field against the Soviet Union in 1941 wasn't just due to the lack of motorized vehicles--oh no, those could have been seized from Nazi-occupied Europe--but the lack of gas to fuel extra motorized divisions. Lack of fuel was also a contributor to the failure of the Stalingrad campaign and the relief effort in 1942-43. All this happened long before the strategic bombing campaign affected German oil production in 1944.
So, would fueling a fleet of Me262s be worth immobilizing divisions of German tanks? That doesn't seem to work out either.
Moreover, as I inferred, there were shortcomings in the design and implementation. It was nonsensical to equip a fast just such as the Me262 with the short-ranged Mk108 30-mm cannons; although the stated range was 600 meters usually propeller-driven German fighters equipped with these had to close to 300 meters, or even closer (Sturmgruppen FW190s were instructed to attack directly from the B-17's tail and open fire at 'can't miss' 100 meter range; the Germans were willing to concede the loss of the FW190 to the B-17s' defensive fire but hoped to save the pilot by the extra armor on the modified FW190 in order to kill a B-17). For the Me262, as I said, the Me262 had to slow down to speeds it could be hit by the bombers' defensive fire as well, but could do a 'dovetail' rear approach that was somewhat better in avoiding the defensive fire which the Sturmgruppen FW190s couldn't do. However, even this approach, even from the rear, still happened so fast that Me262 had no time to actually AIM at the bomber, he just pulled the trigger and hoped to hit it. It was a 'shoot and hope' approach.
Plus, the Me262 was vulnerable to the bombers' fire; in fact maybe more so than the German prop-driven planes, as their jet engines failed enough even without being short at. A loss of a single engine might well down the plane due to the imbalance of thrust.
Finally, insofar as a "war-winning" breakthrough, considering the fact that the Allies would have countered by producing their own jet fights (the UK, US, and USSR had been not idle) any German advantage that might have incurred would have been temporary.
@@stewartmillen7708 Well, to the extent that Germany just didn't have enough fuel, nothing mattered at all - every weapon would fail, so why even bother discussing it? Germany could have developed better jets than anything we have today, and it wouldn't have mattered anyway, because no fuel, so the F-22+ is useless, unless it's a Prius.
I'd be interested in the sources you're relying upon to claim that Germany had such a serious fuel shortage in 1942. Stalingrad is not a good example, since there were serious logistical issues involved with shipping fuel to Stalingrad.
If the ME-262 had deployed earlier, then other tactics would have evolved - R4M rockets, etc., and four 30mm cannons is enough that a split-second burst would blow a bomber into pieces, so that armament had an upside as well as a downside.
The allies never did get their jets into the war, did they? You have amazing confidence that they could have done so, even though they didn't do so.
Just one of them 30mm mine rounds could cause fatal damage truly scary round against soft targets. Beautiful plane thank goodness it wasn't more effective.
Thank you again for such a great and informative video.
I wish you had added information about the 15th AF's experiences with the Me-262....including the most shot down by one bomb group, the 483rd, which shot down seven Me-262s.
Excellent data, as always; however, I wish your presentation would have more directly addressed the question of the relative effectiveness of the Me-262 versus the piston-based alternatives. By the time the Me-262 was introduced, bomber losses to piston fighters had already plummeted due to both German deficiencies in planes, fuel, and pilots, and due to the presence of large allied fighter escorts. This means we can't compare Me-262 performance against the performance of piston interceptors averaged across the whole war. I'd be very interested to see a comparison of the per-fighter or per-sortie loss infliction of piston vs jet aircraft under matched time-periods and conditions. You do have a chart showing more losses from piston-based aircraft, but I'm unclear about the relative numbers of the two types of interceptors and their relative numbers of sorties.
One popularly stated thesis is that the Me-262 was "more lethal" than piston fighters and could have been effective and / or devastating had it been available in sufficient numbers and / or earlier in the war. This thesis is of course ambiguous as to the degree of "large numbers", "sooner", and "more lethal". At the extreme end, had Germany been able to miraculously produce huge numbers of Me-262 interceptors in 1942, the war would have been a lot more difficult, but the same would be true if Germany were granted a miracle in piston aircraft production. A more meaningful test is to ask whether, had the Me-262 design been finalized sooner, would Germany have benefitted from diverting X resources from building piston interceptors to building Me-262?
Your presentation puts some bounds on the popular claim. The Me-262 wasn't a wonder-weapon and could be engaged effectively by our fighters, even if they couldn't chase it down. But our fighters were also highly effectively at engaging piston aircraft and largely swept them from the skies. What's unclear is degree of relative effectiveness between the two technologies, and the scale and temporality of Me-262 production that would have been needed to materially alter the course of the war.
Thanks again for all your research!
An RAF Bomber Command officer who encountered 262s in daylight hours thought they were overrated. They were fast but their very speed made them into "lousy gun platforms". It was typical for them to go very fast through a bomber formation, fire a wide spray of tracer, hit nothing and disappear.
Yes but it only needed a couple of hits from a 30mm high explosive round to bring a bomber down. Two hits on the wing root would tear the wing off.
@@robertpullen3726 Except that wasn't really working out like that for the 262. They did next to nothing against the bombers.
great video and this is not really meant as criticism but it would have been interesting to see a more direct comparison between piston and jet figher planes of the german luftwaffe. some numbers on the piston fighters are missing unfortunately.
I think the Me-262 would have been far more effective if it was being flown by experienced pilots closer to the start of the war, rather than a kid who had 10 hours of flying time on the jet. We'll never know.
We actually do know, because an elite squadron of ME-262s did fly - those pilots were probably better than any German pilots in the earlier stages of the war, and some of them had over 200 kills.
The biggest issue was just that there weren't many ME-262s, and they were vastly outnumbered. When I looked for the biggest squadron of ME-262s to ever fly an interception mission, I found this: "On 18 March 1945, 37 Me 262s of JG 7 intercepted a force of 1,221 bombers and 632 escorting fighters."
Of course a plane that is outnumbered 50 to 1 and has nowhere safe to land is going to fail. In the above-quoted mission, they shot down 12 bombers and one fighter for the loss of three Me 262s. If they repeated that feat against the same bombing force 12 times, they'd be down to one ME-262, while the allies would have about 1,000 bombers and 611 fighters left.
Now if the Germans had been able to intercept with 1,000 ME-262s instead of just 37, I doubt there would have been many bombers returning from that mission, and I think that's the most ME-262s to ever intercept a bomber formation during the entirety of the war.
Interesting how one of the reports mentioned that the 30mm cannon was no match for the 50 cal. Whoever wrote that has obviously never been pursued by a ME262 firing all 4x30mm on the 6 o’clock of his Mustang!!!
The mk108 was slow firing but one hit from it would turn a P51 or any other fighter into a shower of aluminium.
Numbers don't lie, but nor do they tell the whole picture. There is no argument that the ME-262 didn't play a huge part in the bomber defense or air to air roles. But, I would argue that fact is due more to pilot inexperience rather than the plane itself not living up to expectations. It was a clearly superior platform to anything the allies had but by the time the 262's became a usable option in the war Germany's best and most experienced pilots had already been killed or were so strung out because of combat overload that the planes were never flown to their full potential. The allies had awesome fighters piloted by more experienced pilots and even though the planes were outclassed by the 262 they were good enough in the hands of far more experienced and frankly, at that point in the war, far better pilots. If the 262 would have been available earlier in the war, I think the outcome would have been very different.
What a great video! Here's a thought...at which point was the last time Hitler should have ordered production of the requisite amount of ME-262's in order to achieve the required degradation of bomber forces to stop the destruction of the german war machine? A lot at play here....First...one must quantify how many bombers you needed to shootdown in order to achieve a 1:1 bomber kill:new replacement ratio, an assumption of the required "degradation". Early in the war, this would have been achievable for german jets with no bomber escorts. The bombers would have been wiped out. Second, take the required shots/bomber kill and match that to the number of jets required, then pair that to the average bomber force size per time period in the war. Now you have a proportional scale of ME-262s required per time period to "degrade". Third, back-out the required ME-262 production in time and number to achieve the "degradation" kill ratio. Fourth, correct for any assumptions & correct production for realistic production capacity in each time period. One should be able to arrive at the date Hitler needed to commit to all jet fighters to save the Reich from the bombers, assuming the AAC data statistical assumptions. Math is cool.
Adolf Galland is of a different opinion. In The First and The Last, he claims that the ME 262 with R4M rockets changed the loss ratio from 5:1 to 1:5. In other words, the ME 262 in itself might not have been that revolutionary against bomber, but with R4M rockets it was.
Eh, the actual effectiveness of the R4M is not entirely clear. A lot of the stuff in books about R4M use against the 8th Air Force doesn't jive with US loss records. In particular March 18th 1945 when several bombers were claimed destroyed by JG7's R4M attack, the eyewitness testimony of US bomber crews in "Missing Air Crew Reports" and the American mission reports about losses don't match with the claims made by German pilots. There was no barrage of rockets anyone on the US side noticed, nor a half dozen bombers all being hit and falling. Some historians have claimed that the American's thought bombers lost to R4M hits were lost to flak, but the US bombers that day were flying over Berlin in daylight, and over 50% of all bombers returned to base with flak damage, so it seems pretty likely the bomber losses attributed to flak were probably lost to flak rather than R4M hits. Someone would have noticed several bombers simultaneously being hit and falling to the ground in pieces if it was a massed R4M attack like claimed.
Galland's unit JV44 did use R4M rockets on attacks against 9th Air Force B-26s in April 1945, and US reports do confirm some bombers were hit and shot down by rockets, but JV44 shot down between 8-11 aircraft in total while losing between 5-8 jets, so his unit couldn't have gotten 5:1 ratios with the R4Ms. JV44, like JG7, also over claimed quite a bit. So Galland may have believed R4M rockets gave them a 5:1 kill ratio, but there is no hard evidence to support that.
@@kellyshistory306 5-8 Me262 losses for bagging 8-11 bombers looks like an awful trade. Especially considering the caliber of pilots JV44 was supposed to have. Experienced pilots were something of a dying breed in 1945 for the Luftwaffe.
@@Warmaker01 It was and it wasn't a bad trade. If you look at Luftwaffe intercepts against the 8th Air Force in the autumn of 1944 and early 1945, they Luftwaffe is losing from 3 to 5 piston engined fighters for every aircraft they shoot down. They're essentially getting slaughtered every time they go up, so much so the Germans just increasingly abandon trying to intercept US heavy bombers.
Now JV44 is attacking B-26 Marauders and P47s of the 9th Air Force, so it is a bit different then against P-51s and B-17s. But even operating in a very unfriendly combat environment in April 1945, JV44 manage to inflict a slightly positive kill ratio on their enemies? That is what, like 5x better then their compatriots in 109s and 190s are doing?
In that context, its actually not that bad of results. However overall it just points out how hopeless the situation was for the Luftwaffe, that their best pilots flying an aircraft literally in its own league were only able to eek out slightly better than parity in combat losses. It is certainly a lot worse then books tend to make it out to be because most of the authors never bothered to go through the loss records to make sure what was shot down.
Fascinating. What is ‘IMT’ in chart 9:19?
Improved Munitions Technologies, here is a link to the excellent report to download: drive.google.com/file/d/1iiuZ1h-lAvuY7oERSQK1aPZF2PTFG_Lp/view?usp=share_link
@@WWIIUSBombers thank you
LMAO Incoming amount of mass SEETHING soon. BTW, You and Lazerpig have done really good job on debunking all these ww2 mythos.
I am expecting some grief. Lots of Me-262 fans out there.
Oh it's already pouring in, all the excuses and accusations including "I'm skeptical of the US numbers of bombers lost", as if you can cover up huge bombers shot down in front of God and everyone else, that's right up there with JFK and moon landing hoax conspiracies that involves thousands of people who after all these years have never said a word.
@@WWIIUSBombers Krebs: (anxious) My Führer, Steiner.....
Jodl: Steiner couldn't mobilize enough men. He wasn't able to carry out his assault.
@@WWIIUSBombers Your work on explaining the effectiveness surrounding US WWII bombers is very much appreciated
Its important to point out that Lazerpig is just a humor channel. For more serious content, "kelly's history", "greg's airplanes and automobiles" and "flight dojo", alongside this channel, are better.
Chuck Yeager said that the first ME262 that he ever saw, he shot down.
Excellent vid dude, destroying a mith.....Thanks for posting from Lima-Perú..!!!..it could have been some Me262 with Six 13 mm MG instead of the autocannons, in a fighter configuration, what U think...????
No pressure here... but - as you're working your way up through the Boeing jet bombers: why was the B-47 so tricky to land? I've heard that the guys who were used to B-29s couldn't handle the slow response time of those J-47s, and "landed short." Ka-boom.
again super video, great job !
fantastic information, cheers....
I was wondering why cloud cover would affect the fighters fighting on high altitudes. And then I realized those fighters would have to return down and land with clouds touching the ground :)
thank you
Question: what would’ve happened if the Germans had invented the proximity fuse in early 1942? How would these numbers have differed? With the allies have been able to sustain strategic bombing or would it have been shot out of the air?
Ohhhh, there's that escort fighter range chart again....I love your channel but bud, please check out Greg's video called "P-47 Thunderbolt Pt. 6 Range, Deceit and Treachery."
Bomber gunner over claims can likely be attributed to multiple gunners firing on the same target.
I’m smarter because of this video!
Its good that you are addressing overclaiming, but the reality may have been much worse;
6 January 1945 "The United States claimed that they destroyed 241 German fighters, broken-down as follows: bomber crews claimed 210 and their fighter escort claimed 31. German records show they lost 39 fighters. The USAAF overclaimed by more than 500 percent."
Hess, William N. (1994). B-17 Flying Fortress.
I would suggest looking at some post war sources where the the claims can be compared to the actual losses suffered by the enemy.
Good suggestion.
please keep up the good work!
The German Fighters were not the issue. The real issue was the increasing lack of training for German Pilots. The ME 262 were all piloted by veteran Pilots. The lack of quantities of ME 262, availability of sufficient fuel, and the increasing inability of Germany to acquire the materials needed for the Jet Engines for the ME 262, which required replacement after relatively few hours. As a siddnote, there are British Jet Engines of the era that are still functional with their original parts.
Most of the Air to Air victories by Allied fighters were achieved as ME 262s were landing. At that point, the Jets were essentially practice targets for Allied Fighters.
We're 30mm cannon dedicated weapons for bomber destruction
In another video on this channel, it says they were.
Pretty much.
Be interesting to know how many air to air losses were during take off and landing.
It would be interesting to evaluate (purely subjectively) the idea that towards the end of the war, the loosing side (Germany and Japan) both were faced with a significant drain of highly trained, experienced fighter pilots. Would this have come into play when evaluating the ME-262 purely as an interceptor?
As long as they only had a few Me-262s, the few remaining experienced pilots would always have a hot rod to fly. If they had had ten times as many Me-262s, most would have been flown ineptly by rookie pilots.
They didn't put flunkies or pilots right out of flight school in them, and yet the records clearly show that they were ineffective even in the hands of the experienced pilots who flew them actually shooting down less bombers per flight than more effective aircraft flown by flunkies right out of flight school.
For years I've been one of the people saying that after the war the Allies should have awarded medals to everyone involved in their development for helping to shorten the war.
Yes, it did come into play, but I think the main issue was just that they were so vastly outnumbered and under-supplied that it didn't really matter. I think that if the Germans had invented the F-16 instead of the ME-262, people would think the F-16 was a mediocre bomber interceptor.
The largest number of ME-262s to ever intercept bombers (that I can find) is this: "On 18 March 1945, 37 Me 262s of JG 7 intercepted a force of 1,221 bombers and 632 escorting fighters. They shot down 12 bombers and one fighter for the loss of three Me 262s."
The ME-262s were outnumbered 50 to 1, and still had a successful mission, but the "successful mission" was completely pointless.
Not only were the ME-262s vastly outnumbered, but they had a fairly short range, so allied pilots could just follow them home and destroy them when they tried to land.
Grizwold may be correct that the ME-262s were in such short supply that they had good pilots in them, since no more than 200 were ever operational at any time, and some of those were ground attack versions, but the Bf-109s and FW-190s piloted by inexperienced pilots were relevant, because those planes flew missions to try to protect ME-262s during takeoff and landing.
Betteridge's law suggests "no". The fact that they didn't win confirms it.
The Luftwaffe was a spent force in the last year of the war (operation boden plate did not help ) it was a numbers game by then the few me262s airborne and vectered correctly would never have a impression of daily and nightly attacks on the Reich, I wonder what would have happened if Galland had his way and his "big wing " attacks were allowed to take place ?
More success than boden plate I would imagine but I dont think it could have stopped the inevitable
When i was a young man in the USAF I talked to a M/sgt who was a machine gunner on a B29 and he said he had no luck in hitting the Germans Jets or bring one down.
Don't you mean B-17s? No B-29s fought over Europe.
The lack of trained pilots in the late war Luftwaffe was a major factor.
great stuff
I would like to see the German 262 pilots claims vs US statistics?
Well, I think the combat life of a Me-262 was 2 weeks. You did not mention that allied fighters were patrolling German airfields to catch Me-262s taking off or landing when they were most vulnerable. The enemy aircraft could not accelerate fast enough to get out of harm's way if they were ambushed. This is not to take away from your excellent analysis or conclusions. It is just to give your presentation more context. The German jets were considered a threat, so they were eliminated the most effective and efficient way which was to ambush them near their airfields.
They would have had a significant impact if their use as a fighter instead a ground attack bomber was ordered. By the time they were in use as a fighter there were only about 30 available and because of the metals they had for turbines, the entire engines had to be changed after 28 hours flying time - they waited too long, ran out of slave labor and production was difficult at best. Plus the parts manufacturing plants were knocked out of commission. Adolf Galland was taken out of duty because he objected to not using them as fighters from the get go.He was later reinstated to command. P51's could also out turn them
Yellow is best at night in my opinion.
Is there a way to correlate the US fighter and bomber claims against the Me-262 with German records of losses? You should mention that the fatal weaknesses of the Me-262 were its slow acceleration and limited flight duration - US fighters learned where their air bases were and swept ahead to pick them off as they were still taking off, before they had accelerated to their full speed and well before they reached the bombers, and they also followed them to their home airfields to shoot them down as they tried to land. This was how German ace Walter Nowotny was downed in a "maneuver kill" as he was chased back to his home airfield by P-51s. German air bases for the Me-262 had to fortify themselves with heavy AAA batteries to try to drive off the US fighters as they attacked, but covering for a landing Me-262 against attacking US fighters with AAA wasn't that easy. Overall, the Me-262 was not that effective of a weapon, as your video states, which is quite different from how it is commonly depicted, with so many sources saying that it could have been a game changing weapon for the Germans.
P.S. I think your videos are great. Just adding my two bits.
A challenge because they knew the 262 would not turn on them unless they had too. The bomber crews knew they were coming up for them.
Well, base on experts' opinions, the ME 262 could have been a game changer if Hitler didn't interfere with its role as a interceptor in 1944.
Listen to Adolf Galland interview, he mentioned if Hitler allowed Me 262 to be solely used as an interceptor there would be approximately 100 operational available in 1944 at any moment and those could have stopped the bombers.
Of course nothing is a game changer if you use it in a small number and for a short period.
ME 262 effectly served during the last two months of the was in such small numbers, hence not a game changer.
Another aspect worth considering is the amount of resources Germany would have expended and lost in the production of these jet aircraft.
The amount of resources and materials wasted on wonder weapons probably wasn’t worth it. Especially if Germany had a shortage of materials and these wonder weapons just end up getting destroyed before they had any success.
Another example is the over engineered Tiger tank, which took considerably longer to produce than the Sherman and T-34. And the Tiger was produced in less numbers. Would the Germans have been better off producing more weapons that were less complex and used less material?
Ir has no sense to make a lot of something with engines while not having the fuel to supply them.
The USAAF finally released fighters to roam after the bombers dropped bombs. Roaming fighters were more effective in doing sweeps of Luftwaffe bases before the bombers arrived, and then attacking Luftwaffe fighters landing at their bases. If anyone played a airwar simulator, it was pointless to engage Luftwaffe fighters while they were attacking bombers.
Unfortunately, the conclusions drawn from the analysis of these materials are wrong because at the end of the war there were no mass attacks by jet fighters as it was earlier, e.g. during the Schweinfurt raid. 262 fighters attacked at most 12 machines, so the results were not comparable to the attack of, for example, 50 machines, where the formation of bombers was broken up and the escaping single machines were massacred. Similarly, in the case of a massive attack, defense by Allied fighters would be much less effective. The use of rockets by 262 completely changed the rules of the fight in their favour. Too little and too late (thankfully).
i'm suspect of the American losses---seems too low. would be interesting to know what the German jet claims were. I'd also be interested in the effectiveness of the R4M for both piston and jets
Why would you elevate German claims over stated US losses? The Germans usually overclaimed all their kills--by more than 2x at 2nd Schweinfurt, for example. They overclaimed so frequently that even Hitler didn't trust their claims.
So if they lost more bombers how exactly did they cover that up? Some kind of nonsense JFK assassination or moon hoax conspiracy thing that like them would involve thousands of people being in on it and after all these years no one has yet to say anything?
Every single US military aircraft lost in WW2 can be accounted for in one way or the other, the mere suggestion that somehow "Bomber losses were actually higher than what the reports say" ludicrous.
Great big huge bombers shot down right in front of God and everyone else isn't something you hide in the first place, but more importantly is the fact that the US military wisely understood entering the war because of lessons learned in it's past that wars are won by logistics and not propaganda, therefore clear and precise numbers for the sake of studies and reports are far more important than the false victories of propaganda, that's exactly why despite all the CLAIMS of enemy aircraft shot down by bomber crews the actual CREDITED one's are on par with actual enemy losses, and that's because instead of just crediting each claim they all had to pass the scrutiny of a credits board that sorted through all the information and determined the actual number of enemy planes downed and who was credited for it, and did it understanding that when an enemy fighter that was passing through a bomber box burst into flames that had 5 different gunners all on different aircraft shooting at it it's not hard to get your head wrapped around the fact that 3 of them honestly could have thought they were the guy who hit it.
Sorry if the myth of German wonder weapons being so effective and the narrative that if introduced a year earlier the Germans would have won the war is turning out to be just that, a myth, but reality is reality and the numbers don't lie, as many historians have been saying for some time now contrary to the hype that's sold books and filled seats in movie houses the German wonder weapons were a flop and didn't alter the course of the war one bit, except to shorten it because of the precious resources Germany spent on them instead of putting them into more of what actually worked.
@@dukecraig2402 For the reasons you cite, I think the corrected US intelligence assessment of US bomber gunner claims are reasonable. The Germans lost a lot of fighters attacking US heavy bomber formations, they weren't the 'easy prey' they are wrongfully made out to be. The Luftwaffe pilot memoirs I've read concur.
Moreover, as the gunners got more experienced, they got better at turning in claims. I recall a B-17 radio operator manning his 50-caliber reporting he hit an attacking German fighter, and could see rounds bouncing off of it, and then it accelerated away after the pass emitting smoke. However, he said "I knew they often would emit smoke when accelerating away, so I figured I'd really not hurt the fighter much at all and didn't turn it in as a claim". To boot, I have also seen gun camera footage on a TV documentary of a German fighter attacking a B-17, and flying over the bomber after its pass, and you think "not much happened there" --- but when you look at a frame-by-frame sequence, you see a cluster of 50-caliber hits on the cockpit. The analysis? "That fighter pilot is dead". Yet I'm not sure that was turned in as a claim, this wasn't at all obvious when seeing the footage real-time.
But yeah, relying on German claims to overturn American records doesn't make sense at all. Especially relying on German claims, as the Germans tended to inflate all their kills in all theaters of war to fantastic levels.
@@stewartmillen7708
"The regulations specify the standards to be used to determine the category and the validity of the claims, the fact that the Intelligence and Claims Board of this command have taken particularly great pains in the screening process to eliminate duplications and invalid claims insures that the list of approved claims is a reliable source of data for a study of enemy losses inflicted by gunners of this command..."
Wars are won by logistics, not the false victories of propaganda, and the powers that be that ran the US military during WW2 understood that concept and were definitely not interested in inflated figures for the sake of nonsense propaganda and the false victories that go along with it, I keep trying to explain to people that there's a huge difference between what they CLAIMED and what was CREDITED, and don't understand why it's so hard for all these armchair historian self appointed experts on war to get their heads wrapped around the concept that if a German fighter that passed through a B17 box came out the other side in flames and 7 different guy's were shooting at it why at least 3 might honestly think he was the guy who hit it, I have to keep explaining to them that the actual experience of it was different from the online video games that they play that they believe makes them experts on things, the different gunners weren't talking to each other from one bomber to the other like how those guy's can wear a headset and literally talk to someone in another country playing the same game, on top of that they were 5 miles above the earth's surface literally living on two different life support systems, an oxygen system and a heated flight suit which would put you in a world much different than being able to hit the pause button and get up off the couch and go into the kitchen and make a sandwich and get something to drink, as realistic as video games may seem nowadays they're not anything at all what it was like to actually do that and only a real idiot would believe that because they play video games that somehow that gives them the right to critique those guy's and their claims they turned in, they knew the importance of accurate information being given to the debriefers and weren't a bunch of guy's in their parent's basement trying to pad their scores on a video game, which is how they look at them when they're accusing them of being liars about the claims they turned in, in their minds they can't think beyond accusing them of being liars.
I don't know what boggles my mind more, what those men went through 5 miles above the earth's surface or some basement dweller whose got the nerve to accuse them of being liars for the feeble reasons they think they have the right to, both are truly mind boggling.
Fighter kill claims are so hilariously stupidly that their total kill claims exceed the number of aircraft in 8th Air Force. Everyone's fighter pilots are guilty of this, but German ones are so especially stupid as to be more worthless than their attempts to win the war.
It seems those are wartime US sources.
While very Interesting, they don't represent reality, but perception from one side.
Moreover, it's quite likely that US Air Force Command had propaganda reasons for downplaying the technology gap with the enemy.
Honestly, the number looks quite unrealistic, considering the handful of Me 262 actually used in fighter role.
I think a cross check with contemporary German sources would provide a VERY different perspective
Of course they were no match when the allied had a 20:1 advantage or more in every late war encounter. That's like putting Bruce Lee against a 20 person mob with guns and then stating that he sucked at fighting.
It's common knowledge German jet planes were too little, too late. In the rare event a 262 engaged a heavy bomber, it didn't end well for the bomber.
Personally, I'd not believe and official document if it told me the sky was blue. After all, the guys writing those reports certainly knew what their boss wanted to hear....."Jet fighters? No problem. We've got them beaten".
When you draw conclusions it would be more accurate to state that “according to US records it does not appear …”
This is contrary to the conventional wisdom that deployment of the Me 262 earlier could have saved the 3rd Reich.
Good thing the Germans never the 262 in big numbers.🇨🇦
No German sources to verify claims?
In general, the German problem may have been horrible tactics. It would probably have paid more to use the fastest fighters to attack the Allied fighters using hit and run tactics.
@tarjei99 And let the bombers go to their targets without even trying to do something? Thats laughable. USAAF Mustangs could evade few dozen zooming Me-262s all day long and laugh walking to photo recce shed looking for photos that yet more nazi Germany is levelled.
The combat effectiveness of this jet had less to do with the jet and far more to do with the overtaking speed and limited time the pilot had to fire on the very slow B17. This is TRUE. The Germans attempted all kinds of attack manuvers to minimise this with little luck.
Closing speed between a 280mph bomber and a 500mph fighter almost 800mph. (same at two piston engine fighters, but you have a way bigger target and a lot of them), I think experienced pilots was the problem. That speed advantage could have been capitalized on by guys with years of experience. It was kind of like early in the war when their Messerschmitt's were almost that much faster that the unprepared oppositions planes, and easily that much faster than any bomber flying in Europe.
The Speed Variable only come into play when the slower guy can maneuver and turn inside you.
@@streamofconsciousness5826
They didn't put inexperienced pilots in them.
I just don't think a plane can be combat-effective when it's outnumbered 100 to 1, and has nowhere safe to takeoff from or land.
I bet an apples-to-apples comparison would show that the ME-262 was VASTLY more effective than any other German bomber interceptor, but it's just that it's difficult for any plane to make a dent when it is nearly always outnumbered 100 to 1.
I think the most ME-262s to ever intercept a bomber formation was 37. There were about 1,200 bombers and 600 fighters in that formation. The ME-262s still won.
Another great episode, thanks.
Here's an interview with WWII triple ace Bud Anderson wherein he relates that the leadership of the 8th AF was very reluctant to employ the P-51. That portion is at 30:00 but it would be a mistake not to watch the whole thing.
th-cam.com/video/a9sQg3XkGLg/w-d-xo.html
Could the ME-262’s ineffectiveness against allied fighters be due to germany’s lack of experienced and skilled pilots by the end of the war and the fact that the aircraft was so new they didn’t have much time to get good at flying it? Or is it due to the aircraft actually not being that great as a fighter?
The most experienced pilots were selected to fly the Me-262. The aircraft was effective, but it was far outnumbered by allied fighters.
You have missed out on GB a/c losses to me262 s
Sorry, but you made no effort to sanity check these claims against German records or those of other allies who combined with the USAAF probably claimed their fighters shot down more ME-262's than existed. Consider ME-262 pilot Hauptmann Franz Schall with 17 kills, including ten P-51 Mustang fighters. Either Schall was wrong (possible) or the US figures are wrong. If Schall really took out 6 P-51s, do you you really think all the other ME-262s only shot down 4 American fighters. It also isn't terribly hard to find Heinrich Bär's ME-262 tally when he was in Ergänzungsjagdgeschwader 2 which include date and aircraft destroyed. He alone was credited with 10 American fighters in March and April 1945. How could that possibly be? Were Schall and Bär imagining things? Making up stories? If a P51 did not make it home and the brass did not know how it was lost, that does not mean it was not shot down by an ME-262. Wartime reports will always have issues due to this fact. The Germans had a reputation for being very exacting when it came to giving credit for claims and most of these planes would have come down behind German lines. In fact, a Dutch government official who was tasked with locating crashed warplanes in his country in the 1980s and 90s made it clear that the German records tended to be the most accurate. The American claims, even after you reduced them to 117 are outlandish. I'm sure some people really want to believe it, but really, 10 losses to destroy 117 jets in the air? You know, you only get half the picture when you only read American wartime reports and that discredits all the good work you do. I think this is a video whose research was only half done.
The American Army Air Force wrote "missing air crew reports" (MACR's) for lost aircraft during WWII, which included eyewitness accounts from wingmen or nearby aircraft to identify losses. Any aircraft whose crew didn't return to base within a few days had one written, therefore any aircraft lost behind enemy lines have MACRs. I've gone through a lot of them for the March-April period, but very simply there are few MACRs for fighters that correspond to Heinrich Bar's claims or Schall's claims against fighters. The vast majority of US fighter losses this period were being shot down by flak attacking airfields. There are a few MACRs that identify US fighters as having been shot down by German jets, but very few in comparison to claims by German pilots. There is very little evidence that any significant number of American fighters were shot down by Jets in the March-April 1945 period when most of the ME262 claims were made.
The German reputation for being accurate, which is far more debatable than is often claimed, nevertheless only existed within the official vetting system whereby the OKL processed and confirmed claims submitted by combat unit. That system sought to find wrecks, get corresponding eyewitness testimony and such to confirm victories. And that system never vetted any claims past November 1944, so any claims made by Luftwaffe pilots after November 1944 were never vetted or confirmed by the OKL. Any German pilots claims made after November 1944 were never examined by the OKL, never had any effort made to find wrecks or get corresponding eyewitness testimony. Any claims past November 1944 were just claims made by pilots, and the vast majority of ME262 claims were made after November 1944.
In short, while we have pretty good and detailed American documentation covering their losses and the causes, we have pretty minimal documentation backing ME262 kill claims, other than the pilots saying "yeah I shot down a P-51".
@@kellyshistory306 Bull droppings. Your MACR reports in many cases will have nothing to report or may be wrong. Look up the records of German jet aces. Researchers have confirmed many of their P-51 claims and they far exceed the totals given here. All that drivel, and you failed to look into that. But go on believing your fantasy....
As a side note I think it's important to remember that upwards of a million (a rough estimate) Japanese and German civilians died due to US and Allied bombings in ww2.
It also must be important to remember that Germany and Japan started that whole mess of WWII and Japan did it earlier by their shenanigans in China. You reap what you sow.
But I guess the silver lining of the awful war is that the conflict caused the end of the existence of Nazi Germany & Imperial Japan so that they could no longer cause issues for future generations.
To put that into perspective - 1mil is still less than the number of innocent civilians murdered in one single death camp in Auschwitz. Aprox 17 mil civilians and pow. were murdered by nazi in death camps or work camps outside of actual combat zones.
Very interesting.
So they could have become Goering's fabled (and tremendous blunder) destroyer concept with an escort of lighter fighters to reduce losses, and in large enough attack formation. I'd be interested in finding the biggest 262 attack on a bomber formation and what were the results. Because I honestly don't buy the low muzzle velocity argument, we are still talking 1,770 ft/s OR 540 m/s, close to mach 2. For the low fire rate, 300rpm X 4 = 1200rpm = 20 rounds per one second burst. I think the real issue is simply lack of numbers, and possibly of true and true fighter escorts. It's the kind of thing were I wish I had a time machine running in a simulation of reality to go back and chance certain things to see the outcome. Give the Germans the 262 and FW190D in 1930, let them make a bunch in secret, see what happens !
Muzzle velocity matters a lot in terms of deflection shooting. A round that follows a rainbow-style arc due to its low speed means that a nimble combat opponent is often going to be invisible beneath the nose by the time you are allowing enough lead to hit it
On 18 March 1945, thirty-seven Me 262s of JG 7 intercepted a force of 1,221 bombers and 632 escorting fighters. They shot down 12 bombers and one fighter for the loss of three Me 262s.
@@ChristosTsotsoras It's impressive they even managed that with those numbers. I wish there was a case were thirty seven 262s attacked a much smaller force with less than 3 escort fighter per 262. But yeah clearly in the grand scheme of things their biggest effect was probably psychological by far, if that because of how few were actually flying. Barely an operating fighter in a barely functioning country. Makes you wonder.
@@harryspeakup8452 Yes I fully understand the concept I'm saying it's only a 20-23% decrease in velocity for more than 3 times the bang, I doubt 20% lower velocity will be enough to counteract more than 3 times the bang per hit (It's around 3 times the charge - 23g to 80g, as well as more than 3 times less rounds needed to take down a bomber according to he report on this video anyway). You have a 30mm mine shell firing mg 42 with the muzzle velocity 80% of an Ak47 round. Not bad in my opinion although it stems partly from having zero practical experience of those weapon systems of course, but then again few do these days.
@@harryspeakup8452 There is also a solution to that, firing more from the side, it's not an insurmountable thing although an inconvenience, with the modern gyroscopic sights they had this was a diminished issue but personally I think the US went the right route with 6 or 8 50's because of the tremendous muzzle velocity and ability for AP to cause damage to engine and crew (crew rarely had protection for AP .50 rounds, it takes a more than 10mm to stop that, even if it's hardened which I don't know if it was and how much, but mild steel you can forget with tungsten core AP.
Just the usual debate between arms and armour.................the Me 262 carried 30mm cannon which had much longer range that then .50 calibre machine guns on the bombers....
thus Me 262 pilots did not need to get especially close to the bombers in order to inflict major damage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There is evidence that Me 262 was fast enough to frequently slip past escorting enemy fighters .............. especially if there was a screen of conventional German fighter acting as blockers.................................and that the real danger came for Me 262 pilots WHEN THEY RAN LOW ON FUEL...and had to land.....................with various fighters - especially the VERY FAST HAWKER TEMPEST FIGHTERS - tasked with hanging around German air fields to ambush Me 262`s that were trying to land with nearly dry tanks - with little fuel left to take any evasive action!!!!
Germans began developing "flak alleys" leading to their airfields that their fighters could dive into after attacking Yankee bombers - with massed 20mm and 40mm guns lined up in rows to discourage Tempest and p51 pilots from disrupting German landing cycles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Total
The effect was total