One thing that i kind of think is missing here is logistics and fuel production. Germany did have a lack of fuel, but mostly so light fuel. Heavy fuel they had quite decent reserve of, specially from 1943 forward when they was doing far less heavy ship raiding. Me109 and BF190 did not only need light fuel, they also need octane boasters, Something that Germany was also in very short supply of. It was actually so bad they had to detune the engines during the war to make them fly with less octane fuel. Of cause Germanys tank being petrol powered, also needed light fuel as so most of the Armour vehicle and a lot of transport and bombers. A Jet engine can run on basically any fuel. The only thing that is important is viscosity, and that can be manipulated quite easily. Suddenly Germany went from having a extreme fighter fuel shortage to have a quite decent supply.
@@matsv201- that is certainly the case, and shows that the strategic bombardment campaign (while over-reaching and under-performing Norden's claims) wasn't the failure some others bemoaned, as determined opponents will adapt and dynamically adjust to your attacks: real war isn't a videogame against bots. To expand on your response, if you viewed the Wikipedia entry on BMWs 003 turbojet engine, is a link to the turbine engine development that was in progress for Panther tanks, intended as an option for the follow-on E series of panzers that never made it past prototypes. That could have freed up more fuel for piston engine fighters and lead to the first turboprop aircraft.
Piston engine fighters required higher octane fuel. The synthetic fuel available in the Reich was of inconsistent quality. The jets had been able to use kerosene (paraffin to Brits) and on occasion ethanol. The supply of which was still fairly high when compared to the synthetic fuel for piston engines.
Gas turbines will run on anything with enough joules you can get into the combustor cans (coal included). WW2 reciprocating engines were far more picky (even the Junkers diesels).
@@allangibson8494I seem to recall Galland made a point of the fuel situation in stating he thought Germany should have built NO aircraft except Fw190 and Me262 as the end approached, because in his opinion, no other aircraft were worth the bother in 1944 and 1945, and the mass of Fw190 could be supported by existing fuel while bringing Me262 online and reducing the need for high quality gasoline. I think he was being exceptionally optimistic in hindsight (and attempting to burnish his credentials as a master Air Force general in the postwar period). The Me262 was *never* going to be available in large enough numbers soon enough. Never.
@@geodkyt 2000 Me262’s were built but only 400 got into the air due to lack of fuel and engines. The low reliability of the 004 engines counter balanced the low cost of manufacture - an engine that you get twenty hours of flight out of at a quarter the price is more expensive than one you get two hundred hours out of. (And twenty hours was optimistic).
A point not talked about is fuel quality. The Merlin went from 1030hp in 1939 to close to 2000hp in 1944 thanks to presurised carburetors (monopoint fuel injection) and increased octane numbers. Due to the increased octane numbers the manifold pressure could increase without engine damage due to knocking. A jet could run on any flammable thin liquidity fluid. Germany had big troubles to produce sufficient amounts of the high quality fuels necessary for the aero engines. The DB 600 series engines had about 37 liters of displacement while the Merlin only had 27 liters with comparable power output. The late Merlins used up to 150 octane (motor methode) fuel. This is about 140 octane (ron nr.). Gregs airplanes and automobiles is an engineering based channel that uses primary (mostly American) sources for it's content. A collaboration between the two of you would be great.
Check out The Secret Horsepower Race. It wasn’t so much about the fuel, it was about Germany not having metals to make exhaust valves that could withstand high levels of boost.
Excellent job again, Chris! It's interesting to note that, by the end of April 1945, the Germans had built (For certain values of completion), somewhere over 1,000 Me 262s, but the largest number of aircraft in the air on a single day was around 50 - for 1 or 2 days in mid-April 1945. Some of this is Tactical - Allied Counter-Air missions to cover and suppress jet airfields - and the vehicle coming and going around them. The Jet Airfields were very easy to identify, and couldn't be camouflaged. Allied Photo Recon was ubiquitous, and constantly updated, so the Allies knew where the jets were. Much of it is Logistical - getting the parts and fuel, not to mention rations and equipment from the places where they were made, to where they needed to go was becoming difficult in early 1944 (The prelude to the Normandy Invasion), and nearly impossible by early 1945. Last, but by no means least, was that the airplanes needed someone to fly them. Even before the War, Luftwaffe Pilot training was, compared to other nations, rushed. In the early part of the War, it turned out good Day Fighter Pilots, but training in Instrument Flying and Navigation were sketchy. As the War went on, even this was cut back. While machines were being replaced, the average experience and skill levels of the pilots was decreasing. In terms of Pilot Losses, the Luftwaffe forces in Western Europe and Defending Germany took 300% losses - admittedly not all of those were killed or unable to return to action, but it overwhelmed the training and replacement system - kinda hard to teach pilots to fly when their first flight may also be their first combat flight.
The pilot looking over the shot B-17 at 9:15 is Major Heinz Bar. This was one of his "kills". He would later fly the Me 262 and be credited with 16 "kills" in that aircraft. He survived the war, only to be killed in a light air crash in 1957.
@@anm10wolvorinenotapanther32 That still doesn't explain why he would put it into quotation marks, especially since he speaks of "one of his kills", making it clear that he is speaking of aircraft, not crew members.
What the Germans failed to take into account was how the Allies would respond. The Americans soon realised the vulnerability of jets during landing. The RAF had moved Meteors over to mainland Europe specifically to take on the German jets. The Meteors were better set up as dogfighters as opposed to bomber interceptors and their pilots were spoiling for a fight. The end of the war prevented an early jet vs jet conflict.
Early Meteors were not that good in a turning fight, the controls had been deliberately designed to be heavy to stop the young bucks from throwing the aircraft around the sky and the G limits on the airframe were lower than that on the Me-262. The aircraft had always been envisaged as an interceptor. The Mk III wasn't that much different, though the introduction of Air Brakes were an improvement. The Mk 4 had a major redesign of the Wing to improve manoeuvrability. That, plus the Derwent IV engine with redesigned engine nacelles would have been almost a match for the Me-262 in speed. However the prototype Mk 4 didn't fly until July 1945 and production didn't start until 1947. Closest that a German Manned Jet and a British Jet got from each other was about 6000 feet. The date was 19th March 1945 and the Meteors were grounded due to bad weather at their forward operating base. Which got bombed by Ar 234's through a hole in the cloud. One of the Meteors suffered light shrapnel damage from one of the bombs dropped. The Meteors on the Continent were somewhat unlucky in not getting the chance to shoot any manned aircraft down. They ran into German aircraft in the air twice!! On the first occasion they were chasing some FW-190's, when they had to break off the attack after they were attacked by Spitfires who thought they were German Jets (they did manage to evade that attack without damage). The second time, a pair of Meteors on Patrol ran into a Fieseler Storch at low level. By the time that the Meteors had turned around and slowed down to engage the Storch, it's pilot had dumped the aircraft in a field, stopped and legged it into cover. The Meteor's then strafed the hell out of it.
Meteors would have secure landing areas and air brakes would allow approaches with the engines running at higher revs, more responsive in a break off. 1945 RAF fighter operations had effective direction and cover from forward mobile radar cover located near the advancing front line and would have a tactical advantage. How did the opposing engines compare in acceleration? No Meteors and no Mk 21 Spitfires found any Luftwaffe fighters before the surrender.
@richardvernon317 You are the only person other than myself I've ever seen mention that Storch incident, or the Arado bombing raid. Wondering if you've gone through the 616 ORB same as I did?
@@heneagedundas Been through some of it, The bit in 1940 when they were at Coltishall and the Meteor WWII era. Any relation to a member of the Squadron in 1940??
@@richardvernon317 No, but I did a lot of research on them back around 2000, and published it on the Web on my rather crude and hand coded website (all well before Wiki came along). It caught the eye of the son of one of the groundcrew from 1940, they got in touch with me and I got to interview his dad, and then one of the 1940 pilots, Bob Morton. I went along to several of the squadron annual dinners in Doncaster, and got to meet a lot of air and ground crew, including a couple who flew Meteors during the war. Fascinating times, and a real privilege to have met them.
This was a concise and interesting assessment of German motivations for producing the ME-262. I would be interested in a video comparing the actual results with the projections you discussed here, because obviously it didn't work out the way they intended. It's always interesting to compare what a military thought would happen vs. what actually went down.
Good presentation. At least part of the problem facing the RLM as the failure of German industry to develop sufficient successors to those machines used at the start of the war. The Fw-190 was a superb fighter, albeit with altitude limitations, the Fw-190D/Ta-152 addressed that but too few, too late. Most of the other new projects failed (Thanks Udet), so Milch/Speer cranked up production of increasingly obsolescent models, at the same time the pool of skilled experienced pilots was being steadily eroded => casualty rates of inexperienced pilots soars, a vicious spiral of decline. The Jumo and BMW designs were good (the French Atar is a direct descendent) but by then German industry lacked some crucial elements needed for high temperature alloys, so the still somewhat experimental engines had short working lives. In the right hands (i.e. JV-44) the Me-262 was probably the best operational jet in that period (though Eric Brown thought the He-162 was a good gun platform, though again, not for inexperienced pilots), but limitations in fuel, jet engine development and skilled pilots meant even an effective fighter couldn’t overcome sheer numbers.
Every time I see one of your videos, I'm intrigued by the bookshelves behind you and what you've got on them. How about a short tour of your aviation book collection with a few recommendations?
One issue that’s been brought up with the ME262 was the fast closing speed of the plane to the target which diminished its accuracy, although the Luftwaffe was using rockets as a solution.
Even though it only took 700 hours to produce a jet engine, two were needed for each plane (therefore 1,400 hours per plane) and they did not last as long as piston engines.
I have two suggestions / questions: 1. Jet engines use cheaper fuel which requires less refining than piston engines, especially the high octane stuff used by the Allies. But Germany got a lot of its fuel from synthetic conversion of crappy coal. Is there the same difference between piston and jet fuel when it's synthetic production? 2. Germany must have had significant inflation during the war. Is that factored into those price comparisons? The work-hours figures are immune to that problem.
For jet fuel it's more cost effective to use the Fischer-Tropsch process than the Bergius process the Germans used to produce high octane gasoline. However, jet engines are pretty flexible, and can use almost anything. So a switch to jets would have been a big benefit to Germany, no need to upgrade the basic Bergius process output to increase the octane rating.
work-hours are not comparable neither because you would have to distinguish between what slaves could do and what needed skilled (and motivated) labor, how much machine time stuff needed, what resources it took (distinguished as "freely* available" or "in short supply" or "not available at all in significant quantity"), basically, comparing costs during total war is a hot mess...
What I would like to see is how a German military aircraft enters service into the Luftwaffe during WWII. What processes of testing and standard's the aircraft had to reach before the Luftwaffe considered it to be acceptable and what waivers could be thrown in to "Get it into service now". How was the testing done, Role of RLM test centres and the experimental Luftwaffe Testing Commands in getting the aircraft to be an operational Squadron Aircraft. Most people don't have a clue how the RAF did it and they think an aircraft enters service when the first operational unit gets the aircraft, which is not the case.
Excellent video. I always wonder why the Luftwaffe never focused on intruder operations. A fast, heavily armed jet (especially with R4M rockets) immune to fighter intercept would have exacted a high toll on 1000 bomber formations forming up before and shortly after take-off.
You have to have them fully designed & developed in time, which they weren't. The Luftwaffe gave up flying intruder sorties over Britain due to Luftwaffe doctrine (possibly from Goring). It was deemed that Allied bombers destroyed over the Reich would have far better morale value than those crashing on British soil, which German civilians would never see. As the other poster stated, always the issue of range. The other elements are, the Allies may have fighters up over the channel, Allied radar would still pick up the Luftwaffe over France (& it's AA guns could still put up a box barrage through clouds), & keeping your fighters over your own territory means if there is battle damage, mechanical failure or weather implications, you're far more likely to get your valuable pilots back (& the aircraft).
@@MilitaryAviationHistory It was done for a time at night. Intruders would both follow the RAF bombers back and attack them while landing or bomb the airfields but the most damage was done through intercepting and shooting down training planes. It was successful and a big problem for the RAF but... it was never tried on a large scale (I think one specialist night formation carried out these attacks) and the losses were heavy enough over time for Hitler to forbid such operations (I think from mid/late 43).
@@MilitaryAviationHistory thanks for the response. I was thinking specifically with jets. ME-262s at 540 mph blazing through a group of fully fueled and bombed up B 17s struggling for altitude and trying to get into formation.
3 месяца назад
Thank you for the Video. Would somehow not have thought that the jet engine was faster to produce then a piston engine.
There is one detail missing from this video. Fuel. While its generally understood that Germany lacked fuel for most of the war, specially so near the end. They where mainly lacking in light fuel much more so than heavy fuels... and one more thing. Octane boaster. Germany was in very critical lack of octane boaster for really most of the year. Octane boasters was specially critical in fighters to the degree that German piston fighter around 43-44 had considerably lower compression than allied fighters. That was basically what let the Spitfire outlast the BF109. But also transport aircraft, bombers and tanks needed light fuel. And by 1943 Germany had very little naval action so the usage of heavy fuel was way down. A Jet engine can run on pretty much any fuel as long as the viscosity is right. So the Me262 could take the crappiest fuel available think it down and run just fine with no degradation in performance. So by switching to jet they both get more available fuel,. less competition for the high octane fuel as well as a quite considerable power boast. I would also argue that ME262 is a heavy fighter. Its take of weight is heavier than the BF110. It also have considerately heavier gun load than basically anything before it and the simple fact that it have two engines. While i would not consider all 2 engine fighter as a heavy fighter, i would say having two engine is a considerable hint. It also fits poorly in any other role. Its really not a quick to response interceptor. its not a dog-fighter, its not a escort fighter. While it probobly could be considered a multi or swing role fighter, that is also true for the BF110. Also it shared both type and number of engines with the tactical bomber Arado 234 that is a typical hallmark of heavy fighters. On to of that the He162 have a very similar engine but only one. I would consider the He162 a interceptor. Despite the He162 having less than half the power. It still have a higher thrust to weight as well as a lower wing loading., making that at least in theory, a far better interceptor. Really, if we look at any and all jet fighter to this day. Almost all of them that have two engine are heavy fighters. Really checking out the exception kind of proves the rule. The only exception i could think of is the F/A 18 hornet that is a full 10 tons lighter than the F14 preceding it, despite being a newer platform. I would also say that while the large scale bombing campaign against Germany started around 42-43, the first year/years of bombing yeald very little result. While of cause some factories was hit, allies also lossed a very large amount of crew and planes during that time period. I would say its almost allies cooping at this point claiming they bombing Germany to submission. The issue was that the allied escorts had very little time of combat fuel over German territory. Hardly anything. One of the issue was that the drop tanks for most planes available at the time carried more fuel than the internal fuel load. So while they in theory had sufficient fuel to both go to Germany fight and go back. In reality no pilot wanted to fight with the drop tanks on. This changed in the very tale end of 1943 when P51D as well as a version of spitfire i don´t remember the name of with added internal fuel become available. This kind of even the playing-field, or maybe even gave the allies a edge fighting over German territory. They where available at numbers first in January and February of 1944. Considering that Me262 was introduced in April of the posibility that it effected the push for 262. It also may be as simple at German high command figured out already during 1943 that Allied fighter would gain the range to fight competently over German territory quite rapidly,.
Also consider the amount of resources spent on the V rockets. What if they dedicated those to more fighters? Or moot if they couldn't muster enough pilots and fuel.
Over the period of time discussed in the video, how did the Luftwaffe pilot training change? I recall reading that only experienced pilots flew the 262, but were any pilots trained that went straight into the 262?
The Me 262 was a minor player against the Allied bomber campaign. There were only approximately 300 262’s in operation. They were impressively fast. They frightened the 8th AF. P-51’s had to kept orbiting Luftwaffe fighter bases to shoot them down. But for all that they put no dent in the Allied bomber streams.
Really interesting video but ... how successful was die ME 262 in comparison to the older models and how did the Allies counter it? What went wrong in the end?
Let me instead recommend Lord Hard Thrasher's excellent, early 2024 video on the complete evolution and development of the Me-262. It is based on books by Mano Ziegler, Dan Sharp, and Martin Kitchen. In short, Me-262 development was highly chaotic and the version flying in 1944-45 was essentially a prototype /death trap with far more training and operations losses than combat losses. In addition to the kerosene vs synthetic aviation fuel omission, Chris fails to mention all the slave labor used to build the Me-262 and its subcomponents - certainly a key industrial consideration. He also left out the use of two seat models as nightfighters for battling the RAF bombers over the Fatherland. The Gloster Meteor actually fared far better as an early jet Fighter that wasn't an absolute flying death trap for its crews.
Despite the greater performance, the effectiveness of the Me 262 against US bombers did not exceed that of piston-engine fighters until the Me 262 started using air-to-air missiles.
I notice the lack of mention of FW-190, with 20k built 1941-45 vs. BF-109's 35k 1935-45 it looks like something that should be included in this comparison, how much did a 190 cost in terms of money and labor?
Great video, as always except for two little details: 1. You didn't take into account the much shorter lifespan of the jet engine and increased maintenance associated. 2. You have the advantages of direct fuel injection mixed up. The Germans could just put their nose down, take negative g's and dive away, while the Allied/carburated aircraft had to roll inverted to keep positive g's on the carburater float bowl.
Good spot on 2, you noticed what I meant to say. Regarding 1) the lifespan wasn't a main concern from my observation of what I see in the files. Planes had a short lifespan anyway, and the production output (6000 Jumos by the end of the war) was able to cover it until a time by which standards were meant to improve.
Yes, and the comment refers to the early period in the video, and mentioned the fixes later including the "Orifice" which was the RAE Restrictor. Everything is in the video I linked.
Read up on the very short life span of German high performance aircraft engines in the late phase of the war. As they had the same rare metal supply shortages (for example big problems with valve seats, piston rings and such) combined with short supply of high octane fuel (no problem for jets) they had to be pushed performance-wise by water injection, high boost and so on with the result, that a late war high performance BF 109 engine didn’t last substantially longer when flown under combat power than a Jumo 004
When you talk about the ~1000 aircraft that the Luftwaffe could consistently field, is that because of the limitations of skilled pilots, ground crew, etc?
Things to consider: Germans were still producing much more piston engined warplanes than jets, even at the very end. Air war was not just intercepting high altitude bombers, you still needed to give support to your own troops (CAS and counter-CAS) , fly night missions etc ... Me-262 was difficult to operate from grass strips. He-162 was better in that regard, but did not make into operational service (except few odd flights).
In hindsight, an air force with 2,000 fighters shouldn't have attacked an alliance that gave 2,000 spare P-63, 3,000 spare Hurricanes and 4,000 spare P-39 to the USSR. Changing designs during the war might have made sense on paper, but once you start to consider the logistics and training for parts and mechanics the change simply exacerbated the problem of attacking an alliance capable of producing an overwhelming number of planes.
I think it was Bernhard who said comparing Reichmark costs is rather useless, especiall over the years because of inflation, but also in general because money is usually not the bottleneck deciding which thing gets built and which does not - its (skilled) manpower or special resources or machine time or ....
Thank always for your video. Some people point out the benefit of shifting to jet planes because they do not need high octane fuel that was scarce in Germany. One ex-Me 262 reported it ran on J-2 fuel but I cannot find any proof of this argument. When I look at photos of the triangular indication over fuel port on the left side of Me262 fuselage in museums, it often reads B4. Also, plastic model decals often read so. Is it possible Me 262 actually ran on B4? If this was the case, why Luftwaffe wasted precious aviation gasoline on jets?
One thing that is missing is the simple industrial and logistical fact that the germans couldnt keep up with pilot training anymore. They were building far more BF109 then they had (somewhat) trained pilots for them in the second half of the war. It therefore makes sense to take the production loss of switching to jet fighters into account do to higher costs and newer production lines because they were already overproducing BF109 anyway. Better put the pilots you can actually train into better planes so they die slower and have lower attriton rates then to continue mass producing BF109s without enough pilots to crew them all anyway. The german attriton rates for BF109 and Focke Wulf 190 pilots in the second half of the war was simply not even remotely sustainable. Not even mentioning the entire fuel situation being a compleat desaster anyway, so better fuel up 100 good planes with your best pilots instead of 300 average at best planes (by 1944) with most pilots being fresh recruits while another 200 planes are sitting at your airport fresh from the factory without fuel or a pilot. The Luftwaffes fighter force in late war germany is literally the only branch of the Wehrmacht were troops could immediatly get a replacemeant vehicle once theirs is destroyed do to a lack of crews and not material. Something the army and armored force could only dream about.
Loved the video, I do notice however either I missed it or you left out the fact that yes, you can produce a jet engine in 700 man hours whereas a piston engine will take anywhere from 1000-3000 man hours, but for the 262 at least you do need 2 of them, which puts the production man hour requirement for engines at 1400 per plane. Maybe not a huge point but certainly also something which to my mind would speak against it being more industrially efficient to build jets. (Obviously this argument goes out the window with the 162, but also from what I know the 162 was less effective than the 262 so bit of a moot point)
Germany never walked the talk of "total war". There was always a effort to have consumer goods available and Germany never fully geared for mass production like US and SU did. This inconsequence made it impossible to turn around after the battles for Moscow and Stalingrad were lost. Richard Overys "Blood and ruins" is a good source for that topic, imho.
If you start 100x different complex projects with no resources & no focus...this is what you get. _Plus you still need as many FW-190s to fly CAP over Me 262 bases, when they are most vulnerable._
Hey Chris! What book or author/publisher would you most recommend for learning about german aircraft, specifically the bf 109. Would you consider listing all of the books you have in your collection?
The fundamental problem appears to be that the Germans never accepted what kind of war they were in until it was too late. They needed to recognize from the late 30s that the Bf 109 would become obsolete and as a result, have their jets in development all along. This, of course, would have required a kind of rationality in the regime that was structurally excluded.
The Germans didn't know they were going o be in a war with proto NATO until it war happened, and didn't know the west intended for a regime change until it was anounced in February 1943.
Given that the Germans though they would be fighting a limited war to take Ukraine, Belarus, and the cacauses, against the soviets only, in probably around 1943, with most of Europe and also china as allies, their failure to prepare for total war in 1933 makes sense.
I think you should have also mentioned the issue that using jet fuel put less strain on Germany's gasoline supplies, since German tanks and other ground vehicles used gasoline. Furthermore, German gasoline was of low quality and low octane, putting German piston fighters at a disadvantage when engaging Allied aircraft, especially when said aircraft was using ultra high octane American avgas. Why the Germans didn't use methanol as a fuel in its own right rather than as a mere booster is another issue...
A major problem was Hitler's interference. He wanted the cutting edge fighter pane used as a ground attack aircraft. So about 2/3rds were optimized as ground attack bombers. They had enough piston aircraft to do this. The jet fighter was desperately needed to attack the massive bombing raids that were depleting their manufacturing and transportation infrastructure. Still the ground attack jets could still attack the bombers as long as they were hot sent for ground support. For Hitler as the little corporal from the trenches of WWI they would have been terrifying. I see him as expecting that these planes would decimate Allied ground forces, who would run away in terror. Still it was too little too late regardless of their decision.
I think the main error people make when comparing the Me262 to another plane they don't see the actual role of this plane. After this video I think the 262 is more a replacement for the Me110/410 than for the 109. So maybe we should consider the Me262 more as a "Zerstörer" than a "Jäger".
You know one thing Im courious of is how much does it affects the industry when you have multiple competing designs for aircraft. I feel like the Allies standardized on a few designed to fit multiple roles while Germany has multiple designs for specific roles. Like they have Bf-109, Fw-190, Me-262 and He-162. 4 fighters as opposed to the US having just the P-51 or the British having the Spitfire. Could someone with more knowledge shed some light on this?
I think if you include all the various failed projects, the US had just as many as the Germans. The Brits had a lot of them too. As a single US example, the B-32 was a backup plan in case the B-29 didn't work out, and enough were actually produced to carry out a few attacks on Japan before the war ended. Or consider that from the P-38 to the P-63 was 26 fighter designs that got far enough to get official designations, and there were some experimental ones that went up to XP-75, I think. Or bombers -- from B-17 to B-32 is 16 bomber designs.
US did produse several diffrent fighter in huge quantity, like Bell P-39, Curtiss P-40, Republic P-47, its only that the sexy North American P-51 was heavly promoted in media, hence more "famous" Then we have a drool of prototypes and odd thing like the Twin Mustang.
One could argue with the enormous industrial capacity of the USA the Allies could afford to "waste" effort on a number of designs. The Germans arguably didn't have that luxury.
In 1945 the USAAF had the P-40, P-47, P-51, and P-38 in active fighter squadrons along with the P-61 and P-70 as night fighters. On top of that they were still producing large numbers of P-63s to supply to the Soviet Union. The RAF had at least the Meteor, Tempest, P-47, P-51, Mosquito, Typhoon, and Spitfire active in fighter and night-fighter squadrons in 1945. There may also be some older designs active in Asia and I don't know if Beaufighters were still in active night-fighter units or if they were limited to other roles by then. And they also had the short lived Welkin designed as a high altitude fighter and deployed in 1944 before the British determined the Germans could never threaten them with anything that would require its capabilities (and upgraded Spitfires were better in areas that it could engage Germans) and were removed from service within a couple months of deployment. And that doesn't consider naval fighters. While the public focus in both the USAAF and RAF is on a few designs, they had a lot for different purposes and for redundancy.
The tactical assumptions in engaging and destroying heavy USAF and RAAF bombers by the Me262 in reality were not effective. The Me262, while having a revolutionary airframe, incorporated by nearly a decade later by the USAF F-86 Sabre and the Soviet MiG-15, on the other hand had an appalling engine, due to it's early axial-flow design and industry lack of high temperature metals like tungsten in the German areo-engine industry at that time. Piston engine aircraft, in comparison, did not need as much high temperature materials. The average lifespan of the Me262 (twin jet) engines was about10 hours, making it a nightmare to service by even experienced ground crews and furthermore risk having engine fires while in flight. Perhaps under the circumstances, it would have been better to improve and mass-produce a very effective piston engine fighter by the Luftwaffe, such as the FW-190, or to improve it's high altitude performance so as to engage the bomber stream with consistent numbers adding to the destruction of them. While I kind of agree with Chris that the German aero industry at the time overall had technically slightly better fighter aircraft than the Allies, these front-line ready planes were in not enough number to make a difference from 1943 onwards in defence of the Reich.
Seems like the GREMANS failed to predict jets would be vulnerable near airfields due to characteristics of early jet engines requiring long run ins on landing and to a lesser extent on take off.
The "Wargaming Attrition Over 8 Weeks" @ 10:09 seems to be wrong and way off, unless I'm missing something. The figures depict an attrition rate of 5%, not 15%. The decline depicted by week 2 is down to 95%, or 95 bombers and 950 crew, which reflects a loss of only 5% (a loss of 15% would've brought it down to 85%, or 85 bombers and 850 crew). If you'd actually calculated with 15% attrition, the figures would've reflected a loss of waaaaaay more than a mere quarter of the force by week 8. Am I missing something, or is that just some bad math on the graphic?
It’s correct but a poorly phrased table. There is a 15% weekly loss with a weekly replacement of 10 bombers / 100 crew (see title of the table). I shouldn’t have called it an attrition of 15% and then keep the replacements apart from that attrition %.
I can see how the Germans would view the 262 as a bomber destroyer, one that would if possible avoid dogfights, however their vulnerability when landing was something the allies exploited to seem effect. I wonder if the Germans had plans to counter this weakness?
They did and in a lot of cases it worked. Low Level conventional fighter cover over the base and a butt load of light Flak lined up along the approach lines to the runways. One of the Tempest Wings in 2TAF came up with the tactic of whenever 262's were reported in their area, Tempest's on patrol would make a beeline to the known Me-262 base in their sector and try and shoot down anybody trying to land. After 7 Tempest were shot down by the Airfield defences, the plan was canned.
Jets were an interesting pivot for Germany considering that, as Callum Douglas explains in his superlative Secret Horsepower Race, their metallurgy was a complete disaster.
This a personal golden age, to be able to enjoy this channel’s content and others like Greg’s Airplanes and Not A Pound For Air To Ground. A personal frustration has always been trying to determine how great the Luftwaffe’s losses were in combating B-17s and B-24s, not including fighter escort. Perhaps I didn’t understand the presentation as well as I should but it sounded like it was at the edge of unsustainable.
Interesting analysis, but one shouldn't forget that German decisions past 1942 were increasingly erratic and irrational, with different factions in the regime feuding and many commanders doing drugs like it was candy. So any analysis post hoc will be susceptible to hindsight bias. If things had gone differently, we would also find voices for alternate paths.
Germany invested too much in state-of-the-art weapons and spent precious resources that could have been used more effectively on building "less impressive" but functional weapons. If instead of spending a fortune developing the V2 rocket, super heavy tanks like the Elefant or Maus or a gigantic and 100% useless cannon like the Schwerer Gustav and more of these resources building more units of simple but functional projects like the Panzerfaust, or the FW190 fighter or even a great assault rifle like the STG44, Germany could have held out much longer before being defeated. Paradoxically, the concept of "Wunderwaffe" contributed much more to the success of the Allied effort than the Germans themselves.
after kursk, only a miracle could save hitler. so 'wonder-weapons' got more money and jet fighters actually were produced. but the bottle-neck was production facilities. the german cause was not hopeless when barbarrossa was launched, but they got to moscow unprepared for winter. that was fatal.
Agree, although declaring war on the USA was only the final straw in a series of failures in 1941. The failure of the Blitz on Britain, failure of the Kriegsmarine in the Battle of the Atlantic (especially the loss of Bismarck ending the combined assault of surface raiders and U-boats) and the failure of Operation Barbarossa all meant that Germany's best and probably only chance to win the war was gone.
A very interesting and unique look at what was going on! It' a bit surprising that the Jumo engine took so few manhours to produce. I imagine that this efficiency is offset somewhat by the very short lifetime of the engine. OTOH, the long service life of a 109's engine won't matter much if the aircraft is shot down after a few missions. Lots of stuff to ponder!
Take a look at a DB 605 or Merlin engine, loots of moving part that must be be manufactured with a very high precision, now look how simpel the Jumbo are. If a Me-262 pilot survive 5 misson and have worn out the engines, he is a ace, or close to be a ace, and can get a new par of engines. Its not like a "green" German pilot survive 5 misson, in the later war.
The answer to the first part of the question is simple - Parts Count. The jets are mechanically simpler, and require less in the way of supporting accessories (Ignition Systems, Engine Cooling, Propeller Gearboxes and Governors, etc.). Germany was, like most of the rest of Europe, hampered by their poor understanding of how to efficiently do mass production - this was a drawback in everything from Small Arms to Warships. They weren't able to manufacture components to tight enough standards, so parts were hand-fitted - even (or especially) in the field. Quality of manufacture in a jet engine is very important, with their high temperatures, high rotational stresses, and the complicated and sensitive airflow within the engine. So, with reference to precision required, as opposed to a piston engine, it's a wash. The ease of manufacture of the jets was offset by the voracious appetite for engines to keep the planes operational. Basically, to keep an Me 262, or Ar 234 operational, you needed 4 engine sets - One set hung on the airplane. One set in transit to an overhaul facility. One set being overhauled (Hot Section Inspection and Replacement). One set in transit back from the overhaul facility to the airplane. When trucks are scarce, and attract attention from Allied Fighter-Bombers, and the alternative is a horse cart, what starts as a logistical problem becomes a logistical nightmare.
Only you and less than a handful of other Military History & Technology RU-vidrs discuss such complex topics concisely. From the technical to the strategic and logistical level. The swap to jet engines and fighters is motivated by many factors and considerations, all summed up and explained nicely. Excellent video, Chris.
Thanks Chris, great video. BUT, you forgot fuel. The jets could use low grade fuel that could be more easily made from coal [a kerosene like fuel]. Fuel was a constant headache for the Germans.
That's a question I posted two minutes after your comment. I know oil refining can produce cheaper kerosene than piston engine fuel, but not if the same applies to synthetic production from coal. Do you have any suggestions for reading up on this?
I think the move to the ME262 was justified by the performance of Luftwaffe Piston aircraft in 1944 and 45 against the daylight raids. Once the Allies got full range escorts, the Luftwaffe fighter losses were just far too unfavorable for the damage they were doing. The bomber intercept battles in the Autumn of 1944 especially were seeing 3 or 4 Luftwaffe fighters go down for every Allied fighter or bomber, just appalling given the Luftwaffe's numerical inferiority. The ME262 in the spring of 1945 manages to get somewhere around a 1:1 kill ratio, which is a significant improvement over the piston engine fighters using basically the same calibre of pilots (a mix of survivng experts and lots of under-trained pilots). A lot of people talk about the poor engine life of the ME262, but with the 262's roughly 7-10% loss rate per mission (from JG7) you're not looking at many air frames surviving long enough to need an engine change. And anyways what good was the piston engine aircraft's long engine life when those aircraft were being killed several times faster than the ME262s were? In isolation the ME262 was the right decision, however it took place in the circumstances of a losing war where it could never have a major impact.
For the first 5 of its seven months, the Me-262 had virtually no kills of any sort. 8th AF stats count 4 bombers in 5 months... Over 90% of its kills were with rockets in the last 2 months. Remember this: Guns HATE speed, especially on slow targets...
@@wrathofatlantis2316 While I completely agree the 30mm cannon's were often unsuited for the speed of the ME262 vs the bomber it was attacking, I don't agree with 90% of losses being from rockets. I suspect you may have watched WWII US Bomber's video on the ME262 and gotten than number from there? I do like his channel, but he makes a big assumption that since R4M rocket use began in march (actually not until half way through march), that all or most of US bomber losses in March and April 1945 were from rockets. A fair number of the surviving ME262 pilots were interviewed in the decades after WWII for books on the ME262, and frankly my impression from those accounts is that R4M rocket use was not all that common, and that guns were often used to shoot down US bombers. Having read a lot of the US reports on the battles with ME262's, I've pretty much never seen a single reference to rocket attacks. That surprises me because the 9th Air Force which tangled with JV44's jets (Adolf Gallands unit) actually talk a lot about rockets being used to take down their B-26 Marauders during those battles (they lost maybe 10 aircraft to Gallands unit), so the lack accounts from the 8th on rocket use is interesting to say the least. Between the general lack of German pilot accounts of uising R4M rockets, and the almost non-existent accounts from US sources (other than the 9th Air Force), my impression is their usage was probably not very great. There is also an element of lying on the part of ME262 pilots, there are very clear cases of false claims being submitted by ME262 pilots and one German book talks about the pilots agreeing to lie so they could avoid attacking the US bombers and the swarms of escorts. It very much looks like some ME262 pilots were trying to survive the obviously-lost war while also avoiding a noose from their own side for cowardice. It helps the ME262 doesn't seem to have ever had gun camera's installed so pilots could lie and not get caught. Anyways, this is a long way of saying that I don't see much evidence that 90% of US bomber losses were from rockets. 90% of US losses to ME262s did occur in March and April 1945, but pretty much 90% of ME262 sorties flown were in March and April 1945. Though R4M rockets did show up on ME262's starting half way through Mach 1945, there isn't much proof they really helped the ME262 all that much in shooting down bombers. 90% of US bomber losses should have occurred in March and April 1945 simply because like 90% of the ME262 combat sorties occurred during that time.
@@kellyshistory306 Interesting counter to the 8th AF data in the WWII US bombers video. It could very well be that you are right concerning the Me-262... It is true I mostly heard about B-26s being hit by rockets... However other parts of my research do indicate guns did not perform as expected at high crossing or high takeover speeds, which is why hit and run high speed attacks on fighters were mostly successful against unaware targets going straight, and even then they required the target being kept unaware to the last moment by firing at point-blank range. This reduced versatility of hit and run (compared to 1930s assumptions) lead to the ever increasing use of low speed turn fighting at reduced throttle, because sustained 3G turns achieved 3 things: 1-They broke diving attacks, 2-they trapped targets in the circle (rolling out was fatal) 3-They provided long firing windows at a steady range, if downthrottled enough to have the smaller radius for a leading aim without stalling. Energy state absolutely did not matter, and 2-4 consecutive circles was the norm by 1944, going up to 90 in some cases. Amazingly enough, only the Japanese Navy was steadfastly refusing slow speed 3G turns throughout the War, to the point of criticism by US Navy pilots(!), a recent discovery from intelligence archives by historian Justin Pyke. The opinion that the Zero sustained prolonged low speed turns was entirely based on US opinion of captured Zeros, not what the Zero actually did, though brief hard high speed turns could keep the legend alive. It shows the extremely poor level of research that not even this is correct...
Check out the in depth Me-262 video by Lord Hard Thrasher, grounded in at least four books he used for research. Came out in early 2024 and majes clear that this Jerry fighter would likely have been very good in 1947, but had so much new technology to work out, it was thrown into battle much too soon.
@@amerigo88 I still think the R4M rockets were the big advance for intercepting big bombers, not the 262. And these could probably have been built in 1941 for all we know...
You know, when you put it this way, they may have been on to something. The Vietnamese really put a hurt on us (The united states) by targeting our strike packages as a whole with the intention of neutering them instead of trying to win dogfights, and even had some success in this despite their inferior aircraft. It is fortunate the unique challenges of piloting a jet during ww2 derailed the german strategy.
Thanks Chis for another excellent video! This nicely compliments Dan Sharp's book on the Me-262, which I'm reading at the moment. I'm finding the gestation of this remarkable aircraft really hard to follow. There was so much industrial politics, times when there were no engines for the airframe and the the BMW-003 engines initially failed so the moved to the Jumo-004 end then there were times when there were engines but no airframe and airframes but not engines. Over all of this was the over-extension of the Messerschmitt AG with Bf-109, Bf-110, Me-323 plus development programs for the Me-264 while Messerschmitt and Lippish seemed to maintain an ongoing brawl over the Me-163. Lurking above all of that was the extended disaster of the Me-210 which was so unstable that crews were refusing to fly it Goering was furious and Milch - who had had it in for Messerschmitt since his Lufthansa days made his life as unpleasant as possible. There simply were not enough engineering and jig making staff needed to fix the Me-210 plus stick-handle all the other projects at Messerschmitt so sometimes the Me-262 went on hiatus for months at a time and this was made worse by ongoing efforts to conscript such people into combat in Russia. Meanwhile there were all kinds of running Me-262 variations on bomber versions, high speed versions, increased wing and elevator sweep back, armament, pressurized cockpit or not, then waiting for the Jumo-004C, which was taking longer to arrive so they had to go into operation wit the Jumo-004B but there were plans for the Heinkel HeS-011. Meanwhile Hitler was demanding fighter bombers and Messerschmitt had more or less to built that capability into the aircraft early on, except the bomb racks were not fitted to the first 100 aircraft. All this stuff seemed to be coming down at once. Meanwhile Willi Messerschmitt was forced out of control of his own company by Goering due to failures and delays associated with the Me-210. The argument that a gas turbine is much cheaper to build than a V12 is certainly sound, but in purely procurement terms you don't see the benefit unless you are able to build fighters with single jet engines. Then apparently the entire unit becomes cheaper than a contemporary piston engine interceptor. That was a large part of the thinking behind the He-162 (along with some weird notions about flying it in combat with barely trained kids). There was also the fact that the gas turbines could burn a wide range of non-strategic fuels, and the kerosene style fuel they ended up using meant they were not competing for B4 or C2 fuels for the piston engine aircraft. It's amazing they ever managed to get the Me-262A into service at all, quite apart from being forced to build gas turbines with drastically reduced nickel content from the Jumo-004A to the Jumo-004B. When you consider that they were inventing all this stuff as they went along, it's hard to believe. Thanks again Chris. Really enjoyed this one.
the TLDR of this video seems to be: German planners in 1943-'44: "If we do exactly what we have been doing, we are positively, 100% screwed. If we do something different the outcome may be different" You can't blame them for going down a path that led to places unknown.
The technical discussion is interesting in its own right but is still ultimately irrelevant and subservient to the fact that there never was a time when Germany could have won. No advancement of technology or industrial innovation could compensate for the combined might of a coalition that would accept only total defeat as a successful outcome. As it was, the 262 played virtually no role in slowing the Allied bombing offensive.
The Me262 had a lot of problems, including the extra training requirement for twin-engine operation. IMO The He162 was a much better option as a fighter due to its lower production and training costs but time was against it. I look forward to watching your video comparing the 2 aircraft to see what you think.
It's a logical gamble given that the Germans are focusing in engine development since the mid-1930s. They understand that speed gives superiority as the faster fighter can always trade speed for space.
I always love these videos "The bomber offensive was not war winning" but then the video goes on to explain Germany stood everything on its head to attempt stop the bombers.
They did not "stood everything on its head". Even at the end of the war Germans were producing more piston fighters than jet fighters. But the time of the piston warplanes was passing, that was clear to everyone everywhere.
I think that the Allied bombing offensive clearly helped the war effort. One of the biggest results was the reallocation of the German flak guns from the front lines back into the Reich. The implications on just the Russian Front meant less T-34's would have been annihilated by the 88's. By the end of the war the Germans still had over 7000 88's mostly in Germany.
Dan Sharp's groundbreaking book on the 262 (262 Development and politics) blows up many myths and injects a long needed dose of reality into the conversation and shows once and for all from the project head's own words, that those very mildly swept wings happened by accident, not design. 'An inelegant solution to a CofG problem' as he describes it. The 262 was both better and worse than many people think and not the 'potential gamechanger' that is often claimed.
The Luftwaffe was looking for bomber killer that Allied fighters couldn't easily shoot down or dogfight not an air superiority fighter; never heard that angle before.
This is one of your best videos in my opinion. A very nice break down of the logic behind the decision at every level. German bashing has overtaken the wehraboos and its equally as bad because it completely ignore the very valid reasoning they had for the switch. It really does seem that there were only two issues with their idea. Fuel, and the fact the high caliber cannons weren't actually that good at killing bombers (per USAAF report).
Why didn't you mention those air-to-air rockets that was fitted un to the ME 262 late in the war. I saw a video that claimed the rockets increased the lethality of the ME 262 by more than 300%
i know Dogfights are going to happen. but why would the M262 engage in one itself. the only scenario in which the dogfight would happen is if the allied fighters would have energy superiority.
In my opinion, another important point that brought the German to switch to the jet engine was the fact that, in mid-late 1944, they basically hadn't more room left for their piston engines develompent while the allied did. The German lacked Behind in high octane fuels and raw materials for some of their engine components and they knew that, for these reasons, they were playing a game at which the allied were advantaged. Switching to jet engines, led them to a path they had been already studying for several years, in which they had esperience and that could have brought them to a position of matching effectively the allied quantity with quality derived from the tecnological gap of the jet over the piston powered aircraft.
