THE Me 262 AND ‘LOST OPPORTUNITIES’ IN THE AIR SUPERIORITY CONTEST Professor Philip Sabin King’s College London
LOST OPPORTUNITIES ‘We need quality of performance, if only to restore in our own force the sense of superiority, even if our numbers are smaller. At the moment I would rather have one ME-262 than five ME- 109s.’ (Adolf Galland, Apr 1944) ‘Today I still believe that it was not exaggerated optimism to expect from a mass action of ME-262 fighters a fundamental change in the German air defence even at that late hour.’ (Adolf Galland, 1953)
LOST OPPORTUNITIES ‘In my opinion the Me 262 was the most formidable aircraft of World War II. If the Germans could have produced them in large numbers we should have been in very serious trouble.’ (Captain Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown, 1961) ‘As the situation deteriorated further, Hitler closed his mind more and more to any word against his decisions. This had crucial consequences in the technical area; because of it the most valuable of our “secret weapons” was made worthless. That was the Me-262, with a fighting capability far superior to any plane the enemy had.’ (Albert Speer, 1969)
LOST OPPORTUNITIES? ‘For all of the great hopes entertained by the Messerschmitt 262 earlier in the war, during its nine months of operations it had been able to achieve little. From a detailed study of British and American records it appears that in the fighter role it caused the destruction of no more than 150 Allied aircraft – for the loss of about 100 Me 262s in aerial combat.’ (Jeffrey Ethell & Alfred Price, 1979)
LOST OPPORTUNITIES? ‘Only a very small proportion of the Me 262s built ever went into action. After the end of October 1944 the various Messerschmitt plants were turning out Me 262s in numbers far greater than the Luftwaffe could usefully employ; and by the end of the war more than 1,400 had been delivered. Yet there were never more than about 200 in service with operational units at any one time; and rarely, if ever, were more than 60 Me 262 sorties of all types mounted on any one day.’ (Jeffrey Ethell & Alfred Price, 1979)
LOST OPPORTUNITIES? ‘Several postwar writers have derided Luftwaffe leaders for failing to get the Me 262 into large- scale production early enough. Yet if anything the production of the aircraft was initiated too early, and Me 262 airframes started coming off the assembly line before the engine to power them was ready for mass production. Nor did Adolf Hitler’s order regarding the initial use of the Me 262 as a fighter-bomber cause any appreciable delay in the type’s operational introduction as a fighter.’ (Alfred Price, 1997)
LOST OPPORTUNITIES? ‘At the beginning of 1944 it had seemed that the side which was first to bring into service large numbers of jet aircraft would gain a huge advantage in the battle for air supremacy. Certainly the jets had the potential to win that supremacy for, particularly in the case of the German aircraft, their performance was far in advance of anything previously achieved. Yet due to poor serviceability these aeroplanes went into action only in relatively small numbers. In a large- scale conflict a few aeroplanes, no matter how brilliant their flying performance, cannot and did not secure decisive results.’ (Alfred Price, 1997)
SIMULATION INSIGHTS
SIMULATION INSIGHTS
MANUAL SIMULATIONS
MANUAL SIMULATIONS
FIGHTER DUEL
FIGHTER DUEL
FIGHTER DUEL
SIMULATION LESSONS Speed and the ‘bounce’ Energy superiority in defence & offence Eroding energy margins Dominance of g limits Turn & roll rates Heavy cannon Pilot inexperience Rotte vs kette
DOGFIGHT
DOGFIGHT
DOGFIGHT
SIMULATION RESULTS Chance of an Me 262 being downed: 87% Chance of a Fw 190 being downed: 60% Chance of a Tempest being downed: 40%
SIMULATION LESSONS Concrete runway dependence Slow speed vulnerability Bracketing tactics Cloud cover Airfield defence flight Pilot inexperience Airfield flak Mutual attrition
SIMULATION INSIGHTS To download my designs, Google ‘Wing Leader BGG’
FURTHER INFORMATION http://professionalwargaming.co.uk/ https://paxsims.wordpress.com/
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