WW2 Luftwaffe - what if strategic vision had prevailed?

[T. A. Gardner]

How can you call the development slow, if all others in this world have been slower?? Even with the best materials available the US didn't manage to built anything which came close to the performance of the M232 years after it was introduced.

The P-80 went from an order to produce a jet fighter from the USAAF to a flyable prototype in 139 days. Messerschmitt spent the better part of three years trying to get the Me 262 into something that worked. During that period, the 262 was redesigned from tail dragger to tricycle landing gear. The wing was almost completely redesigned. Engines were swapped.

The YP-80 clocked in at about 520 mph.
The P-80 did about 540 mph.
The P-80C which in wartime would have been in production about late 1946 was doing 590.

So, yes, the earliest P-80's were slower than the 262. They progressively got faster. The P-80 had other advantages the Germans could only dream of like a lead computing radar ranging gyroscopic gunsight, an option for tail warning radar (APS-13). Hydraulic power on all control surfaces.

That aside, both sides were eying a next generation of jet aircraft that would potentially enter service in 1946 to 1947 in wartime conditions.

If this would have been made by Germans you would surly call it over complex:

''E, Westinghouse, Lockheed, and Vickers all began developing axial jet engines before any of them saw a German one. The most complex was undoubtedly Lockheed's where Nathan Pierce, a protege of the steam engine genius of Abner Doble, built the utterly massive J37 / L 1000 engine with a two-section 32 stage compressor with variable speed and a 5 turbine section to drive it.''

Daimler Benz's attempt at a turbojet, the DB 007, was the same sort of complex insanity Price's J37 was. It had a 17-stage compressor with two sets of counterrotating compressor blades. DB then added three sets of blades outside the compressor section to give this engine an early turbofan / ducted fan section.

The whole thing never quite worked or lived up to what was promised. It was far too much for the available engineering at the time.

Price did his design in hopes of matching the fuel efficiency of piston aircraft engines but that failed to materialize and the J37, like the DB 007 never got beyond a working prototype or two.

 

[Justo Miranda]

Germany never had the industrial capacity, nor the fuel, to build and maintain a fleet of heavy bombers. No European country has ever had them.

In the 1940s, this immense technological feat was only available to the United States and a decadent British empire determined to mortgage its future to survive, although perhaps it was not a brilliant idea.

This costly effort also did little to shorten the war.

British bombers were forced to operate at night dropping their bombs anywhere in Germany in "zone bombing" operations in which it was considered a success for bombs to fall within a kilometer of the target.

American bombers equipped with Norden bombsight proved unable to destroy the Nakajima factory, bombing from high altitude, because Japan was always covered in clouds and strong winds deflected the bombs.

Only the Mosquito medium bombers equipped with the Oboe navigation system and the B-25s equipped with delayed-explosion bombs that bounced off the water achieved good results until enormous technological advances made the heavy bombers useful, when the Axis was already practically defeated.

Even if Germany had invested all the resources of the V-Weapons in a fleet of four engines, Heinkel’s would have had the same problems as the Allies in destroying the Supermarine factories, the Scapa Flow base or the factories in the Urals. The new weapon required a long period of development that neither side had.

But Germany had a real opportunity that no one wanted to see. The combination of the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 and small R4M rocket had the real ability to annihilate American bomber formations to the point of suspending operations over the Reich, which would have saved the synthetic fuels industry for long enough for the ground-attack versions of the Fw 190s equipped with the anti-tank version of R4M to halt the Red Army's advance.

If W-Weapons resources had been devoted to mass manufacturing the Fw 190, the battlefronts would have stalled and the Allies would have had great difficulty getting a nuclear bomber through the formidable German air defense.

 

[Rule of cool]

Despite all the objections my main reason for 'supporting' more heavy bombers is because the Luftwaffe was saddled with a bunch of obsolete aircraft by 1942. At the very least an Alt-He177 is a new design.

 

[Nicknick]

The P-80 went from an order to produce a jet fighter from the USAAF to a flyable prototype in 139 days. Messerschmitt spent the better part of three years trying to get the Me 262 into something that worked. During that period, the 262 was redesigned from tail dragger to tricycle landing gear. The wing was almost completely redesigned. Engines were swapped.

The YP-80 clocked in at about 520 mph.
The P-80 did about 540 mph.
The P-80C which in wartime would have been in production about late 1946 was doing 590.

So, yes, the earliest P-80's were slower than the 262. They progressively got faster. The P-80 had other advantages the Germans could only dream of like a lead computing radar ranging gyroscopic gunsight, an option for tail warning radar (APS-13). Hydraulic power on all control surfaces.

That aside, both sides were eying a next generation of jet aircraft that would potentially enter service in 1946 to 1947 in wartime conditions.

Daimler Benz's attempt at a turbojet, the DB 007, was the same sort of complex insanity Price's J37 was. It had a 17-stage compressor with two sets of counterrotating compressor blades. DB then added three sets of blades outside the compressor section to give this engine an early turbofan / ducted fan section.

The whole thing never quite worked or lived up to what was promised. It was far too much for the available engineering at the time.

Price did his design in hopes of matching the fuel efficiency of piston aircraft engines but that failed to materialize and the J37, like the DB 007 never got beyond a working prototype or two.

You seam to be obsessed with the radar superiority. I guess, after haven to retreat in the other areas (hard metal cutting tools, forging, standardisation, fight control of the X-4 rocket, homing torpedos...) you have a point which you need to address in every posting. You should say a big thank you to Christian Hülsmeyer the inventor of the radar.

The M262 worked and shot down allied aircrafts, right from the beginning. As every airplanes during WW2, al lot of changes were made over the time. The Mustangs, Spitfires and Me109 also changed their wings, engines etc. which doesn't mean that they didn't work before.

Speculation about hypothetical wonder weapons, no matter from which side in 1947 don't really interest me. Also achievements of the time after the war are not relevant. Each side had a lot in their pipeline, but for obvious and undeniable reasons, the war came to an end (luckily).

 

[Scott Kenny]

The M262 worked and shot down allied aircrafts, right from the beginning. As every airplanes during WW2, al lot of changes were made over the time. The Mustangs, Spitfires and Me109 also changed their wings, engines etc. which doesn't mean that they didn't work before.

No, the 262 didn't fly well until it got the nosewheel.

Yes, it did work once Messerschmidt ignored the Austrian Painter's idiocy, and they started using them as interceptors, not as ground attackers.

 

[Nicknick]

Actually, a nose wheel does change very little on flying behaviour... I'm sure, the Americans never noticed that the M262 worked better with a tricycle landing gear, as well as they never paid any interest in German stuff...

About the stupid ground attack role, I also heard the story in a variant, that Messerschmidt pretended it was a good idea from the Fuehrer and of course the plane could do this...

 

[T. A. Gardner]

Actually, a nose wheel does change very little on flying behaviour... I'm sure, the Americans never noticed that the M262 worked better with a tricycle landing gear, as well as they never paid any interest in German stuff...

They didn't in that respect seeing as how the US was using tricycle landing gear on aircraft as early as 1936 -37. And, that was not some one-off either. Also, the US versions generally weren't weak and prone to failure like Messerschmitt's were.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

You seam to be obsessed with the radar superiority. I guess, after haven to retreat in the other areas (hard metal cutting tools, forging, standardisation, fight control of the X-4 rocket, homing torpedos...) you have a point which you need to address in every posting. You should say a big thank you to Christian Hülsmeyer the inventor of the radar.

Hardly. As for Hülsmeyer, that's like saying that Sir Humphry Davies invented the light bulb. I consider all technology when looking at some complex system like a military aircraft. Having a vastly improved fire control system means an aircraft's offensive and defensive armament are far more effective.

As another example, the Germans tried mightily to get remote controlled turrets for bomber defense to work. They were never able to do so to a point where they were truly viable or effective. The US managed this with the fire control system on the B-29. Germany had nothing like it, not even close.

The X-4 was rubbish. Homing torpedoes?

The Mk 24 mine, aka FIDO homing torpedo, made the German version look like a joke. That aside, the German version was countered almost immediately as the Allies had predicted that the Germans might develop an acoustic homing torpedo--given that they were developing one--and produced a working countermeasure for it (Foxer). A modified version of the Mk 24, the Mk 27 Cutie was issued for use by submarines against surface ships.

The M262 worked and shot down allied aircrafts, right from the beginning. As every airplanes during WW2, al lot of changes were made over the time. The Mustangs, Spitfires and Me109 also changed their wings, engines etc. which doesn't mean that they didn't work before.

A few. On the whole, its operational performance was rather mediocre. Kommando Nowotny starting with started operations in September 1944 with 30 aircraft. In roughly 60 days, the unit was reduced to 2. That is, the unit lost 28 aircraft to achieve 24 kills. Hardly a stellar performance.

 

[Arjen]

So, were is the source for the 500 mph top speed of the Shooting star?

Reply #69:
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/th...vision-had-prevailed.32473/page-2#post-942672

Maximum speed data for early P-80s from Lockheed Aircraft since 1913 by René J Francillon, Putnam 1982:
- XP-80: 502 mph / 808 km/h at 20,840 ft / 6,240 m - first prototype, de Havilland H.1B Goblin turbojet
- XP-80A: 553 mph / 890 km/h at 5,700 ft / 1,735 m - second and third prototypes, General Electric I-40 turbojet
- YP-80A: no data - service trials aircraft, reduced weight, General Electric J33-GE-11/ Allison J33-A-9 developed from I-40,
- P-80A: 558 mph / 898 km/h at sea level - J33 powered production aircraft

From The American Fighter by Enzo Angelucci and Peter M Bowers, Haynes 1987:
- P-80A: 492 mph / 792 km/h at 40,000 ft / 12,192 m

Compare with Me 262 and best piston engine fighters.
Angelucci/Bowers give the same P-80A sea level maximum speed as Francillon: 558 mph / 898 km/h.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Actually, a nose wheel does change very little on flying behaviour...

It apparently made takeoff very challenging.