Revisionist tendencies and Ambrose Sindrome

[mkenny]

What is the point of this discussion anyway?

To dispell myths like this one

while the Germans fielded King Tigers and Jagtigers by 1944 and had the Maus on the way.

The Maus was not 'on the way' because production was terminated in 1943.
How many knew that? I hope (misplaced optimism?) it will stop future references to this 'super-tank' being just around the corner.

[VeenenbergR]

Lwd.

Of the shipmodels and their popularity. If I visit a hobbyshop in the Netherlands each of those can tel you the next things:

- Aircraft are most popular, closely followed by AFV's and definitely on the third place comes ships (most 16th/17th century, WWII and modern ones).

- Of the planes there is a mixed interest in all types and all nations, periods. No bias. Popular producers: Hasegawa (1:48), Revell (1:72) sell good.
- Of the armour the German WWII is most sold (3 to 4 times more than the next group)(Dragon, Tamiya, AFV, Italeri etc), Nato tanks, Russian tank (modern and WWII). The least bought are the Western Allied tanks
of WWII, of them US TD's are the best sold. Figures comes fourth (last). Of them the Dragon 1:35 WWII series is the most popular, with a clear bias to German WWII soldiers.
- Of the ships the most sold are battleships (Trumpeter, Tamiya) with on top the Bismarck, Prinz Eugen but US modern battleships, Arizona, Hood and Yamato are also popular, followed by the US carriers (WWII and
modern ones). Japanese cruisers are popular but the choice is limited.

[lwd]

Lwd, I don't say you are not right. I say that you're statement is grossly speculative, that is - we can never know if such a plane would have entered service in the allied air corps.

Speculative. In a sense perhaps. But grossly so not at all. If you look at the developement of US weapons systems you can see that reliability was a serious consideration. Take for instance the T-23. Experiments showed it to be extremely maneuverable but conerns about the ability to maintain it were one of the primary reasons it wasn't adopted. Note that it was not that it had poor reliability but simly concerns over it's unfamiliar electric transmission. There were also complaints about the reliability of the Pershing although I'm pretty sure it's MMBF was way ahead of the cats.

Also, the plane achieved numerous victories and flew some thousands of hours. Saying "it wasn't ready for operational use", despite that, begs a solid definition of what "operational" truely means for you...

It's ready for operational use when you can hand it over to a pilot just out of flight school and expect him to survive flying it for a while in the absence of opposition and when you can support several squadrons in simultaneous service. The Me-262 wasn't there.

Also, "significant chance of loosing an engine every flight mearly from mechanical failure" is quite a powerfull statement. Are you sure about that?

Do the math. Even if you assume the engine has a MMBF of 30 hours that means an Me-262 could expect an engine failure every 15 hours of flight time. I believe the German records also point to this not being an unusual event.

The Meteor saw limited service in WW2, and that against un-maned flying bombs. It had a top speed of 670km/h.

Interesting as this site
http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft ... aft_id=123
lists the top speed as 410 mph which is ~660 kph and that's for the mark 1. It states the Mk 3 which saw service in WWII got up to ~600mph or ~970 kph

[lwd]

Lwd.

Of the shipmodels and their popularity. If I visit a hobbyshop in the Netherlands each of those can tel you the next things:

- Aircraft are most popular, closely followed by AFV's and definitely on the third place comes ships (most 16th/17th century, WWII and modern ones).

That's nice. When I was going up and from the looks of things the last few times I've gone in model shops cars were number 1 in the US. The US is a bigger market than the Netherlands but I'm not going to make any generaliztions based on that small of a sample. A small biassed sample is not sufficient to base a general conclusion on with any great confidence.

[hammy]

The panzer Maus .
That is a tank that you cant drive over any bridge without providing an over-deck support because the thing is so heavy .
You cant drive it over any road of the time because the roads , even the autobahns , are insufficiently thick to take it and every place there is a duct or pipe across under the road is going to crack and collapse .
When you brake a track to make a turn you will rip the road to rubble .
You cant put it on a railway carriage because its too wide and it wont go through rail tunnels and bridges because it is too high and too wide .
There is no road transporter for it , and even if you built one the load length/weight/height is going to be over-size for the roads of the time and the clutter of obstacles to each side and above .
It wont go over any standard pontoon bridge or fit onto any existing German army ferry raft types .
It will wade through a fair depth of water , but will sink into anything other than a solid rock river bottom and is likely to be reluctant to climb anything except a ramp specially prepared for this panzer type on the other side of the river , in order to get out again .

As an exercise in designing and building advanced AFV concepts , fine .
In a limited role as a point-blocking "pill-box" with a limited degree of movement , OK .
But as a usable weapon for armies engaged in a war of manouvre on the topography of Northern Europe the thing is an utter dog .

[alecsandros]

Do the math. Even if you assume the engine has a MMBF of 30 hours that means an Me-262 could expect an engine failure every 15 hours of flight time. I believe the German records also point to this not being an unusual event.
The Meteor saw limited service in WW2, and that against un-maned flying bombs. It had a top speed of 670km/h.

Interesting as this site
http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft ... aft_id=123
lists the top speed as 410 mph which is ~660 kph and that's for the mark 1. It states the Mk 3 which saw service in WWII got up to ~600mph or ~970 kph

I don't think this discussion is getting us anywhere, and it's below my expectations.

There are numerous good books that cover the ME-262 operational use, performance and results. Some even compare it to the Meteor/P-80.
The conclusion is the same, throughtout: the ME-262 was superior to either of them. This IS common knowledge now. If you feel able to chalenge it, please bring in the books/experts or your own analysis and conclusions.

I suggest "Me-262 - Arrow to the future", by Walter Boyne and "Messerchmitt Me-262 Development Testing Production" by Willy Radinger and Walter Schick.
From there you will find out that the engines were replaced at a constant rate on the ground, so they were very rarely "lost in flight". Also, you will be able to read accounts of battles told by Galand and Nowotny, and their appreciation for this jet-fighter.

[alecsandros]

As an exercise in designing and building advanced AFV concepts , fine .
In a limited role as a point-blocking "pill-box" with a limited degree of movement , OK .
But as a usable weapon for armies engaged in a war of manouvre on the topography of Northern Europe the thing is an utter dog .

My mistake, Chris :) The Maus was dead before birth, and for good reason...
Nevertheless, the German armor was above British contemporary armor (1942-1945), wouldn't you agree ?

[lwd]

Just found a reference that addresses this quote:

....
Luftwaffe ground forces: best infantry of the Wehrmacht! Herman Göring Fallschirmjäger Panzer Division: an (large) elite force with an impressive unit coding, unique in history!
....

From: http://books.google.com/books?id=NbmtnA ... q=&f=false
page 13 (I can't copy and paste so any typo's are likely mine

... The poor performance of the Tiger I in Sicily was due to the poor performance of the Luftwaffe's Herman Goering Panzer Division rather than to shortcomings in the tank desin ...

[lwd]

...There are numerous good books that cover the ME-262 operational use, performance and results. Some even compare it to the Meteor/P-80.
The conclusion is the same, throughtout: the ME-262 was superior to either of them. This IS common knowledge now. If you feel able to chalenge it, please bring in the books/experts or your own analysis and conclusions.

If the comparison doesn't take reliabilty and maintainability into consideration or gives them little weight then I can see that conclusion being reached. That's not an unreasonable path to take when you are comparing experimental aircraft. It's a very bad one to take when you are talking about operational ones.

I suggest "Me-262 - Arrow to the future", by Walter Boyne and "Messerchmitt Me-262 Development Testing Production" by Willy Radinger and Walter Schick.
From there you will find out that the engines were replaced at a constant rate on the ground, so they were very rarely "lost in flight". Also, you will be able to read accounts of battles told by Galand and Nowotny, and their appreciation for this jet-fighter.

That still represents a huge log requirement. But let's look at some other referencs
http://thefutureofthings.com/print.php? ... temId=5887

... As aviation historian Alfred Price wrote: “…at this time (May 1944) the poor reliability of the 004 engines precluded the operational use of the Me 262 in any rule.”
Hitler reversed his decision after the Normandy landings, but even when they entered service, German jets continued to suffer from the temperamental nature of their engines. ...

http://naziscienceliveson.devhub.com/bl ... compromise

Interestingly, although the Me 262 is usually portrayed as being the forebear of many advanced concepts, it was actually very much a compromise aircraft and its designers were not particularly happy with several aspects of it. The "advanced" swept-wing was an inelegant solution to a center-of-gravity problem, while the underslung nacelles compensated for oversized and overweight powerplants. Its designers were not supermen changing the world, but competent engineers responding to events largely out of their control.

Although it was the first jet fighter to see combat, its development was not significantly advanced of similar aircraft being built in the United States and Britain. It was, however, ordered into mass production much sooner than its Allied counterparts.
...
The general performance of the Meteor Mk I was inferior to the Me 262, but the Mk III closed most of the gap. Top speeds were roughly comparable, but the Meteor had better acceleration. The Derwent engines were more reliable than the Jumos in the Me 262 and had better throttle response.
...
After the war, "Watson's Whizzers," led by Colonel Harold E. Watson from USAAF Air Technical Intelligence, shipped several intact Me 262s to the United States for further evaluation. The tests, conducted by Albert Boyd (the head of flight test for the USAAF) and a soon-to-be-legendary Chuck Yeager, determined that the performance of the Me 262 was essentially equal to the P-80A.
...
Nevertheless, the Me 262 had excellent performance compared of other early jet fighters. It was clearly superior to the Meteor Mk I, its closest contemporary, and was essentially equal to the later Meteor Mk III. It is possible that at certain altitudes the Me 262 could out-climb a Meteor, albeit only by a slight margin. The most telling difference was the reliability of the British engines and their relatively benign response to throttle movements.

The somewhat later P-80A was more maneuverable than the Me 262, but carried a much lighter armament. The P-80A featured an efficient laminar-flow wing, six 0.50-caliber machine guns, power-boosted ailerons, and a reliable engine. The P-80A was faster at low altitudes, but the Me 262 was faster at medium and high altitudes. The P-80A was probably the better fighter, while the Me 262 was the superior interceptor. Both the Meteor and the P-80 could easily out-turn the Me 262.

And just to throw in a wiki reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_262

...Nowotny chose to fly a mission against an enemy formation. After an engine failure, he was shot down and killed ...
...
It was used for performance comparisons against the P-80. During testing between May and August 1946, the aircraft completed eight flights, lasting four hours and 40 minutes. Testing was discontinued after four engine changes were required during the course of the tests, culminating in two single-engine landings.[40]

Oh and let's not forgeth this one:
http://www.zenoswarbirdvideos.com/Image ... EBRIEF.pdf
(typeing mine on this one as it won't copy and paste, apologies for any typo's)
from page 5

... , it was not infrequent for parts to be stripped off in steep, fast dives, and Fay has himself lost cockpit covers, bomb racks, and the needle-valve of the tail-pipe during dives.

[mkenny]

You have to ask why the Luftwaffe had any tanks to begin with. What next a Kriegsmarine Panzer Division?

[hammy]

Nevertheless, the German armor was above British contemporary armor (1942-1945), wouldn't you agree ?

Yes I think that is fair .
One of the "annoying" aspects of the history of AFV development for a Brit , is that having developed the things as a weapon in the first place , the subsequent designs failed to keep abreast of foreign work , above all the German effort , especially as they weren't supposed to be playing with these toys at all under the Versailles controls on armaments .

Apart from some of the Matildas , all the rest from 1920 to 1944 are in a range of clunkingly poor to weak and bl******g awful ! Until 1945 , when the Cromwell and the Centurion come on the scene , and even those had some less-than-perfect features .

I wonder whether the fact that WW1 ended before mechanised mobile warfare could REALLY get going , and that it was largely to their old Cavalry organisations to whom most armies handed over the Arm after 1919 has something to do with how the different nations developed their own differing theories and conceptions of how to use the Tanks in the best way , and leading on from that , the variance between different countries as to what was procured and issued by way of types .
Certainly about 1940 the roles of light reconaissance / medium "cavalry" / Heavy "cavalry" / Infantry support were generally seperated into seperate formations using differing machines , and regarded as seperate tactical functions , as compared to the 1950s to 2000 usage of the Main Battle Tank for most of these roles .

In a way , AFV development in WW2 mimics what had occured in WW1 in respect of military aircraft - the conflict starts with a plethora of types , of which some are quickly shown to be grossly inadequate for their intended role , as the conflict continues we see rapid development of many new and more advanced types , some of which prove to be blind alleys or failed further attempts to improve on something that is basically hopeless , and by the end , a whole lot of extremely battleworthy designs have evolved in the armouries of most of the participants .

[VeenenbergR]

Lwd.

To start with: yes you are right, my knowledge of popularity of models is totally based on the Dutch market and all my modelling "friends" (about 60 and their opinions).
And you gave proof what I already knew: the performance of the HG Division was not as great as its inventory promised. In effect it was bad compared to its first rate equipment.
Still its equipment is great (splendid!) and the unique unit coding the most advanced ever seen in the field.

Best equiped (and also the largest) German Divisions were: Panzer Lehr (Normandy); Gross Deutschland (Russia 43-44); Hermann Göring (1943-44).
21st Panzer was also exceptionally strong in its Panzerjäger and PAK units during Normandy.
Hermann Göring performed "bad" in Italy 43, better around Warschau 44 and even good near Görlitz 45. So the performance eventually improved.
A lot depended on the commander of which the records were not very good.
The best performers however were 4 SS Panzer Divisions (Das Reich, Totenkopf, Wiking and Hitlerjugend) most panzer divisions of the Wehrmacht but notably the best were: 2nd (Wien); 6th, 7th, 11th, 13th, 24th (Ost Preussen); 23rd, 26th and 116th and most of the Panzer grenadier Divisions, notably the 16th (later 116th pz), 29th and Brandenburg Pz.gren Division.

Of al 400+ German divisions the one on top (elite of the elite) is the Panzer Grenadier Division Gross Deutschland from 1943 !! It was the best division of WWII in every aspect.

[lwd]

...Of al 400+ German divisions the one on top (elite of the elite) is the Panzer Grenadier Division Gross Deutschland from 1943 !! It was the best division of WWII in every aspect.

You really should watch those superlatives. "every aspect" !!! I seriously doubt it. Indeed I would point to fire support as a probable area where it would be inferior to British or US divisions. As far as amphibious ops it certainly wouldn't hold up to any of the Marine divisions or for airborne ops anyones airborne divisions. The same can proably be said of operatoins in mountainous areas. Indeed I would like to see your analysis of how it is supperior to the better late war US or British armored regiments or especially if you are looking at it as deployed for combat one of the better US infantry divisions.

[alecsandros]

If the comparison doesn't take reliabilty and maintainability into consideration or gives them little weight then I can see that conclusion being reached. That's not an unreasonable path to take when you are comparing experimental aircraft. It's a very bad one to take when you are talking about operational ones.

That still represents a huge log requirement. But let's look at some other referencs

Interestingly, although the Me 262 is usually portrayed as being the forebear of many advanced concepts, it was actually very much a compromise aircraft and its designers were not particularly happy with several aspects of it. The "advanced" swept-wing was an inelegant solution to a center-of-gravity problem, while the underslung nacelles compensated for oversized and overweight powerplants. Its designers were not supermen changing the world, but competent engineers responding to events largely out of their control.

Although it was the first jet fighter to see combat, its development was not significantly advanced of similar aircraft being built in the United States and Britain. It was, however, ordered into mass production much sooner than its Allied counterparts.
...
The general performance of the Meteor Mk I was inferior to the Me 262, but the Mk III closed most of the gap. Top speeds were roughly comparable, but the Meteor had better acceleration. The Derwent engines were more reliable than the Jumos in the Me 262 and had better throttle response.
...
After the war, "Watson's Whizzers," led by Colonel Harold E. Watson from USAAF Air Technical Intelligence, shipped several intact Me 262s to the United States for further evaluation. The tests, conducted by Albert Boyd (the head of flight test for the USAAF) and a soon-to-be-legendary Chuck Yeager, determined that the performance of the Me 262 was essentially equal to the P-80A....
Nevertheless, the Me 262 had excellent performance compared of other early jet fighters. It was clearly superior to the Meteor Mk I, its closest contemporary, and was essentially equal to the later Meteor Mk III. It is possible that at certain altitudes the Me 262 could out-climb a Meteor, albeit only by a slight margin. The most telling difference was the reliability of the British engines and their relatively benign response to throttle movements.
The somewhat later P-80A was more maneuverable than the Me 262, but carried a much lighter armament. The P-80A featured an efficient laminar-flow wing, six 0.50-caliber machine guns, power-boosted ailerons, and a reliable engine. The P-80A was faster at low altitudes, but the Me 262 was faster at medium and high altitudes. The P-80A was probably the better fighter, while the Me 262 was the superior interceptor. Both the Meteor and the P-80 could easily out-turn the Me 262.

Lwd, throwing random quotes of the internet won't help us in any way. Random quoting can prove absolutely everything, including that the world is flat, Atlantis was a real civilisation or that UFOs are abducting cows for gory experiments.
Those are all nonsense.

I've read some books about the Me-262 in particular, and about air warfare in Europe in general. Also, the memoirs of several fighter aces, both allied and german.
I can quote from any of those books, if you'd like, but you can point a finger and say I'm just taking of the parts that favor my position. The articles you quoted do not have references or have a completely different bibliography than they should.

So, if you want to have a decent point of view regarding the status quo of the Me-262 relative to his rivals, and to wage an informed conversation, please bring in relevant and authorised information.

P.S.: The test which Boyd and Yaeger performed had been falsified, because the Me-262 was drasticaly superior to the US fighter. This showed up in the early '80s, and is explained in "Me-262 Arrow to the Future" on pg 139.
"The test were not combat manouvres, but comparisons of speeds, rates of climb at different altitudes, and turning radius. The Messerchmitt had better speed and acceleration and an equal climb. The P-80 was easier to handle and had much better visibility."

P.P.S: there were some unfortunate accidents with the Me-262s, but to say that was the norm and that it wasn't an operational aircraft belongs to works of fiction. Again, please consult a dedicated source.

P.P.P.S: The max speed of the Meteor MkIII was around 800km/h.

[hammy]

You have to ask why the Luftwaffe had any tanks to begin with. What next a Kriegsmarine Panzer Division?

Our ( testicularly challenged ) aquaintance Mr Goering is responsible for this one , as in a grandiose gesture early in WW2 he had told Hitler that the Luftwaffe would raise some additional Divisions along Heer lines to supplement the numbers available .
Hitler agreed , in part because , taken en-masse , the Luftwaffe was very much on the Nazi side in political viewpoint , as opposed to a Conservative/reactionary Army Officer class , and an old fashioned Christian/Liberal Navy Officer class .
This also gave Goering additional meddling rights in Army matters and strategic discussion , further opportunity to interfere and to throw his weight (!) about in what didn't concern him .
Adi was pleased , because this all got up the Army's nose , and as a fairly weak character who had an inferiority complex about his intellectual and social betters , there was nothing he liked more than seeing them all at each others throats and running back to him for back-up .
It didnt help the war along much though .
The high reputation of these formations appears to rest in the UK on the Hermann Goering Division Itself , and the performance of at least some of its formations in defense in Italy against the British Army fighting its way up the Italian peninsular there from 1943 to 1945 .
As a young man I worked with many men who had been in that campaign , and the name of the HG division was a byword to them for something that was particularly unpleasant to be near .

In actuality the Luftwaffe divisions were not generally used , except in extremis , in front line service , for two main reasons .

The first is that the personnel were not generally the best material , usually being the misfits , the unintelligent , the disciplinary cases , and a handful of very odd people who had joined / had been selected to join - an outfit to do combat aviation , but now had decided that they wished to do Infantry combat instead , but in a Blue uniform instead of asking for a straight transfer to the Army . .... Hmmm !
As an ordinary Luftwaffe unit commander , or more likely the adjutant and the Stabs-Feldwebel , faced with a directive to seek "Volunteers" for these new units your first instinct would have been , in an overwhelming majority of cases , to ship out every possible human nuisance within reach , by the use of the usual extreme forms of coercion and blackmail available in all armed services , and as a heaven sent opportunity .

The second was that Hermann decided to improve the Army way of doing things , and organised and equipped the Luftwaffe divisions on a different scale to standard Heer units , and sometimes gave them different equiment altogether , so that capabilities were not the same , making coherent deployment in pursuit of objectives problematical due to the differing strengths and weaknesses this caused . Accordingly , the "Divisions" frequently found themselves broken up into dispersed units engaged in secondary tasks in the back areas .

A further example then of Third Reich's propensity to dissapate its vital resources and muddle command and control in pursuit of the selfish and often petty egocentricity of the leadership group .

Oh and as regards the Kreigsmarine , they DID actually have some Marines , and as well as the usual things marines are used for , some units were thrown into the land combat , especially in 1945 , but as units attached to someones battlegroup , not in any Divisional set-up of there own .