ı would have loved one more person that wasn't also sure about his eyesight to say something as ı know multiple posts are frowned upon . As it is ı have this one more thing to say on the subject . My efforts have been so far described as intellectual dishonesty through another medium which made me somewhat proud as it took me 15years to get the drift in the last sentence of this particular post . ı had intented to post these arguments at another forum , alas they banned me for the duration .
don't know the exact numbers but ı think it will be safe to say that readers of "this " forum - where ı am bete noir at the moment -are at least 99% rational .Considering the far higher membership on this forum , the ratio is of course even higher here but ı have to defend the first one as it is a specialized aviation site .
So when somebody comes up with a picture of 2 torpedoes hung under the pathetically short ranged Luftwaffe interceptor the sweet flying death trap aka Me-163 , there won't be much comment about the futility of the project ; everybody knows it was a waste of time for Germans .
ı specialize in irrationality .
but can't say ı am anything but a layman . ı have seen bomb racks under every kind of combat aircraft , am fully conversant with the fact that fighter bombing came of age in the Second World War and even can understand that putting pylons call for local strengthening in the airframe , aerodynamic testing to identify and correct any problems , operational trials to find out optimum tactics and many other things that are yet to be deduced by me but ı am still utterly confused by the accounts of Adolf Hitler's profound rage in May '44 when he heard that there were no '262 bombers yet . Ordering fighterbomber ability in every new delivery from that time on he has long been accused of squandering the last chance of Germany to build up an interceptor force capable of winning the air war . More recent views oppose this - one ı will name below suggesting the fighters were delayed by only 3 weeks at most - and as ı was saying ı have been long mystified . Afterall when Luftwaffe started using the Sturmvogels in ground attack missions eventually they achieved practically nothing as the Allied air defences forced them to fly fast and sort of high where the lack of a suitable sight meant the bombs would be delivered inaccurately , even by the far looser WW2 standarts .
the logic is understandable . Allies will cover their landing troops furiously . Speed is essential . Speed in penetration allows bomb delivery and survival to come back later , to repeat the performance . Classics in the Luftwaffe service can't do it but the new jet can . Causing delays on the part of the invasion forces will allow concentration of Panzer divisions to smash the Allies . At times you can even sense the amazement of some authors of such statements that the little Corporal had a reasonable view on the subject ! Dr. Alfred Price in the June 1995 issue of Air International offers a good examination of the matter ; unsurprising considering the reputations of both the author and the magazine . No doubt basing his account on personal memories and meeting minutes , Dr. Price goes onto explain how Erhard Milch , the Luftwaffe officer responsible for aircraft production asked for it by declaring that not only there were no bombers yet but to make them extensive design changes were needed . The part that confuses me... Since in about August Me-262s were bombing Allies in Normandy in shallow dive attacks where the planes pulled out above 4000 meters . ı had long forgotten that ; research always pays dividends when you need to support your harebrained theory . In regards to effectiveness of such raids a USN pilot has had once opinionated that those pilots such as USAAF crews releasing at 3 to 5 000 feet would undoubtedly be grounded by their commanders if they were in the USN as the Navy bombers could go as low as 1 000 feet , but again the opposition must be taken into account ; in Korea , WW2 veterans of the Pasific would consider the North Korean flak as heavy , while those of ETO would not . German flak has had quite a reputation . Considering the altitude limit placed on the 262 Luftwaffe appears to have some real impression about the Allied capabilities.
what is so special about the bombers ? What is the extensive design requirement ? The Japanese Nakajima Kikka was a Me-262 based attack aircraft , though smaller in size . ı have heard nothing against its suitability for its mission , which by the way was suicide attack . Unless some German genius had not imagined putting some shaped charge bomb in that peculiar front fuselage making it compulsory to return to the original tail dragger form or more sensibly requiring integral wing tanks to replace the would be lost 900 lt front fuel tank , ı can't see why Luftwaffe could not have Me-262s that could intercept bombers on one mission and after having bomb pylons fitted on the airfield , attack ground targets on the next .
for all he has been rightly accused of , Adolf Hitler had personal experience of war , of life in the frontline ; surprisingly in the light of anectodes of later somewhat different escapades , he even didn't show interest in the local boys . All troops of all nations that served in the trenches of WW1 have respected the artillery greatly and the Allied landings in the Mediterrenean in 1943 showed that naval artillery was a force to be reckoned with , starting with devastating the Hermann Goering Panzer Parachute division on Sicily , saving the day in General Omar Bradley's words . It appears the Germans lost 50 % of their tanks . Or in Salerno where military histories are unanimous that ships were terribly effective . The 1943 battles also saw Germans using guided weapons on a large scale where the dense Allied air defences made the campaign less effective than it might have been . Italian battleship Roma was sunk in what was practically exercise conditions , yet the performance could not be repeated against ,say , Warspite , the RN battleship that had an instrumental role in sinking 10 German ships in a Norwegian Fjord some years ago , halving the Kriegsmarine destroyer force in a day . In those days it was not a book that asserted naval firepower was dangerous , it was not yet history . Let me quote Brute Force by John Ellis :
"Perhaps the most convincing testimony of all was provided by Hitler himself who , on 29 June [of 1944] , in response to numerous references to the Allies' devastating naval firepower , issued a directive in which ' the Führer made it clear that he regarded the destruction of the enemy's battleships as of outstanding importance. ' Not surprisingly , he neglected to specify just how it was to be done ." Actually we might just have an inkling to what happened to that particular variant of the wunderwaffen , but just don't take my word on that . ı will call Milch's concentration on the fighters as a sudden outbreak of sanity without reservations , in case ı ever write something . The exact words that ı am paraphrasing here were "some kind of sanity and reason, which is said sometimes even to afflict Germans ?"
but all was not lost yet and on the Fourth of July the 12.SS Panzer Division , the Hitlerjugend defended the Carpiquet Airfield with "150 infantry , two or three tanks and a borrowed 88mm gun" against "10 battalions of infantry , a tank regiment plus other specialised armour, and support from 428 guns on the ground and several ships at sea." The singularly ill named Operation Windsor has its own Wikipedia page.
"The attack failed."
ı don't know if ı mentioned this before but the young troopers of the HitlerJugend had a propensity to blow themselves up under Canadian tanks .
it is a custom of mine to make a reality check at some of my posts , rereading what ı have written and ı have to admit that what ı say is always a mix up of ridiculous with unbelieveable . ı am not much of a writer , can't attach various ideas to each other .
just an example , don't you think the torpedo carrying Me-163 ı mentioned at the top would be described as superfulous by any teacher of composition writing ? What is the relevance of that idea here ? So the Germans designed a torpedo carrier out of a plane with a maximum range of only 50 miles since it had a rocket engine that allowed to outclimb anything in the world - unlike the Me-262 that needed specially assigned fighter squadrons to defend its airfields as it was so vulnerable to prowling Allied fighters during take off and landing- but its fuel exploded like a bomb at the slightest provocation ? Or it would be dead meat at the torpedo dropping altitude if it had already used its fuel , which would undoubtedly be the case . Though it was fast at nearly 1000 km/h , matching the Yokosuka Okha , the idiot bomb of the Japanese . ı wonder how many of Bakas were shot down by AA fire from Allied ships .
or the Wikipedia mentioning that "in August 1944, it was announced by the Domei news agency that a flight instructor named Takeo Tagata was training pilots in Taiwan for suicide missions." Who would believe the Japanese would divulge a new way of fighting through newspapers ?
and ı would hate to give the impression that ı talk positively about Adolf Hitler ; he was not a total idiot but one has to be careful about these things . He knew Normandy would be the place since November 1943 , yet he allowed himself to be deceived about that it was to be a mere diversion and Allies would land at Pas de Calais to trap the Wehrmacht in France . That the Germans concentrated against the British in Normandy battles is not merely because it was quicker to assemble in front of Montgomery and safer to avoid the extra Allied air attacks that would have to be suffered while crossing the battlezone to engage in the American sector . If the second landing by the Patton's army could not be contained , the panzers would be needed to be rapidly moved into a new battle . Anyhow it was obvious the Allies could not get out of the bocage country that easily or Montgomery Africanus would rush things ; an official American history once described an operation in Tunis by the words ' The Eight Army procedeed to the crucial battle with the majestic deliberation of a pachyderm .' Rommel's desire to attack quickly was due to his personal experience of Alam Halfa or El Alamein , the Allies had to be crushed before they got good defensive positions , but unlike Hitler he was counting on Me-262 Jagers ...
just another post on debunking the Kamikaze myth.
PS. the last sentence:
ı wasn't such an odd person when ı was young .Anyhow ı had an Airfix model of an '262 and you should remember this was a time when the triangular ALCM was in service , this guy said "Doesn't it look like a cruise missile ?"
