How many jets to have a decisive impact on the war?

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EKB
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Re: How many jets to have a decisive impact on the war?

#61

Post by EKB » 23 Nov 2015, 03:27

I hope this answers a few questions ...


“ The commander of the E-Stelle, Oberst Peterson, summed up his assessment of the Junkers engines in one sentence in a letter to the Technische Amt on December 24, 1943. “The present state of the engine does not justify speaking of the 004 being fully developed.”

Dr. Franz, the responsible designer, openly conceded the slow development of the 004 during a visit by Milch and Göring to Dessau on November 5:

“In principle, development has now reached a stage where functionally the various parts of the engine are in order. However, due to the haste with which this development was carried out it is impossible to claim that there will be no more difficulties and that development is concluded. The difficulties we still have involve individual components of the engine and I would like to select only two from this group. One is the turbine. Recently we have had certain difficulties with the turbine wheel, with unexpected failures in the turbine blades due to vibration. The second component is the control system, and here I will touch on the problem of opening and closing the throttles, which was raised by the Reichsmarschall. I mentioned in Regensburg that we had things under control up to 8 km. Beyond that we are still somewhat unsure. But we have already flown to over 11 km. However it cannot be guaranteed with certainty that we will have the problem at upper altitudes rectified by the time series production begins, so that the pilot will be able to open and close the throttles without worrying about a flame-out.”

In fact Junkers failed to eliminate this shortcoming before the engine entered production. Controlling the engine remained the great weakness of the 004 until the end of the war.”


See p.37-38
Manfred Boehme. JG 7: The World's First Jet Fighter Unit 1944/1945. Schiffer Publishing, 1992.


***


“ One especially severe handicap was the growing shortage of chromium and nickel, alloying elements which greatly increased the durability and heat resistance of steel. The first engines were constructed without regard to the amount of “rationed materials”. For example, each Jumo 004 initially used 88 kg of nickel. These amounts were drastically lowered by the RLM as development progressed - by late 1943 only 24.4 kg was authorized for each engine - and the choice of materials became ever more limited.”

See p.68
Manfred Boehme. JG 7: The World's First Jet Fighter Unit 1944/1945. Schiffer Publishing, 1992.


***


“ Once the final design hurdles had been cleared, the way was finally clear for an unconditional expansion of Me 262 production. However, the increasing devastation of the transport system and aviation industry, which in September 1944 had set an absolute production record of 5,178 machines of all types but within a few weeks suffered the loss through bomb damage of about 40% of its production capability, prevented implementation of this ambitious delivery program.
A further negative factor in the failure to meet all objectives, meaning the reequipping, especially of the Bf 109 units, with high-performance fighters and regaining air superiority, was the shortage of experienced pilots and unit leaders.”


See p.69
Manfred Boehme. JG 7: The World's First Jet Fighter Unit 1944/1945. Schiffer Publishing, 1992.


***


Loss figures from III./EJG 2, KG 51, and JG 7 were comparable. A comprehensive technical report by the technical officer of III. Gruppe, Oberinspektor Grote, compiled on March 3, 1945, listed the following causes for 42 aircraft losses:

pilot error 13
technical faults 19
enemy action 10



See p.89
Manfred Boehme. JG 7: The World's First Jet Fighter Unit 1944/1945. Schiffer Publishing, 1992.


***


Leo Schuhmacher transferred to JV 44 in 1945. And he remembered:

“ Our biggest problem, however, was the engines. Either we had none - once in February ’45 ten of fourteen aircraft sat useless for lack of engines - or they were on their last legs.”

See p.100
Manfred Boehme. JG 7: The World's First Jet Fighter Unit 1944/1945. Schiffer Publishing, 1992.

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Re: How many jets to have a decisive impact on the war?

#62

Post by Paul Lakowski » 24 Nov 2015, 03:03

Each BMW-801 engine cost 80,000RM in 1940 , which is about the same price as the Me-262 estimated for late war period [85,000RM each] . IN 1943/44 the price was ~ 45,000 RM for each BMW engine so the 13,000 BMW-801 engines built in 1943/44 could have instead funded 6500 Me-262. Such a jet could be built with the Jumo 004A engine utilizing the 9-10,000 tons of Krupp cemented armor used by the KM on massive artillery emplacements of the Atlantic Wall which were of little real value anyway. Instead this combination could be used to produced thousands of Jumo-004A with the high nickel chrome alloys needed for turbine blades.

Just to be clear each ton of Krupp cemented armor used 3.4% Nickel and 2.4% Chrome, so each ton of installed KC steel amounted to 34kg of nickel and 24kg of Chrome. Failing that each ton of Krupp Non Cemented armor had 2.3% Chrome and ~ 1% Nickel. So if each Jumo OO4A engine does in fact need 88kg of Nickel - then each Engine would need these alloying agents from 3 tons of KC armor or 10 tons of NC. General Warship construction is done with STS 52 steel which needs no Chrome or Nickel alloy agents. So each ton of armored steel lost can still be used as 1 ton of general warship construction. STS is the main steel used in U boat construction.

Heavy KC installed for coastal artillery.
1941 1,800 tons
1942 2,300tons
1943 2,800tons
1944 3,100 tons

Regular NC installed Naval use.
1941 2,100 tons
1942 12,000tons
1943 11,700tons
1944 9,800 tons


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Re: How many jets to have a decisive impact on the war?

#63

Post by T. A. Gardner » 24 Nov 2015, 05:16

And, if they build 6,500, with let's say 1000 in service at any time, that requires minimally, 1000 pilots and ground crew, and about 53,000 metric tons of fuel for a month's (one sortie a day) flying. Depending on what source you use that's somewhere between about 7 and 10% of all oil production in Germany. Basically, it still drains the country and leaves the Wehrmacht shorter of oil that it historically was.

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Re: How many jets to have a decisive impact on the war?

#64

Post by Paul Lakowski » 24 Nov 2015, 06:13

If we go by the 80,000 sortie per year- quoted earlier in this thread- which was a standing force of 220 planes or a production of about 1000 per year, Historically they got 1 kill out of 20 sortie or ~4000 per year .

If they were Me-262 the kill rate would be one plane for every 8 sortie which looks like 10,000 planes per year shot down. If this is a standing force of 1000 Me 262 that is a 365,000 me 262 sortie a year or shooting down 45,000 planes per year....which BTW was the entire allied air losses for the whole war. More than enough to shut down the allied bombing campaign.

Even if USAAF so called tactics counter this it will still be 20:1 or 10,000 planes shot down along with the Flak totals we discussed on another thread which could reach 6000 if based on 128mm flak. That's still more than twice the historical rate.

By most accounts the allied strategic bombing campaign cut the German fuel supplies in 1/2 thus crippling their mobility from Spring 1944 on and killing any chance for counterstrokes in "Bagaration" or "Overlord".

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Re: How many jets to have a decisive impact on the war?

#65

Post by T. A. Gardner » 24 Nov 2015, 06:37

And, in terms of fuel use 80,000 sorties requires about 30% of all the fuel in Germany. Hardly something that the Germans can realistically afford when they are already running a deficit for ground military operations. At 365,000 sorties per year, close to 100% or more of German oil production gets used making them. That is totally unrealistic.
That's without the Allies bombing German oil production. Germany simply doesn't have the oil supply to operate a big air force that is very fuel thirsty. Jets just make things several times worse than the piston engine planes they replace. One Me 262 as pointed out takes roughly 3 to 5 times the fuel per sortie of a single piston engine airplane. It is just one more way the plane is self defeating for Germany.

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Re: How many jets to have a decisive impact on the war?

#66

Post by EKB » 24 Nov 2015, 09:08

The Jumo 004B-4 turbojet had no nickel content and only 2.2 kg of chrome per engine.

Even if Junkers could gain access to more nickel than it wanted, that doesn’t give us precise numbers of how it would change engine life, accident rates, and availabilty rates of the Me 262 fleet. Engine test stand reports are interesting, but not useful to pilots running engines at the front line. Moreover, higher grade steel would not improve the erratic throttle control of the Jumo 004, which could stop it just as readily as failed parts inside the engine.

Hermann Buchner of JG 7 said that he was forced to land a Me 262 - with both engines flamed out - no less than twelve times during his brief career as a jet pilot. Simply adding to more nickel to engine parts might not have reduced his total number of dead-stick landings.

Now for fuel consumption as related to logistics and state of training … on 19th February 1945, Messerschmitt AG test pilot Fritz Wendel wrote:

“ The Kommando Nowotny, which last October/November, after a short period of operations had lost 27 aircraft out of 30, was resupplied with aircraft at Brandenburg-Briest. The pilots, meanwhile, have been better trained at Lechfeld. Flight training per pilot is now 12 hours.”

Only 12 hours of prep! The Me 262 was the hottest aircraft in the world and a death trap for beginners. Ideally, every pilot should have got at least 100 hours jet time before the first operational sortie, assuming that the unforgiving 262 did not kill him first.


See p.24, 94, 104
Hugh Morgan. Me 262: Stormbird Rising. Motorbooks Inc, 1994.
Last edited by EKB on 24 Nov 2015, 23:01, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: How many jets to have a decisive impact on the war?

#67

Post by Paul Lakowski » 24 Nov 2015, 09:56

Oxford Companion to WW-II shows German sources of oil was 9-10 million tons per year rising to 12million before the strategic bombing campaign cut this in half in 1944. Me-262 burnt 1200L per hour and could fly up to 1.5 hours....that is 1.2-1.8 tons fuel per sortie. If there are 365,000 sortie per year- that adds up to total of 2/3 million tons of fuel or 5% of the annual oil capacity.

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Re: How many jets to have a decisive impact on the war?

#68

Post by T. A. Gardner » 24 Nov 2015, 22:02

Paul Lakowski wrote:Oxford Companion to WW-II shows German sources of oil was 9-10 million tons per year rising to 12million before the strategic bombing campaign cut this in half in 1944. Me-262 burnt 1200L per hour and could fly up to 1.5 hours....that is 1.2-1.8 tons fuel per sortie. If there are 365,000 sortie per year- that adds up to total of 2/3 million tons of fuel or 5% of the annual oil capacity.
Raw oil doesn't translate directly into how much usable gasoline or avgas, or jet fuel you get out of a ton or a barrel or whatever. Only a fraction converts to those products. Other fractions convert to lubricants, asphalt, tar, etc. So the numbers I gave are correct, more or less, for available fuel usable products like gasoline, fuel oil, and the like. These could be produced in somewhat different fractions depending on the way they're fractionally distilled and the resulting products in some cases are cracked to increase volume of usable fuels.

While a rough estimate, it gives you some idea where it's at:

http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=327&t=6
Refineries in the United States produced an average of about 12 gallons of diesel fuel and 19 gallons of gasoline from one barrel (42 gallons) of crude oil in 2014.
That's current. In the 1940's its less efficient at about 7 to 9 and 12 to 15 respectively.

I used 1.75 tons per sortie as the standard to account for some wastage and things like taxing, ground testing, and other non-operational consumption.

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Re: How many jets to have a decisive impact on the war?

#69

Post by Paul Lakowski » 25 Nov 2015, 05:29

Since Me-262 can use diesel the AVGAS is not effected.

The exact amount of diesel fuel produced each year is available from USSBS and its pretty much a million tons per year. Even at 1.85t per sortie that's still only 2/3 million tons diesel. More important German synthetic fuel production was flexible by 20-30% so if more diesel is needed it can be produced at the expense of some other product.

Example showed each month production within +/- 7 % to 15%, while the production shifted month by month from all Motor Gas to 3/4 AVGAS and then mix of GAS & DIESEL [60-40]...While another plant shifted from mostly AVGAS to mix of GAS & DIESEL [50/50]. To be clear this production represented an annual output of 440,000 tons fuel ; so it could be used to offset insufficient diesel production- if more is needed for the U-boat War, However since marine diesel was only 1/2 of the total diesel production any changes may be mere "tweaking" for jet fuel and not effect the U-boat War.


Digging through the USSBS it shows several routes to produce more diesel. First is to reduce civilian usage earlier , for example in 1940/41 a million tons a year was consumed by civilian sources , while the 1942 figures drop by 300,000 tons and 1943/44 figures reduce to 1/2 million tons per year. However examining the sources 3/4 of the bunker fuel produced came from coal tar distillation and that product could have been diesel fuel instead. Likewise some process was usable for all fuel /oil types ...like simple imported 'crude oil' ; 'coal tar distillation' and 'Fischer Tropsch'.

Some juggling of the above could be arranged to cover short falls in other fuel types.

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Re: How many jets to have a decisive impact on the war?

#70

Post by Kurfürst » 10 Dec 2015, 17:53

There were copious amount of J-2 diesel fuel required by the Jumo 004 as opposed to the normal B-4 and C-3 avgas that became increasingly scarce in supply. The decision to stop all piston engined fighter production and rearm to jets was made in the spring of 1945 made exactly because jet fuel was still available.

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Re: How many jets to have a decisive impact on the war?

#71

Post by MarkF617 » 23 Dec 2015, 23:31

IIRC the Germans selected mostly veteran, even elite, pilots to fly the ME262. Therefore simply using the kill per 8 sorties statistic would not work if the force was 1000 aircraft strong as most of the pilots would have far less experience and ability. The accident rate, already high, would also be even higher.

Does anyone know how much the allies knew about German jet development? If the allies got wind of the Germans possibly mass producing an effective jet fighter a year or so earlier than they actually did then surely they would raise the priority on development of their own jets?

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Re: How many jets to have a decisive impact on the war?

#72

Post by Paul Lakowski » 23 Dec 2015, 23:56

MarkF617 wrote:IIRC the Germans selected mostly veteran, even elite, pilots to fly the ME262. Therefore simply using the kill per 8 sorties statistic would not work if the force was 1000 aircraft strong as most of the pilots would have far less experience and ability. The accident rate, already high, would also be even higher.

Does anyone know how much the allies knew about German jet development? If the allies got wind of the Germans possibly mass producing an effective jet fighter a year or so earlier than they actually did then surely they would raise the priority on development of their own jets?

Mark

Yes it would; all you need is to find a comparable stats split between the top 650 FW/ME fighter kills over the 80,000/1944 sortie .

Remember in 1945 average LW flying hours were 50 hours per pilot, while the 1944 figures were 140 hour per LW pilot and 170-180 hours per LW pilot in 1943.

Comparable allied figures were ...."Strategy for defeat ; the Luftwaffe 1933-1945"

1942 LW 5200 planes @ 205 VS W ALLIED 270-340 [1,066,000]
1943 LW 6200 planes @ 170-180 VS W ALLIED 330-340 [1,085,000]
1944 LW 6800 planes @ 140 VS W ALLIED 340-380 [952,000]
1945 LW 8000 planes @ ~ 50 VS W ALLIED 340-380 [400,000]

So LW had to dilute their pilot training & flying hours to crew more fighters to fight more enemies....due to the deteriorating war situation. I read that in 1943 LW had 1000 aces. So had they accumulated 1000 Me 262 by then and dedicated them to intercept duties they likely would approach such kill rates.

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Re: How many jets to have a decisive impact on the war?

#73

Post by MarkF617 » 25 Dec 2015, 00:32

1000 aces seems excessive. Where did you read this?
You know you're British when you drive your German car to an Irish pub for a pint of Belgian beer before having an Indian meal. When you get home you sit on your Sweedish sofa and watch American programs on your Japanese TV.

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Re: How many jets to have a decisive impact on the war?

#74

Post by Paul Lakowski » 25 Dec 2015, 02:59

You might be right since I don't remember exactly -but here is some data to digest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_W ... lying_aces

33,115 are spread between 447 aces each with 6 or more kills.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_W ... om_Germany
but this site claims 70,000 air to air kills of which 45000 were against soviet planes.

So summerizing

447 major aces claimed ------->33115
while > 2000 aces claim 5 --->10,000
so rest ~ 26885 were between 6700 [4]-26000 [1] pilots

So the bulk of the kills were not by a handful of major aces but instead by rank and file LW fighters

to complete the number crunching from the websites.

11 best aces got 2344 kills [~ 213 each]
23 got 3865 kills [~168 each]
20 got 2512 kills [~ 125 each]
22 got 2639 kills [~ 120 each]
35 got 3728 kills [~ 106 each]
48 got 4126 kills [~ 86 each]
78 aces scored 5567 kills [~ 71 each]
> 2000 aces claim 5 --->10,000
rough break down on the rest should be something like .....
2000 x 4
2000 x 3
2000 x 2
9000 x 1

Allied fighter pilots sure sucked at dogfighting but then I know that > 10,000 RAF bombers & another 5000-6000 USAAF bombers were shot down and god knows exactly how many soviet bombers got shot down ...not exactly "dog fighting".


looks like 23 jet aces are credited with 106 kills plus 11 "jet aces" ....IE could be 161 or more kills.

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Re: How many jets to have a decisive impact on the war?

#75

Post by MarkF617 » 28 Dec 2015, 16:45

These are kill claims for the whole war and will include massive claims from earlier in the war when the Luftwaffe was dominant and the allied aircraft were often inferior. By 1943 allied aircraft were often superior and the pilots well trained and many were now experienced, a German advantage earlier in the war. Do you have these numbers broken down by year? I'll have a look but not sure that I do. We also need to remember that these are claims which the article says should really be halved due to over claim.
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