Best Bomber Killing Aircraft......

[Civettone]

Originally Posted by Erich

Kris for the amount of time and energy spent on this little devil they should of put more research and development in perfecting the engines and fuel system in the Me 262A.

Wasn't the development done by the Lippisch team with little help from Messerschmitt who was against the project. He even designed competing designs to the turbojet variant of the Me 163, the Lippisch P 20.

the little Komet was too much of a horror story to the pilots and ground crews associated with it and for it's all over war effort it was worthless compared to what was in the Luftwaffe arsenal. have to hand it to the techs though the little bugger was an ingenious piece of equip, but was totally wreckless

What horror story are you referring to?

And off-topic Erich, what has happened to the Luftwaffe-Experten forum???

Kris

[Erich]

I am not clear on the origins of the Me 163, but had been in contact with Rudi Opitz some years back ........ on operations, he mentioned their constant move because of the quickness of the Soviet advances. He felt the speed of the little bugger was too much for attacking the bombers as the rocket would over-fly on many ops.

the horroI am talking about is the way the fuels did not mix even under the strictest guidelines, one goof up mis-placement and boom or burn or melt or ........ you get the picture. How uneasy the ground crews must have been after watching 1-2 Rocket fighters blow up in front of them while on the ground,e verything torched or melted into a nasty heap.

as to LEMB, Peter is working on it, major server probs. But he is not alone as rafcommands has gone through a major hack job and Ross is recovering original posts but lost the answers or other posts with those very thread starts. armyairforces got popped for a day as well but back online, all during superbowl weekend .......... odd eh ?

[Civettone]

Now that's strange!!
You talked to Rudi Opitz personally and you still hold on to those urban legend stories of people incinerating and blowing up??

Komet Me163 - Chief test pilot Rudy Opitz tells it like it was - Flight Journal.com Page 5

Popular Wisdom vs. a Test Pilot’s Experiences

1. Rocket engines would explode without warning.

RO: engines were reliable and relatively safe and were adjusted so as to shut down in the event of an imbalance in fuel flow. If there was a problem in engine performance, it related to shutdowns, not explosions. The only instances of engines blowing were in early testing of prototypes or when they had been damaged in battle or by accident.

2. Leaking fuel could turn pilots to jelly, particularly if the plane flipped over.

RO: pilots, me included, survived overturned Komets, and an overturned ship would not necessarily leak fuel into the cockpit. When fuel contacted organic material, including skin, it ignited after only a few seconds. Our protective nylon suits would not ignite but were porous, and fuel could sop through to the skin.

3. Forward-mounted flaps were necessary to counter a negative pitching moment from the trailing-edge flaps.

RO: the TE flaps were trim flaps only, and the deployment of the forward-mounted underwing flaps did not cause a pitch change.

4. The Komet’s dive to speeds resulting in compressibility were often fatal.

RO: no fatalities resulted from this, to my knowledge. The Komets in such dives recovered after reaching a lower altitude that neutralized the compressibility problems.

5. As many as 15 percent of Komets broke up while pulling out of high-speed dives where compressibility had became a factor.

RO: no such fatalities to my knowledge.

6. Stall characteristics were abrupt and severe and taxed the skills of even experienced fighter pilots.

RO: the plane was equipped with leading-edge slots that eliminated stalls and caused it to mush forward in a mode that was immediately recoverable. The plane would not spin and was intentionally designed to be docile for low-time pilots.

7. Only experienced pilots could adequately handle the airplane at slow speeds.

RO: the plane was docile and friendly at slow speeds, and it had to be for low-time pilots to successfully land it dead-stick.

Good that Peter Evans has things under control. I was fearing something similar like that of a couple of years ago had happened. That would probably have meant the definite end of LEMB.
Kris

[Morai_Milo]

Rudy Opitz on the Me163, Komet Me163 - Chief test pilot Rudy Opitz tells it like it was - Flight Journal.com Page 1

The Me163's engine, The Walter Rocket Motor Site

[lesofprimus]

Be interesting to see Erichs reply to Civ...

[Erich]

it doesn't matter Les, Rudi never flew combat operations and that is what I am after. Wolfgang Späte talked of the horrors in his test commando before the JG 400 debache and then off to safer grounds in JG 7. Sorry the Me 163 K was not a safe bird to handle in my opinion. Flight Journal is also down in my book as well

[Civettone]

Opitz did fly operational missions. Not only did he fly the second operational mission ever (with the Me 163V-33 shortly after Späte flew the red V-41), he took command of the I. Gruppe and after that the II. Gruppe until badly wounded in a crash in April 1945.

So if anyone would know of Komets blowing up or incinerating its pilots, he would know about it.

(Information comes from Ethell, Messerschmitt 163 Komet - Entwicklung und Einsatz des ersten Raketenjägers.)

Kris

[lesofprimus]

Hmmmm....

[joebong]

Wow, forgive me if I repeat some things already said, this is an enormous thread and I didn't cover everything. At first I felt the190 wasn't at home at high altitudes, my ref says no 37,000' is pretty high. So I would put my hat in the Fw190A8 R2 camp. One thing worth mentioning is a film strip of a B17 getting ripped up, from about 80m the Ger, hits the tail, the ball turret, the outer port eng and finally the inner port engine, breaking off at about 10-15m. The point is, to bring down a heavy, you got to do a lot of damage.
Food for thought, had the Do335 V2 heavy day fighter, been deployed we might be talking about its virtues.

[Erich]

Joe I have that movie clip, yes a SturmFw attack it was from an Fw 190A-8/R2. pretty ugly but a great defensive weapon it was compared to that little fart called a komet .......

H. Bake sitting on his Schwarze 3, A-8/R8, courtesy: the Bake archiv

[Civettone]

Well Erich, you still have to prove it's the little fart you claim it to be

As to answer the original question of this topic, to me it's clear that the Germans didn't have a really good bomber killing aircraft, else they wouldn't have been in the **** they had been in. To me it should have two main virtues, and that's speed and firepower. The speed should be at least equal to that of the P-51 and the firepower at least 4 20mm guns or 2 30mm guns or something with equal destructive power. The Germans didn't have anything for that speed requirement until the arrival of the Me 262 and Me 163 when it was already too late. But then, the Me 262 does meet the requirements. Also, the later Do 335 but who would want to waste two DB 603 engines when a Ta 152 could achieve the same with one?

To me there were three alternatives presented to the Germans in late 1943 but they failed to follow up on these ideas: the cheap Bf 109Z, the Italian G.55/56 and finally a simple single-engined fighter (The Fw P III and IV, the Me P 1095, the Lippisch P 20, ...).

But all in all, I would go for the Bf 109G-6/R6. It may not meet the requirements I set forward, but it was the best from a cost benifit analysis. In fact, the Bf 109 could do pretty much everything* the Fw 190 could but at a lower cost.
(* except carrying a heavy bomb load)

Kris

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

The Germans did not have anything that matched the speed of the P-51D until the Me-262?

You sure about that?

[Erich]

actually Kris I don't have to prove anything history has proven it already, I'll get around and print out Rudi's response to me back in 99 for all to read, as some of the language descriptions for 1945 were pretty dramatic ... ..

to your statements about a German bomber killer I will heartily agree they had nothing as they did not expect such a severe pounding over their homeland, with the experiments of dropping bombs, different rocket projections, heavier cannon, sleeker designs in the 262; the Reich was doomed and they all new it by mid-1944. My Familie knew it all to well, my cousin in JG 301 knew it was suicide when he gave his life up on 26 November 44, but yet they felt as we would-to do everything to protect your homes from the enemy. Something needed to be invented aerially to counter the P-51 threat,- there was nothing. without that, overall destruction of the US heavies was practically nullified.

E ~

[Civettone]

I'm with you on that the Germans didn't see what was coming their way.

On the other hand, it's even worse than that. What was coming their way was simply ignored. It all started with Hitler's opinion that the Americans couldn't produce a quality aircraft because he had regularly seen American cars break down...
Did you ever read that story of the fight between Galland and Göring back in 1943. Galland had reported to Hitler that there were American escort fighters shot down near Aachen, so over German territory. Göring went into a rage and said it was nonsense. Galland remained cool, with his cap in the usual skew position, a cigar between his teeth "well, it's the truth, if you don't believe me, come with me, I'll show them to you." And than Göring again "it's impossible, I'm a fighter pilot too, I know that it's not true. Admit that you were wrong!". "No Herr Reichsmarshall, they're there. And soon they'll be flying ever further" Then Göring again: "Perhaps they were shot down over occupied territory and simply glided down to German territory??" Galland with a mocking smile: "Glided down, sir?". Finally Göring "I hereby give you an order that those fighters were not shot down near Aachen! Do you hear that? I order you that those American fighters weren't there!!" Galland "Wel, orders are orders..." I would have loved to be a witness of that!!


PS looking forward to Rudi's response. I prefer to call the little fart a little flee, I'm sure you know why
Kris

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Good story about Galland up there. I really think it would have been neat to meet him. He was a typical fighter pilot in my opinion. Cocky except he could back it up.