PISTON ENGINE AIRCRAFT JET KILLS

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Very cool.

[Erich]

RB told me he does not have the combat reports for his 2 kills so am making copies of copies ........

his Ar 234 kill is very long and is slightly different than what he just wrote me via letter the other day. It will be included here in time ......

[Gnomey]

Cool Erich! Look forward to seeing the Ar-234 kill account.

[lesofprimus]

Excellent stuff Erich.... I wonder why the 190 pilot bailed with no apparent strikes...

[Erich]

he was a ***** !, seriously with the inexperience of so many in 1945 due to the shortage of well trained "kids" at the stick, no good man hours in the air without getting hammered by US/RAF fighters. have at least a dozen personal interviews of P-51 vets that mentioned similar experiences over the Reich in engagements with 190's and 109's. have not heard as of yet any pilots of 262's jumping ship. Failed parachute yes ...........

hate to say this but will.........have found that for some it was better to fight another day let alone just were too plain scared and looked for a way out via the chute

[Erich]

RB probably encountered a SturmFw from II.Sturm/JG 300 or one of the many from JG 301. A black day for my cousins outfit JG 301 losing 20 kIA and 8 wounded. JG 300/JG 301 were slaughtered. at least 4 Doras were lost by 6./JG 301 alone ..........

RB's unit the 356th fg shot down 13 by itself and the noted 357th fg claimed at least 50 for it's top day in aerial combat over the Reich, othere high scoring groups were the 78th and the 355th fg's as examples

[JoeB]

Originally Posted by delcyros

Are we talking about claims or kills?
In general, I doubt that the US/UK/RCAAF/SU loss lists are correct and avaiable to verify the claims. Even if losses match (esspecially US, since these are accessable, god thanks!) claims, they are often connected to other reasons than damage inflyted by Me-262 (the same was done in Korea: engine failure, midaircollision, plane running out of fuel and so on instead of the MiGs, which inflicted the damage..).

Sorry to quote ancient post, but interesting thread and I wasn't around

The partisans of Soviet claims in Korea, *claim* the US extensively faked the causes of its losses in Korea. because they are embarassed by the very high overclaim ratio of the "their" guys. They are aided by some off hand, non quantified statements in old US books implying this was true. And then they have repeated it so many times (especially on the internet in recent years) to make it a "factoid".

But I've looked into it in detail in the US records v Soviet claims, and it's just not true. The overwhelming majority of Soviet claims correspond to combats recorded at the same time and place in USAF records, between the same general types of planes (swept wing jet, straignt wing jet, prop) the Soviets say. It's just the results that differ, in the then-secret level documents of both sides. When other US losses occured the same days for non-MiG causes (still not anywhere near enough to justify the Soviet claims), that's usually well documented to have happened in different circumstances, different place and time. Again, in voluminous then-secret records of many kinds, all bascially consistent. At the margin there was a tendency to class loss cause "unknown" without certainty it was MiG; a few planes returning safely but not repaired were not counted (*not* common, and should they even count?) and in a few cases a pilot might have claimed mechanical failure when really hit, but it was not systematic or statistically signficant.

It's not totally off topic because people often use unproven (or untrue) statements about one war to refer to another; if the statement is followed up, oh wait that's off topic.... I don't know the exact nature of USAAF WWII records, but using the false claim about Korea undercuts the statement that losses to Me-262's were understated, since it was not true in Korea to the extent of explaining any significant part of the MiG's overclaiming.

Going the other way I didn't see mentioned on the thread Foreman and Harvey's "Me-262 Combat Diary". Not a new book, it compared claims and losses pistons v. 262's and shows the USAAF claims against jets (RAF's too) to have been quite accurate, 262 losses to pistons something like 75% of the Allied official *fighter* credits for Me-262's destroyed (always key distinction: fighter and bomber claims); what I got counting up incidents in that book. Very few piston fighters can be documented to have been downed by 262's; perhaps with more research some more would turn up, but the 262 claims v piston fighters were clearly highly overstated, their claims v. bombers more reasonable. Moreover discussions of particular incidents in books like Smith and Creek generally follow Foreman, I don't know of anyone disproving the general pattern of claim/loss accounting in that book.

The piston fighters had "unfair" advantages v. the German gets (numbers and fuel persistence to hang around 262 bases and get the jets coming and going), but air combat is never about "fair".

Joe

[Erich]

I can disprove anything, just wait .............

JG 7 in particular still does not have adequate coverage especially against Soviet forces in April/May of 45. JG 7 pilots were ordered not to engage in a fighter vs fighter unless necessary or they had the upper altitude advantage where they could zoom and climb. 4 engine heavies was another matter and it was imperitive to go after them and take as many out as seemed possible.

When I started this thread in response to make an almost orderly day by day with primary sources available to me as well as a horde of personal US accounts. in fact we have not even begun to get into the meat yet ........ it's coming. I will list source details once we end the "war" in a bibliography

[timshatz]

Originally Posted by Erich

he was a ***** !, seriously with the inexperience of so many in 1945 due to the shortage of well trained "kids" at the stick, no good man hours in the air without getting hammered by US/RAF fighters. have at least a dozen personal interviews of P-51 vets that mentioned similar experiences over the Reich in engagements with 190's and 109's. have not heard as of yet any pilots of 262's jumping ship. Failed parachute yes ...........

hate to say this but will.........have found that for some it was better to fight another day let alone just were too plain scared and looked for a way out via the chute

Can't really say I blame them. Writing was on the wall by that time, the Rhine had been crossed (maybe the Oder too, well at least East Prussia was occupied). It didn't take a genius to see it was all a matter of time. Who wants to die in a war that is lost?

[Erich]

JG 301 was in total mess array as they had taken in some raw recruits, and they along with JG 300 were the two Jg's that really tried to put up a stout defence in the area of Berlin in 1945, JG 53 in the southland with their 109G's and K's.
Being totally outnumbered did not help at all which is so obvious.

side note : my right ankle is propped up and pretty tweaked but reading over the latest from the 356th fg pilot about his Ar 234 kill on 14 March 45 this is going to be great as well as my interview with ace D. Bryan of the 352nd fg and his Ar 234 kill on the same date several years ago.....

these personals are what really shed light on the 'real' action not described in any book(s)

[Erich]

I must do a bit of editing, the 356th fg met the Fw 190A-8's of IV./JG 54 not JG 300 or 301. Engagements were by the Dümmer lake area west of Hannover. the JG 54 gruppe lost 10 Fw's

[JoeB]

Originally Posted by Erich

I can disprove anything, just wait .............

I don't know, are you responding to my post? Let me ask you more directly, have you read "Me262 Combat Diary"? I think we should keep researching even on topics that other people have covered; my own research (not on WWII so much) is on topics others have covered; I want to find out more; I assume your interest and approach is the same.

But this topic, 262 actual losses v Allied claims, has been *basically* covered (Foreman and Harvey, and also quite a bit in Smith and Creek's series on the Me-262) and it's pretty clear the USAAF piston fighter claims against the 262's were reasonably accurate (by WWII standards), they shot down quite a lot of 262's, and that the 262's didn't shoot down very many piston fighters. We're not IMHO actually waiting for the basic accounting comparison of piston fighter claims and Me-262 losses. I'm sure further research such as yours would clarify certain incidents, but the basic situation has been researched and published, some time ago.

Now as to why the P-51 (which scored the bulk of piston kills against jets) scored a high kill ratio over Me-262 when the 262 was a fundamentally more advanced airplane...You're right in a completely even match up where Me-262mainly sought to shoot down piston fighters, and where they had equal or superior numbers, and where the P-51's would usually have to break off action first for lack of fuel, then the result could have been very different. But that wasn't the historical situation.

Joe

[Erich]

Joe I have nearly all published sources on the 262 one of my pet projects, starting in the early 1960's ... and yes to your question I have it plus the Classic volumes, and several German language editions.

you may be surprised as I continue this long haul that some US P-51 pilots were deathly afraid of getting into a 1 to 1 with the jets because of the speed advantage.

what has been covered in much of the texts is very limited. As I have interviewed quite many of the living pilots aces or otherwise of the 8th and 9th AF, am hoping to assemble some interesting first accts plus their combat mission reports and photos with their permission for this very thread. I own the German jets against the US air force and I think the book is almost worthless in coverage it is so brief.

continued ........

[the lancaster kicks ass]

Joe you'll soon learn that you can teach Erich nothing new about the Luftwaffe- his word is God in that department..........

[Soren]

Get into to a high speed fight with the Me-262 and your a sitting duck - at speeds over 450 km/h the Me-262 has feather like controls and excellent maneuverability, and the G forces the airframe can take are truly enormous !

Hans Fey, German fighter pilot
"The Me-262 will turn much better at high than at low speeds, and due to its clean design, will keep its speed in tight turns much longer than the conventional type aircraft"

US Me-262 pilots manual
"The airplane [Me-262] holds its speed in tight turns much longer than conventional types"