Best Jet of the War?

[lesofprimus]

Even with no materials shortages at all, they could not have done much better in terms of jet engine quality and reliability.

I dont believe that... If Goering was able to neutralize the bombing threat to Germanys industrial heart, many things would have advanced further along than what they did, including jet engines and other technologies...

U know what happened when they bombed a manufacturing facility flat??? They killed off all the engineers and designers and high level production people.. They are'nt easy to replace.... It definatly took its toll on the future productivity of Germany...

HATS OFF to the brilliant Allied planners!!!!!!!

Originally Posted by lesofprimus

I dont believe that... If Goering was able to neutralize the bombing threat to Germanys industrial heart, many things would have advanced further along than what they did, including jet engines and other technologies...

U know what happened when they bombed a manufacturing facility flat??? They killed off all the engineers and designers and high level production people.. They are'nt easy to replace.... It definatly took its toll on the future productivity of Germany...

HATS OFF to the brilliant Allied planners!!!!!!!

But that's not the nature of the German problems in mass producing jet engines. This was not something that was going to be solved in the short term, it required a widening of their industrial base, and that takes more than just a few years, it takes a decade. Germany lacked O2 injection smelters and the other basic alloying technologies needed to make the better metals you are refering to. The USA was just barely comming online with this technology at the time, and it had a 10 year lead in such techniques.

Likewise, the whole nature of the German machine tool industry simply didn't support the mass production of things like jet engine turbines. They would have needed to completely change how they did things, and completely rework their machine tooling, something that would have taken a minimum of 10 years, probably more, even if they weren't in a war. Being that they were in a war, they simply could not do it, it would have meant shutting down too much of their war industry for far too long.

As for the future productivity of Germany, after the war under the Marshall plan, the USA built O2 injection smelters for both Germany and Japan. Then, in the 60's and 70's (and beyond) the US Steel industry was reeling because about 70% of the US steel industry still used the old Bessemer process, which generates inferior steel, and they could not compete with German and Japanese steel quality.

Relatively few engineers, scientists, and "high level production people" were killed by Allied bombing. Those kinds of people do not generally need to be in the plants where the products are actually made. Even the workers in the plants suffered relatively light losses (ever heard of a bomb shelter?).

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Lunatic

[Darkstalker]

The main problem was that, in the time the Me 262 was built, Germany had a lack of materials and the Me 262 wasn't a priority. And Hitler was dissapointed of jet fighters, so he ordered that the German industry had to build bombers despite of the lack of resources.
And for that time the Luftwaffe (mainly for Goerings fault) had lost all chance to keep clear from allied aircraft Germany's skies. So we just can wonder what would had happened if they had the time and resources to solve all the problems that the marvelous plane faced.

Originally Posted by Darkstalker

The main problem was that, in the time the Me 262 was built, Germany had a lack of materials and the Me 262 wasn't a priority. And Hitler was dissapointed of jet fighters, so he ordered that the German industry had to build bombers despite of the lack of resources.
And for that time the Luftwaffe (mainly for Goerings fault) had lost all chance to keep clear from allied aircraft Germany's skies. So we just can wonder what would had happened if they had the time and resources to solve all the problems that the marvelous plane faced.

The whole argument that Hitler's demand for bombers significantly hurt the 262 program has been prooven to be a myth. This accounts for at most, about 100 fewer fighter versions of the 262 seeing action in WWII. It is well established that in WWII something around 300 262's saw action, perhaps 400 might have seen action if the directive for the bomber version had not been issued, but even this is in doubt because those diverted 262's are probably counted in that 300 figure. The problem was a lack of engines - at least 1500 262 airframes were completed, and there is good evidence the number was more on the order of 2500, but engines were the bottleneck - 400 pairs of engines was the best they could do (plus test engines and many many engines that failed to pass inspection, and of course a relatively small number of engines that went into other jet types).

Study it in detail and you will find that the materials problem went deeper than that. Germany just didn't have the kind of hi-temp titanium alloy steel needed for jet engines. This is why the 262 has the engines in the wings, putting the engines on the centerline would have overheated the tail section too much. You really have to get pretty deep into the history of metallurgy to see that the truth is that in WWII, only the USA had the kind of metallurgy technology necessary to make such alloys, and even in the USA, these resources were quite limited. In 1944 the USA was shipping steel and other alloys to the Soviets that surpassed those available in Germany. Germany had some very excellent steel armor out of the Krupps company, but that was the limit of their metallurgy tech in WWII. And even this was more a matter of understanding what to make than the technical ability to make it. USA class A armor was actually more pure and harder than Krupps armor, but as it turned out this was not really desirable in such armor, and the class B armor which was softer was found to be superior for most Naval applications.

As I've said before, this kind of technology derives from the techno/industrial base of a nation, not from the top of the technology pyramid. German end products (the top of the pyramid) were very good, but in general their base technology was well behind. They simply could not broaden that base to be anything close to what was available to the USA given that they had only about 10 years to ramp it up for WWII and Germany was only about half the size of America. US base industrial technology was at a high point because of the huge US buildup of both rail and shipping from the Civil war through WWII.

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Lunatic

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

just like everything else the germans did, right?

[lesofprimus]

But that's not the nature of the German problems in mass producing jet engines.

It was one of the problems.... There wasnt one big problem like ur stating... It was multiple problems that added up to the shortage of engines......

Germany lacked O2 injection smelters and the other basic alloying technologies needed to make the better metals you are refering to.

Specific smelters were ONE of the reasons for it.... Not the only....

US base industrial technology was at a high point because of the huge US buildup of both rail and shipping from the Civil war through WWII.

Also the fact that we didnt have anyone bombing our technology back to the stone age either.....

So far all I have seen out of u RG is the ability to point out specific problems for broad issues... And in the process, say that other people are wrong.. U do not have all the answers, as do none of us....

Relatively few engineers, scientists, and "high level production people" were killed by Allied bombing.

Thats a lie.... I have read and seen alot of documentation and it was a fact.... Germany lost some of its best people during bombing raids......

Even the workers in the plants suffered relatively light losses (ever heard of a bomb shelter?).

Ever hear of a big bomb that destroys bomb shelters??? The Allies used them u know.... I dont know where u got that info, but to say that regular workers suffered lightly is a joke... They were expendable items that Nazi Germany could have cared less about.... Thousands died....

[the lancaster kicks ass]

ever heard of a bomb shelter

yes, ever heard of the tallboy??

[lesofprimus]

My point exactly Lanc....

[Nonskimmer]

Originally Posted by the lancaster kicks ass

yes, ever heard of the tallboy??

And a good point it is!

[cheddar cheese]

U do not have all the answers, as do none of us....

I do...















...All the wrong ones

Originally Posted by lesofprimus

It was one of the problems.... There wasnt one big problem like ur stating... It was multiple problems that added up to the shortage of engines......

Yes, one of many problems which made the jet engines impossible to mass produce. I never said this was the main reason. The biggest reason was the shaper based machine tooling common to Europe at this time. Without more modern milling type machines, mass production of jet engines was nearly impossible.

Originally Posted by lesofprimus

Specific smelters were ONE of the reasons for it.... Not the only....

Again, I didn't say it was the only reason. But lack of the ability to refine pure steel with a controlled carbon content was a huge problem in creating the metals alluded to. Without this technology, the smelting process introduces impurties into the resulting steel which create weak spots in product derived from it.

Originally Posted by lesofprimus

Also the fact that we didnt have anyone bombing our technology back to the stone age either.....

No, that is exactly my point. The bombing really didn't have that much to do with it. We are talking about a tiny amount of material needed for the rear fan of the tubojet engines in question. No amount of Allied bombing was responsible for this materials shortage. It was simply beyond their technology to produce the quality of alloys needed in anything but labratory quantities.

Originally Posted by lesofprimus

So far all I have seen out of u RG is the ability to point out specific problems for broad issues... And in the process, say that other people are wrong.. U do not have all the answers, as do none of us....

No I've pointed out two huge specific problems faced by the Germans in building thier jet engines in WWII; lack of the necessary metalurgy technology and lack of the kind of machine tool industry needed. There may indeed have been others.

Originally Posted by lesofprimus

Thats a lie.... I have read and seen alot of documentation and it was a fact.... Germany lost some of its best people during bombing raids......

Sure, they lost some of their scientists and engineers in the bombing. Mostly in the last few months of the war. But by far more survived. Messershmit, Tank, Heisenburg, Von Braun, all survived. You make it sound like some huge % of German scientists and engineers were killed in the bombing early in the war, when the fact is that a small % were killed, mostly very late in the war by the huge British firebombing raids of late 1944 and 1945.

Originally Posted by lesofprimus

Ever hear of a big bomb that destroys bomb shelters??? The Allies used them u know.... I dont know where u got that info, but to say that regular workers suffered lightly is a joke... They were expendable items that Nazi Germany could have cared less about.... Thousands died....

If you look at the figures, the numbers of war industry workers that died was lower than that of the average residents in the cities that were bombed. You are totally wrong in your assertion that the average German was considered totally expendable to the Nazi's. They were willing to sacrifice citizens but they took serious action to protect them. Had they had the disregard you imply, there would have been far fewer 88's defending German cities and far more on the E. Front. War factory workers in particular were valued and bomb shelters were readily available in most cases.

Sure sometimes a bomb shelter might have been destroyed, but it was uncommon. Again you make it sound like this was commonplace. And furthermore, when it came to scientists and engineers, which was the original group being discussed, shelters were very good. Those that did die probably died because they were at home during an attack and could not reach a shelter.

The biggest loss of German scientific and engineering talent was self inflicted - they were Jews. Aside from this, losses of such talent were very small throughout the war, as these people were prized and well protected, and tended to work in places very well protected from or not likely to be the subject of allied bombing.

In each instance you want to treat the rare case as if it were the usual case. That is not how it was.

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Lunatic

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I will agree that some of the biggest losses to German engineering were with the Jews however being bombed all the time did not help the problem. The Germans were not behind the allies in most areas of technology, infact they were ahead in many of there designs. I think given a few years they could have worked out all the kinks and there would not have been these problems. Like everything there are problems in the beginning, the Germans lacked time. They had to push the products out to fight the oncoming allies. Given time I am sure they would have made superior versions to the jet aircraft they already had and even more better aircraft than they already had.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

One problem was the fact that the failure of Germany to reserve a source of Chromium, necessary in blade alloy to prevent the fan blades stretching. This gave German jet engines a short life.

Originally Posted by DerAdlerIstGelandet

I will agree that some of the biggest losses to German engineering were with the Jews however being bombed all the time did not help the problem. The Germans were not behind the allies in most areas of technology, infact they were ahead in many of there designs. I think given a few years they could have worked out all the kinks and there would not have been these problems. Like everything there are problems in the beginning, the Germans lacked time. They had to push the products out to fight the oncoming allies. Given time I am sure they would have made superior versions to the jet aircraft they already had and even more better aircraft than they already had.

I am not disagreeing with that. I'm trying to point out that while German designs were quite innovative, their industrial base was simply not competitive with that of the USA. Design of end products is at the top of the industrial pyramid, and at this level the Germans excelled over their 10 years of development. But materials sciences (amoung others) are derived from the base of the pyramid and there was no way the Germans could compete with the USA in this respect.

Putting this in simple terms, the if the German industrial base was 100 units wide, the US industrial base was at least 300 units wide. Therefore, the highest the German's could get was (again in simple arbitrary terms), lets say, 50 units high at the top, but the USA could potentially reach up to 150 units before having to widen the base.

The German scientists and Engineers did the best they could with what they had to work with, and created some very advanced weapons. But in the end, the USA (with a lot of British input) far outpaced the Germans. The Germans started their war effort and especially their war R&D in 1935, and over 10 years the most advanced weapons they were able to create were more than matched by the USA's 3.5 year effort. This was not because the German scientists and engineers were stupid, it was because it was simply harder for them to progress beyond a certain level given the respective industrial bases.

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Lunatic

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

And that all comes down to time though. The US scientists had time to conduct tests and properly put out the best product they could, the German scientists were always on a short string having to develop at the shortest posible time. This was because Hitler wanted output, he wanted to see finished products in a matter of no time, which was a major downfall. Also the fact that the Germans were fighting a losing battle did not help the fact. I will agree with you on most of what you posted there.