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Old 26th May 2005, 10:06
Graham Boak Graham Boak is offline
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Re: What if the Me-262 wasnt tampered with

What Hitler wanted, and Germany desperately needed, was the means of ensuring that a Western Allied invasion of Europe failed. The only way to achieve this was to to defeat an attempted landing, and to do that he needed bombers. Fast bombers that would be much less vulnerable in the face of Allied air superiority. With this in mind, his comments on the 262 make perfect sense. Germany did need bombers too.

However, the development and production of the 262 was paced by the development and production of the Jumo 004. These could not be made available in any significant numbers any earlier than they were: the small engineering design diversion caused by the fitting of bomb racks was negligible. It was not a major problem, requiring huge effort or massive testing. It delayed nothing.

The diversion of production a/c to the bomber units may have had slightly more effect, but in view of the normal ramp-up of bringing a new type into service it is hard to see any major delays to the fighter side. In the end there were just not enough aircraft to go around, and Germany had lost the war well before the 262 appeared.
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