Should the Me262 been used exclusively as a jabo ....

[Kutscha]

.... and could they have had any effect on the Allied advance in France and to the Belgium-Dutch border?

data from Classic's 262, pg 442, Appendix 7

with SC500 bomb

normal range:
@ SL - 270km/168mi
@ 6km - 475km/295mi

max range:
@ SL - 330km/205mi
@ 6km - 550km/342mi

(radius of action is always less than half the range)

endurance @ 100% thrust:
@ SL - 0.36hr
@ 6km - 0.71hr

max endurance:
@ SL - 0.75hr
@ 6km - 1.21hr

max speed:
@ SL - 718kph/446mph
@ 6km - 750kph/466mph

To consider,

F. Wendel states in a report, "the range was insufficent to undertake bomber missions since the airfields had to be located more than 100km(60mi) from the front due to strong enemy fighter activity". (no date given but most probably July-Aug 1944)

Again by Wendel, "In level flight, the Revi is useless for accurate bombing. Pinpoint targets could not be hit. Kdo Schenk was therefore unable to claim any tactical successes".

Hitler had also ordered that the 262 should not operate under 4000m.

At this time, the Jumo 004B was rarely capable of running for more than 10hrs without a major overhaul.

There had only been 124 262s built to the end of Aug but many of these had been destroyed in Allied bombings and accidents.

At the end of Aug, Kdo Schenk had retreated to Volkel and then to Rheine on Sept. 5. This put it out of range of the Allied supply lines and just within reach of the Allied front lines.

[Graham Boak]

A fairly simple sight suffices for shallow dive attacks, using bombs or air-to-ground rockets. It would have been useful if available in significant numbers, which it wasn't, at times when the Alllied forces were tightly clustered around limited bridgeheads. But losses to Allied flak would have been high.

[Nick Beale]

If it had been used at a low level (which was not permitted until - IIRC -December 1944) then I'm sure it would have improved the Luftwaffe's very limited daylight ground attack capability in the West.

A bomb sight is, as Graham has said, less important in that kind of attack. Also, the documents show that much (maybe most) of the time KG 51 was dropping AB 250 canisters, which are intended to blanket an area, not strike a specific point.

In the end though, there was no "right answer" for the Luftwaffe, the Third Reich had bitten off more than it could chew with the resources it had. They needed tactical support and they needed strategic air defence and they needed them on several fronts - and they did not have the means to provide all those things. Anything the German forces did to delay the end only brought them nearer to the day the first American nuclear weapon was ready for action, anyway.

[RT]

I am fully sure that the war ending in may, in Europe, save the americans to answer to this very "questionfull" question..

rémi

[Juha]

IIRC the highest number of sorties in a day flown by KG 51 Me 262s was at the later stages of Reichswald operations but British army seemed hardly notice them. So IMHO they would not have any significant impact on ground operations.

[John Vasco]

In discussions with Schenck he told me that part of the reason for the 262 not being successful as a fighter-bomber was due to the fact that the pilots flying the 262 Jabo were either fighter pilots or bomber pilots. At first, that might seem a strange assertion to make, but the reason he said that was as follows.

Schenck had been involved in Jabo operations since September 1940, and, basically, knew the game inside out. He pointed out that it required a special type of training to cultivate a successful Jabo pilot, and that was simply not afforded to him when he set up Kommando Schenck. According to him, the fighter pilot mentality was not instantly conditioned to low level accurate attacks (witness the naming of certain USAAF fighter ground attacks during the Battle of the Bulge - they were sarcastically called the 9th Luftwaffe weren't they, due to so many incidents of friendly fire), and the bomber pilot had been trained in the relentless discipline in keeping flying formation - fine over England in August/September 1940, but fatal in 1944/45. As Nick says, KG 51 ended up doing blanket bombing, and got malletted in the process. Schenck told me that when he saw the KG 51 losses several years after the war ended, he was saddened but not surprised, as those bomber pilots simply were not trained to throw a jet fighter around the sky once attacked by an Allied fighter.

Given the inability of the 262 to materially affect the ground war, in hindsight the use of the 262 might have been better employed 100% as a pure fighter. But, Kommando Schenck tested the first jet as a fighter-bomber, and what is the primary strike aircraft in every air force today? Yep, the jet fighter-bomber.

[Franek Grabowski]

But the concept of the fighter-bomber is much older than that!

[John Vasco]

Franek,

I know that, but the thread is about the 262 as a fighter-bomber...

[Franek Grabowski]

Yes, indeed, but I think that the concept of a jet aircraft is older than the concept of fighter-bomber, so underlining that the primary strike aircraft in every air force today is the jet fighter-bomber is missing the point a little bit, is not it?

[John Vasco]

Franek,
You're just nit-picking, and missing the point. No point in continuing the discussion from my end.