Me 262 should have been used as a bomber?

[Roger Gaemperle]

This is a difficult topic. Hitler actually already ordered in the first quarter of 1943 that every fighter aircraft must be capable of carrying bombs. Due to this order Messerschmitt engineers planned a maximum capacity of 500 kg for the Me 262 already in early 1943 (project drawing II/141). Hence, the optional use of the Me 262 as a fighter bomber was planned long before the famous Insterburg "Airshow" in November 1944 or the meeting on 23 May 1945. Messerschmitt told Hitler at the Insterburg airshow that the Me 262 could be used as a fighter bomber. The reasons are that first he knew that at least some work had been done already to use the Me 262 as a fighter bomber and secondly he wanted to avoid that the program Me 209 was stopped in favour of a fighter aircraft Me 262. His estimations for conversion time were very optimistic, however: 14 days (2 Nov 1944). However, the electrical wiring diagram and the bomb racks were not designed yet. A Messerschmitt memo of 30 April 1943 mentions that it was decided to install the necessary equipment only in V-9 and later V-aircraft in order not to disturb the construction of V-aircraft and to assure useful starting conditions at the introduction of the Me 262 at operational units. In July 1943 the preparations for the pre series production were almost completed and the focus should - according to another memo from July 1943 - be on the fighter bomber conversion. At the beginning of 1944 work on the bomb installations were progressing and it was intended to introduce bomb installations from the 6 serial production Me 262 onwards. Hence, in my opinion it was just a matter of priority. Messerschmitt did work on the bomb system for the Me 262 but only after the preparations for the pre series production were completed and probably also then not with full capacity as there were still a lot of other problems to be solved (e.g. the feeding mechanism of the Mk 108 had severe problems). It might have been possible to have the bomb system ready earlier if Messerschmitt focused 100% on this, but then the pre series production might have been delayed and with it also the operational use of the Me 262.

The problems later arose due to technical and tactical shortcomings: the two main tanks of the initial design did not hold enough capacity and the range of the Me 262 with bomb load would have been too little. This required a new fuel tank (600 liters). Through this increased weight the landing gear had to be strengthened and two of 4 MK 108 had to be removed. Since the 600liter tank was in the rear and the weight of 2 MK108 in the nose was removed the aircraft was now extremely tail heavy after releasing the bombs. In addition, an appropriate gunsight had not yet been developed and in the end led to the use of the standard Revi 16B and the development of the Lotfe Me 262 with a seperate bomb aimer.

To come back to the original question: The range was too low without the additional fuel tank to fly it over England. Even with the fuel tank, it hardly flew longer than 1 hour. And even if it was possible the result would have been almost nothing.

Regards
Roger Gaemperle