Me 262 should have been used as a bomber?

[George Hopp]

Thanks for that, Roger. It adds a great deal of clarification to the topic.
George

[RT]

The real question is Could it be operational earlier, nd in qty ???

When war hs been "completed", should not the allies give some medals to Prof.Messerschmitt ??

Rémi

[RT]

I have a question too: why did the Germans introduce the R4M so late?

I read that the german were more confident on cannons, more accurate cost lower...internal weapon..
The rocket seems to more some kind of saturation weapon, not for a scarce-materail country like germany

remi

[Graham Boak]

RT: your "real question" has been answered before: No. The introduction of the Me 262 into service was dependent on achieving an acceptable production standard for the Jumo engine. The most that could perhaps have been achieved would be to have a few more fighter pilots in a few more aircraft, a little bit sooner. This would not have been significant.

[George Hopp]

I have a question too: why did the Germans introduce the R4M so late?

I imagine, Nick, that the R4M was simply the result of a slow evolution of air-to-air rocket design, and that evolution just got the R4M into service too slowly. They had the RZ65 in 1942/43, and then seemed to go into larger rockets rather than to stay with massed smaller rockets. Perhaps, to increase the amount of propellent. So, perhaps the propellent burn rate, and thrust were the problem. And that's the problem with these things, there are so many aspects to them.

It's not much, Nick. But, maybe a start.
George

[CJE]

The Me 262 couldn't have been introduced into service earlier for the simple fact that there were not enough turbines. BMW and Junkers experienced a lot of troubles with this new technology and lack of nickel and chrom for the turbine blades had a negative effect on the mass-production.

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by RT

I have a question too: why did the Germans introduce the R4M so late?

I read that the german were more confident on cannons, more accurate cost lower...internal weapon..
The rocket seems to more some kind of saturation weapon, not for a scarce-materail country like germany

remi

But they invested a lot of effort in other weapons to break up formations, rather than hit individual aircraft. It seems to me that the R4M would have served that purpose very well if the bombers could see it coming (e.g. smoke trails). Other advantages were small aerodynamic penalty from carrying them (at least I guess so) compared to a big gun or the WGr. 21 and that they were "fire-and-forget" weapons unlike, say, the X-4.

[George Hopp]

I agree completely, Nick. And, I find it amazing that they were still using WGr. 21s on the Me 262. I find both that installation and the rearward firing WGr. 21 installation beneath the fuselage of the Fw 190 as to be little short of madness. With all the back blast, I can see real problems in firing both sets of rockets, with the one beneath the Fw 190 possibly causing real damage to the propeller, and the Me 262 ones causing damage along the entire bottom of the fuselage.

I can't see the X-4 as anything more than a gimmick since who would want to sit there stearing a rocket while there are escort fighters all around. So, yes the fire-and-forget rockets would be necessary.

The RZ 65 installations on the 109F and 110F were just too elegant, and would have been more effective in multi-shot tubes beneath the wings. And, with the multiple rockets great for downing a single bomber at a time.

[CJE]

I surely missed an episode. Were WGr. 21 fitted to 262s?

[RT]

You are right difficult to understand the non use the low technology weapon like rockets, if we use the cumbersome Wgr.21, but further against bombers after the satisfactory use at year end of the R4M, during for example the Korean war it was used cannons. Before the advent of the guided-rockets the cannon was certainly the best compromise, the americans re-introduce it in the F4 even.

An other explanation is that idot-rockets are not german-weapons, Germany in the first part of the century was the show-window of the world science they stole 60 % of the nobel prices in the scientific categories, the french quite achieve this figure too ...but in litterature.

rémi