Ground Support Aircraft

[Lars]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by l3w53r:

Dunno much bout the "organic",but thats the explanation I've read of for why there is not much heavy artillery for the soviets during ww2.

I've read that them ruskies only produced a handful of big arillery guns for ground troops becuase the red army got 'em sturmoviks.

And I think the "flying tanks" was pretty much coordinated with ground troops to become replacements for heavy artillery.

And I still have got to learn(I'm 14yrs old)but I think Germany could have won the war if Hitler didn't bomb London,instead opting to continue decimating the RAF in the Battle of Britain,giving the luftwaffe air supperiority and paving the way for England's invasion.

That way, there's only 1 front, the eastern one,then there's not gonna be much need for an alliance with japan (which means America might not go into war with germany), as the Reich controls a lot of countries and only one front where all these resources would be used on.And there will be little disruption on German industry, as there will be no airfields from which allied heavy bombers could come from to bomb germany.and getting supplies to Russia would be a bit hard, as Germany would be able to harass, or utterly stop any convoy going to russia from the atlantic.

So to me, if the Germans had won the battle of Britain, there is going to be a stronger germany, and weaker, if not non-existent allies.

whew! =)<hr></blockquote>

If you think the Soviets didn't produce a lot of heavy artillery, your going to get a rude suprise in CMBB. Keep reading though.

[ 10-30-2001: Message edited by: Lars ]</p>

[Simon Fox]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by l3w53r:

Dunno much bout the "organic",but thats the explanation I've read of for why there is not much heavy artillery for the soviets during ww2.

I've read that them ruskies only produced a handful of big arillery guns for ground troops becuase the red army got 'em sturmoviks.

And I think the "flying tanks" was pretty much coordinated with ground troops to become replacements for heavy artillery.

And I still have got to learn(I'm 14yrs old)but I think Germany could have won the war if Hitler didn't bomb London,instead opting to continue decimating the RAF in the Battle of Britain,giving the luftwaffe air supperiority and paving the way for England's invasion.

That way, there's only 1 front, the eastern one,then there's not gonna be much need for an alliance with japan (which means America might not go into war with germany), as the Reich controls a lot of countries and only one front where all these resources would be used on.And there will be little disruption on German industry, as there will be no airfields from which allied heavy bombers could come from to bomb germany.and getting supplies to Russia would be a bit hard, as Germany would be able to harass, or utterly stop any convoy going to russia from the atlantic.

So to me, if the Germans had won the battle of Britain, there is going to be a stronger germany, and weaker, if not non-existent allies.

whew! =)<hr></blockquote>Sorry but the only chance the German's had to win the BoB was if the Brits completely stuffed up and they didn't. Though they made a few mistakes they still won handily and if they'd managed their manpower resources a bit more effectively the Luftwaffe would've been really walloped.

As for the Me262 I imagine that some of the delay might have been due to the production line being bombed into the stone age in 1943. Surely Hitler didn't organise that?

[Scott B]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by l3w53r:

Dunno much bout the "organic",but thats the explanation I've read of for why there is not much heavy artillery for the soviets during ww2.

I've read that them ruskies only produced a handful of big arillery guns for ground troops becuase the red army got 'em sturmoviks.

And I think the "flying tanks" was pretty much coordinated with ground troops to become replacements for heavy artillery.

<hr></blockquote>

Right idea, wrong army-- that was the German army's problem more than anyone else's. The Soviets had all kinds of artillery on hand; their problem was applying it beyond the breakthrough phase of an operation.

Scott

[Slapdragon]

I also think that the "Germany could win if" would require that it stay away from Russia for a few more years and succeed at invading England, both possibilities hard to see happening. WW2 was predicated on Hitler's meglomania, but once started it would take a bunch of very unlikely events to see Germany do anything more than stalemate, with the US, much of the Commonwealth, Russia, and England undefeated and economically very powerful.

[Slapdragon]

The ME 262 was in no way a war winner. There was no fuel for them, the production plant for the machine was bombed repeatedly, they needed very long and very vulnerable airdomes to operate from, they could only fly at best speed for a short time, and were vulnerable to higher endurance P-51 and Spitfires if they were not flying pedal to the metal, and they hack a sucky record for time in air versus time being fixed.

No doubt they worried the allies a lot, and they did damage, but the only way that Germany could have taken a bite out of the bombing campaign was if they could have flown 2000 of them and had fuel and support to keep them in the air. Which still would have played into the allies hands since that is 200,000 ground crew and airdome staff that was not defending Germany on the ground (the 262 required 3 times the ground crew as the FW 190, not counting fuel services which was a huge organization on paper).

The 262 was a luxury that could have been dispensed with all together since there was no gas.

[imported_Wildman]

Nothing to see here, double post. (Twitchy finger)

[ 10-31-2001: Message edited by: Wildman ]</p>

[imported_Wildman]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Slapdragon:

The ME 262 was in no way a war winner. There was no fuel for them, the production plant for the machine was bombed repeatedly, they needed very long and very vulnerable airdomes to operate from, they could only fly at best speed for a short time, and were vulnerable to higher endurance P-51 and Spitfires if they were not flying pedal to the metal, and they hack a sucky record for time in air versus time being fixed.

No doubt they worried the allies a lot, and they did damage, but the only way that Germany could have taken a bite out of the bombing campaign was if they could have flown 2000 of them and had fuel and support to keep them in the air. Which still would have played into the allies hands since that is 200,000 ground crew and airdome staff that was not defending Germany on the ground (the 262 required 3 times the ground crew as the FW 190, not counting fuel services which was a huge organization on paper).

The 262 was a luxury that could have been dispensed with all together since there was no gas.<hr></blockquote>

I would agree with this assesment of how the Me 262s were actually developed and used. However, if the Me262 was actually design finalized and produced in quantity starting in early 1943, they could have had an impact. Remember, that long-range escorts didn't appear for the 8 AF until roughly mid-1944. Consider the impact of a bomber-killing interceptor in mid 1943, daylight bombing was almost cancelled in 1943 without the Me262 due to excessive bomber losses.

As for the engines and their limited life span. The average sortie duration (ASD) now for F-16s is roughly 1.0 hours in an intercept mode. This would be true for the Me262, because it did not carry the fuel for longer sorties. So with an ASD of 1.0 then the Me262 could go 10 days on average before performing an overhaul. Engine overhaul would take roughly 1 day to pull the engine and put a refurbish engine back in, 2-3 days to refurbish the engine.

So if we look at a 30-day month of a Me262 that doesn't get shot down in not damaged by fire. If it flies every day of the month, (also unlikely given the weather in Germany and England) that is 30 sorties with an ASD of 1.0. If one engine lasts for ten sorties, on day 10 the plane lands and maintenance uses the 11th day to pull the old engines, put in the new engines and do a ground run. If we assume that the engines are refurbished and not placed on another aircraft then on day 22 the plane come back and on day 23 the 2nd set of engines are removed and the original set put back on. They will fly to day 33.

So this shows that an engine will last one month given the figures that were provided earlier.

(10 hours for overhaul, 25 hours to full failure)

So the production rate would be three engines a month for every Me 262. (It is three because if you go out to 60 days the aircraft will use six engines) However, after 25 hours the engines are pulled and they're not completely useless. You would only have to replace the axial engine core. The accessory shaft, gear box, etc, would be pulled and pull on a new engine core. Its not like you have to produce an entirely new engine to replace an old one.

As you can see the Me262 could have been a viable weapons system in 1943, if the design was frozen and production ordered. This design tinkering was not limited to aircraft, and was prevalent in all late German designs. Tank production being a very good example.

Stopping Daylight bombing in 1943 was a real possibility and would have changed the course of the war. Would it have forced a peace settlement? I doubt it, however, I believe that Operation Overlord would not have taken place in 1944, it would have been delayed until 1945 at the earliest. Imagine the problems that Allieds would have faced given the actual production numbers were at their highest in Fall 1944 and that was when bombing wasn't stopped.