Sixxkiller Posted May 10, 2006 Share Posted May 10, 2006 Now that all of you know about the Me-262 being in the game, now its time to think about What the Brits and the like have to counter it at a jet level. First up would have to be the Gloster Meteor even though the only combat it saw was intercepting V-1's. Next would be the P-80 Shooting Star. No combat either but it was actually the fastest a/c of WWII even though the German fans wont admit it. The US would also get the XFR-1 Fireball and the FH-1 Phantom, both of which were made in WWII and would have seen action if not for Japans surrender. Have to add the Me-163B of course The Japanese het the Nakajima Kikka which actually had 2 produced before the end of the war. Also a Ram-Jet version of the J7W1 could be possibly in. The Italians even get in here with 2, the Campini Caproni CC. 2 and the Reggiane Re 2007, which had it been built it may have been the best jet plane of the war. The Russians could possibly get the I-300 (Mig-9) -Ray Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sixxkiller Posted May 10, 2006 Author Share Posted May 10, 2006 Forgot the de Havilland Vampire I for the Brits Also could make a case for these German ones.... Horten Ho229, Heinkel He280, Focke Wulf Ta183, and Messerschmitt P.1101. The Germans also had a few bombers that would be sweet. Arado Ar234B, Arado Ar234C-3, Henschel Hs132 (Maybe the most neat idea for Jets ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Mike Posted May 10, 2006 Share Posted May 10, 2006 Personally I'm not in favour of such flights of fantasy - there are plenty of a/c that actually existed that I'd ratehr see than have Dan & co spend their time on these. But some may be surprised to know that over 2000 individual jet & rocket a/c actually existed prior to the end of WW2: Manuf Design Name First Flown Number (postwar) Operational Comment Heinkel He-178 27Aug39 1P First turbojet, little interest. Ger Heinkel He-280 02Apr41 8P Twinjet. Lost contract to Me-262 Ger Gloster E28/39 Pioneer 15May41 1P Test of Wittle engine. Br Messerschmitt Me-262 Swallow 25Mar42 1,430 July44. Delayed year by Hitler as bomber Ger Bell XP-59 Aircomet 01Oct42 50 Twin jet fighter US Gloster F.9/40 Meteor 05Mar43 8P Twin jet Br Arado Ar-234 Blitz 15June43 200 Twin jet reconnaissance bomber Ger de Havilland DH-100 Vampire 29Sep43 P (1,900) 1946-54. twin boom Br Messerschmitt Me-328 1944 P Twin pulsejet Ger Lockheed P-80 Shooting 8Jan44 45 (1,732) Two demo to Italy before war end. Korea US Gloster G.41 Meteor 12Jan44 210 (657) 4Aug44 destroy two V1. France 20Jan45. Br Ryan FR-1 Fireball 25Jan44 66 Turbojet and turboprop US Horten Ho-IX V2 Summer44 2P Twin jet, flying wing. Go-229. Ger Junkers Ju-287 Aug44 1P Four engine jet bomber Ger Arado Ar-234C Blitz 30Sept44 10P Four engine jet bomber Ger Fieseler Fi-103 Reichenberg 1944 175 Piloted V1 pulsejet Ger Northrop JB-10 Jet Bomb c1944 24 Flying wing, programmed, unmanned bomb US Consol-Vultee XP-81 c1944 2P Turbojet and turboprop US Heinkel He-162 Salamander 06Dec44 320 Captured as made operational May'45 US McDonnell XFH-1 Phantom 26Jan45 2 (66) 1948-50 US Bell XP-83 Airacomet II 25Feb45 1P Wide body P-59, more fuel. US Yokosuka Ohka-22 Buka 1945 1P Suicide bomb Jap Douglas XBTD-2 Destroyer May45 2P Jets added to BTD-Destroyer US Henschel Hs-132 June45? 1P Dive bomber Ger Nakajima Kikka 7Aug45 2P Twin jet bomber on Me-262 model. Jap Alekseev I-211 1P Twin jet fighter on Me-262 model. USSR Messerschmitt P.1101 1P Variable sweep experimental aircraft Ger Northrop XP79B Flying Ram 12Sep45 2P Flying wing, ram US ROCKET PLANE DEVELOPMENT during World War Two Messerschmitt Me-163 Komet Sum'41 400 May'44. Ger Berezniak Isaev BI-2 Rocket Fighter May42 7P Also with ramjets on wings USSR Northrop MX-334 Flying Wing Jun44 1P US Yokosuka Ohka-11 Buka Nov44 755 Suicide bomb Jap Bachem Ba-349 Natter Dec44 20+ Rocket Fighter Ger Northrop XP-79A Flying Ram - Flying wing, design canceled US Messerschmitt Me 263 Komet II 1945 1P From Me-163, longer range. (Ju 248) Ger Mitsubishi J8M Shusui July45 1P From Me-163 Jap DUCTED FAN: Jet Thrust Coanda Turbine 10Dec1910 1P Yes, 1910. Rom Caproni N-1 Compini 28Aug40 2P . with afterburner. Italy [ May 10, 2006, 05:53 PM: Message edited by: Stalin's Organist ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Mike Posted May 11, 2006 Share Posted May 11, 2006 Originally posted by Sixxkiller: Next would be the P-80 Shooting Star. No combat either but it was actually the fastest a/c of WWII even though the German fans wont admit it. P-80a top speed 558 mph @ sea level (http://home.att.net/~jbaugher1/p80_4.html & http://www.aviation-history.com/lockheed/p80.html) Wiki gives it's top speed as 600 mph, and the Virtual Aviation Museum says 485 kts - 533 mph. 600 mph is the fastest, but none of the otehrs are. I wonder which is true....if any??!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sixxkiller Posted May 11, 2006 Author Share Posted May 11, 2006 I think the P-80's max speed was 967 km/h which is 601 or so MPH. The Me-163 (960) was right in that range but it weighed a few thousand lbs less at its highest loadout IIRC. All of the speeds are a grain of salt though in some ways with most of these Jets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Mike Posted May 11, 2006 Share Posted May 11, 2006 Looks like the 550-ish mph figure might be the accurate one - it ties in with 553 mph in the outline of the XP-80A published by Edwards AF Base . Later marks were faster - the P-80C getting to 594mph - but it was XP-80A's that were sent to Europe for evaluation in 1945. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sixxkiller Posted May 11, 2006 Author Share Posted May 11, 2006 And the first Me-163A went 1033 km/h in a test flight, but I guess no one counts that one Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Mike Posted May 11, 2006 Share Posted May 11, 2006 Why not? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sixxkiller Posted May 11, 2006 Author Share Posted May 11, 2006 Cause it was a test flight and the A version of the Komet didnt get made. Going Mach .8 in the 40's must have been as good as going Mach 2 today for the pilots. Damn sexy job!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zanadu Posted May 11, 2006 Share Posted May 11, 2006 Trying to put something like the Me163 in DiF would require some special rules, as in the real a/c nearly all the fuel was used up in the initial climb to altitude, so to be any where near accurate, would have to have special rules with severe limits on climbing or even maintaining an altitude level more than one turn. Basically, you'd get one, or at the very most two attacks on a bomber before going down. They couldn't do anything against a fighter unless it just got in the way to be shot at. Also, I don't believe that Hitler's insistance on a bomber version really delayed the Me2622 fighter much, if any. The real problem was developing the engines to a level of reliability allowing practical use. Even in late '44 when they started actually deploying a few, the time between overhauls was only 50 hours and very few lasted that long without failure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zanadu Posted May 11, 2006 Share Posted May 11, 2006 As to some of the others, the Ohka was an air 2 surface weapon with no air combat capability of any sort. The Ryan Fireball was found to offer no performance advantage over existing pure-prop a/c (but did prove useful providing training in jet a/c for maintainance people). The Northrop FH1 did enter service (eventually) in small numbers, but had performance only slightly superior to the later prop a/c (top speed was below 500 mph) and the slow engine throttle response made for all kinds of problems doing carrier landings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sixxkiller Posted May 11, 2006 Author Share Posted May 11, 2006 I dont know Zanadu, I think Hitlers insistance on the Me-262's "bomber" development had a lot to do with its delay. Disobeying Hitler wasnt a wise move and most of what they did had to be out of sight of his henchmen. -Ray Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Mike Posted May 11, 2006 Share Posted May 11, 2006 There have been some suggestions as to how to handle the 163, but I've no idea what path it's actually going to take, or even if it will be included in the near future. As for teh 262 - Willy Messerschnidt told both Hitler and Goering that the a/c had been designed to carry bombs from the outset, which it had not, and agreed to produce it as a fighter-bomber. But he did nothing at all towards that objective!! when hitler found out he threw a tantrum, it all got blamed on Milch by Goering (Milch had supported Messerschmidt in not developing a Jabo), and Hitler insisted all development now be concentrated on the Jabo. Prototype V10 was hurriedly adapted to the role and Hitler was mollified. He then allowed continued development of eth fighter as long as it didn't slow down Jabo production. He finally agreed to abandon Jabo development/production only after there proved to be no "real" invasion over the Pas de Calais, but still insisted that any fighters be easily convertable to the Jabo role. So really the design and buildign of the bomber had almost no effect on the production schedule at all. Zanadu is being generous with the life of the Jumo 004B engines - 15-20 hours was more typical. the "B" engine used much less of the rare high temperature materials and alloys than the "A" engine had, and was considerably lighter. But the materials used were subject to overheating hence reducing the life of the engine - the typical problem was that a pilot would open the throttle too fast, pouring fuel into the engine which would burn, but the airflow would not have increased enough to provide cooling - hence it would overheat, causing the turbines to disintigrate. I recall reading somewhere that allied test pilots post war were very wary of flying the 262's because they had no idea how long the engines had run since their last overhaul, and they were liable to fail at any time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sixxkiller Posted May 11, 2006 Author Share Posted May 11, 2006 Stalin wrote, "There have been some suggestions as to how to handle the 163, but I've no idea what path it's actually going to take, or even if it will be included in the near future." Wow there has? I must not be privy to all sorts of information at the DIF Skunkworks! I think its because Dan sent me a list of planes and then decided not to tell me some werent going to be made for the expansion and others were! I quit, send me my final paycheck! -Ray Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Mike Posted May 11, 2006 Share Posted May 11, 2006 You weer copied them - it's your own fault for not reading your e-mail!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sixxkiller Posted May 12, 2006 Author Share Posted May 12, 2006 LOL if it doesnt say JAPANESE PLANES INSIDE I most likely missed it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Mike Posted May 14, 2006 Share Posted May 14, 2006 I found a couple of Russian efforts that were missing from that list above Sukhoi Su-5 and Mig I-250 Both of these a/c used a hybrid "accelerator" which consisted of an engine driven fan pushing air through a combustion chamber at the rear of the a/c where fuel was injected and ignited, providing 900 lbs thrust for up to 10 minutes. The engine also drove a conventional propellor. Both a/c flew during the war but by 1944 it as clear that "pure" jets were the way to go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts