What If Nazi Germany Had Recognized The Potential Of Jets Early On?

[BAYLOR]

Exactly. Capture or destroy the major cities and the oilfields. Most of the USSR was uninhabited, so you didn't need to conquer it all, just the bits that mattered.

I agree that Stalin was just as ruthless as Hitler, but if he'd lost his main supplies of fuel and munitions there wouldn't have been a lot he could have done other than carry out guerilla raids.

In my opinion Germany's intention wasn't to conquer Russia; in fact if Hitler had thought Stalin trustworthy he wouldn't have invaded at all. But he knew that given time, Russia would have attacked him, so he was just getting there first.

1937 Stalin had purged the Soviet army of any Generals and officers who might be a potential threat to him. he in effect weakened his army. That and the difficulty that The Soviets had against Finland's Much smaller army convince Hitler that the Soviet Union would fall over like a house of cards.

 

[paranoid marvin]

I agree, but the USSR isn't a country you would ever want to occupy; it's just impossible without stupid amounts of men. Capture (or even destroy) their oilfields though and you pretty much remove any meaningful threat.

Also there's a massive difference between a small nation using guerilla tactics against a larger force, and the threat of extinction. When Hitler invaded, the Russians were literally fighting for their lives - a big motivator!

 

[Ursa major]

I recall a number of times where it was stated (on the TV) that the fighters Germany already had were told to stay with the bombers they were meant to be protecting. Giving the fighters a higher top speed wouldn't have helped: they'd still have spent most of their time at lower speeds. Of course, the answer to this would have been to give the bombers jet engines, but then there would have been the problem of range (or reduced bomb carrying capability if they carried more fuel).

For a technology to be a game changer, it has to work, it has to be amenable to being produced in numbers** larger than that of prototypes, its extra capabilities have to be useful, its capabilities have to be understood by those who have to use them, its capabilities must be available quick enough to justify transferring resources from the main war effort, etc. It seems that only the first of these -- getting jet engines to work -- had been fully achieved. Without all of the others, that sole achievement meant little.


** - Okay, globally affecting doomsday weapons perhaps do not need to be made in large numbers (although testing the effectiveness one might pose problems...).

 

[HareBrain]

From what I've heard, bringing the Me262 into full production a couple of years earlier, and training enough pilots to fly them well, might have effectively halted daylight bombing raids on Germany. But I doubt that would have had a huge impact on the timing of the end of the war.

 

[Null_Zone]

The Germans also had the minor problem that their fighters and bombers had incompatible radio equipment, they simply weren't capable of communicating. Which makes close support, well any kind of support really, kind of tricky.

When your dealing with a mentality that comes up with that kind of problem technology is the least of your issues.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Tbh if their bombers had (reliable) jet engines, they wouldn't have needed escorts - they would have been able to fly higher and faster than any propellored fighter.

 

[Null_Zone]

With what sort of payloads?

The B52 which was a proven design with a long ancestry doesn't have a great strategic bombing record. But the Germans are meant to develop a high altitude bomber with sufficient payload and accuracy to take out airfields, warships and industrial centres. All with no expertise in heavy bombers and without anyone noticing and thinking hmm that look interesting.

The proven method for dealing with German jets was to bomb the bell out of them using low altitude fight/bombers. Mayberry catch the jets taking off or landing but probably just work over the infrastructure. No German jets can deal with that.

 

[BAYLOR]

From what I've heard, bringing the Me262 into full production a couple of years earlier, and training enough pilots to fly them well, might have effectively halted daylight bombing raids on Germany. But I doubt that would have had a huge impact on the timing of the end of the war.

It might have delayed the end of world war II by a few months.

 

[Bowler1]

If Germany had a functioning squadron of jets for the Battle of Britain one would have been shot down somewhere over the UK. The boffins would have reverse engineered it and caught back up within a year - sort of like WWI aircraft development. It would have caused big problems for allied night bombing and impacting the German war machine early in the war, but eventually American industrial might would have seen the day through. Russia would have suffered a lot more, as the real fighting was done on the ground and mostly by Russia. It would have been a longer war, but Hitler being a bit of a control freak was always going to end in an allied victory, jets or not. Or so I think.

That was a good what if question.

 

[BAYLOR]

If Germany had a functioning squadron of jets for the Battle of Britain one would have been shot down somewhere over the UK. The boffins would have reverse engineered it and caught back up within a year - sort of like WWI aircraft development. It would have caused big problems for allied night bombing and impacting the German war machine early in the war, but eventually American industrial might would have seen the day through. Russia would have suffered a lot more, as the real fighting was done on the ground and mostly by Russia. It would have been a longer war, but Hitler being a bit of a control freak was always going to end in an allied victory, jets or not. Or so I think.

That was a good what if question.

Didn't Frank Whittle begin Jet engine development in the early 1930's ? Britain was working on it's own jet fighter Meteor during later part of the time of war?

 

[Bowler1]

Yes they were BAYLOR, but the RAF were still using the tried and trust technology at that point, not that you could blame them really. I've no doubts the jet gap would have been close ASAP, if it had ever occurred.

 

[paranoid marvin]

But if the Luftwaffe had jet fighters flying over Britain, they would have won the war long before the British developed their own jet propelled aircraft..

 

[Gramm838]

The Henkel 178 prototype flew successfully in 1939 just before Germany launched its attack on Poland. Fortunately for everyone, they saw little initial value in Jet propulsion and when they did put the ME 262 into production and action, They had already lost the war. But what if they had seen the possibilities? what if they had put jet fighters like the Me 262 in production a few years sooner ? How do you think it would have impacted the outcome of the second world war ?

And as an added Question The Arrado Jet Bomber?

The British Government would have rushed Gloster E/39 into production in some form, and with American help would have soon surpassed Germany's abilities with jets (the German jets would have been better, but the allies would have had far more of theirs than the Germans did due to the differences in the scale of the respective aviation industries).

The Martin Baker company had some world class designs that we gave away to the Mercans late in the war, and they took those developments and eventually arrived at the F-86 Sabre

 

[Null_Zone]

As is the Meteor beat the 262 into service, even then it wasn't needed to actually fight German jets.

The Germans really just didn't having the material to win and air war.

And interesting statistic I read on aircraft production I read was that the allies put 30-40% of.it's aircraft production into spare parts, the Germans less than 10%. So a damaged.German fighter was more.likely to be a write off and you need to drastically increase allied fighters if their are more lost airframe.

 

[Flyerman11]

It is also important to note that the ME 262 while faster than anything the allies had, was not very maneuverable or reliable and several were shot down as they were landing (slow and near the ground) where they were easy targets, this practice was called "rat catching". Not very sportsman like, but then again, it was war. If memory serves, the allies downed some 120 or so German jets during WWII, plus many more on the ground.

 

[paranoid marvin]

It is also important to note that the ME 262 while faster than anything the allies had, was not very maneuverable or reliable and several were shot down as they were landing (slow and near the ground) where they were easy targets, this practice was called "rat catching". Not very sportsman like, but then again, it was war. If memory serves, the allies downed some 120 or so German jets during WWII, plus many more on the ground.

Thing is though, that if the Germans had won the Battle of Britain, there would have been no Allied planes over Germany. If the Germans had managed to destroy Britain's airforce they would have defeated them, and the US (with no foothold or allies in Europe) would have not entered the war

 

[BAYLOR]

Thing is though, that if the Germans had won the Battle of Britain, there would have been no Allied planes over Germany. If the Germans had managed to destroy Britain's airforce they would have defeated them, and the US (with no foothold or allies in Europe) would have not entered the war

Even had they defeated Britain and conquered Europe, he wouldn't have been able to hold onto it. Eventually the conquered territories would have rebelled against the Nazis, they wouldn't had the resources or manpower to hold down the territories and deal with the all consuming Russian Front, and their lack of dependable fuel supplies would have other material shortages would have further weakened them The Reich would have collapsed within a few short years.

 

[Flyerman11]

Thing is though, that if the Germans had won the Battle of Britain, there would have been no Allied planes over Germany. If the Germans had managed to destroy Britain's airforce they would have defeated them, and the US (with no foothold or allies in Europe) would have not entered the war

True enough, however, this was mostly a strategic mistake by the Germans, especially Hitler, who abandoned their initial objective of destroying the RAF shifting to a terror bombing campaign. Had they stayed the course they may have won out, with the aircraft they already had. The main deficiency in the German fighters was a lack of range, something jets would not have solved. Germany also lacked a heavy long-range four engine bomber.

 

[paranoid marvin]

True enough, however, this was mostly a strategic mistake by the Germans, especially Hitler, who abandoned their initial objective of destroying the RAF shifting to a terror bombing campaign. Had they stayed the course they may have won out, with the aircraft they already had. The main deficiency in the German fighters was a lack of range, something jets would not have solved. Germany also lacked a heavy long-range four engine bomber.

Agreed. If Hitler and Goering had persevered with destroying British aircraft and airfields then he would have had total air superiority and could have picked the British off at will. The problem was that he assumed the British would surrender just like everyone else had done; he should have known that with a beligerant chap like Churchill in charge this was never going to happen.

 

[Null_Zone]

There were several air groups completely untouched by the German assault, the only time they ever achieved the kill ratios they needed occurred when the Luftwaffe were on the defensive. The Sea lion barges would take 24 hours to cross the channel and even the loaded Sandhurst exercise involving the likes of Manstein concluded in a few German shock troops slaughtered on the beaches.

As for Churchill's belligerence, that is a good term for his attempts at strategy. He got a lot of good men killed or taken prisoner directly because of his inability to grasp that warfare had moved on since his time as a journalist and a ADHD attitude to finding new fronts on which to fight.