I recall reading recently a history of the AAF in WW-II “Winged Victory” of the Allies strategy for dealing with the jets.
As the ME-262 and AR-234 required long concrete runways once a jet was sighted the call went out on the radio “JETS”. Available units would then start patrolling those airfields. The flight time of the early jets was rather short and once the jets were in the pattern they were easy pickings for any Allied fighters.
This strategy played upon the early jets weakness in the slow acceleration of the engines of the times.
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
While the Germans had prototypes of the Me262 ready for production in 1943, much has been made of the production delay that came from Hitler’s order that they be redesigned as bombers. To some extent, that’s a red herring. Jet technology was very much in its infancy during World War 2. The two biggest problems that faced the Germans was the very short operating life of the earliest jet engines, and the scarcity of raw materials required for the turbo fan blades. In 1943, those problems were acute, but some technological progress had been made to aleviate some of the issues by 1944. As a practical matter, because of the engine issues, Germany could not have had an effective jet fighter force until the later part of 1944 regardless of Hitler’s order.
And even after they began production, the Germans could prodcuce the airframes for the Me262 but engines were always going to be a limiting factor. So while some Me262 squadrons did operate successfully, there were too few of them in operation, and too few well-trained and experienced pilots, for them to have had an effect on the war.
I know Adolph Galland claimed that with 250 flying Me262s, he could have broken up the big bomber formations and finished them off with the 109s and 190s. The problem was that he was never going to get that many 262s airborne and assembled for a concerted attack on any given day. It’s like saying the Germans would have won at Kursk if only they had another 200 Tiger tanks. You might as well argue that if Napoleon had a B52 at Waterloo, we’d all speak French.