Jet Vs. Jet

C

Cowboy1968

Charter Member
We often find ourselves in our World War II fighting in our prop planes. We have gotten use to tight knife fights. with a good time for reaction, but recently i have really gotten into the jets of World War II.

The Dogfights in jets are a vast difference compared to the prop fights. closer speeds are incredible and the distances covered in a fight are large. you lose you concentration even for a second your target has gotten away from you. The battles are wide sweeping turns and fast and high climbing, but the speed of the battle is awesome.

Here are just some of my thoughts on the birds.

Allied birds:
Bell P-59 Aerocomet is a good sound aircraft, but it offers no advantage over the props . but it is a good dog fighter. and it was a wonderful start for the US. I enjoy flying it, but in jet vs jet....it just isn't there.

Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star would have been more then a match for the Me-262. The P-80 can turn tight even at high speed and its engine gives her a faster speed then the Swallow. I love flying this plane. Its a good sound fighter and it would have turned the tide in the jet battles of 1946 if the war hadn't ended.

McDonald FH Phantom was a bit slower then the Shooting Star, but it would have given the USN a major advantage in carrier aircraft. It's another fun plane to fly and an even greater plane to learn to land on an aircraft carrier.

Gloster Meteor was a good start for the British and it was developed past the P-59 which shared the same engines as the initial models of the Meteor. The problem with the Meteor was that even though it was as fast as the 262, it couldn't turn with it. This would have pretty much restricted the Meteor to tackling prop fighters. But again what a blast to fly.

The De Haviland Vampire was pretty much the equivalent to the American P-80. A good steady gun platform and a great dog fighter....problem is she was six months behind the Shooting Star in development. Along with the Shooting Star, the vampire would have returned the skies to allied hands. My thoughts are the same as those i shared for the P-80

German Birds

The Me-262 was a great plane. You can't ignore her. She was fast and had a great wing loading capability. She could take more then most of other jets of her time. she could be put into more Gs then any other jet of the time. In Jet v. Jet she is a blast to fly, but she can't turn with prop planes unless she drops to her speed and then she looses her advantage. Another problem is that she just doesn't carry enough ammo..... you run out quick

the He-162 Salamander is one hard plane to fly and to land. but it is a good fast machine that is agile as hell even at speed. Problem is she is fragile.

The Ho-229 flying wing fighter would have been a nasty surprise that would have destroyed the P-80 and the Vampire. This bird is fast....at 607 mph.....just right under the Sound barrier. This machine though couldn't fight very well at those speeds but it was hard to see on radar.......Tests conducted on a mock up of the 229 showed that she was truelly the first stealth aircraft when trying to be detected by radars of the World War II era. I love flying this aircraft, but she is hard to fight in because you just have to make passing runs, unless you want to give up your speed advantage.

I haven't really gotten into the jet bombers yet of the period but I will. That Arado Ar-234 looks interesting. I just have to find a CFS2 model of it.
 
The Japanese where also developing jets on their own like the Kikka the Japanese version of the Me262. The allies and the German where not the only one. I believe the Russian where also trying to build Jets but they father behing in the development process!
 
actually Tony I have that bird. but I don't think it is a true representation of the plane. I say this because if you look at the .air file you discovered he has set it up like a prop plane and not a jet.
 
Yeah Cowboy, I have flown some Korean missions with the early Migs and Sabres. Vastly different is an understatement.
 
Cowboy1968 said:
actually Tony I have that bird. but I don't think it is a true representation of the plane. I say this because if you look at the .air file you discovered he has set it up like a prop plane and not a jet.
Click to expand...

I can understand that. A good .air profile might be better written if the Me-262 characteristics were studied. I don;t know how to doi any of that. Yet.

I have not confirmed because access to the Museum over here has been slightly limited since 2001 if you know what I mean but I have an unconfirmed report the Kikka was tested over here at the base in late '45-early 46. We are, or were, the HQ for the Foreign Technology Division. Had the war lasted and the Japanese industry not been wrecked, the Kikka, the Ki-83 and the Reppu would have been very bad news.

Bones
 
tonybones2112 said:
...Had the war lasted and the Japanese industry not been wrecked, the Kikka, the Ki-83 and the Reppu would have been very bad news.
Click to expand...

Only for about a hot minute...for about the time it took to deploy Shooting Stars, Meteors and Bearcats in compensating numbers to the theater. And lets not forget that in late '45 the Mustangs and T-bolt M & N models -- which were also more than a match for the Kikka, the Ki-83 and the Reppu -- were already feasting on what remained of skilled Japanese fighter pilots. Even if the allies had technically stopped short with Stangs, T-bolts and Bearcats, there wasn't enough skill left in the Japanese Army and Navy fighter corps to effectively use the Kikka, the Ki-83 and the Reppu in a tide-turning manner with conventional air warfare. Then there's that infamous, but all-important seppuku mindset that had all but engulfed the Japanese high command by 1945. With few exceptions, that thinking pretty much governed the tactical and strategic use of any advanced weaponry available to them during this period. Such advancements as the Kikka, the Ki-83 and the Reppu would have likely been wasted in desperate, vanity decision-making as was everything else during this period.

Not to oversimplify this topic, but that old saying, "its not the plane but the pilot" could easily be applied in this case of late war Japanese advancements in airpower. Going one further, one could also say, "its not the weapons, but the commanders". I'm reminded of the "very bad news" that the German advancements brought to the war table. To quote Wiki: "Towards the end of the war, the Luftwaffe was no longer a major factor, and despite fielding advanced aircraft like the Messerschmitt Me 262, Heinkel He 162, Arado Ar 234, and Me 163 it was crippled by fuel shortages and a lack of trained pilots. There was also very little time to develop the new aircraft, and they could not be produced fast enough by the Germans, so the jet- and rocket-powered planes proved to be "too little too late". The sheer weight of allied aviation production and trained pilots would have just overwhelmed these hot Japanese wonder weapons, much like the Stangs and T-bolts did in the western front and the T-34 vs the Tiger in the eastern front.
 
I truely am astonished at the P-80 Shooting Star. In Korea she was out dated and it shows in fighting the planes of that time, but when she appeared in World War II, her performance made it one of the premier aircraft af the day. Even at max speed the Shooting Star can still turn the FW-190, later models of the BF-109, the MC.202 and the MC.205. In jet on jet, where the Meteor struggles with doing combat with the Me262, the P-80 turns and burns on an even par with the Swallow. The only jet I really have trouble fighting in this bird is the HO.229 flying wing. The Wing just pulls away from her....

There are some jets i can't compare her to, simply because a CFS2 example hasn't been made. Mainly the two the Russian jets. the Yak-15 and the MIG-9.

There is one jet i would love to try against her, but I haven't found it either......IT is the Ta-183.
 
bearcat241 said:
Only for about a hot minute...for about the time it took to deploy Shooting Stars, Meteors and Bearcats in compensating numbers to the theater. And lets not forget that in late '45 the Mustangs and T-bolt M & N models -- which were also more than a match for the Kikka, the Ki-83 and the Reppu -- were already feasting on what remained of skilled Japanese fighter pilots. Even if the allies had technically stopped short with Stangs, T-bolts and Bearcats, there wasn't enough skill left in the Japanese Army and Navy fighter corps to effectively use the Kikka, the Ki-83 and the Reppu in a tide-turning manner with conventional air warfare. Then there's that infamous, but all-important seppuku mindset that had all but engulfed the Japanese high command by 1945. With few exceptions, that thinking pretty much governed the tactical and strategic use of any advanced weaponry available to them during this period. Such advancements as the Kikka, the Ki-83 and the Reppu would have likely been wasted in desperate, vanity decision-making as was everything else during this period.

Not to oversimplify this topic, but that old saying, "its not the plane but the pilot" could easily be applied in this case of late war Japanese advancements in airpower. Going one further, one could also say, "its not the weapons, but the commanders". I'm reminded of the "very bad news" that the German advancements brought to the war table. To quote Wiki: "Towards the end of the war, the Luftwaffe was no longer a major factor, and despite fielding advanced aircraft like the Messerschmitt Me 262, Heinkel He 162, Arado Ar 234, and Me 163 it was crippled by fuel shortages and a lack of trained pilots. There was also very little time to develop the new aircraft, and they could not be produced fast enough by the Germans, so the jet- and rocket-powered planes proved to be "too little too late". The sheer weight of allied aviation production and trained pilots would have just overwhelmed these hot Japanese wonder weapons, much like the Stangs and T-bolts did in the western front and the T-34 vs the Tiger in the eastern front.
Click to expand...

I agree, the Japanese did not have the industrial capacity, the depth, to carry through, as I said, they bit off more than they could chew and based their conquests as Hitler did on wishful thinking that we would not have the will to go all the way. The Japanese leadership actually believed their own propaganda of "100 Million Die Together", of 100 million people rushing down to the beaches with sharpened bamboo stakes, had we invaded.

Still, the Kikka and the rest would have come as a nasty surprise tilll neutralized. As I said, punch, counterpunch.

Bones
 
I am flying Rami's Me-262 campaign and it is awesome so far. Who ever had the idea for that campaign was a genious! ;-)


Moon
 
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