BOC: Me.262s (Was - Re: Buck Benefit / BOC fanatic checklist)

[Craig Shipley]

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From:   M R Godwin[SMTP:hssmrg at BATH.AC.UK]
Sent:   Tuesday, April 22, 1997 10:05 AM
To:     Multiple recipients of list BOC-L
Subject:        Re: BOC: Me.262s (Was - Re: Buck Benefit / BOC fanatic checklist)

The lyric that I downloaded from somewhere has "Great silver slugs" (not
grey-silver). I always assumed that this meant the rockets (because of the
size).

Well, being the WWII aviation buff that I am, I thought that the reference was to the
American bombers over Der Vaterland (by the time that the 262 became operational,
the USAAF/RAF had control of the skies over Europe. The USAAF found that the paint
used to camouflage their aircraft added additional drag and weight to the planes and since
the Luftwaffe was largely impotent to wage air raids on Allied airbases, the need for
camouflaged a/c on the ground was not really necessary. I am not forgetting the RAF; they
were still conducting night raids, but I don't think they ever stripped the cammo off of their
bomber (I know that the fighters remained in cammo for the duration). Uhhh, this refers more
to the statement below than the one above...

As far as the statement about the "great/gray silver slugs in my snout" as previously pointed out,
the 262 had anywhere from two to six 20mm (MK 108) cannon in the nose, while most of the Luftwaffe fighters
used 7.9 mm machine guns (the 20mm's had a slow rate-of-fire compared to the 7.9's. Fine when
 you are busting bombers, but not so hot in a dogfight). There was a variant that had two 20MM and four 30MM
(don't think this version ever went into production). There was even a version that had a 50MM cannon
(two foot long projectile!) that was used for busting tanks.  The R4M rockets were slung under the wings and
bombs were carried under the fuselage, right under the nose. The R4M's were only fitted to a few 262's (24
rockets, 12 per wing, 55MM), but, so what, this is a song we are talking about and poetic license is to be
expected.

Probably more than any of you wanted to know...

obBook: Jet Planes Of The Third Reich / Smith & Creek

Craig Shipley
craigs at pyramid.com

And what about "They hung their dependent like some heavy metal fruit"?
Surely that means that the things are slung underneath the fuselage?

- Mike Godwin