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

[Jon Jarrett]

On Tue, 22 Apr 1997, Craig Shipley wrote:

> 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...

        Only problem with that interp. is it's hard to see why the bombers
would be "eager to feed" compared to the other possibility, Von Ondine's
bullets. But you're right, US bombers flew naked, basically because you
could see their vapour trails for 200 miles anyway... But of course these
are Englishmen, who didn't fly Fortresses and at this point one has got
to stop taking it that seriously...

> 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.

        Way I read it, that one was a bomber-destroyer, and couldn't be
used because the muzzle flash blinded the pilot - bad when flying straight
into a bomber formation...

> 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.

        Yeah. Pearlman's research never was too hot anyhow, huh? Jazza
(positively my last post on this topic... )

 /_______________________________________________________________________\
 |         Jon Jarrett, Pembroke College, Cambridge                      |
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