Hi Saber964,
Not quite.
The primary problem of the LW was it was too small and didn't train enough pilots fast enough, as in 1943 it trained only 3000 fighter pilots, only replacing the 3000 it lost that year; while the US and Great Britain were training that many every month, NTM increasing those numbers, so while the LW was already losing the war in '43, the results from the huge allied training program became overwhelming in 1944 when it became a race between the allied fighter pilots, mainly in the P-47's and P-51's, and the pitifully half trained [if that] remaining German pilots as to who could destroy LW aircraft faster, the Germans if they survived combat, often preferred to bail out rather than attempt to land, which says a great deal about their trust in their training and experience.
The Me-262 while innovative in many ways was still unready for war in 1944-45, primarily because its engines were still so lousy, only lasting 20-25 hours before requiring replacement, so that you can see film of them being towed around the airfields by horses because the LW couldn't afford the taxi time on the engines!
The V6 prototype Hitler saw was the only the only one still flying because all the rest had crashed.
At the time he thought he'd mastered the American daylight bombers at Schweinfurt, having no clue that the Merlin engined P-51 Mustang's were only 2-3 weeks away from their combat debut in early December IIRC, so Hitler ordered the Me-262 into production before they were ready and the LW suffered for it because the pitiful unreliable engines meant that despite building some 1500 and several times as many engines, the LW never got more than 50-60 in the air at one time, against around 13 thousand P-51's built in the same period, NTM P-47's etc.
Because the Me-262 used kerosene, it wasn't as affected by the allied air attacks on oil and av-gas as the rest of the LW, though it often limited operations to 1 or 2 at most per week.
Besides their vulnerability taking off and landing, where they had to be defended by FW-190's etc, there was the tactical limitation of only 80 or 100 rounds for the Me-262's 4 30 mm cannon, just a few seconds at a high RoF.
Granted they were bomber killers if they hit, but the bombers cruising at ~168-174 mph meant the jet fighters overtook them too fast even attacking from the rear and had to porpoise etc to try to have enough time to actually aim.
The actual number of confirmed Me-262 kills is absurdly low for what was a revolutionary advance in fighters, although the swept wings were bent backwards initially to shift the center of gravity to where it had to be, not because it improved speed etc.
L
saber964 wrote:*quote="McGuiness"*[quote="MPCatchup"]Clyntahn is acting somewhat like Hitler near the last years of WWII in that his policies and leadership is starting to cause his own side to not take advantage of situations because they are afraid of what his reaction might be.
Since Hitler also had several of his generals shot or forced them to commit suicide, like Rommel did, if the resemblance between der Fuhrer and Clyntahn continues, we may see Kaitswyrth up against the wall for cowardice. It would be more useful to the allies to have Wyrshym shot since he's a better commander, but we can't have everything...
*quote*
Hitler was also famous or infamous for his bonehead views on tech advances. EG the ME 262 was ready for full production and deployment in early 43 but because Hitler wanted a blitz-bomber the plane was delayed until early 44. By then the allies had so many aircraft the Luftwaffe was overwhelmed. To illustrate this in September 44 the 8th AF conducted a raid on Kiel that included 1500+ bombers and 750 fighters it was met at one point by 40 ME 262.[/quote]
