nt (Gordon) wrote in message ...

TA152s were used to protect Me262 on takeoff and landing becuase the
underdeveloped Jumo 004B Jet engines had very restricted acceleration
and could easily be bounced by allied aircraft.

The 004 were outstanding engines and few suffered failures in the test
programme. Unfortunately, or fortunately, wartime shortages meant that the
production 004B would have subtle differences to the hand-built 004s in use
previously, with the end result that they sucked. Still, they didn't suck as
bad as history makes us believe - air starts WERE possible, and if pilots
minded their pre-flight instructions, problems were rare. Of greater
importance, the landing gear rate of failure and production defects (caused by
using slave labor) were appalling.

The Jumo 004D had entered production but not service and by accounts
it was to be significantly more reliable and easier to opperate.



It is said that when
TA152s were in the air no Me262s were ever lost.

The airfield protection Staffeln used VERY few Ta 152s - instead, most were
the later marks of FW 190 D-series. Ta 152 high-altitude interceptors don't help much when you are trying to protect low and slow "Turbos" in the traffic
pattern from Mustangs. The specialized, low alt Ta 152 might have
done better, but there were few to be had.

I suspect the TA152 pilots simply relied on their marginaly superior
speed and flak corridors. Probably these were some of the more
experienced pilots.


The aircarft could opperate at 470mph and at altitudes of nearly
45,000 ft and had a pressursied cabin. It was designed to take on
B29s.

Hard to believe. The RLM didn't field aircraft for non-existant threats;
quite the opposite, they rarely reacted in a timely fashion to actual, present
threats. The Ta 152 series was not intended specifically to counter the
B-29 - the great speed of the Tank fighter was intended to be used against
Mustangs and Mosquitos, and other fast targets that could not adequately
be countered by more conventional fighters, such as the tired old "Me".
The Ta would have made a fine bomber destroyer, but its not likely it was
designed and fielded with the B-29 in mind.

The B29 wasn't a non existant threat since it was in use against
Japan. The B29 was almost impune against interception by most
japanese aircaft types but it would have fared less well against the
Luftwaffe, nevertheless it still would have been much more difficult
to intercept becuase of its speed.

There is a story that the Night Fighter version of the Ju 388 were
built to counter a spoof RAF plan to bomb from the stratosphere at
night thus wasting Luftwaffe resources. Certainly the Ju388 would
also have been capable of a night time interception of a B29 class
aircraft but it was never needed.

Most of the RLMs (I don't blame the Luftwaffe so much) bad procurment
options seem to have come out of a directives built around an
assumption of victory within 2 years. Understandable but risky
reasoning as a war extending beyond that would exhaust the resource
poorer and outnumbered Reich so they poured their energies into a
sucker punch with the technology that they had. It failed.

That combined with delays in the Jumo 004B and the Jumo 222 piston
engine meant that they were at a qualitative disadvantage. By 1943
the Me262 should have been in service and the Ju288 bomber with a
speed of 408mph, 8800lb internal bombload and powerfull remote
controlled armament should also have been in service. The Jumo 004B
was the main delay in Me262 availability and the Jumo 222 only entered
production right at the end of the war for whatever reason.



With an Armament of 4 x 20mm and 1 x 30mm cannon it had the
power to do so.

Few carried that armament,

Some I beleive carried the higher velocity Mk 151/15 15mm cannon
instead of the Mk151/20mm cannon. The low velocity Mk108 30mm cannon
was carried but some version may have reached the front with the much
heavier Mk103 long barrelled 30mm cannon. I can only assumed some
versions carried the old FW190D armament.



and the Ta 152 program was cancelled before the war
ended,

I think a very large number of programs were cancelled in the last 2
months of the war.


while the Do 335 remained on the construction orders right to the end.
I believe if the B-29 ever arrived over Europe during the war, it would have
been met by the Dornier and the Me 262, which were the fighters that were
still intended to be built as of late April 45.

It certainly was a heavily armed aricraft wich could carry high
velocity weapons. (4 x Mk151/15 or 20/ and 1 x Mk103)

The problem this aircraft had was its nose prop which required a
pairing of two aircraft in a zwilling (double mustan arrangement) for
the radardome or antenna built into the leading edge of the wing. (By
this time the FuG 244 microwave radars were intended for
nightfighters)




v/r
Gordon
====(A+C====
USN SAR Aircrew

"Got anything on your radar, SENSO?"
"Nothing but my forehead, sir."