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The secret weapons of the Luftwaffe - Second part -

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The most advanced fighter of World War 2

The Messerschnitt Me 262 Schwalbe (swallow) can be considered, rightly, the most advanced fighter/interceptor that was operating during World War 2. Differently from the English Gloster Meteor that had a long operative life also after the end of the war, Me 262 would have been an airplane closely tied to the Nazi regime, except its short post-war production in Czechoslovakia before the advent of the communist government in that country. In spite of this element that was not so qualifying, the German aircraft had since its construction all elements to be considered a winning aircraft and, above all, very effective for war purposes.

In fact, just starting from the aircraft's body, streamlined and elegant as no airplane before had had, it demonstrated the transition that the aeronautical technique was having from the piston airplane towards the jets. For irony of the fate, the first flight of Me 262, happened on April 18 194, was done with a piston engine, still lacking a reliable jet engine. Another modification that was made to the prototype during the development was the substitution of the traditional back wheel with a front one that would have delivered to the Schwalbe the typical front tricycle undercarriage of the modern jet airplanes.

On July 18 1942, a prototype equipped with two Junkers 109-004A-0 turbojets flew and demonstrate itself immediately powerful beyond every expectation: those engines pushed the Me 262 at nearly 900 km/h under quota 6000 meters! Even if the engines were hooked under the wings, and therefore the performances were slightly reduced, the new aircraft could outclass all Allied fighters both for speed and, in lesser measure, for ease of manoeuvre.

To these advantages due to the project planning, they were added an extraordinarily effective armament ( four 30 mm MK 180 guns were the standard equipment) and an high "head-up" visibility for the pilot, perfect for the dogfight. It can be said that if it had been produced in adequate number and with good raw materials, the Me 262 could have seriously threatened the Allied bombers that during the last part of the war dominated the German skies by carrying death and destruction without being faced by nobody. Unfortunately, as often it happens, the revolutionary features of this aircraft was not supported neither by the high ranks of the Luftwaffe neither from the German industry that used bad raw materials for the construction of the engine's evolution, that is the Jumo 004B, that the real weak point.

Hitler, with his obsessive search for an ultimate weapon that brought back the war over Great Britain, foolishly ordered that the first operating application of Me 262 was not in its natural role of fighter, but as an high speed bomber called Sturmvogel (Stormy petrel). The only difference between these two implementations consisted in two bomb pylons under the aircraft that, beyond making to decay the performances , surely did not constitute a serious threat for the Allies because of the little number of bombs that could be carried. Therefore, precious months were lost that could have been employed more fruitfully for the improvement of the airplane as jet fighter. Only when the war exited France, during the autumn-winter 1944, Hitler too convinced himself that Me 262 would have served better the German cause by opposing the Allied bombers over the cities of the Reich.

Although this machine had all chances to resist with success against the Allied fighters, the debuts were not the happiest ones. The commander of the EKdo (ErprobungsKommando) 262 was killed in the first operating flights during the attempt to intercept an enemy fighter. Moreover, the men who piloted the Me 262 noticed very soon the cons besides the pros of the new weapon. Firstly, the engines were extremely sensitive to the variations of the fuel flow, element that let the most expert pilots understand that it was better to close it during the landing, forcing themselves to a one-time-only attempt to land. That defect was very soon discovered by the Allied pilots, who waited for Me 262 over their bases, where during the landing they were transformed in awkward and uncontrollable metal "bags" right like Me 163. In addition, the heat derived from the jet engines rendered much dangerous the takeoff from tracks made by asphalt, since it was probable a fire. In order to obviate to this problem, Me 262 had to take off from tracks made by concrete that were easily noticeable during the Allied missions of aerial photographic recognition and, therefore, good targets for the bombers.

While Germany was continuing its decline towards the inevitable defeat, Me 262 became the last defense against the enemy air offensives. For this reason, every new weapon was tested on it. It was even tested the huge BK5 50mm gun before using the ultimate weapon for air dogfight: air-to-air rockets. This weapon was mounted on simple wooden racks that were positioned horizontally so to be shot in the same flight direction of the aircraft.

Until the beginning of 1945, more than 1400 Messerschnitt Me 262 were manufactured, but only approximately 40% entered active duty. Fighting against the American Mustangs, although the technological advantage, the number of defeats and successes was substantially in equilibrium. Perhaps, it could indeed have changed the fates of the conflict if the advancing Allied land troops had not swept the largest part of tracks away in their unstoppable run towards the heart of Germany.

Vergeltungswaffen 1 and 2: Hitler's vengeance comes from the sky.

Among the so-called secret weapons of the Luftwaffe, the most famous ones are the Vergeltungswaffen (retaliation weapons or, broadly speaking, vengeance weapons) better known as V1 and V2. Both aircrafts were widely studied during the 30ies and for the longest part of the second world conflicts until becoming operative in 1944. While the V1 can be considered a first plan for a cruise missile, because it flew at cruise speed up to the target before falling down against it, the V2 was the first real rocket constructed by the Man and employee in an armed conflict.

These weapons found a fertile ground for their development in the enthusiasm for rockets that had pervaded the German aeronautical studies during the 30ies by creating the Verain für Raumschiffart (VfR, society for space travels). Two personages of absolute scientific value emerged from that organization: Walter Dornberger and, above all, Werner von Braun (former member of the VfR), who would have played a fundamental role in the Apollo project that has lead man to the moon. These men proposed the constitution of a development base for the rockets at Peenemünde, on the Baltic Sea. It was October 1937 when the more important and, for a sure secret period, German military base was founded. There, they would have been developed in full autonomy the prototypes of the V1 and V2.

The V1 project was proposed by the Argus Motorenwerke and the Fieseler Flugzeugbau, companies specialized in the production of engines and aircrafts for the Luftwaffe, that had already collaborated for the production of the multi-role light airplane Fieseler "Storch". The base concepts were simple and, at the same time, winning: an aircraft without pilot with a big warhead and with low fuel needs and high performances. These latter points were ensured from the jet engine designed by Paul Schmidt that was as simple as the whole project. In fact, the only mobile part of the propeller was a dozen of small "shutters" placed in proximity of the front air intake. The air pushed through the front intake and subsequently mixed with the fuel was "ignited" from a spark system. The power of the combustion closed the shutters by pushing the combustion wastes towards the back of the engine and, thus, pushing the aircraft ahead. The whole process was repeated several times a second and allowed to make the V1 fly up to 600 km/h.

The first V1s were launched on June 13 1944, a week after the Allied landing in Normandy, from the bases in Northern France still occupied by Germans. Initially, the terroristic effect among the English population was rather large, because the new weapon was similar to no other weapon seen until that moment, but in brief time the effectiveness of these devices would have been revealed decidedly smaller than what was thought by its creators, because of several reasons.

Initially, the V1 were launched during the first weeks from fixed ramps of large dimensions that although camouflaged in the French forests were, however, easy to spot and therefore were often bombed by the Allies. Then, the use of mobile launch ramp made greatly decrease the accuracy of the V1, since the target of the weapon was predetermined before the launch and the route adjustments could be only made for following launches in a very empiric way. In fact, approximately 10% of the flying bombs launched every day carried an radio emitter that at approximately 30 km from the target emitted radio marks that the land staff, through the triangolation, used for the route adjustments of the V1 launched after that moment. However, the largest part of the V1 had the Bridge of London as target since it was near the center of the city. Arrived at 30 km from the target, a propeller mounted on the forehead of the bomb began to move activating a gyroscope that, by turning, let a counter count every kilometer. Therefore when the counter had reached zero, the bomb would have had to be on the target and so the missile started to dive.

It must be said also that the V1 had very little incidence on the daily life of the Londoners after the first launches because of the warning that these bombs gave to the population for the characteristic noise that they produced by flying at high speed and low altitude. They were called "Buzz bombs" for this reason. The citizens knew very well that they could go on doing their own activities until they heard that noise and only when it stopped they had to find a sure shelter.

Also the fighters of the Royal Air Force became more expert in contrasting the V1. The pilots understood that was enough to locate the tip of their wing just under that of the enemy aircraft and to push it in order "to confuse" the gyroscope and to make them fall outside the densely inhabited zones. The insufficient "intelligence" of these bombs was also confirmed from high number (278) of V1 destroyed from the barrage balloons. After all, in spite of the elevated number of devices launched against Great Britain, 9251, only 2400 effectively hit a target at least close to that initially meant at the moment of the launch.

The defects of the V1 suggested a re-design of these weapons by creating a parallel, but substantially different, project like the V2. This aircraft was a ballistic missile that could hit the target (London typically, but also Lille, Arras, Cambrai, and Brussels) without warning and just few minutes after the launch. Its study was already started at the beginning of the world-wide conflict, but the initial German victories and the progressive delay of the plan for a German nuclear weapon, for which it would have been the ideal rocket, remarkably delayed its war employment.

In spite of these delays, already in 1943 near the French secret bases of Eperlecques and the Coupele, some giant launch installations for the new device were under construction by taking advantage of the labor at no cost coming from the Nazi concentration camps. The increase of the accuracy of the allied air attacks did not let complete them before the landing in Normandy and when the first V2 fall on the English ground (September 1944), the bases in French territory were lost and the Germans had to withdraw on launch ramps located in Holland.

The V2 was an advanced weapon and, on the whole, terrible. It could transport several quintals of explosive up to 2000 km/h, arriving from the stratosphere without warning unlike the V1. It could not be shot down during its flight because of the high speed and the precision on the prefixed targets was double in comparison to V1.

The technological advantage and its destructive power was counterbalanced from the enormous quantitative of electronic material and fuel that was necessary for each single aircraft. It was estimated that a V1 could cost to the Reich approximately 450 $, while a V2 cost at least 100 times that figure.

Other "experiments" of the Luftwaffe

In addition to the aircrafts described above, the Luftwaffe produced also other very advanced airplanes or aerial armaments that, however, were developed only as prototypes.

An example: the Holzbrau Kissing ' Enzian' was a ground-to-air anti-bomber rocket that was developed using the line of the Messerschnitt Me 163. Also the Heinkel 162A ' Salamander ', of which only 100 specimens were produced until the moment of the German defeat, had been thought like a weapon at low cost against the allied bombers. It had to be piloted by the boys of the Hitlerjugend and it did not use strategic materials (it was mainly made of wood). The BMW engine that pushed it beyond 800 km/h transformed it into an unmanageable and, after all, unusable airplane.

The study of the rockets also allowed the creation of series of prototypes like the V3, long range rockets that would have had to attack London to the rhythm of 300 units per hour, whose huge cannon (also called high pressure pump) was found still unfinished near Mimoyecques in France.

Finally with the Arado Ar 234 ' Blitz ', the Germans had the first jet bomber of the history, but it arrived too late in order to help the German troops that were fighting for their survival only.

Summing up the operating employment of these «secret weapons», it can can be said that their effectiveness was surely marginal and the effects on the technical evolution of the armaments would have been evident only after the end of the war. Germany had a technical advantage for whole conflict, but the shortage of raw materials, known since the first days, was not resolved even with the great continental expansion and the victories of 1939-1942 period . Could a larger production of these flying secret weapons modify the war? It's difficult to answer affirmatively, seen the hopeless situation in which the Germany in summer 1944 was, period during which the first V1 appeared. Maybe, a larger production added to an anticipated development, would have given greater impulse to the raids against Great Britain in a period in which American power had still to be transported to Europe, but these are only conjectures and, though very interesting, they are not based on objective data.

Sources: "Combat Airplanes", Aerospace Publishing; "World War II" by Raymond Cartier.

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