Major Wolfgang Schenck, whose Kommando Schenck used the Me 262 as bombers, was not immune to the difficulties of procuring all the required materiel for operational sustenance: “It was a problem to be sure, not having engine parts, for example. It was much easier to just replace an engine than to repair one, but once the bad engine was off, then the mechanics would have to go to work. We even had a master machinist working in his own building trying to make metal parts for anything we needed, but were having a hard time receiving.
“We were even able to get replacement fan blades made—of inferior quality to be sure, but they gave us an additional few hours of flying time until we managed to get the actual quality replacement parts. The bad part about this was that when we inspected the fan blades for cracks and replaced them, if we replaced them in time, it was fine. However, if a crack went unnoticed, the cracked blade would often snap and tumble around, destroying the engine, causing a fire more often than not. It was a dice game. We also patched up our birds when they took hits, and we repaired quite a few nose gears. We played with what we had.”{11}
The other factor that played into the favor of the jet’s supporters was the issue of fuel. The piston-powered fighters required high-octane aviation fuel and oil as engine lubricant, with both of those commodities becoming difficult to obtain by 1944. However, the Jumo engines burned a much simpler, cheaper, and available fuel source, since the jet fuel being requisitioned was a kerosene-based product. Not only was it cheaper and easier to produce, it was less volatile and flammable than high octane, and it was also readily available in large amounts.
Starr Smith in the book Jimmy Stewart: Bomber Pilot recounts Göring’s comments to his interrogators regarding the Me 262 and the fuel issue: “If I had to design the Luftwaffe again, the first plane I would develop would be the jet fighter, then the jet bomber. The jet fighter takes too much.”{12} Every German jet pilot interviewed with regard to this project experienced such shortages on a regular basis.
By the time the Me 262 was in steady production, there would be three main operational variants and one training version. The A1-a (Schwalbe) fighter, the A-2 (Sturmvogel) fighter, and the B-1a (Jabo). The later two-seat night fighter version was built but in far fewer numbers. All of these day fighter and fighter-bomber variants were single-seat aircraft powered by the two Junkers Jumo 004B turbojets developing 900 kilograms (1,980 pounds) of thrust each. The maximum speeds were the following: Me 262A-1a, 540 miles per hour (870 kilometers per hour); Me 262A-2a, 470 miles per hour (755 kilometers per hour); Me 262B-1a, 497 miles per hour (800 kilometers per hour).
When not encumbered with additional external ordinance, such as bombs or rockets, the Me 262 could climb at 1,200 meters per minute (or 3,700 feet per minute) to a ceiling of approximately 11,500 meters, or almost 38,000 feet. The operational range at cruising speed on internal fuel was 1,050 kilometers (650 miles), and this was greatly reduced in combat. The fighter variants were finally armed with four 30mm Rheinmetall-Borsig cannons in the nose, with the bottom two carrying one hundred rounds each and the top two carrying eighty rounds each.
It was decided that the high-explosive contact ammunition that had proven so effective with the night fighters was to be used, with every fifth round being a tracer that allowed the pilot to adjust his fire. This would prove critical when attacking aircraft at the higher speeds, where the Me 262 pilot had perhaps two to three seconds to acquire, lead, and fire for effect, as stated by Georg-Peter Eder:
“When attacking the heavy bombers, using adjustment in the firing pattern was much less an issue than when attacking a faster moving enemy fighter. We were able to attack from the six o’clock position, even attacking in a shallow climb to attack them from below, which was impossible on the 109 or 190. Our rapid closure rate in the 262 reduced the time the enemy gunners could lock onto us. We had no speed brakes, none at all, and if we did then we would have lost our speed advantage, and then we would have had to throttle back up, and this meant risking an engine flame out.”{13}
Galland also commented on the speed brake issue: “It is often reported that our jets suffered due to a lack of speed brakes. Of this requirement, I cannot agree. On the contrary. I’d have done everything to not develop engine stall, because if we had not flown at one hundred fifty knots higher speed than any Allied aircraft, then we would have lost our advantage. To re-accelerate the Me 262 after having slowed down took a long, long time because of the relatively low thrust. So, if we had speed brakes, and our pilots when attacking bombers had used them in order to reduce the speed, they would have lost all their superiority.”{14}
Steinhoff gave his opinion as welclass="underline" “I can tell you, from my limited experience, that if we had speed breaks, I would have only used them in an emergency landing if necessary. If I had a gaggle of Mustangs on me and I needed to get down quickly, I could see them being useful and then deploying full flaps and gear down. However, if you had to get down quickly, most pilots said to hell with the landing gear, which took almost a full minute to deploy and sometimes longer to retract. They just slid the jet in on the engines so they could jump out before the damned thing was strafed. No, speed brakes in combat for the Me 262 would not have been a good idea, unlike the piston fighters; but then again, in those, you could just chop the power and you lost airspeed rapidly anyway.”{15}
Wolfgang Späte had his own comments on the lack of air brakes: “I once went into an attack, and I was closing fast, but I had hit a Liberator, but could not confirm the kill. However, I came back around, and to another, but the bombers had turned, and I was headed right at them head on. I had been in a shallow dive, but the aircraft began to shudder as I hit above the maximum airspeed indicator, so I pulled the nose up to bleed of speed. I was just then thinking that speed brakes would have been a good idea, but then thought twice, knowing that at that speed I would have ripped a wing off.”{16}
The necessity of having full speed to attack heavy bomber formations was well known to those Luftwaffe experten who had mastered the techniques in piston-powered fighters. According to Georg-Peter Eder: “The way to attack the bombers, whether you were in a head-on attack, flank or rear attack, the principal was the same. You had to come in fast, hit it accurately with everything you had, and then get away quickly. Even if the bombers did not have fighter escorts, the defensive fire could kill you, or force you down.
“When I was with Kommando Nowotny, I once climbed into a B-17 formation at full throttle, led the bomber slightly and fired a short burst. The rounds exploded in the left wing and bomb bay, as this was before they had dropped their payloads. I saw a quick flash of fire, and then, when I was still more than five hundred meters away when it just exploded. I hit the left rudder hard as hell, pulled up vertical and then rolled away. I could feel the concussion of the blast throw my fighter all the way over. I could see the enemy tracers going past me, as I lost control of the jet for a few seconds, but the sudden attack had caught them by complete surprise. The only damage to my jet was shrapnel from the B-17’s fuselage and the fragments of the five-hundred-pound bombs that had detonated.”{17}