Text 8387, 70 rader
Skriven 2005-02-02 03:19:30 av Ed Hulett (1:123/789.0)
   Kommentar till text 8333 av John Hull (1:379/1.99)
Ärende: Ww 2
============
John Hull -> Ed Hulett wrote:
 JH> 31 Jan 05 22:49, Ed Hulett wrote to Gary Braswell:

 EH>> Gary Braswell -> Ed Hulett wrote:
 GB>>> Ed Hulett -> VERN HUMPHREY wrote:

 EH>>>> They could have won even after the US entered the war. Had the
 EH>>>> weather favored them longer at Bastogne, they may have broke free
 EH>>>> and at least prolonged the war.

 EH>>>> Tonight, Sunday, on the History Channel they had a program about
 GB>>> secret weapons of WWII and later. If Germany had been able to
 JH> build some
 GB>>> of the planes and weapons that had been developed, they could have
 EH>>>> bombed the US. They had a stealth flying wing bomber that looks
 EH>>>> very much like the B-2 Spirit. Had they been able to produce more it
 EH>>>> might have turned the war in their favor.

 GB>>> That is the Horten. I saw it a few years ago in the Garber
 GB>>> facility. I have some pics if you are interested. Both the Germans
 GB>>> and Japanese developed some really forward looking aircraft in '44
 GB>>> and '45, stuff that we are only today just making work.

 EH>> Correct. The designer fled to Argentina in 1945. If the Germans
 EH>> and Japanese had been successful, we would have been in deep doo
 EH>> doo.

 GB>>> Even had they developed these aircraft in large numbers, I doubt
 GB>>> it would have changed much.

 EH>> It very well could have. The Horten was designed as a long range
 EH>> bomber and could have reached the US east coast from Germany. Had
 EH>> they had it and their nuclear program been farther along they
 EH>> could have nuked New York City, Washington DC, etc.

 GB>>> Believe it or not, 1945 saw the largest production of German
 GB>>> aircraft in WII. But they had two major shortages, fuel and
 GB>>> pilots. And what pilots they had were trained for a matter of
 GB>>> hours, not weeks or months, but hours, before being sent up.

 EH>> Those are the only reasons for Germany losing air superiority. Had
 EH>> they come out with their jet fighters sooner, the Allied bombers
 EH>> would have been decimated.

 GB>>> Even with superior aircraft, they would have been shot out of the
 GB>>> air by our pilots who all were far more experienced.

 EH>> Not if they had introduced the jet fighters sooner.

 JH> This is a perfect example of how Hitler's megalomania cost them dearly.
 JH> The ME-262 was the first operational jet fighter in the world, and
 JH> despite its high maintenance early engines it would've wrecked havoc on
 JH> the US 8th Air Force - except for one thing.  Hitler insisted that it be
 JH> used as a bomber, which forced the engineers to redesign its fuel
 JH> carrying capacity - and that delayed its entrance into the war until the
 JH> spring of 1945 when it was too late to be any help to the war effort.
 JH> Six months earlier would've made a world of difference.

Actually, the British had a jet almost at the same time called the "Swallow."

The two jets, although put into production at nearly the same time and in
service at the same time, they never met in battle.

The ME-262 was actually Germany's *second* jet to take the skies. It *was* the
first to go into full production, though.

Ed

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