Secret Projects of the Luftwaffe

[newsdeskdan]

Secret Projects of the Luftwaffe. Volume 3: Messerschmitt Me 262,

MESSERSCHMITT ME 262: DEVELOPMENT AND POLITICS | Mortons Books

Book - Messerschmitt Me 262: Development and Politics

www.mortonsbooks.co.uk

was announced until recently at mortons for 14.99£ with 116 pages. Now it is listed on their site for 30£ and 300 pages. Does anyone have any info what happened there?

The original concept for the book was to rattle through the different 'secret projects' variants - setting them in context and describing them. I thought this would take about 25,000-30,000w and fit nicely into my Secret Projects of the Luftwaffe series as volume 3. I wouldn't be looking at the squadrons, the combat, the production - just the projects. As with my other books, I intended to base my writing solely on cited primary sources.
The Me 262 has been covered in so many books - usually with the 'projects' compiled into a single chapter or just listed. But those chapters/lists usually provide little or no timescale and little or no context, except where a variant was actually built and even more where it was built and used in combat.
The more I researched the Me 262's development, the more I realised that there was a huge story behind every single variant schemed. And in some cases, every single book on the Me 262 had got it wrong - including the Smith/Creek books which are otherwise the gold standard in Me 262 histories (although, crucially, they don't list their sources).
Take the Me 262 A-1a/U1 for example. Up till now, everyone has thought that this variant was intended to have six guns - 2 x MK 108 + 2 x MK 103 + 2 x MG 151. Doesn't this strike you as weird? Why? Why would anyone think that putting three different weapons in a single nose was a good/viable idea? Apparently literally nobody has ever questioned this before. When I came to look at the primary source material, it was immediately evident that the armament planned for the Me 262 A-1/U1 was 2 x MK 103 + 2 x MK 108 or 2 x MG 151. It was a four gun nose and there was simply a question mark over whether an MK 103/MK 108 or MK 103/MG 151 layout was better.
A test mule nose was made housing six guns purely so that 2 x MK 108 + 2 x MK 103 could be fired together, then 2 x MK 103 + 2 x MG 151 could be fired together without having to build a separate nose or swap the guns in and out. There was only one fuselage on the test range to which the nose could be attached and putting all the guns into one nose saved time. No-one ever seems to have been aware of this before.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Why was the Me 262 A-2/U2 originally designated Me 262 A-3? Why did they bother with a prone bombardier nose when they could've converted an Me 262 B-1 to create a bombardier position behind the pilot? It turns out that's exactly what Galland wanted, it's what Peltz wanted, and it's what Messerschmitt's project office thought was best. So why wasn't that variant built?
Why does everyone think that it was an acceptable idea to create a Mistel combination of two Me 262s or an Me 262 and a Ju 287? Jet aircraft and jet engines were in desprately short supply. Surely it would be crazy to plan on wasting one like that when there were so many life-expired airframes of other types lying around. And indeed this appears to have been the case. The primary sources all show that the Mistel 4 was an Me 262 paired with a Ju 88 - the Ju 88 getting a TV camera to account for the difference in speed after launch. But there is a known drawing of the 262/262 arrangement and not of the 262/88 arrangement. Could it be that every previous history of the 262 has been based on drawings rather than text documents?
And the list goes on. Every man and his dog has a theory about how much Hitler interfered in the Me 262's development, why the type was late into service (was it the engines? was it the bombs?). Nobody has ever presented a full explanation backed up by primary source material. I realised that I have sufficient primary sources to definitively answer that question.
So the 25,000-30,000w book became, over the course of a year, a 150,000w hardback. It still doesn't include anything on combat or the units - but it does provide a full development history, giving context and background for every variant based on fully cited and referenced primary sources.
I think anyone who reads it will be shocked to discover how much they didn't know about the Me 262. In terms of project status, I've just finished incorporating details of five Protokoll documents produced during the last days of March 1945 and I'm about to start on preparing the illustrations and captions. In other words, it's not far off being ready for the designer.

 

[newsdeskdan]

A few other points I will answer clearly, directly and without ambiguity, backed up by primary sources:

* Was there really a 'second' Me 262 V1, V2, V3 etc. later in the war?
* When and why was the little 'a' applied to, for example, Me 262 A-1a?
* Was there ever a point at which completed Me 262 airframes were sitting around, waiting for engines? If so when, and why?
* What, exactly, was the physical difference between an Me 262 A-1 and an Me 262 A-2?
* Was an official 'name' ever given to the Me 262? If so, what was it and when was it applied?
* Did the Me 262 have a weak undercarriage/tyres particularly prone to burst? If so, how and why?
* What was Baldian, exactly which aircraft was it fitted to, what was its original name and what was its purpose?
* What was the Me 609 (because it certainly wasn't two Me 309s joined together)?
* Who were the Me 262's greatest champions and who did the most to retard its development (the answers will surprise you)?
* Which factors, previously uncited in most Me 262 books, appear to have caused the greatest delays in establishing full production lines for the aircraft (the answers to this will also surprise you)?
* What surprisingly logical-sounding reason did Hitler give for wanting the Me 262 built as a pure bomber, rather than a fighter-bomber, in May 1944, even though a fighter-bomber would have been quite capable of fulfilling his original 'bomb the Allied invasion beaches' brief?

 

[Harry64]

Dan, I am really looking forward to your book. Many thanks for the explanation!

 

[T. A. Gardner]

Germany’s air ministry was quick to grasp the potential of the jet engine as early as 1938 and by 1939 several German aircraft manufacturers were already working on fighter designs that would utilize this new form of propulsion. Rocket engines too were seen as the way of the future and companies were commissioned to design fighters around them

I read this intro, the one on Amazon, and instantly thought God, that's totally wrong!

German aircraft manufacturers and engineers were early innovators in jet and rocket aircraft, but the RLM was barely interested in either seeing them as undeveloped and unnecessary. Henkel was likely the most forward-thinking innovator as an aircraft manufacturer in both areas and the RLM soundly rejected his projects. Without official support and funding, neither a jet nor a rocket aircraft was going to go further than maybe a few prototypes in Germany, and that support was near totally lacking.

Henkel and Warner v. Braun built several He-112 as hybrid piston engine-rocket planes but the RLM took no interest and the project died due primarily to lack of funding. The same thing happened with Henkel and jet engines. Henkel hired Hans v. Ohain who was a leader in early jet engine development in Germany. Henkel built a privately funded jet aircraft, the He 178 and demonstrated it to the Luftwaffe and RLM. They ignored it as irrelevant.

The DVL, the research branch of the RLM was largely staved for funds into rocket research, and what was done was in the area of sounding rockets and developing flight controls for them.

While Messerschmitt started development of jet fighter (to become the Me 262) this was more as a rival design to Henkel's He 280 than something the RLM really had much interest in. Both designs proceeded forward at a slow pace and the Me 262 took nearly four years to go from an initial prototype to a working design.

I can't see where the Luftwaffe or RLM showed much interest in either type of aircraft until about late 1942 when it dawned on them that they were going to need something far better than they had in service to stand a chance against growing Allied air power.

If you look at the US, they went from being given a jet engine by the British to having a flying jet fighter in about a year. Yes, the P-59 had rather pedestrian performance, but it was a working and flying jet fighter, and it was in production. That's grasping the significance of jet engines and doing something to get a jet fighter in the air.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

A few other points I will answer clearly, directly and without ambiguity, backed up by primary sources:

* Was there really a 'second' Me 262 V1, V2, V3 etc. later in the war?
* When and why was the little 'a' applied to, for example, Me 262 A-1a?
* Was there ever a point at which completed Me 262 airframes were sitting around, waiting for engines? If so when, and why?
* What, exactly, was the physical difference between an Me 262 A-1 and an Me 262 A-2?
* Was an official 'name' ever given to the Me 262? If so, what was it and when was it applied?
* Did the Me 262 have a weak undercarriage/tyres particularly prone to burst? If so, how and why?
* What was Baldian, exactly which aircraft was it fitted to, what was its original name and what was its purpose?
* What was the Me 609 (because it certainly wasn't two Me 309s joined together)?
* Who were the Me 262's greatest champions and who did the most to retard its development (the answers will surprise you)?
* Which factors, previously uncited in most Me 262 books, appear to have caused the greatest delays in establishing full production lines for the aircraft (the answers to this will also surprise you)?
* What surprisingly logical-sounding reason did Hitler give for wanting the Me 262 built as a pure bomber, rather than a fighter-bomber, in May 1944, even though a fighter-bomber would have been quite capable of fulfilling his original 'bomb the Allied invasion beaches' brief?

I'd say the biggest bottleneck for this plane was always engines. This came about because, even as the Germans took an early interest in developing a jet engine, early official support for this research was only lukewarm. Compounding that problem was no German aircraft engine manufacturer had much, if any, experience with designing gas turbine blades. This was the single most critical and difficult problem the Germans had to solve to get a working jet engine in production.

Digressing for a moment, the US and Britain by contrast, didn't suffer anywhere near the difficulties the Germans did in designing compressors for their jet engines. They had the advantage of having companies that had massive in-house experience with gas turbines in the form of steam turbines. Westinghouse, GE, and Vickers (Metrovick), as but three examples, had huge libraries of blade profile designs already available. At GE for example, Sanford Moss and the turbocharger division of GE had already run test designs on thousands of profiles to get the best ones. All he had to do was apply those to a jet engine and you got good compressor-turbine compatibility.

In Germany, the only source they had available to them once the war started was really Brown-Boveri in Switzerland who had one of the largest libraries of blade profiles in Europe. BMW turned to them when their early 003 engines failed entirely on the first flight of an Me 262 due to poor blade configuration. The engine ran fine on a test bench with flow coming straight into the intake and compressor section. On an aircraft, the second that flow was disrupted even slightly as in a turn, the engine suffered a compressor stall and flamed out. That took BMW almost two years to fix.

 

[sienar]

Germany’s air ministry was quick to grasp the potential of the jet engine as early as 1938 and by 1939 several German aircraft manufacturers were already working on fighter designs that would utilize this new form of propulsion. Rocket engines too were seen as the way of the future and companies were commissioned to design fighters around them

I read this intro, the one on Amazon, and instantly thought God, that's totally wrong!

German aircraft manufacturers and engineers were early innovators in jet and rocket aircraft, but the RLM was barely interested in either seeing them as undeveloped and unnecessary. Henkel was likely the most forward-thinking innovator as an aircraft manufacturer in both areas and the RLM soundly rejected his projects. Without official support and funding, neither a jet nor a rocket aircraft was going to go further than maybe a few prototypes in Germany, and that support was near totally lacking.

Henkel and Warner v. Braun built several He-112 as hybrid piston engine-rocket planes but the RLM took no interest and the project died due primarily to lack of funding. The same thing happened with Henkel and jet engines. Henkel hired Hans v. Ohain who was a leader in early jet engine development in Germany. Henkel built a privately funded jet aircraft, the He 178 and demonstrated it to the Luftwaffe and RLM. They ignored it as irrelevant.

The DVL, the research branch of the RLM was largely staved for funds into rocket research, and what was done was in the area of sounding rockets and developing flight controls for them.

While Messerschmitt started development of jet fighter (to become the Me 262) this was more as a rival design to Henkel's He 280 than something the RLM really had much interest in. Both designs proceeded forward at a slow pace and the Me 262 took nearly four years to go from an initial prototype to a working design.

I can't see where the Luftwaffe or RLM showed much interest in either type of aircraft until about late 1942 when it dawned on them that they were going to need something far better than they had in service to stand a chance against growing Allied air power.

If you look at the US, they went from being given a jet engine by the British to having a flying jet fighter in about a year. Yes, the P-59 had rather pedestrian performance, but it was a working and flying jet fighter, and it was in production. That's grasping the significance of jet engines and doing something to get a jet fighter in the air.

Heinkel was turned down because Junkers and BMW had already been given contracts to develop jet engines, the one for Junkers having started way back in 1936.

The 262 was designed to an RLM request. Willy Messerschmitt originally projected that it would take 5-6 years to enter service, since piston engine types of the time took around 3-4 years.

BTW, Junkers had a ton of steam turbine experience, probably as much as anyone in the world. They even put some steam turbine people on the jet project in the 30s.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

Germany’s air ministry was quick to grasp the potential of the jet engine as early as 1938 and by 1939 several German aircraft manufacturers were already working on fighter designs that would utilize this new form of propulsion. Rocket engines too were seen as the way of the future and companies were commissioned to design fighters around them

I read this intro, the one on Amazon, and instantly thought God, that's totally wrong!

German aircraft manufacturers and engineers were early innovators in jet and rocket aircraft, but the RLM was barely interested in either seeing them as undeveloped and unnecessary. Henkel was likely the most forward-thinking innovator as an aircraft manufacturer in both areas and the RLM soundly rejected his projects. Without official support and funding, neither a jet nor a rocket aircraft was going to go further than maybe a few prototypes in Germany, and that support was near totally lacking.

Henkel and Warner v. Braun built several He-112 as hybrid piston engine-rocket planes but the RLM took no interest and the project died due primarily to lack of funding. The same thing happened with Henkel and jet engines. Henkel hired Hans v. Ohain who was a leader in early jet engine development in Germany. Henkel built a privately funded jet aircraft, the He 178 and demonstrated it to the Luftwaffe and RLM. They ignored it as irrelevant.

The DVL, the research branch of the RLM was largely staved for funds into rocket research, and what was done was in the area of sounding rockets and developing flight controls for them.

While Messerschmitt started development of jet fighter (to become the Me 262) this was more as a rival design to Henkel's He 280 than something the RLM really had much interest in. Both designs proceeded forward at a slow pace and the Me 262 took nearly four years to go from an initial prototype to a working design.

I can't see where the Luftwaffe or RLM showed much interest in either type of aircraft until about late 1942 when it dawned on them that they were going to need something far better than they had in service to stand a chance against growing Allied air power.

If you look at the US, they went from being given a jet engine by the British to having a flying jet fighter in about a year. Yes, the P-59 had rather pedestrian performance, but it was a working and flying jet fighter, and it was in production. That's grasping the significance of jet engines and doing something to get a jet fighter in the air.

Heinkel was turned down because Junkers and BMW had already been given contracts to develop jet engines, the one for Junkers having started way back in 1936.

The 262 was designed to an RLM request. Willy Messerschmitt originally projected that it would take 5-6 years to enter service, since piston engine types of the time took around 3-4 years.

BTW, Junkers had a ton of steam turbine experience, probably as much as anyone in the world. They even put some steam turbine people on the jet project in the 30s.

Henkel's 001 engine was dropped by the RLM because it only produced about 900 lbs of thrust and their improved 011 in development looked a lot better. This is a case where the RLM didn't want "good enough" and went for "much better" even at the expense of waiting a couple of years to get it.

Junkers had ZERO steam turbine experience. They were an aircraft engine manufacturer. They didn't build steam turbines for the civilian economy or for use in ships. They, like other German manufacturers of jet engines either developed their own data or relied on outside companies like Brown-Boveri for data.

The Jumo 004 (the engine on the 262) had a compressor section designed by Aerodynamische Versuchsanastalt (AVA) and Allgemeine Elektrizatasgesellschaft (AEG). The latter is a German steam turbine manufacturer for both the electrical generation and shipbuilding industry. Junkers though had no in-house experience.

 

[newsdeskdan]

I read this intro, the one on Amazon, and instantly thought God, that's totally wrong!

My book is based entirely on primary source evidence - and I give full archival references for those sources. When you find something in my book which contradicts what you believe to be true about the Me 262, consider whereabouts the authors of the Me 262 books you've read previously have got their information and whether they have cited those sources.
Without wishing to pre-empt your reading of my book, and this is just one example of where many current books on the 262 diverge from the primary source material, Junkers wartime production numbers show that from the autumn of 1942 to the end of the war, 004 production exceeded demand from the airframe manufacturers (the production numbers compiled immediately after the war by the Allies actually show this too, albeit with slightly different figures, so I've no idea where the myth came from). There was no bottleneck.
Throughout all of the GL/Jaegersstab/Ruestungsstab meetings held to discuss Me 262 production, there are no complaints about engine production/delivery until November 1944, when warnings are given that, in about a month, 004 production is likely to fall short for the first time. There is then a scramble to get the 003 ready for the 262 (spoiler warning - this is when the little 'a' starts to appear, as in Me 262 A-1a - because it was thought that very soon there would be a lot of 262s with 003s, i.e. Me 262 A-1b), but as it turned out, they needn't have worried because airframe production falls way below target (all the actual numbers and primary source references for this are in the book) so there are enough 004s to go around.
Of course, in March 1945 there is an actual shortage because although about double the number of required 004s were built that month, only a handful got to the assembly lines owing to the breakdown of rail transportation.

More generally, given your thoughts above, I would say - boy, are you in for a surprise!

 

[T. A. Gardner]

I read this intro, the one on Amazon, and instantly thought God, that's totally wrong!

My book is based entirely on primary source evidence - and I give full archival references for those sources. When you find something in my book which contradicts what you believe to be true about the Me 262, consider whereabouts the authors of the Me 262 books you've read previously have got their information and whether they have cited those sources.
Without wishing to pre-empt your reading of my book, and this is just one example of where many current books on the 262 diverge from the primary source material, Junkers wartime production numbers show that from the autumn of 1942 to the end of the war, 004 production exceeded demand from the airframe manufacturers. There was no bottleneck.
Throughout all of the GL/Jaegersstab/Ruestungsstab meetings held to discuss Me 262 production, there are no complaints about engine production/delivery until November 1944, when warnings are given that, in about a month, 004 production is likely to fall short for the first time. There is then a scramble to get the 003 ready for the 262, but as it turned out, they needn't have worried because airframe production falls way below target (all the actual numbers and primary source references for this are in the book) so there are enough 004s to go around.
Of course, in March 1945 there is an actual shortage because although about double the number of required 004s were built that month, only a handful got to the assembly lines owing to the breakdown of rail transportation.

More generally, given your thoughts above, I would say - boy, are you in for a surprise!

Nice and irrelevant appeal to authority. Feel free to actually refute my positions with some evidence and facts rather than just dismiss it with nothing.

Nothing you stated about engine production contradicts what I stated. The Me 262V1 flew first on BMW 003 engines. Both suffered compressor stalls shortly after takeoff and the plane barely managed an emergency landing. BMW then spent nearly two years redesigning that engine to get it to work properly.

As for the Jumo 004, given its short service life of maybe ten hours flying time, it becomes a matter of just trying to keep a handful of Me 262 flying at all. Let's do a hypothetical...

Junkers can make say, 600 engines in a month. That means you have enough to supply 300 Me 262. If you have 300 Me 262 flying a two-hour mission per day, that means each plane needs an engine change (assuming 10 hours of flying time and it's usually much less) every five missions or let's say once a week.
That means you need 2400 engines a month to keep 300 planes flying. Thus, after the first month you have just 75 planes flying. That leaves no production for new aircraft either.

While that is gross simplification, it becomes apparent that between what the Junkers could produce in engines and the loss rate of Me 262 operationally (to enemy action, accidents, and maintenance issues) the Luftwaffe was lucky to keep 50 of these jets flying on a regular basis, and that doesn't begin to address the fuel issue.

It doesn't take "primary sources" to figure that out. The supply chain issues only compound that.

Also, nothing you stated contradicts that Germany was slow to adopt a jet fighter, let alone a rocket fighter and in the later as everyone figured out, rocket fighters were worthless.

 

[newsdeskdan]

Nice and irrelevant appeal to authority. Feel free to actually refute my positions with some evidence and facts rather than just dismiss it with nothing.

As I've said all my sources will be in the book. This is a thread about my book (not this one, as it happens, but one of my books nonetheless) rather than being a discussion thread about German jet engine development and production.

To address your point about 10-hour 004 engine life, which I think underpins your point about engine shortages creating a production bottleneck, 004s are not disposable units - they just need a full overhaul after 10 hours, worst case scenario, before being reinstalled.
The process of overhauling an 004 was supposed to take three hours but in practice it took eight to nine hours. This is from AIR 40/201 Me 262 Part 2 A.D.I.(K) Report No. 323/1945 The Me 262 as a Combat Aircraft June 6, 1945 - a compilation of POW interrogation reports which can be found at the National Archives, Kew, London.
If you take, for example, Messerschmitt Kontrollbericht Nr. 92/43 of August 4, 1943, it shows that Me 262 V3's airframe had 21 hours 12 minutes operting time on it. The left engine had 21 hours 47 minutes and the right engine had 14 hours 34 minutes. In other words, the left engine had been in operation for more hours than the airframe, having presumably been previously installed in a different machine (it's not possible to be more specific since the report doesn't give the engine's Werk-Nr.). This is from microfilm reel ADRC/T-2 3397, frame 233, which can be found at NASM in the US.
And when Me 262 V1 suffered crash damage on landing after its 95th flight on June 7, 1944, the test flight report summary for the period noted that “the machine (tail wheel), which was being used for Baldrian testing, broke on landing … and was partially damaged. Since the [004] A engines have been phased out, the old machine can no longer be upgraded” (see ADRC/T-2 2019/862). By this point the 262 was in series production with the 004 B and there were no more 004 As left to fit to the Me 262 V1. The last of 40 Jumo 004 A-0s was produced in March 1943 (see ADRC 2040/503), so those engines had been in service for about 14-15 months by that point.
In practice, very few Me 262s in front line service lasted long enough to need entirely new engines fitted so it wasn't much of a problem. Kommando Nowotny, for example, received 30 Me 262s by mid-October 1944 and within a month 26 of them had been lost (see ADIK 4007/98). Around 50% of these losses were due to pilot error and a further 30.8% due to combat/enemy action. Very few losses were attributed to mechanical/engine failure.

I have struggled to find any reports of engines having to be completely discarded (if you have any such reports, please do send them to me - it'd be great to have that data). As such, it's not been possible to provide a figure for actual full service life hours of a particular unit. I've seen a figure of 35 hours for the 004 B, pre-hollow blades (which extended overall service life dramatically), bandied around and that seems about right. Don't get me wrong, there are endless complaints about most other aspects of Me 262 production - numerous ill fitting parts, armoured windscreens delivered with cracks in them, leaky fuel filler caps - undercarriage components do briefly become a bottleneck at one point - but engine availability, not so much.

In terms of 004 engine production against 262 airframe production, below is a brief excerpt from Chapter 8:

"There was some good news on the engine front the following day [July 1, 1944], when a meeting of the Jägerstab heard that Jumo had exceeded its production target for the 004 by more than 20% – producing 121 engines against a June target of 100.(1) The total number of Me 262s accepted by the Luftwaffe in June 1944 was 33 – well ahead of the target number, 24, set by Saur. This brought total airframes accepted up to 60.(2)"

---

(1) IWM Milch 9/5408 Jägerstab-Besprechung am Sonnabend, dem 1. Juli 1944, 10 Uhr unter Vorsitz von Herrn Lange
(2) TNA AIR 48/2 USSBS Strategic Bombing of German Aircraft Industry November 1945

The USSBS airframe figures are based on Ruestungsstab data, though the report (which can be found at the National Archives) doesn't provide the specific document reference. For the period of December 1944 to March 1945 we also have airframe production numbers from a Generalquartiermeister document (from the archives at NASM), which provides slightly different figures.
The engine figures come from Jaegerstab and later Ruestungsstab monthly meeting reports, which can be found at the Imperial War Museum.
Incidentally, this is a book about Me 262 development, not production. The production material is incidental to the main thrust of the narrative - I just felt that including it would help readers to better understand some of the development decisions made.

Returning, finally, to the point you made about the blurb on Amazon being totally wrong, I would beg your indulgence until the book is actually out and you can see for yourself what I have written and what sources I have cited to support my arguments. It's a long and complex story and I've already no doubt bored you to death with my long-winded reply.
The very short version is, the RLM did everything it could under the circumstances to persuade Messerschmitt to deliver the 20 P 1065 prototypes it had ordered by July 1, 1940, but the company simply failed to deliver. And despite regular queries as to when the prototypes would be ready, continued to fail to deliver.
The engines? It reached the point where Jumo had development engines sitting around that it wanted to test in the air but there were no airframes to put them in while, as you say, Messerschmitt put what little spare capacity it had into the Me 163, the Me 328 and the Me 264 among others.
Exactly whose fault this situation was is discussed at length, with numerous quotes from and references to primary sources, in the book.

 

[TomcatViP]

Please notice that engines have to be run for test, mated or not on an airfraime, and the total of hours for a specific engine will differ from the hosting cell.
In the case you brought forward, the 004 could have simply been static tested resulting in no flight hours logged for the airframe and the slight difference in total numbers and not resulting from a swap from one aircraft to another.

 

[newsdeskdan]

Please notice that engines have to be run for test, mated or not on an airfraime, and the total of hours for a specific engine will differ from the hosting cell.
In the case you brought forward, the 004 could have simply been static tested resulting in no flight hours logged for the airframe and the slight difference in total numbers and not resulting from a swap from one aircraft to another.

Possibly. The reports use the word 'Betriebsstunden' - operating hours - for 'Zelle', 'links' and 'rechts'. I'm also mindful of the fact that my example references an 004 A, rather than a B. It has been argued that A types lasted longer because they were made of higher quality metals. Again, my Me 262 book isn't a record of Jumo 004 operating hours.
It is chronological in structure and is based entirely on hundreds of fully cited period reports like this from Messerschmitt AG as well as reports from Jumo, the RLM, Rechlin, Travemuende, the Jaegerstab, the Ruestungsstab, accounts of meetings with Hitler, Willy Messerschmitt's personnal correspondence, the DVL, the AVA, the DFS, JSF (wooden components) etc. etc. If the reports/memos/letters say there's a problem - and they often do - that's in the book. If something isn't mentioned as a problem in the reports, it's not mentioned as a problem in the book since those writing the reports don't seem to have had an issue with it.
Sometimes batches of components are delivered for testing, bomb racks being a good example, and every single one has been manufactured incorrectly and they all have to be sent back.
This might seem ridiculous, but there were more complaints and problems during the development process with the windscreen washer system than there are with/about the engines (after the 004 B's introduction). Honestly, the windscreen washer system was apparently a source of endless difficulties. And the tubes which connected the barrels of the MK 108s to the exterior of the nose apparently kept coming loose and falling into the nose.
And the mountings for the Borsig booster rockets were a nightmare - there were many occasions where boosters tore themselves loose and shot off across the airfield - or flew into a wheel well and damaged the aircraft. The list goes on and on. But there aren't complaints about airframes sitting around engineless till November 1944, when the test fleet at Lechfeld has to cannibalise some aircraft in order to keep others flying. But then the supply situation picks up again shortly thereafter.

 

[TomcatViP]

Thank you for this complete answer. I wasn't in any ways putting doubts on your well known attention to sources.

I have to say that the amount of production details you are referring to gives dry mouth to the engineer I am.

I will with no doubts order your book.

Best,
TcViP

 

[Foo Fighter]

Preo order a few minutes ago was the usual smooth experience. Makes me a happy camper.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

Nice and irrelevant appeal to authority. Feel free to actually refute my positions with some evidence and facts rather than just dismiss it with nothing.

As I've said all my sources will be in the book. This is a thread about my book (not this one, as it happens, but one of my books nonetheless) rather than being a discussion thread about German jet engine development and production.

To address your point about 10-hour 004 engine life, which I think underpins your point about engine shortages creating a production bottleneck, 004s are not disposable units - they just need a full overhaul after 10 hours, worst case scenario, before being reinstalled.
The process of overhauling an 004 was supposed to take three hours but in practice it took eight to nine hours. This is from AIR 40/201 Me 262 Part 2 A.D.I.(K) Report No. 323/1945 The Me 262 as a Combat Aircraft June 6, 1945 - a compilation of POW interrogation reports which can be found at the National Archives, Kew, London.
If you take, for example, Messerschmitt Kontrollbericht Nr. 92/43 of August 4, 1943, it shows that Me 262 V3's airframe had 21 hours 12 minutes operting time on it. The left engine had 21 hours 47 minutes and the right engine had 14 hours 34 minutes. In other words, the left engine had been in operation for more hours than the airframe, having presumably been previously installed in a different machine (it's not possible to be more specific since the report doesn't give the engine's Werk-Nr.). This is from microfilm reel ADRC/T-2 3397, frame 233, which can be found at NASM in the US.
And when Me 262 V1 suffered crash damage on landing after its 95th flight on June 7, 1944, the test flight report summary for the period noted that “the machine (tail wheel), which was being used for Baldrian testing, broke on landing … and was partially damaged. Since the [004] A engines have been phased out, the old machine can no longer be upgraded” (see ADRC/T-2 2019/862). By this point the 262 was in series production with the 004 B and there were no more 004 As left to fit to the Me 262 V1. The last of 40 Jumo 004 A-0s was produced in March 1943 (see ADRC 2040/503), so those engines had been in service for about 14-15 months by that point.
In practice, very few Me 262s in front line service lasted long enough to need entirely new engines fitted so it wasn't much of a problem. Kommando Nowotny, for example, received 30 Me 262s by mid-October 1944 and within a month 26 of them had been lost (see ADIK 4007/98). Around 50% of these losses were due to pilot error and a further 30.8% due to combat/enemy action. Very few losses were attributed to mechanical/engine failure.

I have struggled to find any reports of engines having to be completely discarded (if you have any such reports, please do send them to me - it'd be great to have that data). As such, it's not been possible to provide a figure for actual full service life hours of a particular unit. I've seen a figure of 35 hours for the 004 B, pre-hollow blades (which extended overall service life dramatically), bandied around and that seems about right. Don't get me wrong, there are endless complaints about most other aspects of Me 262 production - numerous ill fitting parts, armoured windscreens delivered with cracks in them, leaky fuel filler caps - undercarriage components do briefly become a bottleneck at one point - but engine availability, not so much.

In terms of 004 engine production against 262 airframe production, below is a brief excerpt from Chapter 8:

"There was some good news on the engine front the following day [July 1, 1944], when a meeting of the Jägerstab heard that Jumo had exceeded its production target for the 004 by more than 20% – producing 121 engines against a June target of 100.(1) The total number of Me 262s accepted by the Luftwaffe in June 1944 was 33 – well ahead of the target number, 24, set by Saur. This brought total airframes accepted up to 60.(2)"

---

(1) IWM Milch 9/5408 Jägerstab-Besprechung am Sonnabend, dem 1. Juli 1944, 10 Uhr unter Vorsitz von Herrn Lange
(2) TNA AIR 48/2 USSBS Strategic Bombing of German Aircraft Industry November 1945

The USSBS airframe figures are based on Ruestungsstab data, though the report (which can be found at the National Archives) doesn't provide the specific document reference. For the period of December 1944 to March 1945 we also have airframe production numbers from a Generalquartiermeister document (from the archives at NASM), which provides slightly different figures.
The engine figures come from Jaegerstab and later Ruestungsstab monthly meeting reports, which can be found at the Imperial War Museum.
Incidentally, this is a book about Me 262 development, not production. The production material is incidental to the main thrust of the narrative - I just felt that including it would help readers to better understand some of the development decisions made.

Returning, finally, to the point you made about the blurb on Amazon being totally wrong, I would beg your indulgence until the book is actually out and you can see for yourself what I have written and what sources I have cited to support my arguments. It's a long and complex story and I've already no doubt bored you to death with my long-winded reply.
The very short version is, the RLM did everything it could under the circumstances to persuade Messerschmitt to deliver the 20 P 1065 prototypes it had ordered by July 1, 1940, but the company simply failed to deliver. And despite regular queries as to when the prototypes would be ready, continued to fail to deliver.
The engines? It reached the point where Jumo had development engines sitting around that it wanted to test in the air but there were no airframes to put them in while, as you say, Messerschmitt put what little spare capacity it had into the Me 163, the Me 328 and the Me 264 among others.
Exactly whose fault this situation was is discussed at length, with numerous quotes from and references to primary sources, in the book.

And, that's great--on sources. Also, no you aren't boring me in the least. Don't let my being adversarial put you off either, that's just how I often am, and my intent is to both learn from your answers as well as push you out of your comfort zone.

But being the industrial engineer / production planner, what I still see is engines being a huge bottleneck in getting the 262 operational in anything other than miniscule numbers.

Even if the engines can be rebuilt, taking roughly a day to do so (more realistically it's probably several), the Luftwaffe faces several issues in that respect. If I recall correctly, Luftwaffe ground crews and maintenance workers got little, if any, specialized training in maintaining jet aircraft. This really isn't unusual in any organization where the management and leadership are not engineers and have had some experience and training in what maintenance really takes to get it right.

That's a lifetime of personal experience in that. Maintenance is often an afterthought, and only gets pushed to the front of the line when things stop working.

Anyway, if the engine needs an overhaul, you need the various parts involved in doing that. That means either you are making way more parts than are being used in making new engines, or the rebuilders are competing for existing parts putting a crimp on new engines. If the rebuilders are using some engines for parts to get others running then that's just a recipe for trouble.

Of course, there's the fuel thing too. An Me 262 consumed somewhere between double and triple the fuel of an Me 109 per mission. Even if it was easier to make jet fuel, the total needed was vastly more than German industry could provide and the transportation system could deliver.

As for the Me 163, the Bachem Natter makes more sense as a rocket plane. The Natter is for all intents, a manned SAM using the pilot as a substitute for a terminal guidance system and VT fuze. The Natter launched vertically, was guided by an autopilot to within intercept range of the target where the pilot took over and made the final approach an attack.

After that, there was an attempt to recover the engine and pilot as these were too valuable to lose each mission. Costing far less than an Me 163, the Natter system could be made semi-mobile and set up like SAM batteries to take on enemy bombers.

 

[TomcatViP]

Don't forget that the prospects to train a full load of trainee without all of them dying in the process were null.
If 20 flight hours was for example a minimum for a rocket/jet a/c, the accident rate was so high that it would have been more economical and civilized to even burry them alive.

Also, the dire failure of the Me163 was the lack of range. Most USAF raids were routed (not even intentionally) away from the Rocket plane bases. When launched, most of the time, Me163 pilots faced the prospect of a long glide back home with no more tactical flight possibilities than a falling tea leaf. Not something you want to experience when Mustang, Lightnings and Thunderbolts are buzzing the sky around you.

So no, Natem wouldn't have brought any improvements.

A weapon system must be evaluated from tip to toes.

 

[Calum Douglas]

I`m not sure why its suprising to anyone that a book can be published in 2022 which has new conclusions about WW2 aviation, if I`ve learnt anything at all researching Luftwaffe stuff (and indeed to a similar, although "slightly" reduced degree Allied matters), its that ALMOST nobody bothers doing any more research than is needed to meet the word-count - because it costs a fortune, takes years
and might even involve you needing to buy a dictionary in a funny foreign language.

Milch`s files have been sat for all to see at Air Historical Branch then IWM for over fifty years, but did a single aviation historian bother
reading them to find out what was actually said at the RLM conferences in Berlin and Karinhall - all recorded verbatim
by a steongrapher ?

Nope (certainly not in the English speaking world, and I`m not even convinced many did in Germany)
Its taken 75 years before we all realised that the British had started direct fuel injection tests on aero engines before
the Germans did. Just because nobody bothered telephoning Ricardo Ltd and asking them.

 

[edwest4]

Calum,

I very much appreciate your reply. While doing research at the company I work for, I can appreciate the time and effort you, and other researchers have put in to get books out. It seems to me that not that long ago I bought books on various aspects of the Luftwaffe and just assumed that other people were like you and Dan Sharp and had gone over everything relevant in terms of documents to give an accurate account. I still have the original Smith/Creek books on the Me 262 and look forward to seeing Dan's book and getting much more of the story. No offense meant toward Smith/Creek in the slightest.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

I`m not sure why its suprising to anyone that a book can be published in 2022 which has new conclusions about WW2 aviation, if I`ve learnt anything at all researching Luftwaffe stuff (and indeed to a similar, although "slightly" reduced degree Allied matters), its that ALMOST nobody bothers doing any more research than is needed to meet the word-count - because it costs a fortune, takes years
and might even involve you needing to buy a dictionary in a funny foreign language.

Milch`s files have been sat for all to see at Air Historical Branch then IWM for over fifty years, but did a single aviation historian bother
reading them to find out what was actually said at the RLM conferences in Berlin and Karinhall - all recorded verbatim
by a steongrapher ?

Nope (certainly not in the English speaking world, and I`m not even convinced many did in Germany)
Its taken 75 years before we all realised that the British had started direct fuel injection tests on aero engines before
the Germans did. Just because nobody bothered telephoning Ricardo Ltd and asking them.

There's a lot of subjects like that on WW 2. I've been researching development of surface-to-air missiles from the 40's into the mid-50's when the first systems became operational. Many of the non-German ones were difficult to find stuff on because much of it remained classified for decades after the war. It's only been in the last few decades that this changed.

It definitely changes the whole story of who and how SAMs became operational. The same is true of AAM's and many other areas of missile development.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

Don't forget that the prospects to train a full load of trainee without all of them dying in the process were null.
If 20 flight hours was for example a minimum for a rocket/jet a/c, the accident rate was so high that it would have been more economical and civilized to even burry them alive.

Also, the dire failure of the Me163 was the lack of range. Most USAF raids were routed (not even intentionally) away from the Rocket plane bases. When launched, most of the time, Me163 pilots faced the prospect of a long glide back home with no more tactical flight possibilities than a falling tea leaf. Not something you want to experience when Mustang, Lightnings and Thunderbolts are buzzing the sky around you.

So no, Natem wouldn't have brought any improvements.

A weapon system must be evaluated from tip to toes.

The Natter would have. The "pilot" only had to have limited training to "fly" a Natter. No experience taking off or landing was necessary. The pilot's training could be limited to steering the missile towards a visible target then letting go a salvo of rockets. After that he would put the missile in a dive, even a steep dive, and using a semi-automatic system release the engine section for recovery while bailing out. There was no need to worry about making the airfield, there was none to make a landing on.

If he died or was critically injured in the process, sobeit. If he survived, he got to try and kill himself on the next mission. So, you could get lots of cannon fodder for pilots with very limited training to "fly" one of these manned SAM's to an intercept.

 

[Foo Fighter]

If I may shove my halfpenny piece in here and having a small amount of experience flying a small aircraft. I went up in a microlight on a taster session. There was no noticeable horizon said instructor tells me to "take the stick" and despite buffeting all over the yazoo leaves me too it. Considering how there was no armed aircraft to get in the way, I was hard pressed to keep close to straight and level as possible, let alone FIND a bomber stream and get into position to attack them. Considering the paucity of clean air free of interdiction, what sort of training would REALLY prepare what would have been a teenager for the role? The laundry bill alone must have been 'exotic' all by itself. No but, it was close when he asked if I wanted to try a landing. Pretty sure it's not for me despite everything I grew up with.

 

[newsdeskdan]

Of course, there's the fuel thing too. An Me 262 consumed somewhere between double and triple the fuel of an Me 109 per mission. Even if it was easier to make jet fuel, the total needed was vastly more than German industry could provide and the transportation system could deliver.

The fuel is dealt with in the book from a development point of view. This a 150,000w book but it only deals with the Me 262's development. Consider that the four big Smith/Creek hardback volumes run to somewhere under 120,000w all together and most of that is spent dealing with the service history, front line pilot recollections etc. Again, I don't mean to disparage those books - they are the gold standard as an Me 262 overview - only to say that my book ignores the service history in order to focus very tightly on development, with a side order of production for context.
The flight test section at Lechfeld never seems to have run out of jet fuel during the course of the war - or at least up to about April 3, 1945, when the team was apparently dissolved. They did, however, run out of standard B4 fuel which was required to run the 003. So the two 003-powered prototypes, W-Nr. 170074 and 170078, sat around for some time awaiting more fuel before attempts were made to convert their 003s to run on J2. The war ended before this could be done.

 

[newsdeskdan]

If I may shove my halfpenny piece in here and having a small amount of experience flying a small aircraft. I went up in a microlight on a taster session. There was no noticeable horizon said instructor tells me to "take the stick" and despite buffeting all over the yazoo leaves me too it. Considering how there was no armed aircraft to get in the way, I was hard pressed to keep close to straight and level as possible, let alone FIND a bomber stream and get into position to attack them. Considering the paucity of clean air free of interdiction, what sort of training would REALLY prepare what would have been a teenager for the role? The laundry bill alone must have been 'exotic' all by itself. No but, it was close when he asked if I wanted to try a landing. Pretty sure it's not for me despite everything I grew up with.

On the issue of training, I've included an appendix which recounts the nine-step eight-hour Me 262 flight training regime provided by Oberstleutnant Heinz Bär's III./EJG 2, just because I don't think I've seen it elsewhere (maybe you have?) and it's interesting. This is from A.D.I.(K) Report No. 323/1945 at TNA.

 

[newsdeskdan]

There's a lot of subjects like that on WW 2. I've been researching development of surface-to-air missiles from the 40's into the mid-50's when the first systems became operational. Many of the non-German ones were difficult to find stuff on because much of it remained classified for decades after the war. It's only been in the last few decades that this changed.

It definitely changes the whole story of who and how SAMs became operational. The same is true of AAM's and many other areas of missile development.

It's quite remarkable. I'd assumed, when I started writing about the Me 262, that every aspect of its history and technology had already been covered a dozen times over (hence my original plan to cover the variants in 25,000-30,000w). But just as I'd previously discovered with my He 162 and BV 155 books, if you go back to the original German documents there is a huge amount of detail that has been ignored - detail which often changes the whole story of the aircraft's development.
That's the micro scale. If you take something like Calum's The Secret Horsepower Race (not that there's anything else much like it!), the macro scale, it's clear that fine detail research across multiple different aspects of technical development adds up to a narrative which redefines how we understand the whole course of the air war in WW2.
I suspect that there are a lot of holes in most published aircraft development histories. You might think that aircraft such as the Bf 109 or the Spitfire have been done to death - but I strongly suspect that landmark books such as Morgan & Shacklady's Spitfire: The History (1987) are long overdue for reassessment. Conspicuously, that book does not cite its sources and some of the information in it seems questionable to anyone who's spent a long time looking at period Air Ministry/aircraft manufacturer documents. A truly definitive and meticulously accurate book on even the world's most famous fighter has yet to be written, I think.

Surface-to-air missiles - intriguing. If you're writing up your research and putting it into a book I'd be interested to get a copy.

 

[Zizi6785]

Hi Dan,
and what about this one?

How many times has it been postponed? And now again!
Why?
I paid a long time ago. The price has already gone up! Will I get it at the original price?

 

[newsdeskdan]

Hi Dan,
and what about this one?
View attachment 680601
How many times has it been postponed? And now again!
Why?
I paid a long time ago. The price has already gone up! Will I get it at the original price?

Hi Zizi,

As I mentioned previously, I can only work on one thing at once and the Me 262 book has taken a lot longer than expected. That's the whole explanation. Why? That's why. It's not a particularly outlandish or dramatic reason, but it's the truth. Price: The cost of printing has gone up and keeps going up. Again, not a very satisfying answer but that's the cause of the price increase.

 

[Zizi6785]

As I mentioned previously, I can only work on one thing at once and the Me 262 book has taken a lot longer than expected. That's the whole explanation. Why? That's why. It's not a particularly outlandish or dramatic reason, but it's the truth. Price: The cost of printing has gone up and keeps going up. Again, not a very satisfying answer but that's the cause of the price increase.

Thank you for your reply!
But then it's not fair behaviour from Mortons to do this again and again without any communication, while they keep pre-ordering the book.
I'm not attacking you, don't get me wrong.

 

[Hood]

Research is overrated, watched a "documentary" last night where an aviation historian with a straight face said that Bismarck could make 43 knots....
Cue swearing at the telly...

 

[Deleted member 2278]

On one of the streaming services, there's a documentary about the Lancaster. The thumbnail clearly has a Mk.I Halifax. An easy mistake to make, you say? Said Halifax clearly has Halifax emblazoned on the nose.
Cue swearing at the telly...

 

[newsdeskdan]

As I mentioned previously, I can only work on one thing at once and the Me 262 book has taken a lot longer than expected. That's the whole explanation. Why? That's why. It's not a particularly outlandish or dramatic reason, but it's the truth. Price: The cost of printing has gone up and keeps going up. Again, not a very satisfying answer but that's the cause of the price increase.

Thank you for your reply!
But then it's not fair behaviour from Mortons to do this again and again without any communication, while they keep pre-ordering the book.
I'm not attacking you, don't get me wrong.

Part of the reason why it's taken so long to write the Me 262 book is my acute awareness that there are a lot of people out there who already feel that they know and understand everything there is to know and understand about the Me 262.
If I hadn't covered every angle, investigated every anomaly and read through every available document (of which there are an incredible number), there was a very real likelihood that someone would point something out I'd omitted or got wrong. In other words, the potential for disaster when writing about such a popular and written-about type was huge.
There remain some grey areas where it's just not been possible to absolutely copper bottom what happened, even based on the primary sources. Take the reconnaissance version of the Me 262 - or, I should say, versions. Messerschmitt planned a reconnaissance version of the P 1065 very early on, about which few details survive, then famously created three different potential arrangements in 1943 which everyone knows about.
Then one of these, the unarmed Aufklaerer I, was worked on in more detail as the Me 262 Behelfsaufklaerer in May 1944 and this in turn became the Me 262 A-4. But a small number of Me 262s were actually converted to Behaelfsaufklaerer configuration before that. Exactly how many is unclear.
There don't appear to have been any full production model A-4s and the designation was dropped, the A-4 becoming the A-1/U3. And then later a small number of Me 262s were converted to Me 262 A-5a configuration, with two MK 108s low down in the very end of their nose.
I have a figure from the Generalquartiermeister of 25 Me 262s A-5as being accepted by the Luftwaffe between the beginning of February and March 20, 1945.
And there are photos showing a reconnaissance Me 262 with a single MK 108 in the upper tip of its nose, the barrel protruding. That doesn't conform to any approved configuration - Messerschmitt documents throughout, from May 1944 to March 1945, show the Behelfsaufklaerer as being completely unarmed. And the A-5a was supposed to have two MK 108s.
Unfortunately, this is all rather scant and there's not much I have been able to do to flesh it out.

 

[Foo Fighter]

If I may shove my halfpenny piece in here and having a small amount of experience flying a small aircraft. I went up in a microlight on a taster session. There was no noticeable horizon said instructor tells me to "take the stick" and despite buffeting all over the yazoo leaves me too it. Considering how there was no armed aircraft to get in the way, I was hard pressed to keep close to straight and level as possible, let alone FIND a bomber stream and get into position to attack them. Considering the paucity of clean air free of interdiction, what sort of training would REALLY prepare what would have been a teenager for the role? The laundry bill alone must have been 'exotic' all by itself. No but, it was close when he asked if I wanted to try a landing. Pretty sure it's not for me despite everything I grew up with.

On the issue of training, I've included an appendix which recounts the nine-step eight-hour Me 262 flight training regime provided by Oberstleutnant Heinz Bär's III./EJG 2, just because I don't think I've seen it elsewhere (maybe you have?) and it's interesting. This is from A.D.I.(K) Report No. 323/1945 at TNA.

Many years ago while on my first class map reading classes, I decided to walk a grid to practice on the weekend. I think I may have missed a waypoint along the way through inattention but not perfect so I just had to adjust. I was stopped by a couple in a car, the driver pointed at a farmhouse and said, "You look like I used to feel a long time ago". "Stop at my house and I'll make you some coffee". Turns out this guy had flown 109's and 190's back in the day and we talked aircraft becasue, people do and he said along the lines of (It was 1977 after all) "we sent kids up and pretended they were trained enough". "It did not even matter if they could land 100% but we still sent them up". I do not have facts of the training but even getting some defence into the air at that time was a monumental achievement that cost a lot of good lives, I hope we as a species can get a grip.

 

[Zizi6785]

Dan!
What's next after Me 262? Me 328/P 1079?
I have lots of profiles ready for a big book!

 

[newsdeskdan]

Dan!
What's next after Me 262? Me 328/P 1079?
I have lots of profiles ready for a big book!
View attachment 680612

I'm still very slowly gathering material on the Me 328.

 

[edwest4]

If I may shove my halfpenny piece in here and having a small amount of experience flying a small aircraft. I went up in a microlight on a taster session. There was no noticeable horizon said instructor tells me to "take the stick" and despite buffeting all over the yazoo leaves me too it. Considering how there was no armed aircraft to get in the way, I was hard pressed to keep close to straight and level as possible, let alone FIND a bomber stream and get into position to attack them. Considering the paucity of clean air free of interdiction, what sort of training would REALLY prepare what would have been a teenager for the role? The laundry bill alone must have been 'exotic' all by itself. No but, it was close when he asked if I wanted to try a landing. Pretty sure it's not for me despite everything I grew up with.

The Natter was not a "small aircraft." I have seen photos of a field with Natters laying among the grass after their camouflage had been removed. Some information about them was concealed by the Allies. See: Natter - Manned Missile of the Third Reich by Brett Gooden.

NATTER MANNED MISSILE OF THE THIRD REICH - Dinged

NATTER MANNED MISSILE OF THE THIRD REICH - Dinged ISBN:N/A Item No. Dinged NATTER MANNED MISSILE OF THE THIRD REICHby Brett Goodon, 534 pages, 870 color and B+W photos and Illustrations This monumental work of over 500 pages and 800 illustrations records in meticulous detail the history and...

rzm.com

 

[Foo Fighter]

Thanks nate, the point of the microlight is just that was what I got a 'go' in. Learning in high stress combat conditions would have been so much more arduous.

 

[elmayerle]

I pre-ordered when it was first announced. How does the change in price affect that preorder?

 

[athpilot]

After reading this whole thread-page I´m really (I mean really) looking forward to this book!

 

[T. A. Gardner]

Research is overrated, watched a "documentary" last night where an aviation historian with a straight face said that Bismarck could make 43 knots....
Cue swearing at the telly...

Yea, having been in the Navy I heard stories about ships going super fast all the time. I was on the Enterprise for years. There were non-engineering sailors aboard that'd say it'd do 50 knots and nonsense like that. The fastest I ever saw it go, and that was sitting in DC Central watching the gages that measured ship's speed of the pit log / sword (accurate--an arm extended below the ship from forward IC to measure ship's speed) was 38 knots and change. That's damn fast for 90,000+ tons of ship. And, that was with all the stops pulled out and torque on the shafts maxed. (We were racing to the scene of one of the ship's planes crashing to try and find the pilot).

That even required taking some steam driven auxiliaries offline to get enough steam for the turbines into them to go that fast.