The Mig 15 would have been much later as a reliable engine would have taken much longer to develop than copying the Nene/Derwent engine sent to USSR. At the time people had not woken up to how relations would develop and change in late 40s so a left leaning UK government would not have realised how things would develop. The transfer of German prisoners-civilians who were on gas turbine teams in WWII were quite numerous. On the night of Oct 22 1946 250 BMW and 350 Junkers specialists were transferred to USSR.
The BMW task was to improve and support BMW 003 production at 2,200 lbt rating. Rotten turbine material meant the life and integrity of the blades was low and only a small number were built.
The Junkers group worked on developing a 6,700 lbt jet based on the Jumo 012; again turbine blade integrity meant the engine could not pass the Russian 100 hr type test and development was stopped in 1948. The combined Junkers/BMW team were then tasked with developing a 6,000hp turboprop.
Nikolai Kuznezow was the chief designer who ensured test beds and rigs were constructed while German specialists...
Alfred Schreiber and Josef Vogts supervised development, Ferdinand Brandner- the construction of prototypes and Karl Prestel supervised test bed trials.
A 100 hr test was achieved in Oct 1950 and the TW-2 engine as it was now called was readied for production at a completely Russian Manufacturing plant away from German personnel. The production ready version became the NK-4, rated at 5,000hp for take-off.
Produced in large quantities, it powered the Russian transport aircraft fleet. The German team then turned to a twin coupled engine version -TW-2F- and then moved on to the NK-12 at 12,000hp! This was first run in 1953; first flight was 1954 in the Tu95 bomber. Later it powered the Tu114 civil transport. Development pushed the power up to 15,000hp for the Tu95 'Bear' long range reconnaissance aircraft (see below).
The BMW/Junkers team also designed, in 1953, a civil turbojet that was transferred to the GDR who developed it as the Pirna 014.
Also prior to the moving of the BMW/Junkers personnel, Russia had moved a small team of pulsejet experts into Russia together with their Ju88 flying testbed for an engine being developed for the Junkers EF126 cheap and simple fighter. They carried on for a while with the project.
Another team of around 500 people ended up near Moscow in Sept 1946 flight testing the Ju287 and the forward wing sweep EF131 with 6 Jumo 004s. Testing these two configurations, limited though it was led to the airframe being modified once more into the Mikulin bomber No 14 with VK1 engines, modified Nene derivatives.
All this work ground to a halt due to wing buffeting that could not be easily cured. But the aircraft served as prototype for the GDRs 152 transport.
Klimov in 1945 had begun to try and copy the Nene engine but had great difficulty as their prototype was very crude; the present from UK in the Nene allowed them to begin again and reverse engineer the jet.
So what does this all mean for the original question? Would the MIG 15 have been ready in time for the Korean War? The MIG-9 straight wing aircraft using the axial BMW 003 being built by the first team (above) was in production and maybe a swept wing version of that plus more focus on solving the 003s turbine challenges could have got them there.
The Sabre was in service in 1949 and the MIG-15 in Nov 1950 and proved to be a better aircraft in most respects until later mark Sabres were introduced in 1953.
I guess the Sabre (First Flight Oct 1, 1947) would have been superior to the MIG-15 (FF Dec 30, 1947) from the start if no Nenes/Derwents were sent to Russia... which may have altered the length of Korean War?
