(Peter Stickney) wrote in message ...
In article ,
Cub Driver writes:

Why does everyone get so bent out of shape over the Me-262? Its
contemporary, the P-80 in its two-seat trainer version, is still in
service as a recce and light-attack aircraft with several air forces
around the world, 60 years of continuous service after its first
flight. If that's not the better aircraft, or indeed the best turbojet
ever built, I scratch my head as to what standards are being applied.

Note - more on the various turbojets later tonight - I'm checking
references and lining up ducks.

I don't think there's a single reason. I'll throw out some that popped
into my head, though.

Novelty - the Me 262 was the first jet fighter to engage in combat.
The difference in the performance envelopes of any jet vs. any
piston-propeller pwered fighter are such that on that day, Air Combat
changed. If the Meteor had engaged airplanes first, we'd be talking
about it the same way.

And quite rightly.


Mysticism/Mythology/Psychology - However you want to put it.
This works on several levels. The Germans themselves had an almost
pathological belief that they could pull off some kind of "Hammer
Blow" that would psychologically paralyze their enemies, and allow
them to win at the last second.

When you are outnumbered by 4:1 the possibility of hard hiting blows
inflicted by new weapons and tactics is the only real hope and so it
is a tactic you follow.


Some of this was manifested in
weapons development - pursuing rediculous projects on the vain hope of
their succeeding, such as th Maus and E.100 tanks, or the hopes placed
on the employment of the V-1 and V-2, or, for that matter, pushing the
Me 262 into service long before it was ready. It was also strategic -
the Ardennes Offensive, or Galland's husbanding the Luftwaffe's
strength in the Autumn of 1944, hoping to strike a single strong blow
that would stop the Eighth Air Force in its tracks. Of course, by the
time he'd managed to scrape up a sizable number of pilots, the Eighth
wa flying raids where the number of escort fighters alone exceeded the
strength of Luftflotte Reich. These carefully husbanded, and, for the
most part, half-trained forces were squandered in Operation
Bodenplatte over the turn of the New Year into 1945. (Another
Mystical Hammer Blow)

This wasn't a recent phenomenon - they went through the same process
in World War One, culminating in the Kaiserschlacht of 1918, which
finished the Imperial German Army as a fighting force.

The end of the war for Germany in WW1 was the entry of the USA. They
managed to defeat the Russians.


You'd think that after 3 years of constantly backpedalling against the
Soviets. Brits and Commenwealth, and Americans, who all absorbed these
"Hammer Blows" as they were struck, they'd get to thinking that they
wouldn't work. The didn't learn the lesson.

In 9AD Herman/Armenious ambushed and slaughtered 3 legions and 6
cohorts of 20,000 Roman soldiers led by Varsus who were marching
through to the Baltic to meet up with a Roman fleet sailed from Roman
Britain. This was the end of Roman attempts to conquer Northern
Europe and ensured the ascendancy of English becuase Armenious was a
Cherusci: ancestors of the Saxons who settled in Britain from about
400AD. (although they had been there at a lower level preceding the
romans)

(Too much Wagner, I think. Or perhaps Wagner touched on somehing in
the German culture up through that time.)

Its clear you are expressing biggoted opinions based on ignorance.

There was an natural emergence nationalism in Bismarks Germany:
afterall the 16 'Germanic states' were finaly being allowed to unite
after having defeated France. NOTE it was a war France declared on
Germany under the vainglorious Napoleon IV.

Prior to the Franco Prussian war France had attacked Prussia and the
German states over 25 times begining with Louis XIV who smashed them
to keep them seperate and poor and divided.

Under Napoleon and the Jocobins they invaded Germany on the pretext
of "liberating" it while plundering, raping and murdering their way
through the German states. (Beethoven removed the dedication of the
9th Symphony when he found out what they were really like). The wars
actualy started by Bismarck
killed only around 1000 people.

Even Bismarck was more bark than bite. In all the wars (and he had
some real threats to deal with) that he started perhaps only 800 to at
most 2000 people died. (I've read his Biography). Indeed he
blustered to AVOID war.

Here is a proof:
Dealing in Hate: The development of anti-German propaganda

http://64.143.9.197/books/connors/dealinginhate.html

It has been estimated that there were "about twenty-six hundred
important battles involving European states" in the 460 years between
1480 and 1940. Of these, France participated in forty-seven percent,
"Germany (Prussia)" in twenty-five percent, and England and Russia in
twenty-two percent each.6 The Prussian record can hardly be described
as uniquely warlike on the basis of such evidence! It might also be
added that geographic factors, like Britain's insular position and
Russia's remoteness from the mainstream of European history during the
period, doubtless helped considerably to reduce their percentage of
involvement.

Professor Quincy Wright offers this further statistical evidence for
the same period, that is, 1480-1940:

Of the 278 wars involving European states during this period, the
percentage of participation by the principal states was: England, 28;
France, 26; Spain, 23; Russia, 22; Austria, 19; Turkey, 15; Poland,
11; Sweden, 9; Netherlands, 8; Germany (Prussia), 8; Italy
(Savoy-Sardinia), 9; and Denmark, 7.7

In the circumstances, one is compelled to assent to Dr. Wright's
conclusion that "attribution of a persistently warlike character to
certain states ... seems not to have been based upon a comparison of
any objective criteria of warlikeness."8

It should also be noted that Fredrick II followed for most of his life
a policy of neutrality and enlightenment.


Esthetics - it just plain looks cool.

Promise - this sort of ties in with Novelty and Mysticism. The advent
of teh jet fighter was a watershed in air combat. Properly developed,
with properly prepared pilots, and all of that occuring in a timely
manner, the Me 262, or any jet, would have had far-sweeping
consequences. For various reasons, the Germans were unable to get
things together before their entire system started falling apart.
They couldn't produce engines, they couldn't tranistion pilots, and
they couldn't support airplanes in the field by the time the 262
became operational. The Germans were, on the best day they ever had
(for jets) able to put about 60 jets in the air. These were facing
over 3000 Allied bombers and fighters.

And for some, it's just plain racism/nationalism - It was German, and
therefore it had to be better/more advanced/superduper.


I think you've gotten carried away with anti german stereotypes and a
bit of ' "Honi Soit" i.e. my triumphalism and nationalism good, yours
bad.'