(Tom Cervo) wrote in message ...
It seems they almost never flew the Blitz. The tires were so bad they
blew at inopportune moments.

The Germans had synthetic rubber but it needed a small admixture of
natural rubber to become good quality. This the allies cut of from
the Germans.

One RAF ace of French background Clostermann describes the desperate
and sacrificial attacks the allies made on the 33 knot fast merchant
ship (munster I think) right at the end of the war becuase it had a
load of natural rubber form the far east that might have re-energised
the araments industry.


The other continual problem with all the German war trophies was the
brakes. One pilot wrecked an Me-262 at Philadelphia? when he came in a
bit hot, landed long, and couldn't brake to a stop before running off
the end into the ditch.

Poor brakes was also a problem of all German late war aircraft.
Another material shortage I suspect.


One of the points of contrast that Brits like to draw is that the German jets
were all rushed into production, and nearly killed as many German airmen as
Allied, while the Meteor and Vampire were brought into use normally, and had
long successful service careers and development.

It wasn't just the rushing into service it was the war situation. The
engines worked in Reichlin test but when mass produced by unskilled
labour with inferior and substituted materials they just didn't work.

For instance something like 30% of accidents were related to nose
wheel collapses. This wasn't the designe but simply the low grade of
steel which was substituted.