In fact they lost the war for a big part in 1940, but also in 1941.

In 1940 because the allowed that 340.000 soldiers could escape from the beaches of Dunquerque. If they would have been captured, Germany could have invaded Brittain.

In november 1941 when Hitler decided to go after Rostov and Kiev instead of Moscow.

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Germany lost the war in 1940 when Hitler broke the non-agression pact with Russia. If Hitler had focused on Britian then there is no doubt that Hitler would've taken Britian. (Personally I think that Hitler was a little messed up in the head). It probably would've allowed the Luftwaffe to evolve a little quicker too.

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Mustang, the non-agression pact, 'Molotov-Von Ribbentrop' was broken on June 22nd 1941 when Germany launched operation "Barbarossa", the invasion of the Soviet Union, which was not precisely a suicide.

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"War is less costly than servitude, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau." - Jean Dutourd, French veteran of both world wars

"A mon fils: depuis que tes yeux sont fermes les miens n’ont cessé de pleurir." - Mère française, Verdun

But Hitler DECIDED to break the pact in 1940, so Mustamg is right on the money...

Cheers,

[ 05 October 2002, 10:28 PM: Message edited by: AndyW ]

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(President Merkin Muffley in "Dr. Strangelove")

Thanks for backing me up there Andy. I think that the production of the Me.262 could've had an effect on the war too.

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I wonder if the Me 262 would have saved Berlin from the Red Army ´soldiers or would have been able to kill off the Red Army to win the war in the East?

It was a weapon, sure a good one, a VERY expensive one, just for one purpose (Hitler re-desiged it, for bombing tasks, but hey that was blundering): protecting the German air space from U.S/GB bomber airplanes.

As the USAF/BC's SBC wasn't a decisive campaign to win the war against Germany, the Me 262 wasn't a decisive weapon.

Guess you have to pay some credit to the Red Army who killed of the Wehrmacht during 1941-1945.

Cheers,

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"Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!"
(President Merkin Muffley in "Dr. Strangelove")

Good point. The Me.262 was so expensive that the Luftwaffe would just be getting smaller. The Russian planes on the other hand were cheap, and were built in very large numbers. If Germany/Hitler had decided to build the Me.262 in "larger" numbers and hadn't given it the bomber role, the quantity of Russian planes might have been too much for the Me.262. Besides, if he had won the war with Me.262's he wouldn't have had enough money left to build on to his conquered land. The Third Reich wouldn't have lasted 1,000 years that's for sure.

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No, Me-262 alone would not have saved the Reich, I think, but trying to make it a bomber was one mistake in a series of flops.

Earlier production by 18 months would have changed the air-war in the west, and caused huge losses to the allied bomber armadas. " Give me 300 Me 262´s and I´ll drop 200 bombers anyday " said by Galland (?). That would have given the Allied some thinking to do.

As to the production losses Speer ( Yes, Andy, I do know you don´t trust him but I don´t have other numbers to use on this ) estimated that the bombings caused some 35% decrease to what might have been in 1944. So the end of bombings would have changed something. And these bombings did not just affect the production lines, but the morale of working people and time of working hours per day.

The Soviet army was a huge killing machine once it started rolling.I don´t think anyone here on this forum disagrees.

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Yes the 262 should of been given a top priority to the fighter arm and the development of the Arado 234 as the chief jet bomber but it didn't happen.

E

Yep. Giving the 262 the bomber role was a major mistake. It slowed to within the 400 mph range. Slow enough so that the Allied fighters could intercept it.

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Now, if you change production priorities in a situation of limited resources given, some other weapon or industry has to bite the dust for it.

More Me262's but much less 88 Flak? Ammo? Uboats? It takes very long to re-design or re-arrange production capacities from one weapon to annother, especially the more complex a weapon (and the early jet airplanes were VERY complex) is.

So basically the realistic decision was to built more jets at the cost of many more other "workhorse" planes like the Fw-190 etc. Plus the huge fuel consumption of jet airplanes, something Germany needed at last. And the factories for jet engines had to be built from botton up.

All I'm saying that changing dramatically from one product to another takes time and leaves a production hole. So evolution of an existing product (as done on the FW-190 and Me-109) is easier and more smooth if you have to ensure a stable and increasing output. I see the Me262 as a successor for the old Me-110 destroyer which definately was a end-of-life product in late 1943.

Leves the problem of a successor for the light Me-109 fighter who was outdated by this time, too. Maybe the jet-driven Heinkel "Volksjaeger"?

Cheers,

[ 07 October 2002, 06:31 AM: Message edited by: AndyW ]

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"Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!"
(President Merkin Muffley in "Dr. Strangelove")

I wonder if some of these resources were put into action elsewhere:

1.Huge resources were diverted to the production of vengeance, or 'V', weapons, which had a very limited impact on Britain when rockets and flying bombs began to fall in the late summer of 1944.

2. Gigantic construction project for an underground economy was authorised by Hitler in 1943. Organised by Himmler, using camp labour , millions of man-hours and billions of marks were spent.

3. Instead of making many different types of tanks, the "Russian way " should have been adopted, with just a couple of models. Less need for different spare parts etc. Using all the vehicles of different nationalities just brought problems with maintaining their engines etc. On the Speer subject I came across some knowledge that at one point there were over 20 different motor cycles in use in Wehrmacht...If you´re a collector that sounds fine but trying to keep an army going..don´t think so.

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And some extras I found:

By late 1944 8 million Germans had fled from the cities to the safer villages and townships because of the allied bombings.

Vast exodus of workers (an estimated 16 million) and factories (more than 2,500 major plants) from in front of the advancing Germans allowed the USSR to reconstruct its armaments economy in central and eastern Russia with great rapidity.

One could produce a mighty slick looking and most effective Jagdpanther V with all the bells and whistles or one could opt to produce five shoddy looking, but most functional and reliable T-34’s instead.

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Sure. But the chance of that Jagdpanther killing more than five T-34s isn't that slim either when properly handled!

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„Solange man nicht mit dem Kopf unterm Arm rumläuft geht es doch noch!" Erwin Rommel

Does it count when I decided to kill my wife or when I actually killed her?

No, the Me-262 could not have won the war in the West by itself and much less the war in the East. Actually, no weapon that we could have deployed in the Eastern front (except for an A-bomb) could have won the war in the East by itself. Many, many factors; tactical and strategical were needed to defeat partially the Soviet Union and that, before winter 1941-1942.

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"War is less costly than servitude, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau." - Jean Dutourd, French veteran of both world wars

"A mon fils: depuis que tes yeux sont fermes les miens n’ont cessé de pleurir." - Mère française, Verdun