The 'Real' Reason(s) Why The Me 262 Had Bombs

hello everybody it's chris from military aviation history and i have a question for you why did the german message made me 262 carry bombs and did the introduction of bombs on this aircraft delay the introduction of the fighter by a crucial set of mums now if you bundle up that question and you distill it down to a couple of keywords and then you send it into the e4 on your favorite search engine on the internet you will be presented with an answer that on the surface sounds rather convincing and that is of course that upon seeing the aircraft for the first time hitler in november 1943 november 1943 this is a very important date for outer video november 1943 remember it that upon seeing the aircraft for the first time he explains to an astonished and surprised audience of experts and the aircraft that is presented to him as a fighter that everybody around him seems to consider a fighter and talks about as if it was a fighter was not in fact a fighter it is in fact a fighter bomber a bomber a jet bomber blitz bomber a snail bomber never mind how you want to cut it this aircraft is supposed to carry bombs in hitler's eyes rather than be a fighter in this video i will demonstrate that this popular depiction of the question whether the me262 was delayed due to the bombs is perhaps cutting a bit short now hitler did cause the m262 to veer off track slightly i will explain more of that also in the video but we know nowadays thanks to for example a lot of primary sources that historians have been going through for the last 50 years or 60 years that i will also use in this video thank you very much to all my patrons and channel members who support my trips to the german military archives as well as other archives but we know nowadays that the situation was a lot more complex and that the question of whether the me262 was supposed to have bombs cannot be just be distilled down to that one singular event in november 1943 and i will demonstrate this in this video what i'm going to do is break this down into a couple of chapters first we're actually going to talk about that meeting that hitler has with the aircraft in that's correct november 1943 and we're going to talk about what this meeting tells us and what it doesn't tell us which is actually a more important question but it doesn't tell us then we're going to talk a little bit about the development of the me262 and i'm going to show it to you that actually there were plans for it to carry bombs long before hitler ever saw the aircraft and after that we're going to talk a little bit about the internal division of the luftwaffe and i'm going to show to you that there were those people in the luftwaffe that wanted to as a bomber and those that wanted as a fighter and these guys are going head to head and this is actually a front line within the luftwaffe that has existed for some years already and then we're going to talk about the actual problems that delayed the introduction of the 262 and you're going to see that the introduction of bombs or the question of bombs really doesn't factor in all that much in this grant the scheme of things so let's get cracking before we go into this i ran a little poll a few days ago an exactly this question to see how many people would answer whether it was the bombs that delayed the 262 or something else by now five days and nine thousand votes later around sixty four percent said the bombs delayed 262. it's not a representative poll but overall a good indication that this popular depiction is still very much relevant thanks everyone for taking part and also shout out to all the luftwaffels out there who turned this poll around on me by interpreting the bomb answer as allied bombs well done well done indeed now let's break all of this down into a timeline those are always helpful in showing what actually happened now on the 26th of november 1943 this is the date you have to remember hitler sees the me262 for the first time and calls it a blitz bomber now in december 1943 series production is supposed to start but it kicks off very very slowly there isn't any real production until september 1944. on the 25th of may 1944 hitler demands the blitz bomber again and trials with a 250 kilogram bomb and a 500 kilogram bomb commence and then between june and july 1944 the apocalypse commando shank practice bombing with their 262 and also fly this aircraft operationally now looking at this in isolation i think you'll agree with me that presented like this it does look like hitler is the corporate right but there is a fundamental problem when we focus only on hitler's meeting with the 262 in trying to answer the question why the aircraft was delayed first off we don't actually know 100 what happened yes we have a good idea of what happened but much of what we know about this meeting is based on memoirs and accounts of the time given by people that are sometimes assumed the way we recount the story to be neutral spectators which they were definitely not we have accounts by really management we have accounts by albert baer adolf garland actually uh where is it for example here the absolutely let's the first and last that's his uh book uh recounting his version of the event let me just file that back there we go then we have accounts by mill zawa guring a girl before he hanged himself two important things here these accounts differ from each other sometimes slightly sometimes a bit more they but they all sort of seem to point towards hitler right but there is a fundamental problem with relying only on these sources and that is that after the war after german historians for example have gone through the masses of primary sources that still exist and have compiled that into very heavy german academic literature we've shown or i haven't shown i shouldn't say we but it has been shown that these memoirs and these accounts depict a interpretation of events on not just one topic but on many topics that cannot be cooperated with the actual sources and that is also one of the reasons why for example german historians are more hesitant in using these sources one of the fundamental problems of course here is that the german literature and the german primary sources only a very small fraction of that has actually been translated into another language and that creates an artificial barrier for international historians to penetrate this knowledge let's say or this volume of work if we compare that to the actual memoirs a lot of the memories have been translated and that is also why they are more accessible to international scholars rather than you know the actual sources that we have in the archives in germany that is one of the reasons why this question at least this is what i think this is one of the reasons why i think this idea that hitler delayed the me262 with that one single meeting in november 1943 is so predominant more on the international market than it is still in germany however you have me ich breger deutsch i speak german so i can relate some of that original documentation to you in this video and all my other videos yeah messerschmitt albert bear garland all of them after the war had an interest in passing the book that much we know yeah and all of them do pass the book very quickly after the war and the most common person to pass blame to is of course hitler hitler has a monumental colossal amount of blame yeah i mean if you would take the hill malayas mountain range and you would square that there would still be room for blame for hitler and this guy if we however look at the microcosm that is the development of the 262 things become a little bit more complicated in that case we do know that hitler actually does cause the ma262 to veer of course slightly but we know this not because garland tells us oh because spear tells us we know this because we have actual documents proving this from the time what is interesting is that hitler had already interested himself for jet aircraft as bombers at least for a short time before seeing the me262 for a long time he had championed the position that production should not immediately switch over to jets and at least one more generation of piston engine driven aircraft should proceed at 262. but a few days before he saw the mp262 a presentation on jet engines in the luftwaffe that i found in the archive includes the following notice the fuhrer has occasionally issued a demand that jet bombers are to be pushed forward by all means with the use of a large quantity of small bombs to defend against an invasion in the west in the west the jet bomber is more important than the jet fighter hitler will have an infatuation with the me262 as a fighter bomber between november 1943 and july 1944. soon after seeing the me262 he issued an order by a guring the fuhrer wishes to draw our attention urgently to the enormous importance of the production of jet aircraft to be deployed as fighter bombers it is imperative to ensure that by the spring of 1944 the luftwaffe has a sufficient number of these fighter bombers operational then in may 1944 after seeing the jet aircraft a few months ago the following reminder the fuhrer has ordered that the me262 is to be used exclusively as a schnelz bomber the aircraft is at present not considered as a fighter aircraft so once again if you look at all of what i've just shown you in isolation then yes it looks like bam on that one meeting in november 1943 hitler changes everything it's completely unexpected something has happened that has drastically changed the nature of the beast however i'm going to explain from henceforth onwards that the introduction of bombs on the 262 was not exactly a surprise and that it has been planned for for some time and that i think will allow you to look at this meeting that hitler has with the 262 which obviously doesn't help but you won't be able to look at it in a new light so what happens before hitler meets the me262 going back to the timeline i showed you earlier let's start filling in the gaps on the fourth of january 1949 the four left richterling and verschenelle jacques futsoin which talantripe the preliminary specifications for a jet aircraft are drawn up then between june and october 1949 the bmw and numor engines are chosen to carry this aircraft in january 1940 20 prototypes are ordered then in july 1941 the first prototypes near completion in february 1942 three prototypes are still waiting for working engines and these are delivered between march and july and then in july 1942 the first flight is conducted with only jet engines it is important to realize that the me2628 at this time is not a priority this is clearly documented in primary sources the me262 is currently being tested and developed without any special urgency in the general luftward meister meeting after the 16th january 1943 it was mentioned that there were no requirements for a jet air fighter at the moment from the general lufthsegmeister meeting in the first months of 1943 it is clear that also from the side of the general staff no precise specifications were made towards fuselage jet engines and deadlines and from the technical side no measures were taken to control development undertaking in the various companies in a more centralized capacity in early 1943 everyone still expects a new generation of piston engine driven aircraft to come out before germany shifts to the jet turbine yes there are calls for the jet aircraft to come out earlier but not among those people taking the decisions in december 1942 jets are placed at a higher priority but nothing really happens until half a year later in summer 1943 when the me262 subtly becomes really important up until this point messerschmidt is essentially free to develop the aircraft without any real official guidance and if we look at the weaponry the proposals change continually as this shortened overview will show in june 1949 we have the first project proposal and the weapon we've chosen here are a 20 millimeter and a 50 millimeter cannon in march 1940 the first draft proposal is presented featuring three mk 108s then in july 1942 the first trial flights are conducted and with these flights a renewed emphasis is placed on the weaponry with the testing of the eventual implementation of an expected range of tasks and or testing of future variants including weaponry in august 1942 there is a provisional agreement with the ministry of aviation on prototypes at this point the plane is still considered a fighter and the weaponry is either an mg151 or an mk-103 then in march 1943 there's an agreement with the ministry on aviation on the series production and here the me262 is called a fighter bomber the weaponry is supposed to be four mk108s and two mg151-20s or six mk108s included in agreement is also the carrying capacity for a single 500 kilogram bomb hang on is that march 1943 eight four months before hitler sees the actual aircraft yes it is and this is why i love primary sources from this moment on spring 1943 messerschmitt or the management design bureau but certainly within the knowledge of messerschmitt is planning an introduction of bombs on the 262 and this becomes very obvious it is given in project proposals that they send to the ocal and the ireland or the ocal commando luftwaffe luftwad ministerium ministry of aviation whether they're giving examples for pre-series production or for serious production we for example have in project overuse stage two from the 25th of march 1943 we have the proposal to carry one single sc 400 kilogram bomb or two st 250 kilogram bomb or in fact a bt nut what is a bt you might ask well they were planning to have the potential carrying capacity on the 262 or the comparison carrying ability of the 262 for our torpedo we also then for example have project uh proposal number four from the same time which already calls the mb262 not just as a fighter anymore which in the planning until now it has been just called a fighter but it also calls it a fighter bomber in september 1943 there is a construction proposal by messerschmitt giving an overview of the different variants of aircraft the company proposes there's the aufler einstein sway those are recon aircraft carrying jumo engines and using the airbase from the subject rising and reissued those are cameras then there is the schnellbomber einsatzwai these are also using dual engines and they're mainly armed with worms then we have the interceptor eins pisterai using different engines and armed with up to six mk108s and then we have the shulfutzuk a trainer aircraft also using jumbo engines armed with four mk-108s then in early november 1943 guring visits messerschmitts and talks about the fighter bomber use of the ma262 three days later the technical development department at junckers acknowledges that the engines are not yet ready something again confirmed at the end of the year all of what you've just seen happens before hitler has actually seen the aircraft in its current state so what is going on why is this happening well this is because a notice goes out in february 1943 to the industry that says from now on any fighter that the lm and the ocal are going to accept are going to be required to carry a bomb every fighter plane that is being developed needs to be fighter bomber capable and this is also for example something that clouds or that influences the choice of the luftwaffe or not just the choice of the luftwaffe in choosing what aircraft they're going to implement or introduce rather but also how they're going to grade and judge fighter proposals and fighter concepts for example if you've seen this video on the italian planes of world war ii and the late war italian planes like the fiat g55 and so on and the germans opinion on them they criticized these aircraft for not even being able to carry a bomb now you can see how that aspect clouds their judgment or not really clouds are just influenced against their judgment of these aircraft why is this happening um this is something that is a little bit complicated now we i can tell you why it is happening that's because of the os front the eastern front yeah the combat experience over there shows that ever more and more fighter bombers become the only means of delivering close air support to the army in the offensive well by mid-1943 that's really not happening anymore that's the sort of the last really offensive operation that the germans are planning there but from then on it's also going to be defensive but that's the only way of really getting air support to the troops on the ground that is why fire the bombers these have the speed and let's say the overall accuracy also required for the job that we know and this is also something that is mentioned for example in a discussion between goring and some of his subordinates on this topic the rice marshall points out that bomb drops may be required on all fighter aircraft on the eastern front what is a little bit more difficult to ascertain is the relationship this has this this change towards of the fighter bomber has with the actual planning of the war i'm not quite sure whether this is something that the lm so the ministry of aviation or the ocal the uber commando luftwaffe have planned together and have developed themselves or whether this is something that is mandated at a higher level it could be that it is mandated by the okave and the oba commando de veyama because the army has been asking the okaha and the oba commando there is this is going to get complicated very quickly has demanded that more air support is delivered and then that instead of seeing being sent horizontally that is sent vertically up to the okave and then the okave with hitler tells the okl hey we need more air support what do you have fighter bombers does not work for you and your kyle will be like yeah that works for us or maybe this is something that is proposed organically in the ocal which i think is actually more likely that the okl has developed this themselves and this is sanctioned off at a higher level by just saying okay so you have fighters now you're making fighter bombers out of them does that make allow you to get the job done yes it does okay so let's do that in that sense you can all or of course say that hitler is involved because he's sanctioning this this change but that's a discussion that really goes into the nitty-gritty and i can't really ascertain at the moment with the sources that i have this was obvious why messerschmitt had these proposals and plans he knew he needed them for the me262 to be accepted in the first place we also have further proof in that the me262 was already planned to have some bomb carrying capacity by returning to the presentation i cited from earlier from the 18th of november 1943. the talks between the reismartial and messerschmitt have shown that the me262 has the ability to carry bombs the use of bombs was already considered in the planning plans and drawings exist thus this will not generate any difficulties me 262 fighter high altitude fighter effective rice air defense aircraft against four engine high altitude aircraft next to this used as a fighter bomber for close air support a use is considered especially to defend against an invasion that a jet bomber could help in case of an invasion in something that pops up throughout late 1943 and early 1944. in this slide more people than just hitler already considered the mb262 to be a possible choice for this jet bomber as can be seen in the minutes of a meeting a few days before hitler sees the actual aircraft as the use of bombs on the fighter me262 was already considered in the planning and this operational condition is given then a urgent production of this type can also meet the demand of the fuhrer that a jet aircraft is needed for bombing against ground and naval targets around the coast without that the shift at urgency between a jet fighter or to a jet bomber impairs the development or production that last one was a good one that's literally the german saying that a shift in production from the fighter to the fighter bomber or partial shift is not going to impair production actually if you think about it yeah of course not i mean all you have to do is add a couple of more pylons lay a couple of different electric wires put in a different control system for the bombs to set them in the actual aircraft and that's it you've got yourself a fighter bomber that's a field modification that you can even make which doesn't really take all that much time and that really shows us that this apparent surprise that everybody has around hitler when he explains that this is a bomber and not a fighter seems a little bit far-fetched because these people knew it was coming they didn't just knew it was coming some of them were actively planning for it including messerschmitt and the design bureau surrounding him the presentation that you've just been shown the source that i've just quoted from i mean that was a presentation that happened eight days before hitler saw the aircraft so they knew there was already something in the works they were planning for this all these people might have had private reservations they might have thought that it was a silly idea but as you will see it wasn't just hitler that wanted bombs on the me262 what's important to realize here is that luftwaffe is split into two factions you have the offensive action and you have the defensive faction and they are split primarily by the type of aircraft they're operating they're flying the offensive faction which i'm also going to call the bomber faction but i'll have to explain that a little bit more they are the ones that fly the bomber aircraft they are the ones that also fly the dive bombers and also although not as important initially and then later on it becomes more important the fighter bombers and the fighter bombers you always have to put a little asterisk on them because their status is a little bit unclear i hesitate to call them the bomber faction because that in our minds that that creates this image of you know heavy bombers uh strategic bombing and so on so forth that's not what the luftwaffe really considers important here and then you have the defensive faction which fly you've guessed that fighters the defensive faction very simple they are only supposed the luftwaffe only consistent important for air defense and to escort the bomber faction yeah in the bomber faction you have the campground the bomber rings the schwarzkopf as i said in the fight bubbles these guys the reason why they're so important they're so important since 1935 since luftwaffe was actually created that the most influential group in here and why are they so influential because the luftwaffe considers them to be the ones that actually get the job done yeah they have schlechtenscheid working battle deciding effects they are able to strike on the hobcampfeld or hopkefektsfeld or in the effects felt which are two different things yeah so within let's say from the front line to 50 kilometers behind the front line or 50 to 150 kilometers per from the front line this is the target area that the luftwaffe has and these are the aircraft that are supposed to assist the army in their offensive thrusts the fighters cannot assist the army i mean what were you going to do is strafe a couple of dugouts maybe instead of bombing them you can see you know the value that that is being attributed here as a sort of force that operationally speaking considers itself earth to be able to support the army directly on long and fast offensive thrusts deep into enemy territory and this is why the bomber faction is so important of course this changes as the war progresses but even by like say 1941 1942 the bomber faction are still the most influential guys out there yeah if let me paint you a picture here if you were part of the bomber faction and you come to the ocal or the ministry of aviation in 1941 1942 and you stand it for your massive gate it will be open for you and red carpet will be rolled out somebody will frost a glass of champagne into your hand people will make small talk people want to be your friend they ask you what is your handicap and golf how many goals you have scored in the last match against i don't know eintracht frankfurt and i i'm trying for did they already exist at that point i don't know anyway that's a detail and that's how you're going to be treated if you're a fighter pilot in the other hand you'll have to take in you know you'll have to come in the back entrance and you'll be treated like a peasant that's that's just how it's going to be nowadays we have this concept or this this this image of the luftwaffe of these fighter pilots that they but they're important ones and they they were you know the ones that everybody looked up to and yes propaganda to a point actually amplified more what the fighter pilots were doing the aces rather than what the kamskrishwara or the the schwab kashwada were doing although these also featured very heavily in the early war in the early war propaganda but you have to make a distinction between sort of the popular image that is also amplified by propaganda that has been attributed to a certain sub-fraction within the luftwaffe and the actual organizational importance that these guys carried you can see in a vast imbalance until sort of mid 1943 between these two factions and it's only in mid-1943 when really germany starts going more of planning more to go into the defensive that we see an actual change occur and even then it takes until like mid 1944 to for there to be radical changes in the thinking and the bomber faction starts to lose out drastically in the fighter faction but also because they start to organize themselves a little bit more within the ocal they start to rise up however what is important also to realize here is that while the bomber faction is sort of veining and losing out in influence over the fighters overall the planning that the germans have here in order to prop up the fighters and allow more you know rice air defense and so on and so forth they consider this only to be a temporary means to an end rather than a strategic necessity in the jet aircraft consorty between hitler and the luftwaffe the latter did not immediately stand on the side of the fighter version not just hitler championed the bomber version but important luftwaffe officers called for it in 1943 as the use of bombs had already been considered in the planning of the aircraft have a look at this graph detailing aircraft production in each indicated month split between offensive and defensive aircraft this is essentially a split between conflict zoyga for for example bombers or dive bombers on the offensive side and fighters on the defensive side the shift to strategic defense came far too late only from 1943 onwards that the defensive orientated production became predominant but only with the introduction of the fighter staff to force the production of fighter aircraft beginning in march 1944 that a perceivable increase in fighter aircraft occur melee first wanted to make air defense effective so that after this the natural order of things will focus on the attack could be re-established there's also a fascinating discussion on this in the ministry of aviation in may 1943 that also shows this dynamic hermann it is of course a question of fundamental importance if this aircraft is to be designed only as a fighter or only as a bomber general maester milk this question is absolutely justified we will first do it as a fighter and in the moment when we see that it runs smoothly we will also find something for your needs we are not interested in only fighting with fighters ants carrying a 500 kilogram bomb as a fighter bomber has already been examined from a construction standpoint there are many people within the luftwaffe that championed the introduction of a jet bomber and the discussion whether this should be the me262 or the elrado 234 for example is actually a detail after all if you look at germany's bomber faction what planes do they have in 1943 that are still effective on the front lines i mean the stukas are useless by this point and the bombers that the germans have well they were designed for a type of war where germany is on the offensive or germany has air superiority where germany is able to push the you know the the initiative and push their campaigns in such a manner that is beneficial to them rather than to be on a receiving end and then on the receiving end the planes that germany has at this point the bomber plan is that the germany has are not really doing all that well and to make matters worse and this is actually a crucial point there's nothing really lined up in the conventional type of aircraft around this time that seems to be future proof and then suddenly a jet aircraft appears and you can already see the bomber faction being there like wait a second this jet plane gives us new capabilities it's fast it probably won't be intercepted by enemy fighters flag will be less of an issue if we can only have a couple of bombs on that thing we can call it a bomber and then we'll be relevant again and that's why they want a jet bomber and whether that's the m262 or the errata 234 whatever comes first they will want to take it does this of course mean that the ma262 is already being tested as being a fighter bomber or a bomber or whatever no even by the time that hitler has met the aircraft even though it's been planned to carry bombs or have that bomb carrying capability it has not yet been tested as such but it really it doesn't been tested as a fighter either there's been already a lot of fly testing going on but there will have to be more flight testing actually to make sure that the aircraft is up to the task and here is i think the the reason why the this idea that hitler had such fundamental influence on the development of the 262 becomes so persuasive because he of course meets the aircraft in november 1943 yet the first tests to see if the aircraft can actually carry bomb not the planning stage where they were designing the the pylons and drawing up them up and so on and so forth and doing the calculations but the actual testing happens in may 1944 and that is six months after his meeting so again on the surface it appears oh well hitler said that and then six months later they're testing it that means they're playing they late by six months no the the plane is delayed anyway the plane is not ready in november and it's actually not even ready in may 1944 and in fact the plane in may 1944 where it is being tested for the first time to carry bombs they start with 250 kilogram bombers then with 500 kilogram bombs at that point it is already also being tested as a fighter and there's only a portion of the early pre-series production that is being siphoned off towards the fighter bomber stage of course throughout this time hitler presses more and more to see a jet bomber he wants a jet bomb there's a couple of notices ago or a couple of orders that go out from hitler why are going to say hey get this plane ready to do bombs but the plane itself isn't ready yet and that really is is a crucial factor it's not that the germans overly engineered a bomb island over a long six months in order to get it ready that that is not the case a bomb pylon is not that difficult to produce what is more crucial is that the engines aren't ready yet that the actual finalized design for the 262 you know what goes in the diffusion lines what systems are in there what you know where are the oxygen bottles what sort of weapon we do are we going to put on the aircraft has not been finalized at this stage i ever all of that really only starts coming together in september 1944 so a couple of months after the aircraft is being tested with bombs and tested as a fighter and essentially a year after hitler sees it it's only at this point that the plane really starts to get ready for production and much of this has to do of course with the actual aircraft but the majority of this has to do with the engine again we return to the timeline in december 1943 to the january 1944 messerschmitt receives the first jumo4 engines in march 1944 series productions start slowly as you can see until may barely more than 20 aircraft are actually completed in april 1944 then with the few aircraft that are available the aprobos commander tier filter tests the me262 as a fighter aircraft also in combat it's only after this in may 1944 that fighter bomber trials commence with a 250 kilogram bomb until july 1944 of course the fighter bomber trials continue with pilots from competitive iron 50 testing and using the me262 as a fighter bomber in the apopus commando shank this also sees small-scale operational use and is largely unsuccessful then in september 1944 the luftwaffe accepts the me262 as a fighter with some reservations the aircraft cannot be certified with an unrestricted operational readiness the engines the weapons and the gear are the primary cause for complaint so by september 1944 the production the series production of the aircraft starts kicking off and it kicks off very slowly i'll put in the graph at some point in this video and then you'll see and the reason why it is not yet for the operation at this point well there's a couple of reasons i already alluded to them first one the plane design is not yet fully matured then the engines are not yet ready for production and the production of both the engines and the aircraft kick off very slowly actually refer to an older video on that case i i explain everything there and then there's of course there's a lack of conversion training for pilots that is really hampering the introduction this is not just a problem initially with the series production this is already a problem since the start of 1944 where the first testing testing is done with uh fighter planes and fighter bombers and also the first operational missions are being flown that there are very few pilots that actually are being trained to convert to the 262 because the training facilities and the training methods is a bit difficult yeah you actually already need to have pilots who are very experienced in order to jump into a 262 because there are no trainer aircraft available but let's say we're in september 1944 and we have the introduction of the aircraft and if somebody is now typing already in the comments with saying hey fuel is an issue yes fuel starts become an issue and also the pilots actually start becoming an issue once production of the aircraft has kicked off but this is only happening now in september 1944. so once the aircraft is actually introduced in the loftwater and is available as a fighter or a fighter bomber if you want to call it like that actually it never really becomes introduced into the luftwaffe as a fighter bomber that was only for testing then fuel and the pilots really start becoming an issue before that it's production and the engines and those are the main factors hampering the introduction of the 262. of all the aircraft that are being built of all the fuselages that are being built only about a third and that is a roughly 500 aircraft actually are completed that means that the aircraft is completed and the engines are attached to it and of those 500 roughly 250 to 300 we don't really have exact numbers on this so this is a little bit speculation on my part uh become operational that means they are sent to the front lines and they fly at least an operational mission or something like that of course the implementation of bombs and the siphoning off of a small number of 262s that would have been critical for the early testing or the early operational testing of the aircraft didn't help that did cause additional problems but it's not to say that this caused a delay in the aircraft as a basic comparison what does it matter if you're being told to produce fighter bombers instead of fighters if you don't even have production facilities able to build the aircraft in the first place what does it matter if you're being told to fail fighter bombers instead of fighters if the engines that you're supposed to build aren't yet ready for mass production well it doesn't matter if you're being told to build fighter bombers instead of fighters if you yourself don't even have completed plans of the aircraft that you want to build in the first place those were the critical issues with the 262. the project when it once it was started to appear once i started being put into production was barely ready for the introduction so the bombs yes they created an additional problem but they were not the ones that delayed the 262. the 2262 delayed itself the decision by hitler to equip the me262 as a snail bomber will only have had a marginable influence on production the first authorities of the me262 were in a fighter configuration the rapidly deterring situation ended in the result that the question of the schnell bomber resolved itself i hope all of you enjoyed this video and if you are a patreon or a channel member check the updates on the relevant pages as i am sharing some original documentation on the me 262 and also the timeline here as an exclusive thank you to all of you as always i hope all of you have a great day and see you in the sky

Channel: Military Aviation History

Views: 86,202

Rating: 4.9486022 out of 5

Keywords: Me 262, bombs, Luftwaffe, Messerschmitt, Jet fighter, jet bomber, ww2

Id: SDYHd1PuR5U

Length: 38min 39sec (2319 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 18 2021

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[u/AngryScotty22]

Military Aviation History aka Bismarck is one of my favourite YouTube Historians.

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[u/breadbasketbomb]

The reason the me-262 had bombs was because it was an option. Just about every German fighter could carry bombs.