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Originally Posted by 57 On Red
Well, that's because you're a Nazi, but he couldn't have 'used the 262s en masse right away' because he didn't have 262s en masse to use, because of problems in producing the engines because German industry was no good at making high-temperature alloys. And even when the engines were delivered they only had a 12-hour life, much of which was used up on the test and delivery flights.
And the 262 was a turkey anyway. It saw service in similar numbers over a similar period to the British Spitfire XIV (of which Adolf Galland wrote, 'The best thing about the Spitfire XIV was that there were so few of them'). The 262's kill-to-loss ratio in air combat was 0.5 to 1. The Spitfire XIV's was 20 to 1. A number of Spitfire XIV pilots shot down 262s, but no 262 pilot ever shot down a Spitfire XIV.
And the MP44 Sturmgewehr only accentuated the psychological weakness of German troops, always relying on prophylactic automatic fire the keep the enemy at a distance and avoid close combat. Against troops who actually liked close combat, as the British did, the Germans were hopeless.
Is it possible that the majority of destroyed 262's were destroyed while on the ground?
Your pop psychology assessment is rubbish. The Allies decided upon a reckless war of attrition, knowing this would lead to many more of their men killed, but knowing that they could easily restock men and armour and knowing that the Germans couldn't. So they were instructed to run up on and crowd the Germans like some mass zombie army. I'm sure they were overjoyed.
The Germans were smart to fight an intelligent tactical war, where their Panther and Tiger tanks could destroy any ally tank from long range (upwards of 3 km's) but not vice versa. That's why the Panther enjoyed a nice kill rate of 9-1 against the "formidable" T-34, who's best strategy was to charge German tanks and fire from point blank, and if that didn't work, ram em.
I watched a documentary about the Islands battles in the pacific and for each battle the casualties would be something like 952 Japanese killed vs only 37 Americans. It's because the Japanese fought like mental ******s. They thought if they were the bravest, screamed bloody murder and made ugly faces while charging into battle that the US troops would drop their weapons and run. Is that how you think wars should be fought against machine gun fire???
P.S. I'm well aware of the shortcomings of the 262.
P.P.S. I'm not a Nazi. I just like to play devils advocate.