About KG51-262 operations

[The_Ant]

Ive been Reading a book by Christer bergström called german pilots of WW2-the veterans tales part 2 in Swedish - only released in sweden,he is also autor of Black cross - red star series and other ww2 airbooks.In 3 chapter of the book its about Me 262 in operations and a few pages aboug KG51.There are some very intresting thing like during their 10 months of operations june 1944-May 1945 they dropped several thousand ton of bombs,and of 342 assigned me 262 only 88 was lost in action.One pilot Oberfeldwebel Otto Werschnick was logged for 342 missions.Acording to commander of Erprobungscommando Schenk part of Kg51/3- Wolfgang Schenck there me 262 had 2 big extra fuel tanks installed,giving them a flight time of 2 hours instead of regular 1hour..And flying from Chatedun South of Paris,reaching the Normandie area and even bombing England,with a load of 2 - 250 kg.It would be cool if the fueltank mod would be assigned to Kg51 in il2 career mode,but only used in conjunction on bombing runs.

Edited August 28, 2019 by The_Ant

[EAF19_Marsh]

51 minutes ago, The_Ant said:

And flying from Chatedun South of Paris,reaching the Normandie area and even bombing England

 

Bit outside the map,which apparently is only sacrosanct if it involves Allied aircraft. However, they do look quite cool for long range PR when the will be modelled

 

I suspect none in England really noticed, by the way,.

Edited August 28, 2019 by EAF19_Marsh

[Chief_Mouser]

Could they carry both the extra fuel tanks and bombs? Sounds a tad heavy to me. Plus the Me262s were only at Chateaudun for about three weeks and were engaged in US bomber interception at the time. I'm a little suspicious about them actually bombing England - but stand to be corrected.

Edited August 28, 2019 by Red_Cat

[EAF19_Marsh]

27 minutes ago, Red_Cat said:

Could they carry both the extra fuel tanks and bombs? Sounds a tad heavy to me. Plus the Me262s were only at Chateaudun for about three weeks and were engaged in US bomber interception at the time. I'm a little suspicious about them actually bombing England - but stand to be corrected.

 

I doubt it, unless it was an asymmetric carriage. Having 262s bomb England in summer '44 is a bit of a waste.

 

Quote

several thousand ton of bombs

 

Errr, I think probably not. Theoretically possible, but that would require a high level of availability and focus just on bombing. 500kg per aircraft by 2 sorties per day by 20 aircraft over 90 days would be stretching it.

Edited August 28, 2019 by EAF19_Marsh

[Chief_Mouser]

Although I love Bergstrom's Black Cross/Red Star series, and have several other books by him, I was fairly disappointed by his Battle of Britain book which is not always factually correct, and I gave up on it (a first for me). Since then I have been rather more sceptical of his work, and am not sure about the instances posted by the OP. Nevertheless I am still waiting hopefully for BC/RS vol.4, even though his website pushes publication back another year with regularity.

[The_Ant]

It says in the book the fuel tanks was installed inside the plane,not droptanks,theres no reference about weight of the plane in that situation.no guns installed etc,Wolfgang Schenck states he flew 40 missions against the Normandie landing area,using 2 - 250kg bombs and dropping them in shallow dive at 4000m,before they are transfered to Etampes in august after the Normandie breakeout.Im not a big fan of Bergströms book since he write so monotony and sleepy.have read the battle of Britain book and operation barbaros books.its just interresting what the commander Wolfgang Schenck says,fact or fiction its still interresting,not much about the me 262 bombing campaign is known.Kg51 Bombed the shit out of Graves air force base from okt 12-okt 21 so that the British spitfire squadron had to relocate,destroying a total of 80 planes on the ground with no AA loss.

[EAF19_Marsh]

42 minutes ago, Red_Cat said:

 

Although I love Bergstrom's Black Cross/Red Star series, and have several other books by him, I was fairly disappointed by his Battle of Britain book which is not always factually correct, and I gave up on it

 

 

His BoB book - for me - suggested a difficulty in differentiating between a tactical and strategic aspect. As I read it, he did not seem to understand what the Luftwaffe intended or needed to inflict on Fighter Command. He was too focussed on individual engagements.

 

Slightly ironically, this was one of the issues that the Germans had when it came to planning, executing and evaluating their effort.

 

But I did enjoy the BC:RS series to date.