Wasn’t that aircraft stationary? Usually those kinds of pictures come from ‘controlled’ testing.
http://www.daveswarbirds.com/b-17/fuselage.htm
According to this site it was either a Me 262s cannon or a 88mm shell.
But since an 88mm shell carries like 700-1000g of explosives, were for the most part time fuzed and not time + impact fuzed, as well as the lack of fragmentation, I would say it was definately one, probably a couple, 30mm Mineshell(s).
From what I’ve read, there was a solid period where it’s confirmed that the 30mm minengeschoss rounds were being used against aircraft, and that they did so much damage that the rare cases of survival were attributed to the 88mm. Once the British realised the power of the 30mm and tested it, they retroactively reconsidered those cases. So there is a decent chance that it was the 30mm shell, especially considering the 88mm shells were not designed to detonate on the surface of an aircraft the way the 30mm ones were.
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even Boom and Run tactics doesnt work most of the times because lot of you enemys are lot faster than you
Im currently trying to play the 262 A-1a because its the only plane I can use for “Operation Bodenplatte” which I havent aced yet.
I´m shocked at how Gaijin “balanced” this plane in RB.
The 30mm rounds are an absolute nightmare to use. I´m having a 32:9 monitor and when zoomed would have to lead so far ahead I cant either see the plane i am targeting anymore or the point I should be aiming for.
It even seems ill suited for Head Ons. 50 cals that just strafe my wings will turn it into an unflyable brick while I had multiple occasions now where I repeatedly hit a plane with the 30mm HE rounds and just received “Hit” messages.
Feels to me like they should give it an airspawn in hope to still be able to face some bombers - the job it was intended for.
BnZ + low velocity guns + low ammo count just doesnt seem to be a good recipe for an air superiorty fighter. Even turboprops just outclass it in dogfighting, so I guess getting it down in BR wont help much either.
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1000% agree. the ww2 era jets are in a horrible placing. 262s get hammered by koren war jets. the Vampire and venom is so damn slow it cant get to the battle in time and the meteors just cant keep up with sabres
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The Jabo variant, which is identical in every way, gets an airspawn at the same BR and still suffers immensely. While superprops would out-dogfight it, it would be able to BnZ much better against them, since it would actually be faster than its opponents.
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So there are two functionally identical planes at the same BR but one gets an airspawn and the other doesn´t? Just where´s the logic here for Gaijin?
Sadly this leaves a strong impression that Gaijin neglects their balance duties. You would expect them to notice such an obvious imbalance on their own and give the A-1a an airspawn as well but I guess I´ll have to look for an report issue now to support it in order for them to notice it.
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The Jabo has an airspawn on the logic that it is a strike aircraft; thus, it gets a strike aircraft spawn. In practice, every aspect of the plane is identical, not even the weight balance or the two guns which should be absent are modelled.
In any case, the airspawn only makes the Jabo better than the standard A-1a, it fails to make it a good plane. It is still entirely impotent against anything aside from perhaps the Mig-9, which is still, I think, superior, and which Russian players decry as being entirely miserable to use.
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The Mig-9 late at 7.3 is a fairly good plane, because it’s a large upgrade over the standard Mig-9 at the same BR.
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I haven’t played them, so I’m going entirely off reputation and how it felt to (somewhat rarely) fight them in the Me 262.
Same as R2Y2, which are already forgotten by Gaijin. There is a 262a which only has 2 mk108 but 6.7, the mean issue is this WWII Jets performance is worse than most of 7.3-8.0 Cold War jets.
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Totally agree.
From my pov the whole thread deals with 2 main issues:
- The 262s are inferior to jets at the same BRs
- Their dominance vs props depends on your ability to bring guns on target.
Your conclusion that an air spawn of the 7.0 A-1a would make them more capable to BnZ props is correct, but this is mainly a theoretical pov as the reality in battles shows always a mix of enemy jets and props in the opposite team.
Even if you manage to find a prop on a way lower energy state - BnZing them is rather pointless if the prop sees you. If you try to drain his energy you lose speed and you make yourself a very easy target for getting 3rd partied - usually by an enemy jet.
So as long as the time to kill a prop is way too long (as the guns are not easy to use) a BR reduction of all 7.0 / 7.3 262s even to 6.7 won’t make a difference as imho the inferiority of 262s vs jets is the decisive factor in Air RB matches.
What would you propose then? The velocity on the guns is unfortunate, but I don’t think it’s far off of reality either.
Airspawns would help, but they don’t actually fix the plane.
I am working on a kind of experience report of flying the 6.7 262 A-2a and the 6.3 262 A-1/U 4. I flew about 80 matches with them (combined) and it was a great disappointment.
From my pov the policy of gaijin to consider a theoretical value like burst mass is killing the 262s - the burst mass is totally irrelevant if you are unable to hit anything.
As i have written earlier in this thread - either the 262s are too high or enemy jets are too low. And the enemy jets are the main problem - not the so called Superprops. I lost not a single plane to a prop fighter, but i manged to score kills whilst having 2 to 4 of them chasing me.
So without lowering the 7.0 and 6.7 versions to 6.3 the plane is simply not competitive. Even a good flown A2D-1 is able to neutralize you if you meet them on equal energy states.
I have zero problems to fly with a SM 92 at 4.0 vs any 5.0 fighter, even a J2M2 is killable if you can drag him above 8 km and enforce a high speed fight. But the 262s have not a single factor which can turn the tide.
Edit:
I watched a hell of replays of these matches and focused on good flown 7.0 and 7.3 variants.
It boils down that the majority of kills of the 7.3 version were results of long range head-ons with the MK 103s whilst the 7.0 versions scored mostly vs low strike aircraft and on distracted / tunnel visioned enemies. Both were outperformed as soon as they face a 7.0 jet and they deny a headon.
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Yeah. Makes like no sense to have both at the same BR, with that performance difference.
Zero point to play the MiG-9.
But planes are balanced by their performance.
Higher burst mass generally means that players are more likely to get a kill then not.
The Me 262s guns are balanced around hitting extremely hard but also being very unlikely to hit with their guns.
In a sense the MK 108 is the complete opposite of high velocity .50cals.
- High damage but low chance of scoring hits.
- Low damage but high chance of scoring hits.
The only opponents were the 262s burst mass plays a role are bombers. Unfortunately you will struggle to reach them before even a Do 335 would get to them… not so say other jets.
A quick fix strictly for the Me 262 A-1a could be:
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Classification as Interceptor + Airspawn
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Lower the BR to 6.7-6.3 to get away from other jets which just outclass it in every way
A decompression of jet ranks would be preferable but would require much more work from Gaijin which makes it more unlikely to happen.
Effectively this plane only has it´s speed going for it which is the main reason I fail to understand the argument of people that claim it would be overpowered on a BR reduction because no one could catch it. With e.g. the 6.3 Mustang, Bearcat and Tigercat you already encounter propeller planes which are currently rated much lower than a 262 but will outclass it in terms of energy retention as well as manoeverability and head on capability.
Even after the implementation of these suggestions the 262 would still be a niche plane, merely suited for bomber hunting and attacking unaware opponents like attackers while any aware opponent in a prop fighter plane can effectively deal with it. It would basically only get it from unbearable to at least useful in the right hands given the right conditions.
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Summary of this thread from my pov:
I see a consensus that the iconic Me 262 is very hard to use in Air RB.
From my perspective this is based on the following:
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Thanks to the downtiers of MiG 15 and F-86 the BR bracket below 8.0 is full of Korean war era jets which outperform the versions up to 7.3 by a substantial margin. Subsequently those versions see a high number of uptiers vs those jets.
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Even in partial downtiers with enemy props the 262s are not really effective vs those late and post war props (which never saw combat) thanks to the low velocity guns (MK 108) or accuracy nerfed 50 mm.
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If you analyse 262 matches within the BR range 6.7-7.7 most of the engagements are either head-ons or “mine, mine” trains - meaning a 262 gets chased by multiple opponents.
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Out side the 7.3 version with MK 103s head-ons are ill-advised as enemy HMGs or cannons outrange and outspeed MK 108s - their shells reach you before you have the chance to fire. Chasing 262s is often successful as the average enemy jet is faster.
The game play goal of winning a match an Air RB require to follow one of two approaches:
- Trying to bring down the number of enemies down as fast as possible or:
- Focus on the enemies with the highest threat level
The problem with 262s below 7.3 is that their guns prevent very fast & easy kills and enemy air spawn planes F-84s and even A2D-1s put so much pressure on 262 dominated teams (especially early game) that approach number 1 does not really work. Even if all enemies go low: The fights are dominated by head-ons - with the mentioned disadvantages for 262 pilots.
Focusing on the most dangerous opponents in 262s is not easy (to avoid the word impossible) as they outperform them in all aspects. Fighting a F-89 D with these bloody FFAR with proxy fuse is impossible in a 1 vs 1 if he sees you, killing of BIs works only (for me) if the make the mistake of landing on forward airfields.
If you try to see it from a holistic pov:
The purpose of a fighter is to kill enemy aircraft. The set-up of Air RB with markers and way too low contrail altitudes kills the surprise effect of a lightning attack. The BRs of the 262s are determined on the theoretical value of burst mass - and do not consider if you are able to bring guns on target or not.
Based on what i have seen the Me 262s are able to get kills vs totally oblivious opponents or they score 3rd party kills; otherwise their inferiority vs opponents at 6.7 / 7.0 prevents them from getting kills vs any experienced opponents. In other words: They are just good at killing noobs.
Proposed solutions (as a test run):
- Reduce the BRs of all Me 262s below 7.3 to 6.3 in Air RB.
- Replace the strike aircraft spawn of some versions with an interceptor spawn (=same alt but way closer to to own airfield = more time to build up speed and climb)
- Test it for 4 weeks and analyze the results
Expected feedback:
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The main backlash will come from US/UK/USSR pilots which see currently 262s (without MK 103s) as free kills. All they have to do is to perform long range head-ons, dodge the MK 108s and run them down.
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The enemy strike fighters won’t be affected, they are still able to perform their base bombing runs, enemy prop bombers are rather rare and would be farmed anyway by the Ta 152 H-1s.
But in order to be fair i would also sugtest to implement the following 2 aircraft:
- YP-80 A at BR 6.7
- Meteor F. 1 at 6.7
Both have way easier to use guns whilst being way slower (Meteor) or just a little bit slower regarding top speed (YP-80A) but with way slower critical Mach numbers.
So as we have some kind of equal footing at jets - what’s up with props?
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Imho the main 2 prop opponents (Spit F. 22 & 24 and P-51 H-5) are either way to low in BR as their average pilot sucks (P-51s) or a little bit too low in order to protect them from MiG 15s / F-86s at 8.0.
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Both can be extremely annoying in a 262 but they have basically the same role as a 5.3 A6M5 ko - waiting for mistakes of way faster aircraft and try to benefit from low and slow opponents. Aka as rat game play.
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So the so called “superprop” fan boys would have to face actual challenges instead of having the benefit that their own undertiered jets deal with the 262s.
What impact would have 262s in full downtiers?
This is can be seen if you have flown the Me 262 A-1/U4. Even as i have not seen a single full downtier whilst flying them, the disadvantages vs props remain the same: Very hard to bring guns on target and to hit anything than a large target like a bomber.
In other words: Their main victims would be totally oblivious pilots - so no change to today.
Why gaijin won’t change anything:
You need no degree in quantum physics to come to similar conclusions and ideas to make a rather sad aircraft viable in Air RB. So the question is why we have this current mess in the 1st place?
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Imho gaijin just follows economic goals. 5 years ago Germany dominated prop Air RB and had even the dominating sub-sonic jet, the Canadair Sabre. Their choice to go for supersonics made the US & USSR market simply way more attractive as Germany had way less supersonic jet (premium) options and was until recently (Typhoon) not competitive in Air RB.
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So in order to earn money with top tier jets in way more attractive markets it makes sense to allow easy progress at jet entry ranks with mostly undertiered aircraft - especially if a large portion of players use Air RB just as grinding tool for their activities in Ground RB.
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Therefore i have little to zero hope that gaijin won’t even think about any changes of the positioning the Me 262s.
Out of the box thinking solution for 262s:
If we have a common understanding that the main weakness of the 6.7 - 7.0 versions are the MK 108s - why not find a solution for it?
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Imho every fight of an Me 262s with another jet (except the not implemented 2 exceptions mentioned earlier) is pure fantasy. They fight single prototypes which flew years later (like Su-9/11) or simply other aircraft which saw service long after VE day.
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Even considering that wt is no historic simulator i see an option for gaijin to solve the issue with the MK 108s by introducing a vehicle module which allows to exchange the 2 or 4 MK 108s with 2 MG 213 with the way more effective 20 mm shells (way higher MV than MG 151/20).
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I mean the R4Ms were effective vs bombers - why not assuming that the Germans would have come to the same conclusions that a weapon with a high MV and a high RoF would be better suited vs fighters?
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I saw a lot of posts by the fellow player @Ghostmaxi - he looks like an expert for aviation history, maybe he can add something about the likelihood of such options /field kits. I am quite sure that i read decades ago about planned (aka as Luft’46) aircraft carrying either the MG or MK 213.
Thx for reading and have a good one!
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Thank you, but i fear im not so much so an expert.
I do not know of more Me 262s with greater armamrent, tho my passed suggestion for the He 280 V5 could offer a alternative, duo to its armament of 3x 15 mm Mg 151/15 which would offer far better ballistics.
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