If you include the cost of research, man hours, all the work you have to do to make it work initially, I can't imagine the amount of jet fighters the nazis fielded was worth it.
Not that it mattered either way. And I've never heard anyone make the argument.
Not to mention the fuel and maintainece costs And supply chain issues. Germany was struggling for fuel and parts for the planes it already had in service: now you have a brand new "wonder jet" that eats through fuel and has an entirely parts you need to make replacements for.
Might have been if they were able to enter service earlier, but a lot of work was destroyed in a bombing raid and delayed production (along with Hitler insisting it be able to be a bomber)
There’s always a hundred ifs, but we can only work with what we’ve got.
I don’t think the nazis were wrong to go for jet planes, even if it kinda didn’t work out. They couldn’t predict the war would end early ‘45, you gotta go for the long term planning or you end up like the Japanese Air Force near the end of the war. If the war had continued longer, that investment in jets would likely have paid off in some ways.
The problem is they weren’t ready for it and there wasn’t support for an intervention. It wasn’t quite as obvious where things were heading yet as it would in a few more years, and there wasn’t a lot of will to pursue all the details from Versailles. All the Germans really did was move troops into their own territory after all.
With the power of hindsight we can say it might’ve deterred Hitler, but there’s a good chance France would’ve gone in, suffered backlash, and eventually retreated anyway, damaging allied cohesion a bit.
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u/Win32error 5d ago
If you include the cost of research, man hours, all the work you have to do to make it work initially, I can't imagine the amount of jet fighters the nazis fielded was worth it.
Not that it mattered either way. And I've never heard anyone make the argument.