Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!amdahl!amdcad!military
From: archet!wlm@uunet.UU.NET (William L. Moran Jr.)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: infrared and interceptors
Message-ID: <26708@amdcad.AMD.COM>
Date: 11 Aug 89 05:43:38 GMT
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Approved: military@amdcad.amd.com



From: archet!wlm@uunet.UU.NET (William L. Moran Jr.)

In article <8796@cbnews.ATT.COM> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
>...					  Qualitative superiority cannot
>overcome superior in-the-air numbers; the Me262 was vastly superior to
>any WW2 Allied fighter, with one fighter pilot estimating that it took 8
>Mustangs to cope with one Me262, but the Allies *had* 8 Mustangs for each
>Me262, and we all know what happened.

This makes no sense; clearly in the situation you have just presented,
if the ratio had been *less* than 8 to 1 the Me262 would have been a
fine bargain. In fact, what needs to be thought about (and I think
this is really what you were arguing) is that someone needs to make
price/performance estimates. For example, the Me262 was a good deal
because:
1) it was not that much more expensive than conventional fighters
2) it used fuel which was more available than that required for a high
performance conventional fighter
3) the Germans didn't have enough pilots as it was, so building 6x as 
many Fw190s as there were Me262s built would not have helped (assuming
this was the trade)

				Bill 

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