Lets put it differently: If you have comparable skilled pilots and a single P-51 against a single Me 262, the P-51 will win, because the Me 262 will have to land before the P-51, without any of the two really having a good chance to fire at the other.
But if you have ten P-51 against a single Me 262, I would consider it really feasible that the Me 262 will in most such situations shoot down 3-4 P-51 before being eventually shot down itself. Have two Me 262 and the superiority in numbers of the P-51 starts to play against it. It becomes VERY hard to not commit the beginner error of flying circles of suicide.
If there would have been four times more Me 262 and a Hitler with a brain (making the Me 262 a bomber was purest idiocy), there could have been a good chance to gradually regain air superiority. The losses in material of the USA/England could have been compensated, but the losses in terms of pilots not.
On purely mechanical, impartial grounds without considering the human element, the 262 has the advantage, obviously. The reason I even brought it up was in response to the "hurr, P51 dogfighting ME262, that could never happen" comment. It has happened, and P51 pilots have shot down 262s in direct combat, not just runway poaching.
I don't think one aircraft could have changed the outcome of the war. Quadrupling the numbers of available 262s doesn't fix the problem of getting shot up on the ground, nor would their ability to shoot down more planes have caught up with how fast we were building them. Yes, we would have lost a lot more pilots, but at that point in the war we had a LOT more trained pilots to lose than they did.
Also, if you had four times the 262s, you'd need four times as many qualified pilots to operate them. That would mean the HY kids and other inexperienced pilots get bumped up to the 262s, therefore tipping their odds in the American's favor. 262s were NOT aircraft for amateurs to fly, yet to take full advantage of a large number of them, that's exactly who the Luftwaffe would have to put in the cockpit.
The outcome wouldn't have changed, it just would have cost both sides even more lives.
Given the right set of circumstances and right matchup of talent, a Sopwith Camel could take down a F-22. Very very flexible argument.
Tiny air-cooled engine doesn't put out enough heat for IR missiles and fabric body doesn't provide good enough lock for radar missiles, allowing the Camel to dodge AA defenses, which are all missile-based. Twin Vickers shoot up the F-22s on the runway, leaving them marooned on the ground until $3 billion worth of spare parts can be brought in. One F-22 makes it off the ground, but the oxygen flow gets screwed up and it crashes.
See? A Camel could, like, totally take down an F-22. :lol:
