PJ:

I think you overstate the operational ability of the 262. Along with the 163, they were devastating interceptors -- probably the first to excell at that role -- but were much less reliable in a dogfight where they had a lousy turn radius, were prone to more engine problems, and where the lower velocity of the MK108 created far more shooting problems. This would have been especially true at low level where the IL-2s went out to play.

I think the mystique of the 262 was built on two things: speed and experience. Being 100 mph faster, the 262 could literally attack a bomber formation and break away before the fighters could react. The 51s and 47s had the briefest of firing windows. Galland is quite possibly correct that he could have stopped daylight bombing if he'd had 500 262s and an equal number of decent pilots.

And that's the second qualifier. A lot of the mystique of the 262 was created by those who flew them. They were given to the best of the best (especially JV-44) and almost all of those blokes had what the Germans called "the shooting eye." Had JV-44 been re-equipped with Fokker D7s from war one, they would STILL have gotten a positive kill ratio.

So, against the Russians, the 262 would have piled up quite a few kills -- almost certainly wiping the IL-4s and TB-3s from the sky -- but would have had a lot more trouble "low and slow" against the Russian tacair folks.