. According to the command itself, four of the thirty aircraft that were delivered to the unit during this period were still airworthy on the last day. Twenty-six of them were lost to enemy action or accidents. The command achieved between twenty-two and twenty-six victories.Because of the low reliability of the Me262, it is in vain to try to separate accidents from losses caused by enemy action. One example is German ace Walter Nowotny, who was credited with 255 kills before converting to the Me262. Notwotny was killed in battle with P51 Mustangs in November 1944 after reporting a failure of one of his notoriously unreliable Jumo 004B engines ... one of many examples where the line between loss of battle and accident has become blurred.It is similar with the use of "shooting claims" to calculate "shooting rates", which is pointless. The discrepancy between Allied and German reporting is too great to reconcile. In November 1944, U.S. 8th Air Force fighter jets claimed to have shot down 11 jets, damaged 7 more in the air, and destroyed or damaged 58 on the ground. It was reported that 2 American fighter planes were shot down by German jets. In this case, the Allied numbers do not differentiate between Me262 fighter jets, bombers, and Me163 aircraft.The first Me262 fighter squadron "Command Nowotny" existed from October 1 to November 12, 1944. According to its own statements, the command achieved a ratio of 1: 1 between kill and loss, which was considered unsatisfactory in view of the jet's superior speed.Von Manstein can be regarded as the greatest general of the 20th century, even higher than such as Schukow, Patton, Giap, Rommel, Eisenhower or Nimitz. Manstein was the greatest tactician of World War II, developing his stratagems when the need arose, and pulling away victory after victory against all odds. He had an extraordinary ability to think at every level of military operation, from the headquarters to the battlefield. His ability to coordinate the various components that made up his strategies, from deploying mechanized infantry to coordinated artillery to deploying tactical air support at close range, was unmatched.
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