10 Allied planes that sealed Nazi Germany's fate

[stona]

The Nachjagd through 1943 until the third quarter of 1944 consistently shot down,by month,roughly 3%-5% 0f the attacking force. Obviously there were good nights and bad nights,from its point of view.
Lack of fuel,lack of crew training and ultimately loss of the technological war led to its demise,not the Mosquito.

A hammer blow fell when,in the early hours of 13th July 1944,a Ju 88 G-1 took of from Volkel in the Netherlands to fly a North Sea Patrol. It was a state of the art night fighter equipped with the then unjammable SN-2 AI radar,Naxos and Flensburg devices. The relatively inexperienced pilot,Ogfr. Mackle, made a perfect landing at about 04.30 hours. Unfortunately he had landed at Woodbridge in Suffolk and handed all the latest German technology to the British.

Within a month the British had developed countermeasures. They were also jamming the Germany's long range radars,employing specially equipped Stirlings,flying over the North Sea to this end. 100 Group flew "Radar Countermeasures" (RCM) operations jamming German ground control radar and radio,making a running commentary impossible.

In June 1944 the Luftwaffe's Nachjagd shot down 2.9% of the RAF's raiders. In December 1944 this fell to just 0.7%.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Juha]

Hello Steve
one more important development was the Battle of France in 1944, LW lost the southern part of its early warning system and much space which means less room and time to react attacks through the airspace of France.

Juha

 

[Aozora]

Anyone got a figure for how many Luftwaffe night fighters Mosquitoes actually shot down? I read a lot about how effective they were but don't seem to see any figures.

Cheers

Steve

I have 271 o.n.o German night fighters shot down by Mosquitos in just under a year (6 June '44 to May '45) cf 50 Mosquitos of all types and roles shot down by German night fighters between April 1943 and May '45 - Kurt Welter claimed he alone shot down 35 Mosquitos, but that is subject to a great deal of debate. (Tables in Sharpe and Bowyer, Mosquito, pages 460-467: Aders, History of the German Night Fighter Force 1917-1945, page 245

 

[mhuxt]

Yeah, I think there's one by Wilhelm Johnen (sp?) in Duel Under the Stars (?)

I've a database of about 1,350 Mosquito air-to-air claims, but without a lot more work it's all but impossible to tell how many NJ craft are in that total. Maybe in 15 or 20 years...

 

[DonL]

Are this confirmed or claimed shot downs.
Had anyone checked german sources for losses at this timeline?

If this are only claims then there are perhaps 30-50 kills, that are the normal overestimation.

 

[Juha]

Are this confirmed or claimed shot downs.
Had anyone checked german sources for losses at this timeline?

If this are only claims then there are perhaps 30-50 kills, that are the normal overestimation.

Hello Don
I really like to know on what you base your claim?
Because night claims tended to be more reliable than daytime claims, Mostly because they were usually 1 to 1 combats, short range and nightfigters usually had good firepower.

Juha

 

[stona]

Let's ignore Welter,many of his claims are proveably untrue. You can't shoot down a Mosquito when none are within 300 miles of you!

The Nachtjagd,including zerstorer and on all operations,including day time,had 4,800 destroyed or damaged (less than 60%) in action.

That figure for non-operational causes is 6,200 for a total lost and damaged of 10,000.

The total destroyed,all causes,was 6,700.

Those totals are from Boiten,I don't think anyone has come up with any better.

That should put the Mosquito claims/victories into perspective.

Cheers

Steve

 

[mhuxt]

Steve, what's the source that breaks out the losses to flak and fighters? I had it in my head that there was one, but quite what, I don't know.

DpnL - Going through the German sources is what's going to take the 15-20 years I mentioned above. I have Scherzer's book, not Balss', Scherzer's db is by unit by name, my db is by date... Rough count says there's already around 170 entries that already have NJG references.

 

[stona]

Steve, what's the source that breaks out the losses to flak and fighters? I had it in my head that there was one, but quite what, I don't know.

I'm scratching my head too. I remember something but have no note of it (I'm an inveterate note taker!)or it's lost in my Byzantine file system.
I've got lists by date of all night fighter victories. if I had a spare day I suppose that could be toted up and subtracted from total operational Bomber Command losses by date,which I also have somewhere,to give a rough idea.
I'll have a look this evening,hopefully someone has already done that. After that I'm away from my library for a while unfortunately.
Cheers
Steve

 

[mhuxt]

I suppose there would have been something coming out of the Operational Research Section, though perhaps only for the big raids, I don't know. I've seen maps with the routes in out, little markers for bombers seen to crash, combats reported, etc.

Does your NF victory list run into 1945? (Not from Foreman, is it...?) Looking for a couple on 7/8 February '45, 14/15 April '45, though the latter is probably flak or misadventure.

 

[Aozora]

Let's ignore Welter,many of his claims are proveably untrue. You can't shoot down a Mosquito when none are within 300 miles of you!

The Nachtjagd,including zerstorer and on all operations,including day time,had 4,800 destroyed or damaged (less than 60%) in action.

That figure for non-operational causes is 6,200 for a total lost and damaged of 10,000.

The total destroyed,all causes,was 6,700.

Those totals are from Boiten,I don't think anyone has come up with any better.

That should put the Mosquito claims/victories into perspective.

Cheers

Steve

Yep, sure night fighters were able to shoot down unescorted, relatively underarmed bombers in large numbers - but they could do so with impunity, knowing that there were no escort fighters around to counter attack. It would be interesting, but impossible (obviously) to know how many more bombers would have been shot down without any Mosquitos escorting them and mounting intruder raids on German night fighter fields.

I'm not saying the Mosquito night fighters were the only factor in the Luftwaffe's diminishing effectiveness: however, they were still important, not just in shooting down German night fighters but in making it impossible for German night fighter crews to operate efficiently from their own airfields. Wilhelm Johnan, for example, was just one NF pilot who wrote about being intercepted by a Mosquito while coming in to land on his home base and having his 110 shot up. Like the civilian population the German nightfighters crews had to contend with the sheer unpredictability of Mosquito raids. The facts and figures can be argued ad-nauseum, so I won't continue because we both have valid arguments...

Except When all Mosquito operations are considered from photo-recon to night and day bombing, pinpoint raids, anti-shipping operations etc, the Mosquito was one of those 10 decisive aircraft.

 

[Milosh]

Anyway I have my personal opinion about the FW 187 compare to the Moussie and I have delivered substained facts for this opinion.

What is this Moussie a little mouse?

 

[stona]

As for the Fw 187.......total production all types ,0,unless you include all the prototypes and pre-production aircraft. Then you can just about stagger into double figures (V1-V7 and the 6 A-0s actually completed).
The Mosquito........total production all types,7,619.
Talk about a redundant argument
Cheers
Steve

 

[drgondog]

Let's ignore Welter,many of his claims are proveably untrue. You can't shoot down a Mosquito when none are within 300 miles of you!

The Nachtjagd,including zerstorer and on all operations,including day time,had 4,800 destroyed or damaged (less than 60%) in action.

That figure for non-operational causes is 6,200 for a total lost and damaged of 10,000.

The total destroyed,all causes,was 6,700.

Those totals are from Boiten,I don't think anyone has come up with any better.

That should put the Mosquito claims/victories into perspective.

Cheers

Steve

Steve - unless separate and detailed loss lists exist it would be difficult to extract losses to 8th/9th AF during deployment of NJG units against daylight attacks, or more difficult - those shot up on the ground?

 

[stona]

Does your NF victory list run into 1945? (Not from Foreman, is it...?) Looking for a couple on 7/8 February '45, 14/15 April '45, though the latter is probably flak or misadventure.

Well,Foreman and others.

There are several claims in the Foreman/Matthews/Parry book from 2004,but they are impossible to tally with Bomber Command's losses for that night. 10 aircraft were lost,4 Lancasters,4 Mosquitoes and 2 Halifaxes.

Of note is Hptm.Gerhard Raht's six claims. Always possible but suspicious when they comprise numbers 46-51. This sort of cluster around landmark numbers always makes my antennae twitch. He got his "Oak Leaves" on 15th April.

On 14/15th April (Potsdam) I assume you are looking for the one Lancaster shot down by a night fighter,according to the RAF. There's no surviving claim to match that,just one of Welter's Mosquito claims. Almost certainly one of the thirtyish that don't match any RAF loss rather than the three that do!

Cheers

Steve

 

[GregP]

OK DonL, point taken. In your post #215 I see you used some really unimpeachable sources, too, didn't you, or do you just want sources from me?

The highly touted Ta-152 consumed a LOT of resources and shot down from 7 to 10 Allied planes at the cost of 4 Ta-152 losses. Did the Fw 187 do better? Tell you what, why don't you tell us the war and production record of the Fw 187 so we can all see it together, of course with sources. By now I'm sure everyone is wondering just how wrong I am, so c'mon ... post the kill and loss list. Which is longer?

The USA lost about 31,000 planes on operations, the British lost about 29,000 and the Russian lost about 30,000. That's 120,000 planes on operations exclusive of domestic training and the like.

What did the Fw 187 do to contribute? Kill one? Now there's a keeper ... at least it was a Spitfire ... respectable if nothing else.

The Fw 187 first flew in 1937 (designed about the time of the Westland Whirlwind and XP-38 Lightning) and the de Havilland Mosquito first flew in 1940. Did the Germans have some magic that allowed them to design a Mosquito killer before it ever flew? That was asked above but ignored. Perhaps the occult? No, it was just in development first and wasn't close to being as good as the real Mosquito (actually it was named the Falke ... Falcon).

It was a failure as a design and was scrapped. The glue issue could have been corrected ... I don't see why not. Everyone else had good glue and the plane had potential. But the people in command didn't elect to spend any more time or resources on it, so they cancelled it. It became another "might have been," like so many other promising airframes. We certainly had our share of them. All countries did as far as I can tell. No sense crying over an obscure failed prototype. The He 100 was probably a better failure as a fighter.

You know, when I look this thing up to check my numbers, I still get 9 aircraft produced from at least 5 difference sources. Maybe someone out there could suggest a source that shows more?

 

[buffnut453]

Cue long rambling discussion about how the Fw187 was the Luftwaffe's missed opportunity to dominate the skies over Britain, the Soviet Union, America, anywhere....

See? I was right!!!

 

[mhuxt]

Well,Foreman and others.

There are several claims in the Foreman/Matthews/Parry book from 2004,but they are impossible to tally with Bomber Command's losses for that night. 10 aircraft were lost,4 Lancasters,4 Mosquitoes and 2 Halifaxes.

Of note is Hptm.Gerhard Raht's six claims. Always possible but suspicious when they comprise numbers 46-51. This sort of cluster around landmark numbers always makes my antennae twitch. He got his "Oak Leaves" on 15th April.

On 14/15th April (Potsdam) I assume you are looking for the one Lancaster shot down by a night fighter,according to the RAF. There's no surviving claim to match that,just one of Welter's Mosquito claims. Almost certainly one of the thirtyish that don't match any RAF loss rather than the three that do!

Cheers

Steve

Thanks for that. I was mainly after two 100 Group aircraft on 7/8 Feb. Chorley says one of them was shot down by a night fighter, the other one cause unknown, but I've not been able to find a corresponding claim. Might be the dreaded friendly fire, but I can't find a matching Mossie claim either.

14/15 April is a couple of 2nd TAF aircraft which were lost in Northern Germany, heading for Wismar.

 

[Milosh]

What did the Fw 187 do to contribute? Kill one? Now there's a keeper ... at least it was a Spitfire ... respectable if nothing else.

The Fw 187 first flew in 1937 (designed about the time of the Westland Whirlwind and XP-38 Lightning) and the de Havilland Mosquito first flew in 1940. Did the Germans have some magic that allowed them to design a Mosquito killer before it ever flew? That was asked above but ignored. Perhaps the occult? No, it was just in development first and wasn't close to being as good as the real Mosquito (actually it was named the Falke ... Falcon).

It was a failure as a design and was scrapped. The glue issue could have been corrected ... I don't see why not. Everyone else had good glue and the plane had potential. But the people in command didn't elect to spend any more time or resources on it, so they cancelled it. It became another "might have been," like so many other promising airframes. We certainly had our share of them. All countries did as far as I can tell. No sense crying over an obscure failed prototype. The He 100 was probably a better failure as a fighter.

The Fw187 was of all metal construction.

 

[GregP]

Just becasue it was basically metal doesn't mean it as ALL metal. There are a lot of cases of mixed construction. I know the Ta 154 was pretty much all wood, but I THOUGHT I read the Fw 187 had some issues with it, too. Maybe I am mistaken there, Milosh ... it happens. I'll see if I can dig that up again. If not, then I stand corrected about the glue issue.

In any case, it didn't have much of a service record with so few made. I believe three of them ended up as cover for the Focke Wulf factory at some point after being returned from Norway service, and were withdrawn from even that duty rather quickly. One was sent to an aerial gunnery school in 1942. That's from memory, too ... so you never know.