Best German fighter for the Eastern Front

Delcyros, are you surd about the doras and c3 fuel? I thought most ran on b4 still.
Erich, do you mean r4m with hollow charge (i think panzerblitz was the name)? I thought these were very very rarely used and mostly by fw 190f. It's an interesting topic as i think the combination of fighter bomber with hollow-charge, fin stabilized rocket salvos was probably the best way to attack tanks with ww2 technology. But i'm ignored in all those let's-build-the-ww2-warthog threads with that

GregP said:

Hey Bob,

Don't believe everything you read.

In the Spanish Civil War, the I-16's didn't meet any Bf 109F's. They fought Bf 109B and C models, and weren't overwhelmed by the Bf 109, but by the numbers of them. Individually, the I-16 was a match for the Bf 109 B / C as an aircraft. Whether or not it was during the fight was determined by the pilots. The I-16 was quite good, but had reached its development potential while the Bf 109 was just getting developed into a combat-ready fighter. With the arrival of the Emil model, the I-16 was outclassed.

The Soviet Union stayed with the I-16 longer than was advisable and, by the time it DID meet with the Bf 109F on the Russian Front, it WAS oboslescent. They continued with it while they developed the Yaks, Lavochkins, and MiGs. And the Soviet Union didn't get shot down in droves in the 1943 - 1945 timeframe ... that's when THEY shot down a LOT of Germans.

That's what my readings have indicated and that's what was said to be by several former WWII Russian pilots as well as at least 3 more modern former Soviet pilots who were out of the cockpit and visiting the USA to purchase modems for their communication network said. One in particular said his instructors, who were former WWII fighter pilots, said that while the Germans frollicked early in the war, the Soviet pilots would hunt them down in packs after mid-1943. The Soviets particularly enjoyed attacking German airfields in bad weather when the Germans were grounded but the Soviets were operating. By summer of 1944, the Germans were still there, but were basically being systematically eliminated as they were found. By early 1945, they were almost gone on the Russian Front and only a small handful were still operational. Near the end, the resistance that existed was almost all ground forces with only the occasional odd German fighter to deal with.

Numbers aside (accurate records for them don't exist in Russia), the Soviet Air Force after mid-1943 was a better force than the Luftwaffe, especially at lower altituides where they mostly operated. The MiG-3 was one of the few higher-altitude fighters in Soviet service. Most of the rest had single-stage superchargers and were good up to about 16,000 - 18,000 feet, after which the Bf 109 and Fw 190 had the edge. So the Soviets declined to go up and fight, instead prefgerring to attack German troops and force the Luftwafee down to fight. It worked and the Luftwaffe was slowly worn down in the last year and a half of the war.

Coincidentally, during this same period, the germans pilots in the west were also becomming less capable and less trained. We know their pilot quality declined in the West ... does anyone really think they sent the better pilots to the Russian Front an saved the new, green guys to defend the Reich? It also declined in the East as the Soviets got better planes and better tactics. Sorry, the Luftwaffe wasn't the best in the world in mid-1944 and was in decline everywhere while still being able to field the occasional good day filled with exploits of the "experts." Years of war will do that to you when the supply of pilots isn't keeping up with attrition.

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That's what I was saying in the other topic. In the Russian Front there was also other problem: the size of the front. For example, on May of '43 the Germans had 454 single-seat fighters in the East. The Russians? 6,777

What 500 extra fighters to the Germans in the East meant? Nothing! If they put them in one place of the front, the Russians can easily cover the problem. But if the Germans spread them, they were useless. And the Russians did just that: they overhelm in the Germans in a determined sector, forcing them to move forces from a place to the other, and then they break them in a weak point. Again I will remind people that in the air battles over Kuban, when the LW was still in the majority in the East, the Germans could not handle the VVS. And the VVS was becoming ever stronger.

delcyros said:

1944 to 1945 Bf-109G6, and -109G14 with Db-605AM engines for medium altitudes had a top speed in clean fighter configuration of 413 mp/h at 16,404ft and 352mph at SL (on B4 fuels). They were also lightened up and considered very maneuverable and responsive, unless they served with gunpods, drop tanks or bombs.

Interestingly, the 1943 -109G2 wasn´t much slower either at 410mph. One may add that even the 1942 Bf-109F4 exceeded 400mph top speed.

How fast were La-5, La-7, Yak-9 and Yak-3 at these altitudes? I guess a couple of planes were faster at higher altitudes but medium altitude performance is a different aspect.

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How Soviets saw it, look then with a grain of salt but informative anyway.

Jenisch said:

That's what I was saying in the other topic. In the Russian Front there was also other problem: the size of the front. For example, on May of '43 the Germans had 454 single-seat fighters in the East. The Russians? 6,777

What 500 extra fighters to the Germans in the East meant? Nothing! If they put them in one place of the front, the Russians can easily cover the problem. But if the Germans spread them, they were useless. And the Russians did just that: they overhelm in the Germans in a determined sector, forcing them to move forces from a place to the other, and then they break them in a weak point. Again I will remind people that in the air battles over Kuban, when the LW was still in the majority in the East, the Germans could not handle the VVS. And the VVS was becoming ever stronger.

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Not sure where your figures for the soviets are coming from, they are not correct, or at best not very accurate, and your german figures appear distinctly rubbery as well, and dont seem to include the very substantial minor axis contributions as well.

At Kursk, just one month later, the germans committed 729 fighhter a/c to the offensive, whilst the Soviets had in place 526 (16VA), 474 (2VA) and 206 (17VA) as of 4 July 1943. Theree were, however, huge disparities in the reserves available, the germans had virtually none, the Russians had more than a 8 weeks supply, based on standard rates of attrition. Even at this stage of the war, the germans were able to achieve superiority of numbers at the schwerepunkt, because they were prepred to leave large sections of the front unprotected, and were much more efficient at concentrating their forces. the germans tended to move their air forces around the front, fire brigade style, which gave them great flexibility and effctiveness despite the numbers,but did come at a cost, in higher attrition rates than perhaps they should have.

As for much of the fighting, the turning point came once the germans lost the initiative in the ground war. No longer were Germans able to ignore large sections of Soviet activity....the Soviets could and did strike any section of the the line at any time, this caused much dilution of effort for the germans and lessened the impact of their air forces at the critical points. .

I vote for 109G, generally Soviet pilots thought 109 more dangerous opponent than 190. The standard armament of 109G was enough against VVS fighters and most bombers but on light side against Il-2 which happened to be the most numerous a/c in the East. 109G-x/R6 was the answer of that problem but had problems with best late war VVS fighters.

On 262A as ground attack plane, not sure, at least in West British ground troops seems to have barely noticed their best efforts. And early jet engines were very thirsty at low altitude.

Juha

riacrato said:

Delcyros, are you surd about the doras and c3 fuel? I thought most ran on b4 still.
Erich, do you mean r4m with hollow charge (i think panzerblitz was the name)? I thought these were very very rarely used and mostly by fw 190f. It's an interesting topic as i think the combination of fighter bomber with hollow-charge, fin stabilized rocket salvos was probably the best way to attack tanks with ww2 technology. But i'm ignored in all those let's-build-the-ww2-warthog threads with that

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The Jumo 213 ran on B4 fuel.

The evidence gathered by both British (and American) ORS,particularly that attached to the RAF's 2nd TAF would indicate that attacking tanks with rockets from the air was inefficient bordering on useless.

Cheers

Steve

@ riacrato

no it was the R4M nearly transformed, a 8.8cm Panzerschreck armored head was used with filler and was quite deadly to anything it hit.

a side note the Fw 190F SG units also used the Panzerschreck tubes with multi-barrels under each wing as experimentation before smaller and multiple rockets on racks became available.

since there was so much Soviet armor available as targets we are never going to know the totals hit by the LW on the Ost front and if really they were effective or not. much can be said in the way of LW tactics as it was ever changing with heavy single cannon versus rocket armed A/C. LW A/F's on the Ost front were quite a bit closer to the enemy's action so a fuel concern was just not a prob though A/F's had to be moved almost weekly to daily. in fact the only rocket - ground attacks by Me 262's that I know of were done on the Ost front, bombing on the other hand - yes in the West.

On the Russian front, how many Bf 109K's were encountered by any Russian fighter? They saved most K's for Reich defense. I'd think more E, F, and G than anything else, with the bulk being Gustavs. The La-5FN redressed the altitude capability and the La-7 simply outperformed the Luftwaffe equipment that was fighting on the Russian front at typical combat heights on that front. IIRC, they only lost 218 La-7's in the whole war to combat, including mechanical losses. In any case it was under 250, and it was in the fight for over a year.

Sure, the 109 had a speed advantage up high, but the Soviets didn't go up and fight there ... they made the Germans come down and fight. The relevant information is from about 12 - 15,000 feet downward. Most of what I've read written by Russian says the Fw 190 was more dangerous than the Bf 109, but I could simply have read the books that say that while you read the ones saying the opposite.

Either way, I don't think German fighters were taken lightly by Russian fighter pilots unless they had an overwhelming numerical advantage as well as positional advantage. Being confident in your skills doesn't mean taking the opponent lightly, and the highest-scoring aces in the Luftwaffe were ON the Russian front, so I'd think they would have respect while trying to knock them down, knowing thath a mistake could cost quite dearly.

Conversely, the Germans probably formed a low opinion of Soviet equipment and pilots in the opening phases of the war and had to reappraise when better equipment and pilots began to show up. By mid-1944, I doubt any German pilots toook Russian fighters lightly, particularly when facing numerical superiority by the Russians and aggressive tactics from the beginning of the encounter.

I'm sure it was "interesting" on both sides, but the Russians were very familiar with Russian winter conditions and what it took to operate in them. The Germans were used to a much more mild winter and were no doubt surprised many times after summer 1943 by Russian aerial attacks when they thought the weather would mean a stand down for the day.

I can tell you this from experience, Russian winter grease maintains its lubricity in severe cold when normal grease becomes more like locktight red stud set. Their radiators don't help much in an arid desert at 125°F, but are very adequate in severe cold. The winter of 1944 - 1945 was probably the hardest test the Luftwaffe ever faced, and the weather played a significant role in their defeat, in part due to inadequate cold-weather procedures and products. There is a BIG difference between a German winter and one in the Russian steppes. Without adequate procedures, you can find yourself buried after a short sleep in a tent, nevermind the aircraft. The weather is one reason why most Russian piston aircraft use compressed air for starting and for other airframe tasks ... it is unaffected by cold. If you have air pressure, you can spin the engine over in the morning.

GregP said:

On the Russian front, how many Bf 109K's were encountered by any Russian fighter? They saved most K's for Reich defense...

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Most of the LW fighters were sent to the East after Ardennes offensive, so also most of the 109Ks, so answer is many.

Juha

Juha said:

Most of the LW fighters were sent to the East after Ardennes offensive, so also most of the 109Ks, so answer is many.
Juha

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There wasn't much left of the Jagdwaffe after "Bodenplatte".Anyway there was only four months of the war left. Less than 40 Bf 109 Ks were lost on 1/1/45 which,in the context of total Luftwaffe losses that day,gives an idea of how relatively rare they were. There were just over 300 Bf 109 Ks on the books at the end of January 1945. That represents about 1/4 of the total number of Bf 109s and a much smaller fraction of total fighter strength. I don't think that the average Soviet pilot had much chance of meeting one.
Total production was only about 1,600!
I don't think "many" is the right answer.
Cheers
Steve

On the Russian front, how many Bf 109K's were encountered by any Russian fighter? They saved most K's for Reich defense. I'd think more E, F, and G than anything else, with the bulk being Gustavs.

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As Juha said, there were quite a few Bf 109 K operating in the Eastern Front, you can find a reference on a combat between Yakovlevs and K in the book "Nest of Eagles: Messerschmitt Production and Flight-testing at Regensburg 1936-1945".

stona said:

Total production was only about 1,600!
I don't think "many" is the right answer.
Cheers
Steve

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Compared to what, 1000 mk xiv spitfires?
1, 600 is certainly not a few either.

alejandro_ said:

As Juha said, there were quite a few Bf 109 K operating in the Eastern Front, you can find a reference on a combat between Yakovlevs and K in the book "Nest of Eagles: Messerschmitt Production and Flight-testing at Regensburg 1936-1945".

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"Many","quite a few". What do we mean here?

I've already posted that only about one in four Bf 109s listed in January 1945 was a K. That was a total of about 300. If someone wants to dig up how many of those were serviceable and on which front they were deployed I wish them luck.

Very few units were equipped exclusively with the Bf 109 K but flew some amongst their other aircraft. Only four "Gruppen" were entirely converted to the Bf 109 K.

I'm sure that there were combats between the Soviets and Bf 109 Ks but the type comprised a very small minority of Luftwaffe fighters in service,Eastern Front (if you can call it that in early 1945) included. A Soviet pilot was most likely to come up against a Fw 190 A or an earlier Bf 109 sub type.

Let's look at some real numbers for Luftwaffe losses as opposed to guess work.

Of the 420 losses of fighters in the East in the ten days from 20/1/45 to 30/1/45 from the surviving GenQu returns only 30 are Bf 109 K-4s. That's about one in fourteen.
Those numbers are close,anyone whose counted down these lists will know why I'm not claiming that they are exact. I've only done it once on this occasion to give a good idea whilst not losing the will to live!

Around 5,500 G-14s of various types were built but I doubt that a Soviet pilot would distinguish the early ones from a G-6. Somewhere around 2,500 G-10s and 1,500 K-4s were built,though again I doubt that a Soviet pilot could tell the difference.They certainly could have had no clue which engine was fitted
This is in the context of over 12,000 G-6s built,the last block in December 1944.

Cheers

Steve

stona, could you be confusing the 4 Gruppen that were authorized to use 1.98 ata?

LuftFlotte 6 on the Eastern front, 19-3-1945,
Kurfürst - Luftflottenkommando 6, Führungsabteilung I. (Ia Flieg) - Ausrüstung der Jagdverbänden. H.Qu., des 19.3.1945.

Baureihe translates as series or more broadly type. There are three gruppen equipped with the K-4 on that list,III./JG 3,III./JG 4 and III./JG 77. The other unit,which was in the west was III./JG 26.
Cheers
Steve

Another difference that helped the Russians in nthe very cold weather was that a lot of their aircraft was equiped with a Hucks type starter. That was just a fitting on the propeller hub that mated to a fitting on special starting trucks. They could get any engine turning over, as long as they get the truck started.
You can see the fitting on the IL-2, Laggs, several twin engine Soviet aircraft also.
I don't know if it was the primary starting method for these aircraft or a standby.

I am not sure why everybody is so amazed about the high altitude Bf-109K when it goes to eastern front issues. At low and medium altitude, both the late production run Bf-109G6 and the standart Bf-109G14 with DB-605AM and B4 fuels on 1.7 ata are similarely fast as Bf-109K or -109G10 with DB-605ASM. Both, -G6 and -G14 served in great numbers.

The -109G14 was specified with 654 km/h (405mph) using two gunpods and 665km/h (413mph) without them at full pressure height of 5000m (16,404ft). This is for standart A/C, not those with specially treated surface.
Late G6´s may be minimally faster with straked engine cowling.

An early ´44 -G14 with MW-30 boost on B4 fuel rather than MW-50 boost clocked 652km/h in clean condition (rather than 665), which is within variances for individual A/C.

In flight tests, the La-7 attained 658 km/h (409mph) at 5900m, making the standart LW Bf-109G-14 indeed faster at 5000m and slower at higher altitudes.

Special surface treament could improve performance further. If You want a really fast medium altitude Bf-109, use the late G6 production or -G14 airframe with straked cowling and DB-601AM, and finally pay special care to surface treatment and clean fighter configuration.

[+] clean fighter configuration: 665 km/h
[+] special surface treatment: +1.27%
[+] straked engine cowling: +0.966%

These A/C should attain ~680km/h (422mph) at 5000m. That´s also faster than Fw-190D9´s at this altutude.

Special surface treatment in the field in Russia? Book or better performance when operating from a farmer's field with only basic tools with which to do maintenance? C'mon, that didn't usually happen even in temperate climates when in the field, much less the largely rural Soviet areas from which the Germans were operating. They were probably more concerned with digging latrines than special surfac preparations and a few extra knots of airspeed. Special maintenace was possible and maybe probable at an airfield near a logistic source of spare parts, but not far from manicured runways, aircraft shelters, and an aircraft wash rack. If they had water in Russia, it was probably for drinking, not for washing airplanes!

When attacking, the Russians came in low and were difficult to detect at any significant range, even with radar since they flew low. Have you ever tried to start a Bf 109 by hand in cold weather ... quickly? Compared with a battrey-started plane in a temperate climate, they were a bear to get running in cold weeather. We had trouble on a beautiful day in Chino! And it started fine the afternoon before. The attack would be over before most of the planes on the ground even got running, much less airborne. They were operating largely from unimproved, usually never before used ground ... at least never before used by an aircraft. The planes were dirty, the finishes made less than ideal by weather, and the conditions were crude. I seriously doubt book performance was even achieved most of the time on either side.

The battles on the Eastern Front constituted the largest military confrontation in history. They were characterized by unprecedented ferocity, wholesale destruction, mass deportations, and immense loss of life variously due to combat, starvation, exposure, disease, and massacres. The Eastern Front, as the site of nearly all extermination camps, death marches, ghettos, and the majority of pogroms, was central to the Holocaust. Of the estimated 70 million deaths attributed to World War II, over 30 million, many of them civilians, died on the Eastern Front. The Eastern Front was decisive in determining the outcome of World War II, eventually serving as the main reason for Germany's defeat. It resulted in the destruction of the Third Reich, the partition of Germany for nearly half a century and the rise of the Soviet Union as a military and industrial superpower. The Russian Front lasted from June 1941 through May 1945.

The Germans started the invasion with 3.7 million troops in June 1941 against 2.7 million Soviet troops. A year later the Germans still had 3.7 million troops (now 80% of their strength) on the Russian front against 5.3 million Russian troops. By mid-1943 it was 3.9 million Germans against 6.7 million Soviets and was still close to that number but slight less on both sides in 1944. By early 1945 there were only 2.3 million tired and hungry German troops against 6.5 million Soviet troops that were eager to get to Germany right through the German troops. The failure to capture Stalingrad in 1942 was the reversal of German intrusion into the Soviet Union and after that time, the Germans were basically in withdrawal mode while still in contact with the Russian troops. There were plenty of targets for any air power.

I might believe special maintenance in 1941 but, but the time of the failure to capture Stalingrad in 1942, survival was much more important. The air force strength largely mirrored the troop strength. In the last 9 months of the war, there were probably 2 - 3 or 4 times the number of Soviet aircraft in the air as German, and they were modern types flown by aggressive pilots relative to Soviet pilots of only two years before. It was not a good last year and a half or so for the Luftwaffe, and they certainly did not enjoy mass success as they retreated to Berlin and surrendered.

Even Erich Hartmann's squadron had a heartbreaking time as the war ran down to the end. This was not a good experience for the Luftwaffe after winter 1942.

Ellis gives total Luftwaffe losses 1 january 1945 to 31 march 1945 at 8478. Those loss numbers are staggering. Statistically, LW losses in 1944 saw the proportion of fighters as a percentage of total losses for the LW at just under 50% of the total losses being suffered by the LW, to all causes. If 1945 figures are proportionally similar, then roughly 4000 fighters are going to be lost by the LW. The Russians by that stage were accounting for about 30% of total German aircraft losses by that stage of the war. That puts the total German losses inflicted by the Russians at about 1300 in 1945. If 30 Me 109Ks are a part of that overall mix, i agree with Steve, the Russians arent even going to notice.

And yet from September 1943 until October 1944 the Luftwaffe never had more than 24% of its day fighters in the East. The reason is fairly obviously the pressure from the USAAF and the deployment of the majority of the Jagdwaffe on the Western Front,Italy and the Balkans and in Reich Defence.

It is important to seperate the fighters from total Luftwaffe strength. The Luftwaffe deployed many types in the East which simply couldn't survive in the West. Typically about 45% of total Luftwaffe strength was deployed on the Eastern Front throughout this period.

Cheers

Steve