In September 1941 a new shape began to appear in the skies above north-west Europe. While the principal adversary of the RAF’s fighter pilots up to...
That's an informed opinion quoting some very relevant contemporary perceptions, all of which shows that a lot of knowledgeable people have rated the Fw 190, but what I'm trying to get to grips with is the under-the-hood evidence...
For example, one thing that's struck me in the discussion thus far is that even informed opinions about the Fw 190 don't always clearly distinguish between different types and tactics...
A lot of what caused the bother in RAF circles was the low-altitude daylight raiding by the Jabo units, the so-called "tip-and-run", and it seems that it was not checked by any RAF response, nor by the repositioning of the forces involved to Italy, but instead stopped in its tracks by an abrupt "change of policy" when the Luftwaffe switched to night-bombing of London in April 1942 (and in that new role, it seems that Mosquito NF Mk.IIs simply rode them down)...
How much of the quoted concern within the RAF actually related to the fighters of JG2 rather than the "tip-and-run" Jabos is something I've not really been able to establish quickly. A trip to a library may be in order...
And to pick up on a reply that I missed by crossposting when I was hastily responding over lunch on Wednesday...
Against what particular opponent?
Other competent contemporary fighters in general, as I said - it has a good speed around 20,000ft, and an excellent roll but what else does it do particularly well at altitudes much above 5000ft?
'Nope' - for the 1st sentence.
Fw 190, when introduced and up until late 1942 and against current Spitfire models (Mk.V mostly), have held advantage in speed, probably in RoC, in rate of roll, acceleration in both level flight and in dive. Only advantage the Spitfire had was ability to make tight turns.
Really?
Actually, it turns out to be worse than I thought...
Though I'm not sure whether anyone's going to think this is worth replying to...
(All numbers used are sourced from the spitfireperformance.com / wwiiaircraftperformance.org pages)
1. Let's start with the
production-model A-3 which accidentally landed in Wales in 1942...
At 18,000ft, this Fw 190A did 375 mph
At 25,000ft, this Fw 190A did 350 mph
Now, yes, this was an aircraft with a "derated" version of the BMW 801D, which remained at 1500hp rather than the notional uprated power of 1700hp, and thus underperformed compared with the official German figures...
but this is the Fw 190A that was in squadron service until the end of 1942; this is the Fw 190 that the RAF was facing in 1941-1942...
And, the short version is, those aren't especially impressive numbers; for comparison...
At 18,000ft, the Spitfire Mk. V did 360-375 mph
At 25,000ft, the Spitfire Mk. V did 350-365 mph
And in most cases, the aircraft that are slower at 18,000ft push up to 370-375 mph at a slightly different altitude; the situation will likely be reversed for the Fw 190...
And yes, those are all Merlin 45 numbers...
So, compared with the Spitfire Mk. V, the Fw 190 of 1941-1942 is
competitive but not superior around 20,000ft, and
mediocre at other reasonably high altitudes...
Honestly, I was surprised it didn't go faster...
Even the Spitfire Mk. I gets a bit of a look-in...
At around 18,000ft, the Spitfire Mk.I is quoted at 355-365 mph
At around 25,000ft, the Spitfire Mk.I is quoted at 340-360 mph
While a little slower at best altitude, performance is broadly equal higher up... can that parity be used tactically?
2. Now, yes, the Fw 190As in squadron service were allowed to be "fully rated" in October 1942, with engine modifications; how quickly they actually appeared, I don't know. In 1943, an
upgraded aircraft landed in Kent, described in contemporary Allied reports as an A-3 but identified in modern sources as an A-4/U-8, in keeping with its identity as a Jabo, and the presence of closeable covers on the engine cooling vents...
This was taken for a spin by the RAE and "corrected to standard conditions", which I assume was simply a standard trick to do with air pressure and altitude...
At 11,000ft, this Fw 190A does 346 mph vs. around 330-365 mph for the Spitfire Mk. V at 10,000-12,000ft...
At 15,000ft, this Fw 190A does 369 mph vs. around 345-370 mph for the Spitfire Mk. V at 14,000-16,000ft...
At 18,030ft, this Fw 190A does 382 mph }
At 20,030ft, this Fw 190A does 385 mph } vs. around 360-375 mph for the Spitfire Mk. V at 18,000-20,000ft...
At 21,180ft, this Fw 190A does 385 mph }
At 24,750ft, this Fw 190A does 364 mph vs. around 350-370 mph for the Spitfire Mk. V at 23,000-26,000ft...
Now, these figures do better by comparison with a Spitfire Mk. V, noticeably nosing ahead of its best speeds by a few mph at around 20,000ft - the advantage at lower altitudes seems to be largely over planes flown with lower boost; but these numbers for the Fw 190 are rather artificial - they were obtained in a Jabo (presumably a lightweight plane which discards four of the fighter's six guns) with the cooling vents closed to maximise the aerodynamics, by pushing the engine to its limit at various heights on different days, and presumably overhauling it in-between; similarly, a climb rate was obtained by making several short ascents on separate days
in that condition, rather than producing an actual realistic time-to-height...
And the one available time-to-height figure for a Fw 190A that someone's cited so far is
punishingly bad. That's in line with the Dora's quoted time-to-height being not much better than a slick 1940 Spitfire, though...
Now, I'm not sure about dive and acceleration, but it looks to me as though the main speed advantage that the Fw 190A had at altitude was a tuned engine in tests...
I'm honestly surprised that it seems so easy to shoot down these numbers, and I'm sure I'll get a vigorous response; but it's certainly in keeping with what I was saying, and the perceptions I'd picked up - the strengths of the type are low-altitude speed and roll-rate,
not practical speed performance at altitude...
Comparing a Fw 190 with 'any Spitfire' does not make sense to me.
See above.
I'm not sure that Fw 190s were troubling the Allies over Normandy in 1944, since Allied held both performance edge and numerical edge there.
They weren't really "troubling" the Allies, in terms of their effectiveness on the ground, but I recall being surprised by figures which suggested that they were performing their low-altitude sweeps without real difficulty, as the ability of the top cover to interdict them down there was negligible...
I do need to see if I can dig up what I think I remember, though...
By 1942, RAF has the Typhoon as a way to deal with low-altitude raids, even against the Fw 190s. A defender that has altitude advnatge vs. a low-flying intruder can often catch it in shallow dive.
By 1943, Spitfire XII was available, while the low-altitude Spitfires with Merlin 45M and 50M were available already in 1942.
But how much did they actually achieve, and how much more useful were they than squaring off the wingtips on a Mk.V?
The two "Spitfire Mk. XII" squadrons seem, in practice, to have been flying a mix that included the Mk.V, though I'm not sure of the numbers, or where they stood in terms of engine type and wingtip, or whether they noticeably short in terms of their results; the actual details that matter seem hard to get hold of...
Rhubarbs were tried out with lower performing fighters deployed by the RAF vs. higher performing fighters (Bf 109F-4s, Fw 190s) by Luftwaffe, as well as by 'ordinary' bombers (while LW seldom used bombers, if ever, in return). Higher losses for the RAF can be only expected.
Define "higher performing"? No-one's disputing that the excellent low-altitude performance of the Fw 190 made it better in the rhubarbing role...
Tiffin is probably Typhoon?
Yes, almost. A mistake on my part for "Tiffy", which is probably more familiar to you. Tiffin is afternoon tea...
You can compare the respective speed graphs of the Spitfire IX and V and draw conclusions wrt. how much the change was worth it.
Oh, there's no doubt the Spitfire Mk.IX was faster in the climb and at altitude than the Spitfire Mk. V. But is that significant against the Fw 190A?
I've seen claims that T-34 was the best tank of the ww2, and that Sherman was crap.
Now I know better.
The Sherman was a tracked SPG designed to fire Schneider 75 HE rounds... a competent vehicle, used particularly well by the
deuxième divison blindée, but honestly, I can think of at least four better vehicles in the same category (one of which is an M3 half-track with an actual
modèle 1897 Schneider in the back)...
A question to ask yourself, how does losing a maximum of 5% of the wing area give a better than 10% increase in top speed? To put it another way the Fw190A-8 did 355 mph at sea level, the Spitfire V was down to 330 mph at 10,000 feet. The 1941/42 fights against the Spitfire V were at various altitudes, the Merlin 45 arrangement gave top speed between 20 and 23,000 feet, slightly higher that the Fw190 but both were peaking performance at about the same altitude and the Fw190A had a margin, the Spitfire F mark IX peaked at about 27,500 feet. Remember for most of 1941/42 the Luftwaffe could generally pick were it was going to fight by day in the west, and tended to pick where it had the most advantages.
See above on the actual performance margin of the Fw 190 in squadron service (or lack of one!).
I'm not sure why you're quoting the Fw 190A-8, a 1944 variant, in this context... I don'
The Luftwaffe loss figures are from the RAF compilation, which put the fighter and fighter bomber losses together, they are losses in combat for all operations but there were no Fw190 on "strategic" raids post 6 June 1944.
I wasn't saying there were - but thanks for confirming that the number should include everything else!
Except the allies were not flying that high. The 9th Air force bombers had no aborts due to oxygen trouble October 1943 onwards and while the fighters did do some long range high altitude escort work, again for October 1943 onwards aborts due to oxygen failures were 11 P-38, 53 P-47, 49 P-51 and 1 P-61, that is out of 264,199 airborne fighter sorties. Something wrong with one of the crew caused 402 fighter sortie aborts.
So they're pretty much all below 15,000ft? Even so, if the Fw 190s are below 5,000ft, there could be a lot of air between them...
The Bf109 at that stage had a worse turning circle than the Fw190. It sort of goes like this, in a prolonged dive no piston engine type could stay with the Spitfire, for most practical medium level and above situations the Luftwaffe fighters could usually easily disengage from a Spitfire by diving, while at low altitude the lighter Spitfire elevator control meant the evasion method was to dive away from a Bf109 as if it followed it could not pull out as easily.
This sort of detail matters which is why people are asking for more specifics.
Oh, I agree, I'm asking for more specifics too...
One thing that's struck me going through this (if anyone's still reading) is how much more punchy the fighter-variant Fw 190's armament of four 20mm cannon and two rifle-calibre machine guns is compared with the Bf 109's one cannon and two machine guns - makes me wonder if that contributed to the higher regard that Luftwaffe pilots felt towards the type...