German Nightfighters used as Day Fighters

[gruad]

We know German Nightfighters were used against the 8th AAF due to Gun Camera shots.

I have always wondered what the German high command attitude was.

Would an individual pilot be praised for showing initiative or condemned for putting a high value asset at risk?

Was the AI radar of use on a cloudy day for leading formations of single seat fighters to the formations of B17s and B24s?

Was Schrage Musik of any use against the formations?

Did the destruction of night fighters by USAAF contribute to the post D Day safety of Bomber command where loss rates dropped from 10% pre D Day to 1% post?

All replies appreciated.

 

[Crimea_River]

I have always wondered what the German high command attitude was.

I would suggest that it was at the High Command's direction that all available assets be thrown into the defense.

 

[gruad]

I would suggest that it was at the High Command's direction that all available assets be thrown into the defense.

With antler aerials the Bf110 and Ju88G would be easy meat to escorts and a total waste.

It would only make sense to Sep 43 to use every asset I think.

 

[Erich]

they were used fall of 43 thruough the spring of 44. some of the 110's and Ju's were armed with rocket launchers. but as noted with all the weight they were easy prey for US escort fighters.

 

[Crimea_River]

With antler aerials the Bf110 and Ju88G would be easy meat to escorts and a total waste.

It would only make sense to Sep 43 to use every asset I think.

Of course. Are you suggesting LW High Command made sound decisions?

 

[pbehn]

We know German Nightfighters were used against the 8th AAF due to Gun Camera shots.

I have always wondered what the German high command attitude was.

Would an individual pilot be praised for showing initiative or condemned for putting a high value asset at risk?

Was the AI radar of use on a cloudy day for leading formations of single seat fighters to the formations of B17s and B24s?

Was Schrage Musik of any use against the formations?

Did the destruction of night fighters by USAAF contribute to the post D Day safety of Bomber command where loss rates dropped from 10% pre D Day to 1% post?

All replies appreciated.

They had a big advantage compared to S/E fighters, an Me 110 could be brought from a long way away to join in the attack and they had heavy standard armament, they got hit more by defensive fire and were in trouble when escorts were present. To defend the same area with S/E fighters needs much more of them.

 

[MIflyer]

Somewhere I have a magazine article about one of the top Luftwaffe NF pilots, who flew BF-110G. One day he attacked a bomber formation in daylight and when he was pursued by fighters managed to whip around and shoot down two of them.

Aside from that I recall reading where there were cases in which Ju-87 went up to attack 8th AF bomber formations.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

I've never read of Schrage Musik being used against daylight raids. What I have read is about NJs being used to break up bomber formations from stand-off while single-engined fighters went in to scoop up kills amongst the scattered bombers.

 

[Just Schmidt]

We know German Nightfighters were used against the 8th AAF due to Gun Camera shots.

I have always wondered what the German high command attitude was.

Would an individual pilot be praised for showing initiative or condemned for putting a high value asset at risk?

Was the AI radar of use on a cloudy day for leading formations of single seat fighters to the formations of B17s and B24s?

Was Schrage Musik of any use against the formations?

Did the destruction of night fighters by USAAF contribute to the post D Day safety of Bomber command where loss rates dropped from 10% pre D Day to 1% post?

All replies appreciated.

I thought our heavy weighters would jump this an an P-47 would jump a night fighter caught out after sun rise. Then again, it's not the first time I've been wrong.

As placing a nightfighter close to the bomber formations, and thereby the escort, is already putting a high valuer asset as risk, lurking around and not approaching the bombers is not going to earn you anything, even by the German high command. Getting close and personal is the best thing to make of a bad situation. The risk of gettin condenmned is infinitesmal compered to the risk of being dead. Still you may be praised as dead, though, sacrifice and all that BS.

While the Bf 110 may have sprung the occasional surprize (not really being at an disadvantage in a head on confrontation with a se fighter), a Ju 88 C certainly have no business tangling with escort fighters in 44. Nor a Ju 88 R or G either. From memory the use of night fighters was primarily in the spring and summer of 44, not many G's around then anyway. Please somebody correct me if I'm wrong

On a cloudy day ground rader would probably be of far more use than the rader on a night fighter. The night fighters, I think, needed the ground rader to get them close anyway, though being in the bomber stream they'd be able to pick their individual targets on their own. But daylight raids were not done in streams.

Shräge music would, I surmise, be of limited value. The night fighter was stalking the bombers unseen, hoping to set up a shot from the blind angle below and behind. In daylight the more potent forward armament would be far more devastating, and easier to aim. I'm actually not sure if any Ju-88c's got shräge musik.

As far as i know, twin engined day fighters were provided with rockets and big cannons before the crisis in early 44. When there was no longer a safe zone from escorts, they suffered as well, rader antennas or not. I never heard of the night fighters being modified with rockets. I'm under the impression that it was truly desperate improvization, with no time for modifications or training for the new operational environment. As such a really bad desicion. I think nobody will disagree on that particular point.

I'm sure the destruction of airframes hurt the nacht jagd. however, as the main problem of die luftwaffe in the last year of the war was fuel and experienced pilots, the loss of highly specialized night fighter pilots was probably far more telling. As already indicated, the tactics night and day differed immensely. My take is that in the last year, there was (relatively speaking) a surplus of new airframes. Fueling them, crewing them with experienced pilots, and even getting them to the operational units, posed greater problems. I don't really know about servicing them, but expect that was becoming increasingly difficult too.

 

[Geoffrey Sinclair]

Look up the Nachtjagd War Diaries by Theo Boiten.

On board radars were not used, nor was Schrage Musik which required very close range, the day operations night fighter losses were not severe enough to do long term damage to the force, while some Bomber Command raids could take 10% losses overall rates for four engined bomber raids on Germany peaked at around 6.5% in June 1944, partly due to the limited number of raids. Losses were down to 3.5% in August, below 1% in October and ended up at around 1.5% for the remainder of the war. Obtaining the working Ju88G in mid 1944 gave away lots of the German electronic systems, enabling counter measures, then came the loss of the early warning radars in France and Belgium.

The night fighter units had instrument trained pilots, making them useful on bad weather days but the weight of night fighting equipment and lack of formation flying exposed them to higher losses.

As for the attitude from January to around end July 1943 the Luftwaffe main efforts were in the south and east, the west had to make do. It was a command decision for form flights in the night fighter units for use against day raids, partly as in mid May 1943 Luftflotte Mitte had 299 day and 417 night fighters. Also according to Hooton, in Eagle in Flames, about 20% of the night fighters in mid 1943 did not have radar sets, due to a lack of production.

Post July 1943 the use of night fighter units continued even though many single engine fighter units were recalled to Germany and more twin engined day fighter units formed.

The regular night fighter units known claims by day, mostly B-17 or B-24, by month January 1943 to May 1944 being 1, 5, 4, 3, 1, 2, 2, 16, 2, 36, 6, 4, 56, 32, 9, 8, 0. Peaks in August and October 1943 as expected, then in the winter. Then phased out as it became clear all the USAAF raids were being escorted. NJG1 claimed 31, NJG2 11, NJG3 58, NJG4 7, NJG5 33, NJG6 28, NJG101 17, NJG102 3 and NAG13 1.

According to the Luftwaffe quartermaster Luftflotte Mitte/Reich night fighter losses in air combat (day and night) were, June 1943 to May 1944, 9, 10 (+1 MIA), 26+4, 20+1, 26+4, 6, 18+4, 55+6, 19+3, 30+3, 25, 24+1, that comes to 268 in air combat, 27 MIA, another 88 were destroyed on the ground by enemy action, 6 by other causes, 323 lost on operations not due to enemy action and 209 lost not on operations. Wartime night flying was hazardous. All up 929 losses, under a third by the enemy in the air.

 

[Erich]

to the post 2 above yes the Ju 88C was fitted experimentally with single SM installation. Ju 88G's were instituted in late spring of 44 by autumn of 44 the G-6 was in 2-3 units.. day Bf 110G-2's were used in the southern Reich - ZG 1 as example at Wels with JG 27 109's as high cover in summer of 44.

 

[Denniss]

Forcing night fighters into day ops was a terrible waste of specialized equipment and crew, many good NF crews were lost in this nonsense.

 

[drgondog]

From what I have seen NJG units were committed sparingly to defend against 8th AF, and usually only when out of perceived US Fighter escort range throughout 1943. Later, I would suspect more losses to NJG units were due to airfield strafing in Munich to Berlin radius airfelds.

Bf 110s were effective when used against 8th AF, but their usefullness was limited as combat radius of P-38 and P-51 no longer permitted a line of safety, behind which they could fly with little fear of enagement with fighters. The primary cross-over occurred in November 1943 timeframe and safe haven was eliminated by March-Apil. Me 410 equipped units continued into June - July but suffered very high attition from May 1944 through July 1944 when Me 410 pilots were increasingly converted to FW 190 units.

Schrage Musik attacks would be suicidal against formations of B-17s and B-24s. The Bf 110 closing speeds would be very low compared to FW 190 for stern approaches, with no cloaking by night, and flying in trail to a position of point blank range for tail and ball turret gunners, would be very stupid.

 

[MIflyer]

Later, I would suspect more losses to NJG units were due to airfield strafing in Munich to Berlin radius airfelds.

Interesting statistic. From 1 Jan 1944 to 1 Jan 1945 the Luftwaffe lost over 20,000 airplanes while they were in the process of being DELIVERED to operational units.

Think about all that implies. Do you have control over your own airspace?

 

[Erich]

actually German night fighters were ordered up regardless of US escorts. the whole thing was tragedy and removed in spring of 44 to their nocturnal duties. I have not read anything concerning strafing of fields just the sluggishness of overweight 110's and Ju's on an operational basis.

 

[MIflyer]

Schrage Musik attacks would be suicidal against formations of B-17s and B-24s.

I think that Jazz Music attacks would have been suicidal against B-17's and B-24's even at NIGHT.

Note that none of the RAf night bombers had so much as a window to look out the bottom of the airplane. None of the German radar equipped night fighters were what you would call Stealth Aircraft. The Mark One Eyeball would have worked fine for detecting their approach and a ball turret would have been almost ideal, not only able to see them coming but also having the means to give the blighter the what for. I do not know how far below the aircraft a night fighter would have to be to avoid being detected
by Monica/APS-13, but obviously you would reach a point where coming up from below the bomber would not be detected by the tail warning radar, which did not look straight down.

For that matter, an up-angled gun would have been useful for dispatching Luftwaffe night fighters, which were even more blind to the Low Six position and below than were the RAF bombers. But the only Allied night fighter to have that capability was the P-61. The Beaufighter that that nice manned dome in the rear that should have been perfect for judging a upward firing shot but it seems likely that its only function was to keep the RO from barfing as easily.

 

[wokelly]

We know German Nightfighters were used against the 8th AAF due to Gun Camera shots.

I have always wondered what the German high command attitude was.

It was a bit of desperation, because the 8th Air Force started attacking Germany proper and the Luftwaffe didn't have enough day fighters in early 1943 to properly defend. So the initial commitment of Luftwaffe night fighters was due to the weakness of the day forces in Germany. Later on they seemed to have been employed more to try to pick off stragglers given it was known the performance of the night fighters wasn't great, and the training of the pilots wasn't sufficient to attack combat boxes.

On 26 February 1943 on the Luftwaffes top night fighter aces (Ludwig Becker - 44 Kills) was lost on his first daylight interception of 8th AF bombers, though the cause of his loss isn't know for sure. It was a big blow because he was one of the pioneering night fighter pilots in the Luftwaffe in regards to using airborne radar, and he was very big on passing his experience down to less experienced pilots so they could be more effective, so his loss was a big deal. By April the Luftwaffe basically forbid Night Fighter aces with 20 or more kills from flying daylight raids since they couldn't afford to lose such skilled men.

So the use of night fighter pilots was a bit half-hearted. They'd use the newer pilots to try to pick off stragglers, but largely avoid using them in pitched combat against combat boxes like the day fighters would.

Was the AI radar of use on a cloudy day for leading formations of single seat fighters to the formations of B17s and B24s?

The ground control radar was more important. The Luftwaffe had a well developed ground control intercept (GCI) system to deal with RAF night bombers, and generally these same GCI night fighter boxes were used to guide the night fighters to within visual range of the US day bombers. Nothing in Theo Boiten's combat archive books mention really using the on board radar, it seems to be ground control interceptions mainly. The onboard radar only had a few thousand yards range, so the pilots could probably see the bombers far enough away the onboard radar wasn't very useful.

The German GCI system in April 1943:

Was Schrage Musik of any use against the formations?

I've never heard of it. The US bombers bottom guns would have made it suicide I imagine. It only worked well on RAF night bombers because they didn't know the night fighter was below them. It was a weapon of surprise more than anything.

Did the destruction of night fighters by USAAF contribute to the post D Day safety of Bomber command where loss rates dropped from 10% pre D Day to 1% post?

Doesn't seem like it. Much of Bomber commands post-D-day low losses was from the loss of the German early warning radar system when France was overrun, and improved RAF jamming.

 

[wokelly]

I think that Jazz Music attacks would have been suicidal against B-17's and B-24's even at NIGHT.

Actually probably not. Little known fact, the 8th Air Force did attempt to get into night bombing in 1943. It was a failure the program however, the only actual result was getting the 422nd Bombardment squadron flying at night with Bomber Command in the Autumn of 1943.

They didn't find the bottom turret was any good at night:

I've got the full 400 page folder on my website, this is from a report on page 43 talking about the experience of the 422nd during its raids with Bomber Command.

 

[33k in the air]

Target Berlin — Mission 250: 6 March 1944 by Jeffrey Ethell and Alfred Price has this to say about the German night-fighters (p.22):

By far the worst off in any daylight battle, however, were the German twin-engined night fighter units if they were ordered up. Not only were the lumbering Me 110s, Dornier 217s, Junkers 88s and Heinkel 219s slowed by the drag of their large radar aerials and flame dampers, but their crews had neither experience nor training in day fighting. By night the crews went into action singly and closed to within 200 yards before opening fire on their usually unsuspecting victims; any attempt to adopt similar tactics by day against a formation of heavy bombers usually resulted in a rough handling. Following the loss of several highly trained crews in this way, the Luftwaffe High Command decreed that twin-engined night fighters were to be employed only sparingly by day and the more successful crews were specifically forbidden from this hazardous work. The best the night fighter crews could hope was to find damaged American bombers straggling singly and pick these off.

 

[MIflyer]

The the Pacific the P-61's were told to only fight at night and do not engage enemy aircraft in daylight, where they would be at a disadvantage. One morning around sunup a P-61 was heading back to base and spied a Japanese fighter. The pilot repeatedly tried to get someone on the radio to warn them of the enemy fighter, and after failing to get an answer, said. "Aw, the hell with it." and shot down the fighter.