I'm doing some research on the BF-110G-4 werk.nr 140655 <<< G9+AA of Hans-joachim Jabs bacause I'm thinking about building a model of the a/c Jabs pulled of a bit of a stunt with in April '44. Basically he was caught by a flight of Spitfire's upon returning from a daylight transit/training (?) mission, but managed to blast two Spitfires from the sky before being forced to belly land his own crate (dunno if it was due to combat damage or because getting on the ground ASAP (and therefore doing a wheels up landing in the nearest suitable spot) seemed the smartest thing to do after temporary overwhelming/surprising the Spitfires)
I've found a few pic's of Jabs' wrecked plane on the net (the overview seems to mach the code of Jabs plane including the chevron marking of a Geschwaderkommodore, which Jabs became a few weeks prior to this event) but the pic of the nose section said to be of Jabs' a/c seems a bit confusing to me given the captions that came with it. It stated that it was the nose of Jabs' a/c with provisions for FuG 218 Neptun radar visible, however I'm wondering if the FuG 218 Neptun was even available to night fighter crews in April '44 at all? I haven't been able to find much on it, but I read somewhere that the FuG 218 Neptun did not become available until late '44, so I'm inclined to think this a/c was rather equiped with SN2 with an additional FuG202/FuG212 aerial in the middle to compensate for insufficient minimum range of the SN2. Also, carefully looking at the overview pic of the wreckage I think I'm seeing some remains of aerials, which given the angle at which they sit look like upper nose remains of SN2 Aerials.
On the other hand, Jabs being among the top scoring crews, could he have been given the opportunity to take a new radar device (the FuG 218 ) into combat (maybe to test it) way before it became more generally available.
I've found a few pic's of Jabs' wrecked plane on the net (the overview seems to mach the code of Jabs plane including the chevron marking of a Geschwaderkommodore, which Jabs became a few weeks prior to this event) but the pic of the nose section said to be of Jabs' a/c seems a bit confusing to me given the captions that came with it. It stated that it was the nose of Jabs' a/c with provisions for FuG 218 Neptun radar visible, however I'm wondering if the FuG 218 Neptun was even available to night fighter crews in April '44 at all? I haven't been able to find much on it, but I read somewhere that the FuG 218 Neptun did not become available until late '44, so I'm inclined to think this a/c was rather equiped with SN2 with an additional FuG202/FuG212 aerial in the middle to compensate for insufficient minimum range of the SN2. Also, carefully looking at the overview pic of the wreckage I think I'm seeing some remains of aerials, which given the angle at which they sit look like upper nose remains of SN2 Aerials.
On the other hand, Jabs being among the top scoring crews, could he have been given the opportunity to take a new radar device (the FuG 218 ) into combat (maybe to test it) way before it became more generally available.
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