Luftwaffe's ideal night fighter: you are in charge
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Hi Don, the fuel consumption figures are from "Fuel Consumption of the GAF" Mar 1945 Intel report and the table comes from Schiffer's "German Night Fighters in WWII" by Griehl
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The RAF was also attacking factories and production facilities. They did it on a larger scale and often more innacurately than the Luftwaffe's attack on Coventry. The Luftwaffe did a good job damaging many factories in and around Coventry as well as a cathedral and about 5,000 homes. Killing workers and their families is a valid way of attacking production,here they didn't do so well,less than 600 killed.I don't suppose anyone in Germany was crying about that.
Having quite rightly pointed out that the RAF could not fly over the Reich during daylight Hitler himself set the rules of the game in a speech of September 1940.
"They therefore come during the night — and as you know, release their bombs indiscriminately and without any plan on to residential areas, farmhouses and villages. Wherever they see a sign of light, a bomb is dropped on it. For three months past, I have not ordered any answer to be given, thinking that they would stop this nonsensical behaviour. Mr Churchill has taken this to be a sign of our weakness. You will understand that we shall now give a reply, night for night, and with increasing force.
And if the British Air Force drops two, three or four thousand kilos of bombs, then we will now drop 150,000, 180,000, 230,000, 300,000 or 400,000 kilos, or more, in one night. If they declare that they will attack our cities on a large scale, we will erase theirs! We will put a stop to the game of these night-pirates, as God is our witness. The hour will come when one or the other of us will crumble, and that one will not be National Socialist Germany. I have already carried through such a struggle once in my life, up to the final consequences, and this then led to the collapse of the enemy who is now still sitting there in England on Europes last island."
Of course he got the conclusion wrong.
Should the US not have fire bombed Tokyo or used nuclear weapons on Japanese cities? Maybe they should have invaded Japan,costing hundreds of thousands of American lives so that we could feel better about it today.
I grew up in the era of 'Mutually Assured Destruction' the consequences of which would have made WWII bombing casualities pale into insignificance.
War is hell.
Steve
Having quite rightly pointed out that the RAF could not fly over the Reich during daylight Hitler himself set the rules of the game in a speech of September 1940.
"They therefore come during the night — and as you know, release their bombs indiscriminately and without any plan on to residential areas, farmhouses and villages. Wherever they see a sign of light, a bomb is dropped on it. For three months past, I have not ordered any answer to be given, thinking that they would stop this nonsensical behaviour. Mr Churchill has taken this to be a sign of our weakness. You will understand that we shall now give a reply, night for night, and with increasing force.
And if the British Air Force drops two, three or four thousand kilos of bombs, then we will now drop 150,000, 180,000, 230,000, 300,000 or 400,000 kilos, or more, in one night. If they declare that they will attack our cities on a large scale, we will erase theirs! We will put a stop to the game of these night-pirates, as God is our witness. The hour will come when one or the other of us will crumble, and that one will not be National Socialist Germany. I have already carried through such a struggle once in my life, up to the final consequences, and this then led to the collapse of the enemy who is now still sitting there in England on Europes last island."
Of course he got the conclusion wrong.
Should the US not have fire bombed Tokyo or used nuclear weapons on Japanese cities? Maybe they should have invaded Japan,costing hundreds of thousands of American lives so that we could feel better about it today.
I grew up in the era of 'Mutually Assured Destruction' the consequences of which would have made WWII bombing casualities pale into insignificance.
War is hell.
Steve
Mr Steve
Fire bombing of Tokyo was not the only alternative to Japan invasion. America could wait till japan starved to death by the use of American submarines ,mining of japanese seas and destruction of industry by daylight accurate air attacks
British targeted specificaly the population .Also they did it long after the war was decided. (Look Dresden with America co operating)
And when alleis got total air domination and thus could fly safely during daylight they continiue attack populations. And ,in 1945 , when all major cities - industrial centers were destroyed they targeted smalller towns very often without any military target, while jabos attacked targets as small as villages and farms .
I have some doubts about how proper would be the use of Me 262 against Lancasters and Halifaxs due to performance difference. I believe a combination of Me 262/Do335 would be ideal for the night fighting. Also i always looked strange to me why technicians could not make a good night fighter out of Me 410 . Removal of defensive barbettes and the bomb bay should provide enough space for electronics.
Ridiculous,starved, bombed (conventially or otherwise) or burned,dead is dead. You are simply targeting the civilian population in another way.
Absolutely correct that Bomber Command targeted civilians. These were the people who were operating the presses,making the munitions, or growing the food that enabled Germany to prosecute its aggressive war against us and our allies. If we had to make the same decisions again I hope we'd have the nerve and determination to do the same. This was a real war of survival. Churchill said it better than I ever could.
"Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.
But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science."
And
"You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy."
Hindsight is a wonderful thing,but I'm afraid I've no time for the revisionist niceties that it may engender.
Cheers
Steve
That s an interesting opinion. If we apply the same logic in our days This means that the terrorist attacks in New York, London and Madrid are justifeid since the terrorists attacked the civilians that produce the weapons of NATO forces that fight them?
Does it means that Nazis executions of population were justifeid because supported the alleid cause in many ways?
Does the cause always justifeis the means?
I am sorry if i spent your time .It s not nessecary to answer
I think bomber command had been flying around Germany, bombing all sorts of targets and clearly hitting the the wrong target, everything from hospitals to residences which of course is likely to be provocative. I believe the RAF rules were quite strict in that bombs that could not be of loaded on to legitimate targets were to be returned however the navigation problem and Bomber Commands initial over estimation of its skill (and human) skill meant they just bombed the wrong thing; the Butt report showed how bad things really were in that 2/3rds of bombs were more than 5 miles from target although BC seems to have worked out the problem well before then. The early months of the war Between Britain and Germany marked a period of ordered restraint by Hitler in the hopes that Britain could be dissuaded from the war and Hitlers discomfort in attacking fellow Aryans (which he expressed to Galland). The Coventry raid did up the stakes considerably and possibly were the straw that ensured that the Area Bombardment directive was issues, it represented another phase, however I do not think that workers were the target or their housing, the factories were the target. I do believe that the incendiaries were used to burn up the large areas around the factories, including housing, as part of a strategy to destroy those factories, however I do not believe that had housing been 1km from the factories that the housing would have been targeted (as the towns around Penemunde was to get at the researchers and workers of the V weapons program)
Exactly what the aim points in and around Coventry were would be interesting to know, there has been little research in this area. x-geraet was accurate but it was only used by pathfinders.
Of course Germany ended up the looser in this gamble but this is a dangerous thing that could have gone the other way for Britain should Germany should after the area bombardment campaign somehow have taken the upper hand and perhaps this is why restraint needs to be shown.
It's easy to see what happened; raids against Germany were conducted to tie up German resources during the battle of France, these (despite often targeting self illuminated blast furnaces) became unintentionally indiscriminate due to the navigation issue but was either seen as deliberately indiscriminate or irresponsibly bumbling. This created an embarrassment to Hitler who spoke of retaliation perhaps to shore up his reputation amongst Germans, perhaps to warn of the British, perhaps to legitimate a wider bombing campaign. The issue escalated in a series of steps from there.
Notable about the escalation of British bombing was that there appear not only to have been strong disagreement over the Area Bombardment program in terms of strategy within Britain and over its effectiveness but there was some moral disagreement.
The war was an unprecedented tragedy for Europe and perhaps this is why we still obsess about it. One effect of the war has been a new world order that has created migration patterns likely to eventually assimilate the traditional ethnic groups of Europe: including the British and Germans.
No,terrorism and an aggressive war waged by a state are not the same thing.
No,the execution or massacre of innocent civilians in territories occupied by you is not justified or sensible. You are destroying a potential economic resource. The German regime was engaged in genocide,a word now devalued by over use. Genocide is the extermination of an entire race,not a massacre like at Srebrenica,however terrible that was.
As for a population supporting the allied cause,the execution of 'civilians' actively engaged in resistance,sabotage or partisan activities is a very grey area. Any occupying force is likely to see it as justified. As a Briton I would be very wary of the pot calling the kettle black on this point.
In a war of survival the end justifies the means, as long as you are on the winning side. If you lose you end up at Nuremberg.Why else would Japan have suffered two nuclear attacks? It took her out of the war and fired a shot accross the bows of the U.S.S.R. Two birds with one stone,a classic example of the end justifying the means.
Sorry for the diversion,this is a long way from night fighters,but some of the posts above deserved a riposte.
Cheers
Steve
davebender
1st Lieutenant
Sep 1939. Me-210 prototype first flight with DB601 engine.
14 March 1942. Modified Me-210A. Longer and deeper rear fuselage.
July 1942. Leading edge slots added to Me-210 wings.
.....Taken together these changes fixed Me-210 handling issues. The resulting Me-210C was ready for mass production during the fall of 1942 after 3 years of development.
As for speed....
Messerschmitt Me 210 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Everything I have read suggests the Me-210C had a max speed of about 385mph when powered by two 1,475hp DB605A engines. Pretty close to the original specifications and quite a bit faster then a Me-110G powered by the same engines.
14 March 1942. Modified Me-210A. Longer and deeper rear fuselage.
July 1942. Leading edge slots added to Me-210 wings.
.....Taken together these changes fixed Me-210 handling issues. The resulting Me-210C was ready for mass production during the fall of 1942 after 3 years of development.
As for speed....
Messerschmitt Me 210 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Everything I have read suggests the Me-210C had a max speed of about 385mph when powered by two 1,475hp DB605A engines. Pretty close to the original specifications and quite a bit faster then a Me-110G powered by the same engines.
"... The RAF and Luftwaffe both muddled through the war as best they could. Both air forces had strengths and weaknesses."
Didn't say otherwise DB - made no claims for superiority or perfection - simply stated a FACT. As a result of the Zeppelin Raids in WW1 Britain had experienced the terror of civilian bombing and had worked to install a fairly thoughtful, competent early warning system and fighter control - to which radar was added. I do not believe the same claim can be made about German air defenses in September 1939. If you know otherwise DB please share .... otherwise ....
MM
Germany had France to worry about, without even the protection of the channel, and had also experience raids in WW1 by the RAF and by Sikorsky Ilya's. Austria had experienced raids from Italy.
In terms of the invention of radar: it occurred in Germany, Britain and the US at around the same time 1934; I think Watson Watts primacy is in doubt. There is an argument I think that the Germans, at GEMA, were first to measure range. Radar work in Germany originated at the Signals Branch (the NVA later NVK) of the German Navy: it was the idea of the Physicist Rudolf Kunhold who head that Branch and came out of sonar ideas.
He wanted to extend the ideas of active sonar by using microwaves (to get the tight beams and small antenna). Though successful they microwave generators were too weak to be useful and by 1934/35 they were successful using triodes and split anode magnetron in the 50cm and 60cm range. This was to the great disappointment of Kunhold who still kept pushing microwaves.
The first Freya radars (then called DeTe I) were used by the coastal branch of German Naval artillery in 1938. By the time of the Sudetenland crisis the Luftwaffe was using them. However by the time the war broke out I think 16 had been produced for the Luftwaffe, perhaps not all in service. Seetakts started being installed on ships in 1937 and were becoming standard from 1938.
Clearly Britain's deployment of radar, the CH system, was in advance of this. I believe one reason for this is that the Germans had to use their radar over land and so the option of a radar with 15m wavelengths was not attractive and they simply wanted compact systems suitable for a small ship. The Luftwaffe wasn't originally going to order Freya and only use its own Wurzburg system (Freya was a Navy developed system, but General Martini recognize its value and range).
The Freya's were simply integrated into the existing air reporting service; this was a functioning system but was found to have operational issue due to the way it was split up into geographical sectors amongst different branches.
Wurzburg and its more accurate spin off Mainz were probably the best Anti aircraft radar in the world till late 1942 since it exhibited an accuracy of 0.3 degree in elevation and azimuth and 25m in range, in late 1942 the SCR-584 entered service along with a series of allied microwave radars and it lost its place. Wurzburg had been built as an early warning radar but turned into a FLAK directing radar by mid 1941 when Wurzburg-D added conical scanning, 25m range accuracy and syncho outputs direct to the range input of the FLAK predictor. The Wurzburg-C had the conical scan but lacked the selsyns and accuracy. The Wurzburg A lacked the conical scan (this outmoded one had been captured by British Commandos at Bruneval). The giant Wurzburg Riesse was simply an over sized Wurzbug-D entering service at the same time in mid 41, was supposed to be for true FLAK direction due to its accuracy but was "misused" to guide fighters.
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German radar was pretty good, in some cases better till late 1942 when allied microwave developments came into mass use. The British use of microwave radars on ships in 1941 added nothing that Seetakt couldn't do already. Seektakt contray to most histories could do effective blind fire.
By the time that the Germans had captured their first H2S they had magnetron able to produce 18kW at 18cm and 4km at 3.7cm (the latter tunable) which compares with the 10kW or so of the very first British 9cm microwave radars.
They simply never bothered to develop these into radars, their existing sets worked well enough, and they hadn't the resource and it remained an academic issue, they were also obsessed with making them tunable since the Bruneval raid. You can get proof from
Microwave tube development in Germany from 1920-1945
H. Doring International Journal of Electronics, 1362-3060, Volume 70, Issue 5, 1991, Pages 955 - 978
DonL
Banned
The development started at 1937 but that's not my problem! Three years from the first flight of a prototype to get a warplane ready for production in war, is a huge mistake and a waste of resources.
Please imagine how fast the FW 187 would be with DB 601F and DB 605A and this bird was production ready 1939!
Nobody can convince me that the Me 210/410 was a good design, only average, and there are other designs which were a lot better with much more potential!
I'm also not convinced that a Me 210 with full nightfighter equipment could achieve more then 600 km/h.
The Me 410 is nearly the same as the Me 210C and was in need of the DB 603 to get any performance.
The FW designs as heavy fighters (two engine designs) were much better and faster then the Messerschmitt designs and much more capable as fighters.
davebender
1st Lieutenant
German firms had magnetron patents during the 1930s. Were captured British magnetrons different then what they already had?
davebender
1st Lieutenant
The Fw-187 was a superior long range day fighter. Possibly the best designed by anyone before late war aircraft such as the P-51D appeared.
However I don't think the Fw-187 has much potential as a night fighter. The airframe was just too small.
DonL
Banned
I agree and disagree because it is very speculative, but FW had send plans of a heavy nightfighter FW 187 to the RLM at 1942!
I also don't know what you can achieve with a thickened up fuselage!
I hope thickened up is the correct translation for the issue I want to describe.
As example the difference between Do 17 and Do 215.
Anyway the Ta 154 had much more potential then the Me 210/410 series.
The Ta 154 V1 achieved 1943 in comparation at Rechlin 700 km/h without nightfighter equipment and Jumo 211N!
There was no nazi about it. But it was put into action much earlier, by other "democractic" states (who may be democratic at home, but not in other place). Examples are many, well known. Imperial Germany used Zeppelin raids in WW1, Italian theorist Douhet developed the theory of unrestricted air war etc. The British (Harris was there as officer and was very fond of idea, go figure) used to bomb Iraq arab rebels into submission with gas and air attacks on civillians in the 1920s, the French did same in Syria and bombed downtown of Damaskus into rubble.. Italians did same in Ethiopia.. I think over Madrid too, but I am not sure how much is true of it, and how much is republican war propaganda. It was not "adopted" from the Nazis because the Nazi did not even get to power yet. Hitler was sitting in jail with his buddies at the time. I doubt he influence anyone.
"Bomber Baron" circle was much stronger in these air forces (particular in Britain) than in Luftwaffe, and I think this is incorrect to say German air force had belief of strategy of "firebombing" civillians. Of course much war-time and post-war propaganda is saying this. On occasion, they did this, but it does not seem to be a policy at any time. Policy of Luftwaffe was close coordinated operations with army as main rule.
Firebombing civillians is clear connected to Bomber Command/Arthur Harris more than to anybody else. I doubt anybody else can be named who would make this a policy (meaning: not tactic used in some cases, often as retribution to other action). USAAF policy in Far east comes close only imho.
I wondered lot. Often said that magnetron was some "super weapon", but I keep wonder why. I know it can generate greater power for very short wave radar devices, but I do ask, why is very short wave devices give advantage? Becuase AFAIK most search device operate at fairly long waves, so I guess things are more complicated, probably because why short wave is good for one purpose, long wave for another purpose.
Say how does it bend with earth curve? How does it effected by jam? How accurate resolution there is? How sensitive to weather? What is detection range, ranging accuracy with same power source? Weight etc?
davebender
1st Lieutenant
Only if 2,000+ hp engines are available in quantity. Which wasn't the case historically during 1942 to 1945.
The British Mosquito night fighter performed just fine when powered by RR Merlin engines. Why can't a similiar size German night fighter achieve similiar performance with DB605 engines?
The British Mosquito night fighter performed just fine when powered by RR Merlin engines. Why can't a similiar size German night fighter achieve similiar performance with DB605 engines?
This would be Hollmann's magnetron,patented in 1935. It was rejected by the German military for technical reasons (mainly unstable frequency) leading to the development of a radar system based on vacuum tube technology,the Klystron.This system could never match the power output of later magnetrons. It was what turned out to be a wrong turn.
In 1940 Randall and Boot,working just up the road from me at Birmingham University, developed an improved version of Hollmann's magnetron and overcame it's inherent problems with some nifty electronics. It wasn't having a magnetron but making it work in a practicle radar system that was the problem. With a trans-Atlantic development programme the Western allies developed a significant lead in radar technology.
The first centimetric radar installed in a Luftwaffe night fighter was (from memory) the FuG 240 which was derived from captured H2S technology.Only a handful were fitted to some Ju88G-6s before the end of the war.
Cheers
Steve
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DonL
Banned
That's wrong Dave.
The Ta 154 V3 --> Ta 154 A1 equipped with full nightfighter equipment and Jumo 211N achieved 625 km/h.
NJG 3 pilot Gottfried Schneider was on 44 enemy missions with a Ta 154 A1 and shot down several Bombers.
Edit:
Several Ta 154 were on enemy mission at NJG 3 and NJG 10.
They had mixed setup, some Ta 154 with Jumo 211N, some with Jumo 213A and some with Jumo 213E.
At the book of Dietmar Herrman most NJG pilots that flew the Ta 154 and He 219 stated that the Ta 154 was better then the He 219.
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A shorter wave length increases resolution,i.e. you can detect smaller targets. The cavity magnetron is a small device which could be fitted into an aircraft. The antenna for centimetric radar is also smaller and would be familiar to most of us.
Here is the antenna for the FuG 240 fitted on a Ju88. It can be covered with an aerodynamic nose cone,reducing the huge drag of earlier 'antler' type arrays.
Cheers
Steve
