more interesting late war thoughts from freind Rod M. much turth in these latter war months and movements
while shifting through reports of RAF Bomber Command RCM efforts during 1945, I have noticed on numerous occasions that at least one Nachtjagd W/T fighter control frequency, presumedly the actual frequency differed from night to night, could not be jammed because it was also used by Bomber Command (possibly for windfinding broadcasts etc).
What I am unsure of is whether these occurances were coincidental or whether there was a concerted effort to, firstly, establish the frequencies used by the bombers by the German "Y" service and then, secondly, to use the same frequencies for fighter control in the knowledge that they would be jammed.
Does anyone have any more documentary information on this?
It is interesting to see how many frequencies were jammed during a particular raid but to still see that the British "Y" service picked up a considerable amount of transmissions broadcast to the night fighters (i.e. if the British could hear it then the fighters could also, in psite of the jamming). My initial feeling from analysing this data is that during 1945, the factors that affected the ability of the Nachtjagd to mount a successful defence were:
1. The inability of the controllers to direct night fighters to the right place at the right time due the diversion measures and jamming. On quite a number of nights, up to 200 night fighters were airborne and pre-positioned but were never infiltrated in to a bomber stream in any numbers - thus resulting in a major expenditure of effort and fuel for only a small return. On many other nights, night fighters, when in a favourable position to infiltrate a bomber stream, were instead directed against a diversion while the real threat slipped by. On the occasions when the controllers did get it right, Bomber Command forces suffered casualty rates of between 5-24% but this was few and far between and usually only against one out of two or three seperate bomber streams operating during a particular night.
2. Bad weather conditions, lack of experienced crews and fuel rationing limiting the number of sorties that could be flown. In Jan-Feb 1945, the winter weather appears to have had a major limiting effect of Nachtjagd ops, with many Gruppen grounded. Allied to this is the number of nights that only experienced crews were used, sometimes to good effect but in such small numbers. For example, a look at the Abschussmeldungen for the entire first Gruppe of NJG2 confirms this - only two pilots claimed around 95% of the victories by this unit in 1945.
Often the lack of fuel is stated as a major cause for the limited success of the Nachtjagd during the final months of the war. Although a contributory factor, as stated in (2) above, I do not see it as the main reason...