Most effective nightfighter

DonL said:

T...Also at this forum a few years ago, was a original articel about a comparison flight between a Ju 88 G-1 and a Mosquito NF at a british air base, which had shown how equal the two aircrafts were at their performance...

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Yes, that the Beaumont's story, can be found from his Tempest over Europe book or in his Tangmere Summer article in an early 1990s AM magazine. Beamont was making his first testfllight with the Ju 88G when he saw a Mossie and guessing that Braham was flying it made a "diving attack" on it, the Mossie pilot was indeed Braham who took the bait. According to Bea he had a slight edge when he decided that the turning fight, which had been descended fairly close to ground, was getting too dangerous and disengaged. Graham would probably have disagreed and it would be nice to read opinnions of onlookers on who was winning or was it a drawn.

Juha

stona said:

Schrage music simply exploited a weakness in the RAF's bombers' defensive armament. All the armour was removed with the exception of the plate behind the pilot and virtually no RAF bombers operated with a ventral turret (I'm aware of some exceptions, so no need for a diversion).
The large fuel tanks in the wings of a Lancaster or Halifax were vulnerable from whatever angle were hit
The only four engine bomber the Luftwaffe operated did have ventral gun positions facing down and to the rear and down and forward making a schrage music attack profile much more likely to be seen.
What would be the point of compromising the Mosquito's outstanding performance for a weapons system likely to be less effective than that already carried?
Cheers
Steve

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It's not just exploiting the weakness in RAF defensive positions, its exploiting the fact that it is harder to see an attacker against the dark ground at night than against the night sky.

The large fuel tanks were vulnerable, yes, but I don't think many folks appreciate the percentage of rounds and fragments deflected by shallow angles of aircraft skin and passing through aircraft structure.

A point about British under turrets; they weren't much help anyway due to being sighted by a periscope. Not the best setup for searching the darkest portion of the night sky for hours. But yeah, no need to get into a Preston Green vs. Frazer Nash diversion.

pattern14 said:

... Does anyone have any stats on the P61 Black widow?

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From what I can find, total number of aircraft shot down by P-61's is 127 and that is counting all theaters. If you add the count of V-1's, I have only found an additional 9 aircraft. I don't know if the two at the end of the war, brought down by Lady in the Dark, is included with these numbers.

stona said:

25 saw service?
As far as I know the allies only found 10 aircraft equipped with FuG 240. I wonder where 25 comes from.

Cheers

Steve

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From Gebhard Aders History of the German Night Fighter Force 1917-1945 page 251:

FuG240/1 Berlin N-1a Centimetric AI radar. Wavelength 9-9.3 cm (=3,250-3,330 MHz). Range 5 km-3200 m (3.1 mls-984 ft) without altitude limitation; weight 180 kg (397 lb). Search angle 55°; two circular cathode ray display screens. Developed by Telefunken; 10 sets delivered and completed early in 1945.

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Other versions of the FuG 240 planned but not built included the /2 Berlin N-2, similar to the /1 but with a single cathode ray display; /3 Berlin N-3 (range 6-8 km (3.75-5 miles) which had search angles of 90° azimuth, 20° elevation using a parabolic reflector which searched in a spiral pattern. Developed into FuG 244 Bremen (1 completed); /4 Berlin N-4 same ranges as N-3. Fixed dorsal dielectric rod radiator aerial which could be rotated 180°, so searched upper atmosphere only.

actually 25 Berlin sets delivered is not too far off I have pics of at least 5-6 on 88G-6's. NJG 4 had them including the I./NJG 4 CO had one and in fact he was shot down, so the Allies did not capture all examples as attrition could easily take the 88's out, blown up, wrecked on landings. also NJG 5 had them as well as examples. another piece of important internal equipment in the 88G-6 that has not been mentioned which I covered about 5 years ago with pics and schematics .............. will have to look for them again. as I said the 88 was the perfect bomber killer, 4 man crew, adequate defensive arms, the extra crewman either operated the FuG 350Z Naxos or and was an extra pair of eyes for kill confirmations as well as Mossie watching. tghe berlin 240 could reach beyond 5 miles on operations.

The reason 20mm is perfectly fine for nightfighters while the Germans, and only the Germans, were trying to fit bigger guns on the day fighters is the amount of time they had on a firing pass. Against a formation of B17's they were at high speed.with a very short period for firing. At night closing speeds were lower and firing times longer.

Aozora said:

From Gebhard Aders History of the German Night Fighter Force 1917-1945

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That's probably where I got the figure 10 from, though one of the other 'usual suspects' might also have given it. I still have no clue where the ever unreliable Wiki got the figure of 25 from.

Cheers

Steve

Late Ju 88 G-6 also had FuG 218 or 220 with the "Morgenstern" antenna in the nose, covered with a wooden(?) cone. It was also possible to place the Naxos antenna there.
Junkers performance calculation (from late November 44) of a such-equipped G-7 was 584 km/h in 10.2km and 627 km/h in 9.1 km with MW-50. Without flame damper 648 km/h were possible.

This table also states 3205l of internal fuel. AFAIR this was done by removing all bombing equipment from the rear bomb bay for exclusive use as aux fuel tank. This modification should have been introduced with the G-6, the G-1 still had the stuff with the smaller bombbay tank attached to the bomb release gear.

Juha said:

Yes, that the Beaumont's story, can be found from his Tempest over Europe book or in his Tangmere Summer article in an early 1990s AM magazine. Beamont was making his first testfllight with the Ju 88G when he saw a Mossie and guessing that Braham was flying it made a "diving attack" on it, the Mossie pilot was indeed Braham who took the bait. According to Bea he had a slight edge when he decided that the turning fight, which had been descended fairly close to ground, was getting too dangerous and disengaged. Graham would probably have disagreed and it would be nice to read opinnions of onlookers on who was winning or was it a drawn.

Juha

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Night fighters fighting during the day...

Good read, though.

To add to this quite interesting old thread.

Schräge Music was also used by the Japanese against the US bobmbers that often had belly turrets. I don't think that was because a wish to copy everything German.

Apart from the redused visibility against the ground, one reason was the Close distances many kills were made at. The risk of getting hit by debris was less if one stayed well out of the slipstream.

Also, the sighting was eased as the target was nicely silhuetted (if that isn't a too optimistic expression) against the sky.

i feel the question of the practical use of defensive armament at night is a tricky one. Maybe more often just the extra pair of eyes scanning the relevant part of the sky was more important. With the large amount of awailable targets, it's understandable if many nachtjagd pilots simply ignored bombers the moment they started doing evasive manouvers.

IMO - the 262 was barely adequate at night and its speed advantage was so great that it was really only well used as a 'larger diameter' point defense at night against the Mosquito because it could intercept a higher altitude fast bomber like the Mossie and not have to slow down too much as in the case of a Lancaster.

I have a hard time imagining a radar lock and then a visible and effective intercept when it had a tough enough time with very short firing solutions on daylight B-17s and B-24s.

From my perspective the Ju 88G was perhaps the overall 'best'. Despite the implied deficiencies by some, the P-61 was an excellent night fighter - but used as much for night intruder missions around airfields as interception over battlefields in the ETO.

drgondog said:

the P-61 was an excellent night fighter - but used as much for night intruder missions around airfields as interception over battlefields in the ETO.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_P-61_Black_Widow#Specifications_.28P-61B-20-NO.29
It had a combat range of ~600 miles, which limits it to Western Europe, not into Germany; it really wasn't that useful in Europe. Maybe as a defensive night fighter, but with half the range of a Mosquito it wasn't even all that useful.

The Me 262 had to approach at daytime fast to keep swarms of enemy fighters away from them, a threat not present at night. They could very well throttle down for night ops and use their superior speed only to reduce time to reach enemy aircraft.

wiking85 said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_P-61_Black_Widow#Specifications_.28P-61B-20-NO.29
It had a combat range of ~600 miles, which limits it to Western Europe, not into Germany; it really wasn't that useful in Europe. Maybe as a defensive night fighter, but with half the range of a Mosquito it wasn't even all that useful.

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If you see something that is too good to be true on wiki (your favorite plane has a tremendous speed/climb/range or a plane you don't like as really poor speed/climb/range) then it probably isn't true.

Another source says the P-61B at a take-off weight of 32,100lbs had a range of 610 miles at 339mph at 25,000ft using max continuous power. That is 2550rpm and as close to 49.5 in of manifold pressure as the engine could pull at that altitude (engine chart says wide open throttle).
This is equivalent to trying to "cruise" a P-47C at 360mph at 25,000 ft and claiming it has short range because it will only go 450 miles. Throttling the P-47 back to 337mph cuts the fuel burn by 45 gallons an hour and adds 100 miles to the range. Cutting the speed to 300mph at 25,000ft drops the fuel burn to 1/2 what "max continuous" used and stretches the range to 750 miles.

I wonder what kind of range the P-61 could have gotten cruising at 300mph at 25,000ft and taking off with a pair of 165 gallon drop tanks???

Or lets put it in perspective. A P-61 could cruise for 1 3/4 hours at a speed within a few mph of what a JU-88S-1 bomber could do for a few minutes without GM 1.

Shortround6 said:

If you see something that is too good to be true on wiki (your favorite plane has a tremendous speed/climb/range or a plane you don't like as really poor speed/climb/range) then it probably isn't true.

Another source says the P-61B at a take-off weight of 32,100lbs had a range of 610 miles at 339mph at 25,000ft using max continuous power. That is 2550rpm and as close to 49.5 in of manifold pressure as the engine could pull at that altitude (engine chart says wide open throttle).
This is equivalent to trying to "cruise" a P-47C at 360mph at 25,000 ft and claiming it has short range because it will only go 450 miles. Throttling the P-47 back to 337mph cuts the fuel burn by 45 gallons an hour and adds 100 miles to the range. Cutting the speed to 300mph at 25,000ft drops the fuel burn to 1/2 what "max continuous" used and stretches the range to 750 miles.

I wonder what kind of range the P-61 could have gotten cruising at 300mph at 25,000ft and taking off with a pair of 165 gallon drop tanks???

Or lets put it in perspective. A P-61 could cruise for 1 3/4 hours at a speed within a few mph of what a JU-88S-1 bomber could do for a few minutes without GM 1.

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Good to know, thanks for pointing that out.

For the P-61, the 'America's hundred thousand' gives 1000 mile range on just internal fuel (646 gals), 1400 miles with 2x165 US gals drop tanks and 1900 miles on 4x165 US gals drop tanks (available from late -B models; the earlier models could carry 2x310 US gals drop tanks instead of 2x165). All for 10000 ft altitude, zero wind and no fuel reserves. One could expect how much for the combat radius - 450 miles at 15000 ft? Can go from Kent to Ruhr, Berlin is out of question?

The effectiveness of a night fighter was more to do with the electronics it carried than its actual performance, thjat was the difference between the mosquito and Ju88.

Operation Steinbock showed how the relative marques performed when the roles were reversed.

It's hard not to admit the Mosquito made the best night fighter as an aircraft nor not to admit that it had the better radar.

It was so fast it could intercept any opponent and it was faster than any radar armed opponent. When microwave radar was added it had the a radar that was difficult to jam , worked low and did not impact speed excessively. It had excellent range.

(though the single stage supercharger variants struggled with the Me 410 unless Nitrous was used)

Arguably it might have been inferior to the Ju 88G in one area, the ability to carry 3 or even 4 crew members and the equipment to cope in an environment of heavy electronic counter measures using a wide range of sensors and navigation equipment measures yet the Mosquito carried some of these as well though not simultaneously.

Had the Ju 88 received the equivalent of the FuG 240 Berlin radar in early 1944 rather than 1945 I might be arguing differently. A lot more RAF bombers would have been intercepted.

1942 marks a watershed era for the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine. Karl Rottgerate of the Telefunken company cancelled development of a new generation of radars operating at around 25cm instead of 50cm that were in use. These were based around disk triodes such as the LD7 rather than a magnetron. Lorentz was 80% complete productionishing a radar operating at the same frequencies as well and cancelled further work when they perceived they would not get an order. Hence German radar development, due to a pressing need to produce existing types, cut itself of from advanced developments. They were not poised to jump to 9cm frequencies as the allies were but 27cm or so that would have sharpened their beams so much that jamming would have been much more difficult, in fact unlikely. halving wave length sharpens the beam by a factor of 2 and thus concentrates radio enrgy by 4 and deflects noise by a similar factor.

The new disk triodes were in fact capable of operating at 9cm/16kW easily competing with the 1st generation magnetrons though they were left behind as power levels went up. They were however highly competitive at around 25cm in power, a frequency known for its ability to penetrate moisture in the air and achieve long ranges.

Had they not made these decisions their ability to reproduce the British technology would have been greatly enhanced as much of the skilled technical work force was drafted into the Army (a common practice).

It's estimated that perhaps 100-200 microwave radars may have entered service. Rotterheim FLAK radars, FuMO 81 PPI radars for the German Navy and maybe a couple of costal batteries and some FuG 240 radars for Ju 88G6 night fighters were delivered.

The Luftwaffe probably had as good a night fighter as it was going to get with a microwave radar equipped Ju 88G7 (the G7 had the 2 stage supercharger). They had a improved versions and a 3cm version in development and the Ardo 234P would have made an excellent night fighter sometime in mid to late 1945.

Bombing wrecked much of their plans, a factory that made permanent magnets (Heraeous Vacuum) was destroyed and this forced the development of electrogmagnet based magentrons greatly delaying deployment.

tomo pauk said:

For the P-61, the 'America's hundred thousand' gives 1000 mile range on just internal fuel (646 gals), 1400 miles with 2x165 US gals drop tanks and 1900 miles on 4x165 US gals drop tanks (available from late -B models; the earlier models could carry 2x310 US gals drop tanks instead of 2x165). All for 10000 ft altitude, zero wind and no fuel reserves. One could expect how much for the combat radius - 450 miles at 15000 ft? Can go from Kent to Ruhr, Berlin is out of question?

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Rough thoughts:
Tomo - the Parasite drag of the P-61 was a little higher than the P-38, and in turn (IIRC) about 10% greater than a P-47D. The 646 gallons is roughly twice the internal fuel of the P-47D until the -25 ramped up to 360 gallons from 305 gallons. The R-2800's should have nearly the same burn rate as the P-47D but use ~2x fuel per mile.

I would first test the notion of cruise settings at 20,000 feet (clean) delivering about 15% gallons per hour less than a P-47, at 275mph. The P-47D hit about 3 miles per gallon clean at 300 mph at optimal settings. [So theoretically a P-47 could travel ~900 miles with 300 gallons. If 15% greater fuel consumption is nearly right due to increased drag]

If so, with no takeoff and climb,at 275mph 640 gallons/2 x (3mpg/1.15) = 834 miles, straight line burning 640 gallons in 3 hours at 213 gallons per hour at Cruise settings-Clean.

Absent flight test reports I would do the following to get a rough cut on:
0. MP fuel consumption at 2X Cruise = 426 gph, 106.5 gallons in 15 minutes
1. MP consumption for takeoff and 15 minutes to cruise altitude - dirty = 106 gallons from the wing tanks leaving 537 gallons external. Be conservative and travel zero distance during climb to 20,000 feet.
2. Cruise settings for remainer of outbound leg - dirty ----> 213gph for 537 gallons = 2.5 hours at.75(275mph) = 515 miles before punching tanks assuming all warm up, take off and climb was from the 4x160 gallon external tanks.

At 515 mile combat radius

640 gallons remain internal.
1. 15 minutes of combat = 206.5 gph x 2/4= 103 gallons burned before turning home. 640-103= 537 gallons remaining at mile marker 515.
2. Cruise 515 miles at 275mph = 1.87 hours. 1.87hours x 213 gph = 398 gallons.

Approximately 139 gallons or 139gallons/213 gallons per hour = 39 minutes of cruise consumption to find field, let down and land.


So, SWAG says 500+ mile combat radius with 4x160 gallons external tanks for the assumptions above. For west France airfield the P-61B can easily play around Berlin for say 30 minutes. For East Anglia - no.

Koopernic said:

The Luftwaffe probably had as good a night fighter as it was going to get with a microwave radar equipped Ju 88G7 (the G7 had the 2 stage supercharger). They had a improved versions and a 3cm version in development and the Ardo 234P would have made an excellent night fighter sometime in mid to late 1945.

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Was there any real point to the emphasis put on high altitude capabilities of LW night fighters? Aside from the high altitude USAAF night bombing threat that never materialized, there wasn't really any incentive for it. The standard BMW 801 rated altitudes fit well for RAF bomber heights, as did the DB 603A. (and Jumo 213A)