The scarcity of fighter to fighter FW-190A pilot combat accounts...

[wrathofatlantis]

Something really odd just occurred to me.

In all my years of researching for this board game variant [ Advanced Air Force | Air Force ], I cannot recall a single example of a FW-190A pilot narrating a combat with an Allied fighter, certainly not with a Western Front fighter, except for one where the pilot chose to remain anonymous (thereby lies the problem I think).

In that one instance, he described exclusively turn fighting P-51Ds at reduced power, flaps down (gaining easily, pushing on the stick and deflecting the ailerons to hold the wing up, in low speed right turns down on the deck), and facing into each pass when they refused to turn.

Another 190A-8 pilot corrected a painting of his aircraft wings level, and said that by 1945 they turned all the time. "It was the only way to survive."

I have read quite a few encounters against bombers from Anton pilots (numerous accounts of this in Osprey books and others), but actual detailed FW-190A combat with single engine fighters is astonishingly rare.

I then realised that even Me-109G accounts are also fairly rare (but not as bad), and the majority of those I have read came from the Finnish(!), aside a few rare specific kills narrated by Hartmann, Rall, Marseille and a few others (including the one blowing his G14AS engine diving on a mosquito).

Does anyone have detailed fighter to fighter combat accounts from the FW-190A perspective, with the actual 190A pilot describing a specific encounter, not just generalities about this?

And by this I do not mean a newbie getting shot down on his first flight: I mean a flight with a precisely described kill...

Am I wrong in thinking this is rare?

 

[wrathofatlantis]

Apparently NOT!

 

[Snautzer01]

Must be a book over this somewhere.

 

[MIflyer]

Well, one book comes to mind. I can't find it right now but its title is something like "FW-190 in Combat." A relatively inexperienced FW-190 pilot based in France around the time of Overlord describes his experiences. His unit bounced some P-47's that were doing ground attack but the Thunderbolts got on the horn and very shortly a bunch of P-38's showed up. Things went rapidly downhill from there, and he described how the P-38's seemed almost casual as they came overhead, broke up into pairs, and began picking off the 190's one by one. He was shot down and crashed but managed to hitchhike back to his airfield, where he was told that the location was too hot and they were pulling out, so go climb in a truck. After seeing what the P-47's were doing to the ground transport he said he would rather fly and asked about the lone FW-190 on the field. He was told they were abandoning it since it had engine problems and he said he would take it anyway. The engine overheated and he crashed; rough day, huh?

But perhaps the comments of an experienced F6F pilot who flew an FW-190 explains the lack of FW-190 dogfight reports. His conclusion was "It is not a dogfighter. It is designed for hit and run attacks." The 8th AF did a mock combat between a captured FW-190 and a P-47 and the Thunderbolt outmaneuvered the 190. Likely, an FW-190 pilot who tried a lot of dogfighting did not survive very long.

Gen Adolph Galland described going up with another general officer to investigate the absurd rumors of new USAAF fighter planes penetrating deep into Germany. They met a flight of P-51's; the other general was shot down and Galland got away only by firing straight ahead to make the Mustang pilots think all the debris coming out of his guns were someone shooting at them. I think Galland probably knew a thing or twelve about dogfighting, but did he try to outmaneuver the Mustangs even though he had never met one before? No!

 

[wrathofatlantis]

Well, one book comes to mind. I can't find it right now but its title is something like "FW-190 in Combat." A relatively inexperienced FW-190 pilot based in France around the time of Overlord describes his experiences. His unit bounced some P-47's that were doing ground attack but the Thunderbolts got on the horn and very shortly a bunch of P-38's showed up. Things went rapidly downhill from there, and he described how the P-38's seemed almost casual as they came overhead, broke up into pairs, and began picking off the 190's one by one. He was shot down and crashed but managed to hitchhike back to his airfield, where he was told that the location was too hot and they were pulling out, so go climb in a truck. After seeing what the P-47's were doing to the ground transport he said he would rather fly and asked about the lone FW-190 on the field. He was told they were abandoning it since it had engine problems and he said he would take it anyway. The engine overheated and he crashed; rough day, huh?

But perhaps the comments of an experienced F6F pilot who flew an FW-190 explains the lack of FW-190 dogfight reports. His conclusion was "It is not a dogfighter. It is designed for hit and run attacks." The 8th AF did a mock combat between a captured FW-190 and a P-47 and the Thunderbolt outmaneuvered the 190. Likely, an FW-190 pilot who tried a lot of dogfighting did not survive very long.

Gen Adolph Galland described going up with another general officer to investigate the absurd rumors of new USAAF fighter planes penetrating deep into Germany. They met a flight of P-51's; the other general was shot down and Galland got away only by firing straight ahead to make the Mustang pilots think all the debris coming out of his guns were someone shooting at them. I think Galland probably knew a thing or twelve about dogfighting, but did he try to outmaneuver the Mustangs even though he had never met one before? No!

View attachment 802730

Thank you very much for the effort. I really appreciate it, and will try to look up this book, but that is still not a lot for an aircraft that has multiple 200 kills aces, and I think holds the record for the most kills in one day by one airframe (at around 17 or so)...

As to the opinion of the Hellcat pilot, I rather go with the top Spitfire ace (36), and top Western FW-190A killer (at 20), Johnny Johnson, in a 1946 article: "I asked the Spitfire for all she had in the turn, but in another couple of turns he would have me in his sights."

If we had more first hand accounts of Luftwaffe FW-190A pilots, we would probably hear more about having to push on the stick to make really tight turns below 220 knots... So far only Eric Brown has gone into enough detail to mention this.

 

[GrauGeist]

Look for the book "Fighters Of The Iron Cross" by Jerry Crandall.

In it, are quite a few interviews with Fw190 Experten that he, and his wife Judy, interviewed over the years.

 

[MIflyer]

So far only Eric Brown has gone into enough detail to mention this.

Eric Brown mentioned that one time he was in a combat in a Spit IX (I think) with an FW-190 near the Effifel Tower. He said that they both broke off combat simultaneously, both obviously concluding that the guy they were fighting was as good as themselves and the outcome was in doubt.

 

[Snautzer01]

Apparently NOT!

So next time a being a tad more patiënt, i think, will do.

 

[Snautzer01]

and I think holds the record for the most kills in one day by one airframe (at around 17 or so)...

You have got some reading to do. All is not what it seems to be.

Post #6 is a good start.

Read Erich Hartmann and his victories and overclaims over Hungary

 

[MIflyer]

The book I was thinking of is "Focke Wulf FW-190 In Combat" by Alfred Price from Sutton Publishing. Lowest price I see on ebay is $7.39, shipping included.

 

[Andrew Arthy]

A few cheap book recommendations:

- Donald Caldwell, JG 26 Top Guns of the Luftwaffe [numerous first-hand accounts of fighter-versus-fighter combat on the Channel and Western Fronts]
- Donald Caldwell, The JG 26 War Diary Volume One
- Donald Caldwell, The JG 26 War Diary Volume Two
- Patrick G. Eriksson, Alarmstart: The German Fighter Pilot's Experience in the Second World War [dozens of first-hand accounts up to June 1944]
- Patrick G. Eriksson, Alarmstart South and Final Defeat [dozens of first-hand accounts covering the Mediterranean, North Africa, and the Western Front up to the end of the war]
- Gunther Bloemertz, Heaven Next Stop [memoirs of a Jagdgeschwader 26 pilot]
- Neil Page, Luftwaffe Fighters: Combat on All Fronts Volume 1 [numerous first-hand accounts]
- Neil Page, Luftwaffe Fighters: Combat on All Fronts Volume 2 [numerous first-hand accounts]
- Wolfgang Fischer, Luftwaffe Fighter Pilot [Bf 109 accounts only, memoirs of a Jagdgeschwader 2 pilot]
- Peter Henn, The Last Battle [Bf 109 accounts only, memoirs of a II./Jagdgeschwader 51 pilot]
- Heinz Knoke, I Flew for the Führer [Bf 109 accounts only, memoirs of a Jagdgeschwader 1 pilot]

The Alfred Price book mentioned above is also highly recommended as a good starting point.

And if you have a bigger budget, there are dozens more books in English including the kinds of accounts you are seeking.

Cheers,
Andrew A.

 

[Clayton Magnet]

I read a book many years ago, written by an Fw190 pilot, called "I fought you from the skies". I remember liking it, and its descriptions of combat in a Focke Wulf.

 

[wrathofatlantis]

Thanks for the book suggestions.

My question was more about seeing a specific and detailed FW-190A fighter to fighter combat description, as did Mlflyer with "Focke Wulf FW-190 In Combat".

For instance, a brief 1 line summary with a page number.

I have read much of the Donald Caldwell stuff, and, as far as I know, there is no detailed accounts of fighter vs fighter encounters from a FW-190 pilot perspective. At best it goes, "I got on his tail and he caught fire." Much of the Osprey content is similar (there are exceptions, particularly their Japanese stuff).

It could even be general first hand opinions. I have bought many books, including pilot biographies, and they do not always contain these details in any great amount, so I would like to see examples of quotes.

 

[Barrett]

Sidebar:
One of the Luftwaffe veterans I knew tolerably well was Oskar Boesch of JG 3. He immigrated to Canada and became known for his elegant sailplane aerobatics at Northwest airshows.
I quote him a couple of times:
"You are 20 years old and you think you are rough and tough. You can fly all day and please the girls at night. Then when the sun comes up you climb into your 190 and turn the oxygen to 100 percent for the hangover. And when you pull up your wheels to engage 1,000 viermots YOU ARE INSTANTLY SOBER."

 

[elbmc1969]

Something really odd just occurred to me.

In all my years of researching for this board game variant [ Advanced Air Force | Air Force ], I cannot recall a single example of a FW-190A pilot narrating a combat with an Allied fighter, certainly not with a Western Front fighter, except for one where the pilot chose to remain anonymous (thereby lies the problem I think).

Air Force's flight model just has too many fundamental problems for me to enjoy it any more. Craig Taylor did some brilliant work in his many game designs, but he really didn't understand aerodynamics and wasn't particularly interested. The result was a game where a lot of the maneuvers are "in the perspective of the gun camera," but magically compressed onto the board. So because and aircraft that starts a diving turn barely moves from the perspective of the gun camera, Taylor treats it as maybe moving one hex forward. When the aircraft then is pulling rapidly perpendicular to the path of the pursuing aircraft, the motion of the pursuer makes the aircraft appear to whip around suddenly. Apologies for not remembering all of the details after decades, but I believe the aircraft can then turn 120 degrees in the hex and move along the "fishhook" path.

The state of the art has evolved in the many many years since Air Force/Dauntless.

 

[wrathofatlantis]

Air Force's flight model just has too many fundamental problems for me to enjoy it any more. Craig Taylor did some brilliant work in his many game designs, but he really didn't understand aerodynamics and wasn't particularly interested. The result was a game where a lot of the maneuvers are "in the perspective of the gun camera," but magically compressed onto the board. So because and aircraft that starts a diving turn barely moves from the perspective of the gun camera, Taylor treats it as maybe moving one hex forward. When the aircraft then is pulling rapidly perpendicular to the path of the pursuing aircraft, the motion of the pursuer makes the aircraft appear to whip around suddenly. Apologies for not remembering all of the details after decades, but I believe the aircraft can then turn 120 degrees in the hex and move along the "fishhook" path.

The state of the art has evolved in the many many years since Air Force/Dauntless.

The game as it was originally written (but not the actual mechanics of the turns), was absolutely horrible.

My Advanced Air Force variant re-writes everything, but maintains some of the sounder turn mechanics.

Even as it was in the original design of 1976, and then in 1981, it was among the few board games (I am aware of) to make the proper extreme distinction between sustained turns (Turn, -1) and unsustained turns (Slip/Turn/Turn, -4).

The 120 degree turns within 10 seconds is actually in scale, provided you allow only one of these per Game-Turn, which is one thing I added to the rules. In the original game you could keep them going twice per game turn if you dived. Most aircrafts in my variant can only add 1 Turn for 180 degrees in 10 seconds, with speed loss, which is roughly correct.

One of the ways I did this is by neutering the dive acceleration, which was way, way overboard in the original game... Now tight turning aircrafts cannot gain in dives that much, and those that can gain in dives a fair amount cannot turn that tightly.

That being said, the loss of speed in a 180 should still be more extreme, and 4 Power Factor aircraft types should never be allowed because of the above... And Taylor did have a few (absurd) 4 power types in there...

Other games I've seen tried to define turning according the available bank angle, which is based on some dumb US Navy chart, and is exactly the wrong way to do it.

Another fundamental change I made to the rules is that "happenstance" shooting (ie flying with your eyes closed 10 seconds at a time, then shooting), is largely eliminated by the requirement of a second consecutive advantage, and the inclusion of far more severe restrictions on deflection or inverted shooring. (In real life, it took a special pilot to hit beyond 15 degrees off)

But the biggest change I made is to give only at Maneuver Speed (ie low speeds) the full effect of the guns: At any speed above Maneuver Speed, the gun power is cut by half or even 2/3rds. This encourages staying in the Maneuver Speed, which is exactly what pilots were FINALLY doing by the later stages of the War, when all the pre-war nonsense about speed and "Hit and Run" finally washed out into its proper (very limited) role of attacking straight flying targets. (That is why habitual hit and runners like Hartmann had to fire at point-blank range, and were shot down many times by debris... Weak gun power was the inevitable ransom of hit and run (and hit and run also depended a lot on bad radios in the opponent!).

If you had to picture a broad overall portrait of how the Allies won the air war, it was by cutting the throttle and turning constantly (P-51 pilots even inquiring as to their wingman's flap status during their endless turn fights, some going on for 90-100 consecutive circles!), while the Germans and Japanese Navy stuck obsessively with speed and hit and run (FW-190As excepted, as it was so obviously a turn fighter), the Me-109 pilots finally letting go of speed and the vertical in the West around the fall of 1944 (to the point century Eastern Front aces would get killed on their very first Western Front missions, while Western Front newbies pleaded over the radio for them to please turn!! ie Weber, 136 kills).

Advanced Air Force remains flawed in that rolling out of an engaged low-speed turns is still not quite the fatal mistake it was in real life. (The rolls are now slower at low speeds in many types, but still not slow enough.) As a result you get some "jet age" scissor action that was in reality rare to non-existent in WWII. But scissor action is fun, in the game at least...

General knowledge of all this is so poor I can only imagine what other games are like... As to the computer simulators, the instant destruction of pin-prick targets at odd angles would make any experienced WWII veteran laugh. It is so absurd and uncommented on I can only roll my eyes. You would never think this is the destruction of house-sized objects with something the size of your thumb, with a 1% hit rate... Not to mention that, with greater speed, you get curvier trajectories that don't match at all your aiming point on the ground...

 

[GrauGeist]

endless turn fights, some going on for 90-100 consecutive circles

At what altitude are these "endless circles" commensing at?

Several consecutive hard banks will seriously bleed off airspeed as well as altitude.

Flaps extended several degrees will tighten a bank, but with a speed and lift penalty and cannot be sustained for a length of time.

 

[thrila]

Alert in the West by Willi Heilmann has FW 190 combat from a Luftwaffe pilot's perspective. From memory it begins in 1944 from around D-day and he later switches to flying 190Ds.

 

[Greg Boeser]

Fighting Wings 3rd Edition uses 4 second turns and a 12 point compass. A single facing change is 30 degrees and each facing change incurs drag decel. The turn circle is determined by airspeed and g-load. The higher the g-load at a given speed the more facings allowed. Decel increases with g-load.
It does not take long for a turning fight to devolve into two planes going around just above stall speed barely pulling any gees.

 

[wrathofatlantis]

At what altitude are these "endless circles" commensing at?

Several consecutive hard banks will seriously bleed off airspeed as well as altitude.

Flaps extended several degrees will tighten a bank, but with a speed and lift penalty and cannot be sustained for a length of time.

Most of those were near the deck and in really flat circles by the time you hear of high circle numbers, but some high numbers were from descending spirals, although with these you usually don't hear of a number of circles but of how much altitude is lost. Yet it is similar since faster circles are wider, so in reality the issue with spirals was being below your opponent, which was bad, and was why the circles were often kept as flat as possible.

P-51s are known to have gone around with 10 degrees or 20 degrees of flaps for at least 10 circles on the deck, so I doubt flaps were a limiting factor.

The concern about "bleeding speed" is amusing because it is treated as if it is something bad... If you read WWII combat accounts, you will see they never really used full power in turns (except some oddballs like the Yaks -and probably the Spitfire, devoid as it was of partial flaps, and having a wider faster radius-. The Yaks did not like turning below 200 mph due to their heavily swept leading edges being devoid of slats: Laggs and Las had less swept leading edges, and had leading edge slats, a huge difference in combat behaviour). Most of the savvy pilots (outside those exceptions) cut the throttle as they did multiple circles, because they had partial flaps that allowed less speed, which in turn got the smaller radius...

Why was it so important to be slower? Because the lower speed got you the smaller radius, which allowed a steady aiming lead without raising the nose, so the smaller radius was EVERYTHING... The Spitfire was one of the rare ones that could raise the nose and aim with the wings rumbling at smaller circles, hence the legend of it turning well by shooting (badly) at smaller circles... It had a 1025 (mk I)-1050 foot minimum radius to most other type's 800-950...

Concerns about bleeding speed in turns are mostly reconstructions from the jet age, I speculate because jets do not benefit from airflow compression between prop and wing, which happens when the prop is heavily loaded for steady periods, and for curves this happens in turns only (steady climbs are generally not curves). This is why the SAAB J 21 was a dog in turns despite a wing area neartly equal to a Ta-152H (22 sq m) and the same engine as a Me-109G with 17 sq m. With power reduced, the Me-109G would likely fly rings around the SAAB...

With "prop/wing compression" turns are surprisingly tolerant of speed loss and low speeds. (I duplicated this in the game by allowing no speed loss or Power Factors if only turns are used in Maneuver Speed: Infinite turning at low speeds, one of the keys of the re-vamp.)

Karhila said the optimal combat turning speed for a Me-109G-6 with gondolas was 160 mph on the deck, so barely 55 mph above stall. One P-47D Razorback pilot claims multiple circles turning at 150 mph on the deck in left turns, despite a very mushy initial turn. In most types no pilot will use full power in multiple low speed circles, as the lower power favoured what I think is the upward airflow bifurcation that increased the prop/wing compression in turns (this created longitudinal tension between wing and prop, which would amount to cancelling some momentum, explaining why the FW-190A pilot had to push on the stick below 220 knots). This is why they kept the throttle down if they knew enough to lower it, which some (but far from all) pilots did.

In a test the Swedes did, they found the Lagg-3 had nearly the same turn time at cruise power than it did at full power: 23 to 24 seconds. This small difference is from the huge reduction in radius at cruise compared to full power.

I actually think the benefits of reduced power went slightly beyond that Swedish test: Karhila said that with reduced power his turn time was "equal" to those using full power, and his radius was then much smaller of course. But he also said that during turns (he faced mostly La-5s), "If the enemy downthrottled in the turn, I downthrottled even more.", which shows the dynamic of a prop turning contest was in reality a contest of slowness.

Which matches an old pilot "proverb" of this prop period: "Dogfighting is a race where the slowest wins."

Among other things, trapping a target (since it could not roll out) into a contest of slowness meant you had a steady target distance at similar speeds. And you often needed that given the weakness of guns at an average 1% hit rate.