Wilde Sau, when, where, why....what machines?

Crimea_River said:

As far as books go, highly recommend this two volume work by Lorant and Goyat:

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I looked on Amazon and will probably end up with these but I have rudder pedals on the way from Croatia and want to order a new Joystick (Virpil). Playing IL-2 on the Eastern front has cost me a ton in books. I am going to make a recommendation that 777 Studios develop a night fighter simulator out of the Battle of Stalingrad series.

Wilde Sau is a mark of desperation rather than a logical conclusion but as long as you're willing to accept the losses and its its showing good results then fair enough.

I would like to know or research issues such as weather limitations and whether the single seaters had any night equipment and what hours they flew. And how they navigated and lighting up an airfield at night is asking to be a target.

I know that in Scotland the summer nights can be quite bright and not truly dark so like flying tonight in good weather would actually work.

The German's (like the Allies) had IFF. They also had a number of homing devices. I don't have details but I am certain that the landing lights were only turned on when an A/C made contact via radio or RT and were on approach. The Germans would also oriented themselves based on searchlights, fires, etc. The causalities were high but the German's were desperate after the British started using Window. I will also point out that the German's also flew some intrusion mission over Britain and shot down some heavy bombers as they were landing. I don't think any of the Wilde Sau single seat aircraft had radar. But the night air war was extremely complicated technologically. Most of the technology was either developed or at least matured during the war. Not all of it worked. Monica (a tail warning device for AI radar) allowed the German's to develop a device that actually could home in on Monica. Freeman Dyson did calculations that suggested that Monica was either worthless or perhaps even harmful. It was only when a JU-88 night fighter with the device (Flensburg) accidentally landed in England that Monica was removed. The Wilde Sau were a desperate move (though it had been advocated earlier) when the German ground control radar system was disrupted. I think it is safe to say that the German's had better engineering but the British had the better physicists (at least the ones working on Radar). One thing (that was so simple) but never adopted by the German's was the PPI plot.

Someone has already listed two books on the Wilde Sau but I don't have them. The other problem faced by the German Night Fighter was that the ME-110 when equipped with radar etc was only about (this is from memory) only about 20 mph faster than a Lancaster. While the Wilde Sau were effective for a short period, the night air war was technically complicated. A great book to start with is by Alan Price (Instruments of Darkness) or Professor Jones' account (Most Secret War).

Blind landing approaches were developed in the 1930's but I don't think any of the single seat planes would have had that capability. But there were many days and nights were there were no large bombing raids because of weather conditions. For example, on 12/13 November 1943, the RAF sent only 7 planes (all Mosquitoes) to attack targets in Europe (source: The Bomber Command Ward Diaries but Martin Middlebrook and Chris Everitt).

I just found another book on my shelf. I have only read parts of it. History of the German Night Fighter Force 1917-1945 by Gebhard Aders. He has a chapter on Free Night Fighting: July 1943 -- May 1944. If anyone is interested then I will read that chapter and offer a summary. Someone, maybe Tizard, is reported to have said that WW1 was a war between Chemist but WW2 was a war between Physicists.

Related question: why didn't the British use Mosquitos to escort the bombers? Were there not enough of them to provide an effective escort?

The British Bombers did not fly in a formation the way the U.S. did during the day. The flew in a Bomber stream, kind of like a river of aircraft, and they really couldn't see each other under most conditions. So instead of close escorts, the Mosquitoes flew as independent intruders. Another problem, was that the more advanced the A/C airborne reception radar then the less likely that it was allowed to be used over areas where it could possibly be examined if the aircraft was shot down. The causality rate for the RAF Bomber Command was exceeded (based on all of the statistics I have read) only by the German U-Boat force. Only about 3 out of 10 RAF crewmen shot down survived compared to something like 6 or 7 for the Americans. WW2 night bombing started out with the British barely able to drop bombs within 5 or 10 miles of the target. It ended with some fairly accurate bombing. The Bomber Stream (this is in the ultimate mode) started with Mosquitoes guided by Oboe dropping incendiary bombs and flares (with a variety of colour codes), then heavy Pathfinder dropped even bigger loads of incendiaries and probably some high explosives to just stir things ups, followed by a stream of bombers dropping both HE and incendiaries. But the Night Air War went from not being able to find anything (at least most of the time) to electronic warfare that was relatively sophisticated.

OldParts said:

I think Sau is used for both Sow and Swine (regardless of sex). It is evidently also slang for a perfidious person (pervert, etc.).

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You are right, i'm german and
Sau is the term for the female pig and also a term for pigs in general. It can mean a person living in a mess or creating a mess or even a pervert, a person making a dirty joke etc.

So "wilde Sau" means just wild pig
And "Wildsau" or "Wildschwein" both in one word actually mean boar

Thanks, I had meant to email my friend. One problems is I don't know how much of their German is just German or Swiss/German (I may have the wrong term). Very similar but also different?

My Dad was born in Bavaria and I recall him calling my sister "wildsau" as a term of endearment when we were kids. It was taken to mean rambunctious.

Interesting!

OldParts said:

Alan Price (Instruments of Darkness)

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Alfred Price, right?
Alan Price has other instruments.

This came up when I type in "Instruments of Darkness". Gotta try a different search engine.

Should have replaced all Wilde-Sau aircraft with F6F's. War would have been over in a week. And the Soviets would have given up soon thereafter. No Coldwar.

Chris, you gonna hafta 'splain that one to me anyway. F6F?? US Navy/Marine Hellcats???

mikewint said:

Chris, you gonna hafta 'splain that one to me anyway. F6F?? US Navy/Marine Hellcats???

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I'm being sarcastic...

OK, went completely over my pointed little head. Thank you Sir

I have only read parts of it. History of the German Night Fighter Force 1917-1945 by Gebhard Aders

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I'm reading this now, great book on technical, operations and political,logistical side, rather than pilot stories. In the reading the WildSau Fw190A/G and Bf109G fighters were very effective for a while but they suffered high accident and wear rate, they had some Fw190 fitted with Neptune 217 AI radar, but the pilots would lose their night adapted vision from watching the bright CRT radar display when it became time for them to aim!

The WildeSau single seaters were brought in after some very successful unintercepted British bomber raids in 1943, due to the use of windows and other jamming spoofs, and Goering was not impressed with the decreasing effectiveness of the radar equipped twin engine night fighters in 1943 and the N.Fighters leader always asking for more and more resources from him!

taly01 said:

The WildeSau single seaters were brought in after some very successful unintercepted British bomber raids in 1943, due to the use of windows and other jamming spoofs, and Goering was not impressed with the decreasing effectiveness of the radar equipped twin engine night fighters in 1943 and the N.Fighters leader always asking for more and more resources from him!

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Yes, I pulled my copy out and read the chapter on WildeSau and have been meaning to write a synthesis to post. The German technology and engineering were excellent in some areas but the British had some clever scientists. I have not read about the Neptune AI radar or if I have then I have forgotten it. Several years ago I purchased A Radar History of World War II: Technical and Military Imperatives by Louis Brown but have only read the introductory chapters. My brother has an undergraduate degree in chemistry and MS in Medical Physics but my background in physics is pretty limited (mainly self taught). In any case, I found the description of how the Germans used intersecting search light beams and even lights pointing between two geographical locations as guides for the WildeSau interesting. I mentioned two books in an earlier post on "confounding the Reich" which provide details of the electronic countermeasures (and non-electronic interference such as women fluent in German providing misleading instructions to German night fighters) used by the British very interesting. There is book called Clashes: Air Combat over North Vietnam, 1965–1972 which details how ECM devices were used which helps in understanding electronic warfare. The equipment has certainly changed over the last 70 years but I think most of the basics principles still apply. Of course, stealth aircraft and methods of detecting aircraft in the dark have improved.

I also remember reading (somewhere) about a German night fighter pilot who was transferred from the Eastern front to the West. After learning about (I believe) Flensberg to track Monica and radar guidance etc., the pilot commented about how much easier it was to shoot down aircraft at night in the West compared to the East. He basically said that in the East one just had to fly around and spot the Soviet aircraft with one's eyes. For anyone interested, I just found this report when looking up Flensberg (I am a terrible speller) on a captured JU-88 night fighter which help the British confound the Germans during the last year of the war. The Germans had bad luck with aircraft landing in Great Britain by mistake (or in one case desertion).
http://www.ww2.dk/misc/captured.pdf