You are Josef Kammuber in 1941, how do you structure German night defenses?

stona said:

I can't agree with that!
The GL/EF and GL Mk II systems had already vastly improved the accuracy of British ack-ack by 1940. Steve

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I stand corrected and apologise unreservedly. Luis Brown in the otherwise comprehensive and technically detailed "Radar, Technical and Military Imperatives" barely mentions these radars at all.
Copies of These radars seem to have been the principal radars used by Both the Japanese and Russians.

Without wanting to seem grudging the accuracy of the GL Mk II of +/-0.5 degrees and 50 yards seems barely adequate, nevertheless good results were claimed, I suspect due to the fact that the Luftwaffe didn't have the numbers to saturate defences and that these radars likely achieved victims in combination with search lights and optical systems. The need for 13000sqm / 1.3Ha / 2.6 acres of chicken wire pegged to the surrounding ground to create a constant ground plane was obviously a massive inconvenience These radars operated at 80Mhz (3.75m) so had a very broad beam.

I would have to say that Wurzburg was a considerably better radar given its greater accuracy in both the small and large versions and much greater ease of deployment. Nevertheless I would have kept them in service as they would compel and enemy to drop 'windows' and bulk out the bombers capacities. The Luftwaffe was at the verge of successfully disrupting Britain's radar defences during the baby blitz but simply lacked the ability to carry enough in its small bombers eg Ju 88.

The 50cm AMES system, developed from Admiralty radar technology, could not doubt have been used in a conical scan AAA radar, say by 42, the British even had a 25ft dish but it was only used for Ground Control Intercept or assisting fighters over France.

stona said:

The GL Mk.II sets would be resurrected late in the war as part of the effort to counter the V-2 rocket threat. Some AMES Type 9 stations equipped with cathode ray height finding were installed in hollows on the east coast. They could spot the rockets on the early upward part of their trajectory, but estimation of the point of impact was poor. Some of the good old GL Mk II sets (nine of them) modified for high-looking were positioned along the coast to give information further along the trajectory. Up to January 1945 92% of V-2 launches were detected and a five and a half minute warning was being given to the filter room. It is a common misconception that these weapons without warning. The firing points were being pin-pointed within two hours to an accuracy 2kms by 5-10kms. The Germans really had to shoot and scoot to avoid retaliation. Not bad for a radar originally developed five years earlier.

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The long wavelength of 3.75m is about the order of magnitude of an aircraft or V2 missile and so this wavelength was suitable for detecting such targets so long as the broad beam didn't interfere with ground clutter, which it did, ie they weren't great at detecting low flying aircraft over ground.

The Germans Post Office in fact developed its own Omni directional radar operating at 15m, similar to Chain Home and GL Mk II, Called Russelheim. One of its purposes was to detect V2 impact points so as to provide a correction. The accuracy was not sufficient as you no doubt know. Systems for accurate confirmation of impact were under development. Steve[/QUOTE]

stona said:

It's also worth remembering that the British were not faced with large formations of enemy bombers after 1940/41 and understandably concentrated on developing GCI and airborne radar systems to work with their already developed command and control system to counter Luftwaffe 'nuisance' raids during the mid war (for us) years.
Cheers Steve

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This is the same answer given by Karl Runge, head of Telefunken till 1943 when he was sacked. When asked why he didn't develop a microwave radar he said that he was not faced with the need to find a submarine he had no need to, he added he had high regard for the tube development section and has no doubt they would have come up with something. Priorities determined where the German radar effort went. There was a German microwave programme, one targeting between 20-30cm (nominally 27cm) and Runge cancelled it due to issues of resources. There was another program at Lorentz said to be 80% complete in early 42. This is over the objection of General Martini who was in charge of German electronic warfare operations. Amazingly the loss of the German 6th Army at Stalingrad meant that the skilled workers were drafted into the services rather than deployed into radar research or manufacture.

Oral-History:Herman Schwan (1992) - Engineering and Technology History Wiki
Nebeker:

The Nazis didn't close the lab in order to move the radar experts to another location to work on it?

Schwan:

No, no. Curiously enough, they drafted most of the people into the army. They were released a few years later on. But, of course, once you stop work for some years its difficult to pick up where you left off. It takes time to reorganize everything.

As you can see the Germans thought their existing radars were adequate for the FLAK role and decided to improve those rather than embark on radically new technology which might be better but would require resources.

Noteworthy is the tendency to blame the Nazis when many of the decisions were made by non Nazis such as Runge. There were simply managerial or military decisions.

When the Luftwaffe replaced its Lichtenstein C radars on its fighters in favour of SN-2 the radars these Lichtenstein radars were transferred to the Navy where they were mounted on a rotating mast of S-boots (celled E-boats by the British) so the Germans really could cover a pretty broad range of requirements with their 50cm technology, including small 100 ton boats.

Let's get back to the original premise.

In January 1941 the night fighter force was in extremely bad shape. Effective strength had fallen to just over 50% for most units, but manpower was an even bigger issue. On 4th January ('41) the 16 night fighter Staffeln had on average only 3.7 crews ready for action. This situation must be remedied as a matter of urgency if an effective defensive night fighting system is to be developed. Shuffling the units around, as historically happened, doesn't even paper over the cracks.

Kannhuiber wanted to develop an offensive night fighting system. He is on the record saying 'If you want to render a wasp swarm harmless, it is better to destroy the nest along with the wasps than to wait until the swarm flies out and then chase every individual wasp."
Larger and better organised long range operations, like those carried out by I/NJG 2 could have been attempted. Unfortunately this never happened. There was never more than one Gruppe of long range night fighters and even that Gruppe was transferred from Kannhuber's command to Lufflotte 3. There was also a shortage of aircraft. I/NJG 2 NEVER had more than twenty aircraft in its establishment and often had numbers in single figures. This was a missed opportunity. I can't say that three or four Gruppen of long range night fighters, attacking Bomber Command's bases and aircraft landing and taking off would have made a decisive difference, but, like Kannhuber himself, I think that it would have been worth a go.

Cheers

Steve

stona said:

Let's get back to the original premise.

In January 1941 the night fighter force was in extremely bad shape. Effective strength had fallen to just over 50% for most units, but manpower was an even bigger issue. On 4th January ('41) the 16 night fighter Staffeln had on average only 3.7 crews ready for action. This situation must be remedied as a matter of urgency if an effective defensive night fighting system is to be developed. Shuffling the units around, as historically happened, doesn't even paper over the cracks.

Kannhuiber wanted to develop an offensive night fighting system. He is on the record saying 'If you want to render a wasp swarm harmless, it is better to destroy the nest along with the wasps than to wait until the swarm flies out and then chase every individual wasp."
Larger and better organised long range operations, like those carried out by I/NJG 2 could have been attempted. Unfortunately this never happened. There was never more than one Gruppe of long range night fighters and even that Gruppe was transferred from Kannhuber's command to Lufflotte 3. There was also a shortage of aircraft. I/NJG 2 NEVER had more than twenty aircraft in its establishment and often had numbers in single figures. This was a missed opportunity. I can't say that three or four Gruppen of long range night fighters, attacking Bomber Command's bases and aircraft landing and taking off would have made a decisive difference, but, like Kannhuber himself, I think that it would have been worth a go.

Cheers

Steve

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Are you trying to lure Erich back to the forum? Weren't these operations pretty costly historically though?

Number of heavy Flak in German service by month type, plus captured French AAA in German service:

Interesting Tomo. Thanks.

Any info on the distribution of these Flak guns?

That is how many in Berlin, Hamburg and other major German cities.

Sorry, I don't have that data available.
There is, however, a substantial volume pertaining the German Flak, by US Col. Westermann, available for download. It has some information about the deloyment of the Flak forces, but again it does not go into much of a detail there.

It's hard to say that Luftwaffe intruder operations were costly. All night fighter operations suffered attrition from accidents at a rate that would have stopped day time operations. The long range operations were crewed initially by the zerstorer crews of KG 30. These men preferred the Do 17, Ju 88 and Do 217 to the Bf 110. In 1941 men were drafted in from long range reconnaissance units, joined by former bomber and transport pilots, blind flying instructors, even ex Lufthansa pilots. These were often older and much more experienced pilots and crews than the men flying the Bf 110s who were usually ex zerstorer crews used to operating in daylight who had undergone conversion training. The accident rates of these more experienced men were correspondingly lower. The problem is that they were a limited resource and an expansion of the long range night fighter operations would have required the training of many more of them. Training a pilot to fly at night at all was a much longer process than turning out a day fighter pilot.
The operations were too limited to draw any conclusions about their effectiveness. Between October '40 and March '42 the British acknowledged 7 total losses and 20 badly damaged bombers as a result of Luftwaffe intruder operations. The British did suspend night flying training in the counties of East Anglia and also Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. What a concerted campaign might have achieved we'll never know.
Cheers
Steve

I dont have fantastic information, but according to Samuel Mitcham (Hitlers Legions - German Order of Battle) there were 22 Flak Divisions raised, or partially raised. Mitcham states that it is impossible to discuss their unit histories as he does for more regular formations, but he does give some information on broad deplyment areas neverthless.

(FD = Flak Division)

FD-1: Berlin
FD-2: Paris then transferred to the Nthn sector of the Russian Front early 1942. Severely mauled in the DAGC, retreated to Courland 1944-5.
FD-3: Hamburg
FD-4 Dusseldorf
FD-5:Frankfurt-Am Main. Transferred to Darmstadt in late 1942 and then into SE Europe late 1943. Final location unknown, might have been destroyed in Rumania
FD-6 (Mot): Western Europe then transferred to AGN early 1942. Retreated to Courland after suffering heavy losses
FD-7: Cologne
FD-8: Bremen
FD Paris. Trf to AGC 1942 then to Crimea 1943, destroyed in the Crimean pocket. Raised again, but final locations unknown. (Edit and correction: Wiki says the following about this formation: "t is reformed from May to August 1944 near Breslau. In September 1944, the 9th Flak-Division was attached to IV. Flakkorps. On September 2, the Flak-Division received the mission of defending Metz, while the Battle of Metz committed. Supporting the 1st German army, the division strengthened the Stab / Flak-Regiment 45 and Stab / Flak-Regiment 86 and many ersatz batteries were atached and used as ATG batteries. After the fall of Metz, part of the 9th flak continued fighting in the region Saarbrücken, Neunkirchen and Kaiserslautern. The 1st February 1945, FD-9 is known to have been fighting in the Wörsbach region and March 26, 1945 at Gemersheim. The div ended the war in the region of Bayern.
FD-10: (Mot): On being raised, was traf to Rumania and some detached elements to Bulgaria in 1941. AGS, 1942-late 1944, destroyed in Rumania. I dont think it was raised again.
FD-11 (Mot): Rennes/Paris/Nthn France. Trf to southern France late 1942. Not sure after that. But is not mentioned that i know of. Probably destroyed 1944
FD-12 (Mot): AGC from 1941, destroyed June 1944. not sure if it was raised again with new personnel
FD-13: Caen. As far as I know it was destroyed in 1944.
FD-14: Leipzig
FD-15: From formation, in Rumania. Crossed into AGS in 1942. Not mentioned again after 1943, probably destroyed in 1944.
FD-16: Known to have been deployed in Lille most of the war.
FD-17 (Mot): AGS from 1941, Not mentioned after 1944, probably destroyed
FD-18 (Mot): Central Sector southern Front. Suffered heavy losses in 1944. I think it might have survived at cadre strength after the Soviet '44 offensive
FD-19 (Mot): Served mostly in NA. Destroyted in Tunisia '43, reformed to cadre strength in Greece. Not sure of final positions.
FD-20 (Mot): NA, destroyed 1943, reformed in the Balkans to cadre strength, not sure of final deployments
FD-21 : Sthn Germany
Fd-22: Western Germany

Many of the formations based in Germany were forced to send replacement fillers to the front line formations as losses mounted, replacing them with poorly trained raw recruits. This was still insufficient, and throughout 1943 the LW raised and equipped many unnattached erstatz formations with untrained manpower to try and defend the Reich. These replacement formations were generally of low efficiency, and because they were essentially part timers, they obly improved proficiency at a very slow rate. None of the ersatz formations were equipped with radar fire control.


This PDF material might also be pretty useful though ive no way of fully checking it:

http://www.cgsc.edu/CARL/nafziger/939GXLE.PDF

stona said:

It's hard to say that Luftwaffe intruder operations were costly. All night fighter operations suffered attrition from accidents at a rate that would have stopped day time operations. The long range operations were crewed initially by the zerstorer crews of KG 30. These men preferred the Do 17, Ju 88 and Do 217 to the Bf 110. In 1941 men were drafted in from long range reconnaissance units, joined by former bomber and transport pilots, blind flying instructors, even ex Lufthansa pilots. These were often older and much more experienced pilots and crews than the men flying the Bf 110s who were usually ex zerstorer crews used to operating in daylight who had undergone conversion training. The accident rates of these more experienced men were correspondingly lower. The problem is that they were a limited resource and an expansion of the long range night fighter operations would have required the training of many more of them. Training a pilot to fly at night at all was a much longer process than turning out a day fighter pilot.
The operations were too limited to draw any conclusions about their effectiveness. Between October '40 and March '42 the British acknowledged 7 total losses and 20 badly damaged bombers as a result of Luftwaffe intruder operations. The British did suspend night flying training in the counties of East Anglia and also Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. What a concerted campaign might have achieved we'll never know.
Cheers
Steve

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I'm assuming the necessary units would likely come from Do217s night fighters and Ju88Cs, perhaps with more conversions made instead of other types? The Do217 wasn't especially good as a night fighter, but perhaps as an intruder would have done well? Sort of like a heavy Beaufighter?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornier_Do_217#Night_fighter_variants

wiking85 said:

I'm assuming the necessary units would likely come from Do217s night fighters and Ju88Cs, perhaps with more conversions made instead of other types? The Do217 wasn't especially good as a night fighter, but perhaps as an intruder would have done well? Sort of like a heavy Beaufighter?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornier_Do_217#Night_fighter_variants

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Yes.

Dornier tried various night fighter versions and Junkers developed the Ju 88 c series. There were never enough. Production of the Do 17 Z-10 was stopped in 1941 and only a handful of Do 215 B-5 were produced (the last still operational in 1944!). Production of the Ju 88 C was also cut back.

Kannhuber never had the aircraft or crews to mount a meaningful intruder offensive in 1941. The political will was never there to enable it.

Cheers

Steve

stona said:

Kannhuber never had the aircraft or crews to mount a meaningful intruder offensive in 1941. The political will was never there to enable it.

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My point is what loses resources as a result of an intruder offensive? I imagine it would be the already inadequate night fighter force that would lose its Ju88s and Do217s and maybe even Do215s to the intruder offensive with a higher attrition rate.
As it was though the Do217J wasn't available until 1942, so in 1941 they'd be only using Ju88s, which IIRC were only a handful of the night fighter force at the time. The question is whether the limited numbers available in 1941 would make a difference and then by 1942 whether only the Bf110s would be enough to defend against the RAF bombing campaign, while the longer range night fighters took to the offensive.

The Do 215 was also available in 1941, but never in numbers. IIRC literally a handful were delivered. There were less than 200 night fighters available in early 1941 and I've already mentioned that the average crew availability across all 16 Staffeln was only 3.7. Even if the aircraft were made available, where are the crews going to come from? It takes a long time to train night fighter pilots! It is a salient point that nearly all the night fighting 'Ritterkreuzer' joined the Nachjagd before 1942 and nearly all had extensive flying experience prior to that. Flying fighters at night, never mind fighting them, was a tricky business in the 1940s.
Offensive intruder operations were a better option for the non-specialised night fighters and converted zerstorer that the Luftwaffe was operating in 1940/41. It needed a specialised night fighter in 1940 but didn't get one until 1943, even then these were just versions of old war horses in the Ju 88 C-6 and Bf 110 G-4. Where were the He 219s or Ta 154s when they were needed? It's the story of the Luftwaffe's war....too little, too late.
Cheers
Steve

stona said:

The Do 215 was also available in 1941, but never in numbers. IIRC literally a handful were delivered. There were less than 200 night fighters available in early 1941 and I've already mentioned that the average crew availability across all 16 Staffeln was only 3.7. Even if the aircraft were made available, where are the crews going to come from? It takes a long time to train night fighter pilots! It is a salient point that nearly all the night fighting 'Ritterkreuzer' joined the Nachjagd before 1942 and nearly all had extensive flying experience prior to that. Flying fighters at night, never mind fighting them, was a tricky business in the 1940s.
Offensive intruder operations were a better option for the non-specialised night fighters and converted zerstorer that the Luftwaffe was operating in 1940/41. It needed a specialised night fighter in 1940 but didn't get one until 1943, even then these were just versions of old war horses in the Ju 88 C-6 and Bf 110 G-4. Where were the He 219s or Ta 154s when they were needed? It's the story of the Luftwaffe's war....too little, too late.
Cheers
Steve

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The Ta-154 was a mess and the He219 was no better than the Ju88G (plus endlessly delayed by the bombing and only initiated in early 1942). Frankly I would have just made all the Do217 night fighters into bombers and replace them with Ju88Cs, which were good enough.

Weren't the Fernnachtjäger though harder to train than the regular guys?

wiking85 said:

Weren't the Fernnachtjäger though harder to train than the regular guys?

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Than regular night fighter pilots? I'm not sure. They did need good navigators, but then generally had a crew of at least three. One of the reasons the initial intake was from long range reconnaissance, bomber and transport units as well as instructors from blind flying schools (a typical Luftwaffe short term fix) and Deutsche Lufthansa was precisely that.

Cheers

Steve

relevant to this and other threads - NARA fms report D031 by Gen W von Axthelm written 1947 . Mentions higher kills with far less ammo using contact fuses (this report was probably referred to in the very good book on flak by e Westermann) by day and night and a raid in april 1945

could put proximity fuses on the R4M rockets? that way all they had to do is get planes to alt, aim, and bug out..all at a semi safe distance. that would work both night and day

All you have to do is get the R4M rockets to fly anywhere near (like within 5 yds) of a bomber.

That is after you design a proximity fuse that will work in a 55mm warhead. Proximity fuses started in 5in shells, were soon adapted to 4 in shells and took a while to make to 3 in (75mm) shells where they pretty much stayed even for several years after the war. Both US Army and Navy developing rapid fire 3in guns to take advantage of the proximity fuse. Please note that the shells had a small block of explosive that was removable when the proximity fuse was used because of the greater size (length) of the proximity fuse compared to "normal" fuses.
The R4M rocket packed a fair explosive punch, however the body of the war head was only about 0.8mm thick which meant that fragmentation was was very low which means the miss distance would have to small in order to have much effect.
You could make a heavier warhead or use fragmentation sleeves around the warhead for greater fragmentation radius but that means slower acceleration and slower top speed which means a more curved trajectory (need to fire from a closer distance.)

When you are dealing with shells/rocket warheads the volume available is in proportion to the cube of the diameter.
A 68mm rocket warhead designed to the same proportions as the 55mm rocket warhead will have 1.89 times the volume. A 75mm shell/warhead designed to the same proportions as the 55mm warhead will have 2.53 times the volume.

you can make the warhead longer and you can build fatter warheads on the same rocket motor but then you are facing lowering the speed/performance/range of the rockets unless you build better, higher powered rocket motors.

Please note that it took the Russians till about 1955 to bring into service what was essentially a copy of the R4M rocket. 55mm rocket in 57mm tubes.

Would a proximity fuse have worked with guided and unguided anti-aircraft missiles such as the Wasserfall missile and the Rheintochter?

A proximity fuse is essential for a successful anti-aircraft missile at this point in time. Given the size of the missiles and the lower acceleration forces (and spin) it should have been easier by at least an order of magnitude, if not several, than making fuses for artillery shells.
Command detonation as a system is laughable.
As an indication the US Nike Ajax of the 50s used multiple warheads, nose,mid-body and aft. All with fragment sleeves consisting of 2 layers of 1/4 inch (6mm) hardened steel cubes to maximize the HE and proximity fuse.
Blast alone has Diminishing returns because if you double the distance from the explosion you get 1/4 the energy transmitted to the target. Air density at 20,000 ft is also going to affect the blast/shock wave compared to the same warhead going off at sea level.