Night Fighters

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#1

Henk- I never met Reh but did meet the Wilde Sau commander Hajo Hermann and another night fighter pilot Jacob Jabs. Great stories! Both were really characters in their younger days.

No problem changing the topic as I’m done defending every small piece of research and information I’ve ever gatherered and received from the likes of men like Hermann, Galland or whomever, who were actually there. I am done looking up passages and stats in one of my over 600 books and wartime documents on WW 2. I’m sick of hearing a comment when mentioning the Me 262 like, “oh, you know the early Jumo engines were no good,” as if to always cast aspersions on non-Allied technological innovation.

Henk on the topic of Wilde Sau- what is your impression of the Uhu?

#2

Now that was a great night fighter and on the first night it fought it shot down 8 Lancasters and was also verry fast and allso was verry streamlined. The only problem is that they was too late and to few and did not see a lot of action. I love the UHU and would just love to see one in person.

Adolf Galland once shot down a South African fighter pilot who fought for the RAF and he got burned verry badly and everyone thought he was dead but he was found and thus survived. After the war Adolf Galland traced everyone he shot sown and thus found the South African and they became great friends but when the South African died Adolf Galland said he lost a great friend and that it was hard for him. Did you know about it?

What kind of job do you do?

Henk

#3

Was the Me262 ever used as a night fighter? There was a night fighter prototype, with two seats, but it is debatable as to whether they ever saw combat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_262

#4

While I dont doubt you knowledge Twitch and never have, I do think differently to you regarding German weapons.

I believe that they went in too many directions, I’m not even saying the Allies didnt, but for Germany it just hastened the end.

Why build the A-4 when they could have used the resources to build more fighters, or bombers or tanks? We can all wonder at the technology used in them and have all benefitted from a lot of that technology, but in the end it did nothing for the Germans. The A4 did not shorten the war by 1 second and probably killed more slave labourers than allies.

As for other things like the Me-262. I dont discount them either, but we have already had discussions about how flimsy their engines were compared to allied Jets.

And finally there is the Supertanks like the JagdTiger, they were a tremendous investment for a negative return.

In sum, I dont discount all German inventions in ww2, I do discount their need for the German war effort at that time. All of this of course brought about by the system the Nazis used throughout the war.

In my opinion there is always too much talk about Nazi wonderweapons and not enough about good old Allied logistics, if the Nazis had made a standardised super truck they may have had a better chance.

#5

I do not know if the Me-262 night fighter ever saw combat but I did see a original at the Military Museum in Johannesburg South Africa. They got it after the war and it’s information siad it did saw combat in 1944 and had all it’s armament still in it and had the Lichtenstein night radar installed. It is one of the verry few night fighters still left in the world and there was a offer to buy the aircraft from the museum but they did not want to sell it.

Yes, the Nazis did waste a lot of cash on the rong stuff like most people think, but it did pave the way to the future of aircraft and rockets. The Me-262 did have problems with it’s engines but you must take in cosideration that they did not have the material to make a reliable engine like the Allies. The Horten 229 flying wing allso provide very good info to the designers of the B-2 bomber. They did waste a lot of time but in the end they helped the designers of past war technolagy.

The Allies had everything at their desposel and thus could do what they wanted with it. The Germans made great stuff wich the Allies did not even think of and the Germans took a gap wich no one els saw to be a great idea. Well the fact is that the misstakes of the Nazis later became sucsess after the war.

The Nazis made great things but they did not have man power nor did they have the right material to make evertything work propperly, so always remember that the things they did do was great for its time.

The tanks was in their own way great like the Tiger 1 and King Tiger and the Panther, but did have problems.

Too much, too late.

Nice pic Firefly. What happend to the P-51?

Henk

#6

Henk- yeah some 2-seat Me 262Bs made it into service with the Wilde Sau unit. One in a museum is rare indeed. No wonder they want to keep it. While the radar array drag lowered speed by 37MPH it was made up for with the Shräge Musik arrangement of 2 Mk 108 aft of the cockpit. A B-2a was fitted with centimetric radar that did away with the external antenna that would have given back 30MPH but war ended before tested.

As for the He 219 I only have input from one pilot who said it had sort of a high landing speed and was a bit touchy in that respect but the 2- 20mm MK 151s, 2-30mm Mk 108 and 2- 30mm Mk 103s made up for it. He only scored 2 kills in the end of the war but said with the firepower of the Uhu all he did was jab the triggers, not hold them down as the weapons fired a couple rounds each. That was more than enough to bring down a Lancaster.

#7

Through constant experimentation and a huge expenditure of resources, the Germans developed something that could throw a relatively small amount of explosives a moderate distance at a fairly high cost in material. It didn’t actually succeed in doing anything of value however - a significant number of civillians were killed, as well as some service personnell on leave. The biggest effect it had on the war was diverting allied bombers to hit places like Peenemunde and the launch sites instead of other targets. When your biggest contribution is acting as a target, you have to question exactly what the hell you’re trying to do.
As for “primary building blocks on which the entire world’s aerospace industry was born”, you’re really barking up the wrong tree here. Had you tried to argue that the V-2 was a critical link in the space exploration chain you might have had a chance, but to argue that it was the base of the aero industry as well (and aerospace specifically relates to anything that flies) is a joke. Even if you argue that it was critical to the space race you’re ignoring historical facts like the work of Goddard in the US before the war, and the subsequent work of the likes of Korolev (?sp) in the USSR. My personal view of the V-2 is that it’s biggest impact on the space race was in publicity terms - it got people thinking about rockets as a reality, not a theory. The engineering involved is conceptually not that hard - the V-2 is about as simple as liquid fuelled rockets get, while the later ones met massively greater problems.

True to an extent - it would be very difficult even today to make a good, reliable engine with reasonable performance using the tooling and materials available at the time to the Germans. The problem is that when the Russians tried to copy and develop the German jets after the war with effectively unlimited access to raw materials they found that the engines were inherently a dead end. They proved incapable of reaching anything like the reliability of Allied wartime engines (the peacetime engines were an order of magnitude more reliable), and the Russians completely failed to manage to get more power out of them. Evolutionarily they were a dead end - the concept of axial flow was good, but required a whole lot of design knowledge and technology that simply didn’t exist to make it work safely and efficiently. This was exactly where Whittle showed himself to be a genius and A.A. Griffifth merely very clever indeed - Whittle recognised that axial flow jets couldn’t be built in time for the end of the war and worked on what could be, while Griffifth kept concentrating on the ideal engine.

#8

By the way, Henk, the Uhu shot down five Lancaster is on its first sortie, not eight.

http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/aero/aircraft/heinkel_219.htmhttp://www.airpages.ru/cgi-bin/epg.pl?nav=lw50&page=he219http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinkel_He_219

#9

Ok, I’m confused, isn’t there a bit of an anomaly here ?

#10

Firstly I would like to appolagise it was 5 Lancasters and not 8.

Cuts I never wrote that the Me-262 was a great night fighter because I did not know if it ever have combat status. So do not Quote stuff I never said.

I would like to appolagise again for my misstake.

Henk

#11

My apologies are in order HG, I thought that you meant the Me 262 as that a/c was mentioned in the posts immediately prior to and following the one I quoted.
After reading your last I believe you meant the He219A.

Lekker Kersfees mikey !

#12

It is all in order Cuts and a Lekker Kersfees for you to. It was wonderful christmas in South Africa hope you enjoyed yours and to everyone reading this.

Henk

#13

any chance a moderatorly type could split this thread into one about U boats, and a newish one about nightfighters?

Thanks

Fluffy

#14

Done…

#15

Henk- if you are in South Africa do you know of a museum that has on display a 109 that Hans Marsielle flew? I can’t recall if it was numbered white 6 of whatever but was probably a G model in the standard tan desert camo color.

#16

No, it isn’t a G model, but Bf 109F-2/TROP, WN 31010 :wink:

Source for picture

Infos about the museum

#17

Another picture:

According to this site, “often quoted W.Nr. 31010 is incorrect”.

So, if Henk isn’t so far from Johannesburg, he could check easily.

#18

Sorry FluffyBunnyGB it will be done. Twitch1 I I do not know if we have a his Me-109 but I will try and find out for you.

I am about 1400 km away from Johannesburg the coust about 500 km away from Cape Town in a town called George, but I have been to the museum and I unfortuanatly did not fotograf this aircraft but there are one outside that I did fotograf that crashed in the dessert. It does not have its guns anymore and it’s tail is also gone but has a number two on it in red and it’s got a head of a Devil that is grey wit a red smilewith a yellow nose and grey body with green on the wings and on the top part of the aft section. It does not have a connopyand the wings are lose. If you wnt pictures just E-mail me at hggreeff@yahoo.co.uk and I will try and send it to you with some pictures of the last tru Me-262 two seater nightfiter ‘Red 8’ operated with Kurt Welter’s 10./NJG II at Magdeburg. It is a Messerschmitt Me 262B-1a/U1, Werke Nummer: 110305.

It is a exelent museum and I would recomend it to anyone who come to South Africa.

Sorry again.

Henk

#19

Yeah Dani I think that’s the one. Thanks!
Henk- I’d like those 262 pics and will e-mail you. The wrecked 109 outside the museum- any slim possibility there is anything worth salvage? I’d imagine the few 109s left could use parts. For that matter if even part of the fuelage is useable there are folks with enough $$ willing to rebuild and use old sections as patterns for rebuilding. There are supposedly 3 old/new Zeros that are flyable which began as sorry wrecks.

#20

Well I think that it is possiable that it can be salvaged but they will not sell it. The thing is that the Brtittish mostly took it appart and thus I so not know if the engine are still useable. Most of the WW2 stuff there are stuff they got from the UK via ship after the war and some of them are theonly of its tipe in South Africa. So for them to sell any of it will be very hard indeed.

Henk