Overall the Focke-Wulf Fw190 was the best German fighter of the war - excellent in its different versions (A,F,G, and D) for fighter combat, ground attack and bomber interception.

Since we are covering the whole war you can't just pick the last version - if you want to get into specific versions you have to look at specific missions in specific years.

The Ju88 was almost as versatile as the Fw190 but couldn't handle fighter vs fighter combat.

von M :

there you have it ! The workhorse of the Luftwaffe fighter force, the Fw 190 in all it's many variants.

Ju 88 seemed to be best suited for the night fighter role in my opinion with the Ju 88G-6. As you said fighter vs fighter was a disaster.

E

Erich,

you might have missed the question as the page changed but please check the previous page. Do you have any idea on that Me 262 question?

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Kai :

No I saw the post from you......was looking back for some references, and most appear in the Lft 46 ideas. Though the Luftie techs were developing forward and back swept designs in 45 for replacement of the Me 262. The engines themselves-jet- were te be completely enclosed and Heinkel and Focke Wulf came up with brilliant ideas. Single jet engines housed at the rear of the fuselage. The example being taken to the operative stage in the F-86 Sabre used by the US in the Korean conflict. During late 44 into 45 tests were made with small rocket engines on a/c with the jets mounted on either side of the fueslage both at the front and in the back by the tail. Reverberation caused fuselage/structural failures and so it was back to the drawing board. It also appears that Luftie techs did not like the Me 262's engines due to the fack they were too complex and easily flamed during operative combat. Thus more streamlined and smaller external jet engines were developed at least in the experimental stages and also used as rocket boosters with bombers such as the AR 234 on take-off and even the outdated He 111.

E

I'll answer this one too. America's first jet fighter, the 1942 Lockheed P-59 used two jet engines in the fuselage. But the USAAF rejected it as the engines were underpowered and the plane was no faster than the P-51. And much less maneuverable since it was a good deal larger.

Putting the engines next to the fuselage on the ME 262 would not have made it any faster, but it would have given it a much better roll rate as the engines would have been much closer to the aircraft's centre of gravity (middle of the fuselage) instead of on the wings. Same reason why the Me 110's roll rate was much worse than that of the Me 109 - twin engined fighters with engines on the wings all suffer from this problem with roll rate.

A faster roll rate makes a fighter better able to roll and dive away from enemy fire. Even so, there was no way that even this theroretical Me 262 could have outrolled the P-51.

Well thank you Erich and vonManstein39,

Great stuff!

As there was discussion on Fw 190´s I thought of putting some ideas from " Fw 190 aces in the eastern front" by John Weal here.
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" The biggest difference compared with good old Bf 109 was Fw 190A-3 engine, the 1700 horse power BMW 801D-2, which was huge. It was ideal for eastern front. It had two distinct advantages: Big engine gave cover against shooting from ahead, and it also took quite alot of damage without stopping. Both were valued as most flights took place low and in the reach of Russian flak.One hit in the cooling system could drop the Bf 109, but soon there were stories of Fw 190´s flying home crippled with one or more cylinder heads shot off.

One word of caution was heard. If the Fw 190 engine somehow would stop, you had to jump-and fast. Without power the Fw 190 would fall like a brick: " If the engine stops, the nose will immediately turn towards ground and the rest of the plane will follow tightly."

If you had to make a belly-landing, the pilot had quite good chances of survival.The huge engine behind the armor ring would plow anything smaller than a house away. You just had to remember to set the propeller so that two blades(?) would turn under the plane and would function as skis.Later on some pilots even boasted of making better and softer landings with the wheels up...

The width of landing gear ( the wheels ) was also usable in the eastern front.As Bf 109 swung around Fw 190 went easily through all the obstacles-like an bull frog with a pair of water skis...

During take off you had to remember that all three wheels had to leave the ground at the same time-otherwise there was danger that the huge engine would hit the ground and throw the plane upside down.

The problem of worse flight handling in heights was not a problem in the eastern front. The Russians usually flew low, like " bees around a lunch box ".

There was one basic fault on the plane. This could prove fatal in some instances. As the plane was "smooth"(?) ( the surface of the plane?? ), it would stall as the speed went below 204 km/h. The Fw 190 would turn left without warning and almost upside down as well.In a tight turn a Fw 190 drawn into a G stall would " swing to other direction and started falling in a downward spiral towards the ground!". This fault had its good sides. No enemy plane could follow this move...You just had to have enough height so that you could get the plane up again. "

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Wish I still had our web-site up and running...... oh well all of you will have to wait for the new look and some incredible info on the Luftwaffe's Sturmgruppen/Fw 190's and pilot stories......

E

I'm laughing somewhat...hah, hah, ho hum.....

uh well it is amazing when you think your web-site is long gone off the net and you use your homepage and type in certain words.....and wha la presto ! For the heavy Fw 190 do this //

on your search engine / Punch in Fw190A-8/R-2 and look for sturmgruppen missions 1944. go to search within the site.

or try this :

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homep...lotsgerth.html

You will find Werner Gerth's bio as well as some sub-links. Warning do not punch Back to start as you will receive the standard non-working page.
It appears that at leat 6/7 pages of our site are still workable in the cyberspace world.....

have fun guys, and your quite right Stevin, there seems to be some materials of our site still floating around.....

E

Very nice site Erich. I can't wait 'til it can be reopened.

I get the feeling that the Fw-190 was pretty stubborn, and was pretty hard to handle. I'm starting to think that maybe I would rather fly a different German fighter plane......

Wasn't the Fw-190 made more durable because it was made entirely out of metal? Or is that just an old wise tale?

[ 09 October 2002, 07:49 PM: Message edited by: Mustang ]

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Mustang :

It would depend if I was going to attack fighters or Allied bombers. first the 109 was better in the fighter vs fighter role, the 190 was a better armaments a/c. Our site covers those heavy boys as you have seen. And by going over the bio's you can see that some of these guys racked upa pretty mean score against US B-24's and B-17's. Most of the German pilots fell in action. guys like Willi Unger and Oskar Bösch that we have interviewed quite extensivley still have the fire in the eyes !, and are pretty tough cookies. Excellent marksmen and pilots. All the a/.c had aluminum skin and only latter marks of the Bf 109 such as the K was having a bit of fuselage and tail surfaces made of wood.

E

I saw that the Fw-190's hit the bombers pretty hard. So that would make it a pretty good fighter to bomber B-1-Rd. That still doesn't answer what the best fighter to fighter plane was though. I'm not sure, as I said earlier I don't know much about the German planes. Ecspecially not as much as our human encyclopedia, Erich Brown!

I'm somewhat glad that the Fw-190 made most of it's kills against bombers instead of the P-51, but saddened at the same time because the P-51 was supposed to protect the bombers.

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Hey! I had forgotten about the "Arrow" Dornier Do-335. I really like that plane!

Everybody: Imagine this: autumn 1944, Do-335s and Ta-152s flying altogether over Germany shooting P-51s by the hundreds! [img]tongue.gif[/img] [img]tongue.gif[/img]

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"War is less costly than servitude, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau." - Jean Dutourd, French veteran of both world wars

"A mon fils: depuis que tes yeux sont fermes les miens n’ont cessé de pleurir." - Mère française, Verdun

That is a sickening thought! Shame on you!!! You're just joshing me though, you know that no German plane would ever be able to take down a Mustang! Ecspecially not by the hundreds!

The fact is that neither of those planes were massed produced, nor had a very big impact on the war. Those are facts. Not what-ifs.

[ 11 October 2002, 10:29 PM: Message edited by: Mustang ]

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I'll forget the what-if senario and stick with the topic. You're question regarding the P-51's is a good one actually, though you did not pose it as a question.
Simply the P-51's could not be everywhere at once during 44-45. If a bomb group was led off the route which did happen at times, it was awfully tough to send a fighter group after them to protect them by way of a different route via direction or altitude. The P-51's stuck with the bombers as escort if they were ordered to do so. Other P-51 groups would fly as higer cover warding off Bf 109's that would take on these particular Mustangs. This is one reason during the summer and fall months of 1944 the high gruppen of 109's would try and make the P-51 groups drop their long range tanks and come up and meet them for fighter vs fighter combat and this would allow in theory the Fw 190's(check my site) to come upon the Allied bombers with little or no resistance from Allied escorts.

E

That's a very nice argument. If the Fw-190 could put up a large enough fight and force the P-51 to drop his drop tanks then the P-51 wouldn't have a long enough range to stay with the bombers for the entire trip, but if the P-51 did drop his drop tanks then that Fw-190 was toast. Droping the drop tanks would provide for better maneuverability and less drag = higher speed. So when German plane was shot down then the P-51 fulfilled it's task. Which is to shoot down enemy planes. Besides, not all of the P-51's would have to drop the drop tanks, and B-17's are very heavily armed anyway.

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Ah it is not suppose to be an argument, but the truth !

Case in point, November 21, 1944 the 398th bomb group got lost almost and deviated off course and were jumped by Fw 190A-8's and A-9's from JG 301. Only at the final moment did P-51's come to their rescue to ward off the Fw's. US losses according to author Roger Freeman were 5 bombers but talking with several 398th bomber vets they lost 12-15 confirmed ! JG 301 losses were 25 Fw's with 12 pilots KIA. This was my cousin's first mission with 5./JG 301.
November 26, 1944 my cousins 2nd and last mission while being 5th staffel leaders wingman. Both he and his staffelkapitän were shot down and killed by P-51's and return fire of the B-24's they were atacking. This missions was to bomb the oil refineries at Hannover/Misburg. A large part of JG 301, actually 1/2 of I. and II. gruppe flying the Fw 190A-9 was to draw off the P-51 escort force in which they did, which allowed momentarily for the heavier III./gruppe of JG 301 to attack from the rear the 445th and 491st B-24 groups. 16 plus B-24's were lost. In the middle of the bounce of the bombers, the upper first and second gruppe Fw 190's were overwhelmed and the P-51 contingent grew mightly in size. My cousin and his leader banked away from the melee and tried to attack the B-24's but both were shot down. The staffelkapitän to the southeast of Misburg and my cousin some distance away to the south west of Misburg. The 2nd scouting force along with the 355th and 339th did their job admirably and if they had not been there it would have been a total loss of all of the 491st B-24's which was mentioned to me by the 491st vets organization. The 445th b.g lost 5 and the 491st lost 16 bombers. Jg 301 was slaughtered and lost over 60 Fw's with 25 killed and 14 plus wounded......did the P-51's drop their tanks....yes ! Did the Fw's mix it up with them......yes, and gave a good account of themselves even if they only scored 1 P-51. The idea as mentioned was to keep the Allied escorts from defending the bombers, and the 491st vets to this day are very peeeeeee-od that the escorts did not stay with them until right at the end, but only coming to their rescue after the turning point away from the target....such is the fate of war !

E

Sorry, didn't know about your cousin. Once again, YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO MAKE THE P-51 LOOK BAD!!! It's not my fault the escort didn't stay with the bombers and I would be very P-O'd if my escort didn't stay with me too! Looks like the attackers did their job very well, and these are only two accounts! Hey, I wonder if that's a good thing?...

[ 12 October 2002, 02:41 PM: Message edited by: Mustang ]

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I don't think my posts are making the P-51 look bat at all. What I am reporting are just a couple of instances where the Allied escorts were not at the right place at the right time. The first instance was actually the bomb group leaders fault being out of the main bomber stream and having his co-ordinates off. Just history being shown that's all.

E

I think the Me 109 was the best german fighter.The Me-109 was the best known and most produced German fighter of World War II.
The Me-109s earned the respect of Germany's enemies. In the begin of war it was a fear of all allied bombers.

Some long nose trouble for P-51:

http://www.oldgloryprints.com/Long%20Nose%20Trouble.htm

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Oops:

http://www.mustangsmustangs.com/aces/images/B6F1.jpg

http://www.mustangsmustangs.com/aces/images/B6F2.jpg

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Some interesting info from the site following the text:

Defining a top German ace as one with over 200 victories, here are their fates:

Erich Hartmann 352, captured by Soviet troops after V-E day, spent 10 years as POW

Gerhard Barkhorn 301, badly hurt in Me 262 (not Bf 109) crash 17 Apr 45, became major general in postwar Luftwaffe, killed with wife in car accident 1983

Gunther Rall 275, shot down 8 times, badly wounded including loss of left thumb to P-47, captured by British, joined postwar Luftwaffe, retired 1975

Otto Kittel 267, KIA 14 Feb 45 while flying FW 190A-8 (not Bf 109)

Walter Nowotny 258, KIA 08 Nov 44 flying Me 262 (not Bf 109)

Willi Batz 237, evaded Soviet capture at war's end, retired from Bundesluftwaffe, died 1988

Erich Rudorffer 222, survived to serve in Bundesluftwaffe

Herman Graf 212, survived, died 1988

Heinrich Bar 210, survived war, killed in civilian plane crash 1957

Heinrich Ehrler 209, KIA 04 Apr 45 flying Me 262 (not Bf 109)

Theodore Weissenburger 209, survived war, killed in car racing accident at Nurburgring 10 June 1950

Hans Philip 206, KIA 08 Oct 1943 flying FW 190 (not Bf 109) by Robert S. Johnson

Walter Schuck 206, flew only 109s and 262s, survived war, still around as of 1999

Anton Hafner 204, KIA 17 Oct 1944 when he lost situational awareness in a low-level dogfight with Yaks and his Bf 109 hit a tree

Helmut Lipfert 203, survived war, became schoolteacher, died 1990

http://www.mustangsmustangs.com/bbs/messages5/5571.html

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Nice history on Mustang development:

http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaver...ap2/chap2.html

Me 262

http://www.photovault.com/Link/Milit...62Swallow.html

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The Ta 152 H's outstanding performance was tested personally by the designer himself. In December, 1944, while flying between Lagenhagen and Cottbus at the controls of one of the first aircraft, Kurt Tank was intercepted by a pair of American P-51 Mustangs. His tactics for escape were extremely simple. Tank pressed the button which activated his MW 50 boost, opened the throttle wide, and quickly left the Mustangs far behind in a cloud of blue smoke.

http://www.kotfsc.com/aircraft/ta-152.htm

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The longer-nosed Fw-190D, with a redesigned tail, was a success with pilots because of increased engine reliability and performance much superior to the Fw-190A-8 in climb, dive and level speed. The aircraft attained 692kph (430mph) at 11,300m (20,200ft) and could fly 850km (480mi) -- performance that made it a much better interceptor against the burgeoning and fighter-escorted Allied bomber formations. Pilots considered it more than a match for the P-51D "Mustang". Armament was two 20mm Mauser MG-151/20 cannon in the wing (with a robust 250 rounds per gun) and two 13mm Rheinmetall MG-131 cannon (with 475 rounds per gun) over the engine.

Multirole D-9 carried bombs in some versions and radar in others (the D-9/R11 and D-12/R11 night fighters) and was even faster than the D-1, reaching 709kph (440mph) at 20,780m (37,000ft). Nicknamed "Dora-9" ("Dora" being the phonetic "D" of Luftwaffe radio traffic), service began in October 1944.

Between 650 and 700 Fw-190Ds were completed when production ceased in 1945. Focke-Wulf's Marienburg plant, although apparently devastated by bombing, itself produced eight Fw-190Ds a day in December 1944. Figures vary, but approximately 13,250 fighters and 6,250 fighter-bomber versions were produced. This included 11,411 accepted by the Luftwaffe in 1944 alone-an increase of 375% over the previous year-and some 2,700 added in the final months of the war, even though about 30% of Fw-190 factories had been overrun by Soviet forces by February 1945.

http://www.nasm.edu/nasm/aero/aircraft/focke_190d.htm

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The last Ta 152H-O

http://www.users.bigpond.com/markltuc/ta152h-o.htm

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Nicknames for german aircraft:

http://www.hut.fi/~andres/lw_nn_t.html

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