Any information or books would be helpful, I mostly keep PDF files these days - most of my stuff I bought online are so old most I am afraid to even open (I did convert a few hundred books and magazines to PDF just to keep them safe).
Like everyone else, my quest is for knowledge - dunno why I have a knack for wanting to know exact numbers, placements - Oh this unit got so so and flew this" something many books won't even tell you - for example Schiffers Kurt Tank goes into details of the D-13 but only tells about prototypes were built as "production was scheduled to begin December" however its noted that the 30mm MK108 was dropped instead a 15mm MG151 was fitted over the engine in Adelheide, supplmented by two additional mg 151's in the wing roots.
Is there any information On d-13s carrying 15mms ? This is the kinda stuff I am trying to narrow down to find fact or fiction. Why the hell would Dora 9-13's carry a 15mm? Aircraft numbers were V65(350165) and V71 (350167)
Yeah...you have the sickness...but unfortunately due to the nature of the final months of the war...those
exact particulars...will almost certainly never be known.
Books? Jerry Crandall covers the 190 as well as anyone. A bibliography on Kurt Tank? Not the right way to find the answers you seek. While informative sometimes...the deeper information must usually be lifted out of existing archives and cross referenced several times with collaborating records such as inventories, orders, pilot, and gruppen records in order to make a "likely" or most "probable" conclusion. Certainly nothing was standardized or black and white in the closing months. The surviving experten and men tasked with testing these aircraft were all friends...desperately trying to get these designs rolling and to the front. An example would be Bruno Stolle's efforts to get his mates in the Stab of JG11 a few Ta152's before the end. This type of unofficial deployment was happening more and more frequently as only one thing would keep these men alive to the end, and that was speed. Under the conditions of the airspace over Germany at the time...only speed would see one through...and so they tried to get these planes operational...anyway possible.
Remember don't confuse production numbers with the actual existence of the aircraft. These planes were built...sent to be tested and evaluated at the training facilities. They were
war time flown. The two D-11's White <58, and White <61 are examples of this type of deployment. And the final sorties of many of these aircraft are the most elusive to nail down and fascinating because in the closing hours of the war...men were fleeing west...in anything that would fly...as the recovery locations of these aircraft attest too.
Yes a typo I would presume.
