FW 190 D9 outfited with R4M rockets (pictures inside)

[whgates3]

there's plenty of planes & weapons w/ well over 500 kills that are not in the game yet

[Guppy35]

Naudet,  

Where did you find the claims of 500 kills.  That would suggest that from the end of March to May 8th their were 500 Allied bombers shot down?  I find it hard to believe they were shooting down fighters with rockets.

Using Roger Freeman's  "The Mighty 8th War Diary" as the source, I added up the number of losses (both fighter and bombers) from the 8th from the beginning of March 45 til the end of the war.  It totalled 178 to enemy action.

Accepting that March 15th was when the final approval for use of the R4M was given(From Forsyth's book) takes 58 of those losses off the number so you are down to 120 8th AF craft lost to enemy action. Not all of those were bombers and that doesn't take into account losses to Flak and to fighter guns.  

Now I know that the 15th AF was operating out of Italy and the 9th was providing tactical support in France and Germany, and that the RAF was still flying Heavies as well as 2 TAF in a tactical role.  And of course there was Russia, but I would imagine they were flying tactical support too.

Attacking fighter bombers and escort fighters with the R4M was hardly what it was designed for right?  It was for knocking down bombers.

I find it hard to believe however that in the time frame the R4M was first used operationally to the end of the war that it claimed 500 kills since I don't think the Allies lost 500 bombers in that time to all causes

I'd be curious as to your source on the R4M kills.


Quoting Johannes Steinhoff "We had at last, the means not only of combating these hithero almost unassailable formations, but of destroying them.  And the escorting enemy fighters could do nothing about it.  Two bombers would be hit, lose control, collide and disappear downwards.  Over Nurnberg, over Augsburg, over the Alps were were clawing them out of the skies almost without risk of retalliation.  BUT and it is a big 'BUT'-it was five minutes to twelve, in other words early April before we got the rocket armament and then only enough to equipp a few aircraft."

His point being "too little too late".

Dan

[Naudet]

It's from a book called "Die deutsche Luftrüstung 1933-45".

It gives the number of 500 kills, and mentions two missions directly. One is of a Me262 flight dowing 25 B17 with R4M out of a formation of 800 Fortresses.
The other is 24 FW190 equitment with R4M dowing 40 Bombers.

As i am no weapons specialist, this is the only R4M related source i know.

[Guppy35]

Thanks for the info.

For what it's worth.  There is a book called "The Last Flight of the Luftwaffe- by Adrian Weir.

It's mainly about the Schulungslehrgang Elbe pilots and the ramming attacks on the 8th AF on April 7, 1945

But it does mention that from December 1944 only 8 missions flown by the Allies suffered losses of more then ten bombers.  One of these was December 24, 1944 when over 1800 bombers flew.  Only 12 were lost.

19 were lost on March 24, 1945 in support of the Rhine Crossing.  1714 bombers were in the air.

On April 7, 1945  the books lists the 21 bombers lost by the Allies in that last gasp attack.  He has details of how they were lost.  10 were rammed, one to flak, and the rest to fighter attack.  No mention of Rockets in any of the attacks.  But if you want to believe that all of the others went down to rocket attacks, that means 10 bombers total in the last big gasp, and I don't for a minute believe all 10 were to rockets.

Bottom line is there are no missions that I see that have anywhere near those kinds of losses to the bombers from all attacks not just rockets.  And that's for the time period covering back to December 1944 long before the R4Ms made any kind of operational debut.

Does the book give dates of the two missions you mention?

Dan

[Naudet]

The book states that till March '45 60 ME262 were outfitted with R4Ms.

The FW190 mission took place in April '45.

Btw, might those losses be part of the 9th tactical and 15th USAAF combat losses?

[Guppy35]

Doubt it would be attacks on tactical aircraft aka the 9th AF or that the 15th was seeing these attacks.  I've done a lot of digging into the 15th AF heavies and their losses were single digits if that by that time in the war.  They were not seeing enemy fighters much at all. Flak was the stuff doing the damage.  The R4M was for breaking up large formations.  No way they could have been aiming them at fighter bombers down on the deck.  They didn't have that kind of accuracy.

You also didn't see tactical formations of 800 bombers.  The A20s, 26s B25s and B26s would have been operating in smaller formations at lower altitudes hitting specific tactical targets not the deep penetrations of the 17s and 24s.

You also have to keep in mind that outfitting 60 Me262s didn't mean they were all flying at one time.  You'd be talking of small flights of maybe 5-6 aircraft as they were under constant attack on the ground by Allied aircraft.

As the JV44 book mentions, they had 18 aircraft on strength in April 45 but only 7 servicable.  Of the 13 delivered from the factory, 11 were destroyed on the ground by Allied bombing.

I wish the book you saw had more specific dates to check the claims.  The info is out there and I'm sure not seeing anything that corresponds with those high of losses to all causes on a mission much less nothing but rockets.

I'm enjoying the discussion btw.  It's making me learn more about this particular subject.

Thanks

Dan

[Naudet]

The problem of my sources is that they are aircraft orientated books.

So anything about weapons, engines etc. is more or less just an appendix.