Bf 109F info

[Angus]

Depends on the time of alarm. In the case of a very short alarm, high ROC and good maneuverability. In the case of the German Reich in 1944 or so-ish, heavy firepower and good maneuverability at a high speed. Ideally a 190. Wham-Bam and play roll&floppy-fish OTW to terra firma.

[Knegel]

Hi Angus,

The G1-G6 had alredy more than 100HP less power than the SpitIXc with Merlin61, the Merlin 66/67 was even more powerful.
Afaik the Spit14 with 2050hp was roundabout as fast as the 109K4 with 1850hp.
The SpitV with DB605A and only 2730 kg was  25km/h slower at sea level,  than the 109G with 3100kg, this disadvantage decreased to 10km/h in 6800m and in 10600m the light weight of this Spit made it faster.  

The 109F4 in early 1942 already had a similar performence like the 109G6 in early 1944, while the SpitIXc in early 1944 made a very big jump from the SpitV in 1942.  Also the performence jump of the P51A to P51B/C/D was not smal. Also the P38J had much more power than the P38G, the 1944 P47D´s had at least 300HP more than the 1943 P47C´s. The russian fighters made a similar jump in 1943, while the DB605A and the BMW801D more than one year(end of 1942 -early/mid 1944) dont got more power.


Hi Gripen,

you wrote:
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quote:
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Originally posted by Knegel

The topcover/attack group tactic did work very well from the end of 1943 till mid 1944...
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Not true given the large losses suffered by the LW against 8th AF during winter/spring 1944. The peak months being March to May.
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The peak moth clearly was November/Dezember 1944.  JG301 lost 145 planes in this two month, while this unit lost 107 planes from janurary till end of october.

Afaik this picture is the same in all home defence units.

The G55 was more slow than the G4 and the armament of the G4 was good enought to fight all fighters, while the armament of the G55 still wasnt good enough to fight bombers and its speed was to bad to fight the US fighters. And of course the 109 did need to drop the tank to get the advantage, same the P51´s had to do, thats not a disadvantage, thats the advantage of an droptank.
The G55 was 25km/h more slow than the 109G4 and the rollratio was more bad, while the G4 already was more slow than the US planes and just as fast as the early SpitIX´s.
The G55 simply missed power to be a good plane, its powerload was bad, its speed was bad, its visibility was even more bad than that of the 109, its rollratio was bad and its armament was not good enough to attack 4mots. What should it have been good for??
The clean 109G could do all as good or better than the G55, the smaler firepower dont matter, cause it was still good enough to fight fighters, while the loss in flight performence was bad, cause the performence of the 109G already made it very hard for teh pilots.  

btw, end of 43 and early 44 there was no G6AS, the normal G5/6 made the top cover task. And this tactic already did work very well while BoB, where the Spits made the topcover, while Hurris did attack the Bombers.  

Only the Jets had a so outstanding performence to be able to fly low without topcover,  otherwise the topcover tactic got used successfully by all nations(hurris did cover P40´s, mig3´s did cover Lagg3´s,  Spits did cover hurris etc). Always when a fighter, same like a bomber or fighter bomber had to bring himself below the enemy fighters, to be able to fulfill the order, a topcover was neccesarry to minimize the losses.  

The G55 only can be seen as a possible high alt fighter in combination with the DB603, in combination with the "poor" DB605A the smal 109 airframe was a better solution.  And in altitudes below 7000m the 190 airframe was much better.

Greetings,

Knegel

[gripen]

Originally posted by Charge
Could you explain what are the desired qualities of an interceptor?

Against the B-17s heavy armament is obviously desired as well as enough fuel to climb 30k and to do something sensible there. Good climb rate with desired load would be good too.

Originally posted by Knegel
The peak moth clearly was November/Dezember 1944.  JG301 lost 145 planes in this two month, while this unit lost 107 planes from janurary till end of october.

Basicly the losses of the JG 301 tells just how badly the tactics worked. The relevant statistics can be found from the USAAF statistical digest; heavy bomber losses to enemy aircraft Jan to Dec 1944 at ETO:

1. 139
2. 170
3. 178
4. 314
5. 211
6. 112
7. 80
8. 61
9. 137
10. 36
11. 50
12. 28

Note that in December USAAF did over 16000 effective heavy bomber sorties while in April (the hardest fighting month) a bit below 10000.

Enemy aircraft claimed by fighters Jan to Dec 1944 at ETO:

1. 203
2. 341
3. 469
4. 418
5. 596
6. 470
7. 407
8. 551
9. 586
10. 202
11. 492
12. 867

The picture should be quite clear, the hardest fighting months based on heavy bomber losses to enemy airplanes being March to May 1944. Late 1944 the LW units were unable to cause large losses to heavy bombers, in practice LW pilots were mostly just dying bravely that time.

Originally posted by Knegel
The G55 was more slow than the G4 and the armament of the G4 was good enought to fight all fighters, while the armament of the G55 still wasnt good enough to fight bombers and its speed was to bad to fight the US fighters.

Rather selective quoting; the LW used mostly the standard G-6 at spring 1944 which was in clean condition about as fast as the G.55, the later being obviously better climber as well as more maneuverable and better armed (note that 3x20mm armamant for the G.55would have increased weight less than 50kg).

Originally posted by Knegel
The G55 simply missed power to be a good plane, its powerload was bad, its speed was bad, its visibility was even more bad than that of the 109, its rollratio was bad and its armament was not good enough to attack 4mots. What should it have been good for??

It would have been obviously better than the G-6 with similar power plant (the powerplant of the tested G.55 was worse than original DB 605A). Besides, it was the G.55 with the DB 603 which got the most attention of the LW.

[Knegel]

Hi,

i talk about the peak of losses of the "Reichsverteidung", not about the peak of combat and losses of the 8th AF.

Your datas say exact what i say, the losses for the Jg´s was most big in Nov/dez 1944, with smalest success, and already increased in August/September, although the heavyest fights was in early 1944.

This show that the topcover tactic did work better than to fight without. Although the superiority of the USAF already was extreme, the JG´s still was successfull and the losses often was a result of the tail gunners.

Of course the topcover tactic cant work perfect against an oponent with much more planes in target area.
The 4mots alone was a challenge, with an additonal numerical advantage of escorfighters in combat area such fights cant be without losses.

Acording to Reschke the 12/Jg51(then 4/302), which came to the JG302 as topcover unit in early June 44, was a real win. The losses decreased for around 1 month, while the kills increased,  until the good pilots of the 12/JG51 was dead.
Maybe the german HQ much to late did decide to use special topcover units?
The german HQ never managed to make one mass attack against a big bomberstream. Instead of that they did spread their groups from Dutch to Berlin and Hamburg to Wien, attacking one after the next. In this way the escort most had the numerical advantage in combat area. In combination with the tactical advantage, the rather smal number of topcover fighters of cours wasnt able to bind all escort fighters.

Topcover is vital for groups with an tactical disadvantage, this got proven by the topcover of the B17´s and also already while BoB.
If our arguments would be right it would have been better to produce only but more 4mots, to fly only with them to germany.

The G55 wasnt more manouverable than the 109, the comparison clearly say that the rollratio was less good and the turn only a little bit better in high alt.
I doubt the G55 engine in the test had 100PS less power than the german DB605A, a 600kg more heavy plane cant climb same good with less power, thats simply impossible. Or the G55 dont had the full fuel load when it took off. Since the 109 did climb better in medium altiude, it might be that here the german engine was better, while it must have been the other way around in low and high alt.
The G55 airframe dont had anything special, it was good, but not outstanding. The speed performence of the G56 isnt better than that of the FW190D or Ta152C with similar engine, while the 190 was more manouverable.

Greetings,

Knegel

[gripen]

Originally posted by Knegel
i talk about the peak of losses of the "Reichsverteidung", not about the peak of combat and losses of the 8th AF.

As usual, you tend to change argument when your original argument has failed. Originally you claimed that:

"Fighting against enemy fighters was the only way to offer te possibility for the "Schwere gruppen" to reach the bombers and to get home without to many losses. The topcover strategy was absolut normal untill the LW completely broke appart in early 1945(after Bodenplatte)"

The statistics show clearly that such tactics were a failure. There were some succesful cases against lower flying B-24 formations but these mean nothing in big picture.

Originally posted by Knegel
Your datas say exact what i say, the losses for the Jg´s was most big in Nov/dez 1944, with smalest success, and already increased in August/September, although the heavyest fights was in early 1944.

As usual, you are unable to read statistics; the losses of the German units and USAF fighter claims are for all kind of operations while the heavy bomber losses for enemy fighters tell directly how succesful the opposition was. Probably large parts of the LW losses were not from operations against heavy bombers and large part of the USAF claims were not from escort missions.

Originally posted by Knegel
Acording to Reschke the 12/Jg51(then 4/302), which came to the JG302 as topcover unit in early June 44, was a real win. The losses decreased for around 1 month, while the kills increased,  until the good pilots of the 12/JG51 was dead.

Statistics do not show anything like that in summer 1944. Note that Reschke did fly about 70 combat missions and was shot down 8 times, that tells a lot about the enviroment they were fighting that time. In practice only few pilots survived from the units using such high risk tactics (particularly JG 300, JG 301, JG 302).

Originally posted by Knegel
Maybe the german HQ much to late did decide to use special topcover units?

The fact is that when they tried it, it was a failure despite some initial success.

Basicly there was no sense to use planes which could not deal with escort fighters. So obviously the best and most simple solution would had been a plane with enough good enough armament to fight against bombers and good enough performance to fight against escorts if needed (obviously not desired option). As an example the Ta 152H would had been good but also the G.55 would have been obviously better option than the G-6 and it (G.55) would have been better than the Fw 190 at high altitude.

Originally posted by Knegel
The G55 wasnt more manouverable than the 109, the comparison clearly say that the rollratio was less good and the turn only a little bit better in high alt.

Selective quoting as usual; the comparable 109 is the G-6 and the G.55 could do about everything as well or better, particularly at comparable load (assuming same armament and comparable fuel load).

[Charge]

"Against the B-17s heavy armament is obviously desired as well as enough fuel to climb 30k and to do something sensible there. Good climb rate with desired load would be good too."

109 could be armed with a 30mm cannon?

109 didn't have enough fuel to climb to 30k?

What sensible do you do at 30k?

Good climb rate? So 109 with a 30mm would have a worse climb rate than G.55? By how much? is it worth mentioning?

Was the G.55 armored so it could attack the bombers with as good protection as the radial engined FW190?

You can claim anything you want from loss statistics but the fact(TM) remains that LW was starting to be very thinly stretched so I don't really know what is it you see from those statistics. Bad tactics? Bad aircraft? Bad pilots? Or just plain overwhelming numbers of opposition?

-C+

PS. Gripen, maybe it would have been beneficial for you to fly with us "Der Grosse Schlag" scenario so some practical realities of the air battle of that era would have been easier to understand. That is of course if HTC got it right in their modeling...

[gripen]

Originally posted by Charge

109 could be armed with a 30mm cannon?

Yes, but it was not a particularly good air to air canon; slow fire rate combined with low velocity, difficult to hit anything except at short range. It seems to be modeled rather well in the AH; very effective if you get close enough but at longer range at least I did better with 3x20mm (tested that couple years ago with AH G-10).

Originally posted by Charge
109 didn't have enough fuel to climb to 30k?

Yes, but giving the time to start and form the formations, more than half of the internal fuel is likely to be burned in the climb and with combat endurance of about 1 hour there is not much fuel for combat left. This is why there is so often Bf 109s with external tank in the gun camera films.

Originally posted by Charge
What sensible do you do at 30k?

For most late war LW pilots the most sensible thing was probably to hit the silk right away (particularly if the escorts appeared). Anyway, if purpose was to attack bombers then finding them, planning the attack, maneuvering for attack and attacking; at most cases that takes quite a lot of time particularly if flown in formation.

Originally posted by Charge
Good climb rate? So 109 with a 30mm would have a worse climb rate than G.55?

According to quoted test the G.55 climbed as well as the G-4 despite heavier armament and more fuel. There is no competion assuming that the Bf 109s usually needed external tank.

Originally posted by Charge
Was the G.55 armored so it could attack the bombers with as good protection as the radial engined FW190?

Probably not, the G.55 airframe certainly can take some more armour if needed. However, the fate of the "Sturmbock" units indicate that it was a bad idea in practice despite some initial success.

Originally posted by Charge
You can claim anything you want from loss statistics but the fact(TM) remains that LW was starting to be very thinly stretched so I don't really know what is it you see from those statistics. Bad tactics? Bad aircraft? Bad pilots? Or just plain overwhelming numbers of opposition?

That was response to Knegel's claims regarding the tactics and success and the statistics should give a clear picture on that.

BTW you seem to have a lot questions.

Originally posted by Charge
Gripen, maybe it would have been beneficial for you to fly with us "Der Grosse Schlag" scenario so some practical realities of the air battle of that era would have been easier to understand. That is of course if HTC got it right in their modeling...

I've not flown AH for couple years, currently I've been flying the Il-2 because it's better suited for a occasional virtual pilot like me (sometimes I have pauses like couple months). Generally I liked the flight modeling in the AH more, particularly the response of controls.

[Angus]

"I've not flown AH for couple years, currently I've been flying the Il-2 because it's better suited for a occasional virtual pilot like me (sometimes I have pauses like couple months). Generally I liked the flight modeling in the AH more, particularly the response of controls."

Same here! Il-2 is a candy, and the gunnery is a challenge, but I never got the "touch" for the FM like in AH.

Then to the climb and fuel thing. 109 has roughly the endurance of a Spitfire. Spitfires flew 30K missions and even 40K missions from England to France, - without DT's. (Spit IX) AFAIK. I can only see 1 problem for a 109 to get that altitude and intercept over Germany, and that's NOT the fuel, just the risk of being jumped on the way up, - same problem as RAF had over England in 1940. (with a twist though, RAF had a very short warning time, while the Germans had a long one, but there were deep penetrating fighters around)
Basically, even without DT, a 109 should fly for more than an hour, and only use what, - less than 20 minutes, - and once at 30K, the mixture is weak (or low injection), and TAS is rather high in relation to the fuel burn.
(or was the carburettor perhaps better in adjusting at high alt, - perhaps ?)
Anyway, 109's WERE after all used as high alt escorts protecting the 190's from Allied fighters, while the 190 could better shoot, flop out of harm's way, and dive to the Mutterland.

[Knegel]

Hi Gripen,

like so often you start to discredit others to let look your arguments better.

I didnt change my arguments a bit, the statistics dont show that the tactics was a failsure, they clearly show that the LW had less losses with more success in early 1944, than late 1944.

The topcover tactic got prooven as good working by many nations as i did explain before. The reason for the high losses wasnt the topcover tactic, it was rather the reason for relative small losses and relative good success.

btw, if the numbers you posted are for all kind of looses, they are absolut not relevant here, so why you did post them??
Sounds like you do what you claim i do.

The reason for the high losses was the numerical advantage of the USAAF and the needed overload of the schwere Gruppen to be successfull against the 4mots.
The 3 x 20mm got prooven as not good enough against the 4mots, the MK108 was much more effective(btw, the gun had the similar rps like the HispannoII).
The G55 for sure wasnt able to attack the bombers successful and to fight with the fighters as needed.
Only the 262 was able to do what you think was the best tactic, and of course a so advanced plane dont need topcover(once it took off).

It looks to me you dont have a good understanding of the topcover tactic.

The topcover wasnt flying right above the "schwere Gruppen" to protect them, instead they did fly in front to lure the escort away from the 4mots.

Only if the schwere Gruppen was able to get as one group behind the bombers they could be successfull without high losses by the bomber gunners.

If there was no topcover no successfull attack could happen, cause it need much time and skill to lead a group of 12-24 planes into a position, where all reach the gunner range at same time. While this minutes of aproach the attackers was easy targets and such a formation was fast destroyed.

Every plane with an performence that isnt MUCH better than the oponets fighters and that have to fly below the enemys fighters need topcover.  

Also the Ta152H in big numbers wouldnt have been successful, cause they would have to fly bellow the escort to attack the Bombers, with this tactical disadvantage even slightly advanced fighter would have been dead meat against a high number of escorting fighters.
The higher flying plane have extreme advantages, thats the most kown rule of aircombat,  the G55 wasnt able to overcome this.
Due to its outstanding performence only the 262 and 163 was able to minimize this problem, but even they had to speed up above Vmax, before attacking the bombers,  to be able to leave the diving P51´s behind them. As result it was rather difficult to get a clean shot.

btw. Willi Reschke got 8 times shot down mainly by tailgunners.  

You should get some arguments that proof the topcover system wrong, instead of getting personel. Strangewise you say the statistics proof that this tactic was bad, while you say your numbers are not realy valid, if i use them.  

I made my point, now you can go on to discredit me to make your arguments looking better.

Greetings,

Knegel

[Angus]

Knegel:
"The reason for the high losses was the numerical advantage of the USAAF and the needed overload of the schwere Gruppen to be successfull against the 4mots.
The 3 x 20mm got prooven as not good enough against the 4mots, the MK108 was much more effective(btw, the gun had the similar rps like the HispannoII).
The G55 for sure wasnt able to attack the bombers successful and to fight with the fighters as needed.
Only the 262 was able to do what you think was the best tactic, and of course a so advanced plane dont need topcover(once it took off). "

While I agree with you mostly here, I cannot see why the G55 wouldn't have worked. BTW, how was it's dive (escape) speed?

And then you mention the TA152:
"Also the Ta152H in big numbers wouldnt have been successful, cause they would have to fly bellow the escort to attack the Bombers"

Wooot? They were AFAIK high performance- specialized high-alt aircraft. Surely they would have been used in interceptions either LEVEL AND FASTER or ABOVE the escorts, intercepting at advantage of hight and being able to extend UPWARDS! Wasn't that the whole idea?

[gripen]

Originally posted by Knegel
like so often you start to discredit others to let look your arguments better.

The problem is that I can't find much sense from your varying arguments, the bomber losses went down months before your claimed peak period or the time Willi Reschke went to operations.

Nothing indicates that the top cover tactics worked (except couple rare cases). The statistics simply show that increasing number of capable escort fighters and better tactics cut the bomber losses.

Note that it's up to you to prove your arguments.

Originally posted by Knegel
The G55 for sure wasnt able to attack the bombers successful and to fight with the fighters as needed.

Well, it probably could have done both better than the G-6.

[Angus]

I would think that the top cover idea was a rather sensible one, - trying to scatter enemy fighters before the bombers got hit, - even on their high 12, - by heavily armed 190's. Would anyone have a better idea?
One thing comes to mind here, - Park's method, which was harassing LW bombers with smaller packs of fighters (for flexibility, since time was very little). Then smack them with the bigger pack when deeper inland.
This will force the escorts down, and since they are outside radar cover and over hostile territory, they may possibly have to head back as well as loosing contact anyway.
Only drawback I would see for the LW would be that the numbers were not particularly favourable, and maybe too much resources would be drawn into this. So, I guess the top-cover could be analyzed as a variant to the big wing theory....

[gripen]

Angus,
From spring 1944 onwards the 8th AF could send around 1000 escorts out and after that there is very few cases when the LW fighters could cause considerable losses to the heavy bombers regardless the tactics the LW used. There were couple cases when the LW had some success, the most famous being the case of the 492nd BG in 7th July 1944. But even in that case the success of the LW was not caused by the use of topcover tactics but the failed escort tactics; basicly the LW managed to hit that part of a long bomber stream which had no escorts. But if you look USAF ETO loss statistics of July 1944 (80 known lost to enemy airplanes) it's clear that such cases were rare.

[Angus]

Hehe, my great uncle flew escorts as far as to Berlin in 1944. He said that from the autumn onwards it was rare seeing anything of the LW, and since the tradition was to attack only under favourable conditions, and there weren't any, then.....
But in June 1944 there was quite a racket, when the desperate LW sent up anything they could muster. Often gaggles of up to 50-60 aircraft.
I remember a description where a squadron of 12 engaged such a gaggle scoring a kill, having a loss, and as far as I recall, that was all. But some balls!

[Knegel]

Originally posted by Angus
Knegel:
"The reason for the high losses was the numerical advantage of the USAAF and the needed overload of the schwere Gruppen to be successfull against the 4mots.
The 3 x 20mm got prooven as not good enough against the 4mots, the MK108 was much more effective(btw, the gun had the similar rps like the HispannoII).
The G55 for sure wasnt able to attack the bombers successful and to fight with the fighters as needed.
Only the 262 was able to do what you think was the best tactic, and of course a so advanced plane dont need topcover(once it took off). "

While I agree with you mostly here, I cannot see why the G55 wouldn't have worked. BTW, how was it's dive (escape) speed?

And then you mention the TA152:
"Also the Ta152H in big numbers wouldnt have been successful, cause they would have to fly bellow the escort to attack the Bombers"

Wooot? They were AFAIK high performance- specialized high-alt aircraft. Surely they would have been used in interceptions either LEVEL AND FASTER or ABOVE the escorts, intercepting at advantage of hight and being able to extend UPWARDS! Wasn't that the whole idea?

Hi Angus,

for a plane that have to operate below the enemys fighters, to do the needed job, its not enough to be a bit better than the enemy fighters.
Even the 262 had to make a dive, started some km above and behind of the bombers, to accelerate to an speed where even a diving P51 had problems to follow.    
Only if the number of interceptors is 1/3 higher than the number of escort fighters, a effective interception against 4mots was possible without high losses. Due to the badly splitted and spreaded german JG´s this rarely was the case in combat area.
The only real advantage of the G55 over the 109G6 was the better armament, which still wasnt good enough to attack 4mots, while the 109G´s armament was good enough to bring fighters down.

Both planes was not good enough to fight P51, P47´s or P38´s that have a initial altitude advantage. Even when the fight started at same altitude both planes had problems in 8km alt against the P47 and P51.
The rollratio is a vital point of an plane to be able to evade an attack, much more important than the turn performence. If your plane turn better, the enemy only need enough lead to hit you, while his attack, if he dont hit, you for sure dont got any advantage, cause you did bleed energy while the hard turn. If your plane roll faster, the enemy cant follow you at all, while you dont need to waste energy in a hard turn. The G6 already wasnt the best regarding this, the G55 was even less good.
Only the 190 was able to fight in disadvantage for quiet a while, due to its outstanding roll ratio. Since it couldnt outrun a higher P47 or P51, this advantage is gone at ground level.  

Gripen,

my arguments got prooven by the successful usage of topcover(escort) everywhere and by all nations, if the escorted planes had to operate in an
tactical disadvantage against the enemys fighters.

The success of this tactic while the intercept over the Reich only can been seen in a relative way. There was no way to be realy successful at all, but without a topcover, to bind the enemy fighters, the losses would have been even more big, with less succsess. At least thats what pilots say who was there.

The statistics only say that the Luftwaffe wasnt successful in 1944, the reason for this is for sure not the used topcover tactic and for sure not the german airframes. A numerical disadvantage in combat area, a to smal engine power and a decreased pilot skill was the reason for the high losses.
With the DB605DM or Jumo213E already in 1943, the picture could have been a different, while the numerical advantage in 1944 would have been the same, as result even better engines only would have made a delay.
The G55 wouldnt have made any different, maybe the 262 in big numbers would have.

Greetings,

Knegel