Luft expert at it again

hworth18 · Post by **hworth18** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 11:37 pm

You are correct Aferg. The Dora was never used in the nightfighter role as single seat nightfighters were deemed useless that late in the war. The radar network that originally directed the single seat nightfighters had been pretty much rendered ineffective and that is why almost all late war nightfighters were two-seaters with their radar self contained.

aferguson wrote:well after extensive research i couldn't find any reference to a FW-190D night fighter, experimental or otherwise. Given the late war appearance of the D, there would really be no need to try it out as a night fighter, given there were faster (262) or more capable (He-219) planes already available for night fighting. The A's were needed as night fighters back in 43 because of the RAF's use of Window, which blinded radars for a time, so visual wild boar tactics using day fighters were all that was available.

I did however, find this on the Fw-380 zwillig. Perhaps his next custom?

http://discaircraft.greyfalcon.us/FOCKEWULF%20FW.htm

Post by **aferguson** » Sun Sep 21, 2008 5:33 am

so how did the wilde sau 262's function then? They were pretty effective against mosquitos right up til the end of the war.

hworth18 · Post by **hworth18** » Sun Sep 21, 2008 7:56 am

aferguson wrote:so how did the wilde sau 262's function then? They were pretty effective against mosquitos right up til the end of the war.

The single seat me-262's were used to intercept other nightfighters such as P-61s and Mosquitos. The Me-262's were directed to their targets by local radar and then attacked visually. The Me-262's were used because they were the only German aircraft capable of catching the faster nightfighters.

What I meant in my previous post is that by late in the war, most of the German radar network over Europe was either destroyed, or rendered ineffective by the allied countermeasures. Only local German radar installations able to direct fighters against bomber streams while over German cities. This is why Germany concentrated most of their efforts in 2-seater radar equipped nightfighters so that the bomber streams could be intercepted before the reached their targets. The only Fw-190's used were A-5's, -6's, -8's and A-9's. The D-9 was not used, but the TA-152 was used only experimentally.

On the subject of the Ebay ad, I notice how he is an "expert", but he can't post a pic of the actual plane and the pic he has posted is of a radial engined "A" version. (You can tell by the cooling fins behind the spinner, the Dora version had an inline engine and didn't use the cooling fins). And, one other thing that makes me chuckle, Luftwaffe pilots put their kills markings on the tail, not under the canopy, and certainly NOT on the starboard side of the aircraft.