Comparison of World War II fighters. Comparison of World War II fighters Focke Wulf 190A technical characteristics

The La-7 fighter became the highest achievement of the Soviet wartime design school. Aircraft designers were able to achieve the best possible results in the most difficult conditions using simple means and the most primitive construction materials. The planes were manufactured in factories; the technological level, as well as the qualifications of the workers, could not be compared with Western factories. Considering the specific conditions in which the La-7 was created, and the conditions in which the fighters were built, one can only admire the designers who managed to make this outstanding aircraft and take off their hats to them.

It is believed that the first Soviet fighter to surpass German aircraft in its flight characteristics was the La-5FN. This is not entirely true. The conclusion about the superiority of the La-5FN over, for example, the Bf 109G, is made based on the test results of the La-5FN standard and a captured Messerschmitt. Comparing a standard fighter and an aircraft that has seen war and has partially exhausted its service life is incorrect. Thus, the same La-5FN captured as a trophy during testing in Rekhlin showed a maximum speed 50 km/h lower than its prototype during testing at the LII.

One of the significant disadvantages of the La-7 aircraft should be considered the absence of an automatic control system for the operation of the propeller-engine group on the aircraft. There is no need to explain what a rapid change in engine operating mode means in combat. What on the FW-190 was controlled by moving one lever, on the La-7 required the manipulation of eight controls. It was possible to simplify the control of the operation of the propeller-motor group only by installing the 82-FN-VG regulator and the ARTG-43 automatic thermostat on the e-67 supercharger. Fighters began to receive this equipment only with the La-7 serial number 38101356, which underwent flight tests from March 20 to April 8, 1945.

One of the most important factors that can influence the comparison results is the operating mode of the power plant. The main flight characteristics of aircraft, such as speed, rate of climb and maneuverability, largely depend on it. The operating mode of the engine was especially important for fighter aircraft. Piston aircraft engines during the Second World War in England and the USA, as a rule, had several operating modes: afterburner (including emergency, combat and takeoff modes), nominal, maximum, cruising and others. The range of operating modes of German engines was usually somewhat different: take-off afterburner (allowed operating time was 1-3 minutes), sometimes there was a special mode for climbing (usually 3 or 5 minutes), continuous operation mode (30 minutes), etc. The operating time of the motors in high power modes was strictly regulated. Thus, for the most intense emergency mode, the time limit was usually from 1 to 5 minutes. The pilot could use this mode only in the most extreme cases. The operating time of the engines in combat mode was usually limited to 5-15 minutes (usually 10-15 minutes). The combat mode acquired exceptional importance for fighters, as the main mode of combat use of the engine, which determined the result of an air battle. Unfortunately, published data on British and American vehicles whose engines had the specified range of modes often correspond not to combat, but to emergency or, as they were also called, maximum modes. In the absence of direct documents, approximate data for combat modes can only be obtained by recalculation, which requires the altitude characteristics of the motor. Here we can also note that Soviet production engines did not have high-altitude afterburning modes, and all the flight characteristics of our aircraft correspond to the nominal operating mode. Only the M-82 and M-82FN (ASh-82FN) engines had a 10-minute take-off afterburner mode, which increased the speed and climb rate of fighters at low altitudes

The engines of the German fighters FW 190A.D and Bf 109G were sometimes equipped with water-alcohol mixture injection systems (MW-50). thanks to which it was possible for some time to noticeably increase the boost and speed above the standard values, and with them the engine power. The result was a kind of combat or, as a rule, emergency regime. Of course, this improved the basic flight characteristics of the aircraft, but at the same time the power plant became more complex and the weight increased. Such systems were not installed on all aircraft.

Summarizing everything said above about the principles of comparing the performance characteristics of aircraft, we can draw the following brief conclusions.

Firstly, it is advisable to carry out the comparison for aircraft that were at the same stage of development, that is, compare the data of experimental (or reference) aircraft with experimental ones, and serial ones with serial ones (based on control tests).

Secondly, the performance characteristics of captured aircraft can be taken as a basis for comparative assessments only if there is confidence in the normal operation of the equipment and the acceptable condition of the equipment.

Thirdly, a comparison of the performance characteristics of military vehicles should be carried out for such engine operating modes that were widely used during combat work. These are either combat or nominal modes.

Fulfillment of all these conditions will make it possible to draw comparative conclusions about the real relationship between the flight data of the compared aircraft.

Characteristics
		FW-190D9	La-5FN
Year of issue		1944	1943	1944
Geometry
Aircraft length, m		10.20	8.67	8.67
Wingspan, m		10.50	9.8	9.8
Wing area, m2			17.5	17.56
Weights, kg
Takeoff weight		4840	3290	3310
Power point
Motor		BMW 801D-2	AS-82FN	AS-82FN
Power, hp		1776/2100	1850	1850
Flight data
Maximum speed, km/h	near the ground		551/583 *	579/613 *
	on high	685	634	661
	m	6600	6250	6000
Climbing time 5 km, min			5.3/4.7 *	5.25/4.6 *
Turn time, sec			19-20	19
Practical ceiling, m		12000	10000	10450
Flight range**, km		835	590	570
Armament
Number of cannons and machine guns		2x20, 2x13	2xShVAK20	2xShVAK20

*Using 10-minute afterburner.
** At 90% of maximum speed.

Details

Sources

• "History of aircraft designs in the USSR, 1938-1950." /V.B. Shavrov/
• "Luftwaffe Aviation" /V.N. Shunkov/
• "La-7" /"War in the Air" No. 70, 2001/
• "How to compare planes of the Second World War" /K. Kosminkov, "As" No. 2,3 1991/
• "Focke-Wulf FW-190 fighter" /A. Rusetsky/

On the first day, Soviet aviation made 3,385 sorties. 4,526 overflights of German aircraft were recorded. As we can see, the Germans used their aviation more intensively, using large groups of fighters to destroy Soviet aircraft. So, on July 5, nine Pe-2s, accompanied by six La-5s, took off to strike a concentration of manpower near Tomarovka. In the target area, the group was met by 20-30 Bf 109 and Fw 190 fighters. The first German attack was ineffective, which allowed the “pawns” to bomb, but the Germans managed to pin down the escort fighters and make a second attack on the bombers. The formation of the nine collapsed, the trailing flights were cut off and shot down, the leading flight lost one aircraft, but was able to break away from the chase and return to its airfield. The Germans lost 5 aircraft in this battle. In total, on this day, Soviet pilots announced the destruction of 260 German aircraft in the air and another 60 on the ground. Own losses amounted to 176 aircraft. The Germans admitted the loss of 26 aircraft and announced the destruction of 432 Soviet ones. The Focke-Wulfs accounted for about 120 victories.

July 12, when the German offensive had already been stopped and the Soviet counteroffensive began. The Germans fought fiercely, not forgiving the Soviet pilots for their tactical mistakes. August 5 12 La-5 from the 181st IAP under the command of Deputy. Squadron commander Kirillov at an altitude of 3500 m was covered by our troops in the area of ​​Kuleshovka, Orlovka, Gumzino, Tomarovka, being in a “wedge” open along the front. When the pilots retreated deeper into their territory, four Fw 190 fighters from above and behind attacked the group and shot down one La-5. The rest were forced out of the patrol area, after which the Ju 87 bombed the area without loss.

On the same day, 4 La-5s, covering their troops in the area of ​​Lyuboshi, Zhuli, Krushinki, met 4 Fw 190s at an altitude of 3000 m and entered into battle with them. The flight commander, seeking to achieve a personal victory, was the first to attack the German fighters and shot down one Focke-Wulf. But the enemy managed to push back the covering pair and attack the leading pair with all their might. Both planes were shot down.

In another case, 4 La-5s from the 482nd IAP, led by the commander of the guard squadron, Captain Molodchinin, covered their troops in the area of ​​Moshchenoe, Rogachevo, Klemenovo. The group consisted of attack and covering units echeloned in height. At an altitude of 3500 m, the covering flight was attacked from above by a pair of Fw 190s. After two consecutive attacks, the flight formation was disrupted, and one La-5 was shot down. At the same time, another pair of Fw 190s attacked the strike flight and also shot down one La-5. The group scattered and returned to the airfield one by one.

Fw 190A-4, presumably from JG 51. Non-standard camouflage with broken fields of dark green and green paints, characteristic of the 51st and 54th squadrons on the Eastern Front, is visible. The spinner and the stripe on the fuselage are yellow.

In this battle, as in many others, the difference in the tactics of German and Soviet pilots is obvious. The task of the former was to search and destroy enemy aircraft. The Soviet pilot, tied to a specific area or to a group of covered aircraft, was forced to conduct battles of a defensive nature, initially giving the initiative to the enemy.
Its powerful weapons made the Fw 190 extremely dangerous not only for fighters, but also for twin-engine bombers and armored attack aircraft. Moreover, thanks to the fighter’s reliable armor, German pilots could afford the most extraordinary tactics.

By May 1944, fighter units armed with the Fw 190 remained only in the Baltic Air Fleet - I and II./JG 54. In the summer of 1944, the 4th and 5th squadrons of JG 54 under the command of Erich Rudorfer (222 victories) successfully operated on Soviet-Finnish front in the Vyborg region. In other sectors of the front, Fw 190F and G attack aircraft and bombers were now operating. They were in service with II/SG 2, I, II, III/SG 10, I, II/SG 77 (Luftflotte 4, Ukraine), I/SG 5 ( Luftflotte 5, Finland, Norway), II, III/SG 1 (Luftflotte 6, Belarus). Although the assault modification was burdened with additional armor and lacked one pair of guns, the attack aircraft could well be used as a fighter. Some pilots achieved quite impressive success in this role, although they preferred to attack Soviet bombers and attack aircraft without contacting fighters, and used free-hunting tactics for their actions.

In preparation for war, the Germans had high hopes for the Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters, which were built in large numbers. In other countries, the air force, as a rule, had two or three types of fighters. They had different designs and had different capabilities. And although Goering’s military department believed that the Messerschmitt fighter had no equal in the world, it was nevertheless interested in developing another machine that was different from the Bf 109.

In 1937, a group of designers from the Focke-Wulf company, led by Kurt Tank, began creating such an aircraft. The 12-cylinder 1550-horsepower air-cooled BMW-139 engine was chosen as the power plant for the new car. Although it had a larger cross-sectional area compared to the DV-601 water-cooled engine installed on the Bf 109, it was almost one and a half times more powerful. Naturally, this could not but affect the flight performance of the new machine.

On June 1, 1939, the company's test pilot, Captain Hans Zander, took off the first prototype of the aircraft, designated FW 190. It showed a speed of 595 km/h - almost 30 km/h more than the production Bf 109E of the same year. But this was not the limit. German engine manufacturers launched a new 14-cylinder BMW 801C engine with a power output of 1,660 hp. With. Many aircraft were equipped with the power plant, including the FW 190. With such an engine, even production fighters began to fly faster.

During flight tests, it turned out that the FW 190 is significantly superior to the Messerschmitt in a number of indicators. For example, few people know that at speeds over 600 km/h the Bf 109 became practically uncontrollable. Due to the high speed pressure, the pilots could not deflect the ailerons even by a few degrees. Naturally, there could be no talk of any maneuverability here.

All positive reviews about the excellent maneuverability of the Messerschmitt related to speeds of about 300-500 km/h, at which air battles were fought at that time. The Focke-Wulf 190 had good controllability throughout the entire range of flight speeds, up to maximum. By the way, one of the features that characterizes the effectiveness of the control system of this aircraft is the absence of trim tabs on the control surfaces. Instead, there were small perforated adjustment plates that could be bent by a technician on the ground.

The plane turned out to be easier to pilot during takeoff and landing. Moreover, large, widely spaced landing gear allowed the pilot, if necessary, to perform even a rough landing. It was also noted that the Fokker had no tendency to bonnet - turning over on its back over the nose during sudden braking (especially on a muddy dirt airfield).

The design of the airframe was quite interesting. For example, the wing was assembled from two parts - upper and lower, which ensured simple open riveting of the skin panels to the frame. This technology made it possible to rivet consoles (as well as the keel and stabilizer) in huge quantities with minimal labor costs. When the German front and air defense units began to require more and more fighters, aircraft factories were able to sharply increase the production of Focke-Wulfs.

The oil cooler was mounted in an unusual way. It was located in a ring around the air intake and was covered in front by an armored shell. The radiator was cooled in the following way: part of the air entering the hood made a 180-degree turn in front of the engine cylinder heads, passed through the radiator honeycombs and exited through a gap in the front hood ring. During takeoff, the intensity of airflow to the radiator and engine was increased with the help of a fan installed behind the propeller. Its blades rotated in the same direction as the propeller, but at 3 times the speed. At high flight speeds, the fan slowed down the air flow and prevented the oil and engine from overcooling. In other words, it performed the function of air dampers and louvers that were installed on other aircraft.

The fighter's armament turned out to be extremely powerful. It consisted of four 20 mm cannons. Two synchronized MG 151/20 with 200 rounds of ammunition were installed in the wing root. Two MGFFs with 60 rounds of ammunition were placed in the wing, outside the propeller sweep zone. In addition, two 7.92 mm machine guns with 1000 rounds of ammunition were installed in the fuselage. Of course, the destructive effect of the machine guns was insignificant. They mainly performed other functions. Thus, in various literature of a memoir nature there are often statements that the German pilots could not stand their nerves and they opened useless fire from long distances. In fact, the pilots, approaching the target, carried out zeroing in short bursts of tracer bullets, and when they were convinced that the enemy was in the affected area, they fired from all barrels. This method was especially effective for attacks on low-maneuverable bombers and attack aircraft.

A few words need to be said about the cabin. Kurt Tank paid great attention to the problem of good visibility. And if the forward visibility of the FW 190 was not better than that of the Bf 109 fighter, then to the sides, up and back it was simply magnificent. Not a single fighter during the initial period of the war had such a good overview. The sliding portion of the cockpit canopy was made from a large piece of plexiglass and had a shape that was virtually distortion-free. To reduce glare on the glass, the entire cabin inside was painted with matte black paint, and a special visor hung over the dashboard. When the British managed to capture the first captured FW190, they were quite surprised that, despite the usual oil leaks and abrasions for a combat aircraft, the cockpit canopy was particularly clean. So the technical staff monitored the glazing of the cabin.

By the way, one trick was used in the FW190 flashlight, which is still of interest to many aviation enthusiasts and especially aircraft modellers. The question concerns how the canopy moves, because its guides are not parallel and taper towards the tail. This is not the case on any other aircraft in the world. It turns out that the engineers of the Focke-Wulf company, having provided the pilot with a good view back, at the same time did not want to spoil the aerodynamics of the aircraft with a protruding canopy. They fit its contour into the general contours of the fuselage and forced it to narrow when moved back. In order for the lantern to “breathe” and the plexiglass not to crack when deformed, a slit about 20 centimeters long was cut in it. The free ends were then secured using a movable ramrod connection.

The Focke-Wulf 190 had good survivability. Firstly, the air-cooled engine withstood significant damage and, in addition, protected the pilot from fire from the front hemisphere. Secondly, all fuel tanks were located only in the fuselage. As you know, when an aircraft is fired upon (especially from the ground), most of the bullets, shells and fragments hit the wing due to its larger area. Accordingly, the probability of damage to fuselage tanks is less than to wing tanks.

Thus, the new FW 190 fighter that appeared with the Germans in 1941 posed a truly great danger. Hitler's propaganda was not slow to use this fact to intimidate the enemy. However, the new formidable fighter did not live up to the invincible hopes placed on it. No, the plane wasn't bad. But at the moment when it appeared at the front (on the Western - in the summer of 1941, on the Eastern - in March 1942), new aircraft began to arrive into service with the Allied Aviation, as well as the Red Army Air Force, which were in no way inferior to the Fokkers in terms of flight performance. characteristics. The first air battles with Soviet La-5 fighters, which already during the Battle of Stalingrad successfully fought air battles against the latest German aircraft, turned out to be especially unpleasant for the German aces.

The air battles that erupted in the front-line skies forced German designers to seriously address issues of increasing the combat capabilities of their aircraft. Already in 1942, the FW 190 was equipped with an improved BMW 801D engine with a power of 1770 hp. With. (FW 190 A-3). A little later, A-4 series fighters began to arrive at the front, equipped with a system for injecting a water-methanol mixture into the engine cylinders. This made it possible to briefly increase the power of the power plant to 2100 hp. s, and flight speed up to 650 km/h.

Vehicles appear with improved armor and more powerful weapons. So, starting with the FW 190A-5, the wing consoles began to install more effective MG 151/20 20 mm caliber guns and even 30 mm MK-103 and MK-108 guns instead of the old MGFF guns. On individual series aircraft, the armament consisted of six cannons (two synchronized and four twin wing). Starting with the modification of the A-7, the fuselage 7.92 mm machine guns were replaced with large-caliber 13 mm MG 131. On the aircraft, a fuselage holder appeared, on which an additional fuel tank or bomb weighing up to 500 kg was hung. Many air defense fighters were armed with rockets, which allowed them to more successfully fight Anglo-American strategic bombers.

During its development, the FW 190 aircraft became the basis for the creation of a whole family of aircraft for a completely different purpose. Thanks to their ability to carry a significant bomb load, Focke-Wulfs were increasingly used to strike ground targets. However, a high-speed fighter could not operate as effectively on the ground as “pure” bombers or attack aircraft. Therefore, in 1942, a special strike version of the aircraft was created - the armored low-altitude fighter-bomber FW 190F. There were no wing cannons. They were replaced by 2-4 bomb holders of a beam design. Vehicles of certain series were armed with underwing anti-tank guns or unguided rockets (up to 24 units).

Another direction in the development of the FW 190 was the “G” variant - a front-line bomber. The small arms and cannon armament was reduced to two guns, but on an external sling it could carry up to 1000 kg of bombs. The maximum combat load of the aircraft reached 1800 kilograms. In fact, in the second half of the war, these machines replaced the outdated Junker Ju 87 dive bombers. Aircraft of the G-5, G-6, G-7 series were also used as torpedo bombers. A significant advantage of the FW 190G over other bombers was its ability, if necessary, to independently conduct defensive air combat after dropping bombs. True, in flight with a full bomb load they flew at low speed and were practically unable to maneuver. Due to the lack of rear-firing defensive weapons, loaded Focke-Wulfs were often shot down by enemy fighters that suddenly appeared from the rear hemisphere. A typical example of this is the air battle carried out three times by the Hero of the Soviet Union I.N. Kozhedub, who, together with his wingman, defeated a group of forty FW 190s.

However, the aircraft's capabilities had not yet been fully exhausted. Back in 1942, the Germans tried to install new in-line water-cooled engines on the FW 190. This direction turned out to be promising, and in 1944 the FW 190D fighter, equipped with a Yumo 213 engine, was put into serial production. The maximum power of the power plant was 2240 hp. With. The flight speed of the new car reached 700 km/h. Subsequently, improved versions were created on the basis of this aircraft, designated Ta-152. In their appearance and characteristics, the FW 190D and Ta-152 fighters differed from the Focke-Wulfs of modification A. In fact, these were new aircraft. (We will try to talk about them on the pages of future issues of the magazine).

During the war years, the German aviation industry produced 20 thousand FW 190 aircraft (of which 13,367 fighters and 6,634 fighter-bombers), which were extremely widely used on the Soviet-German front and, together with Messerschmitt fighters, were our main opponents in the air.

“Wings of the Motherland” No. 5 1991

At the end of the 30s, Germany, laying claim to world domination, began to sharply increase its military potential and, first of all, its air force, which began to receive combat aircraft of the latest designs. In preparation for the upcoming war, the Germans had high hopes for the very successful Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter, which was actually the only single-engine fighter put into mass production.

At the same time, in all other countries of the world, the Air Force, as a rule, had two or three types of fighters, which had some differences both in design and in flight performance. And although Goering’s military department believed that the Messerschmitt fighter had no equal in the world, it was nevertheless interested in developing another aircraft that differed from the “one hundred and nineth” in its power plant, armament and combat capabilities.

In 1938, a group of designers from Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau AG, led by Kurt Tank, began creating such an aircraft. Unlike Willy Messerschmitt, Tank chose a 1550-horsepower air engine as the power plant for his new vehicle.

cooling BMW 139, which, although it had a larger cross-sectional area than the liquid-cooled DB 601 engine (installed on the Bf 109), was 1.5 times more powerful, which could not but affect its combat qualities.

At the same time, the aircraft engine was not only carefully cowled, but also additionally covered in front by an unusually large propeller fairing with a central air intake, providing an air supply for cooling the engine. Moreover, even such structural elements protruding into the flow as seemingly obligatory for any aircraft, such as an oil cooler and a supercharger intake, turned out to be hidden under the engine hood.

The airframe of the aircraft was assembled very carefully. The blind riveting, precise fit of the skin sheets, good fit of the hatches and other little details contributed to the reduction of aerodynamic drag.

But still, the main feature of the new fighter was the unusually small wing, with an area of ​​​​only 14.9 m 2, which made it more like a racing aircraft. Indeed, all other fighters of the same class (even lighter ones and equipped with a much weaker engine) had a much larger wing area. So for the English Spitfire it was 22.5 m2, for the Hurricane it was 24 m2, and for the American P-40 it was 22 m2.

Even the lighter Bf 109, which was generally distinguished by its small dimensions, had a wing area of ​​16.4 m2. All this indicates that the developers, even at the design stage of the new aircraft, included in it the main requirement - achieving maximum speed even at the expense of maneuverability.

An interesting version of the appearance of the Fw 190 fighter after the war was put forward by the famous German aerodynamicist and designer of the Arado company Kozin. According to him, when the Germans brought the captured I-16 from Spain in 1938, its tests showed that, despite its simplicity, Polikarpov’s fighter turned out to be a “hard nut to crack” for the newest Bf 109E fighter. Kozin then concluded that the Germans needed an aircraft of the same class, but made using German technology. The Arado company prepared the project and presented it to the German Ministry of Aviation. The latter rejected the project, pointing out that due to the presence of the extremely successful Messerschmitt fighter, further work in this direction was pointless. But what was the surprise of Kozin and his designers when a year later they received orders to prepare at their plant for mass production of a Focke-Wulf fighter aircraft, extremely similar to their project! What’s interesting in this story is not that the projects turned out to be similar (this is not surprising, given the similarity of design schools), but that Kurt Tank managed to get his project through the “slingshots” of the almighty Reich Ministry of Aviation!

Kurt Tank in the cockpit of his brainchild

Model of the Fw 190 fighter in the factory workshop

Assembly of the first experimental Fw 190V1

First Fw 190 VI

Thus, in Germany on the eve of the war, a fundamentally new type of aircraft began to be created, for which the term “hunter” would be most suitable. This small-sized machine, equipped with a powerful engine and much heavier than the Messerschmitt fighter, was clearly not suitable for maneuverable air combat. But it had all the advantages in high-speed air combat and vertical maneuver. In fact, this fighter was at that time the embodiment of the new ideology of air combat promoted by Kurt Tank.

In the spring of 1939, a prototype of the new aircraft, designated FW190V-1, was ready, and on June 1, test pilot Hanz Sander took it into the air. During flight tests, it became clear that the combined spinner-air intake was no better than the standard one, and it was soon removed, replaced by a conventional propeller hub fairing. The second prototype of the FW190V-2 aircraft, which took off at the end of October of the same year, was initially equipped with a conventional spinner and, unlike the V-1, carried weapons consisting of two 7.92 mm and two 13 mm machine guns. True, the life of this aircraft was not long. After 50 hours of test flights, the aircraft was lost due to engine crankshaft failure.

Nevertheless, both cars fully met Kurt Tank's hopes. The main thing is that a speed of about 595 km/h was achieved, which was almost 30 km/h higher than the Bf 109 of the same year of production. And what’s surprising: all the pilots who flew the first prototypes of the new fighter were delighted with its handling at high speeds, at which the Messerschmitt Bf 109 literally became like an iron. The only serious drawback of the aircraft, which negated its combat value, was the unbearable heat in the pilot's cabin, reaching up to 55 degrees.

Udet (stands with his back, hands on his hips) at the Fw 190V-1. Perhaps right now he is uttering his “historical” phrase: “This plane will never make it into a fighter - it’s too heavy, and it will never make it into an attack aircraft - it’s too vulnerable!”

Fw 190 VI in flight

Third prototype aircraft (Fw 190V-5) still with a short wing

The picture shows the Fw 190 model with an enlarged wing in the wind tunnel

Soon, German engine builders gave their fellow airplane pilots an invaluable gift - they launched into production the newest BMW 801 engine, the power of which was 1660 hp. Naturally, Kurt Tank could not stay away. It was decided to equip the FW190 fighter with a new power plant. True, the initial attempt to install a larger, heavier engine on the prototype FW190V-3 and V-4 aircraft was unsuccessful. The alignment changed significantly, and the temperature in the cabin exceeded all conceivable limits. Therefore, Tank decided not to complete these aircraft, but to throw all his efforts into building a new version - the FW190V-5. At the same time, the V-3 was disassembled into parts, and the V-4 was sent for strength tests.

Installing a new engine on the FW190V-5 required moving the cockpit back to maintain alignment. This somewhat worsened the view, but it solved the problem of temperature heating. In addition, boxes with increased capacity ammunition for sighting machine guns were installed in the space between the engine and the cabin. In the spring of 1940, a new model took off. Already the first tests showed that the aircraft’s speed characteristics have increased sharply and the aircraft is capable of reaching 660 km/h. However, the increased take-off weight of the new model led to the fact that the load-bearing capacity of the wing at low speeds, especially during landing, became unacceptably low. The aircraft required a new wing with a larger area. It had already been blown on models in a wind tunnel and even began to be manufactured in metal when chance intervened in the course of the program. During one of the flights on the FW190V-5, the engine hood opened, and Hanz Sander had to land almost blindly. While running, he hit an airfield tractor with his wing. Instead of repairing the damaged console, Tank ordered the immediate installation of a new, larger wing on the aircraft. When the car took off after the repairs, it turned out that its maneuverability and controllability characteristics returned to normal, and the speed decreased by only 10 km/h. (In this case, it should be noted that after replacing the wing, the aircraft received the designation FW190V-5g (from the word grosser - large), and the same aircraft, but in its early configuration with a small wing, began to be called FW190V-5K in documents.).

Aircraft of the installation series Fw 190A-0 at the factory airfield

Based on the test results, a series of 18 aircraft was ordered under the designation FW 190A-0, intended to familiarize combat pilots with the new type of fighter. Starting with the eighth aircraft in the series, the FW 190 received an increased span wing, which later became standard. The aircraft made a huge impression on the top ranks of the Luftwaffe, and on the personal initiative of Reich Marshal Hermann Goering, in mid-1940, at factories in Bremen and Hamburg, equipment was urgently prepared and production of the first large series of aircraft, the FW-190A-1, was launched, distinguished from A-0 with a slightly modified shape of the engine hood and a pyrosystem for forced emergency release of the cockpit canopy. By June 1941, the Luftwaffe already had 30 aircraft of the A-1 series and 10 of the A-0 series, modified to the A-1 standard, in service.

The design of the FW-190, at first glance, was quite simple, but had some technological innovations that were not noticeable at first glance. In particular, the engine hood, keel and chassis skin panels, as well as the machine-gun compartment cover had reinforcements in the form of duralumin plates with holes milled into them. It is interesting that, shortly before his death, K. Tank commented on this technical solution in the following way: one day, while examining a dragonfly wing through a magnifying glass, he discovered that the thin film, which acts as a covering, was reinforced from the inside with a transparent porous structure. The natural solution we saw was transferred to the new aircraft almost without changes.

The wing had one powerful power spar, the root parts of which were made with a negative sweep, repeating the outlines of the rear walls of the chassis wells. The rear lightweight spar was auxiliary. The internal layout of the wing was rational; the unit was capable of withstanding much greater overloads than the wing of the Bf 109. The design of the wing included the ability to place a significant combat load under it, which was useful later. The leading edges and tips of the consoles were made easily removable, which made it easier to repair the wing in case of combat damage. Technologically, the wing, stabilizer and fin consisted of two halves, separated along the chord - riveted panels, which made it possible to rivet the skin panels to the power elements with minimal labor costs, and then assemble them together with a permanent connection. With a slight increase in the mass of the structure, this technology made it possible to produce aerodynamic surfaces for the new aircraft in huge quantities, with a minimum range of riveting equipment available.

The drive for extending and retracting the landing gear and flaps was electric; each of the struts and each flap had its own motor with a worm pair.

The stabilizer had a variable installation angle, also regulated by an electric motor with a worm pair. The elevator had small internal weight balancers located in the projections of their leading edges.

The cockpit canopy was also interesting. Unlike most contemporary fighters, the FW190 did not have a gargrot behind the canopy. The pilot’s view, therefore, was all-round (almost for the first time in world practice, this feature was built into the design from the very beginning). The dead zone at the rear was only 15 degrees and was located on the armored headrest of the pilot's seat. The canopy, together with the cab visor, moved to the rear along converging, non-parallel slides. At the same time, the side walls of the transparent part of the lantern and the visor, which, by the way, was also made of transparent plexiglass on the prototypes, converged. To prevent the glazing from cracking in the shifted position, a ramrod connection was provided in the upper part of the lantern. As a result, while maintaining good aerodynamics of the upper part of the fuselage, the pilot had excellent visibility to the sides and back, and thanks to the single curvature of the glass, it gave virtually no distortion from all angles. Due to the aerodynamics of the canopy, at speeds above 370 km/h it was pressed so tightly against the fuselage that it was impossible to open it. For emergency escape from the aircraft, the canopy was equipped with a forced release squib, which breaks the power beam for attaching the sliding part.

It should be said that the FW190 was initially designed as a more survivable and resistant to damage in combat aircraft than the main Luftwaffe fighter, the Messerschmitt-109. Firstly, the air-cooled radial engine is initially much less damaged than an in-line liquid-cooled engine - there is no bulky and heavy system cooling with a liquid radiator, even a single blow of which in battle leads to rapid overheating of the engine and its jamming. The oil radiator is small in size and can be protected by armor. On the Focke-Wulf 190, the ring-shaped radiator was located around the frontal air intake and was covered in front by an armored shell. The air for its cooling was taken from the engine cooling path, then its flow turned 180°, flowed around the radiator honeycombs and was sucked out by high-speed pressure through an annular slot in the engine hood. By the way, if the oil radiator was damaged, the oil from it would flood the cockpit canopy, blocking the pilot’s view. To wash the windshield, there was a sprinkler that sprayed fuel onto the glazing of the visor.

Left: The start of trial operation of the Fw 190A-0 was marked by a large number of accidents, typical of which were engine failure or fire (as in this photo). Things got to the point that a specially assembled commission even recommended stopping production of the Fw 190.

Above: an attempt to test several Fw 190A-1s in Russia in the fall of 1941 as part of JG 54 failed - the engines simply refused to start in the Russian frosts...

Secondly, the design of the FWI90 was much more durable than that of its competitor: the safety factor built into the airframe design was 1.2 versus 1.02 for the Bf 109. This allowed the aircraft to safely endure much more serious combat damage than the Bf 109. An important factor In ensuring survivability, as well as increasing the angular speed of entering a turn, all fuel tanks were located exclusively in the fuselage, which, on the one hand, reduced their affected area, and on the other, reduced the moment of inertia of the aircraft during roll maneuvers.

The strength of the aircraft's structure is illustrated by the following episode: during the period of retraining from Messerschmitt-109 to Focke-Wulf, an experienced pilot, who had previously flown for Lufthansa, showed inexplicable boyishness and decided to raise the aircraft to the service ceiling. As a result, the plane fell into a vertical dive from a great height with the engine running at full power. The speed quickly approached the critical level - more than 800 km/h. Using all his strength, the pilot managed to pull the fighter out of its dive and go into horizontal flight. After returning to the airfield, the plane was in full working order: no deformations of the power elements or skin panels, no fallen rivets!

The FW190 refuted the notion that only streamlined fighters with inline engines could achieve high performance. The key to its success was the beautifully designed low-drag engine hood, which was armored at the front to protect the oil cooler and the first row of cylinders.

In front of the engine block there was a 12-blade (originally 10-blade) cooling fan that rotated 2.5 times faster than the propeller and created excess pressure under the hood. This provided excellent cooling for the front star during takeoff and landing. At high speeds, the fan, on the contrary, slowed down the cooling air, preventing the cylinders from overcooling, thus performing the function of a blind. Air flowed through the air ducts to the second row of cylinders. The flow then passed through two thick air ducts on the sides of the engine and was released into the atmosphere behind the exhaust pipes through cracks in the casing. The ring-shaped oil cooler was located in front of the engine.

The FW190 was much less sensitive to the quality of airfields thanks to its wide track landing gear, which retracted towards the fuselage, and not towards the wingtips, like the Messerschmitt 109. The safety margin of the landing gear was also high, which made it possible to land at high vertical speed and taxi on uneven ground. Large-diameter wheels with low-pressure tires provided the aircraft with fairly good maneuverability even on loose soil. The centering of the new fighter was sufficiently rearward so as not to be afraid of nose-downs when the gas was suddenly applied on the ground.

The plane was not without its shortcomings. First of all, this related to its gliding qualities with the engine turned off or failing, which turned out to be approximately the same as that of a concrete beam. If the engine failed, the plane immediately lowered its nose and went into a vertical dive due to its overly heavy engine. The pilot could only drop the canopy as quickly as possible and leave the plane, if the altitude allowed. This is precisely what explains the very small number of forced landings of Focke-Wulf-190s. As a rule, such a landing ended in the fatal destruction of the aircraft. Later, during the war, recommendations were developed for pilots on how to land an FW190 with a failed engine: if the altitude allows it to gain evolutionary speed in a dive, it was recommended to smoothly level the plane near the ground and set the propeller blades to the zero pitch position. Bend upon impact with the ground, the metal blades turned into something like landing skis. During a forced landing, the engine protected the pilot, crushing with its mass any obstacles on the run, even medium-thick trees.

However, a forced landing for FW-190 pilots was considered an exceptional measure; it required nerves of steel and a good eye, as well as a sense of speed.

Another subtlety related to the piloting of the Focke-Wulf was the sharp and rapid stall into a tailspin. When the speed dropped below critical (208 km/h for early modifications), the plane fell onto the left wing with such a high angular velocity that the pilot often did not have time to react. The same applied to pulling the stick toward you in a steep turn: when it got into a stall, the plane turned over into the opposite turn and was pulled into a tailspin. But on the other hand, experienced pilots, ready to fend off a spin at any moment in a “dog fight,” used this property of their aircraft to escape from an attack from the rear hemisphere: the “entering a spin” maneuver could not be deliberately repeated by any pilot.

First production Fw 190A-1 at the factory airfield

Fw 190A-1 covers German ships in the English Channel

Fw 190A-2 from JG 26

Fw 190Aa-3 Turkish Air Force

At first, the FW190's armament was frankly weak - it consisted of only four synchronized 7.92 mm Rheinmetall-Borzig MG-17 machine guns, which had a rather low rate of fire. Two machine guns with an ammunition load of 860 rounds per barrel were located in front of the pilot’s cockpit and fired over the engine hood, and two more, with an ammunition load of 1000 rounds per barrel - rather non-trivially, at the root of the wing within the propeller disk. The barrels of the wing machine guns passed through the top of the wells of the main landing gear. On the one hand, the designer went for a slight reduction in the rate of fire of the onboard weapons due to the need to synchronize them, but the aircraft received a salvo with minimal dispersion. In addition, heavy machine guns and their ammunition were located near the center of mass of the aircraft, which increased the speed of entry into a turn. After the A-0 series aircraft were accepted into service, they were additionally equipped with two non-synchronous 20-mm Oerlikon MG-FF cannons with 200 rounds of ammunition per barrel. This weapon had excellent ballistics, high range and accuracy, but at the same time it was overly complex in design, heavy, and had a rather low rate of fire. The cannon model was designated FW190A-1/U1.

On the next series of aircraft, the A-2, the wing-mounted synchronous machine guns were replaced by MG151/20 aircraft cannons with 250 rounds of ammunition per barrel. The gun breech protruded somewhat beyond the contour of the wing profile; they were covered with fairings. The FW190A-2 aircraft was tested at the end of June 1941 at Le Bourget airfield near Paris, which was occupied by that time. Aircraft of this modification were mass-produced in 1941-42. at the Focke-Wulf, Arado and AGO plants.

The first series of Fw 190s were widely used for various tests. Thus, problems with the pilot leaving the emergency Fokker led to the idea of ​​​​using an ejection seat. The picture shows a test of a catapult with Fw 190A-0. This idea was abandoned due to the increase in take-off weight of the aircraft (photo on the left). Another Fw 190A-0/U was tested as an experimental fighter-bomber (right).

In order to enhance the firepower of the Fw 190, various options for additional weapons were studied, including the installation of RZ 65 missile launchers in the wing (the launch tubes in the leading edge of the wing are clearly visible).

In July of the same year, the air squadron JG26 "Schlageter", under the command of the famous pilot - ace Adolf Galland, which was engaged in the development of new types of fighters entering service with the Luftwaffe, replaced its Bf109F-2 with Focke-Wulf-190 modifications A-1 and A-2. The squadron was based in the north of France, at the airfields of Abbeville and Saint-Omer, and often came into combat contact with the British Air Force over the English Channel. The FW-190A-1's baptism of fire occurred on September 27, 1941, when a pair of German aircraft flying on reconnaissance missions were met by Spitfire Vs. The British mistook the new German plane for... the captured Curtiss Hawk-75. The first battle took place without losses on both sides.

But the British soon realized with all their might that the new “Jerry” with a star-shaped engine was a much more formidable opponent than Curtiss’ old man, who had long and deservedly been considered a “sitting duck.” Having a speed advantage over the Spitfire V by as much as 30 km/h, as well as a higher rate of climb, turn-in speed, salvo power and acceleration dynamics, the Focke-Wulf could force a fight on the Spitfire, and in unfavorable conditions, evade collisions. The smaller area of ​​its wing was partly compensated by the higher load-bearing properties of the thick profile. The new fighter immediately received the well-deserved nickname “Flying Butcher” from RAF pilots. The Royal Air Force lost its hard-earned advantage over the Luftwaffe, gained during the “Battle of Britain” in battles with Messerschmitt 109 modifications E and F. The status quo was restored only in July 1942, when the Spitfire began to enter service with the RAF. ninth model.

At the early stage of service of the Focke-Wulf-190, extremely low reliability of the engine was noted, the service life of which was on average only 25 hours. In December 1941, the question of canceling the aircraft program was even raised, but its outstanding flight data helped defend it.

By the autumn of 1941, when significant Luftwaffe forces were absorbed in the war with the Soviet Union, combat activity over the English Channel was reduced to a minimum. Taking advantage of the respite, the Germans replaced the FW190A-2 in the troops in the west with A-3 series aircraft, distinguished by a more powerful BMW801D engine (1770 hp) and reinforced weapons, supplemented by two of the latest rapid-firing 20-mm Mauser MG151-20 air cannons installed in the wing outside the screw disk. At the same time, the MG17 sighting machine guns on some aircraft of the series were removed. At the same time, a photo-reconnaissance modification of the A-3 with a planned AFA located behind the cockpit also went into production.

In October 1942, trying to persuade Turkey through diplomacy and military supplies to enter the war on its side, Germany sold this country a huge batch of 72 FW-190Aa-3 fighters. These aircraft wore tropical cream-green camouflage and had weapons similar to the FW-190A-1/Sh modification (4 synchronized 7.92 mm MG-17 and 2 non-synchronized 20 mm MG-FF). Turkish pilots who had previously flown Spitfire Vs immediately preferred the German aircraft. FW-190s flew in Turkey until 1948.

On the night of February 11-12, 1942, the German battle cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the heavy cruiser Prince Eugene left the French port of Brest with the goal of breaking through to German ports across the English Channel. This operation was called "Cerberus". Adolf Galland, who replaced the deceased Werner Mölders as inspector of fighter aircraft, was ordered to organize air cover for ships in the most threatened area, along the French coast. Cerberus was the first major operation in which the FW190 took part. Galland's subordination included the JG1 and JG2 "Richthofen" squadrons, armed with Bfl09F aircraft, fighters of the same type assigned to the Paris School of Fighter Aviation, three dozen Bf 110 "nightlights", the JG26 squadron, armed by that time with FW190A-2 and A-3 , as well as Bfl09F. The operation went brilliantly, the ships received almost no damage, and aviation losses were minimal - 2 aircraft. The RAF lost 14 vehicles - mostly Albacore torpedo bombers.

Focke-Wulf Fw 190A-3 from III/JG 26

The Fw 190A-3 appeared at the end of 1941 and differed from the A-2 in the new BMW 801D-2 engine, as well as the ability to install a FuG 25 VHF radio station. In total, in 1941-43. 509 aircraft were produced. There were modifications: Fw 190A-3/U1 - the first prototype of the series; A-3/U2 – tested with a fuselage shortened to 8.79 m and RZ 65 missile launchers; A-3/U3 and A-3/U4 – photo reconnaissance aircraft with two Rb 12.5/7x9.5 cameras.

Tactical and technical characteristics Armament: two synchronized 7.92 mm MG 17 machine guns on the fuselage, two 20 mm synchronized MG 151 cannons in the wing root and two cantilever 20 mm MG FF cannons. Engine: BMW 801D 1770 hp Maximum speed: 630 km/h. Weight: take-off – 3800 kg.

Dimensions: wingspan - 10.506 m; length – 8.798 m; height – 3.15 m; wing area – 18.3 m2.

Layout diagram of Fw 190A-3

Fw 190A-3 Armin Faber from 7.1 JG2 - perhaps the most important trophy of the British in the air war

An Fw 190A-3/U3 with a suspension of eight 50-kg bombs is blown in a wind tunnel - one of the prototypes for subsequent mass-produced variants of attack aircraft based on the Fokker.

The Fw 190 A-31U4 was an experienced photo reconnaissance aircraft - the photo shows the camera lens fairing under the fuselage of the fighter

At the end of spring - beginning of summer 1942, a reconnaissance squadron from JG26, armed with an FW190A-3 in a photo-reconnaissance version, was transferred to the Eastern Front, near Leningrad. This was the combat debut of the Focke-Wulf-190 in Russia. The first losses in the east occurred at the beginning of autumn, mainly due to the non-intensive use of new equipment. In September, two FW190s were shot down in one battle and fell on territory occupied by the Red Army.

And on June 23, 1942, the British received an unexpected gift - an absolutely intact FW190A-3 with serial number 130313 from JG2 with a rooster's head on the hood landed at the Pembrey airfield. It was piloted by Luftwaffe Lieutenant Armin Faber. As part of his squadron, the unlucky pilot was going to attack the British Morlaix airfield when the Germans were intercepted by Spitfires from the Czechoslovak 310th Air Wing. Having lost his bearings on the terrain and, apparently, not checking the compass, the stray Faber mistook the Bristol Bay for the English Channel, flew over it and, being in full confidence that he had returned to northern France, landed at the first field airfield he came across. And he was captured. By the way, the circumstances of Faber’s capture are still not completely clear: the materials of his interrogations are classified.

And his Focke-Wulf was studied by RAF and aviation industry experts, and then flown by British test pilots, including some of the best pilots of their time, H. Wilson and E. Brown, in Farnborough, near London. With a flight weight of 3900 kg at an altitude of 5.3 km, the aircraft developed a maximum speed of 614 km/h - one of the best indicators for that time. Particularly noted was the excellent controllability of the aircraft both at speeds close to maximum and on landing, sensitive response to manipulation of the control stick, and stability on takeoff. The criticism was caused by poor forward visibility during landing (by the way, the Spitfire also suffered from this), which the British dealt with by opening the canopy on the glide path and looking out of the cockpit, sticking their heads to the left. True, the Germans did not use this technique. The British were surprised by the absence of a trimmer in the heading control channel. True, according to E. Brown, this had virtually no effect on piloting. At high speeds, the Focke-Wulf was practically not inferior in horizontal maneuverability to the Spitfire V, but at medium and low speeds, due to the higher wing load than that of the “Englishman” - about 200 kg/m 2 - the horizontal maneuverability of the FW190 deteriorated and the advantage passed to the Spitfire.

In this regard, Brown expressed the opinion that the preferred tactics for the Focke-Wulf in air combat should be the American "Hit and Run", using which the aircraft makes the most of its high rate of climb and acceleration characteristics, without getting involved in "dog dumps" on turns. One of the most respected British aviation specialists of the time, Frank Lloyd, defined the concept of the FW190 as a high-speed climb fighter with limited horizontal maneuverability and expressed the opinion that aircraft of this type were needed in service along with maneuverable fighters for the harmonious development of the structure of combat aviation. Conclusions were drawn with enviable efficiency - in 1944, the Hawker Tempest aircraft designed by Sidney Camm, built on the same concept as the FW190, was adopted in England.

New modification of the Fokker - Fw 190A-4 as part of I/JG 1, 1943, Holland

Fw 190A-4 of the same group I/JG 1

Fw 190A-4/U1 fighter-bombers from 10(Jabo)/JG 26 with removed wing guns and ETC 501 underwing holders for a 250 kg bomb (Italy, 1943)

The Fw 190A-4/U8 variant with underwing fuel tanks is the predecessor of the G series long-range fighter-bombers

At the beginning of August 1942, the Luftwaffe began to enter service with the fighter-bomber FW-190A-4/U8, equipped with a reinforced ventral pylon, under which a 500-kg bomb could be suspended, as well as two underwing units for hanging PTB. Small arms consisted of only two MG-151/20 cannons. Air groups JG26 and JG2, still engaged in mastering new technology in combat, received aircraft of this modification first. Immediately the fighter-bombers entered the fray. On July 20, 1942, during an unsuccessful reconnaissance in force undertaken by Canadian paratroopers in the Belgian port of Dieppe, it was the FW190A-4 fighter-bombers from the Schlageter squadron that repulsed the Allies from the sky. On the German side, this was the debut of a new modification of the Focke-Wulf, while on the British side, the newest Hawker Typhoon fighter entered the battle. Despite significant losses, the German vehicle passed its baptism of fire with honor: the Focke-Wulfs were responsible for two downed Typhoons during this operation. Two more fighters of this type died during air battles from the destruction of the tail booms.

The FW190A-4 was also used with success in day and night blitz raids against coastal targets in England. The planes crossed the English Channel in pairs at an altitude of 10-15 meters, invisible to British radars, and dropped bomb loads on pre-designated targets. The air defense system did not have time to react, and the Focke-Wulfs escaped with impunity. True, the material damage from such bombings was small, since the Focke-Wulfs did not have bomb sights and dropped their cargo by eye, but at the same time, they had a great demoralizing effect on the population of the coastal regions of England. In order to stop attempts at blitz raids, the RAF Fighter Command was forced to resort to organizing coastal patrols of Spitfires, which required significant material costs and was very ineffective. The situation changed only with the entry into service in Great Britain of Hawker Typhoon aircraft, which had high speed at low altitude.

From the FW190A4 modification onwards, the MW-50 water-methanol afterburning system was installed on aircraft. The water-methanol mixture inhibited the detonation process, allowing higher pressures to be achieved in the cylinders. The system could be used for a very short time due to the engine quickly overheating and the risk of it seizing, giving a significant increase in power, but the spark gap had to be adjusted frequently.

The first Fokkers actually used on the Eastern Front were the Fw 190A-3 as part of JG 54 (photo at the Gatchina airfield, winter 1942)

And this Fw 190A-3 ended up on the Eastern Front in 1942 as part of a special test assault group

Fw 190A-4/U3 with ETC 500 ventral holder and SC 500 bomb

Starting with the A-4 modification, the aging FuG-7 radio station was replaced by the FuG-16Z. The external difference was reduced to the installation of a small radio mast for a guy wire - an antenna on the top of the keel. The guy wire passed through the block in the sliding part of the lantern and had a tension mechanism.

The combat use of the FW190A on the Eastern Front did not add any laurels to the aircraft. The non-standard conditions of air warfare had an impact, completely atypical for Europe, to which the Luftwaffe was completely unprepared and could not adapt. Despite the huge losses of the aircraft fleet of the Red Army Air Force in the first hours and days of the war, Soviet industry was able to make up for them in the shortest possible time, unrealistic for any other country - aircraft factories were promptly evacuated beyond the Urals, beyond the reach of even the most distant German bombers, and deployed there is mass production of the latest combat aircraft. As a result, the flow of aircraft and spare parts for the needs of the front did not dry up even for a day. Repairs of damaged aircraft near the front, in field workshops, were also established. But for the Luftwaffe, such a situation became a luxury on the Eastern Front: railway communication with the Vaterland, where factories were located that provided aviation with new equipment, synthetic aviation fuel and spare parts, was extremely difficult, and the huge length of the front line made the task even more difficult.

This Fw 190A-4 from 14.(Jabo)/JG 5 miraculously returned to the airfield after being hit by a Soviet anti-aircraft shell

In April 1943, a new modification with an extended engine mount appeared - Fw 190A-5

The insert in front of the wing is clearly visible - the main external difference of the Fw 190 A-5 model

In addition to purely supply issues, there were difficulties of a tactical nature. The Luftwaffe command was baffled by the organizational structure of the Red Army Air Force, which was subordinate to the ground forces and was primarily engaged in their fire support. Unlike Europe, where there was a developed network of well-prepared airfields, and distances were measured at worst by several hundred kilometers, on the Eastern Front stretching from north to south, Soviet aviation used any more or less flat areas for airfields, based evenly along the entire front line. This circumstance forced the Luftwaffe to move away from the doctrine of concentrating large forces in several strong points, tested in combat conditions and justified in the West. In addition, German pilots, spoiled by the concrete of European runways and mild winters, often broke the landing gear of their aircraft on the potholes of poorly compacted dirt airfields in Russia. Add to this the inevitable confusion arising from the inconsistency of the actions of the rear support services with the needs of the front, thirty-degree winter frosts, as well as the daily need in these “unsanitary” conditions to restrain the ever-increasing pressure of Soviet aviation - it turned out that the “Battle of Britain” or the African campaign Compared to Russia, it’s a real resort.

Specifically for the FW190, a negative factor in Russia was the fact that most of the pilots trained for it remained in the West. The young recruits, even under the guidance of experienced instructors, could not fully utilize the fighter’s enormous combat potential. As a result, our pilots considered the Messer, and not the Foka, to be the most formidable enemy. This once again proves a simple truth - even a mediocre plane with a good pilot in the cockpit will defeat an excellent fighter piloted by a “yellow mouth”. And by the time of the massive appearance of the FW190 in the East, a new generation of fighters began to enter service with the Red Army Air Force, which were in no way inferior to the brainchild of K. Tank in their flight performance characteristics.

The first massive use of Focke-Wulf-190s in the USSR took place during the Battle of Stalingrad, when Luftwaffe fighters were faced with the task of ensuring air superiority over the city at any cost and limiting the actions of bombers and attack aircraft. In July 1943, before the start of the Battle of Kursk, two German air squadrons, JG51 and JG54 "Grünherz", rearmed from Bf 109 fighters to FW190 - the first squadron received fighters of the A-4 modification, and the second, as an experiment, switched to the latest attack aircraft of the F modification .

During combat clashes over the Kursk Bulge, JG51 and JG54, whose pilots did not have time to properly retrain for the new type of aircraft, suffered huge losses - up to fifty percent of their personnel. This is explained by the fact that the most advantageous for the FW190 were medium altitudes, and the battles took place mainly near the ground, where the Soviet La-5FN and Yak-9 fighters - the most common opponents of the FW190 on this section of the front - were superior to the Focke-2 in both speed and climb rate. Wulf. In addition, the pilots of the First, Fourth and Sixteenth Air Armies of the Red Army, who opposed the Germans near Kursk, were the most experienced pilots. Focke-Wulfs from Grünherz, whose main task was to hunt for Soviet tanks, suffered greatly from attacks from the exposed rear hemisphere - although their armor was strengthened compared to fighter modifications, the airframe remained the same and could not withstand hits from anti-aircraft guns and air cannons. The increased number of battle damage gave rise to fierce competition between the JG51 fighter group and the JG54 assault group for the supply of spare parts and the use of field repair bases.

In 1943, the Fw 190A-5 was tested in Japan

The first Fw 190F-1 attack aircraft leave the AGO workshops. End of 1942. A total of 30 F-1s based on the Fw 190A-4 airframes were produced.

Fw 190F-2 attack aircraft on the Eastern Front. Produced in the spring of 1943 based on the Fw 190A-5 gliders

Back on January 13, 1943, two FW190A-3s from JG54 were attacked by a pair of Soviet Yak-7 fighters over Lake Ladoga. The leader was shot down immediately, and the follower, non-commissioned officer Helmut Brandt, having received a hit from his own cannon in the propeller blade due to a synchronizer malfunction, made an emergency landing with the landing gear extended on the ice off the coast occupied by Soviet troops. Brandt himself escaped capture, and his plane was captured virtually undamaged. And on February 21, near Demyansk, he landed on his belly and was captured in relatively good condition by an aircraft of the same modification, piloted by Major Hans “Assi” Hahn. The pilot was captured.

Captured FW-190s were comprehensively tested at the TsAGI Bureau of New Equipment and at the Air Force Research Institute. Based on the test results, technical descriptions of these machines were created and tactical recommendations and instructions were drawn up for pilots, which listed the strengths and weaknesses of the aircraft and gave specific advice on how to deal with them.

Air Marshal G.V. Zimin in his book “Fighters” describes many combat clashes between Soviet pilots and FW190s. Paradoxically, specialized fighters, according to Zimin, acted in most cases rather indecisively and ineffectively, even in conditions of numerical superiority - obviously, this was due to the low level of flight and, most importantly, tactical training of their pilots. But at the same time, the Focke-Wulfs of the shock modification, freed from bombs when meeting with Soviet fighters, acted boldly and skillfully, alternating defensive and offensive air combat techniques: their pilots were mostly aces of bombing strikes, having switched to FW190 from Junkers dive bombers. 87, maneuverable vehicles that can stand up for themselves in a defensive battle (even during the Battle of England, there were air battles on turns between Spitfires and Junkers-87Bs, the outcome of which was by no means predetermined).

Speaking about the combat capabilities of the FW190 fighter, it is necessary to note the fact that in our country a certain stereotype has developed regarding this aircraft as a heavy, clumsy and unsuccessful combat aircraft. Moreover, in the domestic press for many years it was presented exclusively as a secondary fighter, constantly in the shadow of the glory of the Messerschmitt Bf 109. Of course, to some extent this was due to the nature of air battles on the Eastern Front, where the high-speed but poorly maneuverable Fokker lost in group air battles at low altitudes to lighter Soviet fighters. As a result, in the memoirs of Soviet aces, the FW190 looks weaker than the Messerschmitt fighter. In addition, the memoirs of pilots of attack and bomber aircraft, as a rule, describe battles with the “Messers” and cases of abandonment of the “Messers”. Where are the Focke-Wulfs? Is it because there is so little information about them that after the attacks of heavy FW190s, there was simply no one to write such memoirs?

After all, the crews of low-maneuverable bomb carriers, who were attacked by this very formidable enemy, who had much more powerful weapons than the Bf 109, had practically no chance of returning to their home airfield. A typical example of this is the combat episode that occurred on January 29, 1943. In the Orel area, four FW190As from JG51 under the command of Oberleutnant Ponter Shack were aimed from the ground at eight Pe-2 dive bombers, which were following in a column at low altitude. In a matter of minutes, all the “furniture vans” (the German radio code for bombers) were destroyed, five of them were chalked up by Oberleutnant Schack. One should not discount the fact that the FW 190s were often used as attack aircraft and front-line bombers, and already from the end of 1943 they practically replaced the famous Ju 87 from this role. However, the significance of new aircraft in this role is from the domestic literature , including memoirs, we again can find out little. After all, for marshals, generals and ordinary ground forces, it was completely indifferent which plane was currently striking at you - a Junkers or a Focke-Wulf. That is why reports from the fronts and memories of veterans convey to us only the date and place of the enemy attack. That is why we know about German fighter-bombers only from the memoirs of our fighter pilots, and even then all information is limited only to the fact that rare groups of Fokkers flew without bombs.

Attack aircraft Fw J90F-3 from II/SC 4. Under the fuselage there is a container of small-caliber bombs. This is already a truly mass-produced attack aircraft model - 247 units were produced.

Attack aircraft Fw 190F-4, SG 4, Russia, 1943

Taxiing is a Fw 190G-1 fighter-bomber. It was armed with only two 20-mm MG 151 cannons, but could carry two 300-liter additional tanks and a 250-kg bomb with a flight range of 1,500 km. 50 pieces produced.

The prototype of the next modification of the Fw 190G-2 fighter-bomber - Fw 190A-5/U8. Unlike the G-1, it was built on the basis of the Fw 190A-5 airframe.

The FW190F attack aircraft had the same airframe as the A-5 model fighters. They were equipped with a two-row star-shaped 14-cylinder BMW801D-2 engine, located on a motor mount extended by 6 cm relative to the A-5. This was required to accommodate longer ammunition boxes for 13.2 mm machine guns in front of the cabin. The take-off power of the engine was 1700 hp. e., power at an altitude of 5700 m – 1440 l. With.

Small covers that covered the wheels in the retracted position were not installed on most fighter-attack aircraft. The shock absorber rods were covered with rubber accordions.

The barrel armament of attack aircraft was strengthened. Two 13.2-mm Rheinmetall MG-131 Spandau machine guns with 700 rounds of ammunition per barrel were installed in the forward part of the fuselage, which were distinguished by a high rate of fire and accuracy of combat. The machine guns were covered with a cover with two teardrop-shaped protrusions for massive breech chambers - this, in combination with a “swollen” canopy, was the main external distinguishing feature of the attack aircraft of modification F. At the root of the wing there were, as on “pure” fighters, two synchronized 20-mm MG cannons 151/20 with 200 rounds of ammunition per barrel.

Night fighter-bomber Fw 190G-3/N, Normandy, 1944. This series differed from previous ones in the PKS-11 autopilot. The night version also had flame arresters on the exhaust pipes and a landing light

Attempts were made repeatedly to strengthen the striking power of the Fokker, primarily to counter Allied transport at sea. This Fw 190A-5/U14 was tested as a torpedo bomber. Only two copies were released.

Fw 190A-5/U15 was tested with Bv 246 "aerial torpedoes"

The F series aircraft were distinguished by the presence of a ventral bomb pylon ETS-501 (on early production aircraft), under which one 400-kg or 500-kg bomb was suspended, and using the ER-4-4 adapter, 100-kg or 50-kg caliber bombs. On later versions, an ETS-250 pylon was installed, under which, in addition, a fuel tank could be suspended.

The FW 190F was designed for direct support of troops using on-board weapons, external cannons and, mainly, bombs. The standard load was one 500 kg SD-500 bomb or four 50 kg SC-50 bombs under the central pylon. Another 250-kg SC-250 bomb could be suspended under the wing locks. Bombing was carried out either from a dive or during a gentle climb from a low-level flight. It was necessary to aim using a standard sight or by eye, since there was no special bomb sight.

Two containers could be suspended under the wing, each containing two 20 mm MG 151/20 cannons or, later, one 30 mm Mk 103 cannon.

Early series of F modification aircraft had a standard angular cockpit canopy, characteristic of A-5 modification fighters. Later, attack aircraft began to be equipped with a “swollen” canopy with much better visibility to the sides.

In addition to the standard 13.2-mm armored back for modification A fighters, attack fighters also had an armored tray. The back of the pilot's head and shoulders were covered with three-layer armored glass. The oil cooler under the engine hood also had reinforced armor.

Obviously overweight, with a greatly reduced power supply, the fighter-attack aircraft FW-190F with a bomb suspension had a low speed and rate of climb and needed much longer runways than a fighter. The situation was only partly saved by the introduction of a new propeller with wide wooden blades, nicknamed “Bananas”. Successful combat use of the Focke-Wulf modification F was possible only with good fighter cover. But nevertheless, in August 1943, the Chief of Staff of the Luftwaffe, General von Korten, put forward to Goering an initiative to completely replace the outdated dive bombers and direct support aircraft of the Juncker Ju-87D and G troops with attack and fighter-bomber modifications of the Focke-Wulf -190 based on JG54 combat service experience. The initiative was supported, and the troops, in addition to fighter-attack aircraft of modification F, began to receive FW 190A-5/U3 fighter-bombers with lightweight weapons and armor, capable of lifting up to 1000 kg of bombs, as well as FW190A-5/U11 with weapons similar to modification F aircraft and a bomb load of 500 kg (one SD-500 bomb). The massive use of fighter-bombers and fighter-attack aircraft had some success, despite the losses caused by the low performance characteristics of these aircraft with bomb suspension and their insufficient cover - it was believed that the heavier FW-190 could fend for itself.

The external installation of a 30-mm MK 108 cannon is the main “argument” of the Fw 190A-51 U16 for combat with American “flying fortresses”

“Formation Destroyer” – Fw 190A4/R6, equipped with WG 21 unguided missile launchers. It was supposed to knock out the “flying fortresses” of the Americans from the combat box” – the dense defensive formation of B-17s in their daytime raids

Another attempt to strengthen the firepower of the Fokker in the fight against daytime Allied air raids was the experimental Fw 190A-5/U12 with the additional installation of four 20-mm MG 151 cannons under the wing. But it did not go into production - the car turned out to be very difficult for success in air combat.

Fw 190А-5/U10 – prototype of the next production model – Fw 190А-6. The main difference is the replacement of the 20 mm MG FF wing cannons with more powerful MG 151.

A limited series of a long-range light bomber based on the FW 190A was also produced, receiving the index G. The distinctive features of this aircraft were armament with only two MG-151/20 cannons at the wing root and the presence of an ETC-501 ventral bomb pylon and two wing units for the 300- l tanks. The aircraft was designed on the basis of the A-5 series fighter. By the way, it was the Fw 190A-5/U8 that received the designation FW190G-1 in April 1943.

After the production of less than a hundred copies of the G-1 and G-2 series bombers, which had practically no differences, the G-3 series aircraft was put into production, equipped with an autopilot, which made life much easier for the pilot on long flights to the target. In addition, the bomber had a souped-up BMW 801D-2 engine, which developed 1,870 hp in emergency mode. With.

An interesting feature of the FW 190G-7 aircraft was the extended tail strut, the introduction of which made it possible to suspend an oversized payload under the fuselage pylon - for example, a 900-liter PTB.

Unlike the F-series attack aircraft, the FW 190G bombers did not find their “ecological niche” in the Luftwaffe structure and did not play a significant role in the war.

In August 1942, the Luftwaffe on the Western Front was forced to go on the defensive - American B-17 bombers from the 8th Air Force began systematic massive daylight raids on the territory of the Reich. By the end of the year, JG2 and JG26 in full force were reoriented to perform interceptions. In order to continue blitz raids on England and impede shipping in the Bay of Biscay, a new formation was formed in the spring of 1943 - an air squadron of SKG10 high-speed bombers, armed with FW 190A-4/U8 fighter-bombers. Initially, the formation worked exclusively over the Bay of Biscay, subordinate to the Atlantic Air Command, and then retrained entirely for blitz raids, based at the Amiens airfield. In early July 1943, SKG10 was deployed to the Mediterranean to repel the Allied landings in Sicily. At the same time, the I/SKG10 squadron remained in northern France so that “the enemy would not sleep,” and continued blitz raids, even taking part in night raids on London and surrounding counties in early 1944.

Fw 190A-6 supposedly Walter Nowotny (the most successful Luftwaffe ace at that time), Eastern Front, 1944

The FuG 217 air interception locator was tested on the Fw 190A-6

Specifically for intercepting Allied bombers for the Fw 190A-6, modification kits R1 (on the left - 30-mm MK 108 cannons in the wing console) and R2 (on the right, a container for two 20-mm MG 151 cannons) were produced. In both cases, the cantilever 20-mm MG 151 cannons were removed.

During 1943, factories in Germany, France, Czechoslovakia and other German-occupied countries produced more than 1900 FW 190 modifications of the A-3, A-4 and A-4/U8. Production of the A-5 fighter-bomber model began.

In the early spring of 1943, the situation of the Wehrmacht's Afrika Korps under the command of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel became very difficult. His army experienced constant interruptions in supplies, which were entirely dependent on the operation of the air transport bridge across the Mediterranean Sea. The forces of the air squadrons JG27 and JG53 "Ace of Spades", heavily drained during the two-year fierce war in the Sahara, were sent to cover it. The loss of flight personnel was approaching half, and the remaining aircraft in service were extremely worn out. Reinforcements in the form of the newly formed JG51 and JG77, manned by young, inexperienced pilots, helped little. German losses in battles with the growing contingent of Allied troops were very large, but the air bridge was covered properly. The main vehicles used for this purpose were FW 190 modifications A-3 and A-4Trop. The latter were equipped with dust filters, which significantly increased the service life of the engines in desert conditions. To carry out missions to bomb the enemy and support their own troops, most African Focke-Wulfs were equipped with a ventral holder for a 250 kg bomb.

In May 1943, the quarter-million strong "Africa Korps" was forced to capitulate. The fighters that remained in service took an active part in the evacuation of Luftwaffe ground personnel and soldiers to Sicily, with one FW 190 carrying three or four people per flight, compactly accommodated in the cockpit and hollow tail boom.

The next modification was the Fw 190A-7, which marked a further increase in the firepower of the Fokker. Its 7.92-mm fuselage machine guns were replaced with large-caliber 13.2-mm MG 131 machine guns.

The most popular version of the Fokker was the Fw 190A-8. The picture shows a fighter equipped with the R2 kit - a cantilever 30-mm MK 108 cannon

During the subsequent Allied invasion of Sicily on July 10, these aircraft came in very handy, joining Field Marshal Kesselring's Second Air Fleet. However, these reinforcements did not save the Luftwaffe from a crushing defeat by superior Allied forces. As a result, the Second Air Fleet was withdrawn out of harm's way to mainland Italy.

Focke-Wulf-190 fighters have proven themselves well in such a complex and dangerous undertaking as the night “free hunt” for British bombers. One of the first to try this tactic in action in the spring of 1943 was the German pilot Major Hayo Hermann, who, by the way, had previously flown bombers. This was his personal initiative. After obvious success - the destruction of five heavy bombers by one aircraft within one week - the JD30 fighter division was formed, organizationally consisting of three air squadrons - JG300, JG301 and JG302. The JD30 was staffed on a voluntary basis. The bold actions of the division's pilots, operating on guidance from the ground, without on-board locators, and looking for the enemy by the pale reflections of the exhaust flames of their engines, began to cause significant damage to the RAF. Hunter pilots became the pride of the nation, thanks to the efforts of Goebbels’s propaganda machine. The division's combat experience subsequently proved invaluable in organizing Luftwaffe night fighter formations. The main JD30 fighters were the FW 190A-5/U2 and Bf 109G-6, equipped with exhaust flame arresters and anti-glare panels. True, the division's own losses were monstrous - the pilots could not withstand the stress of night flights and often struggled during takeoff and landing on unlit airstrips. By January 1944, JD30 could already be equated to a regular air squadron. The equipment quickly ran out of resources, and both the planes and the pilots were literally “knocked in” to death. As a result, it was decided to disband the “free hunting” division, and the surviving pilots, thanks to their experience in night operations, would be used to carry out interceptions in bad weather conditions and special missions.

By this time, only three very thin air squadrons - JG1, JG2 and JG26 - were engaged in intercepting daytime B-17 raids, which was clearly not enough to create parity of forces. To strengthen the Reich's air defense in the western direction, nine (!) air groups were withdrawn from the Eastern Front, albeit of incomplete strength. The FW 190A also began to enter service with the Reich Self-Defense Forces, whose main task was to engage in battle the Allied P-51 Mustang escort fighters, which had an unexpectedly high speed and flight range.

The FW 190A was also used as a flying laboratory: on aircraft of this type, unguided missiles for intercepting WG21 Dodel bombers, a wire-guided anti-ship missile, a radar for night operations, vertical dynamo-reactive cannons, and an ejection seat were tested.

Despite the staunch resistance of the German pilots, who had earned the sincere respect of their American colleagues for their remarkable bravery, force was not on their side. Due to shortages of raw materials and constant bombing of aircraft factories, aircraft production in Germany began to steadily decline. The aircraft produced flew less and less due to difficulties with synthetic Buna gasoline and interruptions in the supply of gasoline from allied Romania, which began in June 1944. In January 1944, developing the idea of ​​​​a single interception, Major Walter von Kornacki proposed to Adolf Galland to form a formation of suicide pilots to attack and ram American bombers, especially the leaders of the columns. The planes for such suicide bombers were supposed to be equipped with additional armor and equipped with uprated engines. Galland rejected the idea of ​​suicide bombers as psychologically harmful, but spoke in favor of creating several experimental units of heavily protected FW 190A-5/U16 interceptor aircraft, whose main task was to attack enemy bomber formations head-on.

As a “last convincing argument”, it was allowed to ram a bomber and then abandon the plane with a parachute - a rather optimistic idea, considering that the total speed of the aircraft during ramming could reach 1000 km/h. Experimental “assault groups” consisting of JG3 and JG300 “Hermann” were formed at the end of January and achieved outstanding results - in the first sortie against more than a thousand American bombers, 11 aircraft were destroyed in a minute, and in total, during the interception, the hunters shot down 28 heavy bombers US 8th Air Force. After this, Goering, at the suggestion of Galland, ordered the organization of similar groups in all self-defense units of the Reich. The implementation of this order was prevented by the July Allied landing in Normandy.

Especially for the air defense of the "Reich", the heavily armored Fw 190A-8 with the R8 "set", the so-called "ram fighter", was produced. The additional armored glass on the sides of the cockpit canopy is clearly visible

Tactical and technical characteristics of the Fw 190A-8 Armament: two synchronized 13.2 mm MG 131 machine guns on the fuselage, two 20 mm synchronized MG 151 cannons in the wing root and two cantilever 20 mm MG 151 cannons. Engine: BMW 80ID with a power of 1770 l .With.

Maximum speed: 644 km/h. Flight range: 1500 km. Ceiling: 9950 m. Weight: empty – 3170 kg, take-off – 4400-4450 kg. Dimensions: wingspan - 10.506 m; length – 8.798 m; height – 3.96 m; wing area – 18.3 m2.

Layout diagram of Fw 190A-8

The Allied landing took the scattered and disorganized Luftwaffe units by surprise. German fighters were unable to give an organized rebuff to the Anglo-Americans. On the first day of the invasion, only a handful of FW-190A fighters from JG26 appeared over the beaches of Normandy. Two of them were piloted by the famous ace Josef "Pipe" Priller, the squadron commander, and his wingman, Sergeant Major Hans Wodarski.

After a regrouping of forces and the arrival of significant reinforcements, albeit staffed by inexperienced young pilots, the Luftwaffe tried to repulse the Allies in the western direction. But the lack of German training was reflected during two grandiose air battles at Cayenne and Saint-Lo, where the German forces participating in them lost more than half of their strength within 24 hours! The forces of German aviation were undermined. In less than a week of combat work from the Dreux airfield, the previously mentioned SKG10 squadron was completely destroyed.

As part of the third group of the KG200 air squadron, specializing in various types of special operations, in the winter of 1944/45. Three aircraft, the FW 190A-5/U15 torpedo bomber, were intensively used. Their main goals were... river bridges and crossings.

Speaking about the combat operations of the Luftwaffe aviation units in 1944, it should be noted that at that time they received a new modification of the A-8 aircraft, which turned out to be the most popular in the family of the “one hundred and nineties”. Since February 1944, its production has expanded not only at the company’s own factories, but also at all branches and other companies that produced the FW 190 under license. In total, the production of A-8 modification aircraft exceeded 8 thousand copies. Just like on the small modification of the A-7, the A-8 variant was equipped with two fuselage heavy machine guns MG 131 of 13 mm caliber, as well as a nitrous oxide injection system - GM-1, the so-called high-altitude boost system, or, in other words, oxygen engine fueling at high altitudes. At the same time, the 115-liter tank could be easily replaced with a regular fuel tank (the mounting points were identical), which made it possible to increase the aircraft’s flight range. The A-8 also included a standard ETC 501 ventral bomb rack. The FW 190 A-8 was produced in a variety of variants, ranging from a conventional day fighter to a heavily armored attack aircraft, a radar-equipped night interceptor and a two-seat trainer.

An even more powerful version of the Fw 190A-8 with the R3 “set” – powerful 30 mm MK 103 cannons

For pilot training, a special two-seat variant Fw 190A-8/U1 was produced

The Fw 190A-8/R11 night interceptor was equipped with the FuG 216 radar, NJG 10, late 1944.

The last production model of the short-nose Fokker was the Fw 190A-9. JG 300, Germany, 1945

This armored steel cockpit canopy was also intended for “ramming fighters.”

In the fall of 1944, another modification appeared - the A-9, which differed from the standard A-8 only in reinforced armor and a slightly modified engine.

The last version of the A-modifications was the FW 190A-10, which, however, was no longer mass-produced.

Throughout 1944, FW 190 aircraft took an active part in combat operations on all sectors of the front, both in the East and in the West.

On 1 January 1945, some 660 FW 190As and Fs from JG2, JG3, JG4 and JG26 took part in Operation Bodenplatte (or "Hermann"), Goering's last attempt to crush Allied air power by destroying the fighters massed on French airfields. and bombers of the anti-Hitler coalition. Many of the new German pilots were so woefully inexperienced that they simply did not know how to navigate on a map. They were led to the targets by the master - navigators on Junkers-88 night fighters - the leaders of the columns. The results of this operation were quite good for the Germans, but turned out to be a Pyrrhic victory: the Allies admitted the loss of 230 aircraft (according to German data, more than 500 aircraft were destroyed), but the industrial power of the Allies allowed them to quickly make up for the losses from Operation Bodenplatte. The Germans lost more than 300 aircraft (more than 30 percent of all those participating in the operation) and 232 pilots.

By mid-February, most of the FW 190A production capacity - plants in Marienburg, Sorau, Riga, Warsaw, Posen (Poznan), Breslau (Boryslaw), Legnica and Kreysing - passed into the hands of the Soviet army. In April, strategic fuel reserves were depleted to the limit, rapidly melting after the cessation of oil supplies from the Romanian Constanta, after which almost the entire Luftwaffe fleet was forced to stop flights. Luftwaffe fighters stood camouflaged at airfields and storage bases, or squeezed with their wings dismantled into tube shelters located under the famous German autobahns. The last combat missions of the FW 190A from KG200 were carried out as part of the Mistel and Beethoven strike formations against Soviet crossings on the Oder at the end of April 1945. The last aerial victory on the FW 190A was won by JG54 pilots Oberleutnant Gerhard Theiben and Sergeant Major Friedrich Hangebrauk over the Pe-2FT photo reconnaissance aircraft (crew of Guard Major Grigory Davidenko) in the Vindava area on May 8, 1945.

In 1945, the Fw 190 was used as a control aircraft for the Mistel team.

One of the prototypes of the C series - Fw 190VJ3

"Pre-production" Fw 190V18 - "kangaroo"

"Long-nosed" Focke-Wulfs

According to Kurt Tank, expressed in 1943 in the article “Fighters with High Performance Performance,” it was necessary, having created a successful aircraft, to fight for further improvement of its design and improvement, even if insignificant, of flight data. It must be remembered that it is simply unrealistic to create a completely universal aircraft, equally capable of fighting enemy fighters and, say, storming tank columns. To perform such mutually exclusive functions, it is necessary to create a family of aircraft that, on the one hand, are as unified as possible, and on the other, have individual features that improve any of the tactical characteristics and are adapted to solve a particular combat mission. At the same time, the designer is required, with a certain technical foresight, to determine which of the characteristics (speed at the ground, speed at altitude, rate of climb, maneuverability, altitude, security, etc.) will be a priority at each specific time. Commitment to this concept can be seen in its entirety in the evolution of the FW 190 aircraft.

One of the most “delicate” points in the design of this undoubtedly outstanding fighter was its engine - the BMW 801 double star. Firstly, being in the same weight category with the American Pratt-Whitney R-2800, which was installed on the most popular Air Force fighter USA - P-47 Thunderbolt, it did not reach the power of as much as 400 hp. With. during takeoff, and at high altitude, due to the lack of a turbocharger on the German engine, this gap increased even more. In addition, BMW had virtually no modernization reserve. Therefore, immediately after the successful combat debut of the FW 190A over the English Channel, in September 1941, the Tank began work on creating a high-altitude modification of its brainchild. The first unsuccessful experience in this direction was the FW190B aircraft with the same BMW 801 engine, equipped with a Hirt turbocharger and a pressurized cabin. Less than a dozen aircraft of modification B were built. Due to the increased weight of the propulsion system with an engine of the same power and the imperfection of the single-speed turbocharger, this fighter was considered a dead-end branch of development and the topic was closed.

The tank had high hopes for installing a Daimler-Benz 603G in-line engine with a take-off power of 1,750 hp on its fighter. With. with turbocharger Hirt 9-2281. In 1942, two prototypes of modification C aircraft were built - FW 190V-13 and FW 190V-18, equipped with this engine and a single-speed turbocharger.

Tactical and technical characteristics of the Fw 190D-9 Armament: two synchronized 13.2 mm MG 131 machine guns on the fuselage, two 20 mm synchronized MG 151 cannons in the wing root.

Engine: Jumo 21 ZA with a power of 1750 hp.

Maximum speed: 685 km/h. Ceiling: 10,000 m. Weight: empty - 3490 kg, take-off - 4270-4840 kg. Dimensions: wingspan - 10.506 m; length – 10.24 m; height – 3.36 m; wing area – 18.3 m2.

Prototype of serial "long-nosed Fokkers" - Fw 190V53, converted from Fw 190 A-8

Serial Fw 190D-9 with ventral 300 l. tank

Fw 190V56 – prototype of the production Fw 190D-11

The liquid radiator was located in a very original way, in the frontal part of the hood in front of the engine. The V-18 immediately earned the nickname "Kangaroo" due to its large ventral supercharger intake. On the experimental V-19 aircraft that appeared at the end of 1942, options for installing various engines were tested. Pre-production aircraft of the C series, which had indexes from V-29 to V-33, received a redesigned fin and wing with a larger area. They were even equipped with weapons - two 15-mm MG-151 machine guns and two 20-mm MG-151/20 cannons. The V-32 prototype crashed on April 29, 1943. According to the results of tests carried out at the Rechlin test site, this project also remained unrealized - the engine did not gain power, and the turbocharger often failed and failed. In addition, the Focke-Wulf company had another trump card up its sleeve - a fighter prototype, equipped with an in-line twelve-cylinder Junker Jumo 213 engine of the same rated power as Daimler-Benz, but much more reliable, and most importantly - “from birth” which had a water-methanol boost mode, and the power increased to 2240 hp. e.!

In this form, the Focke-Wulf 190 turned into an excellent high-altitude interceptor, which had some tactical advantage over Allied escort fighters. When intercepting the Flying Fortresses, the low-altitude FW 190A became a “sitting duck”, losing its main advantage - its power supply.

Before K. Tank, only S.A. Lavochkin decided to convert a fighter from one type of engine to another, radically different, who created on the basis of the LaGG-3 fighter with an in-line VK-105 engine the excellent La-5 machine with a “double star” ASh- 82, which had much higher power. And at about the same time as the introduction of the “long-nosed” Focke-Wulf into the series in Japan, at the Kawasaki company, the Ki-61 Hien fighter with an in-line engine was also converted to a “double star”, but this was an absolutely necessary measure - the factory for the production of scarce in-line engines was bombed.

The Yumo engine-powered fighter received the designation FW 190D. In the winter of 1941/42 its prototype, the V-17 (D-0), was converted from the company's remaining pre-production A-0 series aircraft. The long in-line engine with an annular liquid cooler located at the front around the propeller spinner completely changed the silhouette of the fighter. The D-series aircraft received the nickname Langnasen - “long-nose” in the Luftwaffe. An interesting point: the oil cooler on the FW-190D did not have its own cooling channel.

Located in the cylinder camber, it was cooled by liquid coming from the engine cooling system. To regulate the flow of cooling air through the radiator, there was a deflectable annular “skirt”, which, together with the round hood, gave the fighter a resemblance to an aircraft equipped with a radial engine. The control of the “skirt” flaps was automated using a thermostat. The armament was initially left the same, but in the tail section, in front of the empennage, an extension section was added to maintain alignment and increase the tail arm. From the point of view of aerodynamics, this was not an optimal solution, but otherwise it would have been necessary to re-arrange the entire tail boom and change the successive production technology, which was unacceptable in war conditions. To increase stability on course and compensate for the increased reactive torque of the engine, the new aircraft used a vertical The aircraft also had a larger tail surface and a larger propeller, which worked better at higher altitudes.

Serial Fw 190D-12/R11

The FW 190D was distinguished by a high degree of automation: the movement of the throttle control both changed the engine power and speed, and controlled the propeller pitch, boost mode, supercharger, changed the mixture composition and ignition timing. For comparison, in order to switch from cruising flight mode to maximum flight mode, on a La-7 fighter the pilot needed to perform seven operations. The pilot of the “long-nosed” Focke-Wulf was able to concentrate as much as possible on conducting air combat, without being distracted by piloting and controlling the propulsion system.

As on the A-series aircraft, on the “long-nosed” Focke-Wulfs all tanks were concentrated in the fuselage, which, combined with increased specific fuel consumption, led to a reduction in the aircraft’s flight range to 800 km. When installing the water-methanol boosting system, the rear tank with a capacity of 118 liters was filled with a water-methanol mixture, which further “cut” the flight range. For an air defense interceptor, short range was not a very critical drawback, but when using the aircraft as a front-line fighter or fighter-bomber, short range came to the fore.

Due to the low priority of the program and the general workload of the company, the prototype of this quite successful aircraft made its first flight from Langenhagen airfield only in May 1944, when the Luftwaffe needed high-speed, well-armed interceptors. The speed of the fighter at high altitude with boost turned on was 703 km/h. Immediately after the program was revived, an order followed for a pre-production batch of aircraft called D-1. They were quickly converted from FW 190A-7 taken from the assembly line. The armament of these aircraft remained unchanged - two synchronized and two non-synchronized 20-mm MG 151/20 cannons and two 13-mm MG 131 Spandau machine guns in the forward fuselage. However, subsequently, in order to maintain maneuverability characteristics, it was considered advisable to remove the external wing cannons, which sharply reduced the per second mass of the salvo.

The main modification of the "long-nosed" Focke-Wulf, built in large numbers, was the D-9. This specialized interceptor was intended to replace the FW 190A-8 aircraft. Five pre-production aircraft of this series were converted from aircraft of the A-0 modification, which were stored for conservation "until better times." The "experimental" designations for these aircraft were V-20-23 and V-25. Apparently, in order to misinform the enemy, the modification was called the ninth, while modifications from D-2 to D-8 did not exist. Production of the FW 190D-9 fighter aircraft began in the summer of 1944 at three factories at once - in Berlin - Johannisthal, Bremen and Sorau. Early production aircraft had a chopped canopy, characteristic of the FW 190A. By the fall, modification D aircraft received a teardrop-shaped canopy, the so-called “Galland Type” (not to be confused with the canopy used on modification F fighter-attack aircraft).

The D-10 modification was distinguished by the installation of a 30-mm MK 108 cannon, which fired through the propeller shaft. In this way, an attempt was made to increase the power of the fighter's salvo.

The next series was the faster-climbing D-11, equipped with a Jumo213F-1 engine with a lightweight armament of two synchronized MG 151/20 and two MG 131. On some aircraft, as an experiment, the sighting machine guns were removed, but the latest 30 mm were installed in the wing outside the propeller disk MK108 short-barreled guns. A fighter-bomber of the D-11/R5 series was also built, for the first time in the history of the development of the FW 190 it received a bomb sight and had suspensions for eight 45-kg anti-tank bombs, which from a level strafing flight could be placed in a circle with a radius of 10 m, a “command” fighter the D-11/R11, which featured a powerful radio, and the extended-range fighter D-11/R25 with additional fuel tanks in the fuselage. The simplified D-11/R21 did not have a water-methanol engine boost.

Built in a small series, the D-12 modification aircraft were armored, heavily armed interceptors. They were equipped with a 30 mm MK108 cannon, firing through the propeller shaft. The engine, radiator and cockpit had additional armor protection.

The D-13 modification, also very few in number, was a simplified version of the previous one. Instead of the MK108, which had a heavy projectile but poor ballistics and accuracy, the proven and reliable (and also much lighter and with a larger ammunition capacity) MG 151/20 cannon was installed behind the engine. The engine did not have a boost system.

Already in September 1944, FW 190D-9 aircraft entered service with the JG54 "Green Heart" air squadron, based at the Hesep and Akhmer airfields near the Dutch border. The squadron was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Robert Weiss. The task of the new aircraft was to cover the takeoff and landing operations of Messerschmitt-262 jet fighters from the famous Commando Novotny unit. As is known, due to its low thrust-to-weight ratio, the Me 262 was especially vulnerable during takeoff and landing, which was sometimes used by Allied fighters who were very eager to supplement their combat account with a jet machine. With the appearance of an entire air squadron armed with “Doras,” as the FW 190D was nicknamed, to guard the airfields, the pursuit of an easy victory over the “jet” could turn into major troubles for the Spitfire or Mustang.

After the death of the commander of the first Me 262 formation, Walter Nowotny, on December 8, 1944, the Commando Nowotny unit was disbanded, and the pilots from it formed the backbone of the combat air squadron on the Me 262, JG7.

The second squadron to receive the Douro was JG26 Schlageter, commanded by Major Karl Borries, based in Handrup. This formation was re-equipped with new equipment in October 1944. As part of the Schlageter, the Dora began to do for the first time what they were created for - intercepting American bombers. On January 1, 1945, the Dors from JG54 and JG26 took an active part in Operation Bodenplatte.

Experienced Fw 190V68 – prototype Ta 152V

Ta 152V7 – prototype of the installation series Ta 152С-0/Rl 1

Experienced Fw 190 V30/U1 – prototype Ta 152N

In April 1945, the Dors entered service with the third Luftwaffe air squadron, JG6 Horst Wessel, but they never had to fight with it due to lack of fuel.

At the end of 1944, the German Ministry of Aviation decided to assign the names of the most distinguished aircraft designers to their creations. This honor was given, in particular, to Willy Messerschmitt, Kurt Tank and engineer Kalkert from the Gotha company. The new Tank aircraft, which continued the development line of the FW 190D, were to receive the indices Ta 152 and Ta 153. The latter, a specialized high-altitude interceptor with a Daimler-Benz 603 engine and a four-bladed propeller, had a very small “coefficient of continuity” with the “Dora” and from it development was abandoned due to the heavy workload of the design bureau. As a result, the Ta 152 aircraft was accepted for development, a deep modification of the Dora, which could be produced without stopping production at serial plants. Initially, the modifications consisted only of changing the composition of weapons (4 MG 151/20 cannons in the wing) and radio equipment (FuG 24 radio station instead of FuG 16Z). In this form, the aircraft received the Ta-152A designation. But it was necessary to more radically improve the performance characteristics, and this modification remained in the project.

The Ta 152B had booster reversible control and increased firepower due to the installation of an additional 30-mm MK108 cannon, which fired through the propeller shaft. Prototypes were built: the B-3, equipped with a bomb sight and mounts for anti-tank bombs, and the heavily armored B-4, designed for interception.

The Ta 152C aircraft was produced in a small series. Its main difference was the uprated Daimler-Benz 603LA engine. With water-methanol boosting, the aircraft could reach speeds of more than 740 km/h. By installing additional fuel tanks in the wing, the total fuel supply on board was increased from 624 to 874 liters. The armament was the same as on the previous modification. There have been attempts to equip the Ta 152C with a radio sight for all-weather interception.

That 152E remained in the project, mainly because it was unnecessary. It was a high-speed photo reconnaissance aircraft with two AFAs, a promising one and a planned one, equipped with a Yumo213E engine.

And finally, the only modification of the Ta 152 that went into a fairly large series was a very beautiful and futuristic-looking machine with the index N. It was a specialized high-altitude interceptor with a Yumo213E engine and a completely redesigned wing of enormous aspect ratio. The high-fill, three-blade propeller was specially designed to operate in thin air. The prototype of this aircraft, designated FW 190V-19/U2, was destroyed during testing on October 8, 1944. The second prototype, FW 190V-29/U1, was the prototype for the series. It featured a pressurized cabin and was armed with two 20 mm MG 151/20 synchronized cannons in the wing root and one 30 mm MK 108 motor cannon.

During 1945, after a flight of four pre-production vehicles, a series of more than two dozen Ta 152N-0 was built at the Focke-Wulf plant in Langenhagen. Pre-production and production interceptors entered service in April 1945 with two squadrons of the much depleted JG301, which by that time was engaged in covering the takeoff and landing operations of the Me 262 and flying Dora. In the middle and end of April, Ta 152s repeatedly took off to intercept American bombers and chalked up several victories. The aircraft had a very high power-to-weight ratio and, under the control of an experienced pilot, could make several approaches to the formation of enemy bombers flying at an altitude of up to 14 km (!), without fear of counterattacks from the escort Mustangs and Thunderbolts, which simply could not keep up with it, especially with a climb. The combat capabilities of the Ta 152 are perfectly illustrated by the following episode: in the spring of 1945, Kurt Tank, who had never been a professional pilot, but knew how to pilot a plane well, ferried the pre-production Ta 152N-0 from Langenhagen to the front-line airfield in Cottbus.

Along the road, at an altitude of about two kilometers, four Mustangs from the 356th Squadron of the 8th US Air Force were positioned behind a single non-maneuvering fighter. Taking advantage of the opportunity, apparently realizing that the new outlandish aircraft was not being piloted by a combat pilot, the Americans decided to take it into a “box” and bring it to their airfield. But the ambitious plans were not destined to come true: the Tank simply turned on the afterburner and left the Mustangs at a speed of about 700 km/h with a climb, “as if standing still.”

Ta-152N-0

FW-190D-12 at the D. Champlin Aviation Museum in Lima, Arizona

The Ta 152H-0/R21 aircraft were equipped with the GM-1 system, which fed the engine at high altitudes with nitrous oxide, which made it possible to maintain power with virtually no “failure” up to altitudes of 12-13 km. At an altitude of 12.5 km, the speed of the aircraft of this modification was 755 km/h.

The main disadvantage of the N-0 series aircraft was the insignificant fuel supply. The troops installed ventral pylons on aircraft, under which 250-liter tanks were suspended. They tried to increase firepower by installing removable cannon nacelles from the Messerschmitt-109K and FW 190A/F under the wing. Attempts were made to equip the Ta 152N-0 with a radio sight. Several vehicles received additional fuel tanks in the fuselage right on the assembly line. This series received the index Ta 152N-1. The N-2 series - a high-altitude high-speed photo reconnaissance aircraft - remained only in the project. There was also a prototype of the Ta 152N-10 aircraft, without weapons, which was a prototype of the high-altitude high-speed reconnaissance aircraft Ta 152E.

In total, during the war years, German industry produced 13,367 fighters and 6,634 Focke-Wulf-190 fighter-bombers of all modifications. Of these, the “long-nosed” ones account for 650-700 cars. The figure is not entirely accurate due to the fact that a large number of Dors were converted from A-series aircraft, as well as due to the frequent conversion of “long-nosed” aircraft of one modification to another. Only 67 copies of the Ta 152 aircraft, modifications C and H, were built.

After the surrender of Germany, two captured Doras and one Ta 152N-0 were taken to England and flown there, and then transported to the USA. One of these aircraft, the FW-190D-12, is currently located at the D. Champlin Aviation Museum in Pima, Arizona.

The Soviet army captured large numbers of FW 190Ds at East German airfields. Some of the captured equipment was destroyed on the spot - the planes were simply crushed by tanks - and some were distilled or transported to the USSR. After the flight at the LII, the aircraft received a very high rating - do not forget that in speed and altitude the “long-nosed” Focke-Wulf was superior even to the La-11 that appeared after the war, somewhat inferior to the latter only in the power and accuracy of the salvo. There is unverified information that until 1948 - 1949, a number of Dors were in service with the naval aviation of the Baltic Fleet and in air defense units, along with Spitfires and Kingcobras.

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Main characteristics

Briefly

Details

5.3 / 5.3 / 5.7 BR

1 person Crew

3.7 tons Empty weight

5.0 tons Takeoff weight

Flight characteristics

12,000 m Maximum height

sec 23.5 / 23.5 / 21.6 Turning time

km/h Stall speed

Junkers Jumo-213E1 Engine

Row type

liquid cooling system

Destruction rate

912 km/h design

310 km/h chassis

750 rounds of ammunition

750 rounds/min rate of fire

Suspended weapons

4 x 50 kg bomb SC50JA Set 1

8 x 50kg bomb SC50JA Set 2

4 x 50 kg bomb SC50JA
1 x 250 kg bomb SC250JA Set 3

1 x 250 kg bomb SC250JA Set 4

1 x 500kg bomb SC500K Set 5

4 x 50 kg bomb SC50JA
1 x 500kg bomb SC500K Set 6

Economy

Description

Single-engine high-altitude fighter Focke-Wulf FW.190D-13 “Dora”.

The last production version in the FW.190D family of aircraft with the Junkers Jumo 213 engine was the FW.190D-13. The first two prototypes were converted from the production FW.190A-8 in October-November 1944. Both of these vehicles differed from the FW.190D-12 only in the armament. In the cylinder chamber of the Jumo 213E engine, instead of the 30 mm Rheinmetall-Borsig MK.108 cannon, a 20 mm Mauser MG.151/20 cannon with 220 rounds of ammunition was installed. There were also two 20-mm synchronized Mauser MG.151/20 cannons located at the root of the wing.

Later, these aircraft were equipped with Jumo 213F-1 engines, equipped with a 9-8213N supercharger and an MW50 boost system. Since the D-13 series aircraft were intended to be used as high-altitude fighters, both prototypes were equipped with pressurized cabins.

Serial production of the FW.190D-13 began only in March 1945. The aircraft were produced in the all-weather fighter-interceptor version FW.190D-13/R11 and were equipped with a PKS 12 autopilot, a FuG 125 “Hermine” radio station and a heated cockpit windshield.

Until the end of the war, about 30 such aircraft were built, of which 20 were delivered to the JG.26 fighter squadron.

In the FW.190D-13/R5 ​​variant, the aircraft was to be equipped with a TSA-2D sight, an ETC.504 ventral mount and ETC.71 underwing holders for 50 kg SC.50 bombs. It was planned that the FW.190D-13/R5 ​​would subsequently be armed with two Ruhrstahl X-4 air-to-air missiles.

A distinctive feature of the FW.190D was the rational layout of the engine units and propeller group equipment and the successful design of the automatic coolant temperature controller. The aircraft was equipped with a well-developed fire control system. When firing simultaneously from all firing points, aiming at the target was not lost, and the recoil force of the weapon was almost not felt by the pilot. The widespread electrification of equipment simplified the pilot's work. The last German fighters FW.190D and Ta.152 ended the era of piston engines, becoming its “swan song”.

Flight and navigation instruments

1. Ammunition indicator 2. Glide path indicator AFN-2 3. Speed ​​indicator 4. Attitude indicator/roll and slip indicator 5. Variometer 6. Compass 7. Boost pressure gauge 8. Altimeter 9. Fuel and oil pressure gauge 10. Coolant temperature indicator 11. Oil temperature indicator 12.Methanol-water mixture pressure gauge 13.Fuel indicator 14.Tachometer 15.Oxygen supply indicator 16.Oxygen pressure gauge 17.Oxygen supply valve

Main characteristics

Flight performance

Tell us about how the plane behaves in the air. Maximum speed, maneuverability, climb rate and maximum permissible dive speed are the most important characteristics of an aircraft. Pay special attention to RB and SB, since in arcade battles the physics are simplified and there is no flutter.

Survivability and armor

Write about the survivability of the aircraft. Note how vulnerable the pilot is and whether the tanks are protected. Describe the armor, if any, as well as the vulnerability of the engine cooling system.

Armament

Course weapons

3x MG 151/20 (20 mm), 250 rounds per barrel- excellent layout (two cannons are located at the root of the wings, and the third is in the camber of the cylinders) and the almost complete absence of recoil make for comfortable shooting - firing at the enemy from critically short distances is not difficult, and in frontal situations you will emerge victorious in 9 cases out of 10. Dora is unaware of the dependence of enemy fighters on the convergence of firing points - the shells fly in a cluster and cause maximum damage in a small area of ​​destruction, accordingly, “cutting off” the wing or any other part of the enemy aircraft is not difficult, the main thing is to get used to the not the best ballistic performance of the MG 151 gun /20.

A rate of fire of ~750 rounds/min, a fairly high initial projectile speed (approximately 800 m/s) and high damage from special types of projectiles - Minengeschoß - all this allows you to play extremely effectively on passes and successfully attack not only fighters, but also heavy bombers . Even such “monsters” as the B-17E Flying Fortress and B-24D Liberator fall apart in one go, let alone less protected enemy aircraft. In general, the D-13's armament ideally reflects the combat style of this vehicle - high-speed attacks, a correspondingly short firing time, and three 20-mm cannons never fail in such cases. Added to this is a huge amount of ammunition - there is no need to save, even the least accurate shooter will count at least one more shot down by the end of the battle. The belt is recommended for aerial purposes as it contains the most high explosive incendiary rounds.

Suspended weapons

Dora is equipped with good outboard weapons, which allows her to play the role of an attack aircraft if necessary, making this fighter more versatile. Considering the increasing number of people who like to prolong the battle, bombs should not be neglected.

• 50 kg bomb- suspended in quantities of 4 or 8 pieces. Also available in combination with 250 or 500 kg bombs. Well suited for destroying light tanks and light pillboxes, but unsuitable for more armored targets.
• 250 kg bomb (1 piece, or in a bundle of 1x250 and 4x50)- suitable for fighting light/medium tanks and pillboxes.
• 500 kg bomb (1 piece, or in a bundle of 1x500 and 4x50)- easily deals with any tank, pillboxes and cruisers.

Use in combat

Takeoff and landing

Takeoff process

It’s probably no secret that Dora is a rather heavy plane (take-off weight is about 4500 kg), however, despite this, it accelerates quickly, at a speed of ~210 km/h you can take off from the ground, and then you need to accelerate in a straight line up to ~320 km/h and start climbing.

Landing should not be a problem even for pilots who are inexperienced in this matter - we enter the glide path in advance, slow down the speed to ~230 km/h (the main thing is not to drop below 180 km/h, otherwise the plane will start to “nod off” and you will simply crash ), touch the lane and brake. Sturdy landing gear allows the rudder to be used when braking, and since the Dora is quite inert, the bonnet can be used if necessary. If you have a little BC left, then you can do without extreme measures.

Arcade Fights

Excellent weapons with a huge BC - for arcade mode this is already more than half the success. Given the excellent rate of climb, we have an ideal aircraft for boom-zoom. Actually, you should limit yourself to this tactic, since it is not recommended to engage in maneuverable combat - you will be “twisted” by almost all enemy aircraft (except for the same Dors, of course). Traditionally for Focke-Wulfs, we occupy the high ground, recapture it if necessary, and then play hit-and-run tactics. It is possible and necessary to go head-on (with the exception of the enemy's F7F Tigercats and Phokos), it is better to attack enemies who have strayed from the main "dump" of enemies. You also need to pay attention to bombers flying at high or medium altitude - we approach them from above/bottom/side and shoot at the wings. The main thing is not to expose yourself to the turrets, and most likely in a couple of passes (or even less) the enemy will be defeated.

Realistic Fights

Tigercat can no longer be repaired

Fw.190D-13 is a truly unique aircraft. Why? Well, firstly, monstrous flutter resistance plays an important role - while other planes fall apart at ~700-850 km/h, Dora calmly maintains a speed of 910 km/h according to IAS at the very ground! Just think about this figure - not all jet aircraft are able to withstand such air pressure, not to mention piston ones.

But since this quality is possessed not only by the D-13, but also by other representatives of this series, as well as the Japanese fighter J7W1, it is quite reasonable to ask the question - what makes the thirteenth Dora so unique? Well, the answer lies in the presence of hydraulic aileron boosters - only this fighter allows you to work wonders at speeds over 600 km/h - other crafts simply “wake up” and fly like a stone, unable to do anything, while our Foka turns perfectly , shifts and comes out of the dive (although the gravity has not gone away). Added to this is the strength of the wings, which can withstand heavy overloads - no matter how hard you try, you won’t be able to unfasten them.

But the advantages of this beautiful aircraft do not end there - Dora has an excellent rate of climb at all altitude ranges (not least thanks to the MW-50 engine boost system). You will not meet an enemy who can climb with equal success at an altitude of 2-5 km and, say, at 6-9 km. Speed ​​at high altitude is added to the rate of climb - Dora feels great where the enemy simply “suffocates.” Bircats, Griffons and Tempests cannot oppose anything to us above ~6-7 km (low-altitude Soviet aircraft are out of the question). Thus, we have before us not just a good “boom-zoomer”, the Fw.190D-13 is the best fighter for using “falcon strike” tactics.

So we missed the Mustang

Unfortunately, this aircraft is not without its drawbacks - at low altitudes (range of about 5 km above sea level) the Dora does not produce the best performance; it will only be possible to escape from the Spitfire LF.Mk.IX, the rest of the fighters will simply catch up with us and will not leave any chances, therefore it is vitally important to monitor energy, and only if it is available in large quantities can one descend to an unfavorable height, and then with a subsequent return to the original one.

The second drawback is the large turning radius. It is a well-known fact that Focke-Wulfs are not designed for maneuverable combat, and often the only thing Dora can do if she has no other choice is an upward spiral. You can also try to let the enemy through by making a “smeared barrel” - we release the thrust, lower the landing flaps, begin to roll the plane in any direction and at the same time turn the mouse counterclockwise (if you roll to the left) or clockwise (if you roll to the right). Most likely, the enemy will rush forward, thereby you will be at his “six”, but there will be little time for a fire decision - if an experienced pilot allows himself to be missed, then most likely he will try to take advantage of the advantage in energy and pull the plane up, so you need to “catch on live bait,” as soon as we missed it, we shoot it down, because most likely there will be no other chance.

Based on these two important shortcomings, one main rule always works on this plane - if the enemy fighter turns out to be higher and with more energy than yours, then you don’t have long to live. Therefore, you always need to occupy the high ground and recapture it, since the pinnacle of development of the Focke-Wulf line - D-13 - can do this better than anyone.

The most dangerous enemy is the combined air forces of the United States and Britain. Well-armed, maneuverable and fast at almost all altitude ranges, Allied fighters can be quite a hassle, so when dangerously close to them you need to keep an eye on two vital parameters - speed and altitude. If you lose speed, you say goodbye to energy, and with it, to the plane. The same can be said about height - Dora is completely dependent on an advantage in position over the enemy. Therefore, it will often come down to a frontal attack, followed by a flight over a long distance (about 2-3 km) for a combat turn, and then again a frontal attack, and so on until the enemy is defeated, or until he simply gets tired of chasing you at a high altitude and he will descend, flying towards the main battle, which usually takes place near the ground.

The price for indiscretion

Priority #1 - F8F-1B. Birkat has an excellent rate of climb below 5 km above sea level, extremely lethal weapons, excellent maneuverability and speed, so as soon as we saw this deck ship, we shot it down. How can you do this every time with the same result? Well, Birkat will “reclimb” us to 5 km, but the higher he climbs after this mark, the greater (paradoxically) our advantage over the American turns out to be - which means that at the beginning of the battle we simply climb slightly to the side of the enemy, being above 6 km there will be little threat to you. Don’t forget about controlling the radiator flaps - if necessary, they can be completely closed to get maximum performance out of the plane (this will help during a climb, in a chase or escape) or opened to cool the engine faster. Using a colossal advantage in speed at high altitude, with proper positioning, we become practically invulnerable to such a formidable enemy, and with equally competent attacks, the Fw.190 D-13 can become a terrible nightmare for Birkat pilots.

The F7F Tigercat does not pose such a serious danger as the Bircat, since this twin-engine feels even worse at high altitude, and it is very easy to dodge the attack of such a clumsy car even on a Dora. What you don't want to do against Tigercat is go head-on with him. Four Browning M2 machine guns (12.7 mm) in the nose and four AN/M2 cannons (20 mm) in the wing root, which have better projectile ballistics than our MG 151/20 (20 mm) - that’s what’s available in Tigercat's arsenal, so think twice before exposing yourself to such firepower.

Boom-zoom in Malta

Priority No.2 - Tempests. The incredibly fast British will leave no chance of success unless we take advantage of our advantage in climb rate and speed at altitude. Of course, no turns, you can go head-on, although it is risky. The most important thing is not to end up below the “Storm”, without having energy, but if this does happen, then may your allies help you, because below 5 km above sea level is the “kingdom” of the Tempests, and the uninvited guest will only fly away from this kingdom alive with enormous energy, speed and a good team to cover the retreat.

Also, do not underestimate the Griffons - despite the speed lag behind the Tempests, these Spitfires are superior to them in the rate of climb, so when you get to Malta, for example, do not rush to climb directly at the enemy, since at first the crown of development of the Spitfire series will most likely be higher. As has already been said, it will only begin to lag behind at high altitude; in addition, we must take into account the overheating of the engine, which in the Griffons comes on faster and takes longer to reset than in our Dora, so the Spitfire will not be able to run away/chase us for a long time. Accordingly, we climb ~6 km, and then accelerate in a straight line. After this, gaining air supremacy will not be difficult, and as soon as we drive the enemy from the heights, then the matter remains small - following the “hit-and-run” tactics, we coolly and methodically shoot down the enemy’s planes one after another.

The enemy with whom you have the least problems is the Soviet Air Force. While the Americans and British need to recapture the altitude, the Soviet Lavochki and Yaks do not lay claim to it, because these fighters reveal their full potential only at low altitudes (about 3 km above sea level and below). Therefore, in the fight against advice, the rule takes on even greater importance - do not find yourself low and without energy. Otherwise, everything is extremely simple - boom-zoom, and no battles on turns. You can and should go head-on, although with an enemy like the La-9, you need to be more careful - we fire a burst from afar and dodge. Soviet NS-23 (23-mm) cannons are effective only in “close combat”; at long distances they do not perform so well, so you should not get close to the La-9 head-on. You also need to remember that this is one of the fastest aircraft near the ground, so when you get, for example, to the “Defense of Stalingrad” location (or any other map where we are opposed by the Red Army Air Force), first of all you should pay attention to the ninth “Bench” .

Working in pairs

One Dora is good, but two are better

The Fw.190 D-13 is one of the few fighters capable of holding its own in random battles, so the well-coordinated play of just a couple of Dors is enough to cause irreparable damage to the enemy team and change the overall situation on the battlefield. Judge for yourself - if one Focke-Wulf has to recapture a height without cover, then it takes much longer than when you are backed up by a co-link who can duplicate your attack (or vice versa - you repeat after your partner), be it a frontal attack with exceeding or playing on passes, respectively, not only reduces the time required to gain an advantage in altitude, but also increases the efficiency of the fighter itself.

Since in our case it is desirable that the flight consist of two D-13s, which will not differ in performance characteristics, as, for example, in the case of the tandem of captured Tempest and Dora, it is up to you to decide whether to split up in battle or not. Both options are acceptable, but it is still better to stick together in view of the above. It is also worth remembering that it will absolutely not always be possible to get away with it, because it will not be difficult for an imprudent pilot to lose energy, and then he will need the support of a partner who should be nearby to provide this assistance, because the enemy does not sleep, and Dora is without speed becomes a tasty morsel for many enemy fighters.

Having taken off, try not to move away from each other while gaining altitude, and as soon as the first enemy appears, say, a Bearcat (or any other aircraft trying to gain altitude), he will be very “surprised” by two Doras simultaneously coming at him head-on (and this is exactly what you need to do). This applies not only to the frontal ones - it is extremely problematic for the enemy to dodge the attack of one Focke-Wulf, and it is not at all possible to escape alive from two fighters, ideally designed for making additional turns at extreme angles of attack at enormous speed. It’s not worth falling on one target at the same time - it’s better to wait until it dodges one attack, and then go on the offensive a second time, but the main thing is not to be late and not let the aggressor recover. If one such unit plays competently, taking into account Dora’s excellent flight characteristics, it will be extremely difficult for the enemy to counter anything in response.

Advantages and disadvantages

The best piston aircraft for playing on energy and speed and, accordingly, the best premium fighter for boom-zoom fans, the Fw.190 D-13 in the right hands can single-handedly decide the outcome of the battle. Thanks to its excellent flight characteristics, this particular Dora is suitable for both beginners who are just learning the basics of the game without participating in a turning battle, as well as experienced pilots who will appreciate the enormous capabilities of this masterpiece of aircraft construction.

Advantages:

• Excellent weapons with excellent layout
• Huge speed at high altitude
• Excellent ammunition
• Dives, traditionally for Focke-Wulfs, perfectly
• Excellent energy retention
• Excellent rate of climb
• Excellent flutter resistance
• Dizzy roll
• The best controllability at high speeds among all piston aircraft, which is due to the presence of aileron hydraulic boosters

Flaws:

• At low altitude ranges it is inferior in performance characteristics to many aircraft of the same rank
• It is extremely difficult to play defensively due to the long turn time, so being higher than the enemy is almost a mandatory rule for achieving success in this fighter

Historical reference

Yellow ten

"Yellow 10" in Holland, June 1945

Piloted by Major Franz Goetz (63 victories), the Yellow Ten was one of five 190s transported to the United States for evaluation, and is currently the only Long-Nosed Dora surviving to this day. She was delivered to Jagdgeschwader 26 in March 1945, two months before Victory Day. In May '45, after the end of the war, Goetz transported this D-13 to the RAF base in Flensburg, Germany, after which the aircraft was captured by the Allies. The Ace of Spades insignia was painted on both sides of the fuselage to commemorate service with JG 53. When the British decided to hand Dora over to the Americans, the German markings (namely Balkenkreuz and Hackenkreuz) were painted over and replaced with small white stars.

While still in Flensburg, the Allies were extremely interested in evaluating the performance and design of the Yellow Ten. Since such an inspection would only be carried out after the aircraft had been transported to the United States, the British decided to conduct comparative tests on site, and they were scheduled for June 25. The advanced German fighter piloted by Major Heinz Lange (holder of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, squadron commander JG51, 70 air victories) had to be opposed by the best British fighter at that time - Hawker Tempest mk.V. At that moment, he did not even realize that he was piloting not just another D-9, but a D-13. Major Lange had a feeling that the outcome of such a confrontation depended entirely on the skill of the pilot.

“Dogfight” took place at an altitude of 3 km above sea level, with enough fuel for flight, and, of course, without ammunition. At the end of the tests, it turned out that both fighters were almost equal in flight performance, with the exception of maximum speed at high altitude, where Dora was superior to the British.

Photo from the museum showing wooden flaps

Subsequently, this aircraft was delivered to the USA to the Seattle Aviation Museum and restored to almost flying condition, but since this is an extremely rare and valuable example of the Focke-Wulf line, flights on it, of course, were prohibited. Looking at the photographs taken in this museum, you can stumble upon some rather interesting features of this specimen. One of them is wooden flaps.

The 1918 Curtiss Jenny biplanes were constructed almost entirely of wood. Twenty years later, almost all aircraft have traded wood for metal, but if you dig a little deeper, you can find wood in WWII aircraft, such as the Soviet I-16 Donkey, which was a strange mixture of metal, fabric and wood structure. Since by the end of the war Germany was experiencing serious problems with raw materials, even such ultra-modern aircraft for that time as the Dora used wooden parts. As we can see in the photo, the flaps on the Yellow 10 were made entirely of wood.

Media

Review of Fw.190D-13 from BlackCross

Second review of Fw.190D-13 from BlackCross

Review of Fw.190D-13 from War Thunder Wiki

see also

• link to the family of equipment;
• links to approximate analogues in other nations and branches.

• page on Airwar.ru;
• other literature.

· Focke-Wulf aircraft
Serie A	Fw 190 A-1 Fw 190 A-4 Fw 190 A-5 ▅Fw 190 A-5 Fw 190 A-5/U2 Fw 190 A-5/U12 Fw 190 A-8 ▃Fw 190 A-8 ▄NC 900
Series F	Fw 190 F-8
Series D	Fw 190 D-9 ▂Fw 190 D-9 Fw 190 D-12 Fw 190 D-13
Series C	Fw 190 C
Ta.152	Ta 152 C-3 Ta 152 H-1
Other	Fw 189 A-1 Fw 200 C-1 Ta 154 A-1

· German fighters
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Decades after the end of World War II, debate continues over whose aircraft were better - Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. Our domestic specialists spent a long time and carefully studying the technical solutions born in German design bureaus. Captured equipment was constantly tested at the Air Force Research Institute. The FW-190 (FV-190) was no exception. In July 1943, a modification under the symbol “A-4” was studied, two months later - “A-5”. In December 1944 and March 1945, Soviet pilots thoroughly studied the FW-190A-8 and its lightweight version, the FW-190D-9 aircraft. This machine was tested at the Chkalovskaya airfield from May 11 to May 25, 1945.

FW-190D-9 diagrams

The FW-190D-9 differed from its predecessors mainly in its propeller-engine group. Instead of the star-shaped air-cooled BMW-801 engine, they used a water-cooled V-shaped Jumo-213A with direct fuel injection and a VS-111 variable-pitch propeller, the blades of which were made of wood. The engine was equipped with an automatic two-speed drive centrifugal supercharger and a device for injection of a water-alcohol mixture, which increased power in emergency situations from 1900 to 2100 hp. The power plant was controlled using a central station, which made it possible to set the operating parameters of the motor and propeller in their optimal combination by moving the engine control lever.

elements of the FW-190D-9 power plant

The fuel was placed in three protected gas tanks with a total capacity of 642 liters. It was also possible to install a 300-liter suspended gas tank.

Protective measures included the presence of 45 mm thick armored glass in the front of the canopy canopy, a 12 mm thick armored headrest, an eight-mm armored backrest and four 5-mm armor plates behind the pilot's seat.

FW-190D-9 layout

The aircraft's armament was the same as on the FW-190A-8. It consisted of two synchronized MG-151 cannons of 20 mm caliber and two MG-131 machine guns of 13 mm caliber, the total ammunition of which consisted of 400 and 900 rounds of ammunition, respectively. Unlike Soviet fighters, synchronized cannons were located in the wing, and machine guns were located above the engines.

placement of weapons FW-190D-9

The plane had a FuG-16ZY VHF communications radio and a FuG-25 ​​“friend or foe” location transponder. A distinctive feature of the radio station was that its receiver was used in a radio half-compass system.

To combat icing, the canopy glass was sprayed with gasoline, and there were also electrothermal devices on the front and left side windows.

As a result of modernization, the length of the FW-190D-9 aircraft increased compared to the FW-190A-8 from 8,950 to 10,380 meters. The greatest “contribution” to this was made by the propeller unit, which lengthened the machine by 0.8 meters. The lengths of the rear fuselage also increased (by 0.5 m) and the chord of the vertical tail (by 0.130 m). It should be noted that the use of the new engine did not lead to significant modifications to the airframe.

FW-190D-9

During the state tests, the vehicle's leaders were engineer V.O. Melnikov and pilot V.E. Golofastov. We flew around A.G.’s plane. Kochetkov, A.G. Proshakov, V.I. Khomyakov, L.M. Kuvshinov and V.G. Masic. Test pilots of the Air Force Research Institute noted in their reports that:

“The cockpit of the FV-190D-9 aircraft is similar in equipment and arrangement of the aircraft and engine control levers to the cockpit of the FV-190A-8...

The view of the front hemisphere is good, the view of the rear hemisphere is limited by the armored headrest.

During the takeoff run, the aircraft tends to turn to the left, especially when the throttle is applied sharply and the tail is vigorously raised.

The vertical speed of the aircraft is low compared to domestic fighters.

Compared to the FV-190A-8, the aircraft's controls have become more difficult.

The absence of in-flight adjustable trim tabs on the control surfaces makes it much more difficult to pilot the aircraft. At low speeds the car tends to roll and turn to the left, and at high speeds (over 450 km/h) - to the right.

Aerobatics on an airplane is performed normally, with the exception of turns. On turns, mainly on the left, there is a shaking of the tail surface, which increases as the roll increases.

The turn time at an altitude of 1000 m is 22-23 seconds, at an altitude of 5000 m - 24-28 seconds.

During a combat turn from a height of 1000 m, the aircraft gains 1000 meters, and from a height of 5000 m - 900 meters.

During a dive, the aircraft quickly picks up speed and at the same time the pulling forces on the stick also quickly increase. When recovering from a dive, to reduce the pulling forces on the stick and to speed up the recovery, it is necessary to use an in-flight adjustable stabilizer. Before planting, it must be set to a minimum angle.

During the run, the plane yaws.

Control of machine gun and cannon weapons is convenient. When firing from a dive at a ground target simultaneously from all firing points, the aircraft behaves steadily - aiming at the target is not lost. The pilot hardly feels the recoil force of the weapon.

Air combat between the FV-190D-9 aircraft and the domestic high-speed twin-engine bomber “63”(meaning the SDB aircraft of the A.N. Tupolev Design Bureau, modification of the Tu-2 - author’s note)showed that due to the lack of an advantage in maximum horizontal speed and a small advantage in vertical speed, the FV-190D-9 aircraft in horizontal flight and while climbing has the ability to attack only at small angles in the rear hemisphere.

When descending, the FV-190D-9 aircraft can attack the “63” bomber much more freely and at greater angles than during horizontal flight, due to a faster increase in speed...

The air combat of the FV-190D-9 aircraft with the domestic La-7 fighter showed that the La-7 has significant advantages over it in terms of maximum speeds, climb rate and maneuverability in the horizontal and vertical planes.

In a horizontal maneuver, when meeting at speeds of 0.9 from the maximum, the La-7 aircraft comes into the tail of the FV-190D-9 aircraft in 2-2.5 turns.

In a vertical maneuver, when meeting at maximum speeds, the La-7 gains a greater altitude during a combat turn and, having superiority in altitude, comes into the tail of the FV-190D-9 aircraft.”

color variant of captured FW-190D-9

The final part of “Act No. 94 on the results of state tests of FV-190 aircraft” noted the following:

"1. The Focke-Wulf-190D-9 aircraft with a liquid-cooled YuMO-213A engine is inferior in flight-tactical data to the domestic serial fighters Yak-9U with VK-107A, Yak-3 with VK-105PF2 and La-7 with ASh-82FN.

2. Replacing the air-cooled BMW-801 engine with the liquid-cooled YuMO-213A engine led to a slight increase in the maximum horizontal speeds of the aircraft.”

The Great Patriotic War ended and it became clear that the hopes placed by the Luftwaffe on the FW-190 fighter were not fully justified.