German double decker in World War II

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The Air Force of the Third Reich was equipped with a considerable number of biplanes . At the beginning of the war, the machines were still used in combat missions, but then increasingly used for training and other tasks, for example as tow planes for gliders , as sea rescue planes or for sea reconnaissance. Only the Henschel Hs 123 remained in continuous use at the front until there were no more machines available in 1944.

On the eastern front , the Soviet side began with biplanes, mostly Polikarpow Po-2 , z. Sometimes also with female crews to fly nightly disturbance attacks against ground targets. The planes were called sewing machines by the German soldiers because of the chugging noise of their five-cylinder engines. They were initially opposed by Czechoslovak Letov Š-328s as night fighters , and later others such as Fw 189 . The Air Force soon took over this Störtaktik and formed in October / November 1942 three Behelfskampfstaffeln biplanes, which until the beginning of 1943 to four Störkampfgruppen were expanded. In the course of 1943 these were transformed into night battle groups and expanded. An additional unit, the Ostfliegerstaffel 1, was recruited from Soviet defectors and partly equipped with captured aircraft. Volunteers from the Baltic countries also flew such missions. In these associations, in addition to monoplane attack aircraft such as the Junkers Ju 87 and the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 , especially the Arado Ar 66 , which was built in 1356 for the Air Force, and the Gotha Go 145 (built in 1192) were used, also the Heinkel He 45 and He 50, and after Italy left the axis also the Fiat CR 42, which was taken over from there. Machines of these types were partly still in service in 1945.

The Bücker Bü 131 Jungmann and Bü 133 Jungmeister were built long after the war in Spain, for example, and are still flown as acrobatic aircraft today.

Series models

Prototypes

The Reich Aviation Ministry (RLM) awarded contracts based on tenders. Several companies, usually three, then built prototypes, sometimes followed by small pilot series , and tested them. They were then flown and assessed at the test sites. Most of the following models did not get beyond these steps and were then assigned to flight schools or were already retired at the beginning of the war.

  • Arado Ar 67 Jäger (only a prototype, development abandoned in favor of the Arado Ar 68)
  • Arado Ar 81 dive fighter (only three prototypes, in competition with Junkers Ju 87 )
  • Arado Ar 195 carrier-supported torpedo bomber (only three prototypes, in competition with the Fieseler Fi 167)
  • Arado Ar 197 carrier-supported fighter (three prototypes and four pilot series aircraft , in competition with the Bf 109T )
  • Fieseler Fi 98 dive combat aircraft (only two prototypes, in competition with the Henschel Hs 123)
  • Focke-Wulf Fw 62 sea ​​reconnaissance aircraft with floats (only four prototypes, in competition with the Arado Ar 196 )

Loot planes

In addition, captured aircraft were also used in the Luftwaffe, with double-deckers being taken over in significant numbers from Czech and Austrian stocks, especially in 1938. Czech and Italian double-deckers continued to be produced in some cases under German occupation.

Czechoslovak captured planes , 1938

Italian captured aircraft , from the Austrian Air Force in 1938 or directly from Italy in 1943

Polish captured planes , 1939

  • PWS-26 , 30 machines at short notice as training aircraft, resold to Romania
  • Potez 25 , two machines for testing purposes

French captured planes , 1940

Individual prey machines from other nations

literature

  • Dr. Christian Möller: The operations of night battle groups 1, 2 and 20 on the Western Front from September 1944 to May 1945 - With an overview of the formation and use of the sturgeon and night battle groups of the German Air Force from 1942 to 1944. Dissertation (358 p., 196 fig .), Aachen 2008, ISBN 978-3-938208-67-0 .

See also