Talk:Focke-Wulf Fw 190

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At the end of war the Soviet Army has captured several Fw 190 D, which were then used (as well as lots of other German aircraft) for evaluation and mock-up dogfights at the VVS Research Institute and the Luberezkaya pilot training facility. That hardly qualifies the USSR as the "operator" of the Fw 190, therefore I`ve deleted it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.225.8.25 (talk) 20:33, 11 November 2007 (UTC)


"During the war, Germany sent one Fw 190A-8 to Japan for technical evaluation."

It would be interesting to know what happened as a result of this evaluation. Also if anyone knows the date (approximately) this happened, it would be nice to add.

Ortonmc 06:00, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It assisted in the development of the Kawasaki radial-engined Ki-100 from the inline-engined Ki-61 Hien "Tony", especially the engine mounting. Ki-61 itself was influenced by German engineering and powered by a Japanese version of the Bf 109's Daimler-Benz DB-601A) [1] FeloniousMonk 23:11, 27 September 2005 (UTC)


Contents

[edit] Armin Farber's Fw 190A-3 and its signifcance

Seeing that I missed a passing mention of it already in the article, I've removed my addition of content about Armin Farber's 'gift' to the British. I'm including my original passage here in case anyone wants to reuse it FeloniousMonk 23:03, 27 September 2005 (UTC):

On 23 June, 1942, Oberleutnant Arnim Faber mistakenly landed his Fw 190A-3 fighter at RAF Pembrey, apparently having confused this airfield for a Luftwaffe channel coast airfield. The British, who were having an extremely difficult time with the Fw 190A, thereby gained a working example of the fighter. Examination of Faber's aircraft was largely responsible for the preparation of Specification F.6/42, which called for a new, high-performance fighter. The Hawker Tempest, specifically, the radial-engined Tempest Mark II and its subsequent evolution, the Hawker Sea Fury, were a direct result of the examination of Faber's Fw 190A-3. The cockpit section of Farber's Fw 190 is now on display at the Shoreham Aircraft Museum, in Kent. [2]

[edit] more cannon

I feel this article is good but lacks a mention of the MK103 cannon armament that was shoehorned onto late war bomber busters. (Jimsim 20:48, 15 November 2005 (UTC))

No MK 103 on Fw 190, they used MK 108 (outboard wing). MK 103 was seen on some special Bf 109 (trials only, too heavy to be of any use) but not on Fw 190. --Denniss 23:18, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Why a an F?

Something that irks me is the caption of one of the images stating, "Focke-Wulf Fw 190F variant. Note bomb rack under belly" Aren't the underwing and underfuselage pylons (ETCs racks) part of a field modification kits that could be attached to all Fw-190A variants (not just the ground attack 190 F)? I think its a bit hard to classify the particular aircraft as an F type <Anon.>

True, all the more considering that the F is generally visually difficult to distinguish from the A series which it is directly derived from.
It could be that whoever captioned the photo up had access to information which indicated that it was an F series... though it's not very likely. Stele 09:12, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
It's most likely an A model - the photo shows wing-mounted cannon, and I believe it was the outer cannon that were omitted in the F. They retained the difficult-to-spot wing-root-mounted cannon. ericg ✈ 03:22, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
There's wing-mounted cannon? I was looking hard for that. If so, then yes it's an A, and you're right about the omission in the F series. Unfortunately, it seems like the only cannon visible in that photo are wing-root cannon. The outer wing cannon would be further outboard, about half-way to the wingtip. Stele 12:41, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dora

I'm not sure "Dora" is appropriate in the Fw 190D description. This is a largely modern invention (same as Emils and Gustav Bf 109s). It was certainly never used by the Allied pilots who simply called them "long-nosed Focke Wulfs" and there is no mention of "Dora" in the contemporary edition of Jane's. - Emt147 Burninate! 08:19, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Largely modern? It's actually the German equivalent of Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and the system was certainly in use by the Germans during the war (Adolf, Bruno, Cesar, Dora, Emil, Frederick, Gustav etc). Which is why the Allies never used the name. The Fw 190D-9 was in fact often affectionately nicknamed Langnasen Dora, or "long-nosed Dora". Janes may have their own reason for not using the name, for example non-official designations etc. But that alone does not in any way mean that the plane was never known as such. :)Stele 12:41, 16 March 2006 (UTC)


Ok I started cleaning and adding more info to the Dora section.


The Germans, by the way, DID call the D9 a Dora. Oberleutnant Oskar-Walter Romm commented he had first seen the Fw190D9 in December of 1944 at Stargrad (near Stettin) which was fresh from the Martienbgurg FW factory. He said: "In the decent the Dora-9 picked up speed much more rapidly than the Fw 190A; in a dive it would leave the Russian Yak-3 and Yak-9 fighters standing". These were his very words when interviewed for the Fw190 in Combat book by Alfred Price. --Evil.Merlin 02:30, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I doubt that Mr Romm ever used the word decent when referring to the Fw 190D. He probably used the word descent. It's a little thing, and it knocks a little dent in your claim to definitive expertise. When was he interviewed for this book? Is that quote from his diary of 1944, or an interview conducted many years later? -Ashley Pomeroy 14:30, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
its a typo, get over it. The interview was done in 1947 I believe --Evil.Merlin 18:22, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fw190A updates

Hi folks, just a warbird nut here. I got rather sick of an anemic section on the A. I've put in a lot of information gathered from several books on the Fw190, specifically:

Butcher Bird: The Focke-Wulf 190 by Edward Shacklady

Focke-Wulf 190: The Birth of the Butcher Bird 1939-1943 by Morten Jessen

The Focke-Wulf 190: Fw190 by Gordon Swanborough & William Green

Produdction to Front Line #5, Focke-Wulf Fw 190 by Malcolm Lowe

Focke-Wulf FW 190 Volume 1 by Krzysztof Janowicz

Walk Around Number 22: Focke-Wulf FW 190A/F by Squadron Signal Publications

The Focke-Wulfe Fw190 Fighters, Bombers and Ground Attack Aircraft by Heinz J. Nowarra

You will find most accurate information in Janowicz's and Shacklady's books. The others are mostly a collection of images from various other publications over the years. The FW190 by Swanborough and Green is a bit dated but also is a good resource book.

--Evil.Merlin 01:59, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Appreciate your hard work. Unfortunately Janowicz in particular perpetuates several myths about the Fw 190A subtypes, many of which have been long-since discarded: the wings of the A-6 were structurally modified and were no different in area or shape to earlier wings; the U series A-3s were completely different to those described etc, etc.
  • Rodeike, Peter. Jagdflugzeug 190. Eutin: Struve druck, 1998. ISBN 3-923457-44-8.
  • Page, Neil. "Focke Wulf 190: Part One-the Fw 190A-series fighter variants." Scale Aircraft

Modelling, Vol 24 No 9, November 2002.

provide more accurate and up to date information.Minorhistorian (talk) 12:23, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fw190F, G and S updates

Finally got around to adding some more good info. The last person to "edit" didn't do all that well, as the G's were not built before the F's

--Evil.Merlin 05:33, 26 April 2006 (UTC)


Ugh, got sick of people quoting the exagerated RLM build numbers. So I removed them all together and added some information on why build numbers (and especially Werk numbers) during the end of war were so innacurate.

Build numbers were typically accurate till late fall/early winter of 1943, when the number of 3rd party builders increased and the factories spread.

--Evil.Merlin 20:41, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FW 190G build numbers

Look Denniss, I'm getting a little sick and tired of your supposed RLM numbers.

Four books specfically mention issues with the RLM acceptance numbers and how they simply are out of wack for a number of reasons.

Produdction to Front Line #5, Focke-Wulf Fw 190 by Malcolm Lowe Focke-Wulf FW 190 Volume 1 by Krzysztof Janowicz Butcher Bird: The Focke-Wulf 190 by Edward Shacklady

All mention the issues RLM was having with providing accurate build numbers starting in September of 1943. Malcolm Lowe's book mentions it in the Ground Attack chapter, Janowicz covers it with all builds after September of 1943 and Shacklady specifically refrences the issues and shows three FW 190s, two G's and one F that are currently in museums today that have multiple Werk numbers and some are listed THREE times in RLM acceptance reports.

YOU claim to want proof, but you don't provide any of your own.

--Evil.Merlin 14:09, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Are they listet three times as new built aircraft or only one time as new build and two time as rebuilds ? That's what matters, only the new builds have to be added because it's a can of worms with all theses rebuilds and Werknummern. --Denniss 23:23, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Flug Werk's FW190A-8/N

Added a bit of info on the FW190A-8/N currently being flight tested (successfully too) from Germany.

--Evil.Merlin 18:41, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Serious hole

There's next to nothing about how it actually performed in the war. Clarityfiend 06:59, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Strongly agree. XSebX 00:54, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

This kind of thing is problematic for an objective encyclopaedia such as Wikipedia. It is hard to paint an objective portrait of an aircraft's effectiveness. There are plenty of first-hand, anecdotal accounts of Fw 190s in combat from both Axis and Allied pilots, but encyclopaedias are not built on first-hand, anecdotal accounts. Perhaps there is a way to illustrate the 190's combat performance with numbers, but how? A simple recounting of kills and losses would not account for the numerical superiority of one side of another, and certainly not the great differences in pilot quality; a ratio of total aircraft fielded against aircraft lost to enemy action would not account for the degree of danger to which the aircraft were exposed, or the distorting effect that extremely high or low production numbers can have upon the usefulness of ratios. We need to put all of these figures into context, against contemporary Allied aircraft, and that is a lot of hard work, and even then, there is so much that is unknowable. It's hard to write engagingly about the Fw 190 without resorting to a string of numbers and incidents and battles that blur together (some of the Osprey military books suffer from this problem). Writing about the Fw 190 is like writing about the films of Peter Greenaway; they exist, they are sometimes extraordinary, but they passed from the Earth and left behind nothing of interest for a non-specialist audience.
Secondly, apart from the Dieppe Raid, and perhaps the famous beach strafing incident during D-Day, the 190 did not have a distinguishing battle that is familiar outside enthusiast circles. Or rather, it participated in some of the most dramatic events in human history, but is not synonymous with them in the same that the Spitfire and Me 109 are synonymous with the Battle of Britain, or the B-17 with the Allied bombing campaign against occupied Europe, or the Stuka during the fall of France. The Fw 190 fought hard and steady throughout the war, in hundreds of forgotten battles on the Eastern front, and only came into its own during a period in which the Luftwaffe was being ground into powder. Other aircraft have a dramatic story that can be told, whereas the Fw 190's tale is one of clever engineering, initial dominance, quiet competence, relative decline, and final rebirth in extremely unfavourable circumstances. -Ashley Pomeroy 15:08, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
The problem you are going to run into is a battle of quotes. For every drooling account of awesomeness, I can provide a quote from a VVS pilot claiming 190 was a total turkey as long as one avoided head-on attacks. In fact, this is a problem with any airplane (remember how top VVS aces flew that total dog of a P-39 Airacobra?). You cannot pull information from different sources to synthesize a comparison either -- this would violate WP:NOR. Present the numbers and let the reader make their own conclusions. US Navy compiled published statistics on performance of its aircraft during the war, including kill/death ratios against specific enemy types (i.e. F6F vs. Zero, F6F vs. Frank, F6F vs. George, etc.) I find it hard to believe that someone as ... ahem... "meticulous" as Germans would not have kept detailed records. - Emt147 Burninate! 03:34, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I think both extremes hide the reality; this aircraft, like almost every other, had it's time and place. Certainly when it was introduced in the west it trounced the Spitfire, something that both the LF and RAF commented on. That this was quickly addressed with the Spit IX simply demonstrates the point. I think this bit of history is certainly useful for this article.

Likewise, while it is certainly true that the VVS bested the 190, this is true only in historical context. The 190 was absolutely superior to anything in the east when it arrived, especially because it's engine maximized mid-altitude performance, where most of the eastern front fighting took place. It wasn't until the La-5 became widespread that it was equaled, and that didn't really happen until late 43.

Certainly the 190s time in the sun was limited, but that's precisely the sort of thing that would be useful in an article like this. It illustrates not only the rapid pace of development during the war, but also the bizarre development system in place in Germany at the time -- upgrades to the 190 could only be described as "lackadaisical", at best.

And that is based on what exactly? The 190 went through a very typical design lifecycle. Nothing bizarre about it.82.113.113.82 (talk) 14:15, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Maury 20:03, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Surprised at how negative this article is regarding FW-190 performance on the Eastern Front. If the 190 did so poorly there, how was the Luftwaffe able to maintain aerial competitiveness into 1944 and early 1945? How did 190 pilots rack up such high victory totals against superior Soviet aircraft? Antarctica moon (talk) 07:46, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

The Fw 190 was hampered by lack of numbers more than it was by having a poor performance against Russian aircraft; there was also the tendency for Soviet propaganda to belittle German weapons. On the whole the German pilots, especially the veterans, were better trained and far more combat "savvy" than the Russians until quite late in the war. What did wear the Luftwaffe down was the sheer numbers of Russian aircraft and an increasing lack of fully trained replacement pilots. It should be noted, however that the La-5s and 7s and Yak 3s, 7s and 9s did have superb low altitude performance and were some of the most manoeuvrable fighters of their generation.Minorhistorian (talk) 03:51, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Use of color profile

Mr. Giovanni Paulli of www.paulligiovanni.com has bee so gentle to give me written permission to use the color profile I added in the image (see its page for authorisation). In exchange his copyright and his website link MUST be left on the page. So please don't remove them .--Attilios 09:00, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

There are plenty of free/public domain images of the Fw 190 around; we don't need to be using copyrighted images which require a public link back to the creator's website. I've removed this image for that reason. ericg ✈ 01:48, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Please, Bzuk. The image features the prominent showing of the author's name and webite, as well as the removal of a certain controversial marking from the rudder. Beside being a blatant self-promotion, it is doctored and anti-historical, of no artistic or documentary value. There are plenty of Dora pics around, as someone mentioned; this specific one has no place within the context of an encyclopedia.

Okay, I see your point; I just noted that another editor had specifically requested the use of the image and even though it does have a link back to the artist's site, it did look like an appealing image. See if you can find something that would work- I do have a Fw 190D photo from the former Champlin Museum collection that would be suitable. Bzuk 23:47, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Attilios, I don't appreciate your threatening tone or inappropriate comments you are sending. I don't think that something like this is necessary: "When you will us who you are, you'll be allowed to push away "insignifcant" images from Wikipedia. Beware. --Attilios 09:41, 21 February 2007 (UTC)"24.57.195.9 02:10, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] country edit

Carried out a very minor edit in the foreign operators section as it had England as an operator and then referenced the British airforce. England and Britain don't mean the same thing and in contexts like this the term is British or Britain/GB/UK as the operator. For those non British posters/editors - England is a member country of Britain along with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. In modern military matters all references should be termed British/Britain and not the common misconception of using "England or English" in it's place as is done by many European and North American posters.

[edit] Cease and desist, Attilios

You have been pushing this aviation art of yours with a fixation that can only be ascribed to a form of dementia. Perhaps you see it as a test of will, who knows. Either way, I want to make one more attempt to explain it to you in good faith:

It is regrettable that German planes had an a swastika painted on theit tailfins, but that's how it was. Whether your deleted it out of ignorance, embarassment, distaste or whatever motives you are pursuing, it doesn't matter. This is an encyclopedia, not a compendium of sanitized history and Victorian morality. Some people read these articles for information and historical accuracy and they are more interested in seeing an historical aircraft the way it was, instead of the way you wish it had been.

Posting defiled and falsified images is NOT acceptable. Do you understand that, Attilios? IMAGINI DISTORTI E FALSIFICATI NON SONO ACCEPTABILI. Rig0 04:09, 4 April 2007 (UTC)Rig0

[edit] So why didn't it work?

I found this more than a little interesting:

http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=2926

So basically NACA had an identical system on the A-17, and not only did it work, but led to significant improvements over the standard NACA cowling. So why couldn't Tank get it to work? The "party line" is that they gave up on it and found that the normal cowling was just as good, but this suggests otherwise.

Maury 19:53, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] high altitude developments

I have added a section on the various attempts to improve high-altitude performance in the B, C and D models. I have followed the Baugher chronology for this section, which is by no means universal. To explain, there are basically "two stories" of the development of the Dora.

One states that development started with the B series, which was primarily an A model with GM-1 and other adaptations. When this didn't work out, they moved onto the C model with the 603. When that didn't work out, they tried again with the D, and finally got it right. Following this chronology, the Dora that went into production was what they were after all along, the turbochargers and other adaptations were purely experimental. A typical example of this chronology can be found here.

The other version states that Tank proposed all three models, B, C and D, at the same time. All of them were major advances on the A using longer wings, pressurized cockpits and turbochargers. They differed primarily in the engine they used, the 801, 603 or 213. The B was abandoned early because the increased weights were not made up for with increased power (it was the same engine after all, only high-altitude performance would be improved so take-offs might get hairy). The C and D models were more successful, and in the end the only thing to choose between them was the existing commitments of the 603 in designs like the 210/410, so the D won by default. As the Dora that entered production was not the original idea, but simply an A model with a new engine, work continued on bringing the "real" design to production as the Ta 152. This can be seen here.

At some point in time I read a longer account that followed the later quite closely, but with much more detail. I see to recall the entire project had an alternate name, it started with "R" IIRC.

Maury 20:33, 9 August 2007 (UTC)



  • Added info on the D-12 and D-13 models.--Evil.Merlin (talk) 04:07, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Aircraft Usage question...

What say the masses about captured aircraft and those used for reasearch?

Neither the Brits nor the Yanks actually USED the Fw 190 in combat, they only used them as hacks and for testing purposes (other than say the Ruskies who actually used D9's in combat). I honestly don't think we should list those types as operators, as I don't think they were.


Evil.Merlin 20:58, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I would agree that use purely for evaluation purposes i.e Britain, US and Japan, probably doesn't warrant consideration as operators (although it may warrent being mentioned somewhere in the article)- although others may disagree - this has been discussed in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aircraft before now.Nigel Ish 21:19, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Added Black 12 (Flug Werk's Dora 9 replica) first engine run.

Flug Werk shipped Black 12 to Florida earlier this month and after taking the bird out of her next and getting put back together, she had her first engine run !

--Evil.Merlin (talk) 22:56, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Added: Fw 190 flight trials and performance figures

A few months ago I came across this little gem http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/ which has a lot of interesting data on the Fw 190; coincidentally it includes a downloadable pdf file on the US trials of a captured 190 described as an A-4 (which may have been an error on the part of the Americans) which are discussed in "Operational service". I've added some of these urls to this excellent page. Cheers Minorhistorian (talk) 01:26, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bullet points make the article read horribly

Reverting back to an older copy. The bulleted points read very badly and remove the flow of the article.--Evil.Merlin (talk) 03:25, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Are they really that bad? Where there are a lot of technical modifications to describe surely it's better to highlight these rather than to use a narrative form?

  • It's much easier to pick up the salient points.
  • It can reduce the amount of text needed to make a point.
  • The article by Neil Page uses bullet point to summarise the main features.
  • I don't mind either way, whatever suits.
  • Minorhistorian (talk) 14:05, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fw 190 A series

Much of the information used for the Fw 190A series seems to be based on material used by authors who are simply regurgitating old, erroneous information which has been since been de-bunked by more thorough research. As explained in the text the 190 V5 introduced the electrically operated landing gear; I don't where Janowicz got the idea that the A-2s were the first to use it. That said there are still some areas where the information is hazy or confused, especially as the Fw 190s from the A-5 onwards became increasingly loaded up with different conversion kits and field modifications, thus creating potential for large scale arguments! This is not to denigrate other editors who have worked hard on this page, it's just one of the problems with the sheer diversity of the Fw 190 variants Minorhistorian (talk) 04:23, 16 February 2008 (UTC)


.. Its quite simple, the A-5 is the A-5. The various field conversion kits and factory conversion kits (Umrüst-Bausätze and/or Rüstsätze)do not change the fact that the A-5 was still an A-5. In fact I've gone into some detail for some of the more important kits and field mods available. The Antons had 9 primary versions (not including the A-0 as it was pre-production, and not including the A-10 as it never made it into production). I double checked and you are right, I'm not sure wher Janowicz got his information as V3 was the first to move from hydraulic to elecrtronic even if it never flew. --Evil.Merlin (talk) 20:54, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not trying to undo your work, it's just that Janowicz seems to have got a lot wrong, making me wonder how trustworthy his information is. From what I know Peter Rodeike from Germany has done as much in depth research as anyone into the Fw 190s, and has gone into Focke-Wulf and Luftwaffe records, as he did with the 109 F, Gs and Ks. I don't have his book, so I'm using Neil Page as my primary source, although he too has got some things wrong.Minorhistorian (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 00:45, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Page started: Luftwaffe radio equipment (Funkgerät) of WW II

I've just started this article Luftwaffe radio equipment (Funkgerät) of WW II which is intended as an aid to understanding Luftwaffe communications equipment of WW II. Your useful contributions will be gratefully accepted. I'm wondering if the title might be a little ponderous?..TIA Minorhistorian (talk) 10:26, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of References

User: "FockerWulfer".

Please stop removing citations. You deleted 5 sourced bits of text and complained that they were inaccurate, in some of them you mistakenly claim (relating to the Fw 190 being "heavy and slow") that they were not sourced. They were.

If you have more authoritative sources please replace them, otherwise refrain from removing sourced text without discussion or consensus. Dapi89 (talk) 14:51, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New pic

I have added another one of the 190 at Hendon. The lighting is crap, so I am not sure if the quality is okay. Dapi89 (talk) 19:54, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I can help with the lighting using a program called Picasa 2, which can be found here; http://picasa.google.com/ A useful tool which I have used to improve several downloaded photos. Minorhistorian (talk) 03:05, 10 June 2008 (UTC)