Luftwaffe fighter defence organisation

[Jakob Whitfield]

Greetings all,

As the term paper for my Systems Engineering option, I want to do a
systems comparison between Fighter Command, the Jagdwaffe, and the
Nachtjagd C^3 systems. I've been able to find a loads on Fighter
Command, but precious little on the German side that gives command
structure and organisational data. Most of the references I've got
concentrate on the aircraft used, rather than C^3. Could anyone make
any useful suggestions for books, papers, journal articles etc. that I
could use to research this?

Cheers,

Jakob

[Krztalizer]

Williamson Murray, "Strategy for defeat" - answers all of the questions you'd
have concerning LW command structures. Kammhuber's system for coordination of
night defensive assets is a marvelous case study in stress management. Your
boss, insane, your work force dies at a horrible rate, other people in your own
force structure want to see you hang AND you get to face thousands of allied
fighters and bombers. Gee, sign me up. :\ not...

v/r
Gordon
<====(A+C====>
USN SAR

Donate your memories - write a note on the back and send your old photos to a
reputable museum, don't take them with you when you're gone.

[Bernardz]

In article >,
says...
> Greetings all,
>
> As the term paper for my Systems Engineering option, I want to do a
> systems comparison between Fighter Command, the Jagdwaffe, and the
> Nachtjagd C^3 systems. I've been able to find a loads on Fighter
> Command, but precious little on the German side that gives command
> structure and organisational data. Most of the references I've got
> concentrate on the aircraft used, rather than C^3. Could anyone make
> any useful suggestions for books, papers, journal articles etc. that I
> could use to research this?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Jakob
>


Try

The last year of the Luftwaffe May 1944 to may 1945 by Alfred Price.


--
To make the economy go, some one has to work.

Observations of Bernard - No 45

[Cub Driver]

>Could anyone make
>any useful suggestions for books, papers, journal articles etc. that I
>could use to research this?

The only one I know of in English is The Luftwaffe War Diaries (in
translation) by Cajus Bekker.

www.warbirdforum.com/bekker.htm



all the best -- Dan Ford
email:

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

[The Enlightenment]

"Jakob Whitfield" > wrote in message
om...
> Greetings all,
>
> As the term paper for my Systems Engineering option, I want to do a
> systems comparison between Fighter Command, the Jagdwaffe, and the
> Nachtjagd C^3 systems. I've been able to find a loads on Fighter
> Command, but precious little on the German side that gives command
> structure and organisational data. Most of the references I've got
> concentrate on the aircraft used, rather than C^3. Could anyone make
> any useful suggestions for books, papers, journal articles etc. that
I
> could use to research this?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Jakob


History of the German Night Fighter Force 1917-1945 by Gebhard Aders.
(Crecy Books) also published by Janes.

First Published in German in 1978 by Mortorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart as
"Geschichte der Deutschen Nachtjag, 1917-1945"

The book covers technology, systems, tactics, history. A good effort
but I would like to have seen more detail.

There does appear to have been allied documentation of German radar
techniques and these histories are still around.

[Geoffrey Sinclair]

Jakob Whitfield wrote in message >...

>As the term paper for my Systems Engineering option, I want to do a
>systems comparison between Fighter Command, the Jagdwaffe, and the
>Nachtjagd C^3 systems. I've been able to find a loads on Fighter
>Command, but precious little on the German side that gives command
>structure and organisational data. Most of the references I've got
>concentrate on the aircraft used, rather than C^3. Could anyone make
>any useful suggestions for books, papers, journal articles etc. that I
>could use to research this?

Apart from the other books mentioned,

Day and Night Aerial Warfare over the Reich 1943-44 by
Generalleutenant Josef Schmid, he was in command at the time,
published in 1954.

Title: Fighting the bombers : the Luftwaffe's struggle against the Allied
bomber offensive / by Josef Kammhuber ... [et al.] ; edited by David
C. Isby. Publisher: London : Greenhill, 2003.

Title: Germany and the Second World War / edited by the Militärgeschichtliches
Forschungsamt (Research Institute for Military History).
Publisher/Date: Oxford : Clarendon Press ; New York : Oxford University Press,
1990-<2003 > Description: v. <1-6 > : ill., maps ; 24 cm.

The various articles on the air defences.

There would also be the post war interrogations.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

[Joe Osman]

Jakob Whitfield wrote:
> Greetings all,
>
> As the term paper for my Systems Engineering option, I want to do a
> systems comparison between Fighter Command, the Jagdwaffe, and the
> Nachtjagd C^3 systems. I've been able to find a loads on Fighter
> Command, but precious little on the German side that gives command
> structure and organisational data. Most of the references I've got
> concentrate on the aircraft used, rather than C^3. Could anyone make
> any useful suggestions for books, papers, journal articles etc. that I
> could use to research this?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Jakob

Try "Air Defense of the Reich" by Major Thomas A. Benes, USMC availible
on-line through the Marine Corps University archives at
http://www.mcu.usmc.mil/MCRCweb/Archive/Research/Default.htm. Click on
"Research Papers" at the bottom of the page. On the next page click on
IRP CSC 87 on the right and enter "Reich" under "Enter the ISYS Plain
English query", then press search.

Joe

[Peter Stickney]

In article >,
(Jakob Whitfield) writes:
> Greetings all,
>
> As the term paper for my Systems Engineering option, I want to do a
> systems comparison between Fighter Command, the Jagdwaffe, and the
> Nachtjagd C^3 systems. I've been able to find a loads on Fighter
> Command, but precious little on the German side that gives command
> structure and organisational data. Most of the references I've got
> concentrate on the aircraft used, rather than C^3. Could anyone make
> any useful suggestions for books, papers, journal articles etc. that I
> could use to research this?

Might I suggest
"Defending Hitler's Reich: Germany's Ground-Based Air Defences
1914-1945", Edward B. Westermann, 2000, Air Force Institute of
Technology

available online as document ADA380153.pdf
from http://stinet.dtic.mil

I can't give you a direct pointer - use teh fielded search option.


--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster

[Jakob Whitfield]

Cheers all for the helpful suggestions; some I can easily find, for
others I think I may have to make a trip to St. Pancras...

Having looked at some of the suggestions, I'm still searching for a
diagram/description of the information flow in the defences.

E.g. Battle of Britain

Chain Home station -> filter room -> group control room -> sector
airfield -> friendlies vectored onto enemy a/c

(This is probably wrong, but the principle remains)

I know that originally Luftwaffe night fighters were tied to one
particular radar station: what, for instance was the chain of
information and command from the radar to the plane?

Thanks again,

Jakob

[Eunometic]

(Jakob Whitfield) wrote in message >...
> Cheers all for the helpful suggestions; some I can easily find, for
> others I think I may have to make a trip to St. Pancras...
>
> Having looked at some of the suggestions, I'm still searching for a
> diagram/description of the information flow in the defences.
>
> E.g. Battle of Britain
>
> Chain Home station -> filter room -> group control room -> sector
> airfield -> friendlies vectored onto enemy a/c
>
> (This is probably wrong, but the principle remains)
>
> I know that originally Luftwaffe night fighters were tied to one
> particular radar station: what, for instance was the chain of
> information and command from the radar to the plane?
>
> Thanks again,
>
> Jakob

Early on the organisation didn't exist and Luftwaffe the Navy and Army
all controlled their own areas that did not integrate very well.

Kammhuber eventualy came up with a system (which he was never allowed
to build except for experiments) in which the whole of Germany was
integrated by TV run over cables.

In most cases fighter were directed by controllers siting in a cinema
like arrangment of chairs in front of a large vertical glass screen on
which markers were moved or points of light were moved manually to
represnt various types of contact or infomation form the various
sensors: Freya, Wurzburg, Jagdschloss, contact aircraft (primitve
AWACS type aircraft) and visual and accoiustic sightings.

Becuase of interference by British jamming of Audio the
Bernhard/Berhardine system tranmited a ticker tape style telemetary
over a jam resistan link. Bernhard/Bernhardine also provided highly
jam resistant naviagtional and position data to the nightfighters.
It came in quite late in the war.

Despite jaming the German anti-jaming methodus such as Wurzlaus (a
doppler style system) and other measures usually retained enough
performance to allow some interceptions albeit at such reduced range
the number of target for which their was enogh warning to intercept
was much reduced. The biggest problem was often not jamed radar but
an inability to communicate to the aircraft due to jamed voice;
someting which Bernhard/Bernhardine telemetary system solved. Also
becuase of the slow speed of the German aircraft they often couldn't
catch the bombers after being distracted by diversionary raids before
running out of fuel.


Bernhard/Bernhardine becuase of its navigational and telemetary
methods might have evolved towards a fully automatic controlled
interception if its telemetarty could be interfaced to a the
nighfighters autopilot and weapons firing computer.

[Krztalizer]

Bernard/Bernadine were late war projects, and were essentially unjammable by
the Allies at that time.

v/r
Gordon

[Peter Twydell]

In article >, Jakob
Whitfield > writes
>Greetings all,
>
>As the term paper for my Systems Engineering option, I want to do a
>systems comparison between Fighter Command, the Jagdwaffe, and the
>Nachtjagd C^3 systems. I've been able to find a loads on Fighter
>Command, but precious little on the German side that gives command
>structure and organisational data. Most of the references I've got
>concentrate on the aircraft used, rather than C^3. Could anyone make
>any useful suggestions for books, papers, journal articles etc. that I
>could use to research this?
>
>Cheers,
>
>Jakob

"The Other Battle, Luftwaffe Night Aces versus Bomber Command", Peter
Hinchcliffe, Airlife Publishing, UK, 1996. ISBN 1840373032.
This tracesthe development of the Nachtjagd and RAF Bomber Command, with
personal accounts of experiences by the people involved at several
levels.

HTH.
--
Peter

Ying tong iddle-i po!

[Jakob Whitfield]

<snippage of earlier stuff>

....And yet another question: Was the RAF's night fighter GCI force
controlled in a similar manner to the Luftwaffe's 'Himmelbett'
fighters?

Was the success of the RAF's night fighter force compared to
Himmelbett simply due to the fact that the Luftwaffe wasn't sending
n-hundred-aircraft bomber streams over England, or was there a more
efficient structure in place?

Cheers,

Jakob

[Guy Alcala]

Emmanuel Gustin wrote:

> "Jakob Whitfield" > wrote in message
> om...
>
> > ...And yet another question: Was the RAF's night fighter GCI force
> > controlled in a similar manner to the Luftwaffe's 'Himmelbett'
> > fighters?
> >
> > Was the success of the RAF's night fighter force compared to
> > Himmelbett simply due to the fact that the Luftwaffe wasn't sending
> > n-hundred-aircraft bomber streams over England, or was there a more
> > efficient structure in place?
>
> The RAF had airborne radar before the Lufwaffe, but the first experience
> was that, because of the limited range of the early long-wave AI radar, it
> was useless without a ground radar to get the fighter close enough to the
> target. In January 1941 six GCI radar sets became available; the radar
> operator then talked directly to the pilot instead of by way of the
> operations
> room. At this stage it was indeed similar to the Himmelbett system, in that
> a station could guide only one nightfighter at a time.
>
> Palliatives were a 'cab rank' system in which the GCI served nightfighters
> in turn, and searchlights controlled by gunlaying AA radars (which were
> also used to provide better height estimates than the GCI provided) to
> assist
> some fighters to intercept without the assistance of GCI. Later these became
> dense enough to allow a nightfighter to follow the track of a German bomber,
> and quite useful.
>
> But the RAF radar had one vital advantage over the German system, and
> this was exploited in 1942. The German ground operator required two
> Wurzburg radars, one to track the bomber and one to track the fighter, and
> their positions were then projected onto a glass screen. The British GCI
> radar with its plan position indicator however (the now most familiar form
> of radar display, with a rotating 'scan line', could observe many more than
> two aircraft at the same time; so in 1942, the RAF seated two interception
> operators on a single radar, with a third controller to coordinate the effor
> ts,
> and trained each operator to control two interceptions at the same time.
>
> Later, another technologicial advantage was exploited. The centimetric
> AI Mk.VIII had a much better range and accuracy than the long-wavelength
> AI Mk.IV and the Luftwaffe's radars; so the ground operator only brought
> the nightfighter close enough and handed over the target when the fighter's
> radar detected it; he no longer bothered to manoeuvre the fighter into a
> firing position astern of the bomber. He could then switch his efforts to
> guiding another fighter.

And the best first-person account of British night fighter ops and
equipment/tactical developments through the war is C.F. Rawnsley/Robert Wright's
"Night Fighter". Rawnsley was John Cunningham's RIO. Wright, his co-author
(really ghost writer) was Dowding's PA (and later Sholto-Douglas's IIRR),
although the book is about Rawnsley's experiences.

Guy

[M. J. Powell]

In message >, Jakob
Whitfield > writes
><snippage of earlier stuff>
>
>...And yet another question: Was the RAF's night fighter GCI force
>controlled in a similar manner to the Luftwaffe's 'Himmelbett'
>fighters?

You answered your own question. GCI = Ground Controlled Interception.

Presumably the controller used the CHL radars to guide the fighters to
within a couple of miles of the target and on a chase course.
>
>Was the success of the RAF's night fighter force compared to
>Himmelbett simply due to the fact that the Luftwaffe wasn't sending
>n-hundred-aircraft bomber streams over England, or was there a more
>efficient structure in place?

Most accounts seem to refer to a lack of targets compared to a bomber
stream.

Mike
--
M.J.Powell

[Keith Willshaw]

"M. J. Powell" > wrote in message
...
> In message >, Jakob
> Whitfield > writes
> ><snippage of earlier stuff>
> >
> >...And yet another question: Was the RAF's night fighter GCI force
> >controlled in a similar manner to the Luftwaffe's 'Himmelbett'
> >fighters?
>
> You answered your own question. GCI = Ground Controlled Interception.
>
> Presumably the controller used the CHL radars to guide the fighters to
> within a couple of miles of the target and on a chase course.

No sir. CHL had no inland coverage, the GCI stations used
a variety of radars ranging from the fixed Happidromes to
mobile higher frequency radars like the type 15

http://www.radarpages.co.uk/mob/gci/gci.htm

Keith