The Focke-Wulf Fw 190 Würger was used by the Luftwaffe during the Second World War in a variety of roles. Like the Messerschmitt Bf 109, the Fw 190 was employed as a "workhorse", and proved suitable for a wide variety of roles, including air superiority fighter, strike fighter, ground-attack aircraft, escort fighter, and operated with less success as a night fighter. It served on all the German fronts: Eastern Front, Western Front, North African Campaign and the Defence of the Reich.
When it was first introduced in August 1941, it quickly proved to be superior in all but turn radius to the Royal Air Force (RAF) front-line fighter, the Spitfire Mk. V variant. The 190 wrested air superiority away from the RAF until the introduction of the vastly improved Spitfire Mk. IX in July 1942 restored qualitative parity. The Fw 190 made its air combat debut on the Eastern Front much later, in November/December 1942. The Fw 190 made a significant impact seeing service as a fighter and fighter-bomber. The fighter and its pilots proved just as capable as the Bf 109 in aerial combat, and in the opinion of German pilots who had flown both fighters, the Fw 190 presented increased firepower and manoeuvrability at low to medium altitude.
The Fw 190 became the backbone of Jagdwaffe (Fighter Force) along with the Bf 109. On the Eastern Front, owing to its versatility, the Fw 190 was used in Schlachtgeschwader (Attack Wings) which were specialised ground attack units. The units achieved much success against Soviet ground forces. As an interceptor, the Fw 190 underwent improvements to make it effective at high altitude, allowing the 190 to maintain relative parity with its Allied counterparts. The Fw 190 A series' performance decreased at high altitudes (usually 6,000 m (20,000 ft) and above), which reduced its usefulness as a high-altitude fighter, but these complications were mostly rectified in later models, notably the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 D variant, which was introduced in September 1944. In spite of its successes, it never entirely replaced the Bf 109. The Fw 190 was well liked by its pilots. Some of the Luftwaffes most successful fighter aces flew the Fw 190, including Otto Kittel with 267 victories, Walter Nowotny with 258, and Erich Rudorffer with 222 claimed. A great many of their kills were claimed while flying the Fw 190.
Western Front
Early months The Fw 190 was introduced on the Western Front in August 1941. For the first few months of its combat career, the Allies, entirely unaware of the new fighter, attributed pilots' reports of a new "radial-engine fighter" to Curtiss P-36 Mohawks which the Germans had captured from the French. The new fighter outperformed the Spitfire Mk. V, the then top-of-the-line RAF fighter, in all aspects except turning radius. The Fw 190 was considerably better in firepower, rate of roll, and straight-line speed at low altitude. As Allied fighter losses rose and local air superiority over the Channel front passed to the Luftwaffe, Allied plans were tentatively made to launch a commando raid on a Luftwaffe airfield to steal an Fw 190 for evaluation. However, the British acquired an intact Fw 190 A-3 in late June 1942, when a Jagdgeschwader 2 pilot, Oberleutnant Armin Faber, landed on a British airfield by mistake.
As tests confirmed the performance characteristics, British rushed development of the Spitfire Mk. IX with the new two-stage supercharged Merlin 61 engine. The RAF was also quick to study the aircraft for any novel design elements.BBC. Brief History of The Rafwaffe (Flight 1426). Sally Bennett In particular, the cooling system and installation of the Fw 190's radial engine was a direct influence on Hawker Siddeley's Tempest II.
On the whole, Allied pilots who flew the Fw 190 found it pleasant to fly, very responsive, and, while the cockpit was small compared to most Allied fighters, it was well laid out. Most pilots found the Fw 190's Kommandogerät system (which automatically controlled the RPM, fuel mixture, ignition timing, supercharger switchover, and boost pressure) to be more of a hindrance than a help. German pilots in some instances reportedly failed to pull up from a steep dive at low altitude, diving straight into the ground. It was thought that they had left the powerful, variable incidence tailplane trim mechanism in the "nose heavy" position, meaning that their aircraft could not recover from the dive in time.
Cerberus and Jubilee
The first significant operation in which Fw 190s played an important role was Operation Cerberus, the "Channel dash" break-out through the English Channel and Dover Strait by the Kriegsmarines small battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen on 12 February 1942. Adolf Galland, the General der Jagdflieger (General of the Fighter Arm), insisted that the operation take place during daylight hours and accepted responsibility for devising a plan to provide continuous daylight fighter cover against the heavy attacks expected by the RAF. By the end of the day, JG 26 had been credited with seven aerial victories and six probables for the loss of four Fw 190s and their pilots. Adolf Galland was to later call the success of this operation the "greatest hour" of his career.
The Fw 190s first significant mass engagement took place on 19 August 1942, during Operation Jubilee, the Allied raid on Dieppe. Jagdgeschwaders JG 2 and JG 26 had recently converted from the Bf 109, fielding 115 fighter aircraft during the day's fighting, including a small number of high-altitude Bf 109 G-1 models (although there is doubt as to whether G-1 variants existed as operational types). The RAF committed over 300 fighter aircraft, consisting mostly of Spitfire VB models, with just six squadrons of Spitfire Mk. IXBs, and also some of the new Hawker Typhoons. In addition, several squadrons of Hawker Hurricanes and RAF Allison-engined Mustangs performed fighter-bomber and reconnaissance duties. During the action, the two Jagdgeschwader lost 25 Fw 190s to all causes, including crashes, but, in return, they claimed 61 of the 106 Allied aircraft lost that day (JG 26 and JG 2 claiming 40 and 21 respectively). Fighting over occupied territory, the RAF lost 81 pilots and aircrew killed or taken prisoner, against Luftwaffe fighter losses of 20 pilots killed (14 from JG 26 and six from JG 2).
Fighter-bomber raids From the end of June 1942, the Fw 190 A-3/U3 Jabo (Jagdbomber, fighter-bomber) equipped 10.(Jabo)/JG 2 and 10.(Jabo)/JG 26, which operated with considerable success attacking shipping and port towns around the south-eastern coasts of England. These high-speed, low-altitude attacks were almost impossible to defend against, as the Fw 190s came in below effective radar coverage and were often gone before RAF fighters could intercept them. The most successful of these fighter-bomber operations was carried out on 31 October 1942 on Canterbury in retaliation for RAF bombing raids over Germany. In the largest daylight raid mounted by the Luftwaffe since the Battle of Britain, about 70 Fw 190s unloaded 30 bombs on the city, killing 32 people and injuring 116, as well as causing a lot of damage to residential properties and shops. Only one Fw 190 was lost over England. The most successful RAF fighters used to intercept these attacks were the Hawker Typhoons and the Griffon-engine Spitfire Mk XIIs, which were both fast enough to catch the Fw 190, especially at low altitudes.Typhoon performance Retrieved: 14 February 2008
In April 1943, the two Jabo units were amalgamated into Schnellkampfgeschwader 10 (SKG 10) which switched to night operations over southern England, a role in which the Fw 190 proved unsuccessful, taking heavy casualties from the de Havilland Mosquito night fighters. On the night of 16/17 April, on this unit's first operation, four Fw 190s which were attempting to attack London, got lost over Kent. Three of them tried to land at RAF West Malling: Yellow H of 7./SKG 10, flown by Feldwebel Otto Bechtold landed and was captured, his Fw 190 later being evaluated by the RAE at Farnborough; another Fw 190 of 5./SKG 10, flown by Leutnant Fritz Sezter landed several minutes later. When Setzer realised he had landed on an enemy airfield and attempted to take off, his aircraft was destroyed by an armoured car. Setzer surrendered to Wing Commander Peter Townsend. A third Fw 190 undershot the runway and was also destroyed, the pilot escaping with a concussion. The fourth Fw 190 crashed at Staplehurst, killing the pilot.
Normandy to Salzburg The Fw 190 also saw heavy action in the 1944 Normandy Campaign. German fighters flew 760 sorties on 6 June 1944 against an Allied total of 14,000. By 10 June, the dearth of specialised ground attack aircraft forces meant the Oberkommando der Luftwaffe (OKL) (High Command of the Air Force) ordered the Fw 190 Gruppen to install bomb racks for these types of operations. Just 24 hours later, the Fw 190 units were asked to revert to air superiority roles again. With conflicting orders and harried by Allied air forces, losses were heavy. In the space of three weeks, 200 Fw 190s and 100 pilots were lost to enemy action. Total losses by the end of June 1944 totalled 230 pilots killed and 88 wounded. Among the casualties was the 173-victory Fw 190 ace Emil Lang. 551 German fighters were shot down, with another 65 destroyed on the ground. A further 290 were damaged. In return, German pilots claimed 526 Allied aircraft destroyed.
The Fw 190 also formed, along with the Bf 109, the core of the German fighter force that participated in Operation Bodenplatte. A total of 35 Fw 190 A-8s, 27 A-8/R2s, 5 F-8s and 50 D-9s were destroyed or lost over Allied lines on 1 January 1945.
Over Germany
Wilde Sau From mid-1943, Fw 190s were also used as night fighters against the growing RAF Bomber Command offensive. In mid-1943, one of the earliest participants in the single-engine, ground controlled, night-fighting experiments was the Nachtjagdkommando Fw 190 (Night Fighter Command Fw 190), operated by IV. Gruppe (4 Group), Jagdgeschwader 3, (Fighter Wing 3, or JG 3). The main Nachtgeschwader (Night Fighter Wings) were keen to adopt a new fighter type as their twin-engine fighters were too slow for combat against increasing numbers of de Havilland Mosquito night fighters and bombers. Nachtjagdgeschwader 1 (NJG 1) and NJG 3 kept a pair of Fw 190s on standby to supplement the Messerschmitt Bf 110 and Junkers Ju 88. The considerable performance advantage of the Fw 190 over the other two types was more than offset by the difficulties of operating at night. Few, if any, aerial successes can be attributed to these operational tests.
One of the first purpose built units to use Fw 190s in this role was Stab/Versuchskommando Herrmann, a unit specifically set up in April 1943 by Major Hajo Herrmann. Herrmann's unit used standard A-4s and A-5s borrowed from day fighter units to intercept bombers over or near the targeted city, using searchlights and other visual aids to help them find their quarry. The first use of "Window" by the RAF during the Battle of Hamburg in July 1943, rendered the standard nightfighter Himmelbett procedures useless and brought urgency to the development of Herrmann's Wilde Sau (Wild Boar) technique, pending the development of new nightfighting strategies. Instead of restricting the Fw 190s to ground control interception protocols, the Fw 190s were given a free hand to over-fly bombed areas to see if they could locate bombers using the ground fires below. These tactics became an integral part of the nightfighter operations until May 1944.