MESSERSCHMITT Bf-109 G Version Red Gear

[Vesa Jussila]

Often is stated that this was for AS engine. Is there any notes from Finland about this? Maybe @Kari Lumppio might know something or someone who have contact to Tikkakoski museum.

[GiampieroSilvestri]

The Ilmavoimat had Messerschmitt Bf 109 G-2 and G-6 with Daimler Benz DB605 A-1 engine.

[Vesa Jussila]

@GiampieroSilvestri if I am not completely wrong there was some, maximum 4. AS engined plane. In Finland know as a high altitude planes. Those were not planned delivery.

Edited July 25, 2023 by Vesa Jussila

[GiampieroSilvestri]

1 hour ago, Jochen Barett said:

The plane had a 300l drop tank.

 

But supposedly it started at Franfurt

https://luftwaffeinprofile.se/Bf 109 G Salinger.html

 

and who knows?

https://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/Gliederungen/Jagdgeschwader/JG27-R.htm

Laut dem unteren Link über das JG27 war die 4.Staffel,2/JG27 vom 7.Juni bis 26.August 1944 in Fels am Wagram stationiert.Wie kann werknummer 412918 von der 4.Staffel 2/JG27 dann am 16.08.1944 von Frankfurt Rhein/Main gestartet sein?

 

According to the Link you posted about the JG27 4.Staffel of 2/JG27 from the 7th of June to the 26th of august was based at Wagram am Fels.How could werknummer 412918 from 4.Staffel 2/JG27 have taken off from Frankfurt Rhein/Main on the 16th of august 1944?

 

Saluti

 

Giampiero

Edited July 25, 2023 by GiampieroSilvestri

[Troy Smith]

just posted on Farcebook

IIRC @FalkeEins  knows the authors,  and they were the noted researchers on JG300]

 

"G-6/AS, two photos of the same machine with caption for your reading pleasure. Source: JG300 Wilde Sau Vol1 by Lorant & Goyat.

 

 

HTH

[Jochen Barett]

57 minutes ago, GiampieroSilvestri said:

+++

According to the Link you posted about the JG27 4.Staffel of 2/JG27 from the 7th of June to the 26th of august was based at Wagram am Fels.How could werknummer 412918 from 4.Staffel 2/JG27 have taken off from Frankfurt Rhein/Main on the 16th of august 1944?

 

Saluti

Giampiero

Any piece of the information given by any of the sources can be wrong (including a yellow/white 5 mixup in the first caption).

The Staffel may have been temporarily transferred to Frankfurt by order.

The Staffel may have landed at Frankfurt the day (evening) before due to their mission (not making it back to their home base at Fels am Wagram).

[Jochen Barett]

25 minutes ago, Troy Smith said:

just posted on Farcebook

IIRC @FalkeEins  knows the authors,  and they were the noted researchers on JG300]

 

"G-6/AS, two photos of the same machine with caption for your reading pleasure. Source: JG300 Wilde Sau Vol1 by Lorant & Goyat.

 

 

HTH

So, if one source says it's a G-6, the other says G-14, the average is G-10. Is the truth somewhere in the middle? 🙈🙊

 

But who "read" (concluded) the Werknummer in this pic

http://www.warbirdphotographs.com/LCBW14/Me109-G14ASR3-III.9.JG300-ex-I.1.JG3-White1-WrkN165693-with-Tall-T3-Rudder-&-Fo987-Deep-Oil-Cooler-&-White-Fuselage-Band-&-Team-of-Oxen-Tows-Aircraft-to-Its-Dispersal-At-Juterbog-AirBase-Germany-September-1944-3af-s.jpg

(and why did nobody claim (yet) legs and wheel hubs to be RLM 76 and the JG 300 Reichsverteidigungsrumpfband to be blue-white-blue (undiscernable due to panchromatic film and a blue filter)?)

and who can tell a G-6 from a G-14?

[Werdna]

20 minutes ago, Jochen Barett said:

(and why did nobody claim (yet) legs and wheel hubs to be RLM 76 and the JG 300 Reichsverteidigungsrumpfband to be blue-white-blue (undiscernable due to panchromatic film and a blue filter)?)

 

Is it too late to point out that the wheel hubs are also the same colour as the cows..?  

[WrathofAtlantis]

9 hours ago, Werdna said:

 

Have another look at the pics posted by Troy on P1 - I don't think any of them have gondolas fitted.

 

  

8 hours ago, dov said:

The batch of pics, where I recognized the posdibility of a ' Red Gear' are in mixed Rüstzustand. You find ALL of them! @Werdna, so if you check all the links, you can make up your mind.i do in this matter never say, that my conclusion is correct! 

Happy modelling 

 

9 hours ago, dov said:

 

 

 

One thing is sure, that if I see correct, a/c with red gear also had underwing cannons.

Underwing cannons do not make this boost installation possible due to space for pressurized air is already spent by the cannon.

So all GM-1 and MW  50 thoughts are deleted!

 

Happy modelling

 

@SafetyDad and @Jochen Barett what is your opinion?

 

 

 

  I don't understand your point here: MW-50 is not compatible with underwing cannons (due to a compressed air device needed in the wings for MW-50), you see ALL "potential" red gears as having underwing cannons(?!?), therefore you conclude a red gear cannot mean C-3/MW-50 installation? 

 

  Your point is made even more incomprehensible in that ALL the clear cut, undeniable, red gears in original colour photos in this thread have the underwing cannons removed.

 

  I would appreciate clarification on this point, as that is major news to me: I did not know about compressed air in the wing being needed for MW-50, and that this device negated the under wing 20 mm guns option... This is a very important fact (which I am grateful to know), but it does not seem to contradict the meaning of the red gears in the available evidence.

[Troy Smith]

1 hour ago, Jochen Barett said:

So, if one source says it's a G-6, the other says G-14, the average is G-10. Is the truth somewhere in the middle? 🙈🙊

 

But who "read" (concluded) the Werknummer in this pic

http://www.warbirdphotographs.com/LCBW14/Me109-G14ASR3-III.9.JG300-ex-I.1.JG3-White1-WrkN165693-with-Tall-T3-Rudder-&-Fo987-Deep-Oil-Cooler-&-White-Fuselage-Band-&-Team-of-Oxen-Tows-Aircraft-to-Its-Dispersal-At-Juterbog-AirBase-Germany-September-1944-3af-s.jpg

(and why did nobody claim (yet) legs and wheel hubs to be RLM 76 and the JG 300 Reichsverteidigungsrumpfband to be blue-white-blue (undiscernable due to panchromatic film and a blue filter)?)

and who can tell a G-6 from a G-14?

The source.  "JG300 Wilde Sau Vol1 by Lorant & Goyat."

The authors tracked down and interviewed surviving JG300 pilots and ground crew for many years.

see

https://archive.aeroscale.net/review/1278/index.htm

 

"Authors: Jean-Yves Lorant and Richard Goyat (translated by Neil Page)
Hardbound - 400 pages
1000? B&W photos
3 x Colour photos
26 x Colour profiles by Thomas A. Tullis and Richard Goyat.
Available in 2 versions: Standard hardbound (reviewed here) and a Deluxe Leather Bound Limited edition of only 300 copies signed by Hajo Herrmann (ISBN 0-9761034-1-9 Price:$165.00).

Some readers may feel uneasy at the publication of a book devoted to a Luftwaffe unit of the Third Reich era, but it in no way glorifies Nazism. The authors, Jean-Yves Lorant and Richard Goyat, are both sons of French resistance members and have set out to write this detailed account of a Nazi unit as objective history which is dedicated to"all the survivors of that enormous waste of human life and to the memory of all those, in England, Germany and Italy, who one day clambered up into their aircraft not knowing that they had less than two hours to live... Let us not forget them."

The roots of the book stem from the chance to meet Paul Lixfeld, a former pilot of 6. Staffel 11(Sturm)/ JG300 in 1977. From there things snowballed, with more interviews with veterans leading to an astonishing 20 years of research into the men and machines of JG300. The scope is vast, ranging from night- to day-fighting and the first part of this mammoth undertaking actually covers far more than the specifics of JG300. For instance, the Introduction deals briefly with the organization of Luftwaffe fighter units, before examining in some detail the discrepancies between German and Allied claims for losses and victories, and explaining how the authors correlated the different documents for the purposes of the book.
 

A little background

"... I fail to see how your machines can shoot down British bombers. Do you have any idea of the sheer weight of metal flying about up there every night at the heights you intend to operate? It can be quantified in tons, hundreds of tons. That's millions of pieces of shrapnel. You want to fly straight into that hell? That's not night fighting, that's... a wild boar's charge!" Generaloberst Weise, objecting to Hajo Herrmann about the concept of freelance single-seat nightfighters in 1943.

RAF night bombing of Germany began relatively humbly in 1940, with pin-gentleman's parts attacks that achieved very little for the effort expended. A British report of the period revealed that only one bomb in four was even dropped within five miles of its intended target. Faced with such failings, Bomber Command totally revised its strategy; if pin-point attacks were impractical, raids would be aimed at German industry in the broadest sense - particularly the homes of the workers in order, hopefully, to disrupt production and break the morale of the population - attacks would be launched against "built up areas, not, for instance, on dockyards or aircraft factories". Along with the change of targets came the arrival of the RAF's first true heavy bombers and a massive increase in production, culminating in the first "1000 bomber raids" aimed at overwhelming German defences and establishing Bomber Command as a vital offensive weapon.

Against this onslaught, the Luftwaffe rapidly developed highly effective countermeasures under the leadership of General Josef Kammhuber, who organised an uninterrupted chain of Freya and Würzburg ground radar stations controlling twin-engined night fighters, backed up with searchlights and flak in a belt 30km deep extending from Denmark to Switzerland. Impressive as it was, the "Kammhuber Line" depended critically on good weather for the flak and searchlights and was itself vulnerable to disruption and jamming with its fixed ground installations. Kammhuber himself recognised that the future lay in the development of effective airborne radar, but German industry proved incapable of developing such a system quickly enough. And the pressure was on; German commanders were dismayed by the findings of a 1942 report which estimated that British industry had delivered 15,200 twin and four-engined bombers, against which Germany had produced only 1,700 night fighters. Even more alarming, looming on the horizon was the American juggernaut which, while still far from at full production, had built an incredible 30,000 aircraft in the same period.

Thus, with the war situation steadily worsening, Luftwaffe pilots were faced with defending their homeland at odds of 5:1 or worse against them. In this light, Hajo Herrmann suggested a radical plan to counter the growing number of RAF night raiders while, at the same time, avoiding the problems associated with ground-controlled nightfighters; transfer day fighters to form special freelance units operating directly over German cities, relying on the intense glow of the fires started to illuminate their prey. In March 1943 Hermann succeeded in obtaining an Fw 190A-4 for night testing and, in April, seized his chance to intercept an RAF Mosquito raiding Berlin. This combat, though unsuccessful, established the principal in Hermann's mind and from it was born first Gruppe Herrmann and eventually JG 300 - the first of the Wilde Sau units.

Volume One follows the unit from June 1943 to Sept 1944, tracing its inception, through the subsequent switch from night- to day-fighting to combat the growing threat from American raids and culminating in some of the greatest aerial battles ever seen in the summer of 1944.
 

Contents

The book is printed on very high quality heavyweight paper. Most pages contain B&W photos - often 2 or more, so at a rough estimate, there must be well over 1000 photos here. The reproduction is faultless and, while the quality of the originals obviously varies, they have been printed with care to optimise the tonal range and reveal the details so prized by modellers. Some of the photos are well-known, but the vast majority are drawn from the private collections of former JG 300 members and their families. As such, they appear here in print for the first time and represent a truly unique record of the operational lives of the pilots.

The range of subjects is remarkable - there's everything here, from the Wilde Sau Bf 109s and Fw 190s, through standard dayfighters and assault fighters. Among them are some absolute gems for anyone looking for unusual colour schemes - such as Oblt. Kurt Gabler's natural-metal Bf109 G-6, extraordinary "mirror-wave" variations and some really individual night-fighter schemes. One of the important aspects of the photo coverage is that the authors have often managed to find multiple photos of the same machine to reveal more of the camouflage and markings. In all cases, the photos are backed up with detailed and informative captions." 

 

If they say it's a G-6/AS, with a red RD band and gear legs and hubs,  I'm inclined to believe them.   As I said when I first posted the image, I recalled it from somewhere, and the discussion on the apparent colour of the RD band and the gear legs,  I'm pretty sure there was a quote from the pilot about about the use of oxen, so I think the pilot is known, and the provenance of the image is good.   I can't recall where I read it, except it was to do with jg300.de, and the miscaptioning of photos. 

I remembered it because of the red band appearing white, and how the gear legs and hubs indicted it was red... Hence looking searching up the image.

 

I don't have the book,  note it was translated by Neil Page aka @FalkeEins

He's not been on for a few days.

Neil may even be able too some detail on the use of red hubs and legs.

 

HTH

 

 

 

[tempestfan]

9 hours ago, Werdna said:

 

Is it too late to point out that the wheel hubs are also the same colour as the cows..?  

Makes sense - Norddeutsch-Rotbunt. The only question is who painted the cattle, and in which exact tone.

Edited July 26, 2023 by tempestfan

[Jochen Barett]

8 hours ago, Werdna said:

 

Is it too late to point out that the wheel hubs are also the same colour as the cows..?  

and the fuel tank trailer in the background. Cows probably brown/white (Deutsche Rotbunte "Rotbuntes Niederungsrind"), but could be "Glanrind" (Glan Cattle) (none f these to be placed in Jüterbog in Brandenburg under regular conditions, displaced cattle) fuel trailer "Dunkelgelb nach Muster" expected.

 

 

 

[Jochen Barett]

8 hours ago, Troy Smith said:

The source.  "JG300 Wilde Sau Vol1 by Lorant & Goyat."

The authors tracked down and interviewed surviving JG300 pilots and ground crew for many years.

see

https://archive.aeroscale.net/review/1278/index.htm

+++

OK, and what is their explanation for the red legs? C3? On the other hand William of Ockham (also known as Occam) says "If RLM 76 is common on legs, but uncommon on wheels and using a red filter in those conditions does not photographically make sense, who wins?"

 

Some day I'll drag out some RLM chart (probably the one in my "0-nine" gallery) some cameras, panchromatic and orthochromatic film and a set of filters in yellow (light and medium), green, orange, red (light and dark) and blue to see if I can get a yellow 1 look a tad darker than a red Rumpfband or a white 1 to look darker than the white of the Balkenkreuz that looks a tad darker than the red Rumpfband.

[Vesa Jussila]

@GiampieroSilvestri There were three Bf-109G6 AS planes in Finland. Those were MT-463, MT-471 and MT-478.

[GiampieroSilvestri]

2 hours ago, tempestfan said:

Makes sense - Norddeutsch-Rotbunt. The only question is who painted the cattle, and in which exact tone.

Es könnte sich um ein Uckermärker Rind handeln und die Uckermark ist in Brandenburg.

 

It could be a Uckermärker and Uckermark is a region in Brandenburg.

 

Gruss

 

Giampiero

 

[Super Aereo]

I think the photo of the cow might be colorised...

[Jochen Barett]

It's a complete fake unfortunately.

 

Wikipedia says: "Die Uckermärker, benannt nach der gleichnamigen Landschaft in Brandenburg, wurden 1992 als Rinderrasse anerkannt. Die Zuchtlinie entstand Anfang der 1970er Jahre als Genotyp 67 durch systematische Kreuzung der Rassen Fleckvieh und Charolais."

 

Google translate (in this case pretty good IMHO!): "The Uckermärker, named after the landscape of the same name in Brandenburg, was recognized as a cattle breed in 1992. The breeding line was created in the early 1970s as genotype 67 through systematic crossing of the Fleckvieh and Charolais breeds."

[dov]

Hallo

If you may stuck not so much on one single photo. This issue is not the matter of one single 109!

It is a matter of much more aircraft.

It can also happen that a recognized author is wrong.

If an author considers himself infallible, then it becomes dangerous.

If the fan community sees him as a guru please, that's a private matter.

I don't want to offend anyone, but this way the discussion and the extraction of the truth is simply impossible.

Check out all the filtered links I've sent. How many 109 of these could have red legs? 

Ok?

Lets go on!

 

@Troy Smith, @Jochen Barett, @GiampieroSilvestri, @Werdna, @tempestfan

 

Happy modelling

[Werdna]

18 minutes ago, dov said:

Check out all the filtered links I've sent. How many 109 of these could have red legs?

 

They all could - or none of them could.  I don't understand what point you are making.  

[dov]

What I want to say:

We have few pictures of the 109 where later photo-technical assumptions would like to prove that there were red legs on the 109.

There are additional links from me (source asisbiz) where it could be assumed that these 109 can also have red legs, or not.

It may be just as well be that the few photos that were colored later do not show red legs in reality.

Based on the current data, we will never know.

There was also no indication in the entire technical literature available to me.

When you take each photo from my link list and try to get a clue if the legs are red or something else, you never could be sure!
You get confused.
If the legs were really red, so I asume just by accident and the color was repaired with Minium, the protective color!
Or it was a joke after a lost bet in the officers mess.

Happy modelleing

[Graham Boak]

Few pictures are not the same as no pictures.  That some joker has gone around colourising the legs in some photos beggars belief.

[Dave Fleming]

4 hours ago, Super Aereo said:

I think the photo of the cow might be colorised...

 If I had any artistic software, I'd paint the legs red

[Jochen Barett]

4 hours ago, dov said:

Hallo

If you may stuck not so much on one single photo. This issue is not the matter of one single 109!

It is a matter of much more aircraft.

It can also happen that a recognized author is wrong.

If an author considers himself infallible, then it becomes dangerous.

If the fan community sees him as a guru please, that's a private matter.

I don't want to offend anyone, but this way the discussion and the extraction of the truth is simply impossible.

Check out all the filtered links I've sent. How many 109 of these could have red legs? 

Ok?

Lets go on!

 

@Troy Smith, @Jochen Barett, @GiampieroSilvestri, @Werdna, @tempestfan

 

Happy modelling

I'd just go with the "traditional knowledge" (don't remember where I picked it up, Prien+Rodeike maybe?) saying "Red legs are (were) a signal to the ground crew that the plane demands 100 octan fuel" and some planes (requiring 100 octan fuel) had it and some did not. And so far I am not aware of any "useful" pics of a 109 with clearly red legs and the "87" triangle.

And when looking at B&W pictures of 109-legs I'just keep scratching my head "02, 76, 66, red (23 or darker?), or that strange post war museum finnish light blue?" and carry on.

 

Please (everybody!) do excuse me for getting excited over this orthochromatic film and filter business again and again when a picture does not look right according to the viewer's expectations for "regular" B&W photographs.

[GiampieroSilvestri]

According to the wikipedia page about the airfield Jüterbog this is a Messerschmitt Bf 109 G-14/AS of 7/JG300.It says the picture was taken in june 1944.

 

Saluti

 

Giampiero

 

Edited July 27, 2023 by GiampieroSilvestri

[Werdna]

Interesting pattern/markings on the u/c door..?