Schräge Musik
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Schräge Musik, derived from the German colloquialism for Jazz Music (the German word "schräg" literally means "slanted" or "oblique"; it also has a secondary meaning of 'weird', 'strange', 'off-key' or 'abnormal'), was the name given to installations of upward-firing cannon mounted in night fighters by the Luftwaffe during World War II. This allowed them to approach and attack British bombers from below, where they would be outside the bomber crew's field of view. The British bombers of that time generally carried no defensive guns in the ventral position. The ventral turret fitted to some early Lancasters was sighted by periscrope from within the fuselage, and proved of little use - the fitting of a Sperry ball turret of the kind fitted to the B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator would not have been practical as the British bombers had not been designed to use them-and sighting a target at night, for the ball turret gunner to aim at, might have been a problem as well.
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[edit] Background
During the First World War, forward firing Lewis Guns were frequently mounted on the top plane of a biplane to fire over the revolving propeller, due to the difficulty of synchronising this type of weapon to fire through the propeller arc. Since the gun had to be tilted back to change amunition drums it followed that the gun could also be fired upwards at an angle. The guns of the Nieuport 11 and Nieuport 17 fighters, especially in British service, and the S.E.5a were often used in this way, to attack enemy bomber or reconnaissance aircraft from the "blind spot" below the tail. The British ace Albert Ball, in particular, was a great exponent of this technique. The first "multi-gun" fighter design to see combat, the Sopwith Dolphin, featured an "as-equipped" armament setup of two forward-firing Vickers machine guns in the usual location just forward of the cockpit, but also had a pair of Lewis machine guns located on a cross-tube, and intended to be aimed forwards and upwards as an anti-Zeppelin armament scheme. The concept of off-set or oblique mounted weaponry in night fighting was first used by B.E.2c night fighters to attack airships from below - this was highly successful, and most British night fighters for the remainder of the war (for instance the Sopwith Camels of No. 151 Squadron RAF in 1918) used wing mounted Lewis guns in preference to the synchronised Vickers preferred for day fighting - in part for this reason. Similar arrangements were trialled by the Germans in 1917, when Gerhard Fieseler of Jasta 38 fitted two machine guns pointing upwards and forwards.
The Westland C.O.W. Gun Fighter had been another example of a trial of upward tilting guns, in this case the Coventry Ordnance Works 37 mm autocannon in the 1930s. The Boulton Paul Defiant and Blackburn Roc were two British fighter aircraft that carried their armament in turrets giving them a wide range of fire including upwards. The Defiant was put into service in 1939 with the intention to be used against bombers despite the bombers' numerous gun positions. After becoming outclassed as a day fighter, the Defiant moved to the night fighter role where it had some success at night - typically attacking from below and slightly ahead of the target bomber, and well out of its field of defensive fire.
Prior to the introduction of Schräge Musik in 1943, German night fighters were simply heavy fighters equipped with radar in the nose. This meant that the fighter had to approach the target bomber from the rear in order to get into a firing position. This presents a much smaller target area and RAF bombers were all equipped with multi-gun hydraulic rear turrets to help fend off such attacks. The main use of the turret was in fact surveillance: when a night fighter was seen approaching, the gunner would call for the bomber to execute a sharp maneuver (usually a 'corkscrew' turn), which was typically successful in making the bomber disappear from the fighter's radar.[citation needed]
Night fighter pilots then developed a new tactic to avoid the turrets. Instead of approaching directly from the rear, they would approach about 1500 ft below the plane. They would then pull up sharply and start firing when the nose of the bomber appeared in the gunsight. As their plane slowed and the bomber passed over them, the wings were sprayed with cannon or machine gun rounds. This maneuver was effective, but difficult to perform. There was a significant risk of collision and if the bomb-load exploded, it could take down the night fighter too.
[edit] Development
Oberleutnant Rudolf Schönert of 4/NJG2 decided to experiment with upward firing guns in 1941 and began trying out upward-firing installations amidst scepticism from his superiors and fellow pilots. The first installation was made late in 1942, in a Do 17Z-10 that was also equipped with the early UHF-band version of the Lichtenstein radar. Apparently the tests were not successful, and the idea was dropped[citation needed]. Further experimentation was carried out by the Luftwaffe weapons testing centre at Tarnewitz through 1942, and an angle of between 60 and 75 degrees was found to give best results.
Meantime Schönert was made CO of II./NJG5, and an armourer serving with the gruppe, Obfw. Mahle developed a working arrangement with the unit's Bf-110's and a pair of MG FF/M 20 mm cannon. Schönert used such a modified Bf-110 to shoot down a bomber in May 1943. From June 1943 an official conversion kit was produced for the Ju-88 and Do-217 fighters.
Wide-scale adoption followed in late 1943, and in 1944 a third of all German nightfighters carried upward-firing guns. The Revi 16N gunsight was modified to allow the reflector to be placed above the pilot’s head, while the sight itself was further to the rear. An increasing number of these installations used the more powerful 30 mm MK 108 cannon, such as those fitted to the He 219. The installation contributed significantly to the successes of the German nightfighter force in the winter of 1943-1944; one German estimate suggested that Schräge Musik accounted for almost 80% of the British losses[citation needed]. The definitive night fighter version of the Me 262, the Me 262B-2, was also designed to carry such an installation, but none were built before the end of the war.
Schräge Musik proved to be most successful on Junkers 88 G-6, which was both fast and manouevreable. Using the Schräge Musik (or Schrägwaffen, as it was also called) required precise timing and swift evasion; a fatally damaged bomber could fall directly upon the night fighter who had just shot it down if the fighter could not quickly turn away. Heinkel He 219 Uhu was particularly prone to this; its high wing load left it unmanouevreable, and the 61-victory night fighter ace Manfred Meurer lost his life 21/22 January 1944 as a Handley Page Halifax bomber he had just shot down fell upon his He 219.
The Japanese Army Air Force's Mitsubishi Ki-46 "Dinah" twin engined fighter was used to test the Schräge Musik armament format in its Ki-46 III-KAI version in June 1943, using a 37 mm Ho-203 long barreled cannon with 200 rounds of ammunition. It was mounted in virtually the same position in the fuselage as in the Luftwaffe fighters. Operational deployment began in October 1944, but it was not fast enough and could not reach sufficient altitude to attack the Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers that it was intended to combat[citation needed].
Similar systems were tested on day fighters as well, known as Sondergeräte and Jägerfaust. In these cases, the primary aim was to provide the fighters with a very powerful single-shot weapon, as opposed to one that allowed them to operate unseen[citation needed].
An attack by a Schräge Musik equipped fighter was typically a complete surprise to the bomber crew, who would only realise that a fighter was close by when they came under fire. Had it not been for the ever-increasing standard of British anti-radar techniques[citation needed] and the introduction of newer aircraft designs[citation needed], Schräge Musik would have seriously depleted RAF Bomber Command's forces.
Freeman Dyson, who was an analyst for Operations research of RAF Bomber Command in World War II, commented on the effectiveness of Schräge Musik: "The cause of losses ... killed novice and expert crews impartially. This result contradicted the official dogma...I blame the ORS and I blame myself in particular, for not taking this result seriously enough...If we had taken the evidence more seriously, we might have discovered Schräge Musik in time to respond with effective countermeasures."
[edit] Typical installations
- Do 217N: 4x 20 mm MG151/20
- Fw 189: 1x 20 mm MG151/20 (used mainly on eastern front)
- He 219: 2x 30 mm MK108
- Ju 88C/G: 2x 20 mm MG151/20
- Ju 388J: 2x30 mm MK108
- Messerschmitt Bf 110G-4: 2x 20 mm MG FF/M
- Me 262B-2: 2x 30 mm MK108
- Ta 154: 2x 30 mm MK108
[edit] See also
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[edit] References
- Anders, Gebhard, "History of the German Night Fighter Force 1917-45" (1979)
- Dyson, F., A Failure of Intelligence[1], Technology Review(Nov-Dec 2006)
