Me-262

[plan_D]

The Me-262A-1a certainly had an impressive record; Kommando Nowotny claimed 22 kills in its first month of service. III/JG 7 claims 427 aircraft of which some 300 were 4-engined bombers.
Some were armed with 24 R4/M air-to-air spin-stabilised rockets which led to the post-war Mighty Mouse FFAR folding-fin aircraft rocket.

Erich, I haven't read much on the combat record of the Me-262A-2a 'Sturmvogel'...did it do any good?

[Erich]

friend the JG 7 unit as a whole claimed upwards 400 kills plus, not just III. gruppe alone. though it has been very hard to get the concisive reports as to how many Allied a/c they did indeed take down.

The A-2 was junk and this is one of the reasons KG 51 and 54 went over to the fighter designation (J) for Jäger. although still performing ground attacks against the Soviets in March/April of 45 till they surrendered....

[plan_D]

I apologise for the mistake.

This may be asking a bit much but can you explain the full titles and the type of sqaudron under all the letters in the Luftwaffe?
I heard that the delay in production wasn't because of Hitlers request to arm them with bombs but was because of engine delays. Is that true? Since before I read that is was all 'Hitler delayed everything'...

[Erich]

Hitlers intent was to have a Schnellbomber since he was still stuck on this idea. bombers, bombers, bombers, that will surely win us the war although he sure must have been somewhere else and not with reality come winter of 44/45, with his scheme of capturing Antwerp and throwing the Allies into the sea, etc.............
fuels, engines and the spare parts was surely of prime concern. I still think there was some serious doubt that JG 7 and previous Kommando Nowotny could do anything with the swallow, even with verbal high hopes and best wishes.

sure what are you interested in as to numbers and vocabulary ?

squadron=staffel
group=gruppe although we must bear in mind that a US fighter group was the whole combined unit and a Gruppe for the Luftwaffe was made up first of 3 staffeln and then in mid-August onward of 4 staffeln except for the night fighters which remained at 3.

Geschwader was the complete unit of 3-4 gruppen. Each staffel had between 10 and 15 a/c generally. So by looking at this we can hopefully determine that there were 40-60 aircraft in the Geschwader(wing) plus the gruppen stab of 6-8 a/c.

Each staffel had a number and this number was colored to indicated the staffel. The staff had a seperate colored number..........yeah I know this is confusing.....

example for II./JG 301 flying the Fw 190A-9 in the late fall of 44.

II. gruppe stab(staff) either black or green ?
5th staffel -white
6th staffel -red
7th staffel -yellow
8th staffel - blue

does this help ?

[plan_D]

That helped a lot. However I'm a little confused as to the order in which the Gruppe, Staffel and Geschwader were in. Was it; One Geschwader had 3-4 Gruppe and one Gruppe and 3-4 Staffel?

I'm also interested in the names and types of units abbrieviations like the letters for the type of aircraft flown like Nightfighter Squadrons, or Ground attack for example.

Also what were the Kommando squadrons..elite units?

This is asking a lot but I'll hope you'll help. Thank you in advance.

[Erich]

You are correct with the gruppe in the Geschwader.

4 staffels in 1 gruppe. 3-4 gruppe in a Geschwader.

I am quite weak when it comes to the ground attacks numerations, but besides numbers, a Captial letter was often used to denote a particular a/c.

for the Night fighters here ya go !

single engine were numbered like the day fighters 109's and 190's

twin engine were lettered as thus.

Geschwader stab A
I. gruppe B
II. gruppe C
III. gruppe D
IV. gruppe E
V. gruppe F

1st staffel H
2nd staffel K
3rd staffel L

4th staffel M
5th staffel N
6th staffel P

7th staffel R
8th staffel S
9th staffel T

10th staffel U
11th staffel V
12th staffel W

13th staffel X
14th staffel Y
15th staffel Z

sometimes there was an un-offical 16th staffel that was used as a training or nachtjagd schule

E ~

[Erich]

must be getting late in my head..........

also the 16th staffel could be a replacement unit for personell.

Kommando's were generally a start up or test unit(s) example is Kommando Nowotny. although he was the Kommandeur and the squadron was actually bigger than a staffel with some 20 a/c or so it was not a permanent geschwader with a high grade of ground personell needed to make the unit mobil and totally self sufficient. Kommando Welter was the same testing the Me 262 for night missions. Successful as it was at first Welter was then tasked to search for other night marksman from exisiting single and twin engine night fighters as well as night fighter instructors. The dessignation 10th staffel was used but also II. gruppe for propaganda reasons though there already existed a II./NJG 11 equipped with the Bf 109G-14/AS and G-10's in January of 45 till war's end. The 10th staffel was generally in theiry a seperate unit from it's mother Geschwader but not all the time. Day fighter staffel 10./JG 11 equipped with the Bf 109 G and Fw 190A was seperate from the JG 11 for a good portion of its existance..........
10.(N)/JG 300 which forms the first part of our book was a seperate anti-Mosquito unit to fly at night with the Bf 109G-6/AS in the summer and fall of 1944. The rest of the staffeln in III./JG 300 flew day time missions. the 10th staffel in this case did serve on the same base as III. gruppe staffels at Jüterbog

[plan_D]

That is all great, thank you. I'm probably getting annoying now but there is one final thing...Example: III/JG 7. Does that mean Drei Gruppe/Jager-Geschwader sieben? Or in my terms 3rd Group of Fighter Wing 7. And am I right to assume that NJG is Nacht Jager Geschwader? Also off writing is there anyway of knowing what the Staffel is? There really should be a book with the explanation in...

All this rush is sort of confusing me, but I think, or at least hope I'm getting it right. Thank you in advance, and I apologise if I am being annoying.

Danke Schon.

[Erich]

3rd Gruppe, Jagdgeschwader 7 III./JG 7

NJG = Nachtjagdgeschwader

gruppes are marked in Roman numerals........ I, II, III, IV, V, VI

staffels are identified with numerals............ 1,2,3,4, 5,6,7,8 9,10,11,12, etc..........

staffeln were marked with different colours and I have a listing of the jagdgeschwader colours if interested..... ?

[plan_D]

Is it the same organisation for Ground Attack, Bomber, Fighter and Nightfighter wings, or any other kind of wing for that matter?

And just finally to clarify: 3rd Staffel ~ 4th Gruppe ~ 7th Jagdgeshwader would be; 3.IV/JG 7?

If that's wrong, I bet you're getting really annoyed now. You should have seen me when I was trying to understand the divisional organisation of Soviet Armour and German Panzer divisions...

[Erich]

actually 3rd staffel would be in the I. gruppe. there was no IV./JG 7 anyway. but besdie the point. the third staffel in a IVth gruppe would be 12th staffel.

does this help ? maybe not..........

[plan_D]

Yes, I was simply using the numbers of an example. So 3rd Staffel~1st Gruppe~7th Jagdgeschwader would be 3.I/JG 7?

And also JG is obviously fighter wing, and NJG is night fighter wing. What would be the letters for bomber and ground attack wings?

[Erich]

bomber = Kampfgeschwader or KG

ground attack = Schlachtgeschwader or SG

remember though when you say 3./JG 7 it should read 3rd staffel Jagdgeschwader 7 , not 7th Fighter wing. It sounds fine in English but is not proper in the German

[plan_D]

I've got it now. Danke Schon.

[GermansRGeniuses]

Originally Posted by Erich

The A-2 was junk and this is one of the reasons KG 51 and 54 went over to the fighter designation (J) for Jäger.

That is not entirely true. As a ground attack aircraft, it was great. The problem was that it was last-ditch (Even more-so than the A-1) and it didn't have too big of an effect because there was no way it couald have. Gas was scarce and they were surrounded and being closed in on at an ever increasing pace.