Which was the best night fighter?

[fastmongrel]

The Mosquito was a good night fighter but the space for the navigator/radar operator is very cramped and must have degraded efficiency.

Maybe a tandem cockpit might have been better but don't know if there was the space.

 

[Glider]

The Mosquito was a good night fighter but the space for the navigator/radar operator is very cramped and must have degraded efficiency.

Maybe a tandem cockpit might have been better but don't know if there was the space.

If your going to do that you might as well narrow the fuselage and end up with something closely akin to the Hornet NF

 

[JDCAVE]

I'd have to call it for the Mosquito NF.30. While the Germans had the home field advantage over Germany (tracking radar, ground controllers, strategically stationed night fighter units), the RAF was still able to regularly send Mossies out to tear those Junkers a few new ones. I've never heard of Ju 88 night fighters having an established ability to hunt the Beaus and Mossies defending the UK.

I've noticed a similar pattern in daylight. When KG 40's Ju 88s went over the Bay of Biscay to savage Allied ASW aircraft, the Brits send Mosquitos to hound the Germans.

In both cases, if the Ju 88 was superior, the Mosquitos should have failed. But the Mosquitos succeeded.

(I still intend to model a 1/48th Ju 88 G6 one day - love the colors - but I'll probably build a half dozen Mosquitos...)

One man's opinion!

Cheers,

Dana

Very good points Dana. WRT my comments, perhaps not a superior aircraft to the Mosquito, only that based on aircraft it shot down, it was probably the most successful.

The Mosquito Mk XXX was not without its flaws. It occasionally suffered catastrophic failure, as shown below:

F/Lt. A.E. Marshal DFC DFM (47124) was operational with 25 Squadron flying Mosquitoes (Mk XVII and Mk XXX) and tasked with shooting down "Chuff's" (AKA V-1 flying bombs) and He.111 with "Chuffs".

Marshall was killed in a flying accident November 27, 1944. The 25 Squadron ORB for November 27, 1944: "Towards the end of the afternoon, we witnessed a tragic accident. F/L A.E. Marshall DFC DFM (Pilot 47124) and his navigator F/O C.A. Allen (145496) having completed their "NFT" were carrying out a "Beat-up." They dived over B Flight at great speed and pulled up sharply. Immediately, vapour trails appeared at the wingtips and then there was a loud bang and we saw that both wings had broken off outboard of the engines. The remainder of the aircraft continued to climb under great impetus to about 1500 feet where it turned over and fell to the ground and exploded. Both pilot and navigator were killed." The aircraft, MT.472 was a Mosquito Mk. XXX.

AIR 27/307/21 25 Sqn Summary Squadron Number: 25 Summary of Events: Y | The National Archives

Marshall is credited with 19 victories. He was a good friend of my father when he served at Fairoaks. Edit Marshall on the Right not Left. Photo by F/Lt. HHM Cave. Apologies if this has been posted before.

 

[fastmongrel]

If vapour trails were coming off the wingtips the pilot was pulling too much g at too low a level. Pilot error not aircraft failure seems to have been the problem.

 

[Snautzer01]

D Dana Bell the luftwaffe not targetting the fighters but the bombers over Brittain, wasnt that a stategy and a shortcomming?

 

[Mike Williams]

If vapour trails were coming off the wingtips the pilot was pulling too much g at too low a level. Pilot error not aircraft failure seems to have been the problem.

"They dived over B Flight at great speed and pulled up sharply." Pretty much covers it.

 

[JDCAVE]

If vapour trails were coming off the wingtips the pilot was pulling too much g at too low a level. Pilot error not aircraft failure seems to have been the problem.

I'm guessing you've read the Court of Inquiry on this? Problems with the laminates were known issues with Mosquitoes, particularly in the tropics. There is one record of sabotage of the glue used in the laminates. It's a fighter combat aircraft, deigned for violent manoeuvres at speed. The pilot a decorated Battle of Britain Pilot, probably with a couple of thousand hours Flying time, and trained prewar. My point is that the Mosquito had known issues.

Sorry! I was lazy and lifted this out of Wikipedia:

de Havilland Mosquito - Wikipedia

"In November 1944, several crashes occurred in the Far East. At first, these were thought to be a result of wing-structure failures. The casein glue, it was said, cracked when exposed to extreme heat and/or monsoon conditions. This caused the upper surfaces to "lift" from the main spar. An investigating team led by Major Hereward de Havilland travelled to India and produced a report in early December 1944 stating, "the accidents were not caused by the deterioration of the glue, but by shrinkage of the airframe during the wet monsoon season".[nb 15] However, a later inquiry by Cabot & Myers firmly attributed the accidents to faulty manufacture and this was confirmed by a further investigation team by the Ministry of Aircraft Production at Defford, which found faults in six Mosquito marks (all built at de Havilland's Hatfield and Leavesden plants). The defects were similar, and none of the aircraft had been exposed to monsoon conditions or termite attack.[citation needed]

The investigators concluded that construction defects occurred at the two plants. They found that the "... standard of glueing...left much to be desired."[88][89] Records at the time showed that accidents caused by "loss of control" were three times more frequent on Mosquitos than on any other type of aircraft. The Air Ministry forestalled any loss of confidence in the Mosquito by holding to Major de Havilland's initial investigation in India that the accidents were caused "largely by climate"[90] To solve the problem of seepage into the interior, a strip of plywood was set along the span of the wing to seal the entire length of the skin joint.[88]"

Jim

 

[GrauGeist]

Interesting that they'd claim that humidity would cause the wood to shrink.
It's been my experience that wood swells when exposed to moisture and shrinks when dry...

 

[fastmongrel]

Interesting that they'd claim that humidity would cause the wood to shrink.
It's been my experience that wood swells when exposed to moisture and shrinks when dry...

It's because the British Isles are so notoriously hot and dry that when Mosquitos were exported to humid India the wood didn't know what it was supposed to do.

 

[Just Schmidt]

Interesting that they'd claim that humidity would cause the wood to shrink.
It's been my experience that wood swells when exposed to moisture and shrinks when dry...

I've come across the notion that the problem was not so much any particular kind of whether, but climate. In many tropical areas the whether stays the same for many weeks, whereas north west Europe have constantly changing whether. The tropical conditions meant the wood had longer time to dry out or get soaked, thereby reaching extremes they usually did not 'at home'. Yes i know the English language has 73 different words for 'rain', but at the risk of insulting our resident Britons I'd say it does not often rain for half a year at a time.

 

[Airframes]

It bl**dy does where I live !!!

 

[buffnut453]

It bl**dy does where I live !!!

That's because Terry has his own, personal rain cloud:

 

[fastmongrel]

It's not rain it's liquid sunshine

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Interesting that they'd claim that humidity would cause the wood to shrink.
It's been my experience that wood swells when exposed to moisture and shrinks when dry...

Exactly what I was thinking. When it's humid, my guitars go sharp in tuning, indicating that the wood between the bridge and the nut (mainly the neck) has expanded, pulling the strings tauter.

 

[GrauGeist]

When my piece of sh*t swamp cooler works, it swells several of the door jambs, either trapping the door or preventing them from closing.
Right now, since it broke down again, it's 95° in the house at about 10% humidity.

The doors work fine...

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

When my piece of sh*t swamp cooler works, it swells several of the door jambs, either trapping the door or preventing them from closing.
Right now, since it broke down again, it's 95° in the house at about 10% humidity.

The doors work fine...

Come to think of it, the doors in my mom's house have gotten pretty sticky.

It's rained almost every day the last three weeks. The humidity right now is 61%, about 25% above the average here in Hill Country. That's about 10% higher than normal, and well above our August lows of 40%.

 

[pbehn]

I'm guessing you've read the Court of Inquiry on this? Problems with the laminates were known issues with Mosquitoes, particularly in the tropics. There is one record of sabotage of the glue used in the laminates. It's a fighter combat aircraft, deigned for violent manoeuvres at speed. The pilot a decorated Battle of Britain Pilot, probably with a couple of thousand hours Flying time, and trained prewar. My point is that the Mosquito had known issues.

Sorry! I was lazy and lifted this out of Wikipedia:

de Havilland Mosquito - Wikipedia

"In November 1944, several crashes occurred in the Far East. At first, these were thought to be a result of wing-structure failures. The casein glue, it was said, cracked when exposed to extreme heat and/or monsoon conditions. This caused the upper surfaces to "lift" from the main spar. An investigating team led by Major Hereward de Havilland travelled to India and produced a report in early December 1944 stating, "the accidents were not caused by the deterioration of the glue, but by shrinkage of the airframe during the wet monsoon season".[nb 15] However, a later inquiry by Cabot & Myers firmly attributed the accidents to faulty manufacture and this was confirmed by a further investigation team by the Ministry of Aircraft Production at Defford, which found faults in six Mosquito marks (all built at de Havilland's Hatfield and Leavesden plants). The defects were similar, and none of the aircraft had been exposed to monsoon conditions or termite attack.[citation needed]

The investigators concluded that construction defects occurred at the two plants. They found that the "... standard of glueing...left much to be desired."[88][89] Records at the time showed that accidents caused by "loss of control" were three times more frequent on Mosquitos than on any other type of aircraft. The Air Ministry forestalled any loss of confidence in the Mosquito by holding to Major de Havilland's initial investigation in India that the accidents were caused "largely by climate"[90] To solve the problem of seepage into the interior, a strip of plywood was set along the span of the wing to seal the entire length of the skin joint.[88]"

Jim

With respect it is two different issues. This is a Dornier dropping on London trying to do something it wasnt designed for and ripping the outer wings off.

 

[Akuma]

Best night fighter of WWII? The Bf-110 would probably not be on the best list, but Heinz Schnaufer managed to put there. More often than not it's the man rather than the machine.

 

[GrauGeist]

Besides Schnaufer, there was:
Lent
Streib
Meurer
Radusch
Zorner
and a long list of others..

 

[JDCAVE]

With respect it is two different issues. This is a Dornier dropping on London trying to do something it wasnt designed for and ripping the outer wings off.
View attachment 631751

How do you know what it was or was not designed to do and whether or not it was a result of failure of the laminate? this was a very experienced pilot who had far more experience flying this type than yourself—a fighter aircraft designed for violent manoeuvres. 77 years after the incident, we have no more information than would have been available to the "Court of Inquiry" of the incident.

Jim