Schräge Musik

Maintaining the Eagle Owl
He-219 Diorama
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Juvat's post the other day (a very rare "Thursday-Juvat") documented his and Mrs. J's trip to Udvar-Hazy, a favorite stop for Your Humble Scribe when he's in the DC area and not attending weddings or Lexican get togethers. I was rather thrilled to see one of my favorite aircraft is now up on her wheels and has her wings attached.

Which wasn't the case the last time I saw the old girl...

Now the title of this post refers to the installation of upward firing guns behind the German night fighter's cockpit. The Germans called these Schräge Musik, literally "slanted music," which I am given to understand was a German slang term for jazz, an art form prohibited in the Third Reich but enjoyed by some anyway. (Bloody Nazis spoil all the fun.)

Juvat Photo

I can see the nose of the aircraft has been removed, probably for restoration activities (perhaps they're installing the "antlers," i.e. the radar antenna. Which can be seen in the next photo.

The link is to an article on the Smithsonian's restoration of this aircraft.
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I've posted about night fighters before (here) and I found a pretty detailed blog post over at Daydream Notes (here) concerning the He-219. A rather amazing aircraft, good thing the war ended when it did. Here's some silent footage of the Uhu in flight. (And no, it's not a bomber.)

As for Schräge Musik, here's a blurb from Wikipedia -

Schräge Musik (or Schrägwaffen, as it was also called) was first used operationally during Operation Hydra (the first instance of the Allied bombing of Peenemünde) on the night of 17/18 August 1943.  Three waves of aircraft bombed the area and a diversion on Berlin by RAF Mosquitoes, attracted the main Luftwaffe fighter effort and meant that only the last of the three waves was met by many night fighters. Number 5 Group and RCAF 6 Group in the third wave, lost 29 of their 166 bombers, well over the 10 percent losses considered sustainable. In this raid 40 aircraft were lost: 23 Lancasters, 15 Halifaxes and two Short Stirlings.

Adoption of Schräge Musik began in late 1943 and by 1944, a third of all German night fighters carried upward-firing guns. Schräge Musik proved most successful in the Jumo 213 powered Ju 88 G-6. An increasing number of these installations used the more powerful 30-millimeter, short-barrelled MK 108 cannon, such as those fitted to the Heinkel He 219, fully contained within the fuselage. By mid-1944, He 219 aircrew were critical of the MK 108 installation, because its low muzzle velocity and limited range, meant that the night fighter had to be close to the bomber to attack and be vulnerable to damage from debris. They demanded that either the MK 108s be removed and replaced by MG FF/Ms or the angle of the mounting be changed. Although He 219s continued to be delivered with the twin 30 mm mounted, these were removed by front line units.

Using the Schräge Musik required precise timing and swift evasion; a fatally damaged bomber could fall on the night fighter if the fighter could not quickly turn away. The He 219 was particularly prone to this; its high wing loading left it at the edge of stalling speed when matching the Lancaster's cruising speed, and therefore quite unmaneuverable. The same was true to a lesser extent of other Luftwaffe types such as the Ju 88, which was considered quite a "hot ship" by its crews. This was also a problem during normal stern attacks at low closure rate, but it was even more exaggerated during schräge musik attacks, since the pilot could not even make use of the limited climb performance available at the edge of the flight envelope to avoid debris from the stricken target.

Schräge Musik allowed German night fighters to attack undetected, using special ammunition with a faint glowing trail replacing the standard tracer, combined with a "lethal mixture of armour-piercing, explosive and incendiary ammunition." Approaching from below provided the night fighter crew with the advantage that the bomber crew could not see them against the dark ground or sky, yet allowed the German crew to see the silhouette of the aircraft before they attacked. The optimum target for the night fighter was the wing fuel tanks, not the fuselage or bomb bay, because of the risk that exploding bombs would damage the attacker. "To overcome some of the problems, many NJG* pilots closed the range at a lower level, below the Monica zone of coverage, until they could see the bomber above; then they pulled up into a climb with all front guns blazing. This demanded fine judgement, gave only a second or two of firing time and almost immediately brought the fighter up behind the bomber's tail turret.

Schräge Musik produced devastating results, with its most successful deployment in the winter of 1943–1944. This was a time when Bomber Command losses became unsupportable: the RAF lost 78 of 823 bombers that attacked Leipzig on 19 February, and 96 of the 795 bombers that attacked Nuremberg on 30/31 March 1944. RAF Bomber Command was slow to react to the threat from Schräge Musik, with no reports from shot-down crews reporting the new tactic; the sudden increase in bomber losses had often been attributed to flak. Reports from air gunners of German night fighters stalking their prey from below had appeared as early as 1943 but had been discounted. A myth developed among RAF Bomber Command crews that "scarecrow shells" were encountered over Germany. The phenomenon was thought to be "AA shells simulating an exploding four-engined bomber and designed to damage morale. In many cases these were actual 'kills' by Luftwaffe night fighters... It was not for many months that evidence of these deadly attacks was accepted."

A detailed analysis of the damage done to returning bombers clearly showed that the night fighters were firing from below. Defence against the attacks included mixing de Havilland Mosquito night fighters into the bomber stream, to pick up radar emissions from the German night fighters. Wing Commander J. D. Pattinson of 429 "Bison" Squadron, recognized an unseen danger but to him, it "was all presumption, not fact." He ordered that the mid-upper turrets be removed and the "displaced gunner would lie on a mattress on the floor as an observer, looking through a perspex blister for night fighters coming up from below." Many Lancaster B. IIs had retained the FN64 ventral turret, and a small number of Halifax and Lancaster bombers were unofficially fitted with a machine-gun, normally of .303 caliber but Canadian units tended to use the 0.50-inch heavy machine gun. (If not installed in a ventral turret these weapons were mounted in a makeshift port directly under the mid-upper gunner station.)

Even in the last year of the war, 18 months after the Peenemünde Raid, Schräge Musik night fighters were still taking a heavy toll, for example on the Mitteland–Ems Canal Raid, 21 February 1945:

On this particular night the night fighters were to score heavily. The ground radar stations responsible for initial guidance to the vicinity of the bombers did their job well, as did the airborne radar operators to whom fell the task of final location of individual targets. The path of the returning bomber stream was clearly marked by the pyres of numerous downed victims. NJG 4 was operating from Gutersloh (later an RAF base) and in the space of 20 minutes, between 20.43 and 21.03, Schnaufer and his crew, using their upward firing cannons (from a Bf 110G night fighter), shot down seven Lancasters. As it was, on that black night, four night fighter crews accounted for 28 of the 62 bombers lost out of the 800 dispatched. (Source)

An example of Schräge Musik installation on a Bf-110G.
Nice article on night fighters at this link...
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Mankind, ever inventive at finding ways to kill each other.



* NJG = Nachtjagdgeschwader, night fighter wing.