Luftwaffe tactics and techniques
For those who may not be familiar with Luftwaffe tactics here a few important passages from "Luftwaffe Fighter Aces" by Mike Spick.
"Courage" is a term widely applied to fighter pilots. However, the term "self-control" is far more appropriate. Fear must be channeled into action if he is to survive and overcome the enemy. Channeled fear calls for the ultimate in self-control.
Aggression is essential, although it must be tempered with caution. The "fang out, hair on fire" type of pilot rarely lasts long. In the confusion of a dogfight, it is all too easy to be lured into an irrecoverable situation, usually through target fixation at the expense of keeping a good lookout. Finally, there is the ability to survive. A really impressive score cannot be amassed over night. It is therefore necessary to survive long enough to achieve a high score.
Survival in air combat is largely dependent on a quality called Situation Awareness (SA). This is basically ones ability to keep track of events in a fast moving, highly dynamic, three dimensional situation. There is a body of evidence to suggest a sixth sense is at work which warns the pilot of impending danger. This sense is unquantifiable, yet it seems to work better on some days then on others. Potentially, SA is the fighter pilot's greatest asset.
The study and use of the following tactics and techniques will greatly improve your success in combat. When coupled with fellow comrades who are also applying them, your Geschwader will become one of the most feared and respected squads within the WarBirds world.
Basic Fighter Maneuvers
German fighter pilots were taught standard maneuvers for fighter vs. fighter combat. Aerobatics played little or no part in these; in the main, they involved hard turning to get on the tail of an opponent. But while turning ability is important to a fighter, it was not an absolute! Both radius and rate of turn are functions of speed: as speed increases, so the radius of turn widens, while the rate of turns (measured in degrees) decreases. All else being
equal (which it seldom is) the slower aircraft (ac) will generally out-turn the faster.
Attacks were generally launched from a higher altitude, often from the glare of the sun. Mostly, the attacks took the form of a curve of pursuit which brought the attacker in behind his opponent. If the attacker remained unseen and his shooting was accurate, a victory was very probable. If, however, the attacker was seen coming in, his opponent took evasive action and the fight was on.
The basic evasive maneuver was the "break". In this, the defending ac turned as hard as possible in the direction of the attacker, who only rarely would be dead from astern. This rapidly increased the deflection angle, giving the attacker the most difficult shot possible. If the turn capabilities of the two aircraft were fairly similar, and the speed difference was not too great, they would then enter the classic turning fight, with each trying to out-turn the other to achieve a firing position. As hard turning bled off speed, the circles turned into a downward spiral. This ended only when another aircraft intervened, or the lower one was forced to pull out by the proximity of the ground.
As the attacker was often moving considerable faster then his opponent in order to close the range quickly, he would frequently be unable to hold position on the inside of the turn and would overshoot to the outside. This gave the defender a chance to turn the tables by reversing the direction of his turn back towards his opponent. At this point the original attacker could reverse his own turn. A series of turn reversals then ensued, known as the "scissors", in which both aircraft tried to gain a position astern, with the advantage going to the most maneuverable ac. In the scissors, a faster "rate-of-roll" was often more an advantage then turning ability, as it allowed changes of direction to made very quickly.
Once the attacker overshot, he had two alternatives to entering a scissors, both using his speed advantage: he could dive away out of range, or he could pull up, converting his excess speed into altitude. An aileron turn in the vertical climb allowed him to reposition himself, pulling out into level flight in any direction he chose, ready for another diving attack. The modern name for this manuevre is the "Immelmann Turn". Alternatively, he could stall-turn at the top of his climb and launch into another diving attack (hammerhead ) These were the tricks on which all fighter combat was based.
THE BREAK
The standard procedure when attacked from astern was to turn as hard as possible in the direction of the attacker. This gave a difficult deflection shot, and if the attacker had a speed advantage it frequently caused him to overshot.
THE SCISSORS
Once the break forced an attacker to overshoot, a series of turn reversals, known as the scissors, could force the attacker out in front. This is not recommended against a better turning aircraft, unless his speed advantage is excessive enough to increase his turn radius, and/or your aircraft has a superior rate of roll.
THE IMMELMANN TURN
Named after the first World War ace Max Immelmann, this maneuver allows a fighter pilot to reposition without much horizontal displacement. The fighter pulls up vertically, aileron turns in the desired direction, then pulls out and rolls upright.
THE SANDWICH
Any fighter attacking a German Rotte ( wing, element of two fighters ) was liable to be sandwiched if it followed the targeted German into his break maneuver. This was made easy by the wide spacing and almost abreast positioning of the German Rotte. The targeted German breaks away from his fellow rottenflieger who is likewise breaking in the same direction, thus swinging onto the tail of the attack and effectively sandwiching him.SCHWARM and CROSS-OVER TURN
The typical Schwarm formation consisted of two Rotten with about 180 m spacing between the aircraft. This allowed all pilots to keep a look-out without fear of collision. To turn through 90 degrees, the fighter on the outside pulled up and turned above the one nearest to it. The others followed in sequence, rolling out on to the new heading with formation integrity intact.
The fact that the Schwarm formation consisted of a right-handed fingerfour formation into a left-handed fingerfour formation after the 90 degree crossover turn was normal. The Rottenflieger on the sun side of the formation would position himself/themselves below the Schwarmfuehrer so the others could locate him/them without having to look into the sun. The Schwarm was called the "fingerfour" by the Western Allies because the aircraft positions within the Schwarm looked like the fingers of an outstretched hand.
THE DECOY
The decoy, a solitary aircraft looking vulnerable in the presence of enemy fighters while covered by friends above, was widely used by the Luftwaffe until late 1943. Large numbers of high-performance enemy fighters soon made this tactic suicidal.
CURVE OF PURSUIT
The favored attack from astern almost invariably involved a curve-of-pursuit to take the attacker from his start-point to a firing-position. Usually done by keeping one's nose on the target, this normally resulted in a tail chase. A far better method was to keep the target at a constant angle through the windshield sidelight until the range closed.
UP AND UNDER ATTACK
The vast majority of Adolf Galland's victories ( and many other Experten ) came by this means. A steep plunge from astern was followed by an attack coming up in the blind spot astern and below. While not specifically stated, this was best made from a few degrees to the right; the average fighter pilot, his left hand on the throttle and his right on the stick, could look over his left shoulder more easily then his right.
DEFLECTION SHOOTING
Bullets took some time to cover the distance to the target, by which time it was no longer there. Deflection shooting is the art of aiming ahead of the target, so that it arrived in the same place and the same time as the bullets. Russian Front Experte Guenther Rall was widely considered the best deflection shot in the Jagdwaffe. Most Experten preached the method of closing in so close that the target filled in the Revi (Reflexvisier/gun sight) before shooting, however. This reduced the chance of missing the shot as well as the amount of ammo required to make the kill. Work at getting inside 275 meters for all shots as shooting beyond this is mostly a waste of ammo... unless you're another Gunther Rall :-)
VECTOR ROLL ATTACK
Superiority in the rolling plane could be used to defeat a better-turning opponent. Rolling away from the direction of the turn allowed the pursuing fighter to cut the corner. This was, however, a double-edged sword: American P-47 Thunderbolts often used the Vector Roll against Me109's.
BOXING
Boxing was standard whenever the Germans had greater numbers in an engagement, notably over Malta. It could be done two-vs-one, or by a large formation against a small formation. Directly the attack went in, the defenders broke into it, only to have the second aircraft or group on their tail(s). This is the reverse of the sandwich maneuver.
AGAINST THE HEAVIES
Egon Mayer and Georg-Peter Eder of JG2 developed this method of attacking US heavy bomber formations. Having tailed them to establish exact course, altitude and speed, they then moved to a safe distance on the flank and overtook them. Having gained a lead of about 3 500 m, the German fighters turned in for a head-on pass.
Combined closing speeds made attacking heavy bombers from a head-on a frightening experience.
At 800 m the bomber must already be in the center of the gun sight !
ERICH HARTMANN'S "LAST DITCH" EVASION MANEUVER
As the fighter approached, Hartmann used his rudder to point his fighter in a slightly different direction from the way it was going, to mislead the attacker into misjudge the amount of deflection required. When his attacker opened fire, Hartmann slammed the stick in the far corner of the cockpit, putting his Messerschmitt into the first half of an oblique loop. In his words: "Fly quickly straight ahead and push the rudder so you fly straight ahead skid that will not be recognized by the attacker. IF he opens fire, you push for negative G's down left or right, not forgetting through the whole maneuver to push the rudder. Your attacker will hang with negative G's in his belt, unable to pull the trigger. With that maneuver, I saved my life several times."
THE SPIRAL CLIMB ( Mainly Me 109 Maneuver )
Heinz Knocke of JG1 was one of the many German fighter pilots to use the spiral climb as a means of evading American escorts. With the angle and distance constantly changing, it made his Messerschmitt an almost impossible target. The spiral dive was an alternative, for the same reasons. It's not really a barrel-roll style of an upwards spiral, but rather, more like the rolling-scissors with the spiral tightening the slower you become. Roll-out and build a little speed in a shallow chandelle to climbaway from the enemy.
THE ROLLER- COASTER ATTACK
To attack US bomber formations, ME 262 pilots started from a position high astern. A shallow high-speed dive took them through the escorts to a point 1 500 m astern the bombers and 500 m below them. At this point they pulled up to dump speed and carried out a conventional rear attack before breaking off downwards.
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