Opinions of the He 219

Hi anybody got any thoughts on He 219 was it really the night fighter par excellance that i have seen some books claim it to be ? It does not seem to get much attention so thought i should bring it up and anyone know if any are still arround ?
Thanks

 

Allister :

Greetings. If you would do a search through some of the older topics/messages you would find my feelings on this flimsy a/c. The UHU was only a stop gap until a better form of nf could be developed and that being the Me 262B-2a. The UHU had more experimentation done to it than any existing German night fighterin the Luftwaffe arsenal. Only I./NJG 1 used the a/c operationaly and this is where the books seem to have a stop gap. They have not interviewed vets that flew the a/c. They have gone on old news back in the 1960's and kept it as fact.
A few a/c were tested by II./NJG 1 and the crews found it lacking. 2./NJGr 10 had 1 a/c and the thing had a broken back during flight trial tests and they left it in a wreck heap and then blew it sky high when they retreated from the Russians. nachtjagd staffel Norwegen had 1 and it was worthless as it had engine troubles and there were no spare parts for the unit. There was even talk of evaluation trials with NJG 5 but am not sure what gruppe tested the a/c if they even had one.
The a/c possessed and extrememly heavy armament which was not needed to take down RAF bombers. The operational Heinkels shot down a total of 12 Mossies and that is it. Other Luftwaffe units did better. The engines had continual troubles with venting, there was not a third crew member, and no rearward defensive armament to take on RAF intruders. Many of the UHU'
s also did not have rearward radar and this is one of the reasons I./NJG 1 lost so many during combat ops. It did have the first ejection seat system but did fail on a couple of times in conjunction with the release of the canopy, killing the crews. All in all I have never been impressed with the machine. The Ju 88G-6 was far superior and of course the Me 262.

E

 

Yes,

I wondered ( a while ago ) as well if the articles claim it to be as good a night fighter as by the given kill figures then why did they not build a whole armada of them but some hundreds only.Erich should know...

Nice looking plane for the job as well giving the pilot lots of view around him unlike many other fighters ( thinking of "schräge musik" here...)

 

Where did you find the neat painting at ??!!

 

on my trips to the net....

Want to have a better look? No problemo, I must have forgotten to include it in the previous message, sorry about that...

http://www.stefanopasini.it/Into%20the%20Cloak%20of%20Darkness.htm

 

Another problem.....I know I am really bitching about this a/c but the forward part of the cockpit which when an RAF bomber was hit/shot down, the German crew unfortunately would take quite a bit of the brunt of the debris, also with the engines to the side and back, if the canopy and ejection seats would not function together then over on the back and hopefully U could pop out like a cork. Maybe a good thing since this was such a large a/c is that it could drop like a stone if chased by an RAF intruder.
The schrage musik installation was the jammed prone Mk 108 3cm weapons. why the standard 2cm was not installed is beyond me except again the German techs had the idea this was the heaviest armed NF which it was......

E

 

Hmmmm ( sorry, Crazy ! ), sometimes I think Nick Trudgian slightly overdoes his trademark 'golden glow' in some of his paintings....?

 

Another nit pic and this time NT takes my brunt

The painting is bogus as the two a/c would not be seen together. And the biggie is the He 219 in 1945 ground attack scheme, with the lower fuselage in black distemper. The radar is incorrect as it should be the 45 degree slanted SN-2d set of the FuG 220 displayed on A-5's and A-7 variants. what it shows is the 1943 to early 1944 radar sets. Bummer.....should of done more research and interviewed some vets ! Still very striking painting. Is that a mossie intruder I see coming in behind these two a/c Martin ? ....

E

 

You´re quite good at this, Erich!!

It´s nice to hear what is wrong with the plane as I myself just thought: Oh how beautiful...

Here´s another one! It looks nice but...is it ok? Erich?

 

Well, the poor old 'Hallibags' are having a lean time of it, anyway !

 

kai, it appears to be Werner Striebs He 210 A though the canopy looks wrong if it is. I am going by the radar again and the A under the left wing whcih was discarded in 1944. Again we must be real careful with model box art as the artist's usally have free reign of anything they would want to do.

E

 

Thanks for the detailed opinon on the 219 sorry got a little distracted by other things and have not thanked you sooner.
Regards

 

Alister :

The most decent book on the a/c is Roland Remp's Der nachtjäger He 219 bei Aviatic Verlag. My copy is in German and it may have been translated but am not sure. It is more of a technical book but does have some ops listed from NJG 1.

E

 

Just found this - worth a look if you're curious about this aircraft. Maybe half of it should be under the 'modelling' heading but...interesting nonetheless !

http://www.clubhyper.com/reference/he219cw_1.htm

 

I've seen the article Martin and tried sending corrective info to Brett Green two years ago..NJG 3 never had any He 219's although the article says otherwise. I also have a copy of all the photos Chris claims he has for the site. The last one by the way shows the He 219 garbage with a broken back of 3./NJGr 10. The a/c was a piece of junk from the start and the techs and crews of the staffel just let the a/c lay until Allied forces hauled it off to the dump. All operative Uhu's had the G9+?? code for I./NJG 1.

Love the model though. some of these chaps are extrememly talented.

E

 

Hehe !!

Thanks, Erich..... I should have known

 

Let's dredge an old but worthwhile thread from the murky forum depths.....

I know that Erich isn't impressed by the 219, but as I recently met and spoke with a Mosquito veteran who is convinced that he was shot down over Berlin by Hptmn. Struning of 3./NJG1 flying one of these rare birds -

How did it shape up against the Mosquito ? Any ideas as to how many Mosquitoes fell to the 219 ?

 

upon further study with several Danish friends and researchers, NJG 3 did have the He 219A-2 on hand but were never flown on operations as the gruppe that had the Uhu already had the Ju 88G-6 which they found superior.

Martin we have every encounter of the Mossie by I./NJG 1 for our book. 12 kills to I./NJG 1 Uhu's

anyone else ?

 

The 219 certainly appears to be yet another German weapon which is shrouded in myth and mystery......

 

Just *bumping* this one up the listings for my own information and amusement.

A 1/72 scale diecast model of the 'Uhu' is ( hopefully ) soon to be released and various internet forums are already buzzing with questions as to what the 'Uhu' was and what it did ( or didn't ) achieve....