Luftwaffe and Allied Air Forces Discussion Forum

You raise some good points, Ed. The following comments are all from the interrogations of General Martini and his staff at war's end:

1. The FuG 226, Neuling, was to have been available for installation in operational aircraft by Dec '44, but owing to difficulties encountered during the trials carried out at Rechlin it was not ready by the time of the capitulation. Lorenz was responsible for its production and Dr. Kramar of that firm was considered the expert on its technical aspects.

2. As early as 1940, experiments had been made with infra-red homing on to a/c exhausts using an infra-red telescope of the Bildwandler type called Spanner. This met with only limited success on account of restricted range and the dependency of infra-red on clear weather conditions. But the idea was never completely dropped.

With the introduction of night fighter commentary and the Verbandsflug tactics in 1944, it was required that night fighter units should fly in groups and keep as close together as possible.

It was, therefore, proposed to introduce an aid in the shape of some form of infra-red navigation lights to be viewed through an infra-red telescope. The latter, which was a form of Spanner, was named Falter. As, however, the field of view of this telescope was confined to about 15 degrees, it soon transpired during trials at Werneuchen that it was not a practical proposition.

In 1944 the idea of using infra-red for recognition, which had long lain dormant was once again evoked by the discovery that British bombers were carrying an infra-red recognition light. It was therefore proposed that German night fighters should home on to the infra-red lights by means of the Falter.

For mutual recognition between night fighters an infra red lamp termed "Gaensebrust" was also planned. It was hoped that Gaensebrust might not only allow recognition between German a/c but possibly afford some protection from British night fighters which might become uncertain in their recognition of a German night fighter if the Gaensebrust was flashed intermittently even thought the British code in use for the night were not known.

It was not known if it had been used operationally.

3. The Kiel Z was manufactured by Zeiss and known officially as the FuG 280. Infra-red radiations from the exhaust stubs of a/c were picked up in a parabolic mirror and focused on to an Elac lead sulphide cell. The field of view in a cone of +/- 10 degrees was scanned. A wider field of view could be obtained by moving the entire scanner by hand in the same manner as employed with the Berlin N1A.

Shortly before the end of the war a number of Kiel Z sets were tried out in operations but it was found that, although they gave a range of about 4 km on a 4-engined bomber, various difficulties arose. Infra-red radiations from the moon and stars formed "permanent echoes" on the cathod ray tube used as a viewing screen, and were not always easily distinguished from a moving a/c. In addition, if the target a/c was between the fires caused by the raid and the night fighter a/c, the target was obviously quite indistinguishable against the background of the fires.

Hope this helps.