Some questions about damaged airframe and reparation centers...
 

While going through the 109 production data i have collected so far i have noticed something odd.

So here is my question:
An aircraft getting to a reparation center with an usable fuselage would be repaired and will keep its WkNr, do you agree?

Now if the same a/c got his fuse so damaged that it can't be repaired, it still can provide some spares (lightly or undamaged parts), what will become of those spares ? Would it be possible that they were mated to new fuselage and not appearing on the production list of the fuse manufacturer ?

To sum up would it be possible that reparation centers were attributed some WkNr blocks for their own use ?

Thanks in advance for your help.

CHeers,
olivier

Re: Some questions about damaged airframe and reparation centers...
 

Hi,

From my experience regarding Heinkel 111s I would say categorically not! If anyone says otherwise I'd be interested to know but, so far, I have only encountered repaired 111s with factory batch WNrs, where the original aircraft's provenance has been known, whether Heinkel or licence built.

Hope this helps,

Regards

David

Re: Some questions about damaged airframe and reparation centers...
 

Thanks David,

As a example i'm quite certain that Bf 109E-3s in the 1660-1700 range were produced, yet Erla E-4 production end at 1659 and Ausburg 109B production begins at 1701. Same goes for the 2326-2346 range yet again for Emils or the 2444-2476 range for Doras.
There are several range of WkNr which are not attributed to any manufacturer (that i know) yet i'm certain there are a/c in those blocks.

Cheers,
Olivier

Re: Some questions about damaged airframe and reparation centers...
 

Hi,

I can't comment on other than 111s regrettably but I can say that with the WNrs there were 'gaps'; occasionally these would be where the RLM had allocated to another manufacturer or, as I believe could have been the case as war progressed, that some groups were never allocated. This was a method of disabling the enemies abilities to assess production numbers of aircraft overall, I feel sure.

Just my own thoughts, it would be useful if anyone could confirm or otherwise!

Kind regards,

David

Re: Some questions about damaged airframe and reparation centers...
 

That's true david but since there are losses listed in them with the same distribution pattern as in the other nearby blocks it isn't just recording errors that could account for them.There are definitely some gap between blocks but it seems there wasn't so much in the early 109 production, and gaps really appeared with the Gustav production.

Re: Some questions about damaged airframe and reparation centers...
 

Hi Olivier,

Again, I can only offer comment on the He111. I have found several 111s with WNrs that did not seem to be in a particular manufacturer block. At first my thought was that there had been a number transposition error but, after obtaining some original data plates (several aircraft), I found that the aircraft had been made by a particular manufacturer. As the production dates tied in with various components etc from all over the aircraft it was obviously direct production rather than a cobbled together repair job - and also there was no 'R' after the WNr.

I think that manufacturer's would also have problems trying to build up whole aircraft from recovered parts. They would have to be re-accepted or 'proved' by the RLM and it would be extremely costly trying to assess what the stresses and strains of a crash had actually done to something that looked, on the surface, to be okay. The logistics of transporting damage recovered bits and pieces around in wartime conditions would also be fairly horrendous - I suspect that that is probably why so many damaged aircraft that looked 'reasonable' in photos were so often scrapped on or near to site!

My own work on 111s is far from complete and I dare say that even when it is there will be plenty of knowledge gaps that will probably never be filled which is why I always welcome new information. Everything I have said in this thread so far is based on my current knowledge and experience and I am unable to offer any further comment and again, like yourself, would be interested to hear from other parties!

Regards,

David

Re: Some questions about damaged airframe and reparation centers...
 

Damaged fuselages were repaired/rebuilt and assigned new w/n. The National Air and Space Museum's FW 190 is an existing example. IIRC it stared life as and A-7 and at sometime was rebuilt into an A-8 and assigned a new w/n. I don't know if this was true for all manufacturers.

There are well documented examples of w/n outside known blocks. For example there are several consecutively numbered Me 262s that fall outside known blocks.

There are also duplicate blocks for different types. 1405xx for Fw190 and Ar234 and there are probably others.

Walt

RLM Neubau W.Nr.
 

As with any item associated with the Luftwaffe, it is dangerous to be be dogmatic. That being said, I have been working on W.Nr. databases for specific 8-nummer types. For the Ju 88, 188, 388 series, with a lot of help from Jim P. and others, I now have entries for about 12,000 specific a/c by RLM W.Nr. There is no indication for that type of any umbau or reparatuer W.Nrs. This does not mean that a/c may not have more than one W.Nr. and vice-versa. However all double W.Nrs. I have identified to date are RLM and indivdual company numbers. I have well documented cases of up to three W.Nrs. and possibly 4. But only one RLM W.Nr. And for those of you who really care, there is solid documentation that the RLM W.Nrs were issued in two basic sequences, "4" digit(which also would include 5 digit for Bf 109) and "6" digit. It becomes very confusing because there was apparently no standard for painting these on the airframes and the location and format varied widely, even on the same type from the same factory. I have similar data sets for Me210/410, Do217, He 177 and Fw 200. So, far I have no variance to what I have already said.

Best Regards,

Artie Bob

Exception to my previous post
 

My wife said the Pizza was coming out of the oven and with that, I ended the previous post wihout including the one area of exception I have found. Some "Mistels" (possibly all, I can't document that) were assigned a third 6 digit W.Nr. in the 590xxx series. However, when these combos showed up on the loss lists, only the individual fighter and Ju 88 RLM W.Nrs. were listed. These same combinations were also refered to by "RW" numbers and it is not clear to me from Flugbuchs and other documents exactly what components the numbers applied to.

Best regards,

Artie Bob

Re: Duplicated Werk Nummer blocks
 

Another example would be the 160 000 series, used for the Bf 109 G-6 and Fw 190 G-3.

Re: Some questions about damaged airframe and reparation centers...
 

Hi, guys.

I can comment a bit based on documents from the repair facilities at Auxerre, France and Kjeller, Norway.

First to get things straight:

Stammkennzeichen - RLM issued four letter identification code. This was as far as we know a one to one relationship with a specific airframe. (A couple of photos exist of Bf 109's showing the same Stammkennzeichen on several airframes, but this is the only exception known to me at least, and could be a manipulated photo or made especially for propaganda purposes)

RLM Werkenummer - RLM issued aircraft works number. A one to one relationship existed between this Werkenummer and a given aircraft of a specific type.

Thus - one could have two identical RLM Werkenummer for two aircraft, but they would be of different RLM type. (e.g. 8-109 (Bf 109) and 8-190 (FW 190)).

Company or production facility werkenummer - these were non-RLM werkenummer used during production of aircraft in a given factory or by a given company.

Thus - an airframe could have at least two werkenummer, the factory or production company one and the RLM one. A typical example of this is the Bf 109 Erla production, where there are in fact a 'translation table' between the RLM and Erla werkenummern in existance in a private collection.

It could also be (we have not yet discovered documents to prove this beyond doubt) that the practice with issuing RLM Werkenummern and Stammkennzeichen differed a bit for different kind of contracts, for example would an aircraft produced for export not get a Stammkennzeichen (as this was an identificator for the Luftwaffe, but it would get a Werkenummer!).

When an aircraft were accepted by the Luftwaffe, there would be at least two documents produced for it:

1. The Übergabeschein, which was a paper that among other stuff conatined the aircraft type, Stammkennzeichen and Werkenummer. I have seen several of these for Ju 88 and FW 190. This would in fact be a kind of receipt issued by, stamped and signed by the BAL people.

2. The Lebenslaufakte, which was a document which would follow the aircraft as long as it was in service. On this one would find (and apply if You were in fact doing this servicing) information like engine changes and upgrades of all sorts, servicing etc. Much like Your modern cars service booklet.

I would of course love to get my hands on some of these Lebenslaufakten, but sadly we only have traces of them in other correspondance and documents until now. These records would be kept at unit level, for exampel the TO or Adjutant of a Jagdgruppe would in most cases be handling them as far as we have been able to find out.

In this discussion an additional term is important - the so-calleed 'Halter' A repair facility would not be keeping these for 'themselves', but rather holding them for the so-called 'Halter' unit (the unit which 'owned' the aircraft) until the work was finished on the aircraft.

The traces we have found are of course the rather well known document from the Focke-Wulf repair facility at Auxerre, and several letters from and to units asking for these to be transferred (usually when some unit had received one or more aircraft from a depot or another unit, and the Lebenslaufakten was not sent with the aircraft...

So - finally to the point regarding repairs: In the documentation I have gone through, the standard for an aircraft that were refurbished or repaired was that it received an additional plate stating the change, but there were usually no change in RLM Werkenummer for the aircraft. I have mainly looked at this with regards to single engined fighter aircraft.

Examples are FW 190A-2's that were given new engines and thus were really a FW 190A-3 - these kept their RLM Werkenummer, but were reported as being A-3's.

There are numerous other examples, and my best 'guess' regarding this issue is that the airframe retained it's RLM WNr and Stammkennzeichen as far as reasonable... Of course, if You cannibalized only small parts of an aircraft, this would not be the old aircraft, and a new 'aircraft' was born, with a new WNr and Stkz!

A very good example are the Bf 109G-12, aircraft that were for a large part Bf 109G-6's from birth, and retained their WNr and Stkz after being rebuilt as two-seaters.

Regards,
Andreas

Re: Duplicated Werk Nummer blocks
 

Yes, but those aircraft were of different type, not manufactured by the same company, that's why the overlap. It wouldn't happen within the same airplane type or factory. There was even more overlapping in the 4-digit style earlier Werknummern, assigned by different airplane types and manufacturers.