[G.R.Morrison]

Couldn't help myself with the title of the post. ;-)

To return to the WNr. request, and to address "Who's T6+AD?"

The pranged triple-white-chevron machine is most-likely (see? not much in the Luftwaffe is cast-iron certain!) Bf 109G-2/Trop WNr.10645, written off in a "Bruchlandung; Bodenverhaeltnisse" (crash-landing, hit an obstruction) 1.December 1942 at Arco Philaenorum. Just as a side note, Muencheberg's 118. was claimed on 27.Nov. 1942

Someone asked about sources. The usual combinations: Quartermaster General's loss reports, A.D.I.(k) report [descriptive Brit. reports on captured airframes], Prien's listing of abandoned/lost Bf 109 airframes in the Mediterranean area, photographs. When one looks through our db for an obscure location, it's always more than likely that other aircraft were reported at the same place (that's where the Arco Philanorum ID came from, but I didn't happen to write down on today's scrap paper note which satellite field location was listed originally -- sorry, didn't think of it)

=+=+=+=

On to "not Rudel" in the Ju 87B/R "T6+AD" John Beaman's referral to "Hein" Bruecker is correct, if you're looking at a machine during the Balkans campaign or earlier. During the onset of the Russian campaign, when Rudel began flying Stuka combat missions (not earlier -- he wasn't yet considered 'reliable' by his Kommodore at the time, "Onkel Oskar" Dinort), his Gruppenkommandeur was Ernst-Siegfried Steen. It's Steen's aircraft that is most-commonly mis-identified as Rudel's. Rudel was at this time the III. Gruppen Technical Officer. Steen was KIA 23.September 1941. After taxiing his 'own' T6+AD into a pothole, he appropriated Rudel's T6+CD, together with Rudel's radio operator Alfred Scharnowski, for what turned out to be his fatal flight, returning to Kronstadt to attack Soviet capital ships.

Rudel did not succeed Steen as Gruppenkommandeur. Gustav Pressler was posted in from St.G.77 and became Kommandeur of III/St.G. 2 (Indeed, ANOTHER T6+AD, a winter-camouflaged Ju 87D-1, is another mis-identified machine; Pressler not Rudel). Rudel became Staffelkpaitaen of the 1./St.G. 2. He did not become III/St.G. 2 Kommandeur until 1943. The photo of him waiting for takeoff in his Ju 87D-5 has been widely reprinted, so you may be familiar with that one. His usual backseater was Erwin Hentschel.

Sorry this is so long; hope it clarified rather than further clouded the waters, GRM