[biltongbru]

Originally Posted by tcolvin

Your film is remarkable.

Originally Posted by tcolvin

I have a question and, if you want them, a few comments.
1. Why is Knoke's airfield in the mountains? Surely he was flying out of Jever in Friesland, which is flat.
2. Knoke's problem with bombing the bombers, and why it was discontinued, was that it turned the Me-109 into a dog which took for ever to climb to altitude, and made it defenceless.
3. Attached is a sketch from the RAF Flying Review of August 1953 showing Knoke bombing B24s. Although he never claimed a B24 by bombing, as your film correctly states, Knoke would surely have OK'd this rendering as accurate.
4. The problem with Knoke's rockets, as IL-2 and Typhoon pilots also discovered, was inaccuracy due to gravity drop and the reason why the weapon was abandoned. Showing this effect might add interest to your film.
5. The other attached photograph shows how Knoke and his Staffel actually dressed.
6. Do you or anyone know whether Knoke himself was the driver for all of this low-tech experimentation in how to counter daylight bombers? The LW was, of course, at that time developing high-tech solutions like the ground-launched Wasserfall rocket and Komet rocket aircraft.
7. Knoke became quite a character in Schortens and Jever after the war, working for a brewery and getting elected as a local councillor.

Tony

Thanks Tony for the information and interest; I will answer to the best of what I know: in red

Your film is remarkable. Thank You

1. Why is Knoke's airfield in the mountains? Surely he was flying out of Jever in Friesland, which is flat. You are 100% correct, Jever has a flat landscape, mistake in the movie. The practicality by making this amateur movie was that I had to find and film a large piece of lawn to represent the airfield in the vicinity where I live (7000km from Jever lol) and after a long search found this landscape in a wine estate where the mountain was in the back ground and looked from a cinematic point of view acceptable.



2. Knoke's problem with bombing the bombers, and why it was discontinued, was that it turned the Me-109 into a dog which took for ever to climb to altitude, and made it defenceless. Correct, in Knoke's book he mentions what struggle they had to gain the enormous altitude with the 250kg extra bomb weight. Remember that the attack shown in the movie was before the Allied escort was a threat to the Luftwaffe fighters. When the Allied fighters appeared, then any German fighter carrying a bomb was a perfect sitting duck.

3. Attached is a sketch from the RAF Flying Review of August 1953 showing Knoke bombing B24s. Although he never claimed a B24 by bombing, as your film correctly states, Knoke would surely have OK'd this rendering as accurate. I think the picture illustrates the correct relative angle of attack and that is above and in the same direction as the bomber stream. This makes sense as the fighters have time to position themselves at the correct spot above the formation for "accurate" bombing.
In my opinion the picture shows the Me to close to the bombers. In Knoke's book he states that they move in "high above the bomber formation" I would suggest this to be a safe distance at least 1000m above the bombers to be safe from the masses of 50cals on board the bombers.


4. The problem with Knoke's rockets, as IL-2 and Typhoon pilots also discovered, was inaccuracy due to gravity drop and the reason why the weapon was abandoned. Showing this effect might add interest to your film. The rockets used by Knoke (Werfergranate 21 (Wfr. Gr. 21)) was actually a Luftwaffe make shift modification of the 210mm Nebelwerfer artillery rocket system. The idea was to bombard the closely packed bomber formation from a safe distance behind (2000 feet he mention in the book) in an effort to break up the formation and then to attack the single aircraft breaking away. This weapon was never intended to be a pin-point application as the case was with the Allied air launched rockets. This was more of an area weapon. The tubes were angled at 15 degrees due to the considerable drop of these projectiles after the short rocket burn time. The rockets were equipped with time delayed fuses (think about 15 seconds) and were known as rocket mortars due to the mortar like trajectory. Very crude system actually. The incident of the film was actually a huge luck shot!
After a rocket attack the rocket tubes were jettisoned in case of enemy fighter threats because the tubes buggered up the aircraft aerodynamics.
The Luftwaffe pilots referred to these tubes as "stove pipes"

You will see in the movie the ascent of the rocket at launch and decent before hitting the b-17.

5. The other attached photograph shows how Knoke and his Staffel actually dressed. thanks, this pic also appears in Knoke's book.

6. Do you or anyone know whether Knoke himself was the driver for all of this low-tech experimentation in how to counter daylight bombers? The LW was, of course, at that time developing high-tech solutions like the ground-launched Wasserfall rocket and Komet rocket aircraft. Yes, according to his book he was the driver of this project and got the go-ahead for development of the technique from Luftwaffe high command after some presentations.

7. Knoke became quite a character in Schortens and Jever after the war, working for a brewery and getting elected as a local councillor.Yes, he also became involved with a right wing political party that was banned....unfortunately some critics hang the Nazi banner on him regarding this...