PART #2 of 7: BUILDING A BASELINE.
Exactly 280 Fw 200 aircraft were built in total. Twelve of these were numbered in the Focke-Wulf manufacturer's sequence of construction numbers. These were the two prototypes (the symbolic W.Nr. 2000 plus W.Nr. 2484) followed by the ten A-Serie civil aircraft [W.Nr. 2893 to 2895 (3), W.Nr. 2993 to 2996 (4), plus W.Nrn. 3098, 3099 and 3324]. The other 268 Fw 200 were each assigned a Werk-Nummer in a separate unbroken type-sequence running from 0001 to 0268. All but five of this second sequence were examples of the Fw 200 C. Chronologically, all Fw 200 W.Nr. assignments were made sequentially, however, because of the additional time required to perform factory conversions for several examples not all were delivered in strict W.Nr. order.
Unusually and most fortunately we have an almost complete and comprehensive Focke-Wulf company listing for all Fw 200 C W.Nr. assignments up to a little beyond W.Nr. 0200 and this is detailed by sub-type. This list is set out in the document titled ‘Baumuster-Übersicht Fw 200 C, Stand vom 20.II.1943’ which covers all Fw 200 C production to the end of the C-4 sub-type. By the date of this document actual Fw 200 completions had reached to around W.Nr. 195. So the only identified omission is the distinction of W.Nr. 0198 as the third example of the Fw 200 C-4/U2, Bewaffnetes Führerbegleitflugzeug, rather than a vanilla C-4 example.
The contents of this document were reproduced pretty much verbatim in Nowarra’s 1988 Condor book across pages 134-138 ('Übersicht über die Baureihen Fw 200 B-F’). (In putting this together, Nowara also failed to add W.Nr. 0198 into the listing of C-4/U2 identities.) Besides this useful but often questionable source, we are privileged that a downloadable scan of the original company document has been posted on the Fw 200 restoration project web site at
https://fw200-restaurierung-bremen.de/2016/11/.
Even more extraordinary is that Fw 200 completions up to the end of the C-3 sub-type have been independently corroborated by an earlier but undated version of a similar FoWu company document from the S.O. Archiv at Bad Eilsen. This sits on a RAF Intelligence file in the UK National Archives at reference AIR 40 154 (see
https://discovery.nationalarchives.g...ils/r/C4103837). How this document came to be on this file is not explained.
As a consequence of this FoWu company documentation there is very little room left for doubt regarding the Fw 200 variants assigned W.Nr. 0001 to 0200. That almost fully documented sequence, only now corrected for W.Nr. 0198, is tabled below:
1 W.Nr. 0001, 1 x Fw 200 Versuchsmaschine, Fw 200 V10 "Rowehl" (Bildaufklärer)
2 W.Nr. 0002, 1 x Fw 200 Versuchsmaschine, Fw 200 V11 equivalent to the C-1 Musterflugzeug
3 W.Nr. 0003 to 0008, 6 x Fw 200 C-1, first batch.
4 W.Nr. 0009 to 0010, 2 x Fw 200 D-1, sole batch (ex-KB-1)
5 W.Nr. 0011 to 0014, 4 x Fw 200 C-1, second & final batch.
6 W.Nr. 0015, 1 x Fw 200 Versuchsmaschine, Fw 200 V12 C-2 Musterflugzeug (counted as a C-2)
7 W.Nr. 0016 to 0018, 3 x Fw 200 C-2, first batch.
8 W.Nr. 0019 to 0021, 3 x Fw 200 D-2, sole batch (ex-KC-1)
9 W.Nr. 0022 to 0024, 3 x Fw 200 C-2, second & final batch.
10 W.Nr. 0025, 1 x Fw 200 Versuchsmaschine, Fw 200 V13 C-3 Musterflugzeug (counted as a C-3)
11 W.Nr. 0026 to 0054, 29 x Fw 200 C-3, first batch.
12 W.Nr. 0055, 1 x Fw 200 C-3/U2, singleton example. Langstrecken-Aufklärer
13 W.Nr. 0056 to 0063, 29 x Fw 200 C-3, second batch.
14 W.Nr. 0064, 1 x Fw 200 C-3/U3, singleton example.
15 W.Nr. 0065 to 0069, 5 x Fw 200 C-3, third & final batch.
16 W.Nr. 0070 to 0094, 25 x Fw 200 C-3/U4, sole batch.
17 W.Nr. 0095, 1 x Fw 200 C-3/U5, singleton example. C-4 Musterflugzeug (but NOT counted as a C-4)
18 W.Nr. 0096 to 0098, 3 x Fw 200 C-4, first batch.
19 W.Nr. 0099, 1 x Fw 200 C-3/U9, singleton example. Bewaffnetes Führerflugzeug
20 W.Nr. 0100 to 0129, 30 x Fw 200 C-4, second batch.
21 W.Nr. 0130, 1 x Fw 200 C-4/U3, first example. Einbau FuG "Rostock" ASV search radar.
22 W.Nr. 0131 to 0136, 6 x Fw 200 C-4, third batch.
23 W.Nr. 0137, 1 x Fw 200 C-4/U1, first example. Bewaffnetes Führerflugzeug
24 W.Nr. 0138, 1 x Fw 200 C-4/U2, first example. Bewaffnetes Führerbegleitflugzeug
25 W.Nr. 0139 to 0171, 33 x Fw 200 C-4, fourth batch.
26 W.Nr. 0172, 1 x Fw 200 C-4/U3, second example. Einbau FuG "Rostock" ASV search radar.
27 W.Nr. 0173, 1 x Fw 200 C-4, singleton example. (In the event also Einbau FuG "Rostock" ASV search radar.)
28 W.Nr. 0174 to 0175, 2 x Fw 200 C-4/U3, third & fourth examples. Einbau FuG "Rostock" ASV search radar.
29 W.Nr. 0176, 1 x Fw 200 C-4/U1, second example. Bewaffnetes Führerflugzeug
30 W.Nr. 0177 to 0178, 2 x Fw 200 C-4/U3, fifth & sixth examples. Einbau FuG "Rostock" ASV search radar.
31 W.Nr. 0179, 1 x Fw 200 C-4, singleton example.
32 W.Nr. 0180, 1 x Fw 200 C-4/U3, seventh and final example. Einbau FuG "Rostock" ASV search radar.
33 W.Nr. 0181, 1 x Fw 200 C-4/U2, second example. Bewaffnetes Führerbegleitflugzeug
34 W.Nr. 0182 to 0197, 16 x Fw 200 C-4, fifth batch.
35 W.Nr. 0198, 1 x Fw 200 C-4/U2, third example. Bewaffnetes Führerbegleitflugzeug
36 W.Nr. 0199 to 0200, 2 x Fw 200 C-4, sixth and final batch.
Footnotes:
1. In both documents W.Nr. 0002 is described only as the Fw 200 V11, and never as a Fw 200 C-1. This is different to the treatments of the V12 and the V13 in these documents, where they are separately distinguished in the earlier document but are clearly counted as being a C-3 and C-4 sub-type respectively in the later listing. [Thus, in the later document the W.Nr. for the V12 & V13 are simply listed within the sequence spans linked with the C-3 and the C-4 sub-types.]
A second corroboration of only the V11 identity being used for W.Nr. 0002 comes from the page with the performance curves included in the 1941 Kennblatt for the Fw 200 C-1 & C-2 Serie. That diagram is annotated with:
"Erflogen mit:
Flugzeug: Fw 200 V 11 W.Nr. 0002
Motor: BMW 132 H1
Luftschrb.: 3flgl. VDM-Verstell.
Start mit 22,7 t Fluggewicht:
nAbheben 2250 U/min, p =1,42 ata
Luftschraubensteigung 1200
Landeklappen in Startstellung”
[This Kennblatt is also be found in UK TNA AIR 40/154.]
So in terms of Focke-Wulf company accounting and RLM procurement, there only ever were just ten examples of the Fw 200 C-1.
The operational career of the V11 was relatively short since a recent analysis seems to have established that W.Nr. 0002, the twelfth Condor built, was the aircraft shot down a little north of Narvik on 29-May-40 - see
https://fw200-restaurierung-bremen.de/2017/09/
2. Despite what William Green, Scutts & Goss have written, the Focke-Wulf documentation confirms there never ever were any examples of a Fw 200 C-0 sub-type. (This point was covered accurately in the accounts by Nowarra and Salgado.)
3. Note that there is no mention in the sequence above of the Fw 200 C-3/U1. The reason is that although W.Nr. 0052 was selected to become this Umbau version, the reality is this never happened. These explanations for the gap appear in the ‘Baumuster-Übersicht Fw 200 C, Stand vom 20.II.1943’:
"für 0052 geplant
Umbau nicht ausgeführt"
at the top of the column for this development, plus at the foot is what appears to be:
"Lufttorpedo Einbau
Ausgeführt vom C-3".
I believe there is sufficient information in the RAF's POW Interrogation Reports and the published discoveries of Sonke Neitzel to work out why the C-3/U1 never happened, but there were Condors with torpedoes. A separate theme for another day.
4. Note also that there was but a single Fw 200 C-3/U2. This was W.Nr. 0055. The story propagated by William Green and which continues to march on in the books of Mr Goss (published 2016 & 2017) that has the C-3/U2 as the first service variant fitted with the Lotfe 7D bombsight is a compete fabrication. The manual for the Lotfe 7D bombsight (D.(Luft) 5205 only appears in Aug-42 and deliveries of the Fw 200 C-3 had ended long before then. Like the story of Bramo 323 R-2s fitted with water-methanol powering Condors from 1941, this tale of the C-3/U2 as the Lotfe 7D variant is one more fantastic myth without foundation. Another preposterous plant of misinformation in the distant past that has not been even cursorily checked.
So far so good. The challenge remaining then is to reconstruct in detail the balance of the sequence from W.Nr. 0201 to 0268.