[INM@RLM]

Part #6 of 7: THE TWIST: THE SPECIAL CASES OF THE Fw 200 C-6 (1943 Variant)
A subsidiary finding from exploring the Bewegungsmeldungen along with RAF Intelligence files on the Fw 200 was that the Fw 200 C-6 designation was used at least twice by Focke-Wulf and the RLM for entirely different purposes. [See UK TNA references AIR 40/154 & AIR 40/234 at The National Archives for the RAF material.]

The original and the final Focke-Wulf documented usage (in 'Focke Wulf Fw 200 F Fernaufklärer mit erhöhter Reichweite, 11 Mai 1943') described the Fw 200 C-6 as having the HD 151/1 turret with 1,000 rounds in the A-Stand (replacing the HD 151 with 500 rounds), and the DL15/131 rotating turret with 1,000 rounds as the B-Stand. The HD 151/1 was a new design of turret. As mentioned in an earlier part of these posts, the fitting of a HD 151/1 turret in the A-Stand meant the gunner could now change the ammo belt of the MG 151/20 during flight, so a second 500-round reserve belt was now carried. The DL15/131 rotating turret was similar to the turret fitted in the He 111 H-20. It had supposedly first been used on the Condor in the B-Stand of a singleton maritime-role Fw 200 with the designation C-5/U1. However, preceding that use this design of turret had also been fitted in both A- and B-Stände of all C-4 conversions for the Fliegerstaffel der Führer, so this was not an entirely new item. It was, however, a limited supply item.

Sometime between May- and Dec-43, after the RLM decision to end production of the Fw 200, it became clear that the C-6 as planned was never actually going to be built by Focke-Wulf. Some 'bright spark' then decided to apply the C-6 designation to a handful of Fw 200 C-5s with some small but specific special characteristic(s). We do not know for certain sure what this/these difference(s) were, but we do know from the Bewegungsmeldungen that 3./KG 40 reported these aircraft as Fw 200 C-6s, whilst in III./KG 40 they were reported as Fw 200 C-5s. Individual losses of such aircraft in both units though were reported as C-6s, so this difference in reporting represented more than a clerical error. We know of three of such C-6 losses: W.Nr. 220 for 3./KG 40 and W.Nr. 0214 and W.Nr. 0237 for III./KG 40.

The last, W.Nr. 0237, crashed in Ireland, and the wreckage was examined. Some of the findings were reported to RAF Technical Intelligence, which also appears to have been passed notes made from some of the documentation carried by the German crew. Those investigations revealed three things:
(1) from surviving documentation, confirmation that the formal designation (Muster) of the aircraft was definitely that of a Fw 200 C-6, so this truly was an official formal use of the C-6 designation;
(2) also from documentation, that the maximum fuel load of this C-6 was 9,140 litres of B4: that figure confirms that a 540-litre fuel tank was fitted in both of the Rumpfwanne (under-fuselage gondola) bays - in other words the internal fuel load was exactly the same as that of the subsequent Fw 200 C-8 sub-type;
also,
(3) although the remains of 0237 were mostly burnt to a crisp, the outer wings survived and it was possible to determine that a Goodrich-type de-icing system (thus with inflatable boots on the leading edges) was installed on the outer mainplanes.
RAF Crashed Enemy Aircraft, Report Serial No. 214 dated 23rd December, 1943, had this regarding this aircraft under:
“General Remarks
The outer section of the mainplanes and the leading-edges of the tailplane and fin were each fitted with the Goodrich type de-icing system. It would seem that both mainplane and tailplane were metal covered over approximately half the chord. The rear half, together with the control surfaces, being fabric covered.”

The Goodrich system had always been installed on the leading edges of the fin and horizontal tailplane of the Fw 200. However, the system normally used for the mainplanes of the Fw 200 had been that described in an earlier report on an Fw 200 found at Tripoli. These extracts come from H.Q. M.E. Crash Report Castel Benito 24.1.43:
"ENGINES
... The exhausts from these motors discharge into a collector ring at the rear, from which lead six pipes approx. 18” long ending in fishtails. 3 of these are fitted at each side but none at bottom or top. Round the collector ring is a jacket through which air is passed to provide hot air for wing deicing and possibly cockpit heating.
...
SPECIAL REMARKS:
The leading edges of the wings have a double skin, hot air being admitted to the space between for deicing purposes and exhausting through slits about 6” back top and bottom (similar to Ju 52). The tail and fin leading edges have rubber deicers, and the airscrews are deiced by liquid.”
[For both reports see AIR 40/154 in UK TNA]
There is no indication in this Intelligence file to indicate that the RAF recognized W.Nr. 0237 as being a particularly unusual aircraft, but that was in fact the case.

All that can be determined about the starboard leading edge of the mainplane in the main photograph reproduced at p.196 of Goss Classic is that it was finished in a light colour, presumably a wrap-around of RLM 65 from the undersurfaces onto the top of the leading edge, and that the forward ring of the cowling on at least the starboard outer engine was painted in white. Normally the uppersurface colours were applied to the leading edge of the wing and the cowling ring had the normal dividing line between the upper and lower colours. It seems then this aircraft was indeed special enough for someone on the technical staff of III./KG 40 to want to make it readily distinguishable at a distance.

It is also possible to determine one other key characteristic of this particular C-6. Photographs of the burnt out wreckage of W.Nr. 0237 show the whole fuselage back to just aft of the B-Stand (rear dorsal gun position) totally destroyed. (See again Goss Classic p.196. The calibre of the 20 mm cannon has been erroneously captioned here as 15 mm.) Fortunately one of the three photographs shows the burnt out A-Stand turret (forward dorsal gun position). In this the remnants of the sheet-metal guides feeding the ammo belt into the left side of the cannon can be seen with reasonable clarity, whilst the right side nearest the camera and the gunner is wholly free of any fittings. Accordingly the A-Stand turret actually fitted to this aircraft is the standard HD 151 turret, introduced with the C-4, and equipped with a MG 151/20 Model B cannon, belt-fed from the left-side, where the ammunition belt had to be loaded using an access hatch on the left side of the turret. With this model of turret a new belt could only loaded into the cannon when the aircraft was at rest on the ground. This definitively confirms that this aircraft was armed as a C-5, and was not an example fitted with the improved armament intended for the C-6 version described in the Fw 200 F proposal document. [In the HD 151/1 turret with the MG 151/20 Model A the belt-feed was from the right, the same side as the gunner, meaning that another 500-round belt could be loaded into the cannon during flight. (The ammunition complement for the HD 151/1 design of turret is given in the Flugzeug-Baureihen-Blatt for the Ju 290 as 500 Schuß plus 500 Res. Reproduced in Kössler+Ott: Die großen Dessauer at p.234.) That description confirms that in the HD 151/1 turret there were two separate 500-round ammunition belts.)]

There is, of course, one other confirmed C-6 identity that dates from 1943. This was W.Nr. 0230, the Bewaffnetes Führerbegleitflugzeug assigned for the use of Speer as Reichsminister für Rüstung und Kriegsproduktion. Nowarra identifies this aircraft as first being used as the C-6 Musterflugzeug and then associates it in that capacity with the C-6 sub-type configured with improved armament. Thus, Nowarra on p.111:
"Musterflugzeug für die neue Serie C-6 wurde Werknr. 0230, DP+QR, der dann vierzehn Serienmaschinen, Werknr. 0235 bis 0247, folgten. Die Fertigstelung aller Maschinen ist nicht sicher. [INM Note: "+QR" is a typo, and +OR is meant; the span is stated in the Nowarra text to be another 14 but is actually another 13 even including in the count W.Nr. 0240 which was in reality something completely different, the third C-4/U1 Bewaffnetes Führerflugzeug.]
Die Fw 200 C-6 verfügte über eine Abwehrbewaffnung von:
A-Stand HD 151/1, B-Stand DL 15/131, C-Stand KL 15 mit MG 131, D-Stand MG 131 und den Fensterständen SL 131 auf beiden Seiten."
"Pattern aircraft for the new C-6 series was Werknr. 0230, DP + QR, then followed by fourteen production machines assigned Werknr. 0235 to 0247. It is uncertain whether all of these machines were completed.
The Fw 200 C-6 had a defensive armament of:
A-Stand HD 151/1, B-Stand DL 15/131, C-Stand KL 15 with MG 131, D-Stand MG 131 and a SL 131 window position either side."

In the context of the other information we now have on the use of the C-6 designation, I suggest that Nowarra's identification of this aircraft as the Musterflugzeug for the C-6 and its association with the armament of the C-6 rebuilds that appeared in mid-1944 are both wholly erroneous. Rather, I suggest that the timing points to W.Nr. 0230 being a fifth C-6 of the 1943 variant fitted with two 540-litre fuel tanks in the Rumpfwanne, and characterized by Goodrich-type deicers on the mainplanes. Possibly trialling all of these installations on aircraft that would be in harm's way was reckoned imprudent, and one set was tested out on an example that would only see service well behind the front lines.

It would seem distinctly unlikely that, at this stage of the war, Germany was in a position to standardize a large rubberized de-icing inflation system for the mainplanes on all of the final Fw 200 production batch. However, the trialling under service conditions on orders of the gentlemen in the RLM of a new de-icing solution to be applied generally to multi-engine aircraft at some point in the future does look a credible possibility. The relatively wide spread of the Werk-Nummern of the known C-6 examples suggests that whatever special system was fitted it was applied to individual aircraft as and when each example of the system became available. In other words, supply was a thin dribble of droplets, and there was no possibility of grouping these aircraft together into a single small batch.

Fw 200 C-6 Note 1: A purist must also point out that the Bewegungsmeldungen for III./KG 40 evidence a third, earlier use of the Fw 200 C-6 designation. Four Neufertigung C-6 are assigned to the Gruppe in Jul-42; two are lost the same month (one to enemy action), and the remaining pair are transferred out to another unit the next month. The 100% losses of C-4s W.Nr. 0135 & W.Nr. 0136 on 12th and 22nd July respectively fit the facts but no trace appears to have survived regarding what might have been particularly special about these aircraft. However, for at least one Lw technical officer there was clearly also a 1942 variant of the Fw 200 C-6 designation.

Fw 200 C-6 Note 2: The likely delivery dates of the four confirmed C-6 (1943 variants) were:
W.Nr. 0214 = May-43 (which is consistent with its 100% loss on 23-Aug-43 with 9./KG 40)
W.Nr. 0220 = Jun-43 (which aligns with this aircraft being taken onto the strength of 3./KG 40 in Jul-43: 100% loss on 31-Mar-44)
W.Nr. 0230 = Aug-43 (in practice the delivery date would have been delayed by the conversion into the C-6/U2 Bewaffnetes Führerbegleitflugzeug version)
W.Nr. 0237 = Sep-43 (which aligns with the final C-5 Neufertigung assignments to III./KG 40 being made in Oct-43: subsequently 100% loss on 13-Dec-43 with 7./KG 40)
Since both of the C-6s reported with 3./KG 40 were assigned in Jul-43, there is a reasonable probability that the second example was W.Nr. 0219, an aircraft for which we currently seem to have no information.

Fw 200 C-6 Note 3: On a strict sequential assignment to units of Neufertigung C-5s & C-6s in Werk-Nummer order, C-6 W.Nr. 0220, delivered in Jun-43, would have been the first Fw 200 assigned to KG 40 in Aug-43. Yet it actually arrives with the Staffel during Jul-43. (See the detail attachments.) A discrepancy of a single W.Nr. is within a credibly acceptable margin of error. For example, perhaps 3./KG 40 was more desperate for new aircraft and were collecting their aircraft faster than III./KG 40 could free up crews to do this?

Until such time as more evidence surfaces then, my tentative conclusion is that the Fw 200 C-6 designation was also applied briefly to a handful of Condors built in 1943, probably only five in total, and that these were fitted with the Goodrich de-icing system on their outer mainplanes, as well as two 540-litre Rumpfwanne fuel tanks. These aircraft were manufactured on a very limited basis for unit service trials with both parts of KG 40, plus a singleton for trials with the Fliegerstaffel der Führer. [Could the presence of these boots be detectable in a first quality print of the photo of C-6/U2, W.Nr. 0230, which was included in Goss Osprey at p.85(tp), or in the photo of W.Nr. 0237 in Goss Classic at p.196(tp)?]

Subsequently, in 1944, when HD 151/1 and DL15/131 turrets became available in sufficient quantity to upgrade fifteen Fw 200 C-5s undergoing repair as C-6s, the C-6 designation now identified an aircraft with the improved armament described in the FoWu company document 'Focke Wulf Fw 200 F Fernaufklärer mit erhöhter Reichweite, 11 Mai 1943' at Blatt 8. (See back to the second paragraph of this part.)

When W.Nr. 0218 was lost 100% in Aug-44, it was as one of these fifteen aircraft of the second, 1944 variant of the C-6. Confusingly, all other C-6 identities as currently known, including that of the C-6/U2, belong to the first, 1943 variant of the C-6. Finally, to make one last and very obvious point, these fifteen examples of the 1944 variant of the C-6 had never at any point been converted to become C-5/FKs.

Points for future follow-up:
What records survive in the Irish Republic covering the examination of the crashed W.Nr. 0237 and the interrogation of its crew? (And for the other Condors that perished in Eire.)
Can the de-icing boots of the outer mainplanes be distinguished in original prints of photographs of the W.Nr. 0237 wreckage? (In this case we know they are present.) Are there any other close-up photos of these boots?