Confusing late-war "Gustav"

[Angantyr]

Greetings!

I have recently came across a photo that was for sale at Ebay, showing a late production Bf 109G, (G-6/AS, G-10 or G-14/AS) carrying a triple-coloured RV band.

Giving the semi-harvested field it has crashlanded in, I would place the time at autumn 1944. The II Gruppe bar is clearly to be seen.

Now comes the hard part:II /JG 2 carried a triple band, but it flew the Fw 190
JG 6: same here.

II /JG 51 did indeed fly the Bf 109G, but was it anywere near the western front? (american GI:s can be seen on the picture)

JG 300 did indeed carry a triple band, but as far as I know,didn´t display it before jan-45, and besides, the second gruppe was equipped with heavily-armed Fw 190:s being the Sturmgruppe...

I hope someone can solve this riddle.

All the best!

Angantyr

[kaki3152]

II/JG-2 flew the Bf-109G until at least Dec 1944, so I supposed this is one seeing how it carries the Yellow/white/Yellow band of JG-2

[Kuba Plewka]

Hello,

It's an Erla-built G-10, 150 xxx batch I guess.
Maybe that helps with unit research?

cheers
Kuba

[Jochen Prien]

Gentlemen,

although this photo is still way out of reach in our current series so that we haven't yet had to scrutinize it more closely, it appears very likely that we see here an a/c of III./JG 300; this Gruppe seems to have introduced that small black horizontal bar on the blue/white/blue RV-band in early 1945. There are by now a number of photos showing Bf 109 G-10 - G-10/R6 if I'm right - from this late production batch that feature the short horizontal bar, positioned slightly above the centre of the Balkenkreuz, the most notalble being the often published " black 4 ", WerkNr. 150 816 ( not sure about that, being at the office right now and not having my sources at hand ), which has been "allocated" by a number of authors to a variety of units, including II./JG 2.

Hope this helps

Regards

Jochen Prien

[ChrisS]

Did you see how much it sold for???
The guy that bought it must have money to burn... Jochen I could have bought at least 6 of your books :-)

Chris

[Angantyr]

Originally Posted by Jochen Prien

Gentlemen,

although this photo is still way out of reach in our current series so that we haven't yet had to scrutinize it more closely, it appears very likely that we see here an a/c of III./JG 300; this Gruppe seems to have introduced that small black horizontal bar on the blue/white/blue RV-band in early 1945. There are by now a number of photos showing Bf 109 G-10 - G-10/R6 if I'm right - from this late production batch that feature the short horizontal bar, positioned slightly above the centre of the Balkenkreuz, the most notalble being the often published " black 4 ", WerkNr. 150 816 ( not sure about that, being at the office right now and not having my sources at hand ), which has been "allocated" by a number of authors to a variety of units, including II./JG 2.

Hope this helps

Regards

Jochen Prien

Well, what do you know?

After closer inspection of the photo, it appears that what i had assumed was a harvested piece of a field, may in fact be a field of growing crops,( I think I can make out some wild flowers under the wing) which would place it in spring of 1945, and therefore be III Gruppe (9 staffel to be precise) of JG 300. This would also explain why the GI:s do appear to be lightly clad.

It doesnt´explain the appearently full-grown crop in the background, but after all this is not an agricultural forum

Many thanks for your help!

And Best Wishes

From

Angantyr

[WEISNER]

Matter of fact, Lorant and Goyat's fine work on JG300, Published by eagle editions Ltd. shows one off this Birds possible earlier stable mates on page 6, of Vol II. G-14/AS Yellow 12 of 9. Staffel. Many other Photos of these 109's can be found throughout.
The Blue/White/Blue fuselage Band was in use from December 1944 on, so yes the photo in question is Spring 45....
These books, JG 300 Vol I and II, Are a must have for any serious Lustwaffe library!!!!
Kevin

[FalkeEins]

Originally Posted by WEISNER

Many other Photos of these 109's can be found throughout.

..at the risk of stating the obvious a III. Gruppe machine is unlikely to be displaying a horizontal bar, even more so considering that of all the III & IV. Gruppe 109s in the JG 300 book (Vol II) not a single one is wearing any Gruppe symbol......check out the very similar picture on P 325

[John Beaman]

Interestingly, the fuel requirements for various units listed by Luftkommando 6 on 19-Mar-45 lists Stab, I, III, and IV JG 300 as all having G-10/R6 machines and II Gruppe with 190A 8/R2 machines.

The available loss records (and we are missing a lot) list no G-10s as lost by any II Gruppe unit. Makes sense since they had 190s. A similarly banded unit, JG 2, has no 109 losses after early Jan '45. II./JG 2 lost two K-4s during Bodenplatte, but other losses during Dec were G-14s, not G-10s.

So, what's the conclusion? Don't know.

[Eduardo]

If you look carefuly you can check a small oil tank ( 38 l ) which identifies it a G-14 AS model ( DB 605 ASM).

Eduardo.