Fw 190 Production at Mimetall

[Leo Etgen]

Hi guys

Lynn Ritger posted an interesting document at the Plane Talking forum of Hyperscale regarding the production or rather non production of Fw 190 D-9 fighters at Mimetall in 1944. Most recent sources state that the 500 series of these aircraft were produced by Mimetall but this would appear to show otherwise and that this series was actually produced by Arbeitsgemeinschaft Roland. Some sources seem to indicate that this concern was another name for Weser Flugzeug Gesellschaft which produced the 400 series of Dora-9 fighters but the document seems to indicate this was not the case and that each was a separate entity. Incidentally, my opinion is that additionally Weser was the manufacturer of the 350 series and Mimetall (now Arbeitsgemeinschaft Roland) the manufacturer of the 380 series of Fw 190 A-8 fighters. Are there any educated opinions on this possibly new information?

Horrido!

Leo

[ArtieBob]

The C-Amt Monatsmeldung lists monthly production by 8-number sub-type and production location abbreviations. In the copy I hold, December is missing but Oct 44, Nov 44 and Jan 45 list the following for D-9s.
Oct FW 70 GFW 1 Arb Gem 18
Nov FW 142 GFW 40 Arb Gem 55
Jan FW 96 GFW 34 Con. Aslau 10 ?FG 14 ?arg 64
Jan Fw 190 D9 R11 76


The copies I have are pretty fuzzy, so some of the locations are hard to decipher. What can be ascertained from this is through Nov 44, there were only 3 production locations for D-9s. By Jan 45, 3 additional locations had been added and it appears Arb. Gem no longer produced D-9s. Fw also is listed for 20 Ta 152 H-0s in Jan 45. I do not hold any Monatsmeldung after January.


ArtieBob

[Leo Etgen]

Hi ArtieBob

Many thanks for that interesting information which matches the information in the document that Ritger posted on Hyperscale. Three manufacturers (Focke Wulf, Arbeitsgemeinschaft Roland and Gerhard Fieseler Werke) are listed from October through December yet it is known that four series of Werknummern were already present by Bodenplatte as there are losses for each:

Fw 190 D-9 "Blue 10" (W.Nr. 210 955) of I./JG 26
Fw 190 D-9 "Black 2" (W.Nr. 400 207) of II./JG 26
Fw 190 D-9 "Yellow 10" (W.Nr. 500 394) of I./JG 2
Fw 190 D-9 "White 2" (W.Nr. 600 361) of III./JG 2

The manufacturer that is not listed is Weser and it is noticeable that the 400 series are the least common of the Bodenplatte losses. Regarding the Monatsmeldung of January could the latter two entries be WFG (Weser Flugzeug Gesellschaft) and Arb Gem (Arbeitsgemeinschaft Roland)?

Horrido!

Leo

[Stig Jarlevik]

Our friend Geoffrey Sinclair wishes to post the following:

Fw190D production lines active,
Sep-44, FW
Oct-44, ArbG, FW, GFW
Nov-44, ArbG, FW, GFW
Dec-44, FW, GFW, MME, WFG
Jan-45, Con. Aslau, FW, GFW, MME, WFG

Cheers
Stig

[Leo Etgen]

Hi Stig

Many thanks to you and Geoffrey for that information which I feel is the same as that posted by ArtieBob with the notable exception that one identifies Arb Gem and the other MME. Could it be that the aircraft produced at Aslau were included in the 210 series as they were built by Focke Wulf?

Horrido!

Leo

[Leo Etgen]

Hi guys

I hope that everybody is doing well these days. This is just an update on this thread which was posted last year with some new information posted by Mr Ritger concerning this topic. Apparently, Arbeitsgemeinschaft Roland and Weser Flugzeug Gesellschaft are one and the same entity only going under different names for some odd reason. However, the production totals for Arbeitsgemeinschaft Roland are the same as those as Mimetall for the reason that the latter was the final assembly site for a number of aircraft actually built by this concern. The only concerns building Fw 190 D-9 fighters were Focke Wulf, Arbeitsgemeinschaft Roland and Gerhard Fieseler Werke but some of the fighters built by the second were assembled and accepted by the Luftwaffe at Mimetall Erfurt which is why these have their own Werknummer series and distinctive camouflage scheme. Any comments will be appreciated!

Horrido!

Leo

[INM@RLM]

It is a little more complex than was set out above.

Taking the available evidence a better picture for Fw 190 D production sources develops as this:

prefix-21 = all FoWu
WNr. 210001 to 210300 = 300 from Sorau
WNr. 210901 to 211150 = 250 from Marienburg
WNr. 211901 to 211940 = 40 from Sorau
WNr. 212120 to 212159 = 40 from Sorau
plus WNr. 213001 to 213010 = 10 tentatively (Only WNr. 213001 to 213009 delivered = 7) Assembly completed elsewhere possibly at Köthen since Sorau would be overrun by the Soviets mid-Feb-45.

prefix-50 = all Mimetall (MME)
WNr. 500026 - 500125 = 100
WNr. 500376 - 500435 = 60
WNr. 500546 - 500620 = 75
WNr. 500636 - 500670 = 35
WNr. 500686 - 500702 = 17 (tentatively)

prefix-40 = Arbeitsgemeinschaft Roland (a multi-site umbrella organization directing the redeployment of resources previously used for bomber production)
For the D-9 split into three distinct parts, and for this programme all parts were associated with Weser:
WNr. 400201 to 400275 = 75 from Arbeitsgemeinschaft Roland, but apparently the Fertigungskennzeichen appearing on these aircraft data plates was MDL indicating Weserflug, Nordenham.
WNr. 400601 to 400623 = 23 from the short-lived Con.Aslau (Mitteilung WFG: Endmontage Aslau). Aslau was overrun by the Red Army late-Jany-45.
WNr. 401351 to 401392 = 42 from WFG Lemwerder

prefix-60 = Fieseler at Kassel-Waldau
I set this exercise aside before finishing the GFW blocks but will get back to the topic one day. There are no major issues with this source: a total of 398 D-9s were delivered excluding the twenty examples destroyed at Kassell-Waldau on 2/3-Apr-45 shortly before the plants were captured by US ground forces on 04-Apr-45.

The planning for the D-9 in LP 227/1 of 15-Dec-44 defined just these three sources:
FW
GFW
WFG
(The WFG component grouped together the various Arb.Gem Roland elements.)
MME/Mimetall was thus an addition to the D-9 programme, likely made to compensate for the production that would be lost if/once the Soviets seized the D-9 plants in eastern Poland, East Prussia and Silesia.

[INM@RLM]

Actually, I find I did complete a separate study dedicated only to the GFW D-9s.
These were the blocks that emerged for prefix-60.

#1 WNr. 600121 to 600180 (60)
#2 WNr. 600341 to 600440 (100)
#3 WNr. 600631 to 600670 (40)
#4 WNr. 600761 to 600805 (45)
#5 WNr. 601026 to 601110 (85)
#6 WNr. 601281 to 601320 (40)
#7 WNr. 601441 to 601488 (block never completed but probably ran to 48)

Those total 418; deduct the 22 found destroyed at Fl.Pl. Eschwege & Fl.Pl. Kassel-Waldau as written off before delivery, to arrive at a total deliveries figure of 396.
Of these Fieseler monthly reports evidence at the close of Feb-45 a cumulative total of 351 D-9 flugklar angeliefert i.e. rolled out of final assembly to the test flight line.

The figures above are significantly lower than those that have appeared in past publications. One can only speculate that perhaps writers were either unaware of these company reports, or possibly undervalued or misunderstood the content documented by the company actually building these aircraft.

[AndyMa]

Thanks for this. I seem to have picked up some rogue numbers along the way:
600281 abandoned Babenhausen
600565 abandoned Ainring (red 3)
601434 abandoned Kassel

[INM@RLM]

It happens and shows up in even the most complete of data sets like Matti's.
In every human endeavour there is an error rate. (Mis-reads, mis-reports, transpositions, misunderstandings, outright errors and sometimes deliberately fabricated data. Not everyone is trying to do the very best job that they can all of the time, and sometimes events around a reporter, especially in a war, may be somewhat less than ideal)
If the data point sits on its own as an outlier, it immediately becomes questionable.