Types of revetment in LW airfields

[marquis]

LW used several types of revetments, blast walls, etc. Some were intended for single engine fighters with wedge shaped walls, other made of concrete, up to more sophisticated double bay for medium bombers, embedded with exclusive repair shops along with shelters for crews and so on. Each had different constructional features, shape and dimensions. Do we know if they were built under established standards and/or can anyone detail the various types?

[TigerTimon]

The following is written in the context of the airfields in the Netherlands.

The Luftwaffe used standard drawings for the construction of many buildings, hangars and shelters. This working method was known as the Regelbau. Contractors had to comply with this (example: Junkershalle).

More often, however, buildings fell into the Sonderbau category. This becomes clear in the case of control towers at Dutch airfields. There was no standardization. There were simple control towers, housed in a wooden house on a raised platform, but also fully concrete control towers on pillars.
Aircraft shelters also existed in all shapes and sizes.

For both the Regelbau and the Sonderbau, the Luftwaffe often took the local German building traditions, better known as Heimatschutzarchitektur or the Heimat(schutz)stil, as a guideline. This architectural style, which mainly used farmhouses and castles as sources of inspiration, fitted in well with the National Socialist glorification of Germany's rural past.
By building in this style it was, according to the Abteilung Planung der Untergruppe Hochbau of the Luftgaukommando Holland 'oft ausgeschlossen (...), die Unterkünfte von den umgebenen Dörfern zu unterscheiden'.

The hangars can be subdivided into subtypes, which varied in size or roof construction. Furthermore, the Luftwaffe had heated and unheated hangars. The doors of the larger hangars could be opened and closed electrically. The Splitterboxen showed at least as much variety.

(from the book Vliegvelden in Oorlogstijd)

A heated hangar was called a Wärmehalle. In the attachment you can see three pictures of such a hangar at former Fliegerhorst Deelen in the Netherlands.

[Alain57]

Hello ,

Here a photo from the " Junkerhalle " at St-Truiden / St-Trond airfield in Belgium

Regards
Alain57

[SES]

Hi,
Please also see:
http://www.gyges.dk/fliegerhorst_grove14.htm
bregds
SES

[Larry deZeng]

Originally Posted by marquis

LW used several types of revetments, blast walls, etc. Some were intended for single engine fighters with wedge shaped walls, other made of concrete, up to more sophisticated double bay for medium bombers, embedded with exclusive repair shops along with shelters for crews and so on. Each had different constructional features, shape and dimensions. Do we know if they were built under established standards and/or can anyone detail the various types?

Marquis: I would really be surprised if they weren't given the German penchant to have a template or skizze for just about everything military that was built during the war. But in all the research I did over 25 years in German and Allied archives to assemble data on airfields (over 6,000 of them), I did not come across any construction instructions and drawings for aircraft shelters, blast bays, revetments covered or uncovered. I am absolutely certain they existed at one time and may be tucked away in some obscure file at BA-MA, perhaps in the Signatur for Luftgäue and or Kdo.Flughafenbereiche (RL 20) and I just failed to see them.

L.

[ju55dk]

From Tirstrup 1944.

Junker

[marquis]

Thank you Larry: have you ever come across something like these, at least for ascertaining if they are german crafted?
http://ibb.co/nB0y40c
http://ibb.co/qxSDzD1

[Larry deZeng]

Very, very interesting, Marquis..............I think I can say with near 99% certainty that those two are not of German design from the 1933-45 period. I say this because their design is totally alien to me after looking at many hundreds - even thousands - of aircraft shelters on airfields occupied by the Luftwaffe across all of Europe. These appear on aerial photos and on sketches made from the aerial photos by section A.I.2.(b) of the wartime British Air Ministry. This section's files at BNA in London may also contain reports, photos, drawings and interrogation summaries of how they were built too, because I didn't examine every file generated by A.I.2.(b).

L.

[Carsten Petersen]

Blast walls found in Denmark:

[canonne]

About your very good photo on Grove Trondheim airdome in 1942 … could it be a « D » from JG 103 (JFS 3 for the time) ?
Take care

Philippe