Revi of Focke Wulf 190 A-8

[George Hopp]

Very few aircraft used the EZ42, pilots didn't like it

I saw the same statement in a volume on the Me 262, and wonder about its accuracy. In a translation of a German document from the "Training school for shooting of the Luftwaffe: Report on activity of Enlisting and Training Commands for EZ 40/42 at II/300. 13 to 28 Sept 44" it noted that in sorties by 5./JG 300, "Everyone who made a sortie against four-engined bombers managed to shoot down planes. . . . In succeeding conversation with Training Officer Lt. Brettschneider puts in request for said implement for his whole unit and guarantees a 100% result." And in the 8th AF News of January 1989, Ernst Schroder commented on his sortie of 27 September 1944: "My squadron leader and I had installed (for trial) a new aiming device ... that included very rapidly running gyros that automatically calculated the necessary aiming alllowances. (He then comments on shooting down 2 B-24s). The new aiming device was functioning astonishingly. I was so surprised and fascinated that I flew alongside my victim and stared at the meter-high flames which were pouring out of this Liberator all the way back beyond the elevator. Then this great machine clumsily laid itself over on its back and went down."

So, here are two satisfied users. The German gyro gunsight was certainly more complex than the Allied one, in that it had 2 gyros rather than the one for the Allied gunsight. And the Germans were having to make do with inferior metals. So, I can see breakdowns occurring more often than on the Allied gunsights. But, if set up properly, they should have done their job.