List of DB 605A engine construction numbers?

[schwarze-man]

Originally Posted by Dénes Bernád

I meant exclusively the engine construction numbers that include a slash (/). I enclose one such example, DB 605 No. 239/0118, from a Hungarian document from February 1944 (P.S. sorry, cannot find the image posting button anymore).

Hi again Dénes,
The use of the forward-slash (/) in the engine Werk-Nr is rare in all the 650+ engine database. There are only two examples of a / in that database and, they are 007/01188 and another early but obviously very corrupted one with 12 figures, 311002A/205-4.
The 007/01188 seems to be a mistake as it falls within many other engines in that range eg 00700933 that have 8 digit numbers.
The only note I would make, is that in this case the 007 is the manufacturer id and the 00933 is the serial number. Possibly the worker accidently added the / in error to the 007/01188 which should have been simply 00701188.
The convention of marking is consistent, the manufacturer id runs directly before the serial number on the engine Werk-Nr, as struck on the Baumusterschild and the many stampings on the engine components.
Also, within the 650 engine data, 007/01188 is the only / after the first 3 digits.
So, sorry that this is not much use.

SM

[Dénes Bernád]

Hello SM, there are too many occurences when a slash was an integral part of DB 605 A/B engines' construction number to consider it a clerical error. The explanation of this slash is what I am looking for. I will keep "digging" for an answer.

[schwarze-man]

Originally Posted by Dénes Bernád

Hello SM, there are too many occurences when a slash was an integral part of DB 605 A/B engines' construction number to consider it a clerical error. The explanation of this slash is what I am looking for. I will keep "digging" for an answer.

Hallo Dénes,
The / could have been used to demark elements of the series of digits that define a part. In the case of these engine Werk-Nr as defined by DB, they do consist of two parts, the manufacturer id and the production serial number. The id can be a single digit, two, three or four depending on the date and allocated manufacturer. The serial number of the motor is after the id but, there is no / to demark this construction of the full Werk-Nr. This is the evidence from almost all 650+ engines in the database and shows the marking of the Baumusterschild. However, it may be possible that clerical data was recorded differently by other contractors.

SM

[Dénes Bernád]

Dear SM, in these particular cases, the first three digits before the slash (there are too many to tell the slash is an error) are not identical, many of them are unique, so they are certainly not the manufacturer's identification, but rather an odd serial number, divided by the slash.
I need to "dig in" more, perhaps I will find a clue one day.

[schwarze-man]

Hi everyone,
I am pleased to say that I have more results about the DB605 engine serial number analysis from the loss records of the 800+ engines supplied by Matti, Tomislav and otherb contributors.
So far in my posts (mainly about #68 to #70) I have covered the DB600/601 engines and I think the numbers stack-up well. However, although the further numbers for the DB605 are well represented, my analysis of the DB605 5-Digit serial numbers is not satisfactory. Simply put, the numbers of engines indicated by the 5-digit block numbers seems too high. I suspect that there may be gaps in the serial number allocations that I cannot identify.
So, I decided to consider the later DB605D engines in the loss reports and I quickly saw how well defined they are, for the period Nov '44 to Jan '45. I will report those details later.
A by-product of the 605D study was a better definition of the 605A serial numbers for the new 8-digit numbering system that was introduced in about early 1943. The 8-digit numbers have the first three digits for a makers id, eg 007 for Genshagen, followed by a five-digit number for the sequential engine serial number starting 00001. So, the first engine in this new numbering from Genshagen was 00700001.
I was able to corelate the BIOS report of engine manufacture quantities, dates and plants accurately and easily confirm data against the loss table engine numbers and the inferred production numbers.
There are some interesting relationships between engine production dates and the date of the loss. Generally, the first date of loss of a series in the data will be a fairly early serial number, but it won't be the first made. The vagaries of engine supply, airframe build date and then use mess it all up. However, the dates of some losses were fairly close to manufacture and, with these series here of over 10,000 engines, there is some good correlation.
There are some errors in the data I have to work with here, possibly 1%. I think that I can accurately correct 50% of those but some are just errors that cannot be corrected accurately. Fortunately, the data is large enough to not use the info with errors.
The number of engines in this 8-digit engine serial number analysis covers approx 25,000 DB605A engines built by six manufacturing plants in the period. There is one plant with 10,000+ engines, two with 6,000+ and two with less than 2,000.
I will list the details on my next post.

Cheers

SM

[schwarze-man]

The 8-digit DB605 serial numbering appears to have been introduced in early 1943. The exact dates seem to vary with different production plants, calculated from the dates of the loss reports and the records of production figures in the BIOS report. This probably reflects the varied dates for completion of previous batches in the 5-digit serial numbering system. Very helpfully, the loss reports of the Bf 109 airframes with dates, types and sub-types gives considerable information about the engine type, although only the engine serial numbers are given. The BIOS reports of engine manufacture lack any detail of engine models produced, other than "601, 603, or 605" and the monthly production figures. The BIOS written report does give further details of factors effecting individual plants and this is helpful in some cases. Nonetheless, the details that I have extracted are accurate in respect of the overall production.
I will attempt to present a similar table to that produced earlier by Tomislav. It must be borne in mind that the dates of production are estimates from the loss records and production records. Additional complications occur where engines were held in store and also overhauled at central plants.

SM

[schwarze-man]

These listed tables below are estimates compiled from data in Bf 109 loss reports that were provided by contributor Matti. These details relate to DB 605A engines produced with the 8-digit numbering system introduced in approximately early 1943, superceeding the previous 5-digit numbering.
The 8-digit engine sample are approximately 450 sets of data. Only data from engines in the data set is used and so, other engine production plants are not shown.
After approximately Feb 1944, these engines will include some DB 605 AS versions and, after May 1944 engines built for MW50 ratings.


Daimler-Benz Motoren GmbH (Genshagen Kreis Teltow)
Factory code hsq
Engine serial numbers:
00700001
First in data 00700207. Last in data 00711041. Prod data 11,000+.
Series started est 5/43.

Henschel-Flugmotorenbau GmbH (Kassel)
Factory code hsr
Engine serial numbers:
01100001
First in data 01100209. Last in data 01105056. Prod data 6,000+
Series started est 6/43.

Niedersächsische Motorenwerke GmbH (NMW) "NiMo" (Braunschweig-Querum)
Factory code hss
Engine serial numbers:
00200001
First in data 00200084. Last in data 00205995. Prod data 6,000+
Series started est 3/43.

Steyr-Daimler-Puch A.G. (Werk Steyr)
Factory code bnz
Engine serial numbers:
01900001
First in data 01900030. Last in data 01901868. Prod data 1,600+
Series started est 2/43.

Donau-Flugzeugbau (Csepel-Budapest) (Weiss)
Factory code kwn
Engine serial numbers:
00400001
First in data 00400055. Last in data 00400780. Prod data 1,200+
Series started est 4/43.

Cheers

SM

[tanzebau]

Hello,


regarding Reggiane aircraft, so far the following DB605/Fiat RA1050 engines were identified, according to Ali d'Italia nr. 16 and Regia Aeronautica papers:


Aircraft M.M. - Engine M.M.'s
494 - 7738, 47907, 47993
092343 - 47881/001
092345 - RA 47968
092346 - 47958/078, 48014 (or 48018)
092348 - RA 47964
092354 - 48028 (or 48208)
092358 - 48115/235
096102 - 48153/273


Notes:

- where I typed RA means the document mentions explicitely Fiat.
- There is also a picture of a RE2005 showing engine M.M. 47999.
- The nr. 7738 comes from a picture. It seems it's really a 4 digit number.

[tanzebau]

Regarding DB601/alfa RA 1000 on RE2001, from an original Reggiane document:


Aircraft M.M. - Engine M.M.
9946 - RA 44935
7229 - RA 33079
08077 - RA 44470
7281 - DB 63636
7282 - RA 44705
7259 - RA 39014
7274 - DB 64963
90761 - RA 44731
7280 - RA 44938
90006 - DB 32075 or 32076
7225 - RA 44641

[S Sheflin]

Hello tanzebau,
Thank you for your intriguing postings. They do, however, raise a question.
Did Fiat ever produce any DB 605 “AS” versions? I ask because several of your entries have “/xxx” MNr. extensions. Do you think these “extra” digits could be “AS” serial numbers?
On German-made engines, these three or four digit extensions were serialized “AS” modification numbers. In some cases (mainly on Allied Crashed Enemy Aircraft reports), they were also listed as three or four digits added immediately before the actual MNr.
Respectfully,
Steve Sheflin