Junkers W 34, Störkampfstaffeln, Nachtschlachtgruppen

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by knusel

Good evening,

I'm also interested in Nachschlacht top ace Ludwig Bellof and checked the Nachtschlachtgruppe 3 file in the Bundesarchiv website recommended above. It's a vivid description of the mission profile of that unit but it contains only little info about the aircraft types used, and no strength figures.

Michael

Aircraft and crew strength figures for Luftwaffe units have all been digitised by the Bundesarchiv except for about three months in the summer and autumn of 1944. You will find them in the files running consecutively from RL 2-III/700 to RL 2-III/735. These diagrams use coloured squares to denote a unit's operational aircraft and diamonds for liaison aircraft.

Likewise digitised are the reports of numbers and types (and sub-types) of aircraft on strength with each unit from March 1942 through to December 1944. These are in files RL 2-III/874 consecutively through to RL 2-III/884.

Material losses of the Nachtschlacht units 1941–1945 are in file RL 2-III/858, also digitised. These give the cause of each reported loss and usually the aircraft type if the unit operated a mixture of aircraft.

I think that from those you should be able to satisfy your curiosity about what types were operated by the units in question and when.