Nightfighters and gun cameras

[George Hopp]

If you take a look at the location of the items in the hood of the interim night fighter, in Vol 3 of "Me 262" by Richard Smith and Eddie Creek, you will see that the field of view of a camera in that location to the front would be very poor (drawing, pg. 476, 488). You will also note the glass cover for the camera in the nose of V056 on pages 491-496. And, pgs. 470-472 show that the plumbing for the FuG 218 radar used by the Me 262, did not use the nose cone unit in which the camera would have been installed.


Mark,
The Brits had IFF interrogation, but the Germans did not. The Germans were testing infra-red gear, but I don't think it was operational.

Oh yes, from the Martini interrogations, the following was the equipment in the Me 262 night fighter as part of the Emergency Program: FuG 16ZY (to be replaced by FuG 24 in August 45), FuG 125, FuG 120k, FuG 25a, FuG 101a, FuG 350, and the rest either new requirements or future equipment: FuG 29, and FuG 218 (to be replaced by FuG 245). This report was prepared in Mar 45, and was already slightly out-of-date at war's end as the FuG 218 was being installed in night fighters before war's end.