Which Kampfgruppen were qualified to carry the heaviest bombs

[oquaig]

Hi everyone,

I know that III./KG 26 was the first bomber unit to carry the heaviest bombs (SC 1500, SC 1800 and SC 2500) but in the period 1940-1941 were there any other units (such as I./KG 28 and Kgr. 100) that used these bombs as well ?

Thanks in advance
oquaig

[robert]

I think that 1./KG26 was the first flying some missions with SC1800 in June 1940 against Maginot Line.

[Carsten Petersen]

KG 26 used SC 1800 already on the 25th of April in Norway

[Bombphoon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmSsglgjaSw

[Chris Goss]

These photos were from Eastern Front though

[Adriano Baumgartner]

Just for curiosity, I suppose that the Luftwaffe did NOT trained their airmen, most particularly the Beobachter to drop those before using them (those heavy bombs) operationally, correct?

The units just received the new weapon, added them to the inventory and up to the war...train the dropping on an actual combat sortie...

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Adriano Baumgartner

Just for curiosity, I suppose that the Luftwaffe did NOT trained their airmen, most particularly the Beobachter to drop those before using them (those heavy bombs) operationally, correct?

The units just received the new weapon, added them to the inventory and up to the war...train the dropping on an actual combat sortie...

Wouldn't these weapons have needed special external racks so the aircraft could carry them and trolleys big enough to move them? If so, then the technical personnel and ground crews would have needed some instruction (if only a handbook) I'd guess.

[oquaig]

Originally Posted by Adriano Baumgartner

Just for curiosity, I suppose that the Luftwaffe did NOT trained their airmen, most particularly the Beobachter to drop those before using them (those heavy bombs) operationally, correct?

The units just received the new weapon, added them to the inventory and up to the war...train the dropping on an actual combat sortie...

If instruction wasn't required then why was III./KG 26 the only unit certified (for want of a better term) to carry the SC 2500 in 1940 ? Just "because of its Navigation equipment "? I would think flying with such an unwieldy load would require a particularly skilled pilot. Certainly the hard points to carry it and similar ordinance would have been reinforced. Was it because they were flying the He 111 H5 with an ETC 2000 external rack and no one else was ?


Just asking...

[Adriano Baumgartner]

My assumption or theory that those units did not receive any kind of additional training do come from Hauptmann Johannes Kauffmann’s memories: An Eagle’s Odyssey (published in 2019 by Greenhill Books), which I fully recommend reading.

When I meant a training with the weapon (SC 1500, SC 1800, SC 2500), I meant taking-off with lively ordnance and dropping it on a weapons test range, at least some times, to get “checked” or trained with the problems involved in delivering the new weapons (fuel consumption, take-off with additional weight, flying in bad weather (ice) with such additional weight; etc.).

Maybe one of the members of this board who collects Flugbuchs can try to find, such training flights with those weapons on the Flugbuchs fhat have survived. That would be really interesting to know if the KG 26, KG 100, KG 28 airmen were indeed trained before their first operation, to use those weapons.

I do quote Kauffmann’s memories, when he mentioned that for the first time ZG 1 was operating with 1,000 Kg bombs:

In the nine days from 23 to 31 August, I flew no fewer than twenty-three such missions. Our targets were predominantly enemy tanks. And for the first time we were carrying 1,000kg bombs. (Pg.179)

From his memories, it looks like that ZG 1 received the SC 1000 bombs and did not have time (in a full scale war on the Eastern Front going on) and a facility (a special weapons dropping range, where range errors were measured in %) to familiarize its pilots with the new weapon. I mean, deducing from his memories, it seems that all pilots were not trained or had not dropped this weapon (SC 1000) before the unit received it. So it looks like they had to carry out their trials and training “on the field”, in actual combat.

I do deduce that, this may have happened more or less similarly to all other units (Kampfgeschwader) that received the heavy ordnance bombs mentioned onto this thread.

An instructional order or paper (as suggested by Nick Beale) may have been sent to all units receiving those weapons, but actual training to deliver the weapons was probably not carried out, in war.

The lack of adequate specialized training in the Luftwaffe is enhanced on further passages of Hauptmann Kauffmann’s war diary, which I do quote:

It was only after completing the first three weeks of the course on He 51s and Fw 58s that we finally began training on the Bf 110. (Pg.100)

Firing practice against ground targets posed no great problems in the Bf 110. The machine was a very stable gun platform and any necessary corrections could be easily made. The only thing to watch, as with any other aircraft type, was pulling up in time after the firing run. My early days of learning how to do this correctly were long behind me and so I had no difficulties. I greatly enjoyed these exercises. The massed firepower of the Bf 110’s nose armament was a real eye-opener to me, used as I was to aircraft armed with two machine-guns at most. My one regret was that there were just six such practice sessions during the entire eleven weeks of the course.

In fact, for a specialized Zerstörer school, Schleissheim relied surprisingly heavily on the He 51. Of the ninety-nine training flights I made there, nearly two-thirds of them – fifty-eight in all, totalling 34 hours and 37 minutes flying time – were on the Heinkel biplane. In contrast, I clocked up just 14 hours and 58 minutes during thirty-seven flights in the Bf 110. The remaining four flights (amounting to 5 hours and 33 minutes in the air) were the crosscountry navi-gational exercises, three of them flown in Fw 58s. (Pg. 103)

it is perhaps worth pointing out that during our time at Schleissheim we received no instruction whatsoever on the tactics employed by army units in the field. In the light of our subsequent deployment – which the teaching staff must surely have been aware of – this strikes me as a very odd omission indeed. It later became all too evident that special tuition in this area was essential if effective ground-support operations were to be flown. And not just up to company level either; ground-support pilots needed to understand the workings of at least a division in order to be able to gain an overview, assess the situation on the battlefield below and respond accordingly. (Pg.105)

Most humbly yours,
Adriano

[Adriano Baumgartner]

Quoting from John Weal's He 111 Kampfgeschwader on the Russian Front, by OSPREY (Pgs.53-54):
"I./KG 100’s attentions remained resolutely focused on Black Sea operations. On 15 May it bombed Taman harbour on the far side of the Kerch Straits, causing considerable damage with heavy SC 1800 Satan bombs. During the first week of June crews flew up
to four missions a day against the defences of Sevastopol, raining every kind of missile down on the beleaguered port from incendiaries to ultraheavy SC 2500 Max bombs".

Again, I doubt those crews trained beforehand to use those new weapons after their delivery. Guess that their first sorties with those bombs were real ones, one's learning "on the job training".

A.