Pauke ! Pauke !

The following account of a Sturm attack was written by Oblt Hans-Martin Markhoff, Staffelkapitän of 8./JG 4 in September 1944 and describes an attack on B-24s of the 445th BG over Kassel on 27 September 1944. My thanks to Jean-Yves Lorant for access to Markhoff's letters written in the late 1970's. By the time Markhoff volunteered for home defense duties during mid-1944 he was an experienced fighter pilot, having flown many sorties on the Russian Front as wingman to one of JG 52's greatest aces, Günther Rall. Charged with screening the Kommandeur of III./JG 52, Markhoff's chances of achieving victories in aerial combat were few and having witnessed a bombardment of Berlin while on leave in late 1943 he decided that his duty lay in defending his fellow citizens back home in Germany. He volunteered to be a Sturm (assault) pilot. Post war he trained as an architect but never told his family of his war record. It wasn't until the late 70's, just a few years before his death, that he told his teenage son about his career in the Jagdwaffe. Like his son, Markhoff himself wore his hair long and was a big fan of the Rolling Stones. One of his final letters contained a poignant footnote; " If you publish these accounts please convey to the reader that such events must never again be allowed to take place. I'm not proud of my successes and what I did during the war. We all of us merely reacted to the pressures of those times. Today I wish that they'd never occurred.." Translation copyright Neil Page.

"..We closed on the four engined bombers with total disregard for the stiff defensive fire they were putting up.. Tracer was flying around our ears but there was only one thought in my mind ..I must shoot down another heavy bomber..the bomber's defensive fire was broken through recklessly..only after the four engines filled the target circle of the sight did we open fire.."
A Fw 190 Sturmbock bores in on a B-24 Liberator from the rear. Hunkered down in his cockpit the pilot opens fire from 100 metres aiming for the inboard engine. In this sequence the 190 has approached from slightly above on the starboard side

" When we made our final attack we approached from slightly above , then dove and opened fire ..A miss of the giant monster was almost impossible at this distance. I could clearly recognise the faces of the gunners in their firing positions..."
Hits from the 30 mm cannon flare..

"...As usual the 3 cm cannon were remarkably effective and wrought terrible destruction. Everything happened so quickly, my shells pumped into the bomber's wing-root and I could see a bright sheet of flame as it leapt from the huge fuselage.."
The 3cm explosive rounds continue to strike home; the awesome destruction accounts for the tail gunner...

Breaking off just in time to avoid colliding with the target Markhoff flies through a hail of fragments
"..pieces of debris were whirling around my ears in the slipstream. Part of the bomber's tail fin came away. I took avoiding action and dove under the huge machine.."

With less than two seconds to unleash a salvo of explosive rounds, the Fw 190 peels away, diving down under the looming bulk of the bomber. The bomber's starboard wing is envelopped in a huge ball of fire and smoke.
" We flashed through the formation all guns blazing..emerging from the bomber stream we attempted to reform for a second pass but today, as more often than not, this was impossible..we could hear the cries in the earphones alerting us to the presence of enemy fighters..it was then every man for himself as we attempted to reach an aerodrome and put down. That day as I came in to Salzwedel I realized that I'd got problems with my landing gear and elected to put the machine down on its belly. Those machines from my Gruppe that had landed ahead of me were almost all displaying signs of damage..

" ... . I had my victory and as it later turned out some wonderful shots on the gun camera. I'd got to within 18 metres of the bomber. Needless to say this film was to appear on the Wochenschau in German cinemas.. .but more than half our Fw 190s were missing.. 7. Staffel was particularly hard hit. Having already been reinforced with 6. and 8. Staffel pilots, the Staffel now lost its Kapitän, Oblt. Zehart who was reported missing near Braunschweig.."

The Fw 190A-3, an example of which was captured and investigated in the UK in June 1942, was armed with two MG 17 7.92mm machine-guns under the engine cowling, two MG 151/20 20mm cannon in the wing roots, and two MG-FF/M 20mm cannon in the outer wing panels. The pilot could control this armament in two ways. A selection switch on the stick allowed him to select (i) MG 17s and MG 151/20s; (ii) MG-FF/Ms; or (iii) all guns. Alternatively, the pilot could control the guns with the armament control panel, which had a prominent position on the left side of his instrument panel. For each pair of guns, this had a switch, below the ammunition counters, that allowed him to (de)select them. So the synchronized, high rate-of-fire, high muzzle-velocity weapons were installed inboard, and the unsynchronized low rate-of-fire, low muzzle-velocity MG-FF/Ms outboard. The cannon had the smallest ammunition supply which meant that they had to be controlled separately. This was especially important as newer weapons were introduced.

When early in 1944 the urgent necessity of close range attacks on the massed fleets of USAAF bombers became obvious, current Focke Wulf 190 models had their 20mm wing-mounted cannon replaced by Mk108 30mm cannon supplied with explosive rounds.

The MK 108 was developed during the early 1940s by RHEINMETALL-BORSIG. It was the standard 30 mm cannon in German fighters from about 1942 until 1945. It was a weapon of brilliant design made from lower quality easily assembled metal stampings with machined steel barrels. It featured electrical ignition and was operated electrically / pneumatically. Weight of projectile was 330 g, total weight 480 g. The weight of the gun was 58 kg and it's length 1057 mm. The most effective ammunition was the Minengranate (mine shell), a heavy shell filled with high explosive, combining a minimum thickness of shell casing with maximum explosive content. Their incendiary effects could easily start a fire on contact with the aluminium of a four-engined bomber. Just 3 to 4 shells placed at the in-board engine and wing root would be enough to destroy a Viermot. The Sturmbock 190 carried just 55 rounds of this lethal ammunition per 30 mm Mk 108 for barely five seconds firing. Ammunition could not be wasted in wild shooting from long range. Ammunition belt malfunction under high G-forces was a problem. The wing mounted cannon were heavy and there was little room in the wing for ammunition ( only 55 rounds/gun sufficient for barely 5 seconds firing ). More importantly for the Sturmgruppe pilots the weight of the cannon in the wings adversely affected the manoeuvrability of the Focke Wulf 190, making the aircraft quite unsuitable for fighter v fighter combat. The low velocity and slower rate of fire resulted in a characteristic sound. It became the "pneumatic hammer".

	"..We closed on the four engined bombers with total disregard for the stiff defensive fire they were putting up.. Tracer was flying around our ears but there was only one thought in my mind ..I must shoot down another heavy bomber..the bomber's defensive fire was broken through recklessly..only after the four engines filled the target circle of the sight did we open fire.." A Fw 190 Sturmbock bores in on a B-24 Liberator from the rear. Hunkered down in his cockpit the pilot opens fire from 100 metres aiming for the inboard engine. In this sequence the 190 has approached from slightly above on the starboard side
	" When we made our final attack we approached from slightly above , then dove and opened fire ..A miss of the giant monster was almost impossible at this distance. I could clearly recognise the faces of the gunners in their firing positions..." Hits from the 30 mm cannon flare..
	"...As usual the 3 cm cannon were remarkably effective and wrought terrible destruction. Everything happened so quickly, my shells pumped into the bomber's wing-root and I could see a bright sheet of flame as it leapt from the huge fuselage.." The 3cm explosive rounds continue to strike home; the awesome destruction accounts for the tail gunner...
	Breaking off just in time to avoid colliding with the target Markhoff flies through a hail of fragments "..pieces of debris were whirling around my ears in the slipstream. Part of the bomber's tail fin came away. I took avoiding action and dove under the huge machine.."
	With less than two seconds to unleash a salvo of explosive rounds, the Fw 190 peels away, diving down under the looming bulk of the bomber. The bomber's starboard wing is envelopped in a huge ball of fire and smoke. " We flashed through the formation all guns blazing..emerging from the bomber stream we attempted to reform for a second pass but today, as more often than not, this was impossible..we could hear the cries in the earphones alerting us to the presence of enemy fighters..it was then every man for himself as we attempted to reach an aerodrome and put down. That day as I came in to Salzwedel I realized that I'd got problems with my landing gear and elected to put the machine down on its belly. Those machines from my Gruppe that had landed ahead of me were almost all displaying signs of damage..
	" ... . I had my victory and as it later turned out some wonderful shots on the gun camera. I'd got to within 18 metres of the bomber. Needless to say this film was to appear on the Wochenschau in German cinemas.. .but more than half our Fw 190s were missing.. 7. Staffel was particularly hard hit. Having already been reinforced with 6. and 8. Staffel pilots, the Staffel now lost its Kapitän, Oblt. Zehart who was reported missing near Braunschweig.."