Focke-Wulf Fw 190 / Ta 152
The "Butcher Bird" that gave Spitfire pilots a rude shock in 1941.
Kurt Tank's radial-engined masterpiece appeared over France in September 1941 and for months outflew the best Spitfire variant the RAF could put up. Sturdy, heavily armed, and beautifully harmonised, the Fw 190 remained competitive to the end of the war and its long-nosed "Dora" and Ta 152 variants were among the finest piston fighters ever flown.
01Introduced by JG 26 on the Channel coast. Its combination of speed, firepower, and roll rate caught the RAF by surprise — it was the Spitfire Mk.IX that restored parity in mid-1942.
02Fw 190s served in every Luftwaffe fighter command, from bomber-destroyer units over the Reich to the ground-attack F/G variants supporting the army. The type was flown by many of Germany's top aces and could be configured as an anti-bomber heavyweight with 30 mm cannon and underwing 20 mm gun pods.
03The long-nosed Fw 190D-9 "Dora" (with a Junkers Jumo 213 inline engine) and its further-developed cousin the Ta 152H were capable of matching late-war Allied fighters; the Ta 152H held a significant altitude advantage over the P-51. Too few, too late.
Theatres of operation
- ·Every theatre of the European war
Principal operators
- ·Luftwaffe
- ·Hungarian Air Force
- ·Turkish Air Force (post-war)
Others in the same fight.
Supermarine Spitfire
Mk.I — Mk.24
Hawker Hurricane
Mk.I — Mk.IV
North American P-51 Mustang
P-51B / C / D / K
Republic P-47 Thunderbolt
P-47C / D / M / N