My interest was first sparked by a passage from ‘German Aircraft of the Second World War’ by J.R. Smith and Antony Kay with E.J. Creek (Putnam, 1972):

Perhaps the most interesting of the Fw 190 ground attack units were NSGr. 20 and III./KG 200. NSGr. 20 … was based at Twente and was equipped with Fw 190 G-1s each carrying a single SC 1800 bomb. During the winter and early spring of 1944–45 the unit made many near suicidal attacks on bridges. III./KG 200 … was formed at Staaken from I./SG 5 late in 1944. It was equipped with the Fw 190 F-8 carrying two AB 250 or one AB 500 weapon container, or a single SC 1000 bomb. The unit was later joined by an experimental anti-shipping formation known as Sonderverband Einhorn which eventually became 13./KG 200 …

I didn’t begin working on the Einhorn story myself until November 1987 when at the Public Record Office (as it then was) I found:

Newly arrived in Freiburg in June 1989, I bought a copy of the current Flugzeug magazine which included a review of Günther W. Gellermann’s book about KG 200, 'Moskau Ruft Heeresgruppe Mitte'. I found a copy of that the same day and so learned about Einhorn’s originswhile the some of the operations it flew became apparent once I visited the Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv that week. In ‘Air War Italy 1944–45’ (Airlife, 1996), Ferdinando D’Amico, Gabriele Valentini and I limited our coverage of Einhorn almost entirely to its time in Italy but during the absurdly long, never-explained wait for that book to be published I used the rest of my material as ‘Special Publication No. 7, The Mythical Unicorn’ for the US-based researchers' group, Luftwaffe Circle (November 1994). I contributed material to Geoff Thomas and Barry Ketley’s ‘KG 200, the Luftwaffe’s Most Secret Unit (Hikoki, 2003)’ then came brief references in my ‘Kampfflieger Volume Four’ (Classic, 2005) and just short of 1,500 words on the unit that I contributed to ‘Schlachtflieger’ (Midland, 2007). My fullest version prior to the present one appeared as Chapter 25 of Richard Smith and Eddie Creek’s ‘Focke-Wulf Fw 190 Volume Three’ (Classic, 2013). I've found out a lot more since then.

(Page 108) Choose Your Weapons (March 1944–January 1945)

Human error led to the destruction of a Klemm Kl 35 trainer of 13./KG 200 on 26 May. This was a non-operational flight.

Sources: RL 2-III/857: Materialverluste.- Flugzeuge.- Einsatz alle Fronten.- Listen, Bd. 15, Schlachtverbände, Nr. 1–52 (1941–1945)

RL 2-IV/40: Invasions-Kalender Normandie 1. Juli 1944 bis 1. Aug. 1944 (Durchbruch bei Avranches) (5. Dezember 1944)

(Page 109) Bombentorpedo and TSA 2

On 22 June 1944 the Chief of the Luftwaffe General Staff gave orders that ‘Bombentorpedo operation with the Revi [reflector gunsight] by I./SKG 10, which has already made preparations, during the next moon period’. The new moon was due on the 28th with full moon on 6 July but no such operation is known to have taken place; an SKG 210 anti-shipping mission on the night of 2/3 July used conventional SC 500 bombs.

Source: Bundesarchiv RL 2-I/79: Lageorientierungen und Einsatzplanungen.- Tagesverlauf, Besprechungs-notizen, Bd. 1 (März-Juni 1944)

A conference of Luftwaffe leaders on ‘consequences of the new aircraft programme’ took place in Berchtesgaden on Sunday 9 July 1944. Toward the end of the proceedings, Göring remarked: ‘I would like to say here that at some point the Schlachtflieger will have to engage shipping with the BT’. The General der Kampfflieger, Oberst Walter Marienfeld responded that the initial stumbling blocks were a definitive answer to the question of fuses and the output of the Schleuderwurfgerät (= slingshot release gear, probably meaning the TSA 2 for low-level skip-bombing). Göring noted the Allies’ use of fighter bombers against German coastal shipping and wanted to repay them in kind: ‘Our attack pilots must be in a position to engage ships with bombs as they are coming ashore, just as the Stuka would have done. Note that no one here was talking about a self-sacrifice unit or Fw 190s with super-heavy bombs; in fact later in the discussion Göring observed that ‘the large-calibre bomb is of no use to us because we have no machine to carry it’.

Source: Bundesarchiv RL 3/2571: Generalluftzeugmeister / Chef TLR, Anlagen zum Kriegstagebuch, Band 4 (1944–45)

According to Chef TLR, on 29 December 1944 some 200 TSA 2A had been procured although some production issues were apparently unresolved or requiring inspection but the TSA 2D was in series production. Also in production was the ETC 503 bomb rack envisaged for the Bombentorpedo.

Source: Bundesarchiv RL 3/2570: Chef TLR Anlagen zum Kriegstagebuch, Band 3 (1944–1945)

A ‘Report on Main Points’ from Rechlin, dated 27 January 1945, notes that production of the TSA 2D would be competing for capacity with an order for 1,200 BZA 1B aiming devices also manufactured by Zeiss Ikon:

The constant changes of decision mean a continual ups and downs in the production of the devices with the result that none of the two sets are being delivered on time.

Source: RL 3/2573: Chef TLR Anlagen zum Kriegstagebuch, Band 6 (1944–1945)

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