German Attack helicopter WW2

Hi, you guys may want to throw eggs at me for this one!.
I am aware of the many german helicopter projects that went on during the years of the third reich..but a friend of mine insists there was an "attack helicopter" designed near the closing stages of the war- not like a treibflugel/lerche/wespe type of thing ( not really helicopters as such anyway), but like a german ww2 equivalent of ,say what an Ah64 apache is now?
I personally think hes talking out of his a*"e, can anyone prove him wrong, so i can banish him to shame forever!? ;D

I know the Focke-Achgelis Fa 223 could be (was) fitted with a MG but this was strictly for defense and the design was not intended as a gunship. It could, however, be fitted with two bombs and I suspect this was an afterthought.

As for a dedicated attack helicopter, I've never run across such a project. But, perhaps someone here may show otherwise! ;D

zerstorer1946 said:

Hi, you guys may want to throw eggs at me for this one!.
I am aware of the many german helicopter projects that went on during the years of the third reich..but a friend of mine insists there was an "attack helicopter" designed near the closing stages of the war- not like a treibflugel/lerche/wespe type of thing ( not really helicopters as such anyway), but like a german ww2 equivalent of ,say what an Ah64 apache is now?
I personally think hes talking out of his a*"e, can anyone prove him wrong, so i can banish him to shame forever!? ;D

Click to expand...

If one wanted to stretch the definition of attack helicopter, then the Baumgartl Heliofly I and III might count. But, yea...that is really stretching.......

Pelzig said:

... Baumgartl Heliofly I and III ...

Click to expand...

What is this?

Hi all
If I look at "aviastar.org" I don't see "Baumgarti heliofly"
as an attack helicopter ?

In my post, I was being facetious. The Heliofly was a means to move a individual soldier around the battlefield and thus, if you stretch the definition of "attack helicopter" really, really, really far, the Heliofly might fill the bill. After all, it could be considered an offensive weapon.

toura said:

Hi all
If I look at "aviastar.org" I don't see "Baumgarti heliofly"
as an attack helicopter ?

Click to expand...

http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/baumgartl_heliofly-1.php

http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/baumgartl_heliofly-357.php

ysi_maniac said:

Pelzig said:

... Baumgartl Heliofly I and III ...

Click to expand...

What is this?

Click to expand...

Hi Pelzig.
On the same site, you could see : Paul Baumgarti
emigrated to Brazil and continue to study
PB 60 PB 63 PB 64.
look at " Brasil"
Bye

Why not a Focke Achgelis Fa 269 ?

Hi all
According to "luftarchiv.de" the Focke Achgelis FA 223
v16 DM+ST has a MG 15 in the nose
i read for the FA 269 and armement of 2 MK 103 OR MK 108
inserted laterally, behind the pilot in the fuselage and
a canon of 20 m/m under the pilot's seat ???

That isn't a helicopter in the true sense of the word. More like a "convertiplane" in the mold as the V-22 Osprey. ;D

Justo Miranda said:

Why not a Focke Achgelis Fa 269 ?

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Oh bother these wartime myths again! :-\

Zerstoer, I think I know where your friend got that whole gunship notion from. I read a novel years ago (around '95) called "BLACK PHOENIX". It dealt with the end of WW2 and your standard "Hitler escapes" plot. Toss in South America, then-experimental plastic surgery, a bioweapon and you get the picture.

A chase scene in that novel dealt precisely with helicopter gunships piloted by Nazi holdouts. In fact they were even referrred to as "gunships" in the book.

And that I think is where your friend got the notion from.

maybe so, moonbat, thanks!. im gonna rip him for this !!hah i knew he was lying to me!

Don`t blame your friend so fast !
When it comes to german helicopters, Steve Coates is the man. His excellent book "Helicopters of the Third Reich" does mention a Fa 223 with a single rotor driven by a BMW 801 with twin tail rotors. It was first seen at a 1943 Berlin presentation on helicopter progresses, organized by the Deutsche Akademie der Luftfahrtforschung . No more data, but a photo of the model is available. It was designated as a "high-speed helicopter".

maybe there is an element of truth then? .. i will have to look into getting this book. ive think ive heard of it before.

The general appearance of the Fl 282 V23 could lead the uninformed to believe it to be an 'attack' helicopter.




Jon

"The general appearance of the Fl 282 V23 could lead the uninformed to believe it to be an 'attack' helicopter"

The Fl 282 was tested as an ASW helicopter with depth charges and the general idea of an
armed helicopter wasn't new at this time (although flight performances of early helicopters
may not have been very inspiring for converting them into "fighting machines"), see
http://modelarchives.free.fr/Bestiaire/G20_P/index.html.
Nevertheless, I think, if fitting of machine guns was envisaged, as in the case of the Fa 223, this was
just seen as a matter of self defense.

zerstorer1946 said:

.. i will have to look into getting this book. ive think ive heard of it before.

Click to expand...

I got mine from Amazon.de ( http://www.amazon.de/Helicopters-Third-Reich-Luftwaffe-Classics/dp/1903223245/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books-intl-de&qid=1233734344&sr=1-1 ). Well worth the €42,- asking price, in my opinion.

Regards & all,

Thomas L. Nielsen
Denmark

cool thanks everyone for their help!
that book is a must,
cheers!

Apologies for digging up an old thread, but re: the use of the FI 282 as an attack helicopter, a certain crowdsourced database is quoting a generic 2005 book on 'Military, Civilian, And Rescue Rotorcraft' as the basis for a claim that, "During the Battle of the Bulge a formation of five of these aircraft conducted the world's first helicopter strike against armour. Operating low over the Ardennes Forest they destroyed two American tanks at a loss of two of their own, one to a British Spitfire, the other to groundfire."

This is the first time that I've seen this claimed combat action involving the Kolibri reported, and the lack of any prior mention of fixed weapons being operationally mounted on the type leads to visions of bombs being dropped by hand from the cockpit, WW1-style.

Has anyone ever come across any other reference to this five-ship 'attack,' or is it more likely to have been a case of artillery spotting (and/or confused reporting)?

An interesting statement, I've never heard of before. Principally it seems not to be unthinkable,
especially if we remember the use of Bücker 181 Bestmann as "tank hunters" fitted with 4 Panzerfaust
anti-tank rocket launchers. Regarding the well known results of the mock-combat of a Fl 282 against
a Fw 190 (which is said to have scoured no hits !), it wouldn't seem to be more insane to me.
About armament it could just have been the observer using a handheld Panzerfaust, or maybe anti-tank
cluster bombs like the SD 4 HL. If not dropped from bomb racks as used for the ASW bombs, the observer
could have dropped those 4 kg bomblets by hand. If true, it certainly was a desperate action !

What about the Soviet TsAGI/Kamov A7-3a?
Granted, it's an autogyro and not a pure helicopter, but it could be considered a pioneering aircraft.

Turboshaft wrote:
"During the Battle of the Bulge a formation of five of these aircraft conducted the world's first helicopter strike against armour. Operating low over the Ardennes Forest they destroyed two American tanks at a loss of two of their own, one to a British Spitfire, the other to groundfire."
Fantastic account, if confirmed. I will ask Steve right away. Stay tuned.

Will be listening - honestly it sounds like something out of a comic book - but not impossible. I suppose you could even fit them with SC-50...

CostasTT - Yes, there were even paper studies for much more combat oriented developments (including ones with armour) - however I'm not sure if they would be off-topic for this thread.

Avimimus wrote:
however I'm not sure if they would be off-topic for this thread
Please, indulge us !

Wurger said:

I will ask Steve right away. Stay tuned.

Click to expand...

Thanks!

The attack helicopter actually wasn't a new idea, see here
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,4271.msg105603.html#msg105603,
or even with fixed guns: http://modelarchives.free.fr/Bestiaire/G20_P/index.html
The case of the use of Fl 282 perhaps could be checked, using the war diaries of the engaged
units, which should contain lists of aircraft and crew losses. Could be a question for the
Luftwaffe-experten forum on http://www.luftwaffe-experten.org/forums/.
Unfortunately, I'm still waiting for my activation mail (for about two weeks, I think) and it's the
second time, I've tried to register. :-\

Perhaps the thread can be renamed "early armed VTOL projects", to include helicopters, autogyros and tiltrotors of all origins.
For now, I'll throw in another paper project with a potential for use in the attack role: The Baynes Heliplane tiltrotor. If built for the attack role, it would have preceded the proposed LHX BAT by about 40 years.

Wurger said:

When it comes to german helicopters, Steve Coates is the man. His excellent book "Helicopters of the Third Reich" does mention a Fa 223 with a single rotor driven by a BMW 801 with twin tail rotors. It was first seen at a 1943 Berlin presentation on helicopter progresses, organized by the Deutsche Akademie der Luftfahrtforschung . No more data, but a photo of the model is available. It was designated as a "high-speed helicopter".

Click to expand...

I have both copied the above commentary and transfered the replies from this thread to the existing Focke-Achgelis Fa 336 topic where they belong:
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,4695.0.html

Hi guys,

Steve Coates`s answer:

CarlosThanks for you e-mail. This is a complete fabrication. There is no documentary evidence for this statement. If they'd been that successful surely they would have continued to be used in that role. In January 1945, all Fl 282s were at Schweidnitz bar the Fl 282 V20 which was probably at Travemuende and probably not in an airworthy condition. The Fl 282s were probably used in artllery spotting trials but I'm yet to find any definitive contemporary documentary confirmation.RegardsSteve

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Wurger - Thanks for the confirmation. I suspect we're going to be correcting this fabrication online for years to come.

Jemiba - Thanks for the background discussion.

Carlos brought this thread to my attention and I'd like to make a posting to try and bring a decent degree of clarity to things. Unfortunately, for reasons that I won't profess to understand, people do on occasions post on the Internet or publish in books information which I'm not sure they can properly substantiate and I believe that is what we're dealing with here although the extent of deviation does seem excessive. When writing 'Helicopters of the Third Reich' I worked very hard to research this topic and be able to prove what I had written so that I was presenting a credible retelling of the history of the development and use of these machines. Dealing with Luftwaffe / German aircraft development history is hampered by the wartime destruction of in excess of 90% of records so holes definitely exist.

I'd be more than happy for someone to produce documentary evidence of this alleged encounter but there's no evidence of such an encounter in 2nd Tactical Air Force claims. At this stage of the War, no Luftwaffe units, operational or evaluative had any helicopters on strength. As best as can be determined all Fl 282s were back with Anton Flettner Flugzeugbau GmbH in Schweidnitz bar the V20 which was unserviceable and was almost certainly at E-Stelle Travemünde. A small number were flown westwards in mid February as a consequence of the advance of the Red Army. A couple eventally made their way with the decamped Flettner team to Bad Tölz and a couple were assigned to Transportstaffel 40 which was established in February / March 1945 in Southern Germany.

Fl 282 were involved in artillery observation trials. This much is known from a very comprehensive report written immediately after the war at the behest of the Allies by Gerhard Sissingh and Oskar Nagel: 'Monographien über Fortschritte der deutschen Luftfahrtforschung (seit 1939) Band N – Überblick über die deutsche Entwicklung und Forschung auf dem Gebiete der Drehflügelflugzeuge'. My belief would be that these trials were undertaken at the Heer's Artillerieschule II at Gross-Born as it is known from some contemporary correspondence in my possession that an Fa 223 was also trialled there for this purpose. Unfortunately, I have never come across any records for Artillerieschule II in my researches. Equally, I have never come across any reference to a helicopter being even tested for its anti-tank capabilities let alone used operationally. Indeed, an OKH document dated 10/1/1945 which I have very recently discovered concerning the proposed operational use of helicopters in support of the Heer envisages the use of two types, the Fa 223 as a load carrying helicopter and the Fl 339 as an artillery spotter. The Fl 339 was then in development and there was little realistic hope of it coming into serial production but that's another issue. The document also makes reference to the establishment of an Erprobungsstaffel, which of course was subsequently formed as Transportstaffel 40. I think it is quite telling that this document does not reference the alleged engagement.

I hope this helps to clear up this issue for now although I strongly suspect this fanciful claim will be reproduced elsewhere on the Internet. Finally, of course if you haven't read the book and you are genuinely interested in this topic, then please go out and buy the book. It will help supplement my pathetic royalties !

Welcome Steve,

having you here at this forum of ours is great! Thank you a lot for giving us your precious insight, we are always willing to debunk any "fake".
I will post what I have on german helicopter artillery spotting as soon as I get home.

Wurger (Carlos).

Not much, I`m afraid. from "German Reconnaissance Artillery", Foreign Military Studies P-023, all I can get is that the adoption of the helicopter by the rec.artillery battalion commander was planned, using the already proven light signal communication channel as fielded by observation ballons.

In the USA, Platt-LePage put together an engineering proposal for an armed attack helicopter, based in the PL-3/XR-1 lateral tandem layout in 1940, with their PL-4 helicopter design.

Along with the engineering proposal, PL-LP produced a series of renderings , showing how an armed attack helicopter could be used operationally, many years before attack helicopters existed.

Unfortunately, The Air Corps was not ready to pursue this idea in 1940, and Platt-LePage was tied up just getting the XR-1 prototype built, and into the air, which was a long story in its self...

A small excerpt of the tactics package:

CostasTT said:

What about the Soviet TsAGI/Kamov A7-3a?
Granted, it's an autogyro and not a pure helicopter, but it could be considered a pioneering aircraft.

Click to expand...

Regarding that: