Schräge Musik

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Schräge Musik, derived from the German propaganda word for Jazz Music^{[verification needed]} (literally, "slanted"; in this context it means something like 'off-key' or 'abnormal'), was the name given to installations of upward-firing cannon mounted in night fighters by the Luftwaffe during World War II. This allowed them to approach and attack British bombers from below, where they would be outside the bomber crew's field of view. The British bombers of that time had no defensive guns in the ventral position. This sort of cannon placement would have been of little value against any American heavy bomber flown on a night mission, as both the B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator used the Sperry ball turret for ventral defense.

Prior to the introduction of Schräge Musik, night fighters were simply heavy fighters equipped with radar in the nose. This meant that the fighter had to approach the target bomber from the rear in order to get into a firing position. This presents a much smaller target area and RAF bombers were all equipped with fairly powerful rear turrets to help fend off such attacks. The main use of the turret was in fact surveillance: when a night fighter was seen approaching, the gunner would call for the bomber to execute a sharp maneuver, which was typically successful in making the bomber disappear from the fighter's radar.^{[citation needed]}

Night fighter pilots then developed a new tactic to avoid the turrets. Instead of approaching directly from the rear, they would approach about 1500 ft below the plane. They would then pull up sharply and start firing when the nose of the bomber appeared in the gunsight. As their plane slowed and the bomber passed over them, the wings were sprayed with cannon or machine gun rounds. This maneuver was effective, but quite difficult to perform. There was a significant risk of collision and if the bomb-load exploded, it could take down the night figher too. Oberleutnant Rudolf Schönert decided to experiment with upward firing guns in 1941 when a member of 4/NJG2 began trying out upward-firing installations amidst scepticism from his superiors and his fellow pilots. The first installation was made late in 1942, in a Do 17Z-10 that was also equipped with Lichtenstein radar. Apparently the tests were not terribly successful, and the idea was dropped^{[citation needed]}. Schönert nevertheless fitted his next aircraft, a Bf 110, with two 20 mm MG 151/20 cannon attached to the rear wall of the cockpit, and used them to shoot down a bomber in May 1943. That summer, he took command of the II/NJG 5 night fighter unit and received three Do 217Js for testing with his system.

Wide-scale adoption followed in late 1943, and in 1944 a third of all German nightfighters carried upward-firing guns. The Revi 16N gunsight was modified to allow the reflector to be placed above the pilot’s head, while the sight itself was further to the rear. An increasing number of these installations used the more powerful 30 mm MK 108 cannon, such as those fitted to the He 219. The installation contributed significantly to the successes of the German nightfighter force in the winter of 1943-1944; one German estimate suggested that Schräge Musik accounted for almost 80% of the British losses^{[citation needed]}. The definitive night fighter version of the Me 262, the Me 262B-2, was also designed to carry such an installation, but none were built before the end of the war.

The Japanese Army Air Force's Mitsubishi Ki-46 "Dinah" twin engined fighter was used to test the Schräge Musik armament format in its Ki-46 III-KAI version in June 1943, using a 37 mm Ho-203 long barreled cannon with 200 rounds of ammunition. It was mounted in virtually the same position in the fuselage as in the Luftwaffe fighters. Operational deployment began in October 1944, but it was not fast enough and could not reach sufficient altitude to attack the Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers that it was intended to combat^{[citation needed]}.

Similar systems were tested on day fighters as well, known as Sondergeräte and Jägerfaust. In these cases, the primary aim was to provide the fighters with a very powerful single-shot weapon, as opposed to one that allowed them to operate unseen^{[citation needed]}. An attack by a Schräge Musik equipped fighter was typically a complete surprise to the bomber crew, who would only realise that a fighter was close by when they came under fire. Had it not been for the ever-increasing standard of British anti-radar techniques^{[citation needed]} and the introduction of newer aircraft designs^{[citation needed]}, Schräge Musik would have seriously depleted RAF Bomber Command's forces.

Freeman Dyson, who was an analyst for ORS of RAF Bomber Command in World War II, has commented on the effectiveness of Schrage Musik. He states "The cause of losses ... killed novice and expert crews impartially. This result contradicted the official dogma...I blame the ORS and I blame myself in particular, for not taking this result seriously enough...If we had taken the evidence more seriously, we might have discovered Schrage Musik in time to respond with effective countermeasures."