Heinz Bär - Did he ever fly a Fw190 A8?

Dave - Thanks for the picture! That's the only pic of his A8 that I've seen. That's got me excited.

Luftwaffe - I should have been more clear; I'm building a Sturmbock from JG3 - Hans Weik to be exact and that's the Tamiya kit. The Eduard is a standard A8 and I have the Rammjager decal sheet coming from AeroScale. 

It's true that the conversion to an A7 isn't that bad, but if he did fly an A8 that's what I'd like to model. I'd hate to make something historically incorrect - don't get me wrong I'm not a rivet counter but using the markings from the A7 on an A8 with no historical backup isn't going to work. 

Thanks for the help all - it's really appreciated.

Mike

You are correct Mike, Sturm were refered to as RammJagers by Galland.
I was thinking of the Ramm concept of using the Me109G's and K 's in the Selbstopfer Squadrons employed by Kommando Elbe.

W

JG 1 did not operate any Sturmbock.

Sturmbock and Rammjager were both nicknames for 190's designed to be bomber killers.  These were standardized as Rüstsätze on the A-8 (R2, R8) featuring cockpit armor, armored glass on the canopy and the outboard guns MG 151's being replaced with 30 mm cannons.  The original concept originated with A-6's operated by Sturmstaffel 1 in the Spring of '44.  JG 3, JG 4 and JG 300 also went on to operate these in the Summer and Fall of '44.

As noted conversion of an A-8 to an A-7 is pretty simple process.

I looked thru about twenty five drawings I have of A-8's, and found nothing. Exactly what group did he fly with? (escapes me at this hour).

gary

The Tamiya kit is pretty good, much easier than the Eduard.
Bar was indeed flying Red 23 when he shot down his 200th, it was an A-7. I'm not sure if that was a Sturmbock or not. Sturmbocks were A6-A8 aircraft

Also, If I recall, RammJaeger and Sturmbock are two different ideaologies. Sturmbocks were up armored and gunned and only rammed as a last resort. Rammjaegers were Me109 units that were to ram the bombers in a Kamikaze type fashion.

W

Benz,

 I was unable to find many referances to him in an A-8, bute here's one

 http://wp.scn.ru/en/ww2/f/451/2/10/34

(except for this quick blurp....http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/building-questions-tutorials-guidebooks/heinz-bar-s-fw-190a-7-rot-23-a-15358.html & the model kit that you already refered to)

The ref. books I have only have his Red 13 & Red 25 A-7s. of JG-1 and his Red 13 Me-262 from EJG-2.

Appears that if he did use the -8, it was possibly as a backup/replacement to his usual mount.

Is there an obvious physical differance between the -7 & -8? (regarding that I did locate this....differences are explained about 1/4 of the way down.....http://hsfeatures.com/features04/fw190a7cw_1.htm )

Not an expert by any means, but I hope this helps.

, Dave