FW-190 F-8 Northern Italy, 1944

General Background
In 1937 the Me-109 was an excellent aircraft but the Reich Air Ministry wanted a new advanced fighter that could out perform any future foreign designs. Kurt Tank’s Focke-Wulf Fw-190 Würger (Butcher Bird) won the design competition by using an air-cooled radial engine. When the Fw-190 entered combat in the summer of 1941 it already was Germany’s premiere piston-powered WWII fighter. Over 20,000 of all variants of the Fw-190 were built with 13,291 of these being of the 9 different “A” variants.
The Aircraft
In late 1943 all the various forms of ground-attack units were consolidated into one new ground-attack unit Schlachtgeschwader 4. The new unit consisted of I./SG 4, II. /SG 4, III./SG4. This reorganization created a single Geschwader equipped solely with Fw-190’s. After suffering losses in late 1943 I./SG 4 was transferred to Piancenza Italy to rest and re-equip with Fw-190 F-8. In February 1944 I./SG4 and II. /SG-4 were transferred to Viterbo Italy. The new Fw-190 F-8 was used to try and halt the Allied advances at Anzio and in the Cassino region. In July 1944 the entire squad was transferred to the northern USSR to help with the Defense of the Reich. It was quite common for I./SG 4 to wear desert camouflage and a spinner with a white spiral even when they weren’t in desert areas.