Ju 88C b-6 Night Fighter

Undeniably Ju88 was one of the most versatile airframes produced and used by the Luftwaffe during WWII, affectionately known as Mädchen für Alles (The Maiden of Work). It served different roles during the conflict, most important being dive bomber, fighter bomber, attack bomber, heavy fighter and night fighter. Such broad range of operation required line assembly to work constantly from 1936 to 1945 and more than 15000 Ju88s were build in dozen of variants - more than any other twin-engine German aircraft of the period.

Junkers Flugzeug und Motorenwerke under the leadership of Dipl.-Ing. Ernst Zindel responded to a 1934 requirement from the RLM for a multi-role and heavily armed Kampfzerstörer (combat destroyer) that would be able to fly bomber, reconnaissance and ground-attack missions. Just months later though the RLM revisited its requirements which became more focused towards a Schnellbomber (fast bomber) with crew of three, which would be able to climb to 7000m in 25 minutes, fly at a maximum of 500 km/h and carry a maximum bomb load on horizontally-mounted racks of 1000 kg to a range of around 2000 km.

The first all-metal, stress-skinned prototype, the Ju 88 V1, took to the air from the Dessau works on 21 December 1936 and was followed through to 1938 by a short series comprising the V2 to the V5. The Ju 88 V1 had a compact, well-streamlined cockpit roof and a pointed nose. It was powered by Daimler-Benz DB 600 engines, installed in cowlings with circular radiators. The inverted V-12 engines were installed in front of the wing leading edge, not under the wing. From the third prototype onwards the engines were changed to Junkers Jumo 211, because the scarce Daimler-Benz engines were reserved for fighters. Due to the recent success of Ju 87 Stuka with then new technique of dive bombing it was decided that Ju 88 should also be built with dive-bombing capability. To make it happen Zindel brought in his colleague, Dipl.-Ing. Hermann Pohlmann, who had worked on the Stuka, to incorporate a dive-brake system into the Ju 88 so as to ensure the aircraft would be able to pull out safely from dives. Following modifications were introduced in next prototypes: the wings were strengthened, dive brakes were added, the fuselage was extended, the number of crewman was increased to four and many others.

The Ju 88C was originally intended as a fighter-bomber and heavy fighter by adding fixed, forward-firing guns to the nose while retaining some bomb carrying ability of the A-series bomber. The C-series had a solid metal nose, and retained the A-series style vertical tail, as well as the ventral Bola gondola under the crew compartment. This version was later used as a night fighter and this became its main role.

The first night fighter version of the Ju 88 was the C-2, based on the A-1 and armed with one 20 mm MG FF cannon and three 7.92 mm (.312 in) MG 17 machine guns placed in a new metal nose. These examples entered service in Zerstörerstaffel of KG 30 and the unit was renamed II./NJG 1 in July 1940.

The C-6b version was the C-6 Zerstörer plane equipped with FuG 202 Lichtenstein BC low-UHF band airborne intercept radar, using the complex 32-dipole Matratze antennas. The first four C-6b fighters were tested in early 1942 by NJG 1. The trials were successful and the aircraft was ordered into production. In October 1943, many C-6bs were upgraded with new radar systems. The first new radar equipment was the FuG 212 Lichtenstein C-1, followed in 1944 by the VHF-band FuG 220 Lichtenstein SN-2.