Focke-Wulf
FW-200C-4
CONDOR
F8+AH
AvHistory - Version-4.00.164

This Condor is a  B-grade plane. Cockpits and gunstations are rudimentary implemented, fully functional, but not final state of the art. This plane uses no MOS file due to limitations of the CFS3 engine, thus you will not see bullet holes on this aircraft.

The Version 4.00.164 Flight, Damage & Weapons package was built by Gregory SARGE Pierson using the AvHistory 1% Assembly Line process.

Groundcrew Design Group's Greg Law created this outstanding visual and John (BRAVO/4) Whelan painted it as the maritime patrol craft F8+AH flown the 1st Staffel, Kampfgeschwader 40 based at Bordeaux-Merignac, Western France.



This unit carried out maritime patrols over the Atlantic in the period June-August 1940, under the operational control of Marine Gruppe West, at Lorient.

The Fw200 was developed in the late 1930's as a commercial transport for the German airline Lufthansa. The aircraft set a number of long distance flight records, and based on a Japanese request in 1938, Focke-Wulf modified the aircraft to create a maritime reconnaissance bomber. The first production model, the C-1 version, entered service with the Luftwaffe in June 1940 at Bordeaux-Merignac.



The Fw200 earned its reputation as the "Scourge of the Atlantic" with the sinking of significant numbers of Allied ships as well as coordinating attacks with the German U-Boats.

Typically, Condors flew long missions between France and Norway; a flight would take off from Bordeaux-Merignac on the French coast, loop far out into the Atlantic until well west of Ireland, and then turn north and east before landing at Trondheim-Vaernes in Norway; a fresh crew would fly a return the next day.



Though a Luftwaffe asset, the Condors functioned under the operational control of the U-boat command, locating and radioing the position of convoys to lurking submarines, and then undertaking their own attacks as well. (Occasionally, in a turnabout, U-boats would locate a convoy, report its position, and then shadow it for subsequent air and sub attacks). In one six-month period, the Condors of one maritime patrol bomber wing, Kampfgeschwader 40, assisted by some smaller He 111's, destroyed 85 ships totaling 363,000 tons.



As a rule, Condors were highly successful "ship-busters;" in one attack against a 16-ship convoy off England in February 1941, five FW 200’s singled out five merchant ships and sank all of them, thus sending fully 31% of the entire convoy to the bottom in no more than a few minutes. By cooperating (however imperfectly) with surface craft and U-boats, they added an important force-enhancing factor in Nazi sea control operations.

BEAR
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