The Shrike

It is armed with a deadly combination of 13 and 20 mm guns this was Germany's best fighter of WWII. It was tough, fast, maneuverable and packed a punch with those guns. Several variants where even armed with the Mk 103 and 108 30mm gun. I would like to introduce you to the Focke-Wulfe Fw-190.



http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=95

The Fw 190 was a really good fighter. It wasn’t just designed to be fast, but also to be rugged, maneuverable and tough.
Kurt Tank, the man who designed the Fw 190, said this:
“The Messerschmitt 109 and the British Spitfire, the two fastest fighters in world at the time we began work on the Fw 190, could both be summed up as a very large engine on the front of the smallest possible airframe; in each case armament had been added almost as an afterthought. These designs, both of which admittedly proved successful, could be likened to racehorses: given the right amount of pampering and easy course, they could outrun anything. But the moment the going became tough they were liable to falter. During World War I, I served in the cavalry and in the infantry. I had seen the harsh conditions under which military equipment had to work in wartime. I felt sure that a quite different breed of fighter would also have a place in any future conflict: one that could operate from ill-prepared front-line airfields; one that could be flown and maintained by men who had received only short training; and one that could absorb a reasonable amount of battle damage and still get back. This was the background thinking behind the Focke-Wulf 190; it was not to be a racehorse but a Dienstpferd, a cavalry horse.”