Thank you Nikademus for those loss rates in several theaters. Along with those, we know from JoeB that the bf110 downed 78 British fighters during the Battle of France while losing 43. During this discussion only Delcyros mentioned bf 110 exchange ratios in the BoB of 340 victories for 196 loses, per Bergstrom. I take it that some are skeptical of these numbers. Are there generally accepted figures for bf110 exchange ratios during the BoB?
Also, occasional unpleasantness notwithstanding, this has been a very informative thread. Thank you all.
I think Bf 110 loss rates were higher than that, per my post quoting Ellis and Deighton. I think Me 110 losses were in the ordrer of 260 to 300, for the three months July to October. I do not think the claims for losses on FC aircraft can be so neatly split away from losses to other sources. Firstly, overclaiming by both sides was so bad that the claimed enemy losses need to be basically ignored. That forces one back to the recorded losses by each side, and so often aircraft were shot down by an unseen enemy, or due to an unklnown cause that its really meaningless and impossible to try and say this many aircraft were shot down by this particular weapon system. All we do know is that FC losses compared to JG and ZG losses were about 1.83 to 1, however into that equation must also be considered that FC aircraft were being ordered to concentrate on attacking the bombers.
I think grossly skews the statisitical sample. Britain was fighting for its life, and Dowding knew he had to hurt the bombers first, and try and deal with the Fighters as best he could. Complicating the British problem was that the British could not afford to get into a stand up fight with the Luftwaffe. This meant they had to attack with limited numbers, to reduce the risk of heavy losses to themselves
This means the battlefield in 1940 was anything but a level playing field on which to judge the relative merits of the aircraft. There were strategic imperatives that skewed the British effort, and made their task much more difficult.
The Germans began the task correctly, by allowing their fighters to operate in a free ranging capacity. Whilst this was happening, the Me 110s could play to their strengths, using speed, diving and heavy firepower to good advantage, whilst the british fighters were busy concentrating on the bombers. Similar tactics could be used by the the 109 crews.
The problem with this approach was that it left the German bombers dangerously exposed. They lacked the performance , protection and defensive armament to be so left unguarded. What the germans needed was more fighters....some to range freely and some to protect their own. There simply were too few to do both jobs. As bomber losses mounted, and servicability rates fell (which is something being hotly contested at this moment), the germans had to try and protect their bombers more directly. For the me 110 this played against its strengths, and forced it to fight more in areas where it was relatively weak....turning fights, with lots of climbs....yielding the initiative to fighters more manouverable than it.
In my opinion better ideas on the capability of the Me110 as a fighter can be found in the following year, wherer the British again met it in their sweeps of Northern Europe. Though the British still had to yield numbers (otherwise the germans would refuse to come and fight....the fighter sweeps of Northern France had to be structured so that the Germans would take the bait and rise to fight) ther were several occasions where numbers of Me 110s became involved in Day fighting. In these situations, the British fighters primary mission was to enagage the Luftwaffes fighters, with only a few fighters generally assigned to protect the bombers. The results were at least a little more on equal terms. Though usually outnumbered in the inidividual combats, at least the British fighters were now able to engage directly the German fighters as fighters themselves and not bomber destroyers. They suffered two main disadvantages. they were usually outnumbered, and their aircraft were just as range limited as the 109s were in the previous year. And crucially, in my opinion, the German pilots retained a significant experience advantage over the british.
I previously posted the exchange rates in another thread, from memeory, the exchange rates against German fighters was still not good, though it appears (but cannot be certain, given the inherent gaps that occur when attributing losses to type) the 109s were very succesful, the 110s less so, much less than during the BoB. For the record, the exchange rates against German Fighters in April were 1.68:1 whilst in June they were down to 1.44:1. Some clue as to what was happeing to the Me 110 as a Day Fighter can be seen by the numbers of Me 110s available for barbarossa. By that stage there were less than 100 available for operations in the East
