failed Me210 effect on Bf110 night fighters series?

[stona]

Many of the pilots' accounts of the Me 210 suggest that it was an aircraft that a capable and experienced pilot could handle with confidence. The problem for the Luftwaffe by this time was that many of its pilots were neither capable, nor experienced. Mounting losses and drastic cuts in the training programmes had ensured this. It was these inexperienced pilots who became casualties of the Me 210.
The Me 210 may not have been quite as bad an aircraft as its later reputation suggested. The hugely experienced test pilots at Rechlin did note handling problems, but not generally those that would kill service pilots, because, unlike the service pilots, they never got into the same sort of trouble, particularly around the stall.
However bad or unsuitable it was for service pilots (and it was certainly unsatisfactory) the resulting shambles around its on/off production schedules made a bad situation immeasurably worse, it did indeed result in a total debacle.

There is also the matter of the back up plan. The British endured some considerable problems with the development of both the engine and to a lesser extent the air frame, of the Typhoon which was supposed to replace the Spitfire. Fortunately for them the Spitfire was capable of further development, such that keeping it in production never left the RAF wanting for a competitive fighter. Indeed, later Marks of Spitfire were far superior as air superiority fighters than the Typhoon ever was or could be (it was lucky that the opportunity to establish an alternative role for the Typhoon was found).
The back up for the Me 210 was to fall back on the Bf 110 and, great aircraft though it was, it was reaching the end of any significant development by 1941. Given the additional roles that the Me 210 was expected to fulfill, this left the Bf 110 and Ju 87 to soldier on well past their sell by dates. The failure to develop other twins in the night fighter role, either for lack touted performance or for delays in development programmes didn't help either.

Cheers

Steve

 

[michaelmaltby]

".... Many of the pilots' accounts of the Me 210 suggest that it was an aircraft that a capable and experienced pilot could handle with confidence"

The Hungarian AF seemed to get good results from this machine, IIRC

 

[Shortround6]

Hungarians used the version with about an extra meter of fuselage length added in. From Wiki so................

" The Me 210C was built with DB 605 engines, as well as incorporating the changes to the airframe. The Hungarian authorities were satisfied with the Me 210C in its current state, and purchased a production license for the type, to fill the role of the Varga RMI-1 X/H, designated Me 210Ca (a = ausländisch or 'foreign') as well as for its DB 605 engines. Several airframes were also purchased, to be completed in Hungarian factories for practice while the assembly lines were set up. Production started in the Dunai Repülőgépgyár Rt. (Danubian Aircraft Plant) as the Me 210Ca with the DB 605B engine, under an agreement where the Luftwaffe got two of every three produced"

"The Luftwaffe started receiving their Hungarian-built planes in April 1943, and the Hungarians in 1944; when they entered service they were more than happy with them. Production ended in March 1944, when the factory switched over to produce the Bf 109G. By that time, a total of 267 Me 210C had been built, 108 of which had been given to the Luftwaffe. They operated mostly in Tunisia and Sardinia, and were quickly replaced by the Me 410."

"Luftwaffe operated 90 German-built Me 210A and 108 Hungarian-built Me 210 Ca-1."

Obviously summer of 1943 was waaaaay late for a satisfactory replacement for the 110 to be starting to show up.

 

[stona]

Heres a Luftwaffe veteran account I found, interesting he mentioned the nightfighter diversion of Bf110's. The Me210 sounds like a total debacle, bad plane history can be more interesting than good planes

<<<<In 1942, they moved us back to Germany—in Bavaria—and took all our planes away. They were going to be used as night fighters. And they gave us a new version of the 110, the Messerschmitt 210. It was a beautiful plane to look at,...................But there were many accidents as we were getting trained to fly the 210. The plane would just suddenly drop out of the sky. Nobody could understand what was going on. Our casualties in training were as bad as when we were in Russia. Pretty soon, the people in Germany were talking about it, because they could see what was happening to the airplanes. So they took us away, and moved us to France for more training – near Tours. The same thing happened there, and pretty soon people were talking about it over there, too. So they made us stop flying those planes...... Suddenly, the whole [training] stopped, and we got the 110s back, and they quickly they sent us back to Russia.>>>>

That account appears to come from a member of III./ZG 1 which formed Erprobungskommando 210, receiving the first 16 Me 210s in late 1941. A member of that unit, Johannes Kauffman, wrote a rather more considered and detailed account of his experiences with the Me 210 in his book 'Meine Flugberichte 1935-1945'.

" The Me 210 certainly impressed us. However, instruction could only be carried out very superficially, as suitable personnel were not available. One had to proceed cautiously in order to capture its novelties as opposed to the Bf 110, the Me 210 was faster, the bombs could be housed internally in the fuselage, climb performance was much better, the diving characteristics conformed to the demands placed on it; the weapons were more effective, and the radio and navigational equipment had been improved. Overall, the Me 210 was a more racy aircraft in which we had placed all our hopes and consequently I eagerly looked forward to the first take off. This took place on 14th November 1941 when the initial take off, conducted with extreme caution due to the predicted danger of veering off the runway, took place without any mishap. This warning of danger on take off was justified, as it needed some corrections to be made with the rudder and the engines to stay on a straightline course.The second take off went better and I remained airborne for 26 minutes to test out the new aircraft in flight. The flying characteristics were good, and better than the Bf 110. In particular the Me 210 possessed higher manoeuvrability and rapid acceleration. The approach and landing caused no problems, and in this respect it naturally differed from the Bf 110, which in no way constituted a disadvantage. We practiced bomb drops, weapons firing in the air, dives and formation flying, and soon became familiar with its peculiarities, which led to optimistic expectations.
The first problems were encountered by our younger generation pilots. As a consequence we relocated from Landsberg to Lechfeld, in order to have a longer take off and landing distance at our disposal. Unfortunately, the abundant winter snow crossed through our plans, so that we were only able to fly from Lechfeld between 13 January and 2 March 1942, and on 2 March, we relocated to Tours. The flying programme encompassed 91 flights with around 27 flying hours on the Me 210, to which came an additional 4 hours for the ferry flights from Lechfeld to Tours and from Regensburg-Obertraubling to Tours. In the overall programme of conversion, 82 airfield flights took place, plus 3 for firing practice, 3 bomb drops, 1 dive, and the two ferry flights. Coming from Regensburg, on the landing approach to Tours, I saw a most unusual picture. There were some crashed aircraft lying on the airfield which were evidently new and consisted of Me 210s. In the first moments I could not precisely identify them but upon landing, I came to hear what had happened. These crashes were due exclusively to the young, still inexperienced pilots, so that a revised decision was forced upon the aeroplane. This came relatively quickly.The Me 210 was withdrawn, and we had to revert back to the Bf 110 and go along with it to Russia in the summer offensive of 1942. The whole airfield was gripped with deep disappointment."

Kauffman was a very experienced pilot, benefiting from the superb pre-war Luftwaffe training programmes. In May he went to SKG 210, another misnomer because, as he wrote above, they were now flying the Bf 110 again.

Cheers

Steve

 

[ChrisMcD]

Hi Stona - And here are Winkle Brown's comments on both the 210 and the 410.

"The basic problems with the Me 210 were marked longitudinal instability and a tendency to spin at the slightest provocation. This combination of faults could hardly have been more restrictive on the manoeuvrability of a twin-engined fighter/dive bomber or more lethal to its crews, and so it proved to be.


[The 410] fell short of the Mosquito in most performance respects and far short of its British contemporary on the score of manoeuvrability. It was one of those aeroplanes that gave, in my view, a knife-edge feeling to its pilot; it was certainly about the last aeroplane that I would have wished upon myself if returning to base in bad weather after losing an engine!

Wings of the Luftwaffe pgs 256-6

Which rather bears out Johannes Kauffman's experiences.

One can see why the 210/410 series never replaced the 110 as a nightfighter!

 

[Denniss]

Are Brown's comments about short- or long-tail Me 210 ?
From the description it looks like he had access to a short-tail version.

 

[GregP]

And we thought only OUR leadership made stupid moves! Just goes to show that ineptitude rises to dominate and then takes over the Air Force ... everywhere! Ask any junior pilot!

They're the ones who get the least information, anyway ...

 

[parsifal]

The bad press the Me 210 received is not all that well founded, as the Hungarian experiences clearly demonstrates. But in an airspace environment increasingly dominated by single engines high performance types, like the P-51, I think the biggest problem was that the me 210 was left with no role. In defensive situations me 410s (and presumably 210s as well), tended to be torn to pieces by the fighter escorts.

It is significant that the Hungarian Me 210s operated mostly in the east, in a slightly less fighter rich environment, and was able to do fairly well there.

for whatever reason, neither the Me210 or its stablemate the Me 410 were not developed into a night fighter. I suspect because of space and possibly endurance issues. high speed for a defensive night fighter is not all that important. space to cram all the gizmos is more important, as is a stable, relatively docile airframe. The exception to this is the mosquito, which combined high performance and stability to add up to a deadly package. Perhaps the Me 210/410 was also capable of that, but the LW needed to spend more of its dwindling resources on miniaturisation of its on-board systems to derive that benefit.

 

[ChrisMcD]

Are Brown's comments about short- or long-tail Me 210 ?
From the description it looks like he had access to a short-tail version.

It is not clear from the text, I would assume that it was a long-tailed 210 - most of the early ones had probably crashed by the time 'Winkle' found one to test!

The second para is definitely about a 410. Clearly the 410 is a better aircraft than the 210 - with a good performance. But, it's handling was poor and it seems to have been a handful for inexperienced crews as Taly01 has pointed out.

It got savaged by P-51's when they caught them, and so had to be withdrawn as a day fighter and nobody ever seems to have suggested it as a night fighter.

Remember, 'Winkle' was a fan of the 110!

 

[Shortround6]

Interesting drawing of the 210/410

Note there is no difference in fuselage length?
210C?

 

[stona]

Doesn't the sub type (whether a C or not) depend on the engines? Some lengthened Me 210s, which would match the length of the Me 410 were delivered before the DB 605 A and its installations was available and so would have been As (DB 601 F) with the extra 950mm in the fuselage. The 3,400 man hour conversion didn't just extend the fuselage, various other 'improvements' were made. Most visibly, the dive brakes were moved to the outer wing, slats fitted, air intake changed, you might see the new cockpit roll bar in some photos.

Running through various German development programmes of the time is what I have seen described as a 'concept-less method'. Preparations for large scale production of novel types were put in place for aircraft ordered of the drawing board, often before even basic flight trials had been carried out. Subsequently efforts were made to add equipment, armour, armament, etc., to allow the aircraft to operate in roles which were not included in the original design requirements. Was the Me 210/410 a destroyer (with a bloody great cannon bolted on), heavy fighter, a fast bomber, a dive bomber, a ground attack aircraft, a reconnaissance aircraft, even a night fighter (the Hungarians actually used some of their unmodified aircraft in this role)? Nobody seems to have known, and it was touted in all these roles at various times in its development. sometimes the intended role was changed in days or weeks. This vagueness of concept was compounded in the case of the Me 210 by a lack of coordination between the RLM and Luftwaffe (and operational units) which to me, with the benefit of hindsight, looks at the very least to be poor management, and at worst an unprofessional shambles.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Denniss]

Some production numbers from RLM data:
151 A-1 and 4 B-1 built with short tail, further 106 A-1 built with short tail but kept at the factory for rebuild program.
148 A-1 were rebuilt from the 106 kept at the factory and rest most likely from short tail returned to fac.
Further 36 A-1 were built/assembled from fuselages stored at the factory (long/rebuilt tail).
16 C-1 were also built from stored fuselages (long/rebuilt tail)
Hungarians built nearly 400 Me 210Cs, no idea how that was split between stored and new fuselages.
Heck, Mtt built and stored so many fuselages to create ~500 Me 410As, worth ~8 months of Me 410 production.

 

[drgondog]

I'd have tried, as a minimum, larger fins and rudder, both same and counter rotating props, and a fixed ventral or dorsal fin, in no particular order. There was a fix in there somewhere. The fixed the instability in the P-51 and P-47 with a small dorsal when they went to bubble canopies. They fixed many planes during the war when things started to unravel. If the "Boffins" could go from the Manchester to the Lancaster, why could they not fix the Me 210? Doesn't make much sense to me.

Greg - I would caveat the word "fixed" and replace with "improved" with respect to Yaw instability of the Merlin/4 blade Mustang when discussing the addition of the DFF. RR/RAF first noticed the issue during early trials of the Mark X and tried two fixes. One was the DFF and the second was increasing the vert stab/rudder Chord. The latter worked better than the DFF but impaired roll rate. This was tested November/December at Duxford in 1942 and reported to NAA in February 1943. The same issue surfaced in the XP-51F and G - with three, four and five blade props. The XP-51G also had larger empennage areas but virtually same static margin as the B/D.

Only the redesign length combined with tall tail seemed to represent a significant reduction. That said the need to trim with increase/decrease in throttle continued to a lesser degree. The H required both less rudder trim as well as less right rudder when moving throttle up to METO power

 

[alejandro_]

I have a question about the Me 210 but I don't think is worth opening a topic, so I will place it here. Back in 1943 a Me 210A-2 (W.Nr.2350) was sent to Japan, where it was operated by the Testing unit of the First Tachikawa Air Army Arsenal.

Is there any information on the Japanese evaluation or pilot impressions? I cannot think of a more different type of aircraft compared to what the Japanese where used to.

 

[Glider]

What I notice from that drawing, is at night when you mainly see the silhouette of an aircraft there is next to nothing to differentiate the 410 or 210 from a Mosquito

 

[Milosh]

What I notice from that drawing, is at night when you mainly see the silhouette of an aircraft there is next to nothing to differentiate the 410 or 210 from a Mosquito

Didn't the Americans paint the tail of their Mossies red for ID purposes.

Also remember seeing some gunnery footage of a Me410, err Mossie, being shot at.

 

[Glider]

Didn't the Americans paint the tail of their Mossies red for ID purposes.

Also remember seeing some gunnery footage of a Me410, err Mossie, being shot at.

Your right in both cases but at night in silhouette you can paint them anything you like and it wouldn't make a difference. Plus in daylight the 8th Airforce had a reputation for shooting at anything in the air so it still made little difference.