Me-110 Underrated

[John Vasco]

Looking forward to it. I got a lot of reading to catch up on!

If I may recommend a series of books on the Battle of Britain: Battle of Britain Combat Archive series published by Red Kite. They have just published Volume 8, and they have reached the end of August 1940. Price per volume is £20, so I suggest you get them on a 'drip' basis, one at a time. But a word of caution. If you get Volume 1, you will be drawn into Volume 2, then 3, then 4, they are so good.

And I declare an interest in them, insofar as I am a contributor with regard to the Bf 110. However, the contributors include other such names as: Dave Brocklehurst Mbe (Owner of the Battle of Britain Museum in Hawkinge), John Foreman, Niger Parker ('Luftwaffe Crash Archive' series), Mark Postlethwaite, Chris Goss, Andy Saunders, Mark Kirby, Andy Long (look out for his book on the Boulton Paul Defiant, coming soon), & Steve Vizard. Kirby & Vizard may not be known to most, but they were active in the aviation archaelogy field since the 1970s, and their knowledge and (photo) collections are incredible.

And here's a link to their website showing the series: WingLeader - Aviation Books and Collectables

 

[FLYBOYJ]

1. Who's Caiden? Would he be a certain someone who did Bf 109 books in th e1960s/70s?

And a P-38 and P-47 book as well as a few others.

 

[Graeme]

Another...

 

[SaparotRob]

I read Samurai by Saburo Sakai with Masatake Okumiya(?). (I already misspelled Caidin.) That had to be over fifty years ago. I just have always enjoyed saying Masatake Okumiya.

 

[SaparotRob]

I do plan on reading The First Team by Lunstrom. The first eight months of the PTO holds a special interest for me. Lots of Buffaloes.

 

[BiffF15]

And a P-38 and P-47 book as well as a few others.

View attachment 586316

I remember seeing that airplane at the TICO Airshow (Titusville Cocoa Beach) in the 70s. I think it was advertised as Hitlers Private Plane.

Cheers,
Biff

 

[Schweik]

Interesting thread, I enjoyed reading it.

I know Martin Caidin was something of a nut, and played a bit fast and loose with some of his aviation history, but I kinda like the guy. He was quite accomplished. And he was one of us so to speak, he loved military aircraft and WW2.

Interesting analysis of the Bf 110 but I think only looking at the Battle of Britain is rather a chronic problem in evaluating aircraft. Or more precisely, looking over the BoB very carefully, then skipping ahead to some time around 1943 or 1944 when the war is basically past the tipping point. This has been done with many aircraft types (the Stuka and Ju 88 are two others which get a kind of distorted record from this type of analysis)

I believe I saw one post in the thread looking at Bf 110 units on the Russian Front around mid-war, and they didn't do so well. I would say roughly the same thing seemed to happen in the MTO.

From what I have read about it, Bf 110 units were quite successful in early battles, notably in France, where a lot of the fighters were a bit slower and the Bf 110 was a feared strafer. Obviously they struggled and in fact got slaughtered in the BoB (which I think is quite clear despite all the heroic attempts to bend the interpretation in this thread). I believe they initially did well in Russia but toward the end of 1942 started to face faster fighters and began to take increasingly untenable casualties. They were used as a night fighter there but it wasn't as big a part of the fight on the Russian front as in the West.

In North Africa Bf 110 units were successful initially, they were the first German fighters sent to the region, and they proved very dangerous opponents for Gloster Gladiators, and seemed to do Ok against the Mk I Hurricanes. After MK II Hurricanes & Tomahawks arrived in the Theater toward the end of 1941 the Bf 110s were getting wrecked, and they had to be pulled out of daytime combat. You can see some of those battles in the thread I posted on combat outcomes, I'll try to find a link and some summaries.

After that 110 was doing maritime patrols mostly, and saw some action against Convoys, including occasionally against Fleet Air Arm planes and increasingly, tangling with Beaufighters. Some of this was quite bloody though I think overall the Beaufighter units got the better of Bf 110 units. For whatever reason, the Zerstorer / maritime patrol role seemed to be more effectively done by Ju 88Cs.

Clearly the Bf 110 eventually had a niche as a Night Fighter, but was it better in that role than a Mosquito? I don't think so. I really don't think they should have made so many. It just seemed like it was always about 20-30 mph too slow given the other inherent limitations of a twin engined fighter. I wouldn't go so far as to say they didn't fear combat with a Bf 110, I think any air combat would be potentially terrifying, but I think a lot of more experienced Allied pilots were fairly confident they could take down 110s if they saw them coming. The 110 just didn't seem to retain energy well, obviously wasn't maneuverable (poor roll etc.) and didn't seem to be able to climb above it's opponents, which were typically quite agile aircraft. That meant that unless the 110 started in a higher E state and kept it up somehow (against the odds) they were basically doomed. I believe this was true in the MTO and also Russia. The long overdue replacement, the 210, was even worse, and they didn't get that sorted out until they got the new wing. By that time there were Mustangs, Thunderbolts and late model Spitfires all over the place and they were just too vulnerable, though they did prove capable of gunning down the heavy bombers.

Could it do well as a ground attack Jabo type role? Yes to a point. Having two engines definitely does help get pilots home after a dangerous mission. But being a very large aircraft isn't ideal when facing AAA at a low level, not being super fast isn't great either, and neither is having fairly vulnerable in-line engines. I think the FW 190 was better in the ground attack role, it was faster down low, a smaller target, more agile and even more heavily armed.

All in all, I don't think the 110 was underrated, except as a night fighter and even there, it was (I would say) capable rather than superb. A lot of the success is attributable to good pilots and effective tactics.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

I remember seeing that airplane at the TICO Airshow (Titusville Cocoa Beach) in the 70s. I think it was advertised as Hitlers Private Plane.

Cheers,
Biff

Probably another Caidan "truth stretching"

 

[Glider]

Probably another Caidan "truth stretching"

I always understood that there was a converted FW 200 Condor as his official transport

 

[SaparotRob]

I always understood that there was a converted FW 200 Condor as his official transport

Yeah but that fact wouldn't sell tickets to this air show

 

[Glider]

Having once been inside a Ju52, getting Goering in would have been worth paying good money to see

 

[Schweik]

This should not be a surprise for us to find out now as the British ran into the same problems early in the "Lean into France" campaign. Flying at long range cruise speeds was finally judged to near suicidal even for Spitfires. It took a Spitfire V about 2 minutes to go from a cruise speed of just over 200mph to full speed.

German fighters, of any type, putzing along at bomber cruise speeds would be flying too slow to successfully engage attacking fighters with the amount of warning time they had.
Starting every fight in a much lower energy state than your opponents is not a good way to fight.

That is interesting, as a benchmark of straight line acceleration. But I believe in battle this is not what fighter pilots did - a Spitfire would do a wingover and dive down to pick up speed, then zoom back up to altitude. Most American pilots would do a Split S or a wingover. I don't know for sure but I believe German pilots would do the same if they were caught slow. The other part of an energy state or E of course is altitude. So it makes sense for escorting fighters which do have to stay with the bombers to fly higher, quite a bit higher, so that they can dive down to catch interceptors coming up from below. So long as someone spots the enemy in time, even a shallow dive can help enormously in picking up speed.

Historically at least some of the escorts would fly above the formation - for the German Bf 109s units in North Africa, who were operating in much smaller numbers than the BoB, it usually meant at least one Schwarm or two Rotte (4 fighters) out of a flight of 12 which would always be flying top cover. Interceptors would often be coming up from below, especially if they were relatively slow climbing planes like a Hurricane or a P-40. So some of the escorts could dive down on them even if they were flying with the bombers. The main tactical problem with 'tight escort' I believe was in not giving them the freedom to take off after the enemy planes.

It was a balance of problems - clever interceptor pilots would use lures to draw away escorts so that the bombers could be more easily attacked. This is what the 49th FG did to Zeros attacking Darwin. Aircraft which could dive pretty well could get away with this tactic to some extent - they shot down a lot of G4M's despite the Japanese raids coming in at an altitude where the US fighters could barely fly. They would attack in flights of four and draw off the Japanese escorts while diving away, and then another flight would hit the bombers. The British had learned to attack from out of the Sun and when Spitfires arrived in N/A the better Spitfire units would attack enemy formations from two directions at once, one from close to the same altitude, another one obliquely from above, from out of the Sun. A lot of this tactical chess game depends on how vulnerable the bombers are. This is where bomber defensive guns, and or performance / maneuverability comes into play. If the bombers can hold their own for a few minutes, it gives the escort fighter pilots more realistic flexibility. If the bombers are highly vulnerable the escorts can't risk getting too far away, because an enemy fighter can slip in and decimate the bomber formation in seconds.

For this reason the Germans in North Africa and the Med stuck increasingly to using Stukas, Ju 88s and even Bf 109 'Jabos' for bombers, while keeping their more vulnerable He 111's, SM. 79s and so on restricted to night time or maritime patrol duties. Interestingly I don't remember seeing Bf 110s being assigned to a lot of Jabo units ...( ?) Maybe John Vasco can correct me on that. The Ju 87s seemed to be good at evading attacks, breaking up their formations and twisting and turning with their big wings and dive brakes. They also had a trick with their engines where they would emit smoke that made it look like they had been hit. The Ju 88s were fast, pretty well armed and also maneuverable and seemed to have a fairly good survival rate as well.

 

[Schweik]

German pilots in North Africa hated flying escort missions though and complained bitterly about it.

 

[Milosh]

Diving out of the sun to attack had been around since WW1.

using Stukas, Ju 88s and even Bf 109 'Jabos' for bombers,

Sch.G.2 and SKG10 were Focke-Wulf units.

 

[Schweik]

Diving out of the sun to attack had been around since WW1.

No doubt, the future was there already, but it was not always evenly distributed DAF pilots didn't get the opportunity that often in the early days because they tended to fly patrols at quite low altitude, as low as 6,000-8,000 ft. which the German pilots considered their biggest setback. They also were not generally flying in pairs / figure four formation even though that had been worked out during the BoB or earlier.

Later when the Spitfire, P-38, and Merlin / P-40 units showed up they sometimes got the drop on German fighters while flying high cover. The best opportunity was when the Germans were escorting bombers because most of the bombers (notably Stukas) didn't fly that high.

Sch.G.2 and SKG10 were Focke-Wulf units.

Those came later, I'm talking about the early days, 1941 to mid 42. By 1944 there were many more FW units as several of the Stuka squadrons had converted to them.

 

[John Vasco]

Obviously they struggled and in fact got slaughtered in the BoB (which I think is quite clear despite all the heroic attempts to bend the interpretation in this thread).

I think you have fallen into the trap of believing all that was written decades ago concerning the performance of the Bf 110, without referencing it to the performance of the other main fighters in the BoB.
Take a look at this:

If the Bf 110 'got slaughtered' in the BoB, then it can be said that the Spitfire, Hurricane andBf 109 equally got slaughtered. All three, one might say, performed equally as badly as the Bf 110.

And whereas overclaiming comes into play, overclaiming was similar across both the Luftwaffe and Fighter Command.

The fact is, all four main fighters in the Battle of Britain hammered the hell out of their opponents. Yet the 109 is lionised as some kind of superb fighter; the Spitfire equally so. The Hurricane is seen as the workhorse that did its bit; the 110 as being poor. The 109 is never shown as a fighter that got absolutely battered in the skies of England in 1940.

Make your own mind up...

 

[Snautzer01]

Is it known how many missions per type?

 

[Glider]

As I have mentioned before these stats are meaningless without some estimate re the number of sorties each type flew and other information. For instance I believe there were roughly three times as many Me109's compared to Me110's and the 109's flew far more missions which means that the %age loss ratio of the Me110 was far worse than the Me109.

A good number of the RAF fighters were shot down by the bombers defensive fire which was far from an ineffective. Looking at these stats it would seem that the Bombers didn't shoot any fighters down.

 

[wuzak]

Clearly the Bf 110 eventually had a niche as a Night Fighter, but was it better in that role than a Mosquito?

That's not really the question, at least for the Luftwaffe.

Was it better than the Do 217 night fighter or the Ju 88 night fighter? Were there any better options?

And if it wasn't better, was it more available?

 

[wuzak]

That is interesting, as a benchmark of straight line acceleration. But I believe in battle this is not what fighter pilots did - a Spitfire would do a wingover and dive down to pick up speed, then zoom back up to altitude.

So, while they are doing that, how many bombers have they lost?