wuzak
Captain
The Beaufighter doesn't help the Luftwaffe.
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Taking this a stage further. Remembering that the 110 was the first and arguably most important Luftwaffe night fighter for the first 18-24 months of the war. The one you should compare it against, is the often overlooked (as in here) Beaufighter.
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.
And by 1941 the Bf 110 was already doing rather poorly as I have shown from combat data from that year.
It's all very well to say what you did in the first paragraph, and that would be fine if there was a 'level playing field' with all units taking part in the Battle from exactly the same start point. But that didn't happen. Galland's III./JG 26, for example, did not reach their base on the Channel coast until late July 1940. Another, I believe a Gruppe of JG 27, arrived later. Another still, JG 77 arrived at the end of August 1940. Meanwhile III./ZG 76 were in action early in July; Erprobungsgruppe 210 started combat missions on 13th July. Bf 110s in the reconnaissance units were flying recce missions constantly (and this is a particular area that has never been fully explored).
Yes, it would be good to make a better judgement call if one had the comprehensive number of sorties flown by each type, but that is not available, not least for the reason that the KTB for Luftflotte 2 has never surfaced (the one for Luftflotte 3 has). And the varying times of arrival of 109 units at the Channel Front complicates the attempt to arrive at a totally clinical assessment of missions v. losses. All we are left with is claims against losses, and with overclaiming taking place on both sides in almose equal measure (get some copies of the 'Battle of Britain Combat Archive' series to see what I mean), claims against losses is probably the closest rider we can get for actual performance.
And what has also to be borne in mind is the nature of aerial combat. No matter how good the pilot and aircraft, if one mistake is made, that could spell the end. Witness the number of Luftwaffe 'Aces' shot down (and a lot killed) on the Russian Front after amassing an impressive total of victories. One mistake, and they are gone. Tietzen of 5./JG 51 (19 victories), down into the Channel 18th August 1940, end of. Galland & Mölders, both lucky to get back to France in damaged 109s, Mölders wounded.
You certainly have a point when you say that without the records re number of sorties then there has to be an alternative and there is an alternative and that would be the amount of time each unit was in the front line. I have no idea if that is available but it is a potentially more accurate than claims.
You are of course correct when you say that all sides overclaimed but it's a mistake to believe that all sides overclaimed to a similar degree. Units that suffer heavier losses tend to overclaim more for a number of psychological reasons. Sometimes it's the culture of the unit or the nation or more likely the propaganda (PR) of the nations.
That said your posting does bring up one point that I hadn't thought of and that is the number of units that specialised in GA and Recc tasks.
To be honest, the RLM would have been better off ditching the Me210 in favor of the Ar240 (sans dive-bombing requirement).They really needed a functional Me 210 around mid to late 1942.
You certainly have a point when you say that without the records re number of sorties then there has to be an alternative and there is an alternative and that would be the amount of time each unit was in the front line. I have no idea if that is available but it is a potentially more accurate than claims.
You are of course correct when you say that all sides overclaimed but it's a mistake to believe that all sides overclaimed to a similar degree. Units that suffer heavier losses tend to overclaim more for a number of psychological reasons. Sometimes it's the culture of the unit or the nation or more likely the propaganda (PR) of the nations.
That said your posting does bring up one point that I hadn't thought of and that is the number of units that specialised in GA and Recc tasks.
To be honest, the RLM would have been better off ditching the Me210 in favor of the Ar240 (sans dive-bombing requirement).
The 240 in service would have filled the gap between the Bf110 and the Me410.
It didn't seem to be an easy nut to crack, but I don't think 2 engined fighters were doomed to fail. The Mosquito, though in a way more of a bomber, was arguably the best night fighter of the war, and the P-38 though it took a while to iron out all the design flaws and bugs, ended up being quite a good fighter.
But the Luftwaffe really needed an effective long range fighter around 1941 or 1942 at the latest. I suspect if the Me 210 had the more conventional type wings later used on the Me 410, it could have made a difference coming out in 1942. An effective long(ish) range escort fighter would have meant much more useful raids with their fairly capable Ju 88s and later designs. As it was by 1943 they were increasingly limited to short range strikes.
I can't recall saying anything against 2-engined night fighters, where Mosquito excelled.
P-38 was quite good, if one have had enough of time to see it's bugs eradicated so it can deal with 1st line Axis fighters on level terms, and having economy big enough to sustain production and use.
'Long range fighter' term does not equal '2-engined day fighter' term. Let alone 'effective long range fighter'. Germany can have a 1-engined LR fighter if they want. Luckily, they didn't. Problem with Me 210, apart from using twice the engines, crew and fuel, and more than twice the airframe vs. Bf 109 or Fw 190, was that it was an under-performer with a wrong fuselage (wing was good).
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I thought the issue with the Me 210 was the weird back swept outer wing, and it was fixed when they put in a regular wing. All the complaints seemed to be about stability. If you had a reliable 380+ mph, high altitude and long range capable fighter in 1942 that would have been pretty helpful for the Luftwaffe I think. I mentioned it in the context of their need for a Long Range fighter simply not because I thought that required a twin engined aircraft, but because it was their best bet that I'm aware of in terms of being ready to go, unless maybe they took over the G.55 program early and somehow got it into large scale production. Was there some other candidate they could have
The Russians had mostly interceptor types though they eventually made a long range Yak 9 variant, albeit not perfect.
It just needs a 35KM stretch of water to transform all military thinking.The Soviets (including Russians) developed mostly multipurpose front line fighters capable of doing various jobs. There were some interceptors but rare and none was produced in large numbers.
Keep in mind that the twin-engined types did have a place in service, just not large quantities.The earlier RLM forgets the 2-engined day fighter idea, the better for German war effort.
Have surplus DB-601/605/603 emgines? Stick them on Fw 190s.
Early anything was lighter because it was lower powered. A Typhoon had a similar bomb load to a 1939/40 Do 17, similar weight and power but one engine and one pilot and 4 cannon. Early fighters were light and short ranged because early engines had less than 1000BHP, that's why the Bf 110 had two engines and also why the P-38 had two engines. Your whole argument is based on the Germans couldn't do what the Americans did. But it was proved in the Battle of Britain that was the case before the USA entered the war. The Do 17 was too light. The He 111 was too slow and under powered. Its best bomber was also its best long range fighter and also one of its best night fighters. The Ju88 was similar to the Mosquito, but it wasn't a strategic bomber. And although 15,000 were made how does that compare to the number of Mosquitos, Beaufighters, Lancasters Wellingtons Halifaxes and many others made only by the British, excluding those made by USA and USSR. The LW as a bomber force was at its peak BEFORE the Battle of France. It never had huge fleets of bombers to escort so why even think about an "escort fighter". The difference was the Channel and the Med. Once they were crossed even for the USA and British the important fight was close range supporting a ground advance across France Belgium and Netherlands into Germany.Excellent destruction of the straw man, but I never once claimed P-51s or any of the others were flying in 1939-41. And by 1941 the Bf 110 was already doing rather poorly as I have shown from combat data from that year. As we all know for medium ranged fighters the Allies were basically stuck with P-40s and Wildcat / Martlets until the Spit VIII arrived, unless you want to count the Fulmar but it wasn't really quite up to par.
But since you bring it up, I'll expand on the point I was making. Early fighters were mostly interceptors (short range, light, usually good to great climb rate). The "heavy fighter" was supposed to have longer range though the Bf 110 never really did as far as I know. But when they did arrive on the battlefields, the P-51 at ~ 1,600 mile range, the P-38 at ~1,300 miles, the p-47 and Corsair at ~1,000 miles, and the Hellcat at ~940 miles were all well beyond the typical range of any interceptor. They were all heavy and none were superb climbers, but they were all fast, heavily armed and had long range by WW2 standards. I am aware that actual combat ranges weren't nearly so long but just to compare like with like, the Bf 109 at ~350 miles range isn't going to be a really viable escort, and the Fw 190 was about the same.
The Germans struggled to find an aircraft for this escort role. The Bf 110 never really had great range, it was improved and yes they put huge drop tanks on them, but it never got to the point of the fighters mentioned above. The Me 210 had much better range potentially but it took too long to shake out the bugs and get a new wing, even if the Hungarians liked it right out of the gate. For more general purpose 'heavy fighters' in the sense of bomber destroyers the Bf 110 and various German night / heavy fighter types did well as long as they had interceptors to escort them, but you are back to the problem of the short endurance of the interceptors. The Germans also did alright in the long range coastal patrol role mainly with Ju 88s (1100 mile range), the Condor and some of their float planes.
The Italians mostly had the same problem the Germans did, if not quite as bad (the Re 2000 series had decent range as did the excellent Fiat G.55. Maybe the Germans should have made more of an effort to get those into production, but they were probably too late).
The Russians had mostly interceptor types though they eventually made a long range Yak 9 variant, albeit not perfect.
The Japanese of course went another way and their fighters had good (Ki-43) to superb (A6M) range, except for the Ki-61. But they weren't sufficiently well protected for sustained attrition warfare. I still think an A6M would be a more dangerous escort fighter for the Battle of Britain than a Bf 109E.
Anyway I just think it's an interesting way to think about it.