Me-110 Underrated

Shortround6 said:

Part of the Zero's success was it took a while to figure out what it could not do. Once the allies figured that out the successes of the Zero started to taper off.

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Bingo! Same as with the Bf 110, Mosquito for the Germans, Fw 190 for the British and any other combat aircraft that represents a new, hitherto unknown threat.

Schweik said:

Look at that bad boy.

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Yes, really bad boy. Beau IIs had lots of nasty handling issues, a virtual death trap in an engine out situation and a real handful on the ground. Ground loops were common and incidents and accidents at OTU level were high; 255 Sqn, in conversion from Hurricanes and Defiants to the Beau II lost two COs in accidents over two days during its operational conversion onto the type, which delayed the squadron's reintroduction into service. 409 Sqn also lost its CO in an accident shortly after conversion, too.

Regarding the Bf 110 (lots of thread drift here) and the useful range of German fighters in the BoB, it is worth noting that had the Luftwaffe had Spitfires or Hurricanes instead of the Bf 109, its range issues would have still existed. Nevertheless, whatever fighters the Germans had or would have liked wouldn't have made much difference to the outcome.

The BoB wasn't lost because the Germans didn't have a long range escort fighter, it was lost because the Germans had no real clue how much or little damage they were doing, nor had they any means of interpreting their raids, which led to a misunderstanding of the strategic situation overall, which led to ill-advised decisions. Doesn't matter how good your bombers are (or their escort fighters) if they are not hitting the right targets and doing the damage desired to achieve the required air superiority, something the Luftwaffe never did over Britain.

Schweik said:

... but something like a Beaufighter would have been very helpful for the Luftwaffe in North Africa or Russia I think.

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It would have been more useful than the Bf 110?

The Bf 110 was used very effectively in the East, and to a lesser extent North Africa. It's also superior in most respects to the Beaufighter, which was a borderline death trap with generally poor performance. I would not swap my Bf 110 for an aircraft that could barely make 320 mph or 20,000 feet, thank you very much.

The main advantage of the Beau on paper is range, I show 1,700 miles. I show 530 miles for the Bf 110.

Whatever the difficulties in learning how to fly the beaufighter, which does not seem to be a major rarity in higher performance aircraft especialty early in the war, the bullfighter also seems to have had a good combat record right up to the end.and I'm talkin about looking at claims versus losses for example in shores Mediterranean air war series and records from the Pacific.

I don't know what its advantage was in combat but beaufighters seem to have done pretty well against BF 110 in the Med.

I gather with drop tanks range for the 110 got a lot better, so a detailed comparison / breakdown between the two types, especially over time, is welcome if anybody wants to make the effort.

Schweik said:

I gather with drop tanks range for the 110 got a lot better, so a detailed comparison / breakdown between the two types, especially over time, is welcome if anybody wants to make the effort.

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This is a major problem comparing the 110 and Beaufighter or indeed trying to assess the twin engine strategic fighter in general.
The Bf 110 pre-dates the Beaufighter by several years, especially in the planning stages.
The 110 was planned around 1000hp engines but do to shortages intitial production had 700hp engines to the extent that in Poland about 25% of the 110s employed there had the lower powered engines.
The Beaufighter came out of the gate with engines just under 1400hp. A level of power the 110 would not see until 1941 when most production got the DB601F engines.
The Beaufighter was estimated to do 360mph when ordered. Prototype did 330 and first service aircraft did 323mph (AI radar aerials?). Night Blitz Beaufighters go into service with a gross weight of around 20,000lbs.
First Beaufighters don't go to the Med until April/May of 1941. The RAF being rather desperate to replace the Blenheim fighters that have been doing the long range over water escort job/s.
The 110 gets DB 605 engines (1475hp) in the summer of 1942 with the "G" series.
The Merlin powered Beaufighters were built to cover an anticipated shortage of Hercules engines. The Reason for the rather kludgy installation is that is a power egg. Also used on some bombers. This was not an attempt to improve performance.

This is a bit scattered (or more than a bit) but shows that trying to compare the 110 and the Beaufighter has a lot of difficulties with timing and intended missions and actual missions/opposition.

Schweik said:

This invites a very crude comparison. If you combine internal and external fuel for the basic / fighter sweep ranges,

P-38 755 gallons / 795 miles (1.05 miles per gallon)
P-47 700 gallons / 690 miles (1.01 miles per gallon)

... it looks like the P-38 was a bit more fuel efficient. That makes sense to me because in spite of having a greater wingspan and being a bit larger, I think the P-38 is more streamlined and probably less draggy. At any rate I think this implies that fighters consumed fuel at different rates, not that it should be a surprise.

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I can understand why this seems logical but I believe the true reason for the better fuel economy of the P-38 was different fuel management techniques and not aerodynamics. Every drag coefficient figure that I've seen for the two aircraft tend to slightly favor the P-47.

DarrenW said:

I can understand why this seems logical but I believe the true reason for the better fuel economy of the P-38 was mostly due to better fuel management techniques and not aerodynamics. Every drag coefficient figure that I've seen for the two aircraft tend to slightly favor the P-47.

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Who knows? They are actually pretty close, and both had a lot of drag. I'd be willing to bet the disparities are a lot wider with most of the other smaller fighters.

Schweik said:

I gather with drop tanks range for the 110 got a lot better, so a detailed comparison / breakdown between the two types, especially over time, is welcome if anybody wants to make the effort.

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It got two drop tanks, 198 litres each, so about an extra 100 US gallons. Hess managed a one way flight of about 1,800Km/1,100miles in 1941, flying from Augsburg in a dog leg over the North Sea to Scotland, flying right across Scotland before doubling back and finally abandoning his Bf 110 over Eaglesham Moor.

The Bf 110 cruised (at 3,900m/13,000') not much slower that the Beaufighter's maximum speed!

Shortround6 said:

This is a major problem comparing the 110 and Beaufighter or indeed trying to assess the twin engine strategic fighter in general.
The Bf 110 pre-dates the Beaufighter by several years, especially in the planning stages.
The 110 was planned around 1000hp engines but do to shortages intitial production had 700hp engines to the extent that in Poland about 25% of the 110s employed there had the lower powered engines.
The Beaufighter came out of the gate with engines just under 1400hp. A level of power the 110 would not see until 1941 when most production got the DB601F engines.
The Beaufighter was estimated to do 360mph when ordered. Prototype did 330 and first service aircraft did 323mph (AI radar aerials?). Night Blitz Beaufighters go into service with a gross weight of around 20,000lbs.
First Beaufighters don't go to the Med until April/May of 1941. The RAF being rather desperate to replace the Blenheim fighters that have been doing the long range over water escort job/s.
The 110 gets DB 605 engines (1475hp) in the summer of 1942 with the "G" series.
The Merlin powered Beaufighters were built to cover an anticipated shortage of Hercules engines. The Reason for the rather kludgy installation is that is a power egg. Also used on some bombers. This was not an attempt to improve performance.

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Choosing a yardstick to measure combat aircraft by can always be a challenge, but giving them credit for how early or late their design was seems a bit less interesting to me.

My understanding is that Beaufighters were introduced (combat trials) in 1940.

What would be interesting between Beaufighter and 110 (to me) would be to compare speed at different altitudes.

WW2 Aircraft Performance has some data on the Beaufighter VI and TF X, unfortunately no earlier ones.

Beau VI shows 312 mph at 4,000 ft, 327 mph at 10,000 ft, and 330 mph at 20,000 ft. That isn't bad, particularly for the lower altitude.
Beau T.F.X (Torpedo version?) is less impressive at 286 mph at 4,000 ft, 303 mph at 8,000 and at 9,200 which appears to be the ceiling

According to this chart I see Bf 110C at 292 mph at 1,200 meters, 304 mph at 3,000 meters 326 mph at 4,000 meters.
According to this chart, Bf 110G-2 (which I think is one of the bigger engine variants) shows 267 mph at Sea Level, 292 mph at 2,000 meters - 4,000 mtrs, reaching a peak of 316 mph at about 5,000 meters before tapering off. Am I reading this wrong? Maybe that is a night fighter or bomber destroyer?

Anyway the above to me looks like the Beaufighter is a bit faster, particularly down low.

This is a bit scattered (or more than a bit) but shows that trying to compare the 110 and the Beaufighter has a lot of difficulties with timing and intended missions and actual missions/opposition.

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Well one way to compare them that I would consider valid is that they fought against each other routinely in the Med. If I have time I'll dig up some specific examples of that since the nature of these encounters apparently aren't general knowledge.

I definitely agree that the P-38 was extremely clean for a twin-engine aircraft. Because of the larger wing it's induced drag was higher than the P-47, but the slim twin-boom design and V-line engines limited overall fuselage drag which kept overall drag similar to single-engine radial fighters of the day like the F4U, F6F, and P-47.

DarrenW said:

I can understand why this seems logical but I believe the true reason for the better fuel economy of the P-38 was different fuel management techniques and not aerodynamics. Every drag coefficient figure that I've seen for the two aircraft tend to slightly favor the P-47.

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My quick investigation is similar: the P-47 has a lower zero-lift drag coefficient than the P-38. That the P-38 has a greater Cd0 isn't surprising: it's got a lot of wetted area, with the two engine nacelles and the pilot pod. I suspect (hope!) that its designers chose this configuration because of the volume required for the turbochargers. With a more compact engine, e.g., a two-stage Merlin, a configuration more like the Hornet's would be superior.

Full disclosure here: I'm not a big fan of the P-38, mostly because there were far too many omissions in detail design and flight testing, leading to problems in service which should never have happened. The low critical Mach number may be excusable, but pilots getting frostbite wasn't.

Shortround6 said:

Please make sure you are comparing like to like. especially combat radius at that has all kinds of conditions.
http://www.alternatewars.com/SAC/F4F-4_Wildcat_ACP_-_1_July_1943_(Tommy).pdf

range on internal fuel 860 statute miles at 161mph at 5,000ft.
combat radius on internal fuel 105 nautical miles.
Conditions for combat radius are given on page 2.

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I agree combat radius can be different depending on a bunch of specifics. As promised, I checked some sources & I get the following.

From British / RN sources
Martlet I (F4F-3?) range 870 miles here)
Martlet II (F4F-4?) range 850 miles here
Wildcat II range 795 miles here
Wildcat III range 890 miles here
Wildcat IV range 695 miles here
Wildcat VI range 595 miles here

From USN sources
F4F-3 range 880 (clean) and 1280 (overload (drop tanks?)) here
F4F-4 range 830 (clean) 1050 (one drop tank) 1275 (two drop tanks) here It also mentions combat radius as 105 / 245 / and 325 miles respectively.

Now I don't know the precise differences in the British nomenclature for F4F-3, F4F-4, FM-1, and FM-2, but it's clear there were rather dramatic differences in range for different types of Wildcat. The US Navy didn't start putting drop tanks on them until late 1942 IIRC. Not sure if / when the RN did.

I can see fro the above though that the earlier Wildcat / Martlet seems to have a better range and I do know that the F4F-3 had a better range (and was better in just about every way, except folding wings) than the F4F-4.

First Team which is a good resource gives the combat radius of the F4F-3 as "about 200 miles" and it says here that the F4F-4 had a radius of "perhaps 175 miles"
Another book says 200-250 miles, with 250 miles being the "outer radius"
I have another source which isn't online which says 275 miles.

So it looks like the range declined either marginally or substantially between the early war F4F-3 (which is what I specifically mentioned) and the somewhat unfortunate replacement the F4F-4. What constituted an operational radius depended a lot on the type of mission being intended. On a basic escort mission especially from a land base, I would argue 275 miles is pretty close to the mark. If they are expected to fly escort, then maybe intercept enemy bombers, then find a carrier in the growing darkness that has probably moved many miles from the launch position, you probably want to give them more extra fuel.

When the Hellcat arrived it had an improved range of 1,100 miles / 1,500 ('overload') flying at 200 mph and a radius of 335 -340 miles.

I was reading about the Bf 110 D1 which had the "Daschhund belly" wooden fuel tank beneath the cockpit, with an extra 238 gallons of fuel. These were used for escorting maritime convoys. Definitely improved range there but probably at a substantial cost to performance and vulnerability.

Certainly affected performance, and vulnerability.
When the dachelbauch '110's were used as escort for the He111s attacking the north east of England, in August 1940, not only were they a "handful" to fly on the long leg across the North Sea from Norway, wallowing about as the fuel,was used, they proved to be very dangerous too.
At least two were seen to violently explode when attacked by the waiting Hurricanes and Spitfires, as the fuel vapours in the huge belly tank erupted.
This has been described by the RAF pilots involved, and also by surviving '110 aircrew from that disastrous raid, including a crew who were shot down, but managed to belly land in County Durham, having already witnessed the demise of their comrades over the sea.

Airframes said:

Certainly affected performance, and vulnerability.
When the dachelbauch '110's were used as escort for the He111s attacking the north east of England, in August 1940, not only were they a "handful" to fly on the long leg across the North Sea from Norway, wallowing about as the fuel,was used, they proved to be very dangerous too.
At least two were seen to violently explode when attacked by the waiting Hurricanes and Spitfires, as the fuel vapours in the huge belly tank erupted.
This has been described by the RAF pilots involved, and also by surviving '110 aircrew from that disastrous raid, including a crew who were shot down, but managed to belly land in County Durham, having already witnessed the demise of their comrades over the sea.

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To me this kind of proves the need for a longer range Bf 110

The 'Dackelbauch' was a fairing that covered a 1,050 litre fuel tank and a 106 litre oil tank. A small fairing was riveted to the aircraft and the 'Dackelbauch' then fixed with clips I've forgotten the name of.
It obviously was not jettisonable, which did make the aircraft vulnerable.
Later a large underbelly tank was used, but never approved as it prevented bombs being carried under the fuselage. Later the two droppable wing tanks (and a fixed auxiliary oil tank towards the rear of the fuselage) were adopted.

Lifting a 'Dackelbauch' into position.



I found this on my computer, but I think it comes from Vasco and Estanislau's book on the Bf 110. John Vasco has already contributed his expertise to this thread.

I have a model of a Bf 110 with two huge wing tanks, I think it's late '42 or early '43 vintage.

Schweik said:

I have a model of a Bf 110 with two huge wing tanks, I think it's late '42 or early '43 vintage.

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Is it a model from Aroura?

I think it was an Airfix, but I don't remember, I made it a couple of years ago. Might have been Eduard or Zvezda or something. I didn't keep the box so it would be hard to figure out at this point.

Schweik said:

I have a model of a Bf 110 with two huge wing tanks, I think it's late '42 or early '43 vintage.

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I guess you mean the tanks with fins, like these.



Other options were available, as on a model I made a few years ago.

Schweik said:

Choosing a yardstick to measure combat aircraft by can always be a challenge, but giving them credit for how early or late their design was seems a bit less interesting to me.

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Part of this discussion was about if the Germans got good value from the 110 compared to the 109. The 110 first flew in May of 1936 and the Beaufighter first flew in July of 1939. Unless the men at Bristol really screwed up a 3 year newer, larger, heavier and more powerful airplane should be better at a number of roles. WIther the Beaufighter was better than the 110 is a different argument that the two 109s are better than one 110 argument though.
I would note that the reason that the RAF was using Beaufighters against Bf 110s was that the men at Messerschmidt had stuffed up the Me 210 (first flew just a few months after the Beaufighter) and the Bf 110 was forced to stay in production while Messerschmidt took one to two years to sort out the Me 210 fiasco.

Schweik said:

My understanding is that Beaufighters were introduced (combat trials) in 1940.

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They were used as night fighters in the fall of 1940. Production (but not necessarily issue to squadrons) was
End of July, 8 Beaufighters including prototypes/development aircraft.
Aug=23 Beaufighters built
Sept=15 Beaufighters built
Oct= 19 Beaufighters built
I don't have numbers for Nov and Dec but another site says 111 built by the end of the year.

Schweik said:

What would be interesting between Beaufighter and 110 (to me) would be to compare speed at different altitudes.

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and here we run into the different years, different engines and different armament and/or antennas.

Schweik said:

According to this chart, Bf 110G-2 (which I think is one of the bigger engine variants) shows 267 mph at Sea Level, 292 mph at 2,000 meters - 4,000 mtrs, reaching a peak of 316 mph at about 5,000 meters before tapering off. Am I reading this wrong? Maybe that is a night fighter or bomber destroyer?

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The 605 was the bigger engine.
I have no idea why that chart shows the speeds it does as the next item on the list has the 110G-2 doing 576kph at 6.5 km. http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/me110/Bf110G-2_data.jpg

Most people figure the 110G was a 340-350mph airplane at altitude if not encumbered by much in the way of radar aerials.

It did climb much better than the Beaufighter VI though. Reaching 6000 meters (just under 20,000ft ) several minutes faster.