Me-110 Underrated

[Yiannis]

The word is lose not loose.

The Police in Ancient Greece. The term "police" used by modern states to describe the body enforcing the law and maintaining order, comes from Middle French police, in turn from Latin politia, which is the latinization of the Greek politeia standing for "citizenship, administration, civil polity".May 30, 2013

Look it up.

Yes it's lose, sorry

 

[Yiannis]

The word is lose not loose.

The Police in Ancient Greece. The term "police" used by modern states to describe the body enforcing the law and maintaining order, comes from Middle French police, in turn from Latin politia, which is the latinization of the Greek politeia standing for "citizenship, administration, civil polity".May 30, 2013

Yes it's lose, sorry my English is still better than your Greek.

 

[pbehn]

.

An imperialist monarchist power ruling over most of the planet militarily was talking about democracy and fearing a supposed lunatic who supposedly wanted to rule the world instead...it sounds like a joke. The coloured had no rights in the U.S yet the Germans were only racist. It really doesn't add up, do you see where I am coming from? Propaganda both ways. I can't get emotional about it as I am not either German or British. My impartiality may sound as hostile I understand that but my intentions are purely truthseeking. I find WWII very fascinating from a historical point of view.

Thanks, this conclusively resolves the issue of whether the Bf 110 was under rated.

 

[Yiannis]

Thanks, this conclusively resolves the issue of whether the Bf 110 was under rated.

That's exactly right. Because I don't have to like or dislike whether it was or not. It's called objectivity.

 

[fubar57]

"A favorite of Reichmarshal Göring, the Messerschmitt Bf 110 Zerstörer was a sleek twin-engine plane with a top speed of almost 350 mph, slightly faster than the single-engine Hurricane and almost as fast as the Spitfire. But after early successes in Poland, the Low Countries, and France, the Schnellbomber was woefully misused in the Battle of Britain. The extra fuel that it needed to escort bombers across the Channel made it less agile than the defending British planes, and it was required to fly more slowly to maintain support.

On August 15, 1940, the most intensive day of fighting, almost thirty Bf 110s were shot down. And of those flying across the North Sea from Norway and Denmark to participate in a surprise raid on north-eastern England, fully one-third were destroyed. The next day, eight planes were downed and on August 18, "the hardest day," when the Luftwaffe was determined to neutralize the Royal Air Force, another fifteen. That month alone, more than 120 Bf 110s were lost, a rate of attrition that could not be sustained. Weal cites a statistic that hardly seems credible: of 237 serviceable Bf 110s at the beginning of the Battle of Britain, no more than 14 remained at the end. So devastating were the losses that the plane was withdrawn from the British theater and redeployed as a night fighter, a role in which it was much more successful"

The Weal he is talking about is..." Messerschmitt Bf 110 Zerstörer Aces of World War 2 (1999) by John Weal (p. 51)

Bf 110 Zerstörer


​

 

[pbehn]

That's exactly right. Because I don't have to like or dislike whether it was or not. It's called objectivity.

If you are loose with your spelling you may lose the argument. BTW I didn't indulge in any discussion of Greek.

 

[fubar57]

This will take a while as I have to find the 110 units that served in the BoB and then go through this 65 page list of claims and I have 3 days of work left

 

[FLYBOYJ]

No hard feelings my friend. I didn't put words in your mouth. What I said was my words and yes I got off topic to prove a point. Didn't mean to hurt your feelings honestly. But you sounded like trying to profile me as something I am not or that I am trying to achieve something here. No. I just try to see things as they are and not as they are being served.

An imperialist monarchist power ruling over most of the planet militarily was talking about democracy and fearing a supposed lunatic who supposedly wanted to rule the world instead...it sounds like a joke. The coloured had no rights in the U.S yet the Germans were only racist. It really doesn't add up, do you see where I am coming from? Propaganda both ways. I can't get emotional about it as I am not either German or British. My impartiality may sound as hostile I understand that but my intentions are purely truthseeking. I find WWII very fascinating from a historical point of view.

Yiannis - your political fecal matter will not be tolerated on this form. You want to seek truth about social political matters, go to another forum. I'm only going to warn you once!

 

[Yiannis]

If you are loose with your spelling you may lose the argument. BTW I didn't indulge in any discussion of Greek.

When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser. Socrates

 

[michael rauls]

Actually more p-47 and p-51 were shot down (5,000) than the Germans had fighters left. Not to count bombers and other aircraft destroyed.

Fighters left at what date? Your mixing a continueum or total acrued number( lossed p51s and p47s) with a fixed number at a specific point in time( the number of fighters the Germans had left). We don't know the point in time your referencing and even if we did it would be a nonsequiter as the mediums used for comparison are different. Or Apples and Oranges as they say. If your saying that more allied fighters were shot fown than the Germans had left at the very end of the war well thats just a given. If the Germans had say 200 or 400 operational fighters left in March then obviously the total of allied fighter losses after a multi year war is going to exceed that regardless of equipment efacacy of either side............
Imho.

 

[Shortround6]

When finally comparing the scores by Bf 109 and Bf 110 units as mentioned above with the estimated true losses by each side for the period July-October 1940 it turns out that in approximate figures the authentic victories versus actual air battle losses where:

Spitfire 550 victories to 329 losses – a ratio of 1,7:1
Hurricane 750 victories to 603 losses – a ratio of 1,2:1
Bf 109 780 victories to 534 losses – a ratio of 1,5:1
Bf 110 340 victories to 196 losses – a ratio of 1,7:1

We seem to have a bit of confusion, assuming that these victory and losses are correct, they may include a number of other types of aircraft.

since the claim is that "approximate figures the authentic victories versus actual air battle losses"

and yet we have 1300 British victories vs 730 German losses and 1120 German victories over 932 British losses we are either still dealing with considerable over claiming or we are dealing the the British shooting down a crapload of He 111, Ju 88s, Ju 87s, Do 17 and so on, While the Germans shot lesser number of Defiants, Blenheims a few Gladiators? and some other odds and sods.
And of course no Spitfire or Hurricane was ever shot down by the defensive guns of the bombers right?


Then we seem to have some confusion as to what losses are.

From the Wiki page linked.

for the British they give total losses. for the Americans they give both total "Total losses were nearly 95,000"

and operational , "including 52,951 operational losses (38,418 in Europe and 14,533 in the Pacific)"

which leaves about 42,000 as combat losses, operational losses being from fuel exhaustion, engine failure, bad navigation, take-off and landing accidents, etc.

Such losses, while important, have little to do with how well or poorly a plane did in actual combat although they have a bearing on operational readiness, resupplu, etc.
A plane with weak landing gear (Pick on the Buffalo here to get away from the Spitfire/109 arguments) is a bit different than a plane that was run into a ditch (or collided with a parked airplane) but all are (or could be) operational losses.

When making claims, especially claims counter to popular opinion it helps to get some detailed facts/numbers and not these general overviews, which while interesting, hoave nowhere near the detail needed to prove or disprove the point/s being made.

 

[Dimlee]

I assume that "authentic victories" mean victories/kills confirmed by loss statistics of the other side.
As for the loss % share of the types other than 4 fighters mentioned, I do not see a problem there. 35% on the German side, 18% on the British.
Bergstrom's figures can be taken with the usual grain of salt, of course. But he is a professional in this field.

 

[Yiannis]

We seem to have a bit of confusion, assuming that these victory and losses are correct, they may include a number of other types of aircraft.

since the claim is that "approximate figures the authentic victories versus actual air battle losses"

and yet we have 1300 British victories vs 730 German losses and 1120 German victories over 932 British losses we are either still dealing with considerable over claiming or we are dealing the the British shooting down a crapload of He 111, Ju 88s, Ju 87s, Do 17 and so on, While the Germans shot lesser number of Defiants, Blenheims a few Gladiators? and some other odds and sods.
And of course no Spitfire or Hurricane was ever shot down by the defensive guns of the bombers right?


Then we seem to have some confusion as to what losses are.

From the Wiki page linked.

for the British they give total losses. for the Americans they give both total "Total losses were nearly 95,000"

and operational , "including 52,951 operational losses (38,418 in Europe and 14,533 in the Pacific)"

which leaves about 42,000 as combat losses, operational losses being from fuel exhaustion, engine failure, bad navigation, take-off and landing accidents, etc.

Such losses, while important, have little to do with how well or poorly a plane did in actual combat although they have a bearing on operational readiness, resupplu, etc.
A plane with weak landing gear (Pick on the Buffalo here to get away from the Spitfire/109 arguments) is a bit different than a plane that was run into a ditch (or collided with a parked airplane) but all are (or could be) operational losses.

When making claims, especially claims counter to popular opinion it helps to get some detailed facts/numbers and not these general overviews, which while interesting, hoave nowhere near the detail needed to prove or disprove the point/s being made.

Mate, you don't count right. The victories mentioned in the table regard all kills not just fighters. But looking at the fighter losses you can do the math of how many of these kills regard fighters

 

[Shortround6]

I thought I counted just fine. Or at least well enough to point out the flaw in the argument using those figures. See 3rd paragraph in original post.

The British figures describe a different situation than the German numbers. The British interceptors (of which there were more than just the Spitfires and Hurricanes) are shooting a large variety of aircraft and taking return fire from a large variety of aircraft. It is nowhere near a fighter vs fighter duel situation.

The Germans on the other hand, while they to were dealing with a large variety of aircraft but not in the numbers the British were ( 2 squadrons of Defiants for example), were a lot more fighter vs fighter, ( The British were not sending large numbers of bombers over France and the Low countries in daylight). This is reflected in the lower German total kill numbers.

Since the Situations were different, different target sets/missions, there are a lot more variables than just the types of fighter aircraft.

The 110 was also hampered by bad tactics. It took a while for many air forces to realize that you could not effectively escort if the escorting fighters were cruising at the same speed as the bombers(for good range and ease of coordination. ) as it took too long to accelerate up to combat speed once the interceptors were sighted. This all to often gave a gift of "first bounce" to the interceptors. I don't know the acceleration of the 109 and 110 of the BoB era but the later Spit V could take two minutes to go from a cruise of bit over 200mph to full speed while in level flight, In many cases a flight of interceptors could have come, done a firing pass and be gone in 2 minutes regardless of the type of escort fighter.

More details as to the actual argument would be nice as these simplified overviews don't actually shed much light on the subject.

 

[GrauGeist]

Yiannis, much like your Bf110 argument, your linguistics lack actual facts.

Polis in Greek (ancient or otherwise), literally means City or body of citizens.
The term Politics comes from Aristotle and literally means "the affairs of the body of citizens".

The term Police stems from the ancient Greek word politics, meaning "administration of citizens".

I'm glad I was able to clear that up for you, now if it was just that easy to get you to grasp the actual facts regarding the Bf110...

 

[Denniss]

Not reading through the whole thread but in short: the Bf 110 in Bob was not bad in the (free roaming) Zerstörer role but it was a terrible fail in the role as escort fighter it was pressed into by the dumb fat man.
Its speed was not bad but its acceleration was. Boom and zoom tactics was ideal for them, if a single engine fighter got onto its tail this was a major problem due to limited maneuverability and poor rear defense.
Many of thir BoB losses may originate from their use as fighter-bomber, although they often got engines with slightly more power for this role but if caught down low with no option to dive away it was game over.

 

[Yiannis]

Yiannis, much like your Bf110 argument, your linguistics lack actual facts.

Polis in Greek (ancient or otherwise), literally means City or body of citizens.
The term Politics comes from Aristotle and literally means "the affairs of the body of citizens".

The term Police stems from the ancient Greek word politics, meaning "administration of citizens".

I'm glad I was able to clear that up for you, now if it was just that easy to get you to grasp the actual facts regarding the Bf110...

Mate you don't speak Greek. What you said was like correcting between John and Johnny. You don't seem to grasp that the word Πολίτης -citizen comes from the word Πόλις City and Πολιτεία politia means the society of that city also involving ita governance therefore Πολιτική politiki- politic(s) means the governance and in Greek it is also synonumous συνώνυμo to Policy. don't try to correct me here

 

[Yiannis]

I thought I counted just fine. Or at least well enough to point out the flaw in the argument using those figures. See 3rd paragraph in original post.

The British figures describe a different situation than the German numbers. The British interceptors (of which there were more than just the Spitfires and Hurricanes) are shooting a large variety of aircraft and taking return fire from a large variety of aircraft. It is nowhere near a fighter vs fighter duel situation.

The Germans on the other hand, while they to were dealing with a large variety of aircraft but not in the numbers the British were ( 2 squadrons of Defiants for example), were a lot more fighter vs fighter, ( The British were not sending large numbers of bombers over France and the Low countries in daylight). This is reflected in the lower German total kill numbers.

Since the Situations were different, different target sets/missions, there are a lot more variables than just the types of fighter aircraft.

The 110 was also hampered by bad tactics. It took a while for many air forces to realize that you could not effectively escort if the escorting fighters were cruising at the same speed as the bombers(for good range and ease of coordination. ) as it took too long to accelerate up to combat speed once the interceptors were sighted. This all to often gave a gift of "first bounce" to the interceptors. I don't know the acceleration of the 109 and 110 of the BoB era but the later Spit V could take two minutes to go from a cruise of bit over 200mph to full speed while in level flight, In many cases a flight of interceptors could have come, done a firing pass and be gone in 2 minutes regardless of the type of escort fighter.

More details as to the actual argument would be nice as these simplified overviews don't actually shed much light on the subject.

This means that more British fighters were shot down than spitfires and hurricanes

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Mate you don't speak Greek. What you said was like correcting between John and Johnny. You don't seem to grasp that the word Πολίτης -citizen comes from the word Πόλις City and Πολιτεία politia means the society of that city also involving ita governance therefore Πολιτική politiki- politic(s) means the governance and in Greek it is also synonumous συνώνυμo to Policy. don't try to correct me here

Yiannis - this will stop now or else you're gone!

κατανοώ

 

[pbehn]

Mate you don't speak Greek. What you said was like correcting between John and Johnny. You don't seem to grasp that the word Πολίτης -citizen comes from the word Πόλις City and Πολιτεία politia means the society of that city also involving ita governance therefore Πολιτική politiki- politic(s) means the governance and in Greek it is also synonumous συνώνυμo to Policy. don't try to correct me here

Mate, you just dont get it, the topic is the Bf110 and no one cares about interpretations of ancient Greek. The word police in English has many meanings and uses and across the world many others in other languages.