The bf110 was also a ground attacker
Me-110 Underrated
- Thread starter Zipper730
- Start date
The bf110 was also a ground attacker
If you start designing an aeroplane when the Bf 110 was shooting down bombers it will be in service in the jet age. The only thing these planes have in common is having two engines. They don't all have a single fuselage, since two are twin boom designs. The only one close is the Beaufighter, but that was development of the Beaufort torpedo bomber which was developed from the Blenheim light bomber before the Bf110 was seen at all.The Bf 110 had performed almost all those roles. Now as seen in the gun camera video, the by 110 shooting at allied bombers...do we call it an interceptor in that role or a fighter? Or it doesn't really matter what we call it
No designer would ignore the BF 110 when designing a similar twin engined aircraft
They were still on the drawing board
Just under 200 BF 110s were lost in Bob. Almost all they had available at the time. They lasted approx. 3 months escorting bombers. They shot down a good number of hurricanes for their failure, a few spitfire even who were cought off guard...not too bad being the only aircraft able to escort bombers. Not the super fighter the Germans hoped for but did carry out the mission. Nobody else had something equivalent at the time. A total of 5,000 fought throughout the war in many missions. A good ground attack and naval attack aircraft. Absolutely the highest scoring night fighter. Not too bad.
How do you put a Bf 110 on the drawing board and get a P-38 off it. Much of what governed aircraft design was not actual "aircraft design" but other issues. Engine power was constantly increasing but in 1938-40 you needed 2 engines to do many things. The P-38 was twin engine because you couldn't design an aircraft to do what was wanted with 1 engine at the time but you could a couple of years later. Radio design meant that verbal communication was very short ranged so you needed a "radio operator" actually a morse operator which obviously cannot be the pilot, two seats means 2 engines with 1938 engines. Cannon design meant that you didn't have belt fed cannon that could be put in the wings of an aircraft on the allied side until 1940-41, so cannon were put in the nose or belly of twin engine "heavy fighters". The Whirlwind was close to the Bf 110 heavy fighter concept but it first flew in 1938 so cannot possibly be a copy in any way. There is such a thing as convergent evolution, seen in biology where animals that do similar things look similar even though they not at all connected. It is the same with aircraft. Almost all twin engine d aeroplanes will look similar and will be pressed into doing similar things without having any connection.
The Hurricane was not to be replaced by the Spitfire, both were to be replaced by the Typhoon/Tornado as planned in 1938, by 1940 the Merlin was producing almost as much power as the Vulture and the Sabre engine was running into problems too The Typhoon itself had issues so the Spitfire became the fighter of choice by default. The Hurricane was produced in such numbers mainly due to the absence of any other, where no first line fighters were opposing it, it was still effective in the ground attack role, anything with 4 cannon is.
Up to 1942? So they had how many in 1940.
Who mentioned 1942 and what aircraft are you talking about?
Hurricane
At which part of 1940? At the fall of France the RAF had about 250 in front line service, despite all that had been made up to then. Its main advantage was that it was easy to make and repair. Throughout the Battle of Britain a shortage of aircraft wasn't a problem, despite all S/E aircraft losses to all causes they finished with 200 more in frontline service (Spitfires and Hurricanes).
FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
And you know this how?????
Kelly Johnson, as did Jack Northrop and Vladimir H. Pavlecka wrote extensively about the development of the P-38 and P-61 and never mentioned an influence of the Bf 110. You are grasping at straws and assuming things based on your lack of knowledge of this subject matter.
"It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt!"
Peter Gunn
Master Sergeant
I'll reply to both your posts in one, by Wikipedia, the Allies produced 786,500 a/c whilst losing to all causes as far as I can tell, ~243,600 which is the U.S, U.K. and U.S.S.R. losses combined.
Hardly over half, in fact, one might say "one third" of all production was lost.
~786,500 Allied production (per Wiki)
- ~243,600 Allied losses (per Wiki)
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~542,900
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Mustang overrated? You need to do some serious research, I suggest you contact a forum member named drgondog, he has accurate figures for what 8 FC accomplished, and it wasn't against a worn out and outnumbered LW. In fact, when electing to do so, the LW directors could mass fighters and strike at a point of his choosing in the bomber stream and overwhelm the local Mustang escort. I suggest you read some after action reports --> HERE and find out how many times P-51's (and Thunderbolts) were out numbered sometimes as high as 50+ to 8. See this particular report from Col. Goodson. And no I didn't cherry pick an encounter report, I just clicked on one of Col. Goodson's at random.
You seem a fairly genial type of guy, if you're going to make blanket statements here, have solid data to back up your claims. In fact, ask here first, wiki is hardly the A number 1 resource but there are guys here that will dazzle you with the amount of knowledge and data they not only have but are willing to share freely, even happily to fellow enthusiasts and scholars alike.
Cheers.
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It is now a well known fact that they performed the worst piece of industrial espionage and counterfeiting in engineering history. Apart from the location and orientation of the engines and materials used what do they have in common?
michael rauls
Tech Sergeant
- 1,679
- Jul 15, 2016
As to the p38 being inspired to some degree by the me110. I'm certainly no aeronautical engineer but aside from the number of engines these two aircraft seem about as different in design as you could get for two aircraft meant to fill even somewhat similar roles.
