Me-210A-1 article
- Thread starter Micdrow
- Start date
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razor1uk
Staff Sergeant
Thanks Micdrow 
I keep wanting to type your name Midcrow - apologies if I've done so in the past.
I keep wanting to type your name Midcrow - apologies if I've done so in the past.Good stuff. The date of the article caught my eye. It is almost exactly a year after Milch,Goering and Vorvald's initial cancellation of the Me210 and Messerschmitt's subsequent concession that the aircraft was not fit for operational service. The scramble to fix the Me 210,finally resulting in the Me 410 cost Messerschmitt AG 38,000,000 Reich Marks. There was a period,at the height of the war,when more than 4,000 Messeschmitt workers were literally standing around with nothing to do. The initial modifications,slats,fuselage extension etc cost 3,400 man hours per aircraft. The debacle even cost Willi Messerschmitt his job. After the Me210 fiasco he was only responsible for design and development.
Truly an awful aeroplane,but they did fix it.
Cheers
Steve
Truly an awful aeroplane,but they did fix it.
Cheers
Steve
razor1uk
Staff Sergeant
It was only the Germans who thought it awful, and thats mainly because they thought it'd be so much better than the 110, when it wasn't much of a jump ahead, more of a small step - the RLM really wanted the license for the Mitsubishi Ki-46 but Japan didn't give it them, possibly not wishing to risk one of its fastest recon designs being intercepted or lost to the allies outside of its own theatre.
The initial Me210 was awful. It was cancelled and only revived at great expense by Messerschmitt AG who were facing a financial catastrophe. Even in wartime business goes on. At the time of the cancellation Regensburg and Augsburg had several hundred airframes in various states of construction and parts already delivered to build them up. Willi Messerschmitt himself conceded it was not fit for operational service. He made various undeliverable promises about production of the modified version in his desperation to keep the project alive. The initial Me210 simply didn't fly very well. It would be a step back from the Bf110 as it was considered virtually un-flyable by service pilots.The revised design was much better and eventually morphed into the Me410.
Cheers
Steve
Cheers
Steve
Crimea_River
Marshal
The Hungarians seemed to tolerate the shortcomings of the 210 a lot more than the Germans.
Shortround6
Major General
I believe that some of the "modifications" the Hungarians used include lengthening the rear fuselage about 3ft. If I remember right the Hungarian 210 was more of a 410 with 605 engines than a real 210.
Maximowitz
Tech Sergeant
The true story of the 210/410 can be found in the Petrick/Mankau/Stocker book, which is probably the last word on the subject. Essentially there was very little wrong with the 210 - it was designed to be unstable with the short fuselage to increase maneuverability and experienced pilots had little trouble with it. Unfortunately by the time it came into service there were very few of those left.....
Once the fuselage had been lengthened stability was to a greater degree restored. I suggest that the Hungarian pilots were less concerned by its reputation and as a concequence had better results. Actually there's an excellent book on the Hungarian use of the type available...
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Experienced pilots who flew the Me 210 were impressed. Johannes Kaufmann of ZG 1 wrote a glowing report in 'Meine Flugberichte' about the type. Despite this at the end of the piece is the telling part.
'Coming from Regensburg on the landing approach to Tours,I saw a most unusual picture. There were some crashed aircraft lying on the airfield which were evidently new and consisted of Me 210s. I could not precisely identify them but upon landing I came to hear what had happened. These crashes were due exclusively to the young,still inexperienced pilots,so that a revised decision was forced upon the aeroplane........The Me 210 was withdrawn and we had to revert back to the Bf 110 and go along with it to Russia in the summer offensive of 1942.'
This reflected a problem the Luftwaffe had endured since 1940. Not enough experienced pilots or instructors to bring newer pilots up to scratch on the new type. Experienced pilots could handle the foibles of the Me 210 easily but the rest (and the majority) could not.
They would not have cancelled the Me 210 lightly. All sub-contractors,the plants at Augsburg and Regenburg along with three licence firms (Lutherwerke at Braunschweig,Erla at Leipzig-Mockau and Gothaer Waggonfabrik at Gotha) had been entirely converted for its production.
Shortround6 is correct about the Hungarian built Me 210s. From late 1942 they built the Me 210C which had the lengthened fuselage and slats and was equipped with the DB 605 A engine. It was the 'fixed' Me 210 on which the handling problems had been largely overcome. It was effectively the Me 410 introduced from 1943 by the luftwaffe. It proved itself an excellent 'Zestorer',bomber and reconnaissance aircraft. The Hungarians didn't have to 'tolerate' the problems of the initial production version at all.
Cheers
Steve
'Coming from Regensburg on the landing approach to Tours,I saw a most unusual picture. There were some crashed aircraft lying on the airfield which were evidently new and consisted of Me 210s. I could not precisely identify them but upon landing I came to hear what had happened. These crashes were due exclusively to the young,still inexperienced pilots,so that a revised decision was forced upon the aeroplane........The Me 210 was withdrawn and we had to revert back to the Bf 110 and go along with it to Russia in the summer offensive of 1942.'
This reflected a problem the Luftwaffe had endured since 1940. Not enough experienced pilots or instructors to bring newer pilots up to scratch on the new type. Experienced pilots could handle the foibles of the Me 210 easily but the rest (and the majority) could not.
They would not have cancelled the Me 210 lightly. All sub-contractors,the plants at Augsburg and Regenburg along with three licence firms (Lutherwerke at Braunschweig,Erla at Leipzig-Mockau and Gothaer Waggonfabrik at Gotha) had been entirely converted for its production.
Shortround6 is correct about the Hungarian built Me 210s. From late 1942 they built the Me 210C which had the lengthened fuselage and slats and was equipped with the DB 605 A engine. It was the 'fixed' Me 210 on which the handling problems had been largely overcome. It was effectively the Me 410 introduced from 1943 by the luftwaffe. It proved itself an excellent 'Zestorer',bomber and reconnaissance aircraft. The Hungarians didn't have to 'tolerate' the problems of the initial production version at all.
Cheers
Steve
davebender
1st Lieutenant
Sep 1939.
Me-210 prototype first flight with DB601 engine.
14 March 1942.
Me-210 fuselage modified to make it longer and deeper.
April 1942.
Me-210A enters production. Unfortunately the production jigs were made before the March 1942 design changes could be incorporated.
July 1942.
Leading edge slots added to Me-210 wings.
The changes of April to July 1942 fixed the Me-210. Somebody ordered the Me-210 into mass production about 5 months before the design was ready.
IMO Messerschmitt was made the scapegoat for a bad decision that was probably made by Goering or Milch. That only compounded the error. The Luftwaffe should have been operating the Me-210C during 1943 to 1945 ILO the less capable Me-110G.
Me-210 prototype first flight with DB601 engine.
14 March 1942.
Me-210 fuselage modified to make it longer and deeper.
April 1942.
Me-210A enters production. Unfortunately the production jigs were made before the March 1942 design changes could be incorporated.
July 1942.
Leading edge slots added to Me-210 wings.
The changes of April to July 1942 fixed the Me-210. Somebody ordered the Me-210 into mass production about 5 months before the design was ready.
IMO Messerschmitt was made the scapegoat for a bad decision that was probably made by Goering or Milch. That only compounded the error. The Luftwaffe should have been operating the Me-210C during 1943 to 1945 ILO the less capable Me-110G.
