Me-210C vs Me-410A (1 Viewer)

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How about a Heinkel Grief produced in 1943 with four DB-605 engines instead? Shuttle Fw190A for escorts. This DB-610 business was just silly and later in 1944 you could swap the 605 for four 603.

The big change in the war climate from independent air operations to strictly army support was due to the Stalingrad debarcle and subsequent turnarounds on the Eastern Front. If that was put aside so that you still had a Luftwaffe functioning as it did in 1942 then the heavy bomber arm is the notable lacking for the Luftwaffe.

But the way I understand it was the change in the war climate reduced the effective potential of the heavy fighters used as fast bombers because only something like an Fw190 fighter-bomber could survive the battlefield. Even in a vanilla example like the pin prick raids against England it was only the Fw190 which had a decent survivability (unless the Me410 were actually following bombers home so didn't set off the interception protocols), typically say two staffeln of Luftwaffe raiders would be intercepted by at least as many RAF interceptors on point, like a mix of Typhoons, MkIX Spits and whatever experimental squadrons were handy like Griffon Spits, it seems much of the time the FW's were lucky to get away with it, I dare say extended raids by things like Me210C would find themselves suffering terrible attrition by 1944.

And that doesn't deal with the Eastern Front where typical Luftwaffe operations faced 4 to 1 odds or worse of models often equivalent to their very best types, La5FN, Yak-9 and P-39N say during 1943. I often read that following June 1943 the Luftwaffe was completely incapable of winning even local air superiority on the Eastern Front. That's gotta spell disaster for any attack model short of the current Fw190A/F models which served to largely replace the Ju87D in the newly formed schlachtgeschwader. The war climate is probably why the emphasis on the Fw190A became the development of the Fw190F and G, the fact it was better suited to carrying heavy stores for combat worthy distances than the Me109.
I'd say the RLM was interested in the Me210/410 by 1944 only as a bomber destroyer, and when the toll was taken on them by escort fighters is when they were pulled from service and production stopped.

The Me210C was really competing with the Fw190A here, and the main consideration was the climate of war and no chance of achieving any air superiority over the battlefield. The heavy fighter didn't stand a chance.

And if you changed those circumstances, then I suggest the heavy bomber program would've been a better use of surplus DB-605 engines. I think the Me210/410 was a luxury by 1943 and like the Me110 in 1941 had no real place. But given a small environment where local air superiority could be maintained, like the Me110E/F had some success tank busting with the Mk101 in Africa, the Me210C might've been a nice luxury for specialised attack and fast bomber work. Luxury I think. The Ju88 could do it well, and there were many other areas lacking.

What do you think?
 
How about a Heinkel Grief produced in 1943 with four DB-605 engines
Would performance be adequate with 4 x single DB605 engines? The historical He-277 was supposed to have 4 of the scarce DB603 engines.

Just produce the historical Ju-288C. It uses coupled DB605 engines (i.e. DB610 engine). It's my understanding that Junkers learned from Heinkel's mistakes with the He-177 program so the coupled engines should be reliable. Performance (for a WWII era bomber) is superb.

Ju-288C
WRG - Luftwaffe Resource Group - Junkers Ju 288
407mph max speed.
3,000kg bomb bay. Plus up to 2,000kg external.
1,616 mile range with max internal bomb load.
Decent defensive armament.
.....2 x 15mm MG in front remote control barbette
.....2 x 15mm MG in rear remote control barbette
.....2 x 15mm MG in dorsal barbette.
.....1 x 20mm cannon in tail.
 
Now British tried to develop a new medium bomber but Warwik was a failure. So they had to rely on US types like B-25 and B-26. And produced old Wimpys to the end .

Juha

The Warwick was actually a heavy bomber in the "Manchester" mold. While it did share some parts with the Wellington it was 8ft longer, 10ft more wing span and 166sq ft more wing area. The 45,000lb gross take off weight kind of puts it out of the medium class also.
 
Hello Maximowitz
As we say here in Finland, "one swallow doesn't bring summer". If one compare the kills achieved by Me 410 intruders to those achieved by proper night fighters, IMHO the achievements of 410s were insignificant. Also I cannot recall any real impact on BC operations achieved by 410s, that's what I meant when I wrote peanuts. And Oper. Gisela showed that Ju 88s could do exactly same if not more. Mossie intruders on the other hand had a real impact on LW night fighter operations, so that I'd call very successful operations, the early Beaufighter intruders had some successes, for ex shooting down four LW night fighter aces in one night but its general effect was limited.
Juha


Hi Juha, Helsinki eh? I've got as far as Sweden but never did the crossing from Stockholm to Helsinki much to my regret. I really must visit...hello Ryanair!

I certainly agree with you regards the "one swallow" viewpoint. However that's not really the fault of KG 2 and KG 51... the whole Fernnachtjager idea being halted by Hitler in 41, NJG 2 being sent to the med and the "territorial pissing" of Schmid and Peltz over who was in charge of what was abysmally shortsighted. It allowed Bomber Command to build up their forces virtually unmolested. I'm not one for speculation (you may have noticed) but given the right aircraft at the right time, the right tactics and an aggresive posture BC might have found it a lot more difficult to mount a methodical bombing campaign.

True enough about the Ju 88. ..but you use what you have when you have it. Peltz was never keen on the 410 anyway, but the politics and rival factions played their part too.
 
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Hello Vanir
I agree all but
Quote:" I often read that following June 1943 the Luftwaffe was completely incapable of winning even local air superiority on the Eastern Front. That's gotta spell disaster for any attack model short of the current Fw190A/F models which served to largely replace the Ju87D in the newly formed schlachtgeschwader"

I know for sure that Kampfverband Kuhlmey ( a Gruppe of Ju 87Ds, a Gruppe of Fw 190As, a Staffel of Fw 190F/Gs and a Staffel of Bf 109G-8s) could operate during Summer 44 over Karelia Isthmus using Ju 87s in massed attacks, they operated also in Baltic. Also Finnish AF could operate with Do 17Zs, Blenheims, DB-3s and Ju 88As under protection of FAF's f 109Gs without losing, meaning a total loss, a single escorted bomber to Soviet fighters over the Isthmus. Even if Soviet AFs employed at max. over 1500 a/c there.

Hello Dave
For some reason LW dumped the Ju 288.

Hello Shortrouns
Well it depends how one sees it, B-26B max loaded 35 000lb, B-25H some 36 000lb, Lancaster Mk I and Halifax Mk III, max 65 000 lb. But of course you are right if we looked the British definition of Warwick when the project was initiated.

Hello Maximowitz
At least we have good a/c and tank museums, exhibits from many different countries. But so has UK, have been there well over dozen times.

Yes, you are right in that KG 2 and 51 had to use what was available. And yes, intruder missions when their achievements reached a certain point began produce results much more significant than what was the actual material damage they produced.

Juha
 
The standard Me 410 was unsuited for night fighting, sure. But I have a late 1944 document somewhere showing where the radar equipment would go in the Me 410. It's clear that they were thinking on using the Me 410 as a night fighter. So why didn't they?
Cockpit glazing? This could easily been changed. High wing loading and long runways? Not very convincing as the Me 410 was quite often used by night as a pathfinder or as the night fighter without radar equipment. Also in 1945 the Me 262 (and Ar 234?) was considered to be succesful as a night fighter yet it must have needed an even longer runway.
I think the problem is that air crews will always have a suspicion towards new high performance aircraft. I remember pilots in Korea complaining that their jets were unsuited for ground attacks because they flew too fast. Hot rod aircraft usually have worse flying characteristics than the older generation aircraft. Only when success follows do they agree that the change was the right thing.
There is one main reason though why the Me 410 was not modified sooner. It's clearly because of the Moskito night fighter! The Germans wanted to get rid of these interim fighter types and wanted a dedicated night fighter. This were the promising Moskito and Uhu to replace the Bf 110 and Ju 88. Both were disappointing. So in hindsight the Me 210C would have been the better choice.

It's also important to think about war economics. Using less types means a bigger production of those aircraft. That goes for the Me 210C instead of the Bf 110G as there is no reason to have both types. And it goes for the Bf 109Z. Someone said the Falke would have been a better choice but this is unrealistic. Production is the most important element in a war. Russians and Americans realized this. That means you dont always have the best weapon but you have more of them. The Germans could have and should have done with fewer types. They realized this too late, only after Speer took over. They could have done with the Bf 109, Me 210C/410, He 177, Hs 129 for pretty much every combat operation (in 1943/1944)... All other types were luxury.

Kris
 
(Sorry for skewing the thread a bit, Dave)

Hello Tomo
IMHO the problem in early 109Gs was the engine, not the airframe. G airframe was more suited for multi-role jobs and it had stiffer wings, which was good in high speed manoeuvres.

Juha

Juha, sorry If you've misunderstood me. The G-2 was the plane that carried Marseille to death, but the on-board DB-605 was the guilty one.

The DB-601s carried Marseille in victories :)
 
If the Me-210C enters mass production I assume it would use factories historically employed by the Me-110 and Ju-87. That would give you quite a bit of production capacity. It also removes two obsolecent aircraft types from service.
 
I don't really understand the point of either aircraft. If you want to intercept bombers a cannon armed FW190 or ME109 could do the job, there were better planes available for light bombing roles...as a NF the Me110 was already enjoying some success whilst being replaced by the even better JU-88...

The Mosquito was the type of plane they needed and they had their own version of that concept in the Ju-88
 
I don't really understand the point of either aircraft. If you want to intercept bombers a cannon armed FW190 or ME109 could do the job, there were better planes available for light bombing roles...as a NF the Me110 was already enjoying some success whilst being replaced by the even better JU-88...

The Mosquito was the type of plane they needed and they had their own version of that concept in the Ju-88

I know and apologize I am going off point here, but Watanbe's comment about the Ju 88 touched on a question I've long had about it. I've seen performance specs published on the nightfighter Ju 88G-1 and Ju 88G-7, as well as the Ju 88C-6, but I've not seen any descriptions regarding how these actually handled and performed. For those in the know, how did the Ju 88C-6 and Ju 88G-series perform? Were they maneuverable? Did they handle well? How did their crews regard them compared to the Me 110 and He 219? How did the Ju 88G-series compare to the Mosquito nightfighters?

Thanks for reading and any input.
 
I don't have pilot reports handy, I'll look some up. For those who may not be familiar with the types you mentioned...

IV/NJG6 operated some Ju88G-7 in their lineup which is often regarded as the single best performing German nightfighter, some 50km/h faster than the He219A, with a "clean" configuration of 4 MG151 in the nose and two more MG151 in a shrage musik (belly packs or nose armament changes could be made but these would impact performance), but only a few examples of this version were ever produced due to the limited availability of its engines, a pair of Jumo 213E with MW50 (rated at 1880PS in the 8km altitude range under full boost). I can't speak about the actual service record of these a/c though, only that they're awesome on paper. More than 640km/h is the claimed top speed.

Two things are fairly likely however. The third gear of the 213E was known to be unreliable for MW50 operation (it tended to keep kicking back to a lower gear and actually losing performance), so whilst its critical altitude is very good for cruise (it'd have a very nice 8-9km normal cruise at a good 1200hp or so, say a lazy 610km/h), in actual combat you'd want to be 5-6km altitude for sustained manoeuvring. That's okay because that's typical bomber height in Europe at night, slightly lower even. At 5km the Ju88G-7 would be deadly. I think the actual top speed in service is about 625km/h clean, but I think this a/c would probably break 600km/h at 5000 metres using MW50 which is tremendous speed at that height and very effective for its job.

Next comes the He219A for performance. Critical altitude is 7-8km and that's its best performance height and so is pretty much anything under that, so it's a killer with those DB-603A or Aa motors. Plus it's very streamlined and handles extremely well. Top speed is claimed as 585km/h at the FTH but the DB603 loves the medium altitudes as well so you'll get close to maximum level speed at high altitude, down at around 5000 metres where the action is.

The Ju88G-1 with its BMW801D-2 motors is another toughy, loses some critical altitude to the previous two aircraft but again these motors are very well designed for terrific performance at around 5000 metres, so it wouldn't actually give anything away to them at this height. Top speed is 575km/h at 6000 metres, so it'll probably still do something like 570 at 5000m. That's deadly.

Everything else can barely manage 500km/h at any height with any engine fitment and makes up for this by mounting really heavy firepower, particularly banks of four MG151 or two Mk108 shrage musik so it doesn't need to attack on the climb, or even boom and zoom, it can cruise at high alt, then dive to intercept, move under the target, fire upwards on the way past (using dive speed), go to the next target and work its way through the group.
In the case of the Me110G-4 from what I've read they couldn't even match the bombers performance at the bomber's altitude at all, so had to attack from a lower altitude whatever happened. The way I read it was according to one nightfighter pilot, the lack of any belly defensive armament on the RAF bombers was a real bonus, but they would've had to attack from the underside anyway in his Me110, because it wasn't fast enough to attack from behind when weighted as a nightfighter. It simply couldn't catch the bombers.
 
Hello Paradox
88G was very maneuverable, read for ex Eric Brown's assessment. And even Beaumont, who nobody could accuse to have been pro-German, or any other pro but Hawker and EE, was highly impressed by the maneuverability of Ju 88G he flew in Summer 45. One can read Beaumont's assessment from a article in one Aeroplane Monthly published very early 90s or from one of his books in which we tells his impressions on the a/c he flew during Summer 45, British, German and US, not surprising he found that Tempest was the best. But as I wrote he got very positive impression on Ju 88G. I can dig out the name of the book or the number of the AM in which the article is, if you are interested in.

Hello Vanir
I doubt that that if a Bf 110G was unable to catch a bomber it would have been able maneuver some 100m under one to proper shooting position for Schräge Musik attack, which if used normal Schräge Musik attack flight path means also some climbing. But the speed margin of Bf 11G-4 with all those black boxes and antennas over Lanc or Hali flying at max cruising speed was rather narrow and so closing speed for stern attack might have been too low to some pilots liking.

Juha
 
I'm under the impression the Ju-88 series has shot down more aircraft at night then any other night fighter in history. That's good enough for me.

1943 Ju-88 production.
German aircraft production during World War II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
2,160 bombers.
706 night fighters
394 recon aircraft

1943 Germany produced more then enough Ju-88s to equip the entire night fighter force. Just build 1,000 fewer of the bomber versions. Some bomber units currently equipped with the Ju-88 would convert to either the Do-217 (medium bomber units) or Me-210C (light bomber units). There would be no Do-217 night fighters.
 
For those in the know, how did the Ju 88C-6 and Ju 88G-series perform? Were they maneuverable? Did they handle well? How did their crews regard them compared to the Me 110 and He 219? How did the Ju 88G-series compare to the Mosquito nightfighters?

Thanks for reading and any input.

Hi Paradox Guy,

I asked a similar question to Hptm. Peter Spoden of I./NJG 6 and he said he prefered the G-6 to the 110 but would have wanted the 219 given a choice. Personal tastes I guess.
 
Thanks much to all who responded to my questions on the Ju 88 nightfighter and its performance. I learned more from them than I have from books and other written sources. I appreciated the amount of detail from Vanir and Juha and also appreciated Maximowitz's recollection of Peter Spoden's preferences and Davebender's production stats. Vanir and Juha, I appreciate your offers to look up pilot reports and the name of Beaumont's books discussing the Ju 88G respectively and look forward to the information if you could.

Just one more comment...I recall reading that when Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer became the Kommodore of NJG4, he decided to keep his Bf 110G-4 instead of switching to the Ju 88G that the rest of the unit flew. I suppose this was a case of Schnaufer flying what he was familiar with.

Thanks much again!
 
Hello Paradox
The book is: Roland Beamont: Tempest over Europe. Airlife Publishing Ltd. 1994 ISBN 1 85310 452 3. Ju 88G-1, LW code 4R + UR, RAF code NF. TP190 was the plane he flew, his description on the flights are on pp. 123-8.

On Schnaufer, maybe or simply it was question of different tastes. Pilots weighted differently various flight characteristics of the planes and so ended up prefer different planes.

Juha
 
I don't really understand the point of either aircraft. If you want to intercept bombers a cannon armed FW190 or ME109 could do the job, there were better planes available for light bombing roles...as a NF the Me110 was already enjoying some success whilst being replaced by the even better JU-88...

The Mosquito was the type of plane they needed and they had their own version of that concept in the Ju-88
That post put a frown on my face ...
Ju 88 being somewhat equal to the Mosquito is a thought which is hard to digest. Germans were appaled by the British Mosquito intruder missions. Even day fighters had problems catching them. I have already made a point about the Mosquito being superior to the Ju 88 in every field but one can debate about this. The clear part is however the Mosquito night fighter. As Erich regularly points out, German night fighter crews were terrified of the Mosquito, holding on the rear gunner for self protection while a rear gunner was being given up on all but bombers.

I have seen some performance figures of the Ju 88G. Especially those of the Ju 88G-6 and -7 are impressive but honestly: when did they become operational? And in which numbers? The Ju 88C which couldnt even get to a freakin 500 kmh was the main Ju 88 night fighter until early 1944 !!! After that the Ju 88G-1 started to complement the Ju 88R. So be careful in comparing the Bf 110 with the Ju 88: the Bf 110 had to soldier on with the DB 605 while the Ju 88 started to receive more powerful engines.

To get back on the subject, the Bf 110 was to be replaced by the Ta 154 Moskito, that was to be the German Mosquito. And definitely not the Ju 88 which was more a long-distance night fighter and to be replaced by the bigger He 219. For local defence the Ta 154 was the weapon of choice. Only when it completely failed to live up to expectations - the bombing of the glue factory had nothing to do with that - did the Me 410 come into the picture again.
And that's what you have to compare with the Ju 88. The Ju 88G and Me 410 had once again a similar power output, just like the Bf 110G and Ju 88C before. But the Me 410 would lose 20 kmh which means it would still fly at 600 kmh which is 25 kmh faster than the Ju 88G. Plus, the Me 410 could fly as far as the Ju 88. And was the Ju 88 as manouevrable as the Me 410? Was the Ju 88 manouevrable, or did they mean manoeuvrable for its size??

Kris
 
In the case of the Me110G-4 from what I've read they couldn't even match the bombers performance at the bomber's altitude at all, so had to attack from a lower altitude whatever happened. The way I read it was according to one nightfighter pilot, the lack of any belly defensive armament on the RAF bombers was a real bonus, but they would've had to attack from the underside anyway in his Me110, because it wasn't fast enough to attack from behind when weighted as a nightfighter. It simply couldn't catch the bombers.
Vanir, given the very high overall quality of your posts, I am surprised by this. It doesn't seem to make any sense. Too slow, so they attack from below?? :confused:


Kris
 
Hello Civettone
according to Beamont's book when he tried a simulated ex tempore dogfight with Mosquito flown by Bob Braham, lightly loaded Ju 88G-1 was more or less equal to Braham's new Mossie at low level. So in those conditions Ju88G-1 was probably more manouvrable than Me 410.

Juha
 

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