Me 410 or Arado 240?

[Maximowitz]

If you were head of the RLM which would have you chosen and why?

 

[Burmese Bandit]

On paper the 240 appears to be better...but defects in aircraft usually turn up only after rigorous testing, and AFAIK the 240 was never tested.

 

[Thorlifter]

Tough to tell Maximowitz. The Arado was never really tested and those that were performed showed horrible handling. The Me 410, while one of my favorite looking Luftwaffe planes, only had marginal success.

 

[GrauGeist]

Tough decision, as they were close in thier specs...

I'd say I have to go with the Me410, because it was better armed and had better range speed.

Perhaps the Ta154 would fall into this same category? If it had, I would've picked that one over the Me410 or the Ar240

 

[Njaco]

I think I would have picked the Arado. The 410, while looking fierce, to me, would have too much baggage as it came from corrections to the 210. The Arado looked like it could be a winner.

 

[Denniss]

I'd prefer the Me 210 as it was originally planned before some very intelligent people at the RLM wanted to save production costs resulting in a shortened version of the Me 210 with the known masive handling problems.

Too much development effort was wasted to shorten the Me 210 to save production costs and to lengthen it again to cure the handling problems.

Without this catastrophic interference the Me 210 would have been ready in 1940 or 1941, replacing the Bf 110, and this would have been an important contribution to the Luftwaffe fleet. The Me 210 was later improved with more powerful engines and strengthened/extended wings which later resulted in the Me 410 designation.

The Arado Ar 240 suffered from similar (or worse) handling problems and a lengthened fuselage was also needed to cure these. It was probably a good decision to cancel the Ar 240 as still too much development was needed for use as a front line combat aircraft while the Me 210, especially the Me 210C, proved itself as very capable aircraft.

 

[Njaco]

Thanks Dennis, wasn't aware that the 240 suffered from the same handling problems.

 

[johnbr]

I Read that they solved them with the Ar 440.

 

[kool kitty89]

I read that many of the Ar 240's problems had been solved on the late prototypes, though they still had high wing loading and the problems directly related to this. (high stall and landing speed, low speed handling, take-off run etc) Some of these examples were used operationally as fast recon planes.

OTOH I think a further developed (single seat) Fw 187 would have been better than either. (the only real limitation was as a nightfighter, which the Ju 88 was more capable of anyway)

 

[SoD Stitch]

I think I would have picked the Arado. The 410, while looking fierce, to me, would have too much baggage as it came from corrections to the 210. The Arado looked like it could be a winner.

And don't forget the disastrous Me 310; the 410 was much better than the 310, but that's not saying much.

 

[Njaco]

ohhhhh, the 310. Hey, everybody should get a chance to do a do-over!

 

[KrazyKraut]

And don't forget the disastrous Me 310; the 410 was much better than the 310, but that's not saying much.

By everything I know the Me 310 never flew, so an evaluation is impossible. The picture you usually see on the net is that of a Me 210 (Werksnummer 179 / VN-AQ) which only received the intended long wings and had a slightly lengthened fuselage (not sure about the pressurized cabin).

Also, despite their names, Me 310 and 410 were parallel developments both trying to improve on the 210. The RLM chose the 410, most likely because it was a smaller step from the 210 and more of the tooling etc. stayed the same.