Kurfürst
Staff Sergeant
It was planned as an interceptor, but this was the wrong choice. But technologically it was possible to produce a fighter of moderate performance, and moderate range, aka P-36, D-520, MS406, all of which possessed superior range to the 109, and were also its contemporaries.
Thing is though the 109 was almost 100 km/h faster than the MS 406, and some 50 km/h faster than the D 520. They were quite literally wiped out over France.. so perhaps on the second thought, more fuel for less performance wasn't such a good trade after all.
Thing I don't understand though. The 109 is being criticized for being a short range interceptor, which was what actually everyone was building in the 1930s in Europe. They were meant to shoot down fast monoplane bombers, which would operate alone, unescorted, as in everyone's doctrine. Technically, 1930s engine outputs did not allow for long range fighters/interceptors yet, every one of those (Bf 110, P-38, and others produced by France, Holland and Britain that were so miserable we do not even know their names today..).
I have difficulty finding out as to why the 109 is being singled out of the whole bunch, and blaming the design for something that it was never designed originally to do in the first place, like many others. It was also rather successfully modified later to cope with these new tasks with the addition of a droptank, which BTW it did far earlier in mid-1940 than any other contemporaries. It was not until 1942 the RAF fighters begun to mount drop tanks, even they certainly missed them during 1941 with the first raids on France. I am not sure when the Russians begun to use them, and I don`t think the USAAF would deserve particularly high marks for just noticing what was happening in Europe in the air 1939-1942, ie. unescorted bombers getting shred to pieces and the early P-47, conceived for the same role as the 109E, coincidentally also having very similiar range as the early 109, and no droptank, as the early 109E/Spit/Hurri/Devo520 etc. They basically started the whole evolution of attack doctrine from the beginning, instead of just studying the Wilhelshaven raid..
So I just don`t get it why to single out the 109.
What weight/performance penalties would have applied to the basic 109 airframe, if it was given the capability to fly 700-1000 miles on internal fuel, or with a drop tank. What sort of design solutions would have been needed....eg fuel in the wings, bigger tanks in the fuselage. Was the design capable of absorbing these changes (possibly lighten the armament, reduce structural strength, I dont know, I am asking the question....I dont have the answert). Or was the 109 so limited in its "stretchability" as too be not able to absorb such conceptual changes?????
The E with a droptank had 840 miles.. 1000 miles range? You are talking about the stock 109F/G/K..
Now the funny thing is this. The early Jumo 109Cs had fairly OK range with little fuel, the Emil, which I cannot quite explain, had reduced range, even though its fuel capacity was increased considerably. Yet the subsequent F and later versions, with the same fuel capacity had something like 50% greater range than the Emil... One possibility is that the Emil range figures were calculated differently, with greater combat reserves, consumption tolerance, or that the 601A was not a particularly economic engine of the series..
dragondog said:The bottom line - they had equivalent performance, local superiority over Britain and over Germany and lost both campaigns.
I do not think it holds true that they had numerical superiority in either of these campaigns. Also I do not think there can be a valid analogue between the two, despite superficial similarities.