P-51 against the 109

[GregP]

Hi Steve,

I change to Me after the E-model because the Bf works was absorbed by Messerschmitt (Me) during production of the E model. As I said earlier, the MD-95 was designed and built by McDonnell-Douglas but, if you want one today, it's a Boeing 717. The designation changed because ownership of the design changed. It's the same thing to me.

I can see it isn't to you. That's OK since I'm not in charge of you and we both know what we are talking about. It's still one of my personal favorite WWII fighters. Funny, I live in the USA and my two or three favorite WWII fighters are Axis aircraft. In no particular order I like the 109, the Zero, and the Re.2005.

I had not even considered this as an historic forum, just a forum about interesting things surrounding WWII. For an historic forum, there WAY too many "what ifs" and tales from WWII participants that are unsubstantiated in any way. We don't even know they were related essentially correctly since people rarely if ever remember a tale word for word.

Maybe we could use an historic section where researched information could be posted. I'd bet anything that if we got that, there would be disagreements about the researched information, too.

From the title of this thread, P-51 versus 109, if we were to be historic, the premise would be ludicrous. From the time the Mustang showed up in the B and later models, it dominated the skies around itself in a way that had never been done before. The 109 never really challenged the P-51 on equal terms after Jan 1944. I had assumed it was largely due to Luftwaffe pilot attrition without adequate replacements coupled with dwindling numbers of fighters, dwindling fuel, and a general lack propellers as the end got closer. Many brand new 109's never turned a prop! That's what I have read for years in many books.

I see that many in here are not of that opinion and it makes me wonder what books I have missed. Alas, I don't read German.

I have always figured that, one-on-one, the pilot was much more important than the plane. That is, with a great pilot in a 109 versus an average pilot in a P-51 or vice versa, the win would go to the better pilot if starting positions were equal. They rarely if ever were equal and that sometimes helped decide the issue, too. Also, the fuel state was important.

Erich Hartmann himself once ran out of fuel in a dogfight and was "shot down." In reality, he abandoned his 109 glider and it fell in flames as a Russian shot it up on the way down ... but it counted as a victory to someone in the Red Air Force. I have never substantiated that story, but have read it in print in at least 5 places.

So, to me, the P-51 far and away contrubuted more to the outcome of the war for the Allied side than the 109 did for the Axis side. The P-51 became a major factor in the last year and a half of the war, changed the face of daylight bombing, and dominated wherever it showed up. The 109 was a great plane that did a lot for the Axis, but untimately presided over a defeated Luftwaffe, though the 109 itself was a good, solid performer right up until the end. Think what it might have done with an electric starter! In the real world, it didn't get one and the notion is a what-if.

 

[Gixxerman]

I have to agree with GregP.
Maybe some of this is partly something to do with being born into an allied country seeing history from a largely allied perspective?

Regardless, it seems self-evident to me that the P-51 was the right plane at the right time (as indeed was, almost, the P-47 just before it....and which could have gone on to be had the need arisen with bigger drop tanks).

The attrition they inflicted on the LW was simply intolerable both in the air on the ground.
Couple this with a shattered transport infrastructure stopping parts fuel from circulating and the end is not hard to see coming.
At the end of the war I have seen pics read that Germany was littered with brand new aircraft which never flew due to a lack of transport to get them where needed, pilots fuel.
Compound this with the Germans unable to adequately train pilots and the result is inevitable.

As impressive as the (just to add to the mix, I've seen it written as) 'Me (Bf) 109' was as a fighting machine I think it is clearly a full generation behind the P-51.

 

[cimmex]

There never was a lack of propellers in WWII Germany and the Bf109 didn't have an electric starter because there was no space due the fuselage cannons and ammo magazines
cimmex

 

[GregP]

For the "Me" / "Bf" argument, here is a take on a 109 site: The 109 Lair- The Online Source for Messerschmitt 109 information

As for the lack of propellers, I've read that since the early 1960's and heard it from former Luftwaffe pilots, especially from about Nov 1944 onward.

So maybe I'll look into the subject again and see what current thinking is. I'm not much on historic revision and tend to believe the documents generated at the time rather than many years later. Too much time between the event and the writing leaves a lot of room for embelishment of the facts with colored glasses. I have history wbooks written the year the American Civil War ended and their version of the war is at considerable odds with a "modern" Civil War text. I believe the texts written at the time.

But I'll look at the subject again ... you could be correct and I could have been wrong all these years. Cheers.

About the electric starters, we are currently restoring a Buchon and there is space in the cowling for a battery box ... it has an electric starter. I have NOT looked under the cowling of our 109G-10 in Arizona looking for battery space, so I'll take your word for it. Modern Me 109's usually all have a starter ... and no ammunition. So what you say makes perfect sense to me.

 

[Mike Williams]

Seems plenty of people in Germany were acting 'unacceptable'?

I'm with you tomo

 

[Mike Williams]

This snippit bears on the thread subject of P-51 vrs the 109 as well as the silly nomenclature "argument", that is without merit.

From a discussion with the Chef-Ing. der Luftwaffe in Berlin:

"Im Zusammenhang mit der Zellenfrage wird von den Herren berichtet, dass die Leistung der Zelle ausser-ordentlich schlecht und zum Teil unerhört niedrig liege. Auch hier weist DB wieder daraufhin, dass es keinen Zweck hat, den Motor dauernd in der Leistung aufzustocken, während die Zellen durch Fabrikations-ungenauigkeit etc. immer schlechter werden und damit den durch die Steigerung der Motorleistung möglichen Geschwindigkeitsgewinn wieder zunichte machen. Es wird seitens der Herren des Chef.Ing. davon berichtet, dass die gegenüberstellende Vorführung einer Mustang und einer Me 109 für Herrn Sauer geplant war, dass jedoch Herr Sauer selbst leider nicht erschienen sei. Die Gegenüberstellung der beiden Maschinen sei, was die Ausführung der Me 109 angelange geradezu niederschmetternd."​

Full report - Niederschrift Nr 6730, Daimler Benz, 24 January 1945

From: Geschwindigkeitmessungen mit 4 VDM Luftschrauben auf Me 109 K4 mit DB 605 D

I have literally thousands of pages of documents from Messerschmitt AG, Daimler-Benz, etc., etc., etc., that refer to the ME 109 as ME 109 or some such derivation. Other times BF 109 or 8-109.

Here are a couple that relate to both performance nomenclature:

I also have thousands of Encounters Reports from US fighter pilots and thousands of Combat Reports from RAF fighter pilots that refer to the Me 109 as an Me 109. They earned the right to call it anything they want, even Nazi P.O.S. for all I care.

 

[GregP]

Thanks for posting, Mike. I like your website!

I wish we had more flyable 109's with the real DB engines in them ... but they are pretty scarce these days ... unfortunately.

 

[stona]

The official designation from the RLM,who sanctioned such prefixes was still Bf.
Me was certainly used during the war,I've even seen a G-6 (IIRC) data plate marked thus. I'd weigh that against the dozens I've seen marked Bf.
There is no arbitrary cut off point. When BFW morphed into Messerschmitt sometime in 1938 (I'm not at home) the Bf prefix did not change on extant designs.The fact that some within the German aviation industry got it wrong doesn't make it right.
For me the official ministry approved nomenclature would be Bf 109 Sub type-dash number/ as in Bf 109 G-6.
Frankly,as I said before,I don't really mind what people call it
Cheers
Steve

 

[meatloaf109]

I still think my reasoning works good.

 

[meatloaf109]

I still think my reasoning works good. see post #69

 

[CobberKane]

Interesting that the USN and USAAF felt the need to ascribe code names to Japanese and (after the war) Russian aircraft, but never did the same with the Italian planes, which had names that must have been almost as difficult. Maybe they had better intelligence and just went straight to using model numbers, whereas the japanese planes were more of an unknown quantity.

 

[meatloaf109]

Naw, we figured that the Italian aircraft would be gone quicker than the Japanese. As for NATO designations, I think they just wanted to call the Mig-15 "Faggot" for propaganda reasons. Everything else just naturally had to fall into place.

 

[tyrodtom]

I'm not sure faggot meant the same in the late 40's as it does now.
I don't remember hearing it when I was young, but maybe I led a sheltered life.

I'm the son of a preacher.

But he was a Marine in WW2.

 

[GregP]

In WWII "Faggot" meant cigarette.

 

[meatloaf109]

Only to the British. Unfortunately, my uncle knew only too well the appelation of "faggot". It was well known as a slang term for a homosexual.
My Uncle Mitt served his country in Korea, earning three battle stars. He was a difficult person to know. The Chinese once infiltrated his foxhole and slit the throat of his buddy while my uncle was taking his turn asleep. Mom said that he had problems. But she was talking from a fundamentalist christian position. He never was branded as a "Fag" until after he returned home. I don't know exactly why. The army gave him an honorable discharge. I only remember him as a troubled man that eventually took his own life.
He was a very good barber, and he would sing a silly song as he cut my hair. He never molested me, and I never felt threatened by him

 

[GregP]

It wasn't only the British, it was widely accepted ... per my American Grandfather who was there and lived through it.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

We are a pretty diverse forum here. To say our forum is not a historical forum because of "what if" threads is wrong. We have plenty of threads were people discuss the actual historical aspects of aviation and WW2.

This is the internet. You are going to get people from all walks of life. Everything from young and curious to real time aviation enthusiasts and historians, pilots and mechanics. Some people are interested in the "what if" scenerios, hense why we have them on a discussion board. God forbid they want to discuss something right? All that matters is that they are learning something from it. Besides sometimes they bring out interesting discussions.

Basically if someone does not like a thread, just stay out of it. No one is forced to read something they don't care about or they find "not historical". It doesn't make this forum any less "historical" or meaningful.

 

[cimmex]

To say our forum is not a historical forum because of "what if" threads is wrong. We have plenty of threads were people discuss the actual historical aspects of aviation and WW2.

. It doesn't make this forum any less "historical" or meaningful.

That's true but they are hard to find and the thread head line does not indicate this and during the discussion the topic changed from "facts" to "what if" or contrary. IMO this makes the contend of the whole forum not very credible and I would prefer a separate "what if" section with a strict borderline to the "history" (facts) section
cimmex

 

[Tante Ju]

Can we put aside this silly Bf/Me arguement? Clearly even the Germans called them both ways... lets move on and back to the subject..

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

That's true but they are hard to find and the thread head line does not indicate this and during the discussion the topic changed from "facts" to "what if" or contrary. IMO this makes the contend of the whole forum not very credible and I would prefer a separate "what if" section with a strict borderline to the "history" (facts) section
cimmex

This is not the place to discuss that. We have a forum suggestion section. Post it there...