P-51's vs. Me-109's and Fw-190's

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

No problem take your time my friend.

 

[Erich]

for II./JG 27

November 21, 1944

6./JG 27, Gerhard Borutzke KIA in Luftkampf, a/c 100 %, yellow 14

January 22, 1945

8./JG 27 Friedrich Metz belly landed his K-4 with 99 % loss near Münster, due to combat with Allied fighters. Pilot ok

 

[Erich]

III./JG 27 lost 102 K-4's

34 of these a/c there is no materials on

5 pilots MIA
13 pilots wounded
40 pilots KIA

 

[Erich]

IV./JG 27 lost 23 K-4's

8 pilots KIA
9 pilots wounded

again some of the a/c there are no details of pilots or what happened

sorry guys my arithmetic was a bit off ...........

 

[DAVIDICUS]

Erich, is that a woman in that photo on the left?

(With these "progressive" Europeans, one never knows.)

 

[Erich]

D :

if you are talking my sig it is a 109G-14 II./JG 3 pilot with his wart ~ mechanic

 

[DAVIDICUS]

The one on the left (pilot) appears to have, well, impressive childbearing hips and a rather girly smile. He does appear large for a woman but the Germans are a rather large bunch after all.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

He is not a woman just a young boy. Toward the end of the war they were putting young boys in the cockpit as well as on the battle fields.

 

[Erich]

geez D ! the pilot is sitting on the support strut and I can tell you the leather jacket with collar is not the most comfortable thing to wear especially with a belt so he looks broad. His wart is wearing a one piece coverall the same type that I use for work. ~ what does he look like 17 yrs maybe if that ?

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Probably more like 16.

 

[Erich]

III./JG 4 lost 49 K-4's but the listing in EM's authortative book on JG 4 gives at least another 15 109's but not the variant lost in spring of 45.

of the K-4's

4 MIA pilots
7 wounded pilots
13 KIA pilots

 

[lesofprimus]

Numbers are pretty bad.........

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Yeah not looking too good here.

 

[Erich]

if I may add a small handy softbound book to be had is :

Messerschmitt Bf 109K by JaPo publications. 92 pages jammed with interesting bits and profiels though those are a little subject to scruitny.

not real sure how correct this is but here goes...

III./JG 1
II./JG 2
III./JG 3
I./JG 4
III./JG 4
IV./JG 4
Stab./JG 6
II./JG 11
III./JG 26
I.-IV./JG 27
Stab./JG 51
III. and IV./JG 51
Stab./JG 52
I.-III./JG 52
II.-IV./JG 53
Stab./JG 77
I.-III./JG 77
III./EJG 1
II./KG J 6
II./KG J 27
II./KG J 55
I./NJG 11 ..... a few
I. Gr. C
II. Gr. C

all these gruppen and Staff units had K-4's on hand to some degree

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

From my understanding there were a little over 1700 Me-190K's produced during the war, with just about all of them K-4's. The K-0 was a preproduction built in small numbers, the K-1, K-2, K-3, K-6, K-8, K-10, K-12 not being produced. I have read that a small number of K-14's were delivered before the war was over. How many of the Me-109K's were lost would be an interesting thing to know.

Now for the K-14. Can any of this info below be confirmed. If it is true, she seems she could have been the ultimate high alltitude fighter with the exception of the Ta-152 ofcourse.

This version was delivered in small numbers during the last two weeks of the War in Germany, and was the final version. It was powered by 1 × Daimler-Benz DB 605L inverted-Vee with a 2-stage superchrager and with the MW 50 water-methonal power-boost system, rated at 1,700 hp (1.268 kW) at take-off and 1,350 hp (1.007 kW) at 31,400 ft (9.570 m). With this engine the Bf 109K-14 could reach the same max level speed as the Bf 109K-4, but at an altitude of 37,730 ft (11.500 m) rather than 19,685 ft (6.000 m). Armament was slightly reduced however to 1 × 30 mm MK 108 or MK 103 cannon in a moteur-canon installation, and 2 × 0.51 inch (13 mm) guns in the upper nose. http://www.xs4all.nl/~fbonne/warbirds/ww2htmls/messbf109.html

 

[Lunatic]

It was my understanding as well that such "tweaking" was commonplace.

As to that test, it was 3,600hp! The engine was a Series 57 (the engine that went into the "M" and "N" models) rated for 2,800hp at WEP.

From: http://home.att.net/~historyzone/Seversky-Republic7.html

Right out of the starting gate, the XP-47M was the horse to beat in terms of speed. The XP-47M proved to be nearly as fast as the XP-47J. 488 mph was obtained on at least one flight. The official maximum speed is 470 mph. However, over-boosting the engine could tweak another 15 to 20 mph out of the big fighter. Some may find this next tidbit hard to swallow, however, the test documents still exist.

During durability testing of the C series R-2800 by Republic, it was decided to find out at what manifold pressure and carburetor temperature caused detonation. The technicians at Republic ran the engine at extreme boost pressures that produced 3,600 hp! But wait, it gets even more amazing. They ran it at 3,600 hp for 250 hours, without any failure! This was with common 100 octane avgas. No special fuels were used. Granted, the engines were largely used up, but survived without a single component failure. Try this with Rolls Royce Merlin or Allison V-1710 and see what happens.

Actually during that test three R-2800 (C)'s were simultanously run for 250 hours without a component failure. This was a "bench test", i.e. the engine was mouted to a testing cradle on the ground. Given the 100 octane fuel used in the test, it seems that 3000+ HP should have been possible for combat using PR140 and PR150 av-gas in the field.

=S=

Lunatic

 

[Lunatic]

Plan_D:

You bet the F and G versions of the Bf 109 did represent very significant improvements over every contemporary Spitfire.

The Spit V was a good match for the F. The F may have (this is highly debatable) been a little more manuverable, the Spit had better firepower and durability (no question about this).

Both versions could achieve things the E-3 that saw action over England during the Battle of Britain couldn´t.

The same could be said of the Spit V and IX w.r.t. the Spit Ia.

The alleged story of the "critical deterioration" of the manouverability of the Bf 109, especially on the G version, does not hold water when one sees the performance of the G-6s, G-10s and G-14s that shot down both USAAF and RAF fighters in juicy quantities.

Lots of 109's got shot down too. And this is really sort of irrelevant given the differences in combat conditions and the fact that something around 90% of kills did not depend on the superiority of the victor's plane, only that it possess sufficient speed and firepower to sneak into position and destroy the target.

The Spitfire, in fact, was becoming a true pig by 1943, becoming heavier and heavier and less manouverable.

The Spit V, IX, and XIV all turned about the same radius, but the later models could do so without loosing as much altitude in the turn. So this argument is bunk. It was the late model 109's which became less manuverable with increasing weight and armor. There is no question that a 109F could turn circles around a G or K.

It appears to me there are people clinging desperately to one of the very few -if not the only one- departments where the Spitfire could "outperform" the Bf 109: turning better.

Like if turning better was the sole choice that would assure success for a fighter pilot.

Agreed. By 1944 the most important things were speed, pilot visability, volume of fire, range, and gunsight quality.

Soren has made useful and illustrative arguments on how the edge slats worked on the Bf 109 apparently to no avail.

The usefulness of the slats in late war combat is highly questionable. The slats became smaller on some of the later models and they were unlikely to deploy at typical combat speeds anyway.

Even if you were correct when affirming the Spitfire could turn better than the Bf 109, there are still many choices left for the German pilot to find its "out" and to cleanly outfly any version of the Spitfire. It is there, in all those choices where the Bf 109 is certainly ahead of the Spitfire.

Thats just opinion. It is probably almost entirely cancled out by the superior visability, especially to the rear, that the Spit pilot enjoyed over almost all models of 109.

What about just one, the fuel injected DB engines on the Bf 109 against the carbureted Merlins of the Spitfire. Who could handle negative G forces better? Easy and short response: Bf 109.

That is wrong. By 1943 the Spitfires were using the US designed/supplied Bendix carberator which had no such negative G issues. This was an issue for the early Spits in the BoB, but by 1943 it was a non-issue. The fuel injection system was slightly more responsive, but also more failure prone.

By the way, the Bf 109 E-3 fared much much better during the Battle of Britain -over enemy territory- against both the MkIs -Hurricane and Spitfire- than any version of the Spitfire did over the Channel and France from 1941 to early 1943 against the Bf 109.

That is situational. The Luftwaffe' enjoyed substantial advantages during the BoB that were not enjoyed by the RAF over the Channel. The German's were able to choose to engage or not engage over the Channel, where in the BoB the Brits always had to engage. Huge difference.

The Bf 109s and the Butcher Birds of JG 2 and JG 26 shot down Spitfires like flies during such period.

The Spitfire did not show any improvement in its performance against the Luftwaffe until the 8th´s Jugs began assemblying in England in 1943.

Again, more a matter of the combat situation as any advantages in plane peformance.

The Spit and the 109 were well matched through most of the war. The early advantage went to the 109, the late advantage to the Spit XIV. The Spit 21 outclassed all 109's.

=S=

Lunatic

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Well the P-47 later models were the aircraft to beat. I know the P-51 takes all the credit and yes it is due a lot of credit however I truely believe the P-51 was highly overated and the P-47M and N were the best allied aircraft.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

And agreed with most points of you last post.

 

[Erich]

funny I thought the title of this thread was P-51, 109's and Fw's ? am I not correct ?? so start another one on the spits, and P-47's.......actually don't !