Spring of 1940: importance achievements of Bf-110

tomo pauk · Jan 30, 2013

Netherlands being a small country, bordering with Germany, so the extra range of the Bf-110 not needed?

Marcel · Jan 30, 2013

tomo pauk said:
Netherlands being a small country, bordering with Germany, so the extra range of the Bf-110 not needed?

exactly and then the extra weight counts against the aircraft.

stona · Jan 30, 2013

Marcel said:
So annoying that people keep on talking about the ME110 while it should be the bf110.

You are correct,though to be pedantic it should be Bf 110. Every contemporary German document I can remember has the gap e.g Bf 110 C-6. Some websites don't like the gaps and prefer them to be omitted as it mucks up their search function.
Not everyone is very familiar with RLM nomenclature and the allies continually referred to all Messerschmitt aircraft as ME or Me. I've even seen the phonetic "emee" in a US encounter report which gives a good idea of how allied airmen referred to Messerschmitt aircraft in their day to day speach..
They would never have heard of Bayerische Flugzeugwerke or the saga of its company history!The name was changed on 11th July 1938.Even the Germans were initially unsure of the correct nomenclature.
It doesn't make it correct but it is explicable
Cheers
Steve

davebender · Jan 30, 2013

Designers of German fighter aircraft all preferred Daimler-Benz engines. There must be good reasons.

tomo pauk · Jan 30, 2013

Want to re-read the whole post?

bobbysocks · Jan 30, 2013

what role(s) did the bf-110 play in the eastern war? there you have essentually the same combination as the BoF...in that there was an absense of radar and possibly a strong spotter network. in the beginning of barbarossa the vvs took a pounding and lost thousands of ac... i would imagine that it enjoyed better success than it had recently in the west.

wiking85 · Jan 30, 2013

bobbysocks said:
what role(s) did the bf-110 play in the eastern war? there you have essentually the same combination as the BoF...in that there was an absense of radar and possibly a strong spotter network. in the beginning of barbarossa the vvs took a pounding and lost thousands of ac... i would imagine that it enjoyed better success than it had recently in the west.

Messerschmitt Bf 110 operational history - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Just 51 air worthy Bf 110s took part in the initial rounds of Operation Barbarossa, and all were from three units; ZG 26, Schnellkampfgeschwader 210 (redesignated from Erprobungsgruppe 210) and ZG 76. The Bf 110 rendered valuable support to the German Army by carrying out strike missions in the face of very heavy anti-aircraft artillery defences. A huge number of ground kills were achieved by Bf 110 pilots in the east. Some of the most successful were Leutnant Eduard Meyer, who received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 20 December 1941 for 18 aerial victories and 48 aircraft destroyed on the ground, as well as two tank kills. Oberleutnant Johannes Kiel was credited with 62 aircraft destroyed on the ground, plus nine tanks and 20 artillery pieces. He was later credited with a submarine sunk and three motor torpedo boats sunk.[40]

The number of Bf 110s on the Eastern Front declined further during and after 1942. Most units that operated the 110 did so for reconnaissance. Most machines were withdrawn to Germany for the Defense of the Reich operations.

RCAFson · Jan 30, 2013

Vincenzo said:
true so 188 are others RAF planes

I'm very skeptical that the 110 had a positive exchange rate during the BofB.

We discussed this topic here before and the info presented casts strong doubts on the 110's ability to beat the Hurricane, much less the Spitfire:
bf110 exchange ratio

To partially quote myself

I happen to own The Hardest Day and it gives a detailed breakdown for that day. Juhu provided the exchange rate for 10 july - 11 Aug:
So 6 FC fighters were lost to 110s but LW had lost 27 110s in combat.

On Aug 15 and 18, 24-25 Bf110s were lost and they downed 3 Hurricanes, for certain, but if we credit them with a couple of kills where the Luftwaffe fighter was not identified and give full, instead of partial, credit to GF, then we might get 22 Bf110 losses against 5 kills, for Aug 15 and 18. So the exchange rate for these dates runs from a probable 52 bf110s to 9 FC fighters, to a low of 49 bf110s to 11 FC fighters.

I'm sorry if it is not very flattering to the Bf110.

So in July and Aug 1940, the Bf110 got badly beaten yet somehow recovered to gain a positive kill ratio overall...don't think so.

davebender · Jan 30, 2013

Same problem as BoB only worse. Not enough Me-110s participating to make a significant contribution.

wiking85 · Jan 30, 2013

davebender said:
Same problem as BoB only worse. Not enough Me-110s participating to make a significant contribution.

Frankly in Barbarossa anything that was flying was useful. The Soviet air force was mostly wiped out on the ground, so any outdated aircraft the Germans had that could carry bombs was able to operate with impunity.

parsifal · Jan 30, 2013

The soviets had roughly 4000 frontline aircraft in the VVs as at 22 June 1941, They had somehere in the order of 12-20000aircraft in reserve. They had many thousands of pilots.

In the opening attacks of the first day, the Luftwaffe destroyed 1,811 Soviet aircraft for the loss of only 35 German aircraft. By th end of the first week, this figure had blown to 4500 losess to the VVS whilst the Germans had lost 370. By years end, the Soviet losses stood at 21000 to 2600 lost by the Germans.

But whilst Soviet losses were indeed heavy and even crippling, nowhere can it be said that the VVS was wiped out or ceased to be an issue. The LW gained air supremacy in the opening days, but this was gradually pegged back, such that by the beginning of winter, the germans were hard pressed to even claim front wide air parity.

stona · Jan 31, 2013

After the BoB there was a reassessment of the Bf 110s capabilities.
V.(Z)LG/I,two Gruppen of ZG 2 were withdrawn to Germany, disbanded with their personnel transferred to the newly forming night fighter arm.
I./ZG 76 who were hammered in the ill advised attack on northern England,remained in Norway until September 1940 then it too,you guessed it,was transferred to the night fighter arm.

Before Barbarossa the much reduced Zerstorer force was involved in the Balkans,Crete and Africa.

At the start of Barbarossa the Luftwaffe had 188 twin engined fighters compared with 354 prior to the BoB and now they were spread much more thinly.
I'd say that the few Zerstorer involved in the early stages of the invasion did pretty well.

Cheers

Steve

Spring of 1940: importance achievements of Bf-110

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