The 109

[stona]

The Mustang appeared before 1944 in the Med and Italy, both the RAF and U.S. versions as well as the A-36 Apache.
The Germans knew it was coming...

I'm sure they did. They were developing there fighters as best they could at the time to meet all the percieived threats and the P-51 must have been one of them.

I don't think they were taken by surprise when the P-51 appeared. They were surprised by some aspects of its performance. I have somewhere (but can't find) a German report which compares the Bf 109K very unfavourably with the P-51.

Threads like this are good fun but we are "solving" the problem without the multitude of constraints which were on the RLM/Luftwaffe at the time.

There is also always a tendency to suggest seemingly simple solutions,like up-arming a particular airframe,which in reality could take months of development to reach a state where they could be put into front line service. For example the MK 103 was a proven weapon but in six months of trying (from July 1944) the Germans never made it work properly in the Do 335.

Steve

 

[riacrato]

I too would hit the fighters early on with the stripped-down Hohen flights. Then hit the fighters again. And again,,,throw the escort timetables off so the Sturm guys can get at the bombers. Bf109G6/ASM spring of 1944 IIRC.....need lots of them before Big Week. Progressively more Mustangs, pilots growing skills and experience vs progressively fewer good German pilots and with replacements, fewer well-trained fliers.

Why were the twin 13mm guns not discarded for wing-mounted 20mm guns? 3x 20mm seems better to me then redesign the cowl and canopy

Because the weight in the wings from the 20mm-cannon and ammunition made handling very horrible. Unless you go for the old MG-FF of course with its very limited ammunition supply. Which actually might've been a good idea (1x MG151-20 + 2x MG-FF).

I think this topic was discussed back and forth quite a lot and the essence is: You can introduce some of the refinements, that eventually anyways, earlier. But other than that, you can't do much that doesn't essentially constitute a new aircraft.

So for me any successor to the Bf 109 F-4 (the best 109 there ever was imo) should have:

- DB605A, with a sound plan to get take-off and emergency power cleared within 4-6 months after introduction
- ADI injection as standard
- 13mm MG131 cowl guns with improved fairing (à la G-6AS/G-10/K-4)
- wheel covers and fully retractable tail wheel
- Erla canopy
- possibly flettner tabs on ailerons

A fighter like this should be capable of 660-680 km/h (guessing), good enough for 1943.

The successor to that would have DB605AS / D engine with otherwise similar configuration. Should be good for 680-700 km/h (again just guessing), acceptable for 1944.

Then the Me 109 lineage ends. The two types above would clearly be transition fighters to hold the line while the more modern and easier upgradeable Fw 190 replaces them as the backbone.

 

[stona]

Bf 109 F-4 (the best 109 there ever was imo)

As an aeroplane I agree. As a fighter it was woefully under armed.

Steve

 

[riacrato]

I don't think so. For 1941-42 2x lmg and 1x MG151-20, all centerline with no convergence issues, is decent though not great. I'd think about keeping the wing-mounted MG-FFs if I was the RLM, but it's debatable. To me it is no worse in the fighter vs fighter scenario than what the contemporary Spit had. They had twice the armament numerically, but it was spread out pretty far.

In a scenario against bombers you either need the pods or, better yet, you need a Fw 190.

 

[Shortround6]

I think a lot of the convergence issue is overblown. A lot depends on target and distance. Simple geometry and common sense. With guns 12ft apart and converging at 300yds the bullets/shells are 8 feet apart at 100yds, 4 feet apart at 200yds, crossing at 300yds, 4 feet apart at 400yds, 8 feet apart at 500yds and 12 feet apart at 600yds.

99% of the fighter pilots in WW II had no business shooting at another fighter at 500-600yds.
How close do you get before you have to break off the gun run to avoid collision?
A radial engine fighter is over 4 feet across. Guns 12 feet apart will both be hitting anywhere from 200-400 yds distance.
A bomber with a 6ft fuselage is going to hit by those 12ft apart guns anywhere for 150-450 yds.
Chances of a pure, 100% 6 O'clock shot are going to be rare. 5 O'clock or 7 O'clock shots are going to much more common and the target will be bigger than the pure diameter or width of the fuselage.
Germans talked a good game about convergence but the fitting of 3 different guns to some planes with 3 different trajectories and 3 different times of flight to a given distance means that they had as much or more trouble getting all guns on target at many longer (over 300meters?) ranges as any wing mounted armament setup.

 

[riacrato]

Well we disagree then. The problem is imo not the guns being at a distance to each other or (not) having the same trajectory, but the guns being at a distance to the gunsight. With all the other factors involved in an aerial gunfight, they simply will [almost] never hit where you aim them and that error will be greater the further away they are from the gunsight. Then the banking angle comes into play... Not to mention the wing mounted guns were often not configured to converge at one fixed point but at a certain pattern.

 

[stona]

I don't think so. For 1941-42 2x lmg and 1x MG151-20, all centerline with no convergence issues, is decent though not great.

But it has fallen way behind its contemporaries both Luftwaffe and RAF/USAAF. To reduce the armament of any type in 1940/41 seems an odd decision to put it mildly. It is barely adequate for fighter v fighter combat and inadequate for just about anything else.

I think that convergence issues tend to be overplayed whilst the divergence issues of mixed armament are often ignored.

The best and most successful pilots in air to air combat,a very,very,small minority,negated both effects by reducing the range at which they opened fire. The vast majority couldn't hit a cow's arse with a cricket bat,particularly with the gun sights available throughout most of the war.

Steve

 

[Shortround6]

IN part, true. a P-47 sitting 50yds behind a 109 is as likely to shoot under it ( gun sight is how many feet higher than the the guns?) than miss because of the spread of the guns.
If banked you are probably deflection shooting. There is about a 0.1 second difference in time of flight between a 7.9mm round and and a 20mm MG/FF round at 300meters. a 300mph plane will cover 44ft in that time. If the Pilot is hitting with the 7.9s he is missing with the 20mm and vice versa. Obviously distance, speed and size of target affect things. There is a diagram in "Flying Guns of World War II" that show the proper aiming point for shooting at a He 111 at 250mph at 400yds and 11.25 degrees of the tail. To hit just under the the top gun mount the aiming point is over the wing tip. If the target is banked aiming at the fuselage will result in misses under the outside wing tip and even a pattern 20ft in diameter will be below the wing.

There is a convergence problem, it is just not as great as some people make it out to be.

 

[davebender]

Me-155 CV Fighter Aircraft.
Blohm Voss BV 155 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The fuselage was more-or-less that of the standard Bf 109G, but with an entirely new wing. The undercarriage retracted inwards into wing wells, providing the wider track required for safe carrier landings.

Detail design of the Me 155 was complete by Sept 1942. However, the numerous delays in the Graf Zeppelin seemed to indicate that the completion of the carrier would be at least two years away. Messerschmitt was told to shelve the Me 155 project for the indefinite future.

No need to reinvent the wheel on this issue. If you want wide track landing gear then use the Me-155 wing on Me-109Gs produced from 1943 onward. The design was sitting in Messerschmitt's filing cabinet waiting for someone to use it.

 

[Tante Ju]

But it has fallen way behind its contemporaries both Luftwaffe and RAF/USAAF.

Can you name a few types..?

It is barely adequate for fighter v fighter combat and inadequate for just about anything else.

This is thesis but fact are innumerable victims of this inadequate armement... including the heavies of Schweinfurt and Ploiesti raid. Some of the greatest messacres of heaviest bombers in the war, vast majority of them shot down by 109s with their "puny" armament.

 

[zoomar]

...advanced knowledge of the P-51B, C, and D.
I'm with the conservative posters. There was nothing inherently wrong with the late model Bf-109s that could not have been counterbalanced by accelerated training of more pilots in the 1942-43 period and fielding more Bf-109s. Or switching entirely to DB powered FW-190s.

I think pushing the faster introduction of jets (either the He-280 or the Me-262) would come up against the very real metallurgical problems in developing reliable turbojet engines any faster than it actually took, and the fact that both jets would have been short ranged interceptors. Also, in 1942, Germany was engaged in North Africa and the USSR where they needed rugged aircraft capable of operating from primitive airfields with less than ideal maintainence conditions. Even if you waved a magic wand and gave Germany the time-travel knowledge that the US was developing a long-ranged high performance escort fighter to protect bombers all the way to Berlin, and the He-280 was put in squadron service during 1942 instead of further Bf-109 developments, this would be disastrous. Germany was well-served by its continued development of the Bf-109 and Fw-190, aircraft that remained first line thru 1945. They just needed more planes, more fuel, and more pilots.

 

[stona]

Can you name a few types..?.

In 1941?

Bf 109 F with 1 x 20mm cannon and 2 x machine guns.

This is half the armament of its two principle contemporaries.

Spitfire V with 2 x 20mm cannon and 4 x machine guns.

Fw 190 A-1 the same.

At a time when new types were appearing with heavier armament and serving types were being up armed the Friedrich got a lighter armament than its predecessor. No wonder a man like Adolph Galland added armament to his. He knew what was what.

What Friedrich's were flying against the Schweinfurt-Regenburg or Ploesti raids? We have been talking about the Bf 109 F-4 specifically.

Steve

 

[tomo pauk]

From the Wiki article about the BV 155:

A converted Bf 109G adapted to take the DB 628 engine flew in May 1942 and attained an altitude of 15,500 m (50,850 ft).

My question: was it really flying with the DB 628 (a two stage engine, based on DB 605) in May 1942?

 

[davebender]

If so it was an experimental prototype.

However the Me-155 CV fighter aircraft design was real. There's no reason Me-155 wings and their wide track landing gear cannot be incorporated into an Me-109 update.