The Bf 109 aka ME-109 landing gear myth research thread.

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Good point. F4F landing gear was not exactly condusive to the early dirt field conditions at Guadalcanal (Ground loops were common) yet the plane was successfully operated out of it. The only plane i'm aware of that had genuine gear issues was the USN F2A's which was allegedly a quality control issue. Lots of recorded gear failures and repairs.
 

Actually an engineering issue - the aircraft was built the way it was designed although there were other workmanship issues at Brewster (different story).
 
tyrodtom said:
There's plenty of pictures of operations in Alaska, and the Aleutians during WW2, just as rough or worse than Russia. Some of them I don't even see how they kept the engines running let alone take off.
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well I searched, seen alot of -51's take of from clay surfaces covered in cheese graters in the Aleutians. seen 'mud' ones too with
cheese graters on it. P-40's seem to be the king of the 'Erdschleifen'. HAVE yet to see anything from WWII Europe with -51s/-47s
taking off from anything other the nice airfields runways. care to point me in the right direction? also, does this mean that Germans
had the better pilots?? flame away!
 
When you're saying cheese graters, I guess you're meaning PSP or Marston Mat, as I think the British version was called.

Look at the allied forward airbases after D-Day, they used temporary airfields, sometimes X Luftwaffe fields, but they had PSP, etc. , so they used it.

I've read about a Russian version for rough, muddy airfields. It was a steel mat on a drum. I guess the Allies had the excess steel to come up with aids like PSP to make wet airfields a little safer. Everybody had to operate from the same mud, it didn't just rain over Luftwaffe airfields.
 
No - it meant that the US and her allies had the logistical ability to manufacture and deploy PSP on bases they operated out of - but there were still plenty of bases where US aircraft operated from that matched or exceeded the same adverse conditions the -109 had to operate from, both in WW2 and Korea.
 
well I (we?) are not talking about korea or anywhere else around the pacific.. just Europe. and, I have yet to see a picture
or video showing P-51s/47s t/o ~ land in the same conditions as some JG units did.
 
P-40K-5 said:
well I (we?) are not talking about korea or anywhere else around the pacific.. just Europe. and, I have yet to see a picture
or video showing P-51s/47s t/o ~ land in the same conditions as some JG units did.
Click to expand...

It shouldn't make a difference - I think the point here is that other allied aircraft had the ability to operate in the same conditions as the -109 and although you have showed pic of the 109 trampling through the mud, I can tell you from being around the aircraft first hand that it's landing gear was adequate for its purpose but like any other taildragger can be torn off in an instant by any act of neglect or mis-handling.
 
I apologize in advance for the sheer tripe at the beginning of this film. Its embarassing I would not waste my time watching the first half of the film. But go to about the 11min mark of the film and you will see vision of P-39s P-40s, and twin engined bombers of various kinds operating under conditions at least as bad as anything the Germans were ever asked to operate from. Its relating to the battle for Milne Bay, July-September 1942.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huaWOyDzm1c


Have also done some backhround research about losses and attrition in the USAAC in Europe and the US during the war. I have seen a few sites with bits of this information, but its not as well organized as I had thought it would be. Just the same, here are some of the basic numbers, for comparison

USAAC lost 41000 aircraft in the ETO, of which 19000 were lost to direct enemy action. The remaining 21000 were lost to other causes, which I would put down to non-combat causes. A total of 80000 aircraft were shipped to the ETO during the war.


In the continental US there was a high accident rate, probably due to its training and patrol function. There were a total of 52000 flying accidents, with 6609 of these ending in some fatality. Approximately 1/4 of the total accidents ended up in the aircraft being written off totally. Thats about 13000 write offs. I know that the US produced about 230000 a/c during the war, and that 50-60% of these remained in the continental US for the duration. Thats about 115-138000 aircraft. So the attrition rate for the US whilst operating under "quiet" conditions is about 11.3% over a 4 year period.

In the war zones, the attrition rate shoots up to about 25% under combat conditions. That is compared to the 37% that I found applicable to the LW, operating under wartime conditions in "average" european weather, from established bases.

Cause for thought and reflection I guess......
 
Ya know - the 354th had crappy airfields in France when they deployed from Boxted. Cricoqueville was described as 'a cow pasture between trees" but Korea had some real dirtbags when ROK AF was run out of Seoul.
 
P-40K-5 said:
. HAVE yet to see anything from WWII Europe with -51s/-47s
taking off from anything other the nice airfields runways. care to point me in the right direction? also, does this mean that Germans
had the better pilots?? flame away!
Click to expand...

I don't know - certainly not from 1944 forward.

Some time back you explained away the destruction of the Luftwaffe to overwhelming numerical superiority - and I posed the question to you to demonstrate that claim with facts - for the Battle of Germany, over Germany/Poland/Czechoslovakia with USAAF escort fighters.

Have you had a chance to look up the forces of P-38s and Mustangs over Germany - out of range of P-47s and Spitfires - between December 1943 and May 1944?

If so, you will see that LuftFlotte Reich had significant numerical superiority in that time slice in, aggragate, (single engine day fighters only - don't include the helpless twins) and always locally at the points they chose to attack.
 
oh lordy, what do you think all those B-17's were bombing? certainly not oil/fuel depots or Manufacturing plants? right?
no fuel/spare parts = no flying, correct?

superior #'s, well I don't know what you'd call 300 or so 109's facing 500-700 fighter escorts and up too 1000 B-17s on
a single mission? suicide perhaps?

P-47s had the range with the paper drop tanks.

and you forget my friend.. look to the east in 1943/44, where the russians roam, where do you think most of Germany's aircraft were?
the west? I don't think so....
 
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I don't think you know much about USAAF operations in the ETO P-40. Just because it says there was 500-700 fighters on a mission does not mean that all those 500-700 fighters were escorting the bombers at the same time.
 
Regarding Luftwaffe committment to the East Front, in 1943 it was 42% of the total foce structure, falling to 38% in 1944. However in the critical area of fighters, it was much lower, 29% of LW fighters were deployed to the eastern front in 1943, falling to below 25% in 1944. However, because of the high wastage of aircraft on the Eastern Front, due to the rough conditions and constant emergency, attrition was high, so a large number of aircraft passed through this front as wastage. It was a front relatively small on numbers, and high on attrition.

About 60% of LW fighter strength was deployed into the home defence organizations by 1944. In January there were more than 1600 fighters attached to the Reichj defences. I'm not as sure about the fighters attached to the 8th AF, but critically, only a small proportion were ca[pable of providing escort to the bomber formations, perhaps 3 or four wings, from memory.

The difficulty for the Germans was not the numbers they had. Its one of those urban myths that over Germany they were outnumbered. It was that at any given point they had great difficulty in concentrating available forces for a concentrated effective counterrattack. Which make a bit of a mockery of earlier claims made elswhere that aircraft like the 109 did not have a range issue. They were unable concentrate for a number of reasons, not least of which was their short legs.
 
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You are seriously misinformed. If you care to research the formation of LuftFlotte Reich in summer/fall of 1943, accompanied by a steady transfer of approximately 30 staffeln from east and south you will note the build up to strengthen the skies over Germany in order to defeat the 8th AF.

The LW temporarily achieved stopping deep penetrations between August 17 and October 14, 1943 by inflicting 20-25% attrition on 8th BC - primarily because the P-47 could not go beyond Munster/Frankfurt.

The two P-38 wings which started Ops in ~November/December timeframe combined with the 354th FG (Mustangs) which went operational in December 1943. So Jan 1, 1944 there were three long range escort Fighter Groups available to escort 30+ Bomb Groups over a 70-100 mile line - against approximatlely 450 s/e day fighters (109s and 190s) - and both the P-38 and P-51B were experiencing 'issues' that rendered effective strength at approximatel 50% --------> so maybe 30+ USAAF fighters were around to fight off anywhere from 150-250 s/e 190/109 plus another 50+ t/e Me 110/410 and Ju88s.

Between late February and late March, the 4th, 355th and 357th were equipped with P-51s and the 364th, 20th and 55th had P-38s. So in the period mid February to the end of March, the escort force doubled to six groups and effectives grew from 50% to 70%. In that period the number of fighters able to perform target escort past Dummer Lake grew to approximately 200 USAAF escort fighters against the combined forces of the LW in any concentration the controller could amass...

Between mid April and Mid May, the 352nd and 339th and 359th FG joined the escort force. So let us pause.

First three months from November 1943, the deep escorts were responsible for one understrength fighter group per 8th AF Bomb Division with up to 11 Bomb Groups, each, in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd BD. That means that the one escort group available per BD had the responsibility to cover up to 300+ B-17s or B-24s along a 30 mile line against whatever number the Controller decided to use.

Second three months - the number of escort fighters per 300 bomber went from 1 to 2 fighter groups of up to 48 each at 100% effective (normally 75% about then) along the same 30 mile stretch against whatever the LW could concentrate in areas loosely defended or not defended at all.

Do the math, look at the LW losses, look at the 8th AF BC losses drop from nearly 8% avearge to 3% and continue downward by the end of May.

The 'rest of the 700 you mention' were the 56th, 78th, 353rd, 356th and 361st P-47 groups that were left out of most of the Germany action and relegated to Penetration and Withdrawal support on the sidelines - basically fighting against JG2 and JG26 in LuftFlotte 3.

The Battle for Germany was fought (and won) against the Luftwaffe with an inferior numerical count until parity of escorts to available German fighters over Germany was reached in July, 1944.

Shift to the Invasion Front - different story where the allies with RAF, TAC, 8th and 9th AF had overwhelming superiority up to approximately Hannover to Kassel to west of Mulhausen as the P-47D-25 gained longer legs.

Do some research.
 
well according to the book, Boddenplatte: the Luftwaffe's Last Hope(f/p 2004) (which gets into detail about Luftwaffe strengths during 1944 by the way), I think your the one miss informed. I suggest purchasing the book as I have.
 
I wouldnt say DG was misinformed on issues relating to the 8AF or the Mustang in particular. Thats a VERY brave statement...actually its a VERY silly statement
 
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