Hiyas and welcome, first.
I don't know that rating twin fighters against concurrent single-engined fighters is the point, but rather, to rate the twin-fighters against each other. Outside of perhaps the P-38 I don't know of any twin produced in numbers that could hold its own against an equally-modern single-engined fighter.
Hi Thumpalumpacus,
thanks for the welcome.
The comparison/evaluation between double and single engine automatically arises IMHO due to the term "Fighter" As such I fully agree with you that in regards to fighter
the only 2 engine plane worth mentioning is the P-38, even though AFAIK it is not widely considered to have been a good fighter aircraft. But as always it usually depends
rather on the pilots skills then just the aircraft.
The Bf 110 and e.g. He 219 were termed Jaeger (Hunter) with a crew of 2-3. in their night-role - and their primary mission was to shoot down bombers - not engaging fighters
The Bf 110 in Russia and elsewhere was usually escorted by single engine fighters - whilst executing their ground attack missions - which doesn't out-rule the event of a Bf 110
engaging an adversary fighter aircraft, voluntarily (sneaking up if a good chance was given) but intentionally getting into a dog-fight with a single engine fighter plane?
The Bf 110 was as known, Goering's 'fighter" brainchild and it never performed satisfactorily in that category. No aircraft historian will deny it's usefulness in all its overall assigned
roles, especially in the first 10 month of the war, taking into account the kind of aircraft's flown in majority by the enemy. Most of the Western-Allies fighters and aircrafts
were destroyed on the ground - which was the primary intention of the Blitzkrieg strategy - naturally also executed on behalf of the Luftwaffe.
Due to it's restricted-fighter capabilities the 3./Erprobungsgruppe 210 was setup in Jun/July 1940 - prime objective was to find a suitable role for the aircraft - later this unit was
to become SKG 210.
Especially in the beginning month of the war the Luftwaffe profited greatly from it's Legion Condor experience, and many Bf 110 were flown by these chaps. Luftwaffe pilots
referred to the Bf 110 as the "Gefriertruhe" (refrigerator box) Truhe (box) in regards to it's flight characteristics.
Regards
Jagdflieger