What If?......

[cheddar cheese]

thought so 8)

 

[Lightning Guy]

Yeah it would have been useful there. What was the Mossie's climb rate like? That's pretty important for an interceptor.

 

[cheddar cheese]

2850ft/minute for the mkVI 8)

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

is that good, i don't know much about climb rates...................

 

[Lightning Guy]

It's not bad. I imagine that would have been close to the contemporary marks of Hurrican, Spit, and 109 (a little lower but close). Plenty of stuff later in the war would have been able to beat that though.

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

but remeber the 111 didn't have a huge ceiling anyway.............

 

[plan_D]

Yes, the Mosquito would have been ideal for taking down bombers. There altitude wouldn't have been a problem, and four 20mm was more ideal than 8 .303.

 

[Lightning Guy]

I'm not disagreeing with you. The Germans used the Ju-88 to intercept bombers and the Mossie had better performance.

 

[plan_D]

The Me-110 was a better bomber interceptor though.

 

[Lightning Guy]

The Me-110 was good but it was totally outclassed by escort fighters (even the P-47). A truly effective interceptor needs to have a reasonable chance in a fight with the enemy's escorts.

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

a good intercepter needs good speed and a good climb rate..............

 

[plan_D]

Not if you're using British tactics Lightning, with Hurricanes for the bombers, Spitfires for the fighters.
Me-110s for the bombers, 109s or 190s for the fighters...

 

[Lightning Guy]

Yeah I know that. I had meant to say that the ideal interceptor would be able to do both.

 

[plan_D]

Yes, well the Me-110 had what was needed as an interceptor, and remember before the Mustang the formations were largely unescorted.

 

[Lightning Guy]

Well the T-bolts could take the formations to the German border or so and the Lightnings could pick it up from there. The main problem was that there were only 2 P-38 groups in the 8th AF and they could usually only sortie about 50 planes to cover a few hundred bombers against a couple hundred German fighters.

 

[plan_D]

Even then a lot of the bomber formations were unescorted all the way into Germany.

 

[Lightning Guy]

Yes but primarily because there weren't enough Lightnings to cover the entire formation (which could spread for miles).

 

[plan_D]

Yes, I know but my point is the ME-110 was still good enough to take down the bombers, it was very deadly. Until the Mustang came to Europe.

 

[Lightning Guy]

I would agree with that. The Me-110 did a fine job of shooting down bombers but was no plane to be in for a dogfight.

 

[plan_D]

Well the BoB proved that greatly.