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Can anyone say what "S/E" refers to? Single-Engined fighter? Another book gives pretty compelling hints that the 410s that Tratt cie were flying on that day weren't regular 410s.CB I wonder if Tratt even got 3 P-38's personally........... not to discount but that is a rarity indeed in a twin engine, maybe a S/E but
The disbandment of all ZGs is one factor, and the other is the disbanding of several KG.
Focusing on the critical year of 1944: Germany produced ~2,050 bombers (He 111, Ju 88, Ju 188 and He 177 plus a handful of other types), plus ~800 Me 210s/Me 410s and even ~110 Bf 110s. Tell me of anything significant these planes achieved during 1944.
~2,960 ships, all of them machines with 2 engines. With a serviceability rate of 50% for all those planes produced during 1944 you seriously believe only "some extra fuel" could have been given to the "existing JGs"?
More than that in fact for it would have helped having fuel for JGs that did not even come to life. Think of the math...if the fuel of one single Me 410 A-1 or B-1 could put a staffel of single-engined fighters up in the air, then you can try to figure out the issue with all those thousands of twin engined planes the Luftwaffe was no longer requiring during 1944 but that were produced and saw service.
All those men, planes and fuel stupidly lost during the Baby Blitz of the first months 1944 over England...you are not going to deny it was a stupid commitment of men and war materiel and fuel are you? Want to check the number of sorties flown by the ~490 bombers that took part in that senseless "campaign" to come up with a figure of fuel consumed?
The "extra" Bf 109s and Fw190s i am referring to could indeed have been more than 2,000 machines for the second half of 1944 with sufficient pilots to fly them in combat. So add 2,000 planes to the known order of battle of West/Reich Luftwaffe between jul-december 1944.
Hypothetical scenario: the sturmkinder flying Fw 190 A-8/R8s of IV (sturm)./JG 3 or II. (sturm)/JG 4 are provided with top cover flight of 300 Bf 109 G-6/AS on every mission flown...give the USAAF 7 or 8 episodes of dimensions identical to that of the Kassel raid of the poor devils of the 445th BG in one month and believe me, the guys in the USAAF will not be sure whether to continue the aerial war.
Such 2,000 single-engined ships will consume much much less fuel than half the total of bombers produced by Germany during 1944.
I have table lists with production and deliveries of bombers and twin-engined fighters to KG and ZG for every month of 1944 and it is clearly seen it was a 100% wasteful kind of war management from the german part.
Training of German pilots was sufficient to produce the type of pilots necessary to fly the planes for the second half of 1944; certainly training programs and schedules were shortened but that a pilot was "green" does not mean he was "ill-trained" as it has been conviniently presented by the allies.
Chances are you are not yet convinced producing Me 210s/410s and Bf 110s during 1944 was a foolish thing; you can be sure whatever your approach might be, it will be proven it would have been wiser to instead produce only single-engined fighters.
(i) Raw materials.
(ii) Workforce.
(iii) Number of engines.
(iv) Crew.
(v) Ground crews/maintenance (technicians, mechanics, armorers, etc.)
(vi) Fuel.
In conclusion: 2 engined planes are more expensive (raw materials and workforce) and tale more time to be produced.
A large nation, with a large territory -distant from where the fight is-, and with open access to the natural resources and raw materials of vast regions like the USA could afford planning and organizational mistakes...Germany could not but did...
Der mit der Messerschmitt Me 410 augestatten I./ZG 76 gelang im Verbund mit Me 109 der II./JG 27 und mit Me 110 des II./ZG 1 am Sonntag, dem 02. Juli 1944 ein sich nie mehr wiederholender Schlag gegen die U.S. Airforce.
An diesem Tag gelang es der Luftwaffe in der Luftschlacht über Budapest 45 alliierte Flugzeuge abzuschießen, darunter waren 34 4-mot Bomber. Die I./ZG 76 konnte 8 Boeing B-17 oder B-24 ohne eigene Verluste abschießen.
An diesem Tag wurden 7 Messerschmitt Me 410 im niederösterreichischen Luftraum von alliierten Jägern abgeschossen.
1./I./ZG 76:
Me 410 Olt Hirschfelder, Dietrich Uffz Rieder, Günter Tulln
Me 410 Lt Pestel, Karl Uffz Wenz, Ernst Mollersdorf
Me 410 Uffz Ahrens, Werner Uffz Frühwald Leopod Grafenwörth (6 km südlich)
2./I./ZG 76:
Me 410 ???????? Uffz Brömme, Gerhard Jetzelsdorf
Me 410 Ofw Westerhof, Josef Uffz Blasche, Gerhard Höbersbrunn(-bach?)/Krems
Me 410 Ofw Rothbart, Hans Uffz Kroth, Albert Maria Ponsee
3./I./ZG 76:
Me 410 Lt Heinz, Arnold Gfr Schneider, Raimund Fels/Kollersdorf (7 km südlich)
holy baloney I totally forgot about this long lost thread and need to do some answering, I have all the losses for the Me 410 units as termed by Freiburg archivs. ZG 26/76 in any cas; e the 410 was never deemed a night fighter but as Dave pointed out a Night Intruder from KG 51 abnd KG 54 following BC back to base and a special incident with huge B-17 losses back to England when the B-17 units returned to base after dark.
Michi will try and follow up on your questionaire as my cancer meds have kept me down the last 2 weeks pretty severe.
Tratt was flying an Me 410A-1
In the ETO, P-38's flew 130,000 sorties with a 1.3% overall loss rate. While ETO P-51's posted a 1.1% overall loss rate, the P-38's suffered from poorly thought-out tactics in the period before Allied air superiority in Europe. In the PTO the P-38's shot down more than 1,800 Japanese aircraft.
Greg - the ETO comparisons are tricky between the P-51 and P-38 in that the P-38 had a far lower loss count (not rate) to flak (because it didn't do much in the airfield strafing role) than the 51. It engaged far less in the air to air role, and had far less success per sortie than the 51 in both ground and air credits.
Also difficult to conceptualize the statistics because the non-flak/non fighter operational loss % was Higher than the 51. The net conclusions one can rightfully extract from a 'loss to sortie' comparison is that a.) the $$ effect of P-38's was that it was more than twice the cost for the airframe, a little more for pilots, b.) the ETO got far less 'result to $$' in both aircraft destroyed in the air and ground per sortie than the P-51.
Personally, I like the Me-410 Hornisee, but not as well as a P-38.
One alternative history story I wrote had to do with drop-tank equipped single-seat Me 410's escorting Ju 390's and He 274's over Washington, Philedelphia, and New York. In my scenario, the Reich had captured Spain, Portugal, the Azores, and Bermuda. Fanciful stuff, of course. But when we start going down the what-if pathway all kinds of interesting things can happen. I do think the Me 410 could have cleaned up better than it did. If Germany hadn't been so battered in the air by the time it arrived, it may have contributed more in many roles. It was a true multi-role aircraft, much like the P-38 or Mosquito in that regard, and could have been developed even better.
Why would an Me 410 conceivably be selected to escort anything against the US from Bermuda? (it absolutely could not get halfway across the Atlantic from Spain/Azores). I haven't read your operational scenario but why do we think that it would not be even worse for the 410 against the P-38/P-47/F4U/F6F/P-51 ?? over the US? FW 190 would be far better choice of escort and how do you supply Bermuda unless you have totally annihilated USN and all land based USAAF bombers, USN torpedo and dive bombers?
One other note, in regards to the rear gunner. Robert Johnson, in his book "Thunderbolt", tells the account of attacking an Me 410. I don't recall the outcome of the encounter, whether he killed it or not, (don't have the book here), but I recall him saying he pressed right in there aggressively to down it, but was met by a stream of rounds from the rear gunner, whom Johnson admitted he had forgotten about. From that encounter it seems that the 410 rear gunner was sometimes underestimated in the heat of the moment, but not to be ignored.