What of the Me 410?

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Erich said:
CB your one posting of the Me 410 pic with the underbelly waffen pod was pretty standard equipment. 6 2cm weapons ........... ouch
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Wasn'it more standard to have four MG 151 in the bomb bay or was this only a late field conversion ? Dragwise it'll be better than with an additional underbelly weapons pod. It somewhat looks like the pod used on the Bf 110.
 
there were at least 4 different 2cm conversions sets.

Dassows was unusual or at least claimed to have that many 2cm weapons but it really did not matter as he knew how to close in with the US bombers to score a kill and yet fell while flying a Fw 190A. fighter to fighter was not his forte' in combat experience
 
Charlie, thanks for the info. So you are correct, there were some cases when pilots decided their ships should not have the defensive MG 131s, but everything will certainly indicate such cases were rare.

Now the case of the Me 410 pilot whose ship had 8- 2cm. cannons...of course that meant a typhoon of fire would be unleashed. But what could the purpose of such configuration have been? Four MG 151/20s was more than enough to carry on with the mission of gutting bombers.

Possibly to stay more time in the air attacking several boxes on their way to targets, as indicated to pilots by radar stations?

A 2 second burst of all 8 cannons would be more than sufficient to pulverize a B-17 or B-24...so it sounds like the most logic explanation, stay in the air for longer periods of time to charge against several formations.
 
Now the case of the Me 410 pilot whose ship had 8- 2cm. cannons...of course that meant a typhoon of fire would be unleashed. But what could the purpose of such configuration have been?
Click to expand...


Probably to put a lot of explosives and AP shells in the air in the little time as possible giving no chance to the bombers gunners aim.

Four MG 151/20s was more than enough to carry on with the mission of gutting bombers.
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Teorically yes..but I think they felt that spare firepower wont hurt, specially if you face a lot of B-17s wich was ( in opinion of the german pilots ) the hardest airplane to bring down in the western Front.


A 2 second burst of all 8 cannons would be more than sufficient to pulverize a B-17 or B-24...so it sounds like the most logic explanation, stay in the air for longer periods of time to charge against several formations.
Click to expand...

The stay on the target area depends also of the ammo supply and range but yes with 8 guns shooting at 750 rpm each gaves a teorical rate of 6000 rpm :...wich means 100 bullets per second, wich means 200 round fired in 2 seconds...


 
Erich do you have any guncamera footage showing Me 410s getting shot down by allied fighters? Although my collection of guncamera films is large i have none of the Me 410 getting hit...
 
Good pic Charlie! (I saw that book in a store once, but if i recall correctly it had a different cover?)

I would like to see a guncamera film showing a Me 410 getting intercepted and hit; guncamera can be very helpful. I would like to see what a Me 410 pilot attempted to do when knowing an enemy fighter was closing in...

Pretty much like the case of the G-6/R6 version of the 109. I was so used to read the bomber hunter configuration (with the MG 151/20 cannons under the wings) was a "sitting duck" if intercepted by any of the contemporary allied fighters, i can say i had bought the story..until i saw guncamera footage of the model getting intercepted.

The films showed lots of cases when the heavier 109 manages to evade the tailing allied fighter, even after having swallowed hits from the enemy´s guns.
 
ah but then add the four Br 21cm's and their mortar launchers.

the 410 just like the overloaded Bf 110G-2 was a sitting duck to US escort fighters. Overall speed was increased, armor and visibility in the Me 410 variants and it thus proved to be a very effective bomber destroyer in the fall of 43 till it's removal in 44 and the ZG's became single engine JG units to add to the many for Reich defense .. . ........ ...
 
Erich, as i have commented in the past regarding the Hornisse, possibly one of the most abhorrent mistakes ever commited by the Germans during the war was to keep the zerstörern in front line service beyond the second halfd of 1943.

During the last 12 months of their operations, ZG 26 and ZG 76 swallowed both the material and human resources that could have put at least two additional Jagdgescwadern -of four gruppen each- in the air to greet the allied air forces (not including the man and material that served in the several kampfgruppen during 1944 that could have been available to enable even more jagdgeschwadern).

But with this i do not mean i agree the Me 410 was such a doomed prey when confronting enemy fighters. Hopefully someday i might come across guncamera footage.
 
Udet I have the complete losses listing for all of ZG 26 and 76 for the war. Pretty sad truly the twin engine crews got snuffed during 1944 especially by Allied Mustangs/T-bolts
 
Erich, hi

I have parts of loss listings for the ZG...but since you have the whole package, the loss ratio was...?
 
I´ll be damned. Look at what i just found in a russian webpage regarding the performance of the remote-controlled MG 131 barbetes on the Me 410; first found it in my russian search engine and luckily the webpage has its english area.

You might find this of interest:

Me-410 - Heavy Fighter - Luftwaffe
 
Nice site. Some obvious statements by the russians.

a) The quality of the assembly of instruments, electrical equipment, and wiring remained high up till the end of the war, thus significantly contributing to trouble-free operation of special equipment.


Enough said.


While evaluating the Me 410 from a tactical point of view, Lieutenant Colonel Magon pointed out that the modern Soviet Yak-3, Yak-9U, and La-7 fighters outperformed the Messerschmitt where speed and maneuverability were concerned.

Yes.. and if a put my hand in a river I going to get wet, the mission of this subvariat was to engage bombers at high altitude not doghfighting.


At the same time, the Me-410B-2 was a threat to all types of Soviet series-produced bombers, the Tu-2 included, due to its high capabilities.


Not only soviet, also the B-24, B-17 and everything, the 50 mm minengranate carry 350 grams of high explosive so it could disable any aircraft made during the ww2.

at sea level 507
at altitude 624
Click to expand...

Nice data, it is interesting that with the 50 mm gun (wich weights 540 kg) and 2 MG-151, the plane still can surpassed the 600 km/h barrier.
 
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