Bf 109F info

[Angus]

I find it hard to belive that a USA monocoque structure from a massive assebly line would need so much more hours than a 109. The USA had the finest assembly lines for fighters and bombers alike in the world at the time. However they might have been a bit into advanced features, which is not bad now is it?
The British were doing things differently, with lots of subcontractors and such. The early Spitfires for instance, AFAIK required 3 times the work of a 109. Not sure of the Hurricane, - the difference would be because of trained crew and such, the Hurricane coming from the old "bipe" concept while the Spitfire was a new business in fighters. So this all probably has a variation pr. model/year.

[MiloMorai]

You would be surprised Angus about the number of small contractors (1 and 2 person operations) in the USA. Many worked out of a shed in the their backyard. Some of these 'backyard' shops did work on the A-bomb (not that they knew what they were making was for).

[Charge]

IIRC constructing the fuselage of 109 was very simple. It was just aluminum sheets pressed into forms and connected and you just inserted a few ribs and that was it. The conventional method then was to make a structure and then cover it with sheet aluminum. IIRC that is...

-C+

Ed. Found a pic: http://www.fighterfactory.com/restoration/messerschmitt-bf-109.php

[Angus]

Didn't know that!
So was it mostly when it came to small/specialized parts, or was it a whole big thing in the system?

BTW, it does not seem ineffective to me, - and today, just open up your computer and try to fathom from how many parts of the world it comes!

[Widewing]

My God, these manhour numbers thrown around are ridiculous.

In January of 1945, North American made some major changes to their tooling system as too many employees were standing around idle waiting for manufacturing tools and jigs. On a typical day, about 6,000 employees working 10 hours shifts each day were rolling out 10 Mustangs per day. After increasing the number of manufacturing tools and jigs and adding to the work force, 9,500 employees were pushing out 17 P-51s a day.

So, if you work the numbers, assembly times was initially 6,000 hours per P-51, decreasing to 5,588 manhours by July.

Yet, according to Lee Atwood, "The final 5,000 P-51 airplanes were built for 4/10ths of an hour per pound and sold for $17,000 each, less government furnished equipment: engine, armament, etc." So, the basic airframe, less engine, prop, guns, radios and various other components weighs about 5,580 lb. 5580 x .4 = 2,232 manhours. Installation and testing of equipment listed above must make up the balance of time. As you can guess, I have to do some speculation and make some assumptions.

Check out this document

Meanwhile, on Long Island...

According to the Grumman Historical Center:

In March of 1945, Grumman employed 17,731 people. Approximately 9,250 assembled F6Fs. That month (26 working days), these folks delivered 605 Hellcats. That's a average of 23.27 F6Fs every day. Grumman worked two 12 hour shifts. 9250 x 12 = 111,000 manhours / 23.27 = 4770 manhours per F6F. Both the numbers delivered and manhours per fighter were records for American fighter manufacturers during WWII.

My regards,

Widewing

[Viking]

From reading that document I get the distinct impression that the plant in question was just an assembly plant. As has been suggested by others the parts that plant assembled were produced by sub-contractors. Did they have a foundry there? Did they actually make major components of the aircraft, or did they just assemble P-51 "kits" made elsewhere?

Messerschmitt AG produced most of their planes themselves. They had  foundries, mills, quarries and even a munitions factory in Kempten. In addition to the tens of thousands of workers they had slave-labourers assigned them by the SS. I don't know exactly how many factories and workers Messerschmitt AG had across Germany but there were many; the Bf 109 was a through and through Messerschmitt product from the foundries that made the aluminium to the Regensbuerg assemby line that put everything together. Only the engines, armament and certain instruments were produced outside Messerschmitt AG

I have identified Messerschmitt factories, works and labour-camps in: Regensburg, Obertraubling, Chemnitz, Kempten, Flossenburg, Asbach-Baumenheim,  Augsburg-Pfersee, Burgau, Durach-Kottern, Fischen, Gablingen, Horgau-Pfersee, Kaufering, Lauingen, and Moosach. This list is likely not complete.

In 1944 Messerschmitt AG (including Erla plant) made nearly 40 Bf 109s every day, in addition to 110s, 410s, 163s, 262s, 321s, and 323s.

[SuBWaYCH]

Can this thread die already?
























Please?

[Bronk]

Originally posted by Viking
From reading that document I get the distinct impression that the plant in question was just an assembly plant. As has been suggested by others the parts that plant assembled were produced by sub-contractors. Did they have a foundry there? Did they actually make major components of the aircraft, or did they just assemble P-51 "kits" made elsewhere?

Messerschmitt AG produced most of their planes themselves. They had  foundries, mills, quarries and even a munitions factory in Kempten. In addition to the tens of thousands of workers they had slave-labourers assigned them by the SS. I don't know exactly how many factories and workers Messerschmitt AG had across Germany but there were many; the Bf 109 was a through and through Messerschmitt product from the foundries that made the aluminium to the Regensbuerg assemby line that put everything together. Only the engines, armament and certain instruments were produced outside Messerschmitt AG

I have identified Messerschmitt factories, works and labour-camps in: Regensburg, Obertraubling, Chemnitz, Kempten, Flossenburg, Asbach-Baumenheim,  Augsburg-Pfersee, Burgau, Durach-Kottern, Fischen, Gablingen, Horgau-Pfersee, Kaufering, Lauingen, and Moosach. This list is likely not complete.

In 1944 Messerschmitt AG (including Erla plant) made nearly 40 Bf 109s every day, in addition to 110s, 410s, 163s, 262s, 321s, and 323s.

So your saying it took 5000 hours from raw materials (as in dig up materials from the groud) to produce a 109?

[Viking]

I don't know what that number actually represents.

[Angus]

And are the hours supplied by the Todt organization included in the 109?

And then to repeat myself:
"The USA had the finest assembly lines for fighters and bombers alike in the world at the time."

[Viking]

Originally posted by Angus
And are the hours supplied by the Todt organization included in the 109?

I don't know what "I don't know" means in Iceland, but here it means "I don't know".

Originally posted by Angus
And then to repeat myself:
"The USA had the finest assembly lines for fighters and bombers alike in the world at the time."

Who are you quoting?

[Angus]

I quoted myself
As for the Todt labour, it took some courtroom work to bring some of it properly into the daylight, so I would think it's very probable that those hours are not counted in the late 109 production, - from German sources.

I don't know. Ég veit ekki

[Viking]

So you have inspected both the American and German (and lets not forget the Russians) production lines and found the Americans to be the most efficient? Riiiight


Jeg vet ikke for faen!

[Angus]

Har du en murbrikka i hodet? Who brought us the "fliessband" ???

Hehe, I love languages...sometimes.

[gripen]

Originally posted by Viking
So the G.55 could have been made for 9000 man hours, and the 109 for 5000?

Nope, read the book (mentioned above) "Willy Messerscmitt: Pioneer of Aviation Design" by Ebert-Kaiser-Peters and "Flugzeugindustrie und Luftrüstung in Deutschland 1918-1945" by L. Budraß.

These seem to be hours only the time needed to build and assemble airframes in the assembly line. The hours needed to build components coming from elsewhere are not included (engine, propeller, coolers, landing gear, instruments, armament etc.).

I don't have Budraß in hand right now but IIRC this airframe production time varied between something over 10000h in the beginning production and 4500h in the end of the production. As for comparison similar value for the Me 262 was 6400h. Based on US numbers it's probable that similar number for the P-51 might have been considerably lower. Like the Me 262, the P-51 was designed for mass production from the beginning and the P-51 was built in large and well organized production plants, same can't be said about the Bf 109.

Originally posted by Charge
190 early models came with two wings which the larger one was finally selected (also caused by the change from 139 to 801). With 109 the wing area got smaller after 109E but the proile was altered.

The original wing for the Fw 190A was something like 15m2. As the weight of the prototypes increased, the V5 got first original small wing and (V5k) and later new larger 18,3m2 wing (V5g) and the later became standard. The high altitude variants were originally designed and tested with new 20m2 wing but that was increased as well to the 23,3m2 (Ta 152H), while the Ta 152C  had 19,5m2 wing.

The Bf 109F prototypes had originally 15,1m2 wing but that was increased to 16,1m2 in the production planes with rounded wing tips (one of the many quick and dirty fixes of the Bf 109). In the case of the high altitude variants, the Bf 109H got originally 21,3m2 wing but that was increased as well in the BV 155 (I don't have numbers in hand).