Originally posted by Kweassa
I've always wondered about this.
80minutes of full flight time would seem to be short even for the most absent minded of airforce commanders.. howcome the Germans never thought of any immediate modifications in the form of auxillary fuel tanks? Was it a technincal difficulty? Problems in retrofitting frontline fighters? Or were the German commanders really that stupid??
The 109 was never developed to escort those bombers - it`s role was very much the same as Spit`s and Hurries, ie. intercepting enemy bombers over the home area. For this task, they didn`t needed great endurance, German radar picked up enemy bombers, and the 109s took off and went directly to intercept them within a few minutes - as happened over Wilhelshaven. The 109E`s endurance on internal fuel, appx. 1.5h, was more than enough for that task.
I believe simply because of thinking of military strategists at that time.. "The bomber always gets through" etc., and if not, the Bf 110s can help them out. but nobody though that would be neccesary. In fact, up to BoB there was no real threat, or serious, regular attempts intercept German bombers, which would trigger the development of longer ranged 109s. Similiar tendencies in all other air forces, nobody had an fighter type that could hope to escort the bombers all along their maximum range. IIRC Spits/Hurris didn`t have droptanks for the first two years of the war, neither any better range than the 109E...
Technically speaking, it would need some adjustments and additional piping, not just fitting a droptank under the fusalage, but also piping from the s/c to the d/t, with compressed air to drive the fuel into the main tank, which meant that another pipe system had to be installed, going from the droptank to the main tank.. not a too hard technical problem, but considering that the Germans first had problems in September 1940 with their fighter`s range, when they pushed the RAF back further into England and began the strategic bombing of the UK industry and commerce. IIRC first 109s with droptanks appeared probalby as early as October-November, pretty fast. But then again, more time is needed to convert all fighters to new standards, manufacture enough kits etc. The droptank almost doubled the range, and endurance of the 109E.
And later on, the single droptank remained sufficient. Along with the much improved aerodynamics, better engine and, at the same time, constantly improving fuel effiency of the DB engines meant that 109s were cruising faster and faster on the same power output, using less and less fuel per HP... from the orignal ~460 mile range of the 109E on internal, the 109F/G increased that to about 650 miles, and 1000 miles with a single droptank. More was never neccesary, simple this meant that all targets in reach of German bombers could be reached now by the 109s as well. That`s why the two-droptank configuartion was only used on long range recce 109s. With the 109K, which now also had a 115 liter aux. dual-purpose tank tank behing the main tank, it was possible to use that as well, instead filling it with booster liquid, giving +25% range compared to normal range. I think Daimler Benz gets most of the credit for this. Had they ignored developing the fuel effiency of their engines, like some others did, 109s would need to constantly add more and more fuel in the airframe, increased weight, just to keep the range the same, at lower endurance.
