The enigma of the Bf-109

[dedalos]

Originally posted by DiabloTX
I have been a fan of WWII aviation, and aviation in general, for most of my life.  Those of us here on this BBS can trace our tracks here due to some infatuation with a warbird of any given era.  Narrower still, some of us can be grouped in to classes of what we like most; the rough and tumble FW-190, the graceful and deadly Spitfire, the all-too American character of the P-47, the nimble and manueverable Japanese fighters.  For me it was, and always will be, about radial engined fighters, namely the FW-190.  

As a kid I built many model airplanes that were available in the local five and dime store.  The ONLY place you would find me in the school library was in the WWII section.  Of the books I have read in my lifetime roughly 70% are about WWII aircraft.  I feel that I am confident about basic facts of most fighters from the era and I know some of you are complete experts in the field.  One thing that has struck me is I have never been a huge fan of the Bf-109.  The more I have read or continue to read about it, the more this machine baffles me.  

Here we have a fighter that, by rights, was not a long term answer to Germany's need for a pursuit aircraft, yet there it was at every front, on every continent they fought at.  I was an odd design, not given to too much improvement yet by 1945 the K's were still highly lethal.  It was cramped and only marginally comfortable.  It had bad ground characteristics.  It had a heavy port wing dip on take off that didn't help matters.  It didn't carry enough fire power to be respected, for the most part, unless it had pods attached.  And yet, it was still feared.  It was the mount of the experten, the only mount for them.  It was a fighter to be not solely loved, but to be equally respected.  It was, as I would say, a fighter pilot's fighter plane.  And yet it was still considered obsolete even up to its last days.  

What I am getting at is how did a plane with seemingly so little to offer in it's initial production become such a well respected and highly coveted fighter through it's career in WWII?  Even with all of it's short comings?

It truly is the most enigmatic WWII frontline fighter of them all.

Tactics

[GRUNHERZ]

Originally posted by Rob Cashman
The 109 was a good fighter but IMO it owed it's longevity more to political alignments and bad decisions by  the Nazi's than for it's novel, mid 1930's design.

 Heinkel had the 112 which IMO, and many others, was a superior plane to the 109.  A couple of years later the HE-100. Again a better plane than the 109.  A few years later again Heinkel had the HE-280 development going very well and was much further along than the ME-262 but it did not get far.  And even the HE-162 was superior but the Nazi's waited so long to develop and produce it that it had to use plywood in it's construction.
 Why were the Heinkel designs ignored, passed by or delayed until too late?  Because Willy Messerschmidt was the party and RLM favorite.

The 109 was both a better performer and easier to manufacture than He112 when they competed in 1935.

The He162 was designed and built in three months to a specific RLM request in late 1944, they were in service wirhin a few months of the proposal being issued. I have no idea where you get te though that the program was delayed, in fact it's probablt the fastest design to service time of ant new fighter in history. Also it was always designed with partial wood consruction in mind.

[Oldman731]

Originally posted by Guppy35
And where is this literature bashing the 109.  I've been reading and researching WW2 aviation for close to 40 years now since I was a kid and I don't remember ever coming across anything like that.

I can think of two, off the top of my head.

The guy who wrote "I Fought You from the Skies"....Willi Heilmann?....expressed positive loathing for the 109s, and said he and everyone he knew were very glad they weren't flying them.  Much of what he wrote is suspect, though, and some of it is fiction.

On the other hand, Caldwell's first book about JG 26 describes how, by the end of 1944, two-thirds of the unit were equipped with FW-190s, while the remaining third had 109s.  Caldwell mentions several times how morale in the 109 unit dropped well before morale in the rest of the JG went down, and attributed this to the pilots' sense that their G6s had become cannon fodder.

I'm sure there are plenty of other books and articles that have made this point over the years.  I know that I've taken it on faith that most German pilots preferred to be in FWs rather than 109s.

- oldman

[Guppy35]

Originally posted by Oldman731
I can think of two, off the top of my head.

The guy who wrote "I Fought You from the Skies"....Willi Heilmann?....expressed positive loathing for the 109s, and said he and everyone he knew were very glad they weren't flying them.  Much of what he wrote is suspect, though, and some of it is fiction.

On the other hand, Caldwell's first book about JG 26 describes how, by the end of 1944, two-thirds of the unit were equipped with FW-190s, while the remaining third had 109s.  Caldwell mentions several times how morale in the 109 unit dropped well before morale in the rest of the JG went down, and attributed this to the pilots' sense that their G6s had become cannon fodder.

I'm sure there are plenty of other books and articles that have made this point over the years.  I know that I've taken it on faith that most German pilots preferred to be in FWs rather than 109s.

- oldman

Not much different then how the Spit V pilots were feeling after the 190 arrived on the scene.

Or the 4th FG pilots preferring their old Spit Vs to the P47s and how thrilled they were to get out of them for Mustangs.  I don't think folks think the Jug was a bad aircraft based on that.

Maybe I misunderstood the original post but it seemed to imply that there was a message out there that the 109 was a poor design etc.

Dan/Slack

[Rob Cashman]

"The 109 was both a better performer and easier to manufacture than He112 when they competed in 1935."

 Well. that's a valid opinion.  From what I've read the 112 was a better performer to start and could have been as easily manufactured as well as improved upon as the 109 came to be.



" The He162 was designed and built in three months to a specific RLM request in late 1944..."

 The "Volksjaeger" project was started in March 1944 but the very basic requirements and solicitation to aircraft manufactures wasn't done until September 1944.  If there had been no delay Heinkel theoretically could have had the 162 in service six months earlier than they did.
 And AFAIK the wood was a requirement because of a lack of materials. IMO if continued 109 manufacture and development had not continued to deplenish the limited aluminum supply the 162 could have been made stronger and as a result also held more fuel and been more effective.  Instead of seeing next to no action in March and April of 1945 the 162's could have been in use the November prior.
 IMO the reason Heinkel could develop the 162 so fast is due to thier depth of experience with jets going back to the late 30's. It was a simple, quickie design that with the help of bandaids, like the bent wingtips to fix lateral instability, added along the way to get it in service fast.

 What about the ridiculous delays of the ME262?

[GRUNHERZ]

The 109 prototype was faster and climbed better than the He112 during the competition.  It was so m uch better in fact that even the anti-Messerschmit RLM was forced to accept the Bf109 even thiough Messerchmits participation was offiocialy discouraged in the bid. In other words the Bf109 had such a performance and technological advantage over He112 that it overcame the political advantages of Heinkel, which was the officaly prefered design before the competition.  It was a better design.

You couldnt just stop production of Bf109 in mid 1944, there were no reliable substitutes that could be produced in volume. The Fw190A lacked high alt performance and the jets were still technically unreliable.  IM O the great failing of the RLM was development of a high alt DB603 powered 190. Such a design fw190C  was ready for mass production in late 1942 and would have given the LW a 3 cannon armed 450mph high alt plane in early 1943. However the Db603s went to Me410 destroyers so this 190C was shelved.

[HoHun]

Hi Dan,

>I guess I'm a bit confused.  Since when has the 109 been seen as anything less then a great fighter aircraft from the Second World War?

Well, double-edged praise following the pattern "a great fighter aircraft, but obsolete from the Gustav onwards" is quite commonplace.

If you don't believe in generalizations, all the better :-)

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

[HoHun]

Hi Diablo,

>It seems that they write things as "Its airframe was too small for developement" or "Its landing gear strained at the added weight" or things to that effect.  

Well, no amount of development could turn the Me 109 into a P-51, which really was the war-winning fighter if any one actually qualifies.

So if Messerschmitt had been a US company, they probably wouldn't have sold 30000 of them, because it would have been unable to fulfill the USAAF requirements. They'd probably have shipped a couple of thousand of P-109s to the Soviet Union, though ;-)

European requirements were different, though of course the Luftwaffe (like the RAF) could have benefitted from a capable long-range fighter, too. The designs they actually had for that role didn't work out, however - the Bf 110 was not competitive against the RAF fighters, and the Whirlwind was killed by poor engines.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

[HoHun]

Hi Rob,

>From what I've read the 112 was a better performer to start and could have been as easily manufactured as well as improved upon as the 109 came to be.

Well, my impression is that performance was no better than that of a Me 109 with the same engine variant, and Heinkel himself stressed that he made great progress in terms of mass production suitability when designing the He 100, which I take as implicit admission that the He 112 wasn't competitive in that regard.

Still, the Spitfire wasn't well-suited for mass production either but got turned out in great numbers anyhow, so the He 112 might have been an option for the Luftwaffe after all.

>What about the ridiculous delays of the ME262?

Brought about by lack of strategic resources for engine manufacturing and completely unavoidable. If Jumo had been a British company, they could have had their jet engine ready for mass production in 1943.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

[Guppy35]

Originally posted by HoHun
Hi Diablo,

>It seems that they write things as "Its airframe was too small for developement" or "Its landing gear strained at the added weight" or things to that effect.  

Well, no amount of development could turn the Me 109 into a P-51, which really was the war-winning fighter if any one actually qualifies.

So if Messerschmitt had been a US company, they probably wouldn't have sold 30000 of them, because it would have been unable to fulfill the USAAF requirements. They'd probably have shipped a couple of thousand of P-109s to the Soviet Union, though ;-)

European requirements were different, though of course the Luftwaffe (like the RAF) could have benefitted from a capable long-range fighter, too. The designs they actually had for that role didn't work out, however - the Bf 110 was not competitive against the RAF fighters, and the Whirlwind was killed by poor engines.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

It still comes down to folks not looking at the overall then doesn't it.

The 109 and Spit were designed to be interceptors.  Meaning the bombers are coming to them.  Get up fast and shoot them down.  Range was not the issue in the design requirements.

That both were adapted and were able to continue to be used as frontline fighters that performance wise were able to compete with anything flying at the end speaks to the greatness of the designs.

No one was asking for a long range escort fighter in the mid 30s as they didn't see the need, much to their regret later on.

What other operational fighter design from the mid 30s was still a front line combat aircraft in 45?

Dan/Slack

[MANDO]

DiabloTX, fw190 alone had several flaws, 109 alone had several flaws also. The usage of Fw190 and Bf109 working together compensates any individual flaws in deffense or attack.

[Angus]

As a sidenote...
Didn't the Japanese get some 112's?

[hogenbor]

Yes they did, no idea what happened to them though.

[Rasker]

I think they got about 6 He100's, from the same batch that was shipped to the USSR IIRC.

[Kurfürst]

Originally posted by Guppy35

What other operational fighter design from the mid 30s was still a front line combat aircraft in 45?

Dan/Slack

The 30s thing is a bit strange though. Usually it`s noted for the 109 that it was a mid-30s design....

... like 95% of the fighter used in WW2. ,)