Bf 110 "myths"

[Krusty]

Originally posted by joeblogs
Much more efficient to have a wing man and some squadron discipline.

Oh? What about the 109 that came up behind an entire flight of hurricanes, shot down 2-3, moving from one to the other to the other, before the remaining 1-2 dove away (not without taking a few rounds themselves)?

Wingmen didn't help much, most of the time, if the enemy was behind you.

[Angus]

Were those 2 vic's?
Same happened to a flight of 109's in the BoB BTW.

The finger four formation was basically cleverly designed to deal with that, with the 2-ship unit being the smallest.

[joeblogs]

That's called bad situational awareness. If pilots aren't going to do their job it's a pointless exercise.

And remember, the English didn't get their squadron tactics worked out until the middle of BoB. They were still doing silly things like flights of 3.

Ask yourself what that 109 could have done against a squadron of Fairy Battles. Actually you don't have to ask, they were decimated over France...

-Blogs

Originally posted by Krusty
Oh? What about the 109 that came up behind an entire flight of hurricanes, shot down 2-3, moving from one to the other to the other, before the remaining 1-2 dove away (not without taking a few rounds themselves)?

Wingmen didn't help much, most of the time, if the enemy was behind you.

[Treize69]

110s had a few tricks they could pull, and all things being equal, they could hold their own. They could revers surprisingly quickly in a stall-turn, and were pretty effective if they worked together and covered each other- and took advantage of their attributes without giving in to their faults.

In some of the LW histories that cover the whole airforce (not just the Jagdwaffe), you see many cases of pilots of twin engine aircraft becoming overconfident and attacking superior forces, flying like they were in a single-engined fighter.

I think I remember reading in one of Mike Spicks books about a Staffel of 110s trying to dogfight a Group of Hawk 75s early in 1940 and getting thoroughly trounced, but that may just be a legend. But there was a definite tendancy among the pilots of all airforces early in the war (europeans in 1939-41, Americans in 1941-42) to engage in WWI style dogfights when their aircraft was in no way capable of that kind of maneuverability.

[HoHun]

Hi Tikky,

>110 was no slouch, it was faster than hurricane and spits at low alts.  110 was good enough in manuvarability because of wing slats.

Hm, I don't think that's accurate.

It certainly was slower than the Spitfire, and maybe about as fast as the Hurricane (for which I haven't seen accurate figures yet).

I don't think there is anything to indicate that it was more manoeuvrable than any of the single-engined fighters.

A while back, I prepared an analysis of the Me 110C performance:

http://hometown.aol.de/HoHunKhan/Me110Cspeed2.gif

The background: During the Battle of Britain, there were only DB601A-1 engined Me 110 aircraft around. They had been scheduled for conversion to the new DB601N, but due to the surprisingly good performance of the Spitfire, the Luftwaffe decided to give the DB601N to the Me 109 instead, converting one Gruppe of JG26 to the DB601N. This is reported in Petrick/Mankau's Zerstörer book.

The DB601A-1 came in two flavours, with the early-type supercharger and the late-type supercharger with increased full throttle height. By the time of the Battle of Britain, the late-type supercharger seems to have been prevalent, though the early-type supercharger had still been in use during the Battle of France. The exact proportions aren't known. (Another flavour of the DB601A was the Aa with increased low-altitude power, but it seems they were not used in the Me 110.)

According to Mankau/Petrick, only a handful of Bf 110C-4/B were built under that designation before the series was redesignated C-7. The C-4/B with DB601N apparently played no role in the Battle of Britain.

The grey line in my graph is indicative of the emergency power speed of the Me 110C with DB601A-1 with late-type supercharger. Note the two series of data points from a British report on the type. I guess it's this report that has given rise to the myth that the Bf 110C was a dedicated high-altitude aircraft as it reports a top speed of almost 550 km/h @ 7 km. However, this is certainly an error as it is far above (in the literal sense :-) of the known capacities of the engine. It is still above the capacities of the more powerful DB601N, though not by as much - but the British did not test a DB601N-engined aircraft.

What's more, they made two different test flights, and they recorded figures that were much less impressive on their second flight - figures that do indeed match my calculation that is based on the German Kennblatt for the type rather well. It's quite obvious that the British simply made a mistake somewhere during their tests, coming out with an exaggerated top speed. The funny thing is that they noticed that their results were rather unusual and added some hand-waving arguments to the report to justify their results anyway :-)

Realistically, the Bf 110C as used in the Battle of Britain should be expected to top out at about 530 km/h @ 5 km, which is quite a bit slower than both the Me 109E and the Spitfire. If someone has good Hurricane data, that would make for an interesting comparison, though I think history has proven that the Bf 110 was not up to the Hurricane during the Battle of Britain.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

[HoHun]

Hi Tony,

>OTOH, I have read that the majority of planes shot down in WW2 never saw the plane which attacked them - they were bounced from behind.

I have read that, too, but when inquiring for the source of the data I never got a satisfactory answer :-)

In fact, in the past I have used the example of the Me 110 to demonstrate that the "never saw the attacker" claim is questionable.

>The added weight would be a very small fraction of the weight of a P-47, and the pilot would be able to focus on his job instead of forever looking behind him.

There were still arguments whether the back seater was worth his weight in the F-4 community, so I don't think the idea would have stood any chance in WW2.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

[HoHun]

Hi Bug,

>A good thing is germany sended its elite pilots in this thing over england.


LOL! Always look at the bright side of life! ;-)

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

[Angus]

The 110's were apparently somewhat prone for getting into flatspins/uncontrollable stalls. That might explain some things, - if pilots were afraid to push them to the limits for instance.
I have some text on this from Werner Mölder's brother.
(Actually I think he's still alive. He flew 109's 110's and then 109 in the BoB got shot down and captured)
Anyway can dig up a quote from him and the source if I'm lucky in my heap of stuff

[Tony Williams]

Originally posted by HoHun
There were still arguments whether the back seater was worth his weight in the F-4 community, so I don't think the idea would have stood any chance in WW2.

It worked well in WW1, though - the Bristol Fighter was highly regarded.

The Fulmar is not a good example - it was basically an adapted light bomber design, underpowered and with a far worse performance than single-seat fighters. In contrast the P-47 was a huge and very powerful plane, with lots of room in it (the joke at the time being that its pilots took evasive action by getting up and running round the cockpit).

Note that the loss rate of the early Il-2, while still high, improved markedly once the rear gunner was added, despite the bad effect this had on handling.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

[joeblogs]

But the IL-2 is an attack plane, not a fighter.

The better example is to look at Britain's late war 2 seat navy fighters. Even with nearly 2,000HP engines they were out classed.

-Blogs

Originally posted by Tony Williams
It worked well in WW1, though - the Bristol Fighter was highly regarded.

The Fulmar is not a good example - it was basically an adapted light bomber design, underpowered and with a far worse performance than single-seat fighters. In contrast the P-47 was a huge and very powerful plane, with lots of room in it (the joke at the time being that its pilots took evasive action by getting up and running round the cockpit).

Note that the loss rate of the early Il-2, while still high, improved markedly once the rear gunner was added, despite the bad effect this had on handling.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

[Tony Williams]

Originally posted by joeblogs
The better example is to look at Britain's late war 2 seat navy fighters. Even with nearly 2,000HP engines they were out classed.

Actually, the Firefly wasn't that outclassed in terms of manoeuvrability - it seriously embarrassed USN fighters in mock dogfights when one visited the USA. However, its speed was too low for a fighter (although it made an effective strike plane).

That still isn't the point, anyway. A P-47 with a rear spotter/gunner, sitting with the back of his seat directly up agaist the pilot's, could have fitted into the same fuselage with only minor modification. The increase in weight would have been a very small proportion of the P-47's normal combat weight. So the performance and handling would have been only fractionally worse than the single-seat P-47. A reasonable trade for a second pair of eyes to watch your back, methinks.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

[joeblogs]

I am not sure the change would be innocuus.

True, you might be talking about a small percentage increase in total weight of the plane, but climb rate and maximum speed are functions of excess power, which all suffer from extra weight. These things follow a power rule so the performance decline would be noticeable. This would be a special concern for the climb rate, which was a weak spot for the P47 in ETO. The other weak spot was sustained turn rates, which depend on wing loading. There would also be an effect on range, which was critical for these planes in ETO.

Now add a gunner with his suit and parachute (roughly 200 lbs). Then add at least twin 30's or a single 50 plus ammunition. That is something like 300 lbs minimum. Does the gunner need armor? Well that's 50-100 lbs. So we are adding 500-1,000 lbs to the plane's grossweight, somewhere between 5-10 percent of the all up weight of the plane (I am making these numbers up in my head just to illustrate). I suspect even a 2 percent change in the weight of a plane would have noticeable effects.

So I think the effect on performance would be noticeable. It is true the plane would benefit from better situational awareness and it would be harder to shoot down. But it would also be less effective in attacking the other side's fighters, which was the primary mission of the plane.

Now if the idea is to convert the P47 into a dedicated ground attack plane, these tradeoffs seem more reasonable. Then again, the P47 dives away so fast it's not clear it needs a rear gunner for such attacks.

-Blogs

Originally posted by Tony Williams
...

That still isn't the point, anyway. A P-47 with a rear spotter/gunner, sitting with the back of his seat directly up agaist the pilot's, could have fitted into the same fuselage with only minor modification. The increase in weight would have been a very small proportion of the P-47's normal combat weight. So the performance and handling would have been only fractionally worse than the single-seat P-47. A reasonable trade for a second pair of eyes to watch your back, methinks.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

[Angus]

A p47 wih a rear gunner might have been interesting. But what concept. Can't see many positive sides apart from the "eyes".
The thing was tried out with the Bolton Paul Defiant remember. While the turret was quite effective for rear attacks, the created drag and increased weight was too much, so the aircraft had no chance against the the LW aircraft, be it 109's. 110's or even the bombers who were even faster.
So, the similar airframe and same engine of a Hurricane had a much better record.
Plonk a good solid rear defensive armament on an aircraft like the P47, and what do you get? A fighter that is the most clumsy single engined fighter in 1943+, and one of the slower ones as well.
The only interesting aspect I'd spot is solely ground attack, where the aircraft is low and slow and heavily loaded anyway. The power of a P47 with 2x .50's in the back would have made it a tough one, - faster and nastier than the Il-2.......

What-if's are always fun

[joeblogs]

One idea might be rear firing barbettes, but without a second pilot they would have to be fixed.

-Blogs

Originally posted by Angus
A p47 wih a rear gunner might have been interesting. But what concept. Can't see many positive sides apart from the "eyes"....

What-if's are always fun

[gripen]

I don't know much about the turrets but it seems that the best results were reached with powered turrets; namely the Defiant and the Avenger had quite succesful installations. But powered turrets were quite heavy and 4x7,7mm or 1x12,7mm sound quite weak against late war planes.

BTW Tony, did any powered turret with gyroscopic gunsight reach service during WWII?

gripen