Bf 110 "myths"

[Tony Williams]

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".

Well, that's the whole point of it!

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.

The Defiant was an entirely different concept. It was a plane designed around the turret for the specific purpose of attacking (unescorted) bomber streams. The idea was that the Defiants would attack in close formation, with the pilots keeping the formation tight (for maximum concentration of fire) while the gunners got on with the job. Might have worked, too, if the Germans hadn't seized those French air bases which enabled them to send fighter escorts to cover their bombers.

Turrets were certainly much more effective than flexibly-mounted guns, but the weight penalty was too high for the purpose I have in mind. In fact, a gun isn't strictly necessary - the main point of the rear-seat man would be to keep watch and keep the pilot informed of exactly what was happening behind him. A gun would be an optional extra - maybe to frighten the enemy pilots a bit, or to make the rear-seat guy feel better! I don't see that the weight penalty would be as great as suggested - it would be more a matter of redistributing armour than adding lots more.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

[Tony Williams]

Originally posted by gripen
BTW Tony, did any powered turret with gyroscopic gunsight reach service during WWII?

The British gyro gunsights (GGS) for both fighters (Mk IID) and bomber turrets (Mk IIC) were perfected in 1943 and went into production early in 1944. The US adopted the Mk IID as the Mk 18 (USN) and the K-14 (USAAF), but didn't use the turret version AFAIK. They had the Sperry computer gunsight instead, which used a different principle (no gyro).

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

[Charge]

"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)?"

That was a result of poor formation techniques which some RAF squadrons quickly abandoned -and surprisingly some didn't for quite a while.

German pilots referred one of these less effective formations as "Idiotenreihe" which basically means "idiotline". Probably an unfortunate result of flight leader of a big formation flying too fast and the rest trying to keep up, add to that that the Brits used a rear guy whose job was to announce enemy attacks agaist the formation. That is if the poor bugger was not shot down first.

-C+

[Angus]

Yes, the "tail end Charlie" couldn't warn anyone if he got shot, now could he?
The Finger-Four was vastly better one-for-one, and when everybody turned into that tactic, successful jumps became much less common.
They still occured, but as pilots grew more and more experienced the Finger-Four proved very effective. Still used I belive.

I have quite much material about "bouncing", and here are some examples, by memory.

France 1941. Douglas Bader either gets shot down or collides whiles hacking down a formation of 109's who were cruising and not aware of his presence.

France, September 1941. FO T.E.Jonsson of SQN 111 RAF loses his own squadron, spots it again and forms up nicely. Ooops. They had black crosses, so he dives away. Two of them spotted him and went for the chase, he did not spot those, being alone. They caught him over the middle of the Channel (109F's vs a Spit V). After a long time of dogfighting his buddies came back and bounced the 109's. Would be ineresting to look up, I think it was the 13th of September.

Tunisia 1943. A flight of US P38's gets jumped by 109's. The 109's got jumped by a high cap of Spitfires. Some 109's got shot down, some ran the P38's carried on and never noticed anything.
(BTW, different radio Frequencies, so as in more cases, no contact between RAF and USSAF)

[HoHun]

Hi Tony,

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

The Bristol Fighter was somewhat of a freak due to its use of the powerful Rolls Royce Falcon engine which had around 50% more power than the German single-seaters, ending up with a similar power-to-weight ratio in spite of its heavy weight.

It doesn't make much sense to compare the WW1 situation to the WW2 situation anyway because in WW2, the fighters were equipped with radios and co-operative tactics had evolved that made it possible for fighters to cover each other in a way that had not been possible in WW1 (where the two-seaters never managed to replace the single-seaters either).

Each WW2 fighter already had a second set of eyes covering his back - his wingman's. A wingman was a much more powerful rear defense than a ride-along gunner could ever be.

Your suggestion would be fascinating simulator fodder, but I don't think Aces High is going to feature a rear-gunner on the P-47 anytime soon :-) However, if it would be possible to set up a scenario with rules that would make the players fly in a realistic manner (clinging to their virtual lives as if their real lives depended on it), it should be possible to evaluate the performance of the hypothetical "gunned" P-47 in a meaningful and most interesting way :-)

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

[Tony Williams]

Originally posted by HoHun
Hi Tony,

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

The Bristol Fighter was somewhat of a freak due to its use of the powerful Rolls Royce Falcon engine which had around 50% more power than the German single-seaters, ending up with a similar power-to-weight ratio in spite of its heavy weight.

Well, the later versions of the P-47 had 50% more power than any German single-engined fighter

The problem with relying on a wingman for protection is that it cut the offensive capability of the unit by 50%, since half of the planes wouldn't be concentrating on attacking, but on watching the back of the other half.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

[Shuckins]

The rear seat gunner on the 110 could have only been of doubtful utility in a hard-turning, high-g dogfight.  In a 5-g turn, a 50 pound machine-gun suddenly weighs 250 pounds, and a 175 pound pilot suddenly finds himself flopping around fighting a massive increase of his own weight to 875 pounds.

Using only low-g maneuvers to allow the gunner to retain his mobility was a tactic fraught with peril for the 110.

[Knegel]

Hi,

according to my understanding of the 110, its main drawback was its poor roll ratio and size regarding the visibility and as target.

The not that good climb isnt a handycap once you be high and fast(look to the Hurri, Spit, P40, FW190 and later P47).  
The 110 did keep much inertia and iam pretty sure that a Spit1a or Hurri had problems to keep up while a shallow dive and a following upzoom( did read that even the Do17 and Ju88 was able to get away in a shallow dive).

Same like the Typhoon, Tempest and Mosquito, the 110 simply had a to poor rollratio to be a real fighter.
Sure, all this planes had a great firepower and a good speed, and of course it was possible to get kills while suprising attacks, but while a intercept, where planes roll around and turn same or more tight, pilots in this planes simply had problems to follow. Even without evading manouvers, by the target, the need a of a smal correction already got to be a real problem.
If the attacker have poor roll ratio, the target(most more slow and therefor often in its good manouver speed) only need a  to bank a little bit, followed by a smooth turn to evade. On the other hand, if the poor rolling plane is under attack, it only can turn, but that waste energy like mad and the 110 was a nice big target.

Thats why the FW190, same like the P38, P51, P47 and P40 was pretty good, despite their obvious disadvantages.  Who cant roll fast enough(specialy at higher speed) to adjust the attacking course, need to get down to the same speed like the enemy to get a clean shot(or the pilot need to be very good in estimating the right course), but thats suecide in a plane with a bad powerload.  While sustained turns and climbs it simply lose to much, then it only can run, but it need time to get back into a advanced position, what isnt good for the own Bombers.

The 110 was a good escort plane, but to turnfight single engine fighters was suecide. The P38, P47 and also P51 pilots had same problems, but they switched to B&Z, then they was good fighters, specialy in the pacific, where they performed vs the (most)slow Japanese planes like a Me262 over europe.  

Why they never did remove the tail gunner from the 110 i realy dont understand. They could have saved maybe 500kg(maybe more).


Greetings, Knegel

[Angus]

A hotted up lighter 110, interesting. Would have been quite fast, like in the times of the BoB.
But about the rollrate. Always thought the Tempest was good,  and the mossie ok.
Our 110 rolles quite nicely I think, probably too well. It also turns quite well.
I don't see a logical reason for a big ship like the 110 rolling better than the 109E for instance, - same manufacturer and all, so maybe HTC has that wrong, or there just isn't much data around.

[MiloMorai]

How would the 110 stack up against a Whirlwind?

The UBI Il-2 forum has info on the Whirlwind, http://forums.ubi.com/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/23110283/m/9561084534

[Knegel]

Originally posted by Angus
A hotted up lighter 110, interesting. Would have been quite fast, like in the times of the BoB.
But about the rollrate. Always thought the Tempest was good,  and the mossie ok.
Our 110 rolles quite nicely I think, probably too well. It also turns quite well.
I don't see a logical reason for a big ship like the 110 rolling better than the 109E for instance, - same manufacturer and all, so maybe HTC has that wrong, or there just isn't much data around.

Hi,

the Tempest and Mossi roll was bad in comparison to F4U, P47, P38, FW190, P40, SpitIXc and even Bf109(at highspeed it was more even).

According to what i did read they was on the Hurri level regarding the roll, in AH thats somewhat different, but even here a tempest have some problems to get a FW190, F4U or La7 down, when the enemy pilot know to use the rollratio.

500kg less weight dont make a fast plane, but it give a better acceleration with all its advantages.

I also cant believe that the 110 did roll so well. Long wings(high aspect ratio) dont help to roll fast, same like heavy engines should be bad for the initial roll.


The Wirlwind probably would have been a nice interceptor.
ONLY 23m², a wing aspectratio of 8,1(similar like the P38) , ONLY 4700kg T/O weight BUT around 1700HP and this in 1940/41.

I think it never got grip cause the brits disliked heavy wingloades and dont saw the advantage of the advanced speed, on the other hand i guess also this plane had a poor rollratio(what isnt that important for a extreme fast interceptor) .

I guess this plane in in 1940 in high numbers would have blown the Luftwaffe Bombers out of the sky before they would have been able to reach London.  What a bad luck that the engines was crap.

How it would have performend vs the 110 depends much to the current 110 fuelload.  The 900kg fuel of the 110 give a wide range of possibilitys.
I doubt the Wirlwind was a good dogfighter, at least the pilots didnt liked it(maybe cause they was used to turnfighters like Hurri, Spit, Gladi???), but so the 110 was.
I wonder how tough the wing was, it was very smal close to the fuselage, not a good sign for stiffness, but i dont found any real good sources regarding this plane.

Greetings, Knegel

[Angus]

The Whirlwind AFAIK was turned down because of engine problems/reliability. The performance etc was OK and it packed a punch.
On top of that, unlike in the case of the Manchester/Lancaster, it couldn't be adapted to the Merlin.
But the Tempest boggles me here. Always thought they solved the roll rate problems of the Tiffie when the Tempest was out. One frigging ship, the Tempest. Been looking for data on it like graphs and such, but haven't been lucky yet.

[Karnak]

Luftflotte 5

[HoHun]

Hi Tony,

>Well, the later versions of the P-47 had 50% more power than any German single-engined fighter

That's not even true for shaft power, and the German fighters exploited exhaust thrust while the P-47 didn't so that in terms of actually available power they compared even better than the rated power data suggests.

>The problem with relying on a wingman for protection is that it cut the offensive capability of the unit by 50%, since half of the planes wouldn't be concentrating on attacking, but on watching the back of the other half.

A rear gunner will never be able to replace a wingman, so that's not a valid point even if you'd accept the 50% offensive capability as fact (which I don't).

The misleading aspect ehre is the old saying "Most fighter pilots who were shot down ..." There is no evidence that this is anything more than a stern reminder not to neglect to watch one's six. If you take it as a literal truth, then the idea of a rear gunner might begin to make some sense, but as the fate of the rear-gunner equipped Me 110 demonstrates, reality is more complex than that.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

[MiloMorai]

Originally posted by Angus
The Whirlwind AFAIK was turned down because of engine problems/reliability.  

The first Whirlwind came off the production line in May 1940, the last in Jan 1942.

The engines could not be that problematic/unreliable as Whirlwinds flew mission to the Cherbourg Peninsula and even providing escort to missions to Cologne and Antwerp. They could even carried a 500lb bomb under each wing. Sqds 263 and 137 replaced their Whirlwinds with Typhoons, and their problimatic Sabres, in Nov/Dec 1943.

In one mission to the Cherbourg 4 Whirlwinds were intercepted by 20 Bf109s. They claimed 2 109s for 2 Whirlwinds damaged and a 3rd forced landed.