The Me 410 jack of all trades

[Karnak]

All the late 210s were converted into 410s. Wings changed, the stuff.

One way do see if the plane was previously a 210 was the engine gauges in the inner engine wall (same as in 110). Those were eventually moved inside the cockpit and the holes covered.

-C+

When did those Me210 conversions enter service and were they entered as Me410s or Me210s?  Debrody is making a distinction between the two, Me210s converted to be Me410s and Me410s that were Me410s from the ground up.

The Brits didn't do it the same it seems.  The last Mancesters on the line were completed as Lancasters, you can tell if they were going to be Manchesters if they have a row of little windows along the fuselage, and they were considered Lancaster Mk Is just as much as the airframes built as Lancaster Mk Is from the ground up.  Same would be true of Spitfire Mk Vs that became Spitfire Mk IXs at the factory.

[Debrody]

Hey, dont give words into my mouth    But basically, almost.

Was there a strick line, a bigger-than-usual upgrade package or something when they started to call them 410s? I think so.
IMO the converted planes count as real 410s - from the day they were equipped with the key modifications what makes the 410 a 410.
If the main flight parameters and the performance were simmilar enough, of course.

[Krusty]

There was a noticable difference between 210s and 410s: Mostly the engines. The 210s in production at that time already had the longer fuselages, I believe also had the leading edge slats, and the only real difference was the cranked wing leading edge and the engine type.

I believe the 410 was really to be called the 210D or 210E but was renamed to get past all that political bickering. However, even using the existing 210 fuselages I'd say the wing and engine differences were enough that there wasn't very much mixing of the two on the production lines.