Messerschmitt Me 410

[LLv34_Snefens]

How fast was the 410B btw? I can find the speed listed for the A-model everywhere (usually listed about 388-391 mph), but never for the upengined B-model.

I'll be happy if we just get a 210C tho. It's not the performance that's the big attraction for me, but just that it's such a good looker. I like to look good when I'm flying

[F4UDOA]

AGV44,

Could you post those charts please.

Speed and climb especially at low alt.

Thanks

[gatso]

Man what a choice of guns. bk5 and mk103 options would both be fantastic. It also opens up some other interesting LW choices if those two weapons are modeled. Surely they'd have to add both packages...? (please )

Would love to see it and a Mossie NF to shoot it down with

Gatso

[Batz]

the bk5 and mk103s wont be any more effective then hispanos and 50 cals now. You would need to be close (maybe not with the bk5; depending how it modelled) to get hits. The 50cals and hizookas can kill gvs at a greater range then any other plane.

With their overload ord they will always be better attack aircraft then any other.

[Kweassa]

Perk the 1000lbs loadouts on fighter planes!!

[davidpt40]

Does anyone have real live reports or articles about this beautifull plane in combat?

Yes, I will type them up later.  The Me-410 was neither fast enough or armored (armor plated) enough to take on B17s.  This meant the 410 usually attacked B17s from the 6:00 and were shot down the majority of the time.

[Batz]

BS david no b17 gunner shot down any plane "the majority of the time".

Hollywood bull****

[davidpt40]

"Formation at nine o'clock level" Sharpe said.
Crone called them when they got around to seven.  They were silver and they looked peaceable and went about their business in an orderly manner.  

  About that time Crone woke up.  They weren't mosquitoes.  "Them are Me 410's," he announced.

 They were turning in.  Sharpe lined up on the lead ship.  "Here they come"  His voice wasn't much, he said later.

  They were 410's  all right, new ones with no paint.  They came in on a tail-pass, just as Sam was slipping back into formation.
 
  Sharpe squeezed down on the first one, and the first one squeezed down on Sharpe, and they kept shooting at each other and kept on waiting.

  Then Sharpe forgot to shoot any more and yelled,  "I got one...I got one...I got one of those sonsasqueakes."  

  The Me[410]  sagged off and began to come apart.  The top hatch spilled off and the pilot bailed out.  

  There were more.

  The 20-millimeters were burst all around the formation.  Up ahead Forts were beginning to falter.  One nosed out of formation in the group on the left and began to give birth.  Nine chutes.

  One old painted job out there at three o'clock had a fire in his Tokyos.  Another tipped off on a wing and split-s-ed out of formation.

  They queded up and came through again.  Both sides were throwing out everything.  Sharpe's left feed went out, and he kept on shooting with one gun.

  "Every time the ball opened up I though we had it,"  Crone said later.  "I could feel my bellybutton being chewed off."

  The ammunition covers fell off the ball, and Beach couldn't shoot straight down without losing all his ammunition.

  Ross knocked off a 410 when the simple guy tried to pull in and fly formation while he lobbed shells into the group ahead.  

  "I could've conked the pilot with my gun barrel,"  Ross said.  "But I decided to shoot him."

  The 410 blew up.

  Lewis tracked another across the tail, saw the pieces begin to chip off, and smoke belch out of the cowl, and the pilot came out streaming silk.

  The 410s made two main passes and several feints, and the side lines were thick with 109's and 190's looking for easy meat, waiting for wounded Forts to fall back.

  Little Friends came on the scene then, 38's over the top and 51's in from high ten o'clock.

First hand account of B17 mission to Berlin, June 21st 1944.  The crew went on to claim 6 victories that day, and were awarded 5.    The survival rate of B17 crews was very much improved in 1944 vs 1943, therefor skill of the gunners was up while quality of German pilots was decreasing.

[Grendel]

Originally posted by davidpt40
Yes, I will type them up later.  The Me-410 was neither fast enough or armored (armor plated) enough to take on B17s.  This meant the 410 usually attacked B17s from the 6:00 and were shot down the majority of the time.

BS. The speed difference was well in Me-410s advantage. 410's problem was the escort fighters, not the B-17 itself. There are good instances of extremerely heavy losses on B-17s and B-24s when Me 410s were able to work without the escorts interfering.

Sure thing the defensive gunners could have had good days, but what makes you think a Me 410 would be any kind of sitting duck versus B-17, when the Me 410 has longer ranged, heavier hitting weapons? Don't make generalizations on one example you offer.

[davidpt40]

Offer some evidence to dispute my claim then.  From what I have read the 410 was a flop and many were shot down by 17 gunners.

[Guppy]

Originally posted by Grendel
A famous victim of these guns was the American Ace Captain James Morris of the 20th Group. On 7/07/44, over Halle and Bernburg, he was shot down and killed in his P-38 Lightning by an attacked Me 410.

Interesting. P-38 Lightning Aces of the ETO/MTO (p.77) states that Morris, having "mortally damaged" the 410, was hit and forced to bail out, finishing the war in a PoW camp.

[Batz]

David your anecdotal evidence is about as credible as bouncing 50 cals off the ground to kill tanks...In other words its bs.

B17 tail gunner kills were way over claimed, not just a small bit but so over claimed that it borders on the ridiculous.

Do you know what dispersion tests on the ground showed for a tail gunner in a b24? at 600yrds it was like 28ft.

We had a guy in the squad whos dad was a tail gunner. He stated that it was dam near impossible to get hits.

No one believes that fairy tail bs.

"then the 410 exploded" lol

[LLv34_Snefens]

A pilot anecdote from "Air Command - Fighters and bombers of World War II" p.149

Friedrich Stehle
Me 410 pilot, II/ZG 26
 If we attacked the bombers from behind, we could really work on them - if we were left alone by the enemy escorts. You really had to work on those bombers; it was very seldom that you knocked them down with the first burst. Sometimes you would sit behind a bomber and fire off all your ammunition into it, and it would not move. It would just keep going.
 If you were attacked by a Mustang, you could only prey and hope you gunner shot well. I had a few tricks I could throw in, and perhaps they saved me. My Viennese gunner, Unteroffizier Alois Slaby, was very experienced, and he knew exactly when the enemy was about to fire. He would say, "not yet - not yet. Now!" and I would chop the throttles, and the 410 would decelerate very rapidly. If we were lucky, the fighter would go screaming past us. Sometimes I would put the 410 into a skid wiht the wings level, and the enemy rounds would flash past the wing tip. We knew that if we could buy a little time, that often meant survival. Once the escorts had dropped their tanks, they could not fight for very long near Berlin. They had to break off and return to England.
 At 28,000 feet, the Me 410 was only just about flying. It could not manouver much. Even at full throttle, we would be overtaking the  enemy bombers at only about thirty miles per hour. As a result, it took us a long time to get ourselves into firing position. Fighting in the Me 410 was a bit like entering the Kentucky Derby on a cart horse!

[Pongo]

natural metal 410s.
Interesting.

[bigUC]

Originally posted by Pongo
natural metal 410s.
Interesting.

As far as i understand they where painted from the factory with civilian registration codes.  These where then overpainted by the unit.  I find it highly unlikely that an LW fighter flew in metal finish-especially from 1943 and onwards, when every plane and field was heavily camouflaged.  My guess is that if the unlikely story is true, then the gunner fired at P-38's.