WesWorld

Messerschmitt Bf 110 was an aircraft of paradoxical success. This because, even so it has been a failure to play the role for which he was projected, of hunting the heavy one (Zerstörer). During the Battle of England, it played in a lot of other missions for which it would finally being used. In this manner, it has even so not corresponded to the expectations of the Luftwaffe, it was serving in Germany during all the World War II as long-range hunting of escort, fighter aircraft, airplane of recognition, terrestrial support and finally as nocturnal hunting (and played this role successfully ).

What do the other think about this aircraft ?

Depends. In it's designed role, as a long-range fighter, against contemporary opposition, it was a failure. Having to escort the Bf-110s with Bf-109s during the Battle of Britain is pretty clear evidence that the -110 wasn't up to the job. As a fighter-bomber, it was OK, and as a night fighter, it was quite successful.

In some ways, it's worst problem is that because it was chosen for the long-range fighter role, it prevented a superior plane (the Fw-187) from filling that role.

For the roles it wasn't a dismal failure in, the Junkers Ju88 was more suitable.

Well, she was better than her should-have-been-successor Me210/410.

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Originally posted by Hrolf Hakonson
Depends. In it's designed role, as a long-range fighter, against contemporary opposition, it was a failure. Having to escort the Bf-110s with Bf-109s during the Battle of Britain is pretty clear evidence that the -110 wasn't up to the job. As a fighter-bomber, it was OK, and as a night fighter, it was quite successful.

the only times when the Bf110s h1ad to be escorted by 109s during the BoB were when the Bf110s were doing close escort of german bombers. That, the Messerschmitt sucked at.

But as a fighter was a resounding success that got its reputation as a fighter crushed unfairly. The Bf110 was a magnificent fighter when fighting on its terms: High altitude Freie Jagd, or top cover long range escort. The 110 was faster than the hurricane, and was slightly faster than the spitfire ,too, at certain altitudes (at the optimal altitudes, the spit was faster, but the 110 had a good bracket of altitudes where its top speed was better), had a terrific dive and zoom ability , a very good maneouverability (for a twin engined plane), and the heaviest forward weaponry of any in-service fighter of the moment.

For 1940 the Bf110 was the best fighter of the german inventory. When used correctly.

The plane had two drawbacks: Sluggish low-speed roll rate and lack of acceleration and climbrate. Those drawbacks have been shared by many, many fighters in history and never were a fighter-killer because the planes were used to their strong points, not to their weak points. The P47 was one of the most clumsy planes of WW2 at low speeds and a underperforming plane in sustained acceleration and climbrate. That was never a problem because it was never flown slow.

This was not true in the Luftwaffe. During the initial stages of BoB the Bf110 achieved very good results against the british single-engined fighters, both spitfires and hurricanes, in high altitude fighter sweeps and high-level bomber escorts. The planes were used at very high cruising speeds and entered fights with a marked altitude advantage: they dived, fired, climbed back up, and repeated it until the opposition was crushed or gone.

If caught at a disadvantage with a fighter on its tail, the Bf110 had it easy to shake it off. The Bf110 was a better diver than the Emil (by a good margin) and the known british carburator problems prevented the english fighters to catch it when entering a direct dive.


But then came in göring and the bomber crew demoralization. They had a very effective escort force in their high-cover flying Bf109 and 110s, but they rarely saw one of them nearby and felt alone when engaged by british aircraft. Göring gave, at that moment, one of his most stupid orders ever (and he gave quite a number of them): German fighters from that point onwards were to fly in close escort. No more top cover.

As a result the german fighters were forced to fly near their bombers, throttled back, and at very similar altitudes. Suddenly the Bf110's advantages were lost: its high cruise speed was worthless as it was forced to fly at a loaded bombers' pace...and its low speed maneouverability drawbacks, plus their lack of acceleration and climbrate were heavily felt.

To do a comparison: does anyone imagine what would've happened had the american fighters been forced to fly close escort for the B-17s and B-24s?. Flying at 23000 feet, 190mph at the most?...They would've been crushed for no american plane excelled at low speed handling and/or sustained acceleration and climbrate.

that was the case with the Bf110s: they were forced to fly in british terms and in the flying envelope that most favored the british fighters and put themselfs in the biggest disadvantages: close quarters fighting at low to medium speeds, instead of slashing high-speed attacks from a bigger altitude and using its magnific dive/zoom and firepower.

The Bf109 fared much better (range consideration apart) because it was able to fight and win in those cicumstances (even while it also excelled at slashing attacks instead of close quarters escorting). The Bf110 could not.

But hardly can anyone blame the aircraft for this. With orders like those even a Fw190 would've been at a serious disadvantage. It was a stupid operative order which put the 110 at a severe disadvantage. Had it been used properly it would've stayed as a top-class front line fighter until 1941. In fact, it kept being so until almost 1943 (in the mediterranean there were several ZGs which achieved very good results until late'42) .

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In some ways, it's worst problem is that because it was chosen for the long-range fighter role, it prevented a superior plane (the Fw-187) from filling that role.

This I don't agree with. It's the same story as with the He-100. The Fw187 was a beauty. But a late beauty. And a redundant beauty the Germans couldn't allow themselfs to build.

For the time it could've been put into production the Bf110 program was already established in the german industry. To switch production would've caused a halt in production the germans couldn't allow themselves to happen (as it was there were too few Bf110Cs in service when war broke out).

That, and I can't see the Falke having the growth potential the Bf110 had. The 110 was used as fighter-fighter bomber, recconaissance, night intruding, night fighting... up till the end of the war, thanks to it's ability to mount bigger engines, load extra equipment, and having a big cockpit. I can't see the falke taking easily DB605s, as I can't see it mounting all the electronic equipment a 110 carried (the cocpkit was so narrow some instruments were mounte in the inboard side of the nacelles because there was no room or them within the cockpit panels)...or the heavy weaponry the 110 carried since the G-2 version.


[edit] and for the record, the Falke shared exactly the same rollrate problems the 110 had. I couldn't (in any way) keep a close quarters fight against any single engined fighter, for it was a worse turner than the 110. And it still was very lacking in sustained acceleration/climbrate when compared with the british single-engined fighters.

In short: as soon as the Göring close-escorting directive was issued, the Falke would've been as toast (if not more, due to it's worse low-speed maneouverability) as the Bf110 was historically.

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Originally posted by Red Admiral
For the roles it wasn't a dismal failure in, the Junkers Ju88 was more suitable.

Any german night-fighter with a british intruding mosquito on it's tail would have heartily disagreed with you in this assessment

Putting bigger engines on the Fw-187 wasn't a problem, Kurt Tank proposed engines as different from the Jumo-210/DB-600 as the BMW-801 radial for the Falke, couldn't get a nibble. And I've never found the "we can't close the production lines" argument very convincing: the Bf-110 line wouldn't need to close until the Fw-187 line was up and running, since they were by different companies and in different plants. Yeah, there might be a problem with getting enough engines for both lines at the same time, but that's a fairly minor problem since the idea isn't to have both lines running at the same time for long. Some airframes might have to wait for their engines for a bit, just like the early 109Es did, but that's a minor problem. Consider, for a moment, a Fw-187 equipped with Jumo-213Js......

I'll grant, though, that as built the Fw-187 doesn't really look like a great candidate for a night fighter. German radar aerials, though, were external originally, and the rear gunner/radio operator that was put on the Falke to try to satisfy objections might then have had something to do.

Weapons load shouldn't be a problem: for more forward-firing weapons, the fuselage would almost certainly have been widened a bit anyway, giving more room, and there's also the wing roots and if necessary a belly pack like the -110 used.

In the olld Lucasarts version of BoB, I would always take the bf110 over the bf109. While the 109 was considered a better fighter, I liked the toughness of the 110 and with some exceptions I could do just about as well in the 110 against British fighters as could with the 109. Plus if I got a persistant nag on my tail I had a tailgun to swat at him with (while inverted that was fun for a few seconds when a spitfire thinks it has you low and on your six).

Hi RAM,

wow, a excellent elaboration which you made there. Hat off. I slope me before you.

Exactly as I thought, i could not believe that the Bf110 would have been a complete false design.

The Germans had the better (best) material, but a guidance with the technical understanding of a schoolchild, what often happened in the WW2.

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Originally posted by Hrolf Hakonson
Putting bigger engines on the Fw-187 wasn't a problem, Kurt Tank proposed engines as different from the Jumo-210/DB-600 as the BMW-801 radial for the Falke, couldn't get a nibble

The Falke was designed for the DB600. It wasn't hard to adapt a smaller engine like the Ju210.

Moving into the bigger engine stage was a different thing. Only with rather big modifications could a Falke mount DB605s. For starters, the whole engine mounts would have to be redesigned and with that the whole wing stressed. I read a study some time ago about the chances of the He-100 and the Falke to load the 605 series and it clearly pointed out that the He-100 would've need a whole new fuselage structure and that the Falke would've needed a completely re-designed wing.

The 109 and 110 took the 605 without much problems.

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And I've never found the "we can't close the production lines" argument very convincing: the Bf-110 line wouldn't need to close until the Fw-187 line was up and running, since they were by different companies and in different plants.

we're talking about 1937-38 here. The german aircraft industry wasn't what it was in 1944 The whole of the german air industry was involved in several major building programs: Bf109, Bf110, Ju-88, He-111. There was no surplus capacity, at all, as it was all taken.

To put the He-100 and/or falke into production you had to close the lines of productions of the factory involved, re-tool them (involving several months of stopped or very low production) and then re-start them. Not to mention that aero-engine production was already too low.

This was a luxury Germany couldn't allow herself in that date. In 1940 there were two absolutely disastrous programmes that got into full production swing (and seized a big chunk of german aircraft production for months) even while the RLM, Rechlin, the pilots, and even God in his seat of glory knew were flying deathtraps: the Me-210 and He-177 series. The problem was simple enough: german aeroindustry had tooled up for both programs and there wa a large part of the air industry involved in those two planes.

They both should've been cancelled at once, but Germany, in 1940, couldn't allow herself to re-tool that big part of her aeroindustry and losing its use for months to come. Even if what the Luftwaffe got was a flying turd of a plane, it was better than no plane at all for months to come (german flying crews thought otherwise, of course, but on the big strategical scenario, the RLM decision to go on with the production of both aircraft is hard to critize). So, the HE-177 and the Me210 had to enter production, even while the latter didn't stay too much time in that status (until completely re-designed, and put again in production in 1943), wether the planes were shit or not.

As I say, this was in 1940. By 1937-38 the german industry wasn't in a better state, as you might guess. Putting the He-100 or the Falke into production wouldl've meant stopping whole production lines from working and very needed front line planes not reaching the Luftwaffe. Something the Luftwaffe coudln't take.

So neither of them were built. Rightly so. The RLM did many stupid things during WWII but the decision of keeping with 109 and 110 production wasn't one of them.

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Consider, for a moment, a Fw-187 equipped with Jumo-213Js......

With those engines it wouldn't been a Fw187.

The 213 was a quite big engine. The wing nacelles of the FAlke were designed to just mount the DB600. As I said, mounting a bigger engine as the DB605 was complicated and would involve a serious re-design of the wing. The Jumo213 was both bigger and heavier than the DB605. Thus I can't see the Jumo 213 or the DB603 (similar in size) in the falke.


and in any case, as I said, the fw187 woudln't have fared that better compared with the Bf110. When the Bf110 was flown to its strenghts, it was rather unbeatable, and hardly any other heavy fighter would've done its job better. When the Bf110 was ordered to fight out of it's strong-zone of the flying envelope, the Falke would've fared even worse because the Fw-187 wasn't as good at slow speeds as the Bf110 was: it had the same rollrate/climbrate/acceleration problems, and the Bf110 turnrate at low speeds was certainly superior.

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I'll grant, though, that as built the Fw-187 doesn't really look like a great candidate for a night fighter. German radar aerials, though, were external originally, and the rear gunner/radio operator that was put on the Falke to try to satisfy objections might then have had something to do.

external space wasn't the problem. Internal, was. You can't put the very big and clumsy cockpit equipment an early AI radar as the Lichtenstein needed in such a narrow space as the Falke cockpit could take,much less the multi-radar array the later night fighters carried, plus the passive detection devices, and the extensive radio set the german nightfighters needed to fit within Kammhuber-like doctrine needs. And it would've been able to load no third crewman to operate all those devices effectively.

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Weapons load shouldn't be a problem: for more forward-firing weapons, the fuselage would almost certainly have been widened a bit anyway, giving more room, and there's also the wing roots and if necessary a belly pack like the -110 used.

Dont forget most of the forward fusselage will be taken by radar aerials. The Falke couldn't load as much guns/ammo the B110 could. There was no space for it.

I think the Bf110 have simply a larger development potential than the FW187. Therefore i will equip my Air Force with Bf110 and use this aircraft only on his strength. Where do I have to sign the order?

Heh, talk to BFW, they'd be happy for the sales, since the Luftwaffe's only buying Bf-110s for strike aircraft and not in great numbers (the Falke won the long-range fighter contest in Germany). Engines might be limited to the Jumo-211, though, at least until Daimler Benz can produce enough DB-601s to meet demand for the Bf-109 and Fw-187 production lines (which have priority).

Putting the Jumo-213 MIGHT be a stretch for the Fw-187, or the He-100, but I can't see how a DB-605 would be. The -605 was merely a bored out and slightly modified DB-601, which wasn't that much different from the DB-600. The -605 weighed only 65 kg more than the -601, so it's not a large weight difference.

The RLM was interested in a version of the He-100 with the Jumo-211, but that would have required major changes to the engine mounts and resulted in an inferior plane to boot. So Heinkel didn't bother.

But in any event, I'll agree that the Fw-187 is probably not the right basis for a nightfighter. As a fighter, it's a better plane than the Bf-110, but as a nightfighter, no.

WW Germany doesn't know what it will do if nightfighters become necessary yet, probably depends on when they become necessary and how urgent the need is. If it's urgent, as historical, available airframes are likely to be used, so I'll end up using Bf-110s and Ju-88s as nightfighter airframes. If it's not urgent, a specialist airframe (like the He-219) is likely to be developed.

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Originally posted by Hrolf Hakonson
Putting the Jumo-213 MIGHT be a stretch for the Fw-187, or the He-100, but I can't see how a DB-605 would be. The -605 was merely a bored out and slightly modified DB-601, which wasn't that much different from the DB-600.

The DB605 was mostly out of the question aswell. The 109 had to go through a relatively noticeable modification to get it on board, the HE-100 and Fw-187 would've had to re-design the whole engine attachment section, make it sturdier and heavier, and as result in the Fw-187 a further stressing of the wing.

Keep in mind, both the He-100 and Fw-187 were designed with the idea of making them as small/light as possible, and to minimize it's frontal area. As a result, the fuselage of the HE-100 was too narrow to mount a 605 without serious modification, and the nacelles of the Fw187 couldn't mount them either without a major redesign.

I wish I recalled where did I read the engineering study showing the modifications both aircraft would've had to go through....was a quite long time ago (4-5 years) and can't recall it neither find it via google...

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The -605 weighed only 65 kg more than the -601, so it's not a large weight difference.

Don't compare dry weights. Doesn't show the true difference. The 605 had a larger displacement, for starters, and needed much better refrigeration than the -601, leading to serious modifications to the radiators, extra cooling intakes, and more coolant liquid. Which means the difference in weight is quite more considerable.


As a rough estimation take a look at the Bf-109F4 and Bf-109G2 weigh differences under normal load circunstances. They ammount for 175kg, most of it coming from the engine. And the Bf109 had it relatively easy to take in the new engine, something the HE-100 and Fw-187 did not.

other considerations: both the 109 and 110 had larger wings than their respective counterparts He100 and Fw-187. The increase of weight would've hurted much more the handling of the Heinkel and FW (This one even more having two engines to enlarge) than what did hurt the Messerschmitts...

the He100 and Fw187 couldn't easily mount the DB605. IT was not impossible but it involved such a re-design work that the resulting planes would've been quite different; and the increased weights that the change of engine, re-balancing, stressing of stuctures, etc, both planes would've had to go through would result in worse planes than what the BF-109G and Me-110G where.

Short version: in the short run both the He-100 and the Fw-187 were qualitatively better than their Messerschmitt counterparts. In the long run, the Messerschmitts were better than what the evolution of the He or Fw would've been


Incidentally this is proven by the fact that when a dedicated nightfighter was needed ,the FW-187 was never considered for modification: it couldn't be easily re-engined, couldn't take the extra weights, and the re-engined Me-110 woul've been a quite better performer than what the re-engined Fw-187 promised to be.

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The RLM was interested in a version of the He-100 with the Jumo-211, but that would have required major changes to the engine mounts and resulted in an inferior plane to boot. So Heinkel didn't bother.

The RLM was interested in an experimental He-100 with Jumo211, nothing else. It had no prospect of entering production, that's why Heinkel didn't bother.

The Jumo211 production was also too low to cope with the already present demands coming from the large and ever-increasing german bomber force which used ,for the most part, this engine.

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But in any event, I'll agree that the Fw-187 is probably not the right basis for a nightfighter. As a fighter, it's a better plane than the Bf-110, but as a nightfighter, no.

I agree that it would've made a better heavy fighter than the BF-110. What the MEsserchmitt had, the Fw had better. High speed , magnific dive/zoom, very good forward weaponry... Still the Messerschmitt was so good that ,if fought to it's advantages, even RAF spitfires had a rough time trying to fight them. And when forced to fly as close bomber escort, the Fw-187 would've suffered even more than what the Bf did.

The whole point of this thread was to judge wether the Bf110 was a failure or not. The Fw187 could've been better (but latter), but the 110 was magnific as it was, and not counting the BoB stupid operational restrictions on its use, the fighter gave great performances and achievements until late'42 as a front-line fighter in several different theaters of operation, and until 1945 as a nightfighter and intruder...

A fighter with that service history can't be considered a failure, at all.

I wondered about your comment regarding the He-100 being designed to be as small and light as possible. I knew this was true for the Bf109 but the He-100 doesn´t seem to follow this politic - dispite being a plane and planes are designed to be as light as possible in general to increase payload...

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Originally posted by HoOmAn
I wondered about your comment regarding the He-100 being designed to be as small and light as possible. I knew this was true for the Bf109 but the He-100 doesn´t seem to follow this politic - dispite being a plane and planes are designed to be as light as possible in general to increase payload...

I'm not sure about this one either, the He-100D appears to have been about the same weight as the Bf-109E, so it doesn't appear to be any worse off than the BFW plane.

Well the Philippines and Siam have both gone for the 187. Brazil is eyeing the 110 but I need to go though my old files first to see what is needed where...

I think, it depends which planes do a country have else in his airforce. It makes sense, if you have the Bf109 as a fighter aircraft then you should use the Bf110 and not the Fw187. Because both planes (109 & 110) could use the DB605. But that's only my opinion. I would not insist absolutely to have those perhaps better Fw187, if I thereby increases in my Air Force the diversity of species. If in both machines the same engine is used, also the same mechanic can care for the machine.

Bah, in Wesworld I'm going to shill for the Fokker G-1 over the Bf 110

Though the Dutch have put in orders for a couple squadrons of FW-187 to complement the G-1C, the G-1A will likely be the prime variant.

I don't think the Dutch are going to be sending salesmen to the Empire anytime soon.