Me110s against RAF fighters.
 

I was reading a recent issue of Flypast, which has a big feature on the Me110 and it churns out the usual cliche that the 110 was triumphant until they met the RAF in the Battle of Britain. Now, this statement annoys me because it is trotted out endlessly and is accepted as plain fact. It requires the reader to believe that the 110 was unbeatable by any else's single-engined fighters, such as the cannon-armed MS406, the D520, the P36 and even the RAF's own Hurricane I, which is not the case. It requires the reader to believe that the Zerstorer pilots were not aware of the weight and high wingloading of their own aircraft and it's consequent inability to dogfight with smaller, lighter single-engined fighters, as if the hundreds of combats(and associated losses) with Polish and French and RAF aircraft in the Polish and French campaigns didn't count or matter. I am assuming that Zerstorer pilots did carry out practise dogfights and fighter affiliation with Me109s and knew perfectly well what their 110s could do and not do. Personally, I think that it was the RAF's ability to best position and direct it's fighters with radar that enabled them to thrash the 110, especially unescorted long-range 110 flights.
I recall reading the Beaufighter WOP/AG, Sam Mc Aughtry's autobiography about his time in Beaus and he stated that the Beau crews were mortally afraid of German and Japanese SE fighters, as they knew that even an average fighter pilot could get behind a Beau easily and cut them down. He felt that they had an even chance in engaging the Me110 and Ju88 over the Bay of Biscay and coming out of it in one piece.

regards
Stovepipe

Re: Me110s against RAF fighters.
 

Hello
IIRC in Poland 39 110 did quite well and during early combats in North Africa Vokes filter Hurricane Mk Is and Bf 110Cs/Ds fought a draw, if in their combats there were winners they were usually those who saw their opponents first.

and JoeB has counted from the book "Battle of France-Then and Now", that during the Battle of France 110s beat both Hurricane and Spitfire

in BoF:
Hurricane dest by Bf110 v Bf110 dest by Hurricane: 63:37, 1.7:1
Spitfire dest by Bf110 v Bf110 dest by Spitfire: 15:6, 2.5:1
Total 1.81:1

After BoB 110s usually were underdogs when they met Spitfires but the combats were not always totally one-sided On 8 Oct 43 7 Spit Mk Vs from 453 Sqn fought against 8 Bf 110G-2s from II./ZG 1 SW of Scilly Islands, end result was 5 110s and 2 Spits lost. Spitfires were hunting the 110s and attacked first. [FlyPast 2/97 pp. 42-43]


So 110 seems to has been much better fighter than the impression one usually gets from books written in English.

Juha

Re: Me110s against RAF fighters.
 

A big twin would make a nice blib on the radar screen.

Re: Me110s against RAF fighters.
 

It would make a difference what each side's assigned objective was. If the Spitfires & Hurricanes were going after bombers and the Bf 110s were trying to protect the bombers then that sort of outcome wouldn't be surprising perhaps.

Re: Me110s against RAF fighters.
 

Hello Snautzer
IMHO not very relevant in France in 40 or in NA in 41 but of course a bigger plane was easier to pick up also by eyeball Mk Is but that was of course at least partly compensated by the fact that in 110 there were two pairs of those instead of one pair.

Juha

Re: Me110s against RAF fighters.
 

Hello Nick
true but was that the most common scenario in May-June 40? I cannot recall, at least there were some big Hurricane vs 110 combats over France IIRC and anyway IMHO the exchange rate for 110 was clearly better than one would expect from “a totally outclassed twin against modern S/E fughters”. One reason might have been that British pilots had not used to fight against T/E fighters with powerful nose armament. Even during early BoB there were cases of Spitfires making head on attacks against 110s, maybe not the best tactic against 110 by more nimble S/E fighter.

Juha

Re: Me110s against RAF fighters.
 

I seem to remember some cases where RAF pilots confused a Bf 110 with a Do 17Z, which might account for some of the head-on attacks!

Re: Me110s against RAF fighters.
 

Hello Nick
yes there were cases like that but also cases when Spit pilots correctly identified their adversaries as 110s and still decided to do head on attacks.

Juha

Re: Me110s against RAF fighters.
 

Wonder if the the more is not better than the better, who has the more planes wins , the P38 did not so bad to, 3 against 1 , with sup. trained pilots, a bit the same with the 110,

Rémi

Re: Me110s against RAF fighters.
 

To Stovepipe & Juha,

1. As Nick Beale has quite rightly pointed out, the assigned objective would be important. Close escort to lumbering bombers until intercepted by RAF fighters would have set the Bf 110 crews at a grave disadvantage.
2. There is a major difference between claims by Bf 110 units, and the actual losses suffered by their opponents. Try checking III./ZG 26 claims on 18th August 1940, for example, against what actually happened. So one must not ascribe 100% veracity to all that was claimed (and yes, I know that applies to all combat units in all air forces).