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Old 24th January 2009, 20:43
F19Gladiator F19Gladiator is offline
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Re: Me110: Ill-used in BoB

Dear Franek,
When you are mentioning “limited knowledge of authors, who often cannot understand the obvious” and regarding the data “for everyone, who dug a little in the Battle, they are completely meaningless” you are aiming at Christer Bergström, author of two books on the subject of the Battle of Britain after more than 30 years of research. If you are interested in arguing about his data or research you’d better take contact with him via his website and get an understanding about what data and sources are behind his conclusions in his published work.
I am not a complete moron myself regarding the subject, but as I have only 40 years of studying the subject at a shallower level, I believe Mr Bergstöm is more competent to defend his own findings. Before you discard my posting as nonsense, let alone in “good faith” as you write, I believe you should first take a step back and find out how C.B. came up with this view on the matter.
Regarding the data you are regarding as nonsense you might notice when reading my post again that I have added the comment “Bergström continues by discussing the validity of the data including the difficulties in identifying if a Bf 109 or 110 shot down a RAF fighter, however, the outcome is that minimum 25-30% of all British aircraft losses inflicted by Luftwaffe fighters were scored by Bf 110s.”
I am not going to translate the book into English for you as my posting is only a short “Reader’s Digest version” of part of one chapter, but if you are to denounce specific data with general comments as you do, I would rather see you take a scholar discussion with Christer Bergström - perhaps both of you will enjoy it.

Regarding the “big messes” you refer to, obviously in your opinion making it impossible to identify what happened to whom, and also initially referring to the “Myths” you might find it interesting to read the article by Dr. Alfred Price, “Myth and Legend” about the BoB, published in Aeroplane Magazine in two parts, October / November 1997.
To quote another researcher who might now face the risk of being labeled by you as among them providing a view as a result of “limited knowledge of authors, who often cannot understand the obvious, you might find it interesting what Dr. Price writes concerning what he names as:
Myth 4: During the Battle of Britain there were large-scale dogfights between the opposing fighters:

“….These images provide a misleading impression of air combat during the Battle of Britain, however. When engaging enemy fighters, the side with the advantage in altitude or surprise would usually deliver a single “bounce” attack. After that the attackers would speed clear of their victims before the latter could reply. There were very few one-versus-one maneuvering combats between fighters that lasted more than 20sec. Any pilot who concentrated his attention too long on one enemy fighter stood the risk of coming under surprise attack from another. During detailed research into the action that occurred on August 18 I found no such combat. I found mention of only one lengthy one-v-one turning fight during the action on September 15."

Considering the above from Dr. Price and combining it with the fact that the Bf 110s forte was the high level bounce attack on unsuspecting fighters, which also can be verified by studying available publications, I find it no big surprise to read a claim that 25-30% of the RAF fighter losses where inflicted by Bf 110s.


Regarding your question specifically to me:
  • No, Göring was far from being a fool regarding aerial warfare.
  • The Bf 110 weapon was obviously not “Removed from the inventory” as you put it. After the actions of October 7 Luftwaffe receded, in daylight, to nuisance raids by small numbers of bombers and JaBo attacks why the Bf 110 long range escort capacity was not longer as needed as earlier during the larger daylight bombing raids. The growing need to build up the night fighter force to protect Germany from RAF’s increasing night bombing attacks grew in priority and the Bf 110 units were given a new task when the Luftwaffe KGs switched over to night bombings.
  • It is no doubt the Bf 110 units got a mauling, some worse than others, but several Bf 109 units also had to be taken out of the front line during the BoB due to receiving crippling losses which set back their fighting morale to a level where they were not fit to continue.
My intention when posting the findings of C.B. was to give food for thoughts on the subject as I personally believe that the Bf 110 was not such a "complete “dud” as a weapon which was proven by a disastrously bad performance in the BoB after which the Bf 110 was taken out of its day fighter role for good". The reality is more in gray shades than black and white.

It can also be interesting to read the article “The Bf 110 …Hermann’s destroyer” by Captain Eric Brown, CBE, DSC, AFC, RN, in Air Enthusiast October 1973, where he states:
"In the Battle of Britain the Bf 110 fell far short of anticipation and its limited success was to lead to a widespread belief that it was an unsuccessful design. This was in fact, far from the case, for the Messerschmitt strategic fighter was not the indifferent warplane that its showing during the Battle of Britain led many to believe. It was an effective warplane but inadequate understanding on the part of the Führungsstab of the limitations of the strategic fighter category led to its incorrect deployment with the result that the Zerstörergruppen suffered some 40 per cent attrition within less than three weeks of the launching of Adlerangriff.”

As I am hinting at in my posting, the Bf 110 was actually effective when given the role it should have according to its design and concept – High altitude fighter escort, enabling them to bounce and zoom back to altitude.

Best regards,
Göran Larsson
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