[F19Gladiator]

Originally Posted by Jim Oxley

I've often thought that the Me110 was ill-used over Britain as an escort, to which it was so ill-suited.

IMHO it would have been far better to employ it as a free ranging ground straffer, operating in concert with, but free of, the main bomber forces. Escort could (and should) have been left to the more nimble Bf109's. As a ground straffer the Me 110 would have been able to make use of it's very good speed and powerful armament, coming in very low and adding a very important distraction to Fighter Command's raid reaction.

To a degree this approach was trialled by Epro 210 with reasonable success. But the concept would have been far more effective with several Gruppe's of Zerstorer's free ranging over Britain rather than just two Staffel's.

Hi Jim,
The blatant failure of the Bf 110 in air to air fighting in the BoB is often repeated in literature. Christer Bergström in his book ”Luftstrid över kanalen”(1), 2006, has analyzed the victory and loss statistics in the BoB and presents a different picture to the usually repeated "Bf 110 fighter BoB disaster" scenario.

The confirmed aerial victories achieved by Bf 109 units amounted to 815 while the Bf 110 units gathered 407 confirmed victories.
A comparison between confirmed victories and operational losses due to air battles gives at hand that in the period 8 August to end of October 1940:
Bf 109 units scored 815 victories to 489 losses – a ratio of 1,7:1
Bf 110 units scored 407 victories to 185 losses – a ratio of 2,2:1

In October the Bf 110 units even had a ratio of 3:1 while the Bf 109 units dropped to 1,4:1.

Christer Bergström continues to discuss the matter as well as comparing Spifire and Hurricane relative performances and some of the RAF unit’s performance, RAF Bomber command losses, coastal command and the Fleet Air Arm..
When finally comparing the scores by Bf 109 and Bf 110 units as mentioned above with the estimated true losses by each side for the period July-October 1940 it turns out that in approximate figures the authentic victories versus actual air battle losses where:

Spitfire 550 victories to 329 losses – a ratio of 1,7:1
Hurricane 750 victories to 603 losses – a ratio of 1,2:1
Bf 109 780 victories to 534 losses – a ratio of 1,5:1
Bf 110 340 victories to 196 losses – a ratio of 1,7:1

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.
The “Total failure of the Bf 110 as a fighter aircraft in the BoB” is perhaps another BoB Myth worth reassessing?

The fact is that on several occasions the Bf 110 units performed better than the Bf 109 units on a particular day. When deployed tactically correct using the advantages the Bf 110 offered the Bf 110 was still a lethal weapon in air-to-air fighting which I believe Christer Bergström is able to show.
When used as a high altitude escort, not being tied to close escort to the bomber force, it made effective diving attacks on RAF fighters using surprise, high speed and it’s heavy nose armament to score victories.
Long range and an extra pair of eyes was also helpful in air battle, the range enabling to wait for the right moment to strike and the extra pair of eyes increasing the situational awareness of the pilot in an air battle.

Wrongly used as a close bomber escort the disadvantages with slow acceleration and climb in comparison with the Spitfire and Hurricane negated the Bf 110s strengths, which was also proven by high losses on several such instances.

To use the Bf 110 more intensively as a ground attack aircraft was in my opinion not possible within short, while not enough well trained crews were available short term. However, to use the Bf 110 fighter units tactically correct more consistently had been possible with existing a/c and pilots in the ZGs, under a better management.

The Bf 110 undoubtedly scored several successes as low level attack aircraft but was also vulnerable if caught in the act as the bomb load and low altitude put the Bf 110 at a disadvantage if intercepted by Hurricanes or Spitfires.

JaBo attacks are tactical strikes which can be very effective to gain temporary supremacy over a limited area of battleground for a limited time and best used in combination with other units, such as army or naval units in a Blitz Krieg style war, but not as a strategic weapon. In order to subdue the British defenses and defense industry some heavier bomb loads would be needed and even then the experience from the later Allied heavy bombing raids over Germany indicates that it would have been very difficult to achieve this even if Germany would have had the strategic bomber force it never had or got.

Best regards,
Goran


(1) Only available in Swedish language to my knowledge, even if earlier intended to be released in English under the title “Battle of Britain”. I hope it eventually will be released through another publisher.
See also the thread here:
http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showthread.php?t=11715