Messerschmitt 109 Design Problems

[kaki3152]

Two points immediately jump out:
Why did Willi not redesign the wing to accomodate armament in later versions of the 109? If the Allied powers and Italy and the Japanese could design a fighter airplane wing that could accomodate armament, why not the Germans. I dare say that if the 109F/G/K wing had been redesigned , fewer German aviators would have died becuase of the inherent speed penalty in underwing guns.
Also, why did they not incorporate a starter? I bet the German mechanics would have applauded. Or would that have made them lazy?
Finally, I read somewhere that one version of the 109F had a cut off valve that would conderve coolant in case of a leak. This was only used in the 109F and not in later versions?

[Graham Boak]

Messerschmitt was perfectly capable of designing a wing with guns, as the Bf 109E had such. However, he is not the only designer to avoid such, the Russians being perhaps the most obvious and Yakovlev is on record as giving at least partial reasons. Placing guns in the wings (inside or outside) increases the inertias in roll and yaw, making the aircraft less agile. The wings twist during flight, making accurate firing even more difficult.

A wing without guns can also be made simpler and lighter, which brings its own advantages. Once a wing has been designed without guns, then finding room for the weapon, ammunition, case ejection storage or chutes, and heating, is not a simple problem. Redesigning a wing to achieve this would mean major disruptions to the factory lines, with significant lost production. The gondolas may have penalised the 109 in speed, but even more so in agility, and this would have been the same with internal guns. As it was, the gondolas could be removed and the fighter returned to its optimum agility: with internal carriage much of the penalty would have been retained at all times.

Hopefully, of course, the gondola-equipped aircraft would be limited to bomber destruction, with the clean examples taking care of any enemy fighters. Messerschmitt did produce an internal fitting for the stubby MK108 for very late Ks, but this can only be regarded as a specialist bomber destroyer.

[kaki3152]

I guess my point is that the added weight to the wing structure would be more than compensated by the additional speed over gun gondola Bf-109s.
While the Germans did try to specialize, AKA the high Altitude Escort Staffel which always flew Bf-109s, it would have been better for the type of war they were fighting to use standardized Bf-109s with interior guns. Plus, any reinforcement to the Bf-109 wing would not be a bad thing (see BAlthasar JG-2)
asfar as the other two, it would have helped a great deal.

Oh well, the Luftwaffe probably thought the He-177 was the weapon that would win the war...Too bad they did not assign those resources towards Bf-109 improvements.

[Meyer1]

Hi kaki3152, I think you are overestimating the speed lost due to the gondolas. Here's a test of a 109 with Mk108 gondolas, only 6 km/h speed loss is reported:

http://kurfurst.allaboutwarfare.com/...08gondies.html

Since also inner guns would result in increased wing drag, I would say that the variation between gondolas/integrated should be negligible.

The weight is really the issue here.

In fact, I would say that, in the 109 case, the gondolas is a better solution, allowing more flexibility

[Graham Boak]

I understand the loss in speed due to the gondolas as more than that: I have 15 in my memory, but whether that was kph, mph or knots I can't say! kph probably. The loss in speed due to the drag of internally mounted guns would be significantly less than that of the gondolas. Weight has a negligible effect on maximum speed.

The 109 wing wasn't significantly weak, and there's no guarantee that fitting extra open spaces would have strengthened it at all. Carrying weight outboard on the wing does reduce the bending moment at the root, but the penalty on agility would over-ride that.

[Kurt Braatz]

I know from Guenther Rall that he hated wing cannons, no matter if gondola-mounted or integrated. They reduced roll rate and jammed in tight turns, thus making the whole system inoperable. Whenever he had been assigned a 109 with wing armament, he did not fly it in combat before these guns were removed. The opinions of aces like Guenther had a considerable influence on the Messerschmitt engineers, so they tended toward concentrating firing power as close as possible around the longitudinal axis of a fighter.

[George Hopp]

Here is a thread from late last year on the wing/wing guns of the Bf 109. Enjoy:
http://www.luftwaffe-experten.org/fo...showtopic=2566

Re: Gunther Rall and wing guns. As Adolf Galland noted, there were a few pilots like Werner Moelders who could get by with minimum armament because they were deadly accurate in their shooting. But, for most pilots, the more lead they could get in the air, the better chance they had of hitting something.

And here's a comment about the effectiveness of the 109/190 from someone who should know, a gunner on a B-24. This is by Crumpp in "All about warfare II -- Aviation Board."

"Just thought I would give a round up from some of the main points with my conversations with some of the Veterans recently.

"I have been talking with Oscar Boesch and Forest S. Clark about signing a painting to raise money for the White 1 Foundation.

"Forest S. Clark served in the 8th AF, 44th Bomber Group as a gunner onboard a B24.

"Some interesting highlights from Forest:

"1. He loved the B24 naturally as it always brought him home. The Davis wing was not his favourite feature as he says the aircraft could not glide far at all. If they lost more two engines, chances were they would not make it to the North Sea to ditch.

"2. The B24 constantly smelled of avaition fuel inside. Fire was there biggest concern.

"3. When threat ID training, the FW190 was stressed as the more dangerous of the two German fighters. He witnessed several air battles between fighters and was impressed with the FW190. It was a 190´s that shot him down. They were attacked by Me109´s on several occasions but none ever came close to bringing them down.

"4. He is writing an article for the White 1 Foundations members section on the FW190. I look forward to reading it.

"I encourage you to drop in and check out the 8th AF museum in GA. It is a wonderful experience.

"Highlights from Oscar:

"1. When turning the FW190 at high speed, it only took one hand on the stick to control the plane. This allowed him to get a much better feel for the aircraft compared to the 109 he flew until 1943. In the 109 it took two hands and a lot of strength to make a tight turn if you had some speed. This destroyed the feel for flying the aircraft.

"2. He restated that the stall on the FW190 did have warning and you could feel the plane burble through the stick.

"3. He confirmed the boost he was using was Alkohol-Einspritzung in December ´44.

"4. The USAAF fighters attacked usually on their climb up when they reached altitudes above 6000 meters. They knew the 190´s performance fell off. We talked about the supercharger at length and he provided some nice details.

"5. On the differences between the Kommandogerät and the 109´s system he had some interesting comments. From the pilots point of view there was little differences. As an experienced 109 pilot, he felt the 190 seemed to run better. He rarely flew the FW190 on manual except for take-off and landing as per manual instructions. His opinion of the Kommandgerät was that it did a much better job of keeping the engine and prop at optimum settings than any pilot could do manually."

[harrison987]

Every German pilot I have spoken to said they HATED the Wing Gondolas...though it did not affect speed, manueverabilty WAS terribly hampered.

The Me109K6, K10, and K-14 all were designed to have 1 30mm Mk108 IN the wings, (same way as thethe Me109E had). I believe the the K-10 and K-14 also were to have a MK103 as the nose cannon.

keep in mind the Germans used explosive cannons, while the Americans were not. 1 shot from a 30mm would blow the wing right off...a .50cal woould not do even close, so the extra weaponry would not have been needed anyway...

[George Hopp]

keep in mind the Germans used explosive cannons, while the Americans were not. 1 shot from a 30mm would blow the wing right off...a .50cal woould not do even close, so the extra weaponry would not have been needed anyway...

Due to the low rate of fire of the 30mm cannon, a hit on anything during a dogfight was highly problematic. That's why the MK 108 was a bomber killer, and considered useless against fighters.

Every German pilot I have spoken to said they HATED the Wing Gondolas...though it did not affect speed, manueverabilty WAS terribly hampered.

Remember, the idea behind the wing weapons on the 109 was for the increased firepower, generally for use against bombers rather than against other fighters. But, without the wing weapons, the firepower of the 109F/G was pathetic. That's why US bombers were generally able to laugh it off, whereas they never laughed at the firepower of the Fw 190!

[Pilot]

http://www.virtualpilots.fi/feature/...09myths/#myths

http://mitglied.lycos.de/luftwaffe1/Carson/Carson.html