"Zerstorer" Hardback by John Vasco and Peter Cornwell - Coming from Wingleader in 2025

[INM@RLM]

It is only right and proper to give full credit where due. One point in Zerstörer (2025) does deserve particular recognition and highlighting. This is the definitive proof of WNr. 3371 as a Bf 110 strike variant in use with Erpr.Gr. 210 in the summer of 1940. That is evidenced by the excellent photo with the clearly readable WNr. of S9+AH on p.249(mid lft). This WNr. fills the last gap remaining in the identities of the sixteen Bf 110 D-3 variants delivered by Mtt Augsburg. Accordingly, it is at last now possible to present a clear and full picture of all the D-3s identities delivered by Augsburg. (Since no Lw. damage/loss record has ever been linked to WNr. 3371, this photographic confirmation - at this point at least - constitutes the sole and unique, keystone evidence for this particular identity.)

As a consequence of this definitive verification of WNr. 3371, it is now crystal clear that the six Bf 110 D-3 delivered with DB 601 A engines comprised these three pairs, each pairing separated by a single Bf 110 D-2 identity:
WNr. 3367 & 3368 (2) Bf 110 D-3
WNr. 3370 & 3371 (2) Bf 110 D-3
WNr. 3373 & 3374 (2) Bf 110 D-3

By contrast, the ten Bf 110 D-3/N deliveries with DB 601 Ns that followed were made up of an initial pair followed by two sequences of four each, each span being separated now by a pair of Bf 110 D-2 identities:
WNr. 3377 & 3378 (2) Bf 110 D-3/N
WNr. 3381 to 3384 (4) Bf 110 D-3/N
WNr. 3387 to 3390 (4) Bf 110 D-3/N
Similarly a pair of D-2 identities occupied the interval between these two groupings of D-3s.

(A separate post will set out in outline the evidence supporting each of these individual identities in use as a strike variant during 1940. There is also one D-3 identity that has been misreported since the Flugbuch of Balthasar Aretz erroneously included two flights in a WNr. 3372 on 5-Aug-40. See the original log book pages reproduced in Bombsights over England (1990) on p.96, with the same Flugbuch mentions in the tabulation in Bombsights over England (2002) on p.169. In reality this can only have been WNr. 3382, newly delivered to the Gruppe and subsequently recorded lost in early Oct-40 as S9+FH with 1./Erpr.Gr. 210.)

The delivery by Mtt of just a further sixteen examples of the D-series strike version in the three months after 30-Jun-40 represented a distinct and major downshift by comparison with Messerschmitt's Lieferplan Nr. 17c issued by Augsburg on 3-July-40. In response to a request from the RLM of 27-Jun-40, this latest Lieferplan had proposed that all 75 of the D-series still to be delivered by Mtt-A after 30-Jun-40 were now scheduled to be completed configured as a D-0/B strike variant. [See T177-19_0361 & _0362]
However, other later documentation shows that LP 17c was not the end of the story, but only part of a continuing evolution with further major changes being subsequently implemented at Augsburg during July 1940. Take WNr. 3347 as an example. The cover of the Lebenslaufakte for WNr. 3347 (discovered by RAF Intelligence in October 1944: see AIR 40/1887), recorded this aircraft being accepted as a D-0/B. So, precisely in accordance with the new LP 17c, WNr. 3347 when delivered and accepted by the BAL was configured as a strike variant. Yet WNr. 3347 was subsequently reported and photographically confirmed damaged on 13-Aug-40 as U8+EK of 2./ZG 26 (see Zerstörer (2025) table p.201 and more significantly the photo at p145 with the clearly distinguishable WNr.). The subsequent evidence then is that post-acceptance WNr. 3347 was stripped of its bombing capabilities and issued to a fighter unit. As a consequence of this remodelling, WNr. 3347 was later reported and counted as a D-2 in Messerschmitt's final 31-Oct-40 accounting of Augsburg's D-series deliveries. (The RLM presentation of these totals by sub-type is found in LP 18/3 whilst the later Messerschmitt company version with identical figures is at T177-19_0337.) However, the echo of the LP 17c decision continued to be reflected permanently on the cover of the Lebenslaufakte for WNr. 3347.
Since WNr. 3347 was approximately the third neubau Bf 110 delivered by Augsburg in July 1940, the same process of remodelling a D-0/B into a purely fighter configuration was likely also applied to more than a few of the Bf 110s being delivered by Augsburg during the earlier part of that month. The D-3 WNr. allocations set out above then evidence that in a further progression, later that month a much more selective logic was introduced to determine precisely which examples would now be completed configured by Augsburg as strike aircraft.
This post-acceptance remodelling to a fighter variant may also have been applied to WNr. 3344, the final example recorded on 3-Jul-40 as having been delivered in June 1940 as a D-0/B, because at the date the LP 17c decision was revised this aircraft had still to be collected by the Luftwaffe from Augsburg's factory airfield.

In total then, and including the fourteen earlier examples of the Bf 110 D-0/B delivered between April and June 1940 (set out in post #73 above), Mtt Augsburg contributed a total of just thirty examples of the Bf 110 D-series strike aircraft, all of which likely ended up at some point on the strength of Erpr.Gr. 210.

This background goes some way then towards explaining why the missions flown by Erpr.Gr. 210, during July and August in particular, were always by such small formations. Even taking into account contributions from early deliveries of the four C-7s from Gotha and those later from MIAG (a strike variant without the dinghy fuselage extension), it was not until October 1940 that the situation was transformed by a plentiful supply of suitably configured strike aircraft finally becoming available to Erpr.Gr. 210. This change of circumstances was entirely the result of Augsburg having delivered 39 examples of the Bf 110 E-1/N by the end of September 1940. (4 in August and 35 in September: the Mtt A September 1940 BAL Report in BA-MA RL 3/1542 refers. Another 27 followed in October producing a total of 66 E-1/Ns delivered by the end of that month.) This flood of an even more updated strike version probably also accounted for why the last four the D-3/Ns were assigned a lower priority and so were not delivered by Augsburg until September 1940. (Evidenced in the same BAL report.)

Not material suitable for inclusion in a combat history perhaps, but that just happens to be where the most easily accessible version of the evidence actually sits. Meantime possibly a few points of interest here for those with a broader regard of Bf 110 history.