Question about the Me 109 G10/AS

[veltro]

There was no Bf 109G-10/AS built officially as such. The mistake (which was the fruit of earlier researches trying to put an order and to give some explainations to the "apparent" chaos of the last G-series) was somehow fueled by a report of MAAF’s No.1 Field Intelligence Unit in Italy of three Bf 109 G-10s (among several ones found abandoned in Northern Italy) which apparently had the DB 605ASM engine. These were W.Nr.491322, 491323 and 491325.

Further researches in the years that followed (especially with the help of Erla-expert Jörg Meincke) revealed that apparently there was a small batch of about 50 G-10s which were equipped with the DB 605AS engine, due to a momentary shortage of DB 605D engines. This in no way was meant to be officialized and it remained an exception which never received the name of G-10/AS.

Thus, thanks to a curious chain of events, for several years the erroneous "G-10/AS" definition to indicate all the G-10s visually devoid of chin bulges continued to linger on, until the researches of Jean-Claude Mermet started to put the record straight and opening the path to the correct definition of the "Erla" variant of the Bf 109 G-10.

Hope this helps.