Drops tanks on the Bf 110

[HARD_Sarge]

in almost all photos I see of the Bf 110D/E it says it has 2 198 liter wing tanks

from most photos, they look to be much larger then the 300 liter tanks that the 190 and 109 carried

could that just be a labeling mistake after all these years ? (a typo that keeps getting repeated ?)

my friend says they should be 198 imp gall tanks, which would be around 900 liters

which, what where they really named ??

[George Hopp]

The drop tanks you saw are probably the 900 ltr tanks mentioned by your friend, and someone simply got their unit measurements mixed up. They were real big suckers for long range flying. The other tanks used by the 110, and you'll see them on all the later models are of 300 ltr. capacity. The 110 never carried 198 ltr drop tanks. They were tested on the 109 but the tests found that the 198 ltr tanks had roughly the same drag as did the 300 ltr drop tanks, so they decided to keep using the 300 ltr. model.

Hope this helps,
George

[HARD_Sarge]

TY

in Messerschmitt Bf 110 C,D,E by John Vasco and Fernando Estanislau

page 134 has a photo and page 122 has a drawing saying they are 198 liter tanks

that is why I was asking, I have seen other photo's saying the same (not handy right now)

but from looking at it, you can see they are much larger then that

just wanted to figure out what they were

[HARD_Sarge]

which yes, I see some of the 300's, they are smaller then what I was seeing that was listed wrong

[George Hopp]

When the notation 198 ltr was made, the person writing the caption probably meant 198 Imp. gallons (197.976 Imp. gal. on my handy-dandy converter). The American equivalent to 900 ltr. would be 237.75 US Gal.

[George Hopp]

I checked the pages you mentioned in the book, and yes, they are 198 Imp. Gal., or 900 ltr., tanks.