Me110: Ill-used in BoB

[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.