Bf109A question

[Kutscha]

Were any Bf109As sent to Spain during the Spanish Civil War?

Thanks

[Revi16]

I have conflicting info.. Not sure what is accurate.

V2-V3 - Messerschmitt Bf-109 Recognition Manual, Marco Fernandez-Sommerau

V2, V3a,b,c, V4, 109A - Messerschmitt Bf-109 A-E Willy Radinger & Walter Schick

Regards,
Mike

[Revi16]

.

[Kutscha]

Thanks Revi. I have the Radinger/Schick book.

"most of which went to Spain"

This statement is where the problem lies in a discussion on another board.

Another conflict in the book is some photos are captioned as B-2s, yet on pg 42 they state the B-1 was the only version produced.

[net_sailor]

There is a good article mostly based on Lynn Ritger's book:
http://www.zi.ku.dk/personal/drnash/...ain/bf109.html

[Kutscha]

Thanks net_sailer. Fantastic.

So looks like 16 Bf109s were in Spain.

[George Hopp]

Another conflict in the book is some photos are captioned as B-2s, yet on pg 42 they state the B-1 was the only version produced.

All documentation by Messerschmitt on the 109B calls it only that, 109B, with no sub-types noted. I have a feeling that the B-1 and B-2 sub-types are postwar inventions. And this may have been created because of uncertainty over the differences between the 109A and the 109B.

And thanks, Net Sailor, for that excellent breakdown of the different comments on the number of 109s in Spain.

[Ex Shack]

Hi
It would appear that the Bf109's initially sent to Spain were the B variant, where ihe B1 had a wooden propeller and the B2 a variable-pitch metal prop. The terminology wasn't fully adopted until after the Civil War. Spain later received the C variant , and the E after the war.This comes from"Aircraft of the Spanish Civil War" by Gerald Howson,published by Putnam, where there is a lengthy article on the type, pp231-235. If you can, get a look at the book which ought to be available 2nd Hand if not new.
Regards
Dick

[lritger]

Since I was linked, I figure I might as well chime in here...

I tried to be both open-minded and objective in my statements about the A models, because there's not much hard evidence out there to "hang your hat on", so to speak. We know they existed, but we don't know precisely how many there were, and Radinger and Schick made a convincing claim about their existence and use in their Bf 109A-E book. Based on that research and digging through photos, I came up with at least 16 A's in Spanish service (including the V3, V4, and V6, which may or may not be 'cheating'). A pic of 6-17 recently surfaced which shows the aircraft in the standard 70/71/65 scheme of the B series... but of course, you can't see the damn oil cooler, which is the biggest visual cue I've seen to tell an A from a B. Despite that, I still feel fairly confident 6-17 is a B, based on the factory paint job. And this, of course, renders my Spanish 109 list obsolete. *sigh* That's the trouble with books... something else always shows up once it's done and published.

I've also come across new shots of Harder's 6-56 which clearly show the short exhausts of the earlier Jumo 210D, lending further credence to the idea that it was actually a B... an idea which David Nash lays out pretty well on the same page linked above. I'd also like to add that George Hopp is right, in that factory manuals only specify "Bf 109B", not B-1 or B-2. So, I'd say I was only half-right in the book when I said there's no such thing as a B-2... by that standard, there's also no such thing as a B-1!

The one thing I keep wondering is, what happened to all the Spanish Air Force records? Has anyone tried going through the Spanish archives to see if any delivery cards, maintenance records, strength reports or what have you might exist for these early aircraft? It's absolutely maddening to have this excellent photographic record of 16 or so aircraft, and not be able say with absolute certainty what they were. Well, eventually something will turn up which will cause us to collectively exclaim "Aha! That's it!"... until then, we're left with sorting through photos and fragmentary records.

But then that's part of the fun, isn't it?

Lynn

[Lennart Andersson]

I have for a long time been waiting for detailed information on German aircraft sent to Spain to turn up. If I had been interested in the Spanish Civil War, that would have been a priority project. In my own research I have found extremely few documents that are specific on anything Spanish and I wonder if records were deliberatly destroyed or perhaps kept separately and then lost during the war. Otherwise there would have been reports, lists of aircraft allocated to Spain, export statistics, etc.

One important question is, what can be found in the Spanish archives? There must be at least some documents that give away c/ns, flight permits with German registrations, etc etc.

What can be said for sure is that much of what has been published is at best incomplete and contradictory.

Lennart Andersson