Me-410 vs Mosquito combat

[hedgehog6]

Has anyone encountered any account of Mosquito vs Me-410 air to air combat? If so, how did it turn out. Is there any British or American assessment of a captured example, as they did with single-engined fighters?

[Spanferkel]

I have on my website of an account of a Me410 and Mosquito although the latter was the hunter vs. a head to head combat. This end in the loss of RKT Wilhem Schmitter.

http://aufhimmelzuhause.com/id101.htm

[Chris Goss]

There were loads with the V/KG 2, I & II/KG 51 combats being the prime example. I wrote about this in Flypast. However, if you are talking about dogfighting, as most were at night, this didn't occur

[hedgehog6]

Yes, I was aware of the ones where the Me-410 was essentially acting as a bomber and was shot down by a nightfighter, but it is the dogfight I was interested in. I suspect you will turn out to be right that this never happened, but hope springs eternal.

[BC]

My account of the first successful Mosquito combat with an Me 410 over Britain (13-14 July 1943) was published in Vol 3 of 'The Blitz: Then and Now Vol 3' by After The Battle. The Mosquito crew picked up the Me 410 over the Straits of Dover and pursued it all the way up the East coast to Felixstowe, Suffolk, finally shooting it down from 25,000 feet. As Chris states, there were no real dogfights at night. The Me 410 was considered relatively easy prey for Allied long-range escort fighters in daylight.

[Paul Thompson]

Originally Posted by Chris Goss

There were loads with the V/KG 2, I & II/KG 51 combats being the prime example. I wrote about this in Flypast. However, if you are talking about dogfighting, as most were at night, this didn't occur

Hello Chris,

May I ask for a reference to the specific FlyPast issue which contains this article? It appears it's worth looking into

Regards,

Paul

[Chris Goss]

Paul
It was in their Luftwaffe Special Last year and entitled 'Hornets over England'
Chris

[udf_00]

This captured one was tested :
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...eston_1944.jpg

[Paul Thompson]

Originally Posted by Chris Goss

Paul
It was in their Luftwaffe Special Last year and entitled 'Hornets over England'
Chris

Chris,

Thank you very much, I will look that up.

Paul

[Paul Thompson]

Originally Posted by Chris Goss

Paul
It was in their Luftwaffe Special Last year and entitled 'Hornets over England'
Chris

Hello Chris,

I have now read your article, thank you very much for directing me to it! The extracts from Luftwaffe logbooks were particularly interesting. I have a couple of questions:

Were the Me 410’s barbette guns effective? In the article, return fire by Me 410 gunners is mentioned twice, without any results. I had been under the impression that the Me 410 had better defensive armament than many other Luftwaffe types, but this appears to be incorrect.

Do you know of any source that discusses the overall numbers of sorties flown and bombs dropped by V./KG 2 and I./KG 51 against Britain? It appears that this effort, desultory as it was, might have been greater in scale than the Ju 88 missions on the Eastern front at this time. That underlines the point that Steinbock taken as a whole was a remarkable waste of effort!

Regards,

Paul