Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!cbnews!military From: adrian%cs.heriot-watt.ac.uk@NSFnet-Relay.AC.UK (Adrian Hurt) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: Air Combat (was: Fighter Performance vs. Maneuverability) Message-ID: <10373@cbnews.ATT.COM> Date: 19 Oct 89 03:33:20 GMT References: <10261@cbnews.ATT.COM> Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM Organization: Computer Science, Heriot-Watt U., Scotland Lines: 111 Approved: military@att.att.com From: Adrian Hurt In article <10261@cbnews.ATT.COM> military@cbnews.ATT.COM (William B. Thacker) writes: >From: brspyr1.brs.com!miket (Mike Trout) >In sci.military Digest Tuesday, 03 October, 1989 Volume 3 : Issue 9 >amdcad!tanner@dssmv1.mpr.ca (Tim Tanner) writes: > >> Germany started off the war with two very different fighters. The Me-109 and >> Me-110. The Me-109 was a highly maneuverable fighter, which could or could >> not outmaneuver the Hurricane or Spitfire depending on the altitude. > >Wrong. The Bf 109 was one of the LEAST maneuverable fighters in the world >during its heyday. The Hurricane could outmaneuver it under ALL circumstances >(although that does not change the fact that the Bf 109 was vastly superior to >the Hurricane). Don't be so sure. At the time the Hurricane came out, the version of the Bf 109 in service was the Bf 109D. The Hurricane could outmanoeuvre, outpower and outgun it. By the time of the Battle of Britain, the Hurricane had changed little if at all, while the Bf 109 was now in its E variant, with the more powerful Daimler-Benz DB 601A engine. The Bf 109E now had the significant power edge, and the Hurricane never regained it. Basically, by the start of WW2 the Hurricane was obsolete; but when it first appeared, it was supreme. >Bf 109 had automatic leading edge slats. This allowed a good German pilot to >extract maximum turning ability from his Bf 109 without fear of stall. A poor >Spitfire pilot might be afraid of the maximum turning ability of his plane, >since a stall might occur without warning if he wasn't familiar with the plane. Yes, well if it was a good German pilot vs. a poor British pilot, the result was one crashed Spitfire. On the other hand, if the skills were reversed, it was the Bf 109 that went down. In fact, at the time of the Battle of Britain, the two aircraft were quite evenly matched in most respects, although each had its advantages and weaknesses. > (The 109)... was not designed to turn inside an enemy fighter. >Instead, it was conceived as a machine which would bore in on an enemy, fire a >single lethal burst, then dive away." > >> The initial design of the Me-109 was with TWO machine guns in the wings. > >In the engine cowling, actually (Bf 109A). Some "lethal burst"! > ... However, the >Bf 109 had been designed from the beginning with firepower in mind, and the >airframe easily accepted the considerable increase in firepower that was added >to later models. It did not. The wings accepted the two extra machine guns easily enough, but when two more MG FF's were put in their place, bulges had to be added which messed up the aerodynamics. That was in the 109 E. No further 109 versions ever had guns in the wings again - the 109 F and all subsequent versions had the motor-mounted gun back, but this time it was the far better MG 151. There were also bolt-on kits fitted to the wings when the fighter was going after the big American bombers, and manoeuvrability could be thrown away. > Airframes designed without firepower in mind--such as the >Spitfire--accepted additional guns only with a lot of kicking and screaming. Or rather, with a new wing to accomodate the 20mm cannon. As of the Spitfire Mk VC, a new wing was fitted which could carry either two cannon, or one cannon and two machine guns. The British never did go much for putting guns into the fuselages of single-engined fighters. >> The Me-110 was a two engined fighter (nicknamed Destroyer) which single >> engine fighters could shoot down due to its lack of speed/performance/ >> maneuverablity. > >The Bf 110 "Zerstorer" was faster than any single engine fighter of the day. >Overall performance and even maneuverability were surprisingly good, and the >Bf 110 has a bad reputation that it does not deserve. Maximum speed of the Bf 110C-5 (the Battle of Britain version): 345 mph. Maximum speed of the Spitfire IA (ditto): 361 mph. Maximum speed of the Spitfire IIA (late 1940): 354 mph. Note the reduced speed on the version with the constant speed propellor, which gave the Spitfire IIA better climb rate and ceiling. The Bf 110's manoeuvrability might have been good for a twin engined aircraft, but it couldn't match a single engined fighter. It was supposed to be a "fighter destroyer"; it would use its heavy firepower to blast through enemy fighter formations, then go on to attack their airfields. In effect, it was a cross between a fighter and a bomber, and it failed on both counts. But Goering liked the aircraft so much that he insisted it stay in service, and it actually had to be escorted by Bf 109's! Eventually it was relegated to such duties as night fighting, where its large size enabled it to carry the early clumsy German airborne radar set, and where its firepower (subsequently upgraded) could be used against even bigger, slower, less manoeuvrable targets - British heavy bombers. It was also used for long range reconnaissance and ground attack. >> Another German fighter plane that was designed (?) and produced during the >> war was the Fw-190. It was suppose to be an excellant fighter, and I think >> it emphasised speed and firepower over maneuverability (but I'm not sure). > >True, and in that respect it was nothing more than an update of the Bf 109 >philosophy, taking into account new technology and lessons learned in the early >days of the war. Advanced versions of this plane, such as the Fw 190D and the >Ta 152, may have been the best propeller fighters of the war. In fact the Fw 190A was also manoeuvrable. The D version lost a bit of the agility because of higher wing loading. "Keyboard? How quaint!" - M. Scott Adrian Hurt | JANET: adrian@uk.ac.hw.cs UUCP: ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!adrian | ARPA: adrian@cs.hw.ac.uk