bf110 exchange ratio

[davebender]

That only holds true for early model P-47s. The P-47D-15 carried 375 gallons of fuel internally plus a 150 gallon belly tank. By March 1944 P-47s were flying all the way to Berlin.

[Milosh]

That only holds true for early model P-47s. The P-47D-15 carried 375 gallons of fuel internally plus a 150 gallon belly tank. By March 1944 P-47s were flying all the way to Berlin.

How many P-47D-15s were there? The combat radius of the P-47 with 2x75 gal drop tanks (150gal) was about 375mi, still a few miles short of Berlin.

[parsifal]

According to Deighton there were 280 Me 110s on strength in LFs 2, 3 and 5 as off 20 July. Not sure how many were allocated to LFs 1 & 4.

On the 1st July 11 Group only possessed a little over 300 Hurricanes and Spits. Given the claims being made here about the superiority of the Me 110 over the Spit and the Hurricane, the question begs why could it not defeat them even with Me109s to support them, let alone doing the job on their own. And why had so many been lost in less than two months.

And this claim that the LW was outnumbered in any category of aircraft is yet another post war myth being put out by the post war german apologists in their attempts to distort the facts and hide the truth that they lost the battle. Facts are that over the operational area the Germans always outnumbered the British by large margin overall , and in the case of the Me 110 came close to parity. Despite this, the germans still couldnt win.

I'll answer my own question.....because as a long range escort fighter the 110 was outclassed by the Spits and Hurricanes operating as interceptors, and because they consequently suffered loss rates far in excesws of their replacement rates.

[Juha]

Hello Parsifal
first of all at the beginning of BoB, the 110s of Lfl 5 (a Stab plus a Gruppe) weren’t to operate against 11 Group but against 12 and 13 Group. Secondly, the fight was very bloody, in fact the only participant which lost over 100% of its first-line strength on 10 July 1940 was FC but all suffered very heavy losses. I don’t have monthly production figures on Bf 110 for the time of the BoB but IIRC the production of 110 in 1940 was appr. 1200, so appr. 100 per month, so it covered at least the total losses. The number of zerstörer diminished not only because of the losses but also because of a number of ZGrn were converted to NJGrn

Juha

[davebender]

That statistic is meaningless. We need to know how many Me-110s were assigned to day fighter units. Me-110 night fighters, recon aircraft and attack aircraft like those assigned to Erprobungsgruppe 210 are not day fighters.

[Milosh]

That statistic is meaningless. We need to know how many Me-110s were assigned to day fighter units. Me-110 night fighters, recon aircraft and attack aircraft like those assigned to Erprobungsgruppe 210 are not day fighters.

I'll let you crunch the numbers.
Luftwaffe Campaign Orders of Battle

[Juha]

Dave
my numbers in my message #37 happened to be the numbers in Zerstörer units. You probably can figure out what that means by yourself. Try to do some serious study on the subject. So it is easier to understand what others write and you don't need to write those ignorant meaningless comments.

Juha

[Kurfürst]

And this claim that the LW was outnumbered in any category of aircraft is yet another post war myth being put out by the post war german apologists in their attempts to distort the facts and hide the truth that they lost the battle.

Its a simple fact that Fighter Command had more aircraft, more aircrew and flew far more fighter sorties than the Germans during the Battle, apart from other inherent advantages of the defender.

Nobody can help you if you can't get over the simple facts and create a childish distortion of reality for yourself...

Facts are that over the operational area the Germans always outnumbered the British by large margin overall , and in the case of the Me 110 came close to parity. Despite this, the germans still couldnt win.

These are simply not facts but wishful fantasies of a partisan... if what you would be saying would be true, it describes the British commanders as absolute and utter fools, having the aircraft for the job but not using them, and when using them (see relative fighter sortie numbers - the Brits flew about twice as many) they didn't use these assets where they were needed (i.e. near German formations).

Of course thats assuming that the childishness about the RAF FC being outnumbered would be true. Of course it weren't. The historical reality was that the British for once in the war acted properly, they geared up fighter production to sufficient levels to absorb the punisment the Luftwaffe had for them in store for the summer. They had the assets and used those assets properly to prevent the Luftwaffe from gaining total and undisputed air supremacy; although the other part of the truth is that it came at very serious loss in pilots and material, and at no point theyl couldn't effectively stop German air operations.

[tail end charlie]

Its a simple fact that Fighter Command had more aircraft, more aircrew and flew far more fighter sorties than the Germans during the Battle, apart from other inherent advantages of the defender.

Nobody can help you if you can't get over the simple facts and create a childish distortion of reality for yourself...



These are simply not facts but wishful fantasies of a partisan... if what you would be saying would be true, it describes the British commanders as absolute and utter fools, having the aircraft for the job but not using them, and when using them (see relative fighter sortie numbers - the Brits flew about twice as many) they didn't use these assets where they were needed (i.e. near German formations).

Of course thats assuming that the childishness about the RAF FC being outnumbered would be true. Of course it weren't. The historical reality was that the British for once in the war acted properly, they geared up fighter production to sufficient levels to absorb the punisment the Luftwaffe had for them in store for the summer. They had the assets and used those assets properly to prevent the Luftwaffe from gaining total and undisputed air supremacy; although the other part of the truth is that it came at very serious loss in pilots and material, and at no point theyl couldn't effectively stop German air operations.

The luftwaffe choose the point of attack and so have a local superiority the RAF had to defennd the whole of the UK. If the RAF engaged the figters one for one who would be shooting down the bombers.

All RAF accounts I have read said they were outnumbered while the Luftwaffe pilots remarked that the RAF were always there not in high numbers but always there. it was a feature of the high commands that they didnt know the numbers of the opposition the British overestimated German numbers and production while the Germans did the opposite.

[Milosh]

Tell me Kurfurst how many fighters from 10, 12 and 13 Group could participate in the air battles over south east England?

What are the sortie numbers for the 4 Groups in FC?

Read some combat reports and there was always more German a/c than RAF fighters participating in the air battles.

[tail end charlie]

Tell me Kurfurst how many fighters from 10, 12 and 13 Group could participate in the air battles over south east England?

What are the sortie numbers for the 4 Groups in FC?

Read some combat reports and there was always more German a/c than RAF fighters participating in the air battles.

Since the Bf110 had two engines and two crew wouldnt it have to be substantially superior to a single engined fighter to justify deployment except where a single engined plane couldnt do the job like over the N Sea

[Kurfürst]

The luftwaffe choose the point of attack and so have a local superiority the RAF had to defennd the whole of the UK.

That assumes it was always the *whole* Luftwaffe concentrating on a single point - it simply wasn't so. They had a lot of diversionary raids in the first place, and the typical employment during most of the summer were consisting of a groups of of bombers, typically a Wing or two, escorted by a number fighters, all groups attacking their seperate targets at the same time or in intervals, while the RAF engaged those raids seperately with a number of squadrons intercepting each.

Even at maximum effort, seventy years ago, when the LW started Verdun-like operations by attacking targets in London, there were about 300 bombers escorted by 600 German fighters. And that was when the Germans threw everything they had at London. The big picture was, and this is beyond dispute, that the RAF FC flew a lot more fighter sorties during any period then German fighters, and about as many as German bombers and fighter sorties combined. How on Earth they were outnumbered then when they had just as many planes in the air as the Germans is a mystery..

IF, and that's a big if which I personnally doubt very much they were regularly outnumbered, then simply the British Air staff did a very poor job a C&C.

All RAF accounts I have read said they were outnumbered while the Luftwaffe pilots remarked that the RAF were always there not in high numbers but always there.

That's pretty typical of any combat account by pilots. Pilots overestimated the number of enemies by a factor of two to three, and claimed equally more enemies shot down. Their subjective perception in the heat and stress of combat, and the objective reality of how many were there and how many actually went down were two rather different things.

[Kurfürst]

Tell me Kurfurst how many fighters from 10, 12 and 13 Group could participate in the air battles over south east England?

Well how many enemy aircraft did they claim again..? Absolutely NONE, riiiiiight...

[tail end charlie]

Even at maximum effort, seventy years ago, when the LW started Verdun-like operations by attacking targets in London, there were about 300 bombers escorted by 600 German fighters. And that was when the Germans threw everything they had at London. The big picture was, and this is beyond dispute, that the RAF FC flew a lot more fighter sorties during any period then German fighters, and about as many as German bombers and fighter sorties combined. How on Earth they were outnumbered then when they had just as many planes in the air as the Germans is a mystery..

.

This is bizzarre, when those operations were mounted the RAF were pairing spifies and hurricanes for the spitfires to attack the fighters and the hurricanes the bombers 900 in total by your figures. I repeat if it was only fighter against fighter then no one was stopping the bombers which was the whole point of intercepting. 600 fighters was close to the front line strength of the RAF which had to defend the whole of the UK not just london. During attacks radar didnt work in land so many sorties were flown which met nothing and many were flown to protect the airfields of squadrons scrambled to intercept.

Radar didnt have the resolution to give exact numbers so Park would always err on the side of caution, if ever he over committed he could be open to a massacre on the ground.

[delcyros]

exaggeration in numbers to be read in combat records is a normal occurance and doesn´t tell us anything. You have to compare the sortie number of BOTH SIDES instead of concentrating on the british side with sorties & combat records. The latter only tell us subjective in comparison to objective points.
I don´t trust assesments of pilots who participated in the BoB either. They are subjective and tell us informations from their rather limited perspective but don´t return the whole picture, which lies way beyond their scope. They can´t do that for a number of reasons. Wh have to widen the scope of interest from the local level to the level beyond local events but still in a very shorttermed timeframe (what happened else on that day?) before jumping to general conclusions.
Even assuming an even exchange ratio between -110 and Spit / Hurricane in hostile (for the -110) airpsace - And I believe that Bergström is correct and the exchange ratio was positive instead- that wouldn´t even come close to support the idea that the Bf-110c over England was outclassed by Hurricane and Spitfire. An even exchange ratio would imply a competetive environment. The term "outclassed" does not apply here and is used by many authors in a wrong context. Even an exchange ratio of 0.5 to 1 is still not "outclassed", compare the actions with Spitfire & Zero over Darwin.