So in doing more reading about ErpG. 210 you are actually quite wrong about a number of issues. 210 was in large part selected from crews and pilots right from training schools with no prior combat experience and they often attacked from medium heights at 45 degree dives. They were put together to prepare for the Me210, hence their designation, but were used to experiment with the fighter-bomber idea. That idea and experiments for it existed prior to ErpG. 210, in fact the original spec for the Kampfzerstörer included that it should be able to carry and deliver up to 500kg of bombs. The Me109E was designed to carry bombs before the Battle of Britain. AFAIK the first 'Jabo' was created in 1939 from the Me109E1, the first of the Me109E's originally produced in 1938. Hs123s and Me109Es were used in Poland, the Me109s as fighter bombers. They were part of the first 'Schlachtstaffel' or ground attack formations.Sheldrake wrote:I can be barely bothered to respond to this. You need to do a little more research.stg 44 wrote:Let's define terms, what are low and medium altitudes to you? (1) Plenty of German aircraft were able to fly low or dive bomb from medium altitudes and it wasn't hard to train them to do so.(2) Spotting a target from medium altitudes (1-4km) and descending to tactically bomb isn't a hard skill.(3) Bombs then would be released from a dive. Ju88s effectively did that from the beginning of their service (4) and after ErpG. 210 paved the way the Bf110 crews acted as fighter-bombers doing low level attacks or even just descending from medium altitudes and attacking. (5) Its not a hard skill to teach and learn.(6)
re 1. Bungay praised the low level surprise attacks mounted by EpgG 210 on airfields. These use a low level profile to stay below rader > 100m during the approach over the sea. Read some books about WW2 aviation and the Battle of britian.
re 2. Flying dive bombers takes skill, courage and is physically draining,. Read Pierre Closterman's Big Circus about his spitfire squadron trained to dive bomb in 1943. Dive bombing attacks, the only way considered in 1940 to delivering bombs with any precision need to start their dive from 3km. Read Dive Bomber by Peter C Smith or Eric Winkle' Brown's notes on flyng the Ju87.
Re 3 Spotting a target from ANY altitude takes some skill and can be hampered by the weather. Otherwise there would not be any jokes about the US Air force. Hitting a sm,all target takes skill and practice. if you followed my advice in the last post and tried out this in a good flight simulator you would not post such nonsense.
Re 4 The Ju88 was built as a dive bomber. Modifying the "schnell bomber" to do so resulted in delays to its serv ice use and the reason why there was a substantial Do17 fleet.
Re 5. Partially True. Before EPG 210 no one thought high performance fighters could be used to deliver bombs accurately. I REPEAT these were specialist and novel skills for 1940.
Rer 6 Oh yes it was. Flying a 1940s fighter at high speed towards the ground and hitting the target with the bomb while missing the ground with the aircraft was far from easy to learn and there were no text books. It needed some specialist er "Experimental" or "testing" organisation to do this. Oh wait that's what "Eproberungs" means. Fitting bombs onto aircraft flown by fighter jocks merely results in sprinkling bombs over a wide are AKA agricultural bombing...
Me109E1 and Bf110C4 Jabos were NOT dive bombers and did not 90 degree dive. They did 45 degree glide attacks, which apparently the new pilots that partly made up the ranks of the newly formed ErpG. 210 learned in a few days of training in July.
https://www.amazon.com/Messerschmitt-Bf ... 0764314459