What Variant of the BF 109 was at the Battle of Britain?

Einsamer_Wolf · Post by **Einsamer_Wolf** » 02 Jun 2003 00:00

What variant of the Messerschmidt BF109 was involved in the Battle of Britain? What variant of the Spitfire did it encounter?

Einsamer Wolf

Daniel L · Post by **Daniel L** » 02 Jun 2003 00:18

I think the Bf 109 F was the latest version available altough most of the Luftwaffe fighters were probably Bf 109 E.

Best regards/ Daniel

Matt L · Post by **Matt L** » 02 Jun 2003 05:58

Hi

It was the Bf109E with which the Luftwaffe faced the British in the summer of 1940. The F became operational in the spring of 1941, and the G in 1942. Actually, I think less than 1500 Fs were built and only a few thousand Es- the VAST majority of 109s were Gs

Matt

Maple 01 · Post by **Maple 01** » 02 Jun 2003 11:03

The Spitfires were Mk I and II, the II only differed by having an uprated engine, the only visual differance are two small blisters on the top cowling just behing the propeller. A handful of cannon armed Mk Is flew in the BoB on trials but had too many problems to be effective

regards

-Nick

daveh · Post by **daveh** » 02 Jun 2003 14:08

Mainly the Bf 109 E-3 variant with the E-4 joining in the Summer and Autumn. The principal difference between the two being the removal of the nose mounted 2cm FF of the E-3 and the fitting of 2 wing mounted 2cm MG FF in the E-4

The fighter bomber variants, the E-1/B and the E-4/B were used by 3./Erprobungsgruppe.

Tactical recce variant Bf 109 E-5

Cobra6 · Post by **Cobra6** » 02 Jun 2003 15:42

BF-109E (Emil)

Cobra 6

gabriel pagliarani · Post by **gabriel pagliarani** » 02 Jun 2003 17:07

daveh wrote:Mainly the Bf 109 E-3 variant with the E-4 joining in the Summer and Autumn. The principal difference between the two being the removal of the nose mounted 2cm FF of the E-3 and the fitting of 2 wing mounted 2cm MG FF in the E-4

The fighter bomber variants, the E-1/B and the E-4/B were used by 3./Erprobungsgruppe.

Tactical recce variant Bf 109 E-5

Are you sure that E-4 had 2 cm wing mounted cannons? I was convinced that nacelle-mounted MG 2 cm were adopted only 2 years later on Gustavs.

David Lehmann · Post by **David Lehmann** » 02 Jun 2003 17:38

Hi,

About the E and F series, as far as I know :
The Me109-E3 had two 20 mm MGFF cannons, but these were not as good as for example the 20 mm Hispano-Suiza HS404 which had higher firing rate and muzzle velocity.
On the Me109-F series the MGFF cannons (which are in fact Oerlikon guns built under licence) have been replaced by the German MG151/20 cannons, which had a longer barrel.

David

varjag · Post by **varjag** » 03 Jun 2003 05:00

I think the first F-series aircraft were armed with the MG 151/15 cannon which was later upgraded to the MG 151/20. The '15' and '20' denote the caliber of the weapon, they used the same cartridge-case - only necked out to accept a 20mm projectile.

gabriel pagliarani · Post by **gabriel pagliarani** » 04 Jun 2003 23:02

August 14 1940, the day after "der Adlertag", Adolf Galland was riding an E-3 over Avro plants close to Woolston airport while escorting 80 He-111: his right wingman unt.lt. Muenchenberg drove an E-4.( from D.Baker's "Galland: the first and the last one." Chapter 11.)
What about the scope-collimator? How worked?.. during the few time Galland tested it the tactics were as a "flying sniper" or it was used simply as a magnifier in "not so close "dogfights? The tests were stopped when Galland was shot down (breaking definitively his nose) but there is no report about efficiency of such a device in D.Baker's book.

Matt L · Post by **Matt L** » 07 Jun 2003 09:06

I read that the telescope was simply for distance identification of aircraft and had nothing to do with the gunsight or shooting at all. I can certainly understand why he'd remove it- I sure wouldn't want to smack my head into it- the damn gunsight is bad enough!

Matt

Oh and just to clear up one prior misconception in an earlier reply, the Bf109F did in fact mount an MG151/20 cannon, but it did not replce the MGFF cannon of the Bf109E series directly- the wing-mounted armament was eliminated and the MG151/20 was mounted to fire through the inverted 'V' engine. Designers had finally solved the vibrations that prevented one of the original plans to have a 2cm cannon there.

Hop · Post by **Hop** » 07 Jun 2003 14:17

Eagle in Flames by Hooton has a table of the types of 109 lost in the Battle of Britain.

In July, the losses were 44% 109E1, 30% E3 and 20% E4 (I believe the D subtype was still being flown in very small numbers, which would account for the missing 6%)

By September, the losses were 38% E1, 1% E3, 61% E4

I believe the E3 was deemed unstisfactory, and they were converted to E4s.

Some of the 10 pre production F0s may have been flown during the closing stages of the battle.

The Spitfires were mainly the Mk I, with a small number of Mk Ib with 2 20mm cannon. 195 Spitfire IIs were delivered to the RAF before the end of October 1940, and many of these would have taken part during the Battle.

Daniel L · Post by **Daniel L** » 07 Jun 2003 14:41

gabriel pagliarani wrote:his right wingman unt.lt. Muenchenberg drove an E-4.

His name was actually Joachim Müncheberg.

Best regards/ Daniel

gabriel pagliarani · Post by **gabriel pagliarani** » 07 Jun 2003 15:26

D. Löwenhamn wrote:
gabriel pagliarani wrote:his right wingman unt.lt. Muenchenberg drove an E-4.
His name was actually Joachim Müncheberg.

Best regards/ Daniel

Sorry. I translated from italian and italian keys "ue" generally substitute the Nordic sign as equivalent. I have not that key in my latin key-board.

Daniel L · Post by **Daniel L** » 08 Jun 2003 00:46

It's alright, it was more the n I reacted to.

Best regards/ Daniel