USAF pilot comments on Me 109 and FW 190

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JonS
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#46

Post by JonS » 14 Mar 2006, 02:49

Huck wrote:Mangled figures, and selective quoting is all I see in Carson's article.
Ok, so Carson is a dunce, and the 109 r0xor3d.

So, the bit where he said the 190 was 'every inch a fighter' ... that must be wrong too, right? I mean, we just agreed that all Carson was capable of was mangled figures and selective quoting, right?

So, you must agree the 190 was a dog then. Good lad.

Huck
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#47

Post by Huck » 14 Mar 2006, 02:58

JonS wrote:
Huck wrote:Mangled figures, and selective quoting is all I see in Carson's article.
Ok, so Carson is a dunce, and the 109 r0xor3d.

So, when the bit where he said the 190 was 'every inch a fighter' ... that must be wrong too, right? I mean, we just agreed that all Carson was capable of was mangled figures and selective quoting, right?

So, you must agree the 190 was a dog then. Good lad.
I wouldn't use Carson's arguments, that 190 was a good fighter, anywhere. They contain the same amount of errors.
190 was a top heavyweight fighter, regardless of Carson's opinion.


Hop
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#48

Post by Hop » 14 Mar 2006, 06:01


Another advantage of the Bf109 that will not be evident in a test pilot's report is that it is cheap and easy to build - it took just 4000 man hours to build a Bf109 but 17,000 to build a Spitfire (and 5000 man hours to build a Hurricane)
The British War Economy, Michael Postan, is one of the post war British government publications detailing war industry in Britain. It gives man hours figures, as of Jan 1940, as:

Hurricane 10,300
Spitfire 15,200

That's for early 1940, when the Hurricane had been in large scale production for a long time, and the Spitfire was only being produced in relatively small numbers in Southampton, before production got underway at the shadow factory. I'd expect the difference between the Spitfire and Hurricane to narrow considerably.

Hours also reduced sharply as the war went on. The Mosquito dropped from £6,000 in 1941 to £4,200 in 1944, the Lancaster from £22,000 to £15,200 in the same period, despite substantial rises in wages.

As to the 109, the difference seems to be too great to the Hurricane. Of course, it's hard to tell what's included in these man hours totals, for example guns, engines, radios, etc, all of which will make a huge difference in total hours. It's also possible the 4,000 hours figure represents late war production.

I believe I've seen a German air minsitry paper that estimated the Spitfire I would cost slightly less to build in Germany than the 109E did (12,500 RM for the Spit, 15,000 for the 109), but I can't locate it now.

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#49

Post by Purple fang » 14 Mar 2006, 06:36

From Jons.
1) The 109 was great at slow, turning, twisting dog fighting, which naturally made it a great fighter to send against the 8th AF bombers defended by P-51 pilots using tactics based on speed?


Hmm, & how does this tie in to the thread subject? which is Carson's 109 ramblings & low wind drag aerodynamics. & not to run this into the ground, but so far Jons has used words like kindergarten, uninformed, Pavlov's dogs, & phrases such as this,cherry pick and decontextualise quotes to the point of meaninglessness. & this is my 1st encounter with him. Amazing.
I don't exactly know how one can decontextualize direct quotes from people like Tommy Hayes, Mark Hanna & Frans Stigler, fanstasy holds more attraction for some I suppose. I dunno.



Getting back to Carson..
1) Cancel the camouflage paint and go to smooth bare metal. Besides the weight, about 50 pounds, the grain size is too large when it dries and it causes turbulent friction over the entire airplane surface. That may take a phone call to the brass. They're emotional about paint jobs. "Image," you know.

OK, 50 pounds of paint. Hmm , well having painted since age 19,brush, roll, spray, now I'm 41, this seems rather unreal. I could paint both 109 wings with 1 gallon, 2 at most. OK throw in one extra quart for camoflage. That is about 3-4 pounds of paint,( per wing), less when it dries. Even if it were oil base paint. 50 pounds? & this guy's an engineer! C'mon, ridiculous.

Consider that one gallon of paint weighs about 20 Kg (9 lbs) and batches can be as small as 5 Kg and as large as 20,000 Kg For many paints, one gallon will cover approximately 400 square feet.

Grain size? wax it, no more turbulent friction. He also doesn't mention that "all" US fighters save Mustang had painted wings.
Last edited by Purple fang on 14 Mar 2006, 08:50, edited 1 time in total.

Purple fang
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#50

Post by Purple fang » 14 Mar 2006, 08:09

Unless he means the entire airplane. Old paints were often lead based & heavier. Don't know what type of paint 109 used, but going all metal was not done by too many nations in the war,( if any). Paint schemes did more than add cammo. Recognition was somewhat important regarding defining who's who in the air.

Again Hartmann said Mustang was easy too see from long distances when sun reflected off it's metal. So going bare has this disadvantage.

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#51

Post by Purple fang » 14 Mar 2006, 08:48

& here again are the 209,( British), groups comments from my post on page 1. I'd take squadron leader Bobby Gibbs or Group captain Buxton's word, ( they flew the G ), over Carson's any day.

and the observation that the 109's excellent performance is the result of a large powerful engine on a small aircraft ("The fine performance is due largely to the size of the aeroplane It is remarkably small and light considering the size of the engine."). The conclusions include a recommendation that British aircraft manufacturers give serious consideration to designing lighter and smaller aircraft ("The small size of the 109G remains a prime reason for its good performance, It is recommended that British aeroplanes be designed to be small....").

Hope I haven't "decontextualized" anything here.

It is also interesting to note that the Americans also moved in this direction with lightened Mustang H & XP-40 Q late in the war. Bearcat yet another example of max horse, min weight thinking.

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#52

Post by Purple fang » 14 Mar 2006, 09:46

& last but not least, the streamlined nose. yet another low wind drag effort by Willy. & the if you look close at the Erla Haube canopy, it is not only better visibility, it has smoother sides making it more wind friendly. Nuff said.

The "F" model probably represents the high water mark for the 109 fighter. Its more streamlined nose, retractable tail wheel, rounded wing tips (rather than the "clipped" tips of the earlier models), cantilever horizontal stabilizer,

ipmsstockholm.org/magazine/1999/10/stuff_eng_detail_bf109g10_fusela...

Messerschmitt Bf 109G-10 in Detail - Fuselage
... this upgraded clear-view cockpit canopy for Galland Hood, but the ... is the Erla Haube. The heavy armoured glass head protection was mounted directly to the canopy, which made opening ...
ipmsstockholm.org/magazine/1999/10/stuff_eng_detail_bf109g10_fusela... - 16k

Try this link, has great side shot of Erla canopy.

Sorry link didn't lite up.

Here's a bit more from the link on page 1. Perhaps the engineers here can elaborate on these points.
http://www.virtualpilots.fi/feature/articles/109myths/

The aerodynamic efficienc of the 109 was based on several reasons. The three most important were:

Small overall surface, especially wingarea. To compensate for the high wingloading during takeoff and landing, very efficient slats and flaps system was installed. The usually turbulent flow in the tail section lead to a very low overall surface area in this area.
Inverted V-engine, giving the airframe an larger angle to the usually low mounted wing. This reduced interferenz drag and THIS was also the reason why the pilot head space was rather small. Nevertheless it was one reason why the 109 had a surpisingly high diving speed, what saved also their lives quite often.
Centered propellor position, thrust line going right through the COG, also allowing for better view forward down

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#53

Post by Jon G. » 14 Mar 2006, 12:57

Hop wrote:

Another advantage of the Bf109 that will not be evident in a test pilot's report is that it is cheap and easy to build - it took just 4000 man hours to build a Bf109 but 17,000 to build a Spitfire (and 5000 man hours to build a Hurricane)
The British War Economy, Michael Postan, is one of the post war British government publications detailing war industry in Britain. It gives man hours figures, as of Jan 1940, as:

Hurricane 10,300
Spitfire 15,200

That's for early 1940, when the Hurricane had been in large scale production for a long time, and the Spitfire was only being produced in relatively small numbers in Southampton, before production got underway at the shadow factory. I'd expect the difference between the Spitfire and Hurricane to narrow considerably.
My figures for man hours per aircraft built come from this site. The figures clearly pertain to 1940. Incidentally I quoted a wrong figure for the Spitfire - according to the above site it took about 13,000 man-hours to build a Spit in 1940. Still, that means that three Bf109s can be built in the same time that it took to build a single Spit. Crucial in a BoB context, but the full consequences weren't felt by the RAF in 1940, for the Germans didn't really mass-produce the Bf109 until 1942, by which time the Spitfire had been product-developed further than the Bf109.

From a pilot's point of view the best version of the 109 was probably the F type, but that model was far too lightly armed to successfully take on a bomber. The Germans could and did build better fighter planes than the Bf109G, but conditions dictated that any mass-produced airplane capable of engaging bombers at above 20,000 feet had to use the DB60x family of engines. The Bf109 was the best available plane with that engine. Strictly speaking the FW190D was probably a better plane than the Bf109G series, but the Jumo213 engine was not built in large enough numbers to allow the Dora to replace the Bf109 on the production lines.

As I understand it production time was a major reason why the Bf109 was chosen over the He112 as the Luftwaffe's new fighter prior to the war - and then the RLM went on to build a modest 360 (IIRC) fighters per month until well into the war. The He112 had an elliptical wing not unlike the Spitfire's. If the Luftwaffe had settled for Heinkel's design prior to the war, maybe it could have been developed into a more formidable aircraft by the time the Allied bombing campaign turned into a battle of attrition. Who knows. Basically the Luftwaffe had to pay the price for their pre-war selection of the Bf109 as their main fighter from 1943 onwards.
Hours also reduced sharply as the war went on. The Mosquito dropped from £6,000 in 1941 to £4,200 in 1944, the Lancaster from £22,000 to £15,200 in the same period, despite substantial rises in wages.

As to the 109, the difference seems to be too great to the Hurricane. Of course, it's hard to tell what's included in these man hours totals, for example guns, engines, radios, etc, all of which will make a huge difference in total hours. It's also possible the 4,000 hours figure represents late war production.
Wages probably weren't a concern for RLM planners. From the systems engineering site I linked to above it appears that the quoted man hour figures are per airframe, so engines, guns, radios and so on would be additional to the quoted production times.

I take your point though that mass-production reduces the time and effort needed to build each individual unit, but such economies should also apply to the Germans' production as the war went on and 109 production increased. There's an interesting post about the relation between inferior product and increased output by Bronsky here:

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 626#783626
I believe I've seen a German air minsitry paper that estimated the Spitfire I would cost slightly less to build in Germany than the 109E did (12,500 RM for the Spit, 15,000 for the 109), but I can't locate it now.
That would be interesting to see. A major reason why the He112 was turned down by the RLM was its elliptical wing. It was thought that it would take too long to mass-produce it.

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#54

Post by Purple fang » 14 Mar 2006, 21:36

Here's some comparitive weights a friend sent me. One can see where the maneuverability would decline. Most of that extra weight going into the nose.


F-4 : 5,269 lbs empty/equipped; 6,393 lbs loaded

G-2 : 5,687 lbs empty/equipped; 6,834 lbs loaded

G-6 : 5,893 lbs empty/equipped; 6,940 lbs loaded

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#55

Post by Huck » 14 Mar 2006, 22:02

Purple fang wrote:Here's some comparitive weights a friend sent me. One can see where the maneuverability would decline. Most of that extra weight going into the nose.


F-4 : 5,269 lbs empty/equipped; 6,393 lbs loaded

G-2 : 5,687 lbs empty/equipped; 6,834 lbs loaded

G-6 : 5,893 lbs empty/equipped; 6,940 lbs loaded
Yes and no. What you see here is the usual fighter weight creep which during ww2 was a necessary step towards making the the planes faster and better armed (and in general better equipped). Despite the weight increase, 109's max speed and cruise speed, climb performance and acceleration all have improved. At the same time turning radius and turn time have worsened.

Those changes were dictated by the new tactics adopted, simple turn fights were considered obsolete since the beginning of ww2, energy tactics was what fighters were required to excel in from then on. Energy tactics tactics emphasized acceleration, climb rate, max level and dive speeds, good control at high speeds instead of turn rate, turn radius and good handling at low speed.

No ww2 fighter could turn fight with earlier biplanes (I-15 could complete a turn in 12 sec, whereas a Mustang or Fw-190 in almost double the time), but if biplane maneuvrability was any good in a modern context, we would still use them.

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#56

Post by Purple fang » 15 Mar 2006, 05:43

Roll was arguable more important than turn, it was relative to more maneuvers. & yes weight creep happenned to MK 12 & 14 Spit compared to Mk 9, & C model Mustang handled better than D.

Um, you are correct about wood tail weighing more. It was done to simplify construction. It was more stable than metal one.

The Germans never really figured on a 5 & 3/4 yrs war. Blitzkrieg was supposed to conquer continental Europe by end of 42, similiarly, the 109 was designed in 35 & doubtful that Willy envisioned a 2000 hp motor in it.

& the comment about G-6 being produced in huge quantites til G-10 came round is not probably not What Willy was thinking, he was pushing the 209 II V5. Had the jet not appeared, this is likely what would have happenned.

At the end of the day, comparisons of late war fighters, 109 K & MK 14 Spit, & Mustang D should include the 209 II. Unlike the MB 5, it nearly did go into production.


I'll toss in a couple more tidbits just for fun.

"Unexperienced pilots hesitated to turn tight, bacause the plane shook violently when the slats deployed. I realised, though, that because of the slats the plane's stalling characteristics were much better than in comparable Allied planes that I got to fly. Even though you may doubt it, I knew it [Bf109] could manouver better in turnfight than LaGG, Yak or even Spitfire."
- Walter Wolfrum, German fighter ace. 137 victories.

http://www.virtualpilots.fi/feature/articles/109myths/


Me 109 G:
"We didn't have time for acrobatics but we weren't forbidden from doing them, though. Snap roll was fast and easy, and the engine didn't cough as in older planes. Immelman turn was splendid when you tightened the stick a bit on the top. The automatic wing slats did their trick and you didn't need ailerons at all for straightening the plane."
-Otso Leskinen, Finnish fighter pilot. Source: Hannu Valtonen, "Me 109 ja Saksan sotatalous" (Messerschmitt Bf 109 and the German war economy), ISBN 951-95688-7-5.

He doesn't say which G, but Finns got G-2, G-6, & a few G-14. It would seem that it was a matter of how to get the most out of the plane. In the book The Aces Talk By Ed Simms, Buehligen said: we could outturn the Mustang in either one, 109 or 190. Different story for a beginner as mentioned by Wolfrum above.

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USAF Pilot Comments On Me-109 And FW-190

#57

Post by Roberto120 » 15 Mar 2006, 08:58

Many thanks for that link you contributed on Page One of this subtopic titled "Messerschmitt 109 - Myths, Facts, And The View From The Cockpit", Juha. The case has always been to despise and underrate German fighter aircrafts for propaganda purposes because they are the enemy. However your link clarified all this.

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#58

Post by Topspeed » 15 Mar 2006, 09:57

I just received a dvd about the me 109 comparison with other fighters of WW II.

To simplify the content...109 pilots scored 7 times more than adversaries.

Me 109 was designed to be a platform for a deadly cannon. Mustang was an aeroplane fitted later with machineguns.

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Re: USAF Pilot Comments On Me-109 And FW-190

#59

Post by Jon G. » 15 Mar 2006, 10:27

Roberto120 wrote:...The case has always been to despise and underrate German fighter aircrafts for propaganda purposes because they are the enemy. However your link clarified all this.
I don't think that Carson's review of the Bf109 and the FW190 outright underrates these two German fighter planes - he merely rates them and sums up some pros and cons - quite a lot of cons for the Bf109, but on the other hand he has much praise for the FW190.

Some of his criticisms are a bit off, notably the one about the short range of the Bf109, but that just goes to demonstrate that his benchmark is American fighter planes, not British types, which in some cases had even less internal fuel than the Bf109.

It's also important to note his preliminary caveat, in which he clearly states that
...Putting aside the relative merits of one fighter versus another, there was a simple truth that quickly emerged from your first engagement with the enemy: whichever one of you saw the other one first had the winning advantage.
The most subjective variable is the experience and ability of the pilots...

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Re: USAF Pilot Comments On Me-109 And FW-190

#60

Post by Andreas » 15 Mar 2006, 10:41

Roberto120 wrote:Many thanks for that link you contributed on Page One of this subtopic titled "Messerschmitt 109 - Myths, Facts, And The View From The Cockpit", Juha. The case has always been to despise and underrate German fighter aircrafts for propaganda purposes because they are the enemy. However your link clarified all this.

Roberto120
Nonsense. Did you read Carson's points on the FW 190 at all? It is clear that he very much liked her, probably for the reason that my fellow moderator Jon G. points out.

Regards

Andreas

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