2-engine fighters, hit or miss?

[Nikademus]

The Germans envisioned the role of the Zerstorer as a heavy fighter suitible for long range escort to complement the short ranged Bf-109 also in development. The Luftwaffe was aware that Goering's 'baby' wasn't "all that" so to speak, even after Poland where the 110 seemed to do well enough but those in the know were worried about meeting determined modern 1E opposition. The 110 did well enough when it flew high top cover......but once it lost that advantage it couldn't match the new Spitifire. It was not appreciably faster than it and if it lost it's head of steam it was virtually helpless in a dogfight, the only recourse being to form a defensive circle with other 110's so that the tail gunners could guard each other's sixes. Luftflotte 5's one major foray into Northern England with an all 110 escort was a disaster.

So the 109's ended up escorting the 110's along with the bombers and they didn't have the range to get 'er done. As a fighter bomber/ground attack plane it excelled due to it's heavy firepower and load capacity.

[borner]

p-38 was designed as a single seat fighter. ME110 was a 3 seat plane and the desire to try and fit multiplule roles into the airframe cost it. Mosquito was a good plane, but it had the advantage of twin merlin engines and I still do not think was as good of a straight fighter as a p-38. It would have been very intersting to see how good the p-38 could have been if someone had tried to put merlins on it. Late war as others have mentioned there were some very interesting twin engine designs showing up

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: mullk

something to keep in mind is that one must soldier on with the weapons on hand not what is coming in weeks to months. The P-51 might have been vastly superior in every way but that doesn't matter if you don't have any P-51s but you do have P-38s that do fill the role for which they are deployed. The p-38 is far superior to the P-51 if the P-51 isn't deployed.

Yes. And not all P-51s were "war winners" too. The P-51D and later models really were stellar. But the P-51B/C versions were somewhat finicky. Not until the gun jamming and rearward vision problems with the canopy were corrected in the D models did you have a real gem. The P-51D had its first test flight in November 1943 and was fielded in numbers in March 1944.

You couldn't have won the war in Europe by waiting for the uber-aircraft. You dance with who brung ya.

[Commander Stormwolf]

Best thing about the typical 2 engined fighters was

a) survivability (lose 1 engine, still fly)

b) gunpower (accurate on the centerline, and the extra weight has less impact on performance)


remember the early 2-engined fighters carried a lot of fuel that added extra weight and reduced speed / mvr


all depends on the airframe and how it was configured
probably the best arrangement was two inline engines in a single fuselage

strange that a mid 1930s italian seaplane was able to reach 440 mph,
while 1940 era fighters flew 300-350 mph

after all, this one (Ki-64) could have been among the best fighters of the war

[Feinder]

Cool. I'm rather enjoying (and learning) from the discussion. Keep it up!

"I mostly played the ground game and remember you flying top cover for us quite a bit. " - Gnome
You must been one of those poor sots on the ground shaking their fist at me, "Hey bone-head, you're supposed to pickle the heavy explodey things on the bad guys! Hm. He'll figure out that he's got a Dew lining up on him in 3... 2... 1..."

[;)]

-F-

[The Gnome]

ORIGINAL: Feinder

Cool. I'm rather enjoying (and learning) from the discussion. Keep it up!

"I mostly played the ground game and remember you flying top cover for us quite a bit. " - Gnome
You must been one of those poor sots on the ground shaking their fist at me, "Hey bone-head, you're supposed to pickle the heavy explodey things on the bad guys! Hm. He'll figure out that he's got a Dew lining up on him in 3... 2... 1..."

[;)]

-F-

HAH! No I was more the "I can't believe I got killed before getting off the damn truck (again)" guy. [:D] Might have to give that another try on the next free weekend.

[TSCofield]

The Bf110 was something of a strange duck. It got something of a bad reputation during the Battle of Britain but in all honesty it was used improperly. Like many heavy fighters it had relatively poor acceleration but its overall speed wasn't that much different than the Spitfire and it was faster than the Hurricane. Unfortunately it was tasked with close escort duties and not for the high altitude boom and zoom type of attacks that would have made if more effective. In Russia it was much more effective in the early parts of the war. It was outclassed later on but it was never really upgraded like the Bf109 series. If you compare the P-38E to the J/L series you will see there was a pretty big difference between the marks. the C/G series Bf110s weren't that much different overall since the 110 went from being an air dominance fighter to a night fighter/jabo aircraft.

[Commander Stormwolf]

best thing for those 2E fighters to do is provide CAP and tear apart enemy strike packages

with all those funny 37mm or 4x20mm guns you can mount on them

[Nikademus]

i've always had a soft spot for the Zerstorer......probably in part because the word Zerstorer sounds so cool. Like wearing a Fez and traveling in a Blue Box. I also fly one better in EAW. 109's i'm always Lawn Darting. [:D]

[Banzan]

The BF/ME 110 was changed (as many german planes) during the construction time over and over again. Heavy fighter/escort, bombs, no bombs, bombs again etc. In the end, germany had a 2E fighter being more a medium bomber/attack bomber with enough speed to match many 1E fighters as the war startet, but mainly because many enemy 1E fighters during that time were early pre-war designs. Once they got against new design fighters, they were in trouble. Due germanys lack of high power engines and lack of ressources for more R&D, the 2E designs fall back more and more.
The P-38 had the advantage of being planned about 5 (i think) years after the 110 which is quite o lot for that time. And i guess without that many role changes during R&D as the Bf110. [;)]

[21pzr]

icepharmy;

The dive problem of the early P-38's was that they actually dived too well. If you tipped one over at high speed and altitude, you actually went supersonic (I believe I read where this was the first plane to do so, and why it took quite a while to figure out what was happening and what to do) and the turbulence over the wings forced the flaps down, causing you to lose control and auger into the ground. Several test pilots were lost during early testing. This was fixed by adding dive brakes.

Bill

[YankeeAirRat]

Lets see the the P-38 was removed from service in Europe because it was expensive to maintain and the mean hours between failure for the Engines and some of the other components that made it hard to maintain in England. Add in that the P-47, P-40, P-51 and the Beaufighter were already in the USAAF supply stream for Europe, so to simplify as the P-38 wasn't the end all in fighters against the Me-109 and FW-190's. So they were slowly removed from service in places like England. It was still used for a while in the Italian area of operations before it too was replaced by the P-47 and P-51 for the most part. That was one of the reasons it thrived over in the Pacific, is that most of the supply streams were still being developed so it was easier to start one going from San Fran to Hawaii to Oz to NG or the 'Canal was because there weren't already a number of competing supply streams as it was. Add in the fact that for a number of the units that were in the Pacific for the first 18 months were units trying to hold the line (the P-400, P-39, P-40) it was easier to phase those units as and start up the P-38.

As to the Bf-110, remember for a while there was in everyone's thinking two (or even three) different types of fighters in the air force inventory. Pursit planes which would engage other fighters and light bombers, heavy fighters/interceptors which would engage the bombers and then was the question of should interceptors be a seperate category by themselves. Anyhow, the Bf-110 when bought was going to be something like the Boulton Paul Defiant was thought of, in that a plane which would be able to have the range to intercept enemy bombers far enough from the target to allow most of them to be downed by both the forwrad firing guns and if needed the rear gun. However, during the build process like a number of aircraft have seen, the German high command of the Luftwaffe changed the specs from just being a fighter to being a fighter bomber with certain other aspects to it the contract change. Which adding the equipment to give the airplane the ability to deliver bombs and perform dive bombing adversely affected its weight and adversely affected its manuverability and speed.

The Mosquito was adapted to a fighter from the successful bomber and did well in this course. Its ultimate evolution was the Hornet aircraft which very successful in the post war period between the demise of the prop engine and the introduction of reliable jet engines. Beyond that I really think that the Beaufighter was a successful twin engine fighter in the Commonwealth Air Forces. It did yeoman's duty in all theaters and did it well, whether it was battling German patrol aircraft over the Norwegian seas or down along the Channel protecting the various inter-coastal supply convoys from both surface and air attack. In the Pacific, it did wonders in SE Asia and when introduced in the SWPAC region they finally had a fighter which could escort all the way from PM to Rabual and back or further in some cases.

The US had the P-38 already talked about, but then we had the XF5F which didn't provide the performance promised. Then there was the YFM-1 which sucked The P-61, P-70, Beaufighter, P-82, F7F as it for twin engine fighters before the whole idea was dropped with the arrival of Jet engines and the early ones having the requirement of twin engines due to questions about reliability.

A lot of what killed the early twin engine fighters was the engines and the mission creep that was added to the aircraft. The pre-war engines were just not being successful and delievery of the performance as envisioned by the engineers designing some of these aircraft. If we again add in mission creep, that is an aircraft is designed for one mission but someone wants to add another mission. Whether that is being a level bomber or a search asset or what. To add some of the extra equipment, even if it isn't installed all the time, adds weight and puts a drain on the performance of the engine. Bad Performance of the engine leads to bad aircraft in certain situations.

[Historiker]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

i've always had a soft spot for the Zerstorer......probably in part because the word Zerstorer sounds so cool. Like wearing a Fez and traveling in a Blue Box. I also fly one better in EAW. 109's i'm always Lawn Darting. [:D]

[:D]

A good plane is good when it does a good job in a good role [;)]

The Me-110 was a good plane, but not in dogfighting. Like all planes, 2e fighters are a compromise and unless it isn't a misconstruction from the beginning, it can be really successfull in a proper role. A2A dogfighting never was the perfect use. But imagine a Me-109Z with 5 3cm guns used against 4es - especially when they come without cover. But you propably don't want to sit in it when you are supposed to dogfight against enemy P-51 in an escort role.

[Commander Stormwolf]

P-38 was bad in RAF service since they were delivered without their turbo system

flew about 340 mph

they were called "castrated lightnings"

once the USAAF brought their own P-38s, they did better


but in terms of materials and production time, what is better

1 x 2E fighter

or

2 x 1E fighter

[oldman45]

I too always had a soft spot for the 110. If they had better engines for it, it would have done better. As was pointed out earlier, mission creep killed many of the 2E planes as they expected more out of it then it could ever deliver.

[frank1970]

The Me110 was a beast of a nightfighter, maybe the bes used in WW2.
Just for light reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz-Wolfgang_Schnaufer

[YankeeAirRat]

ORIGINAL: Commander Stormwolf

but in terms of materials and production time, what is better

1 x 2E fighter

or

2 x 1E fighter

If they are both being produced at the same rate for the same costs then they are equivalent and there isn't a different there. From there it breaks down to which is more valuable to the fight in performance and most bang for the buck.

[Commander Stormwolf]

2E took at least 2x as long to build and 2x as many materials

in some cases it was even more,

A6M was 1.7 tons while G4M was 6.7 tons (betty cost 3.5x that of a zero)


during the battle of britain, 2E fighters seemed to be "twice as expensive, and half as good"
as single engined fighters

but for confronting unescorted 2E or 4E strikes,

it helps to have some heavy firepower (and be able to withstand some 12.7mm shells)

[Dili]

What killed the 2E fighter is that engines keep improving and that gave a big margin for fuel and weapons for 1 engine fighters. After a certain threshold of engine power the 1 engine fighter starts to be the much better configuration with advantages in almost everything.
While at start of war it could be said that 2E could give big advantage in range and weapons and almost a tie in speed, in 1944 that advantage if existed was marginal and the tie in speed was lost.
We most remember that a 1E fighter at end of war had almost double of max weight of a 1E at begin of war. That is how things changed.

[Commander Stormwolf]

P-47 is a good example

the weight and price of a 2E fighter (and the same poor climb and turn performance of a 2E)


the classic 2E config (Bf-110 or Ki-45) style did seem a big superfluous by 1944

but other designs were beginning to emerge that were quite promising (Ki-64, Do335, Me262, etc)


think luftwaffe had it backwards,

supposed to use their Bf-110 for defense (it really tore apart allied bmbr strikes during the battle of france)

need a good 1E fighter for escort


japanese got the second part right, always had enough fuel (they could escort their long range strikes)
but didn't quite understand the concept of a point defence fighter (they couldn't shoot down masses of 4E very well)

USAAF started with jack-of-all trade type fighters (like the P-40) that didn't quite have enough range to escort, or enough climb to intercept

later they packed as much fuel as possible into their designs (and mitigated the performance hit due to their good engines and fuel)