War Machines Drawn: Messerschmitt Bf.110C, German users, part four

Tuesday 7 August 2018

Messerschmitt Bf.110C, German users, part four

During the spring of 1940, some mock-up combats between a Bf.109 and Bf.110s were carried on, where the Bf.109 always bested the Bf.110, so Walter Horten, technical officer of the JG.26 warned Bf.110 pilots about being very careful against the British single-engined fighters.
Back in the Phoney war, the ZG.1's Hptm. Hannes Gentzen became briefly the highest scoring Luftwaffe ace when, on 2nd April he shot down a French Curtiss Hawk over Argonne.
For the invasion of the Netherlands, 145 Bf.110 were committed to the operation, where it showed its strike capabilities. On 10th May 1940 the ZG.1 claimed 26 Dutch aircraft destroyed on the ground at Haasmtede airfield. In fact, most of the aerial scores over Belgium on 11-13 May were claimed by Bf.110s belonging to the ZG.26 at the cost of 9 of them against RAF's aircrafts on 15th May.
There were also some combats between Bf.110s and Swiss Bf.109Es when some German aircraft violated neutral Switzerland's airspace with about five Bf.110 being shot down by the Swiss.
Of a total of 101 Luftwaffe casualties during Fall Rot, the invasion of France, only four were Bf.110s.
However, the campaign in the west, showed that the Bf.110 was vulnerable in hostile sky and, although it proved well against Dutch, Belgian and French air forces, it was outclassed by the Spitfire and Hurricane, specially when it was acting as a close range bomber escort as it couldn't take advantage of its superior altitude performance and speed and was forced to wait for the enemy to attack, rather than roaming around looking for targets.
Later, in the summer of 1940, the Battle of Britain showed the Bf.110C's fatal weakness as a day fighter against single-engined aircrafts. As it was a large aircraft, it lacked the agility of the Spitfire and Hurricane and could be easily seen. Furthermore, unlike the World War I Bristol F.2b where a rear-firing mounted machine gun was enough for keeping the rear of the aircraft safe, in World War II, the Bf.110's defensive armament proved insuficient against the 8-gun armed fighters. It also suffered of limited maneouvrability and, although it had higher top speed than most RAF' fighters, it had poor acceleration. However, it was the best escort fighter of the time and it wasn't tampered by the range restrictions that hampered Bf.109E's performance.
Although it was highly outclassed, still managed to perform well as a escort by using the tactic of diving upon an enemy, delivering long-range bursts from its powerful forward armament and then breaking contact to run for it. Anyway, as it was never designed with that purpose in mind, and the escort role tied the fighters to the bombers, their tactical edge was took away as they were forced to respond to enemy's fighters, which were never taken by surprise and easily avoided the attacks of the Zerstörers and sometimes even turned the tables against them.
With all those limitations, the Bf.110 proved to be highly vulnerable as the numbers show. On 15th August 1940 thirty of them were shot down with around 23 more of them being shot down on the following 16-17 August. They managed to score however 13 RAF fighters on 31st August at the cost of 3 down and 2 damaged, but on 4th and 27th September, 15 Bf.110 were lost each day. Of the 237 Bf.110 that embarked for the Battle of Britain, 223 were lost.
Later, in 1941, Rudolf Hess flew a Bf.110 from Germany to Scotland, presumibly trying to negotiate a peace deal between Germany and the United Kingdom.
The last big role of the Bf.110C as day fighter was during the Balkan invasion in April 1941 where they faced foreign Bf.109Es belonging to the Royal Yugoslav Air Force. This time most of the aerial combats ended with Bf.109 victories. Two squadrons were commited to the invasion, the I and II/ZG.26. On 6th April, the first day of the invasion, the I./ZG.26 lost five aircraft in exchange of two Yugoslav Bf.109Es. The other squadron, managed to repel some Hawker Furys but at the cost of two of their aircraft being lost agains the biplanes.
Shortly later, when invading Greece, the II./ZG.26 managed to shot down five Hurricanes belonging to the No.33 and No.80 Squadrons of the RAF with the cost of two Bf.110s being shot down. The Battle of Crete also seems to have been futile for the Bf.110 as British sources claim to have shot down 12 Bf.110 in combats against Gloster Gladiators and anti-air fire.