Battle of Britain - Me109 Better Than the Spitfire?

I watched James Holland's BBC programme for the Battle of Britain called the Real Story this afternoon. I haven't read his recently released book.
Some of the aspects of the programme were good. How he looked at the battle from the German side with diary and prisoners bugged conversations.

But Mr Holland seems to think that the outstanding fighter of the Battle of Britain is the Me 109E. Because it was better armed with more firing time, had direct injection and could outdive the Spitfire.
What do you think? Is he right?

 

G


They did seem to put the 109 above the Spitfire.
The shot of the 303 and the cannon shell comparison did show the shortcoming of the 303.
A few of the Pilots also said the Spitfire took a bit of time to wind up and by then the 109 had absconded.

 

Craig,

There has been much dabate on this subject over the years and both sets of Pilots said that their plane was the best.

When analysed both planes were extremely similar, but the Bf 109 always had fuel injection and was therefore more responsive in certain circumstances.
It was a fact that the Bf 109 Pilot could just stick forward and dive away from danger, whereas the Spitfire's fuel supply suffered from the effects of gravity and spluttered momentarily, providing a window of opportunity for the 109 Pilot to get away.

Good pilots in both machines could give a good account of themselves and I believe that this is the reason why the Spitfires were usually engaging the fighter escort whilst the Hurricane pilots took on the bombers.

I suppose the debate will never end, but both planes were good for their day and both stayed the course of the war in different marks.

Regards
Tom

 

Gage... I didn't see the programme you refer to. But have seen others about the BoB. All comparing the Spit with the 109, and all trying to establish which fighter was the superior. It's obviously an argument that will never be settled.

I think the best programme I watched had two veterans of the battle, one RAF and the other Luftwaffe actually sit in their opponents airplanes. Both giving their views on the comparisons and differences between the two fighters. Still, neither changed their opinion on the fact that they thought "their" fighter was superior to the other.

Many statistics need considering aside from aircraft losses. The 109's range, the recovery of downed pilots etc. etc. Personally, if an argument hasn't been settled after the best part of 70 years then it never will be.

 

I enjoyed the programme, and while there was very little 'new' in it, it was well put together. However, I don't think they went into this issue well enough.

Interesting site on it here:

Spitfire Mk I versus Me 109 E

 

This discussion will never be settled unless - maybe - we can agree on a few criteria, for example:
- Do we discuss models (armament included) available only during a certain time period, typically 10th July - 31st Oct 1940 ?
- Are we interested in fighter vs. fighter only, or also other scenarios ?
- What considerations should be given to fixed differences like
-- Aggressor vs. defender
-- Performance by flight level
-- Tactics given by order
- On the other hand
-- Tactics by personal initiative or choice
-- Actual recorded attrition rate (per flight hour or mission or downed enemy a/c or what?)

And so on and so forth. These discussions if attempted to be fair, tend to be, however interesting, very complicated.

And please let us never settle on anything of the above, since we so enjoy the discussion !

 

Heinz Knoke was still flying a Me 109 E4 with II/JG 52 over England in May 1941 when he wrote of the Spitfires he encountered:
The bastards can make such infernally tight turns; there seems to be no way of nailing them.

It was interesting that Holland didn't even mention the turning radius of the Spitfire.


There is no doubt that the 20mm cannon is superior even with it's lower rate of fire. But I did read that eight .303s would knock down a brick wall.

 

... But I did read that eight .303s would knock down a brick wall.
It was also quite important whether they were adjusted to center at a distance according to the handbook, or considerably shorter, which many pilots found was more effective.

 

It was also quite important whether they were adjusted to center at a distance according to the handbook, or considerably shorter, which many pilots found was more effective.

Didn't some pilots harmonise their guns at 250 yards instead of 400?

 

If only it was as simple as... "The RAF won the BoB, so must have had the superior fighter!"

But, as Stormbird has so rightly pointed out, there are many different factors to be considered. And, it IS an enjoyable argument, simply because there will never be a definitive answer...

 

So I have read. The handbook said 400 despite the weapon being proven ineffective over 300.
(Sorry, Blacksnake, I missed your post in between.)

 

I personally think that however good any aircraft it is the quality of the pilot is the most important part of the equation... The training and their ability are the reason they survived or not despite their aircraft... Is it just me?

 

Several other factors should also be considered.Time over target for the Luftwaffe was only 10 minutes.If they had been able to engage for longer, then would their advantageous "trigger time" have mad a bigger difference? As well as this,the psychological effect of knowing you could end up in the channel for spending too much time over target,must have been a huge disadvantage.

 

I "voted" before reading the poll and find myself on an 8-1 hiding !
I voted neither as I saw it pretty much as a trade off with not a lot to pick or choose between them.
Quite a few folks have identified the design and mechanical issue which gave each the edge in certain circumstances , but for much of the time the ME had to fight at a disadvantage because of where the battle was being fought and how they were being made to fight it.
Looking at just the machines themselves discounting all other issues I think at that moment in time, summer of 1940 they were "neck and neck" , in the long term the Spitfire proved to be the better of the two with a great development life inherent to the airframe and its design.

(I recall in an older view of the "Battle" "Macky" Steinhoff stating that in his opinion the Luftwaffe was fighting a battle which they were not equipped to undertake and that good as the 109 was the nature of the battle put it at a disadvantage.)

I did enjoy the programme and whilst Paul is right the amount of new material which was in it was limited for me the Luftwaffe crews having to be at "cockpit readiness" to defend their own bases was something of a surprise in how intrusive this was, and the insight into the Luftwaffe pilots view of the battle and what "they were experiencing and thinking" was a refreshing. ( So often the "B of B" is only looked at from "our side").
It was a well put together and did pull the various strings together at different levels.

I have heard it said the Willy Messerschmitt was "the blue eyed boy" and his designs were looked upon more favourably than others, this may or may not be the case and whilst not wishing to change the direction of the thread it is worth being thankful that the FW190 was not entering service in 1940.

 

The Me 109 was a couple of yeas older and designed as "the smallest airframe that could carry the designed engine". Because of this it could not be adapted to make full use of the second generation engines (DB 605) of 1500Hp and could not even carry the third generation 2000Hp ones. As the Me 109 started life with the Kestrel you could even say it was one generation behind!.
This became a handicap as heavier firepower and armour were required later in the war to deal with four engined bombers.
For BoB vintage the Me 109 was possibly slightly more advanced than the current generation Spitfires, but the differences very small and not enough to compensate the German's tactical disadvantages.
It's heavier wing loading meant less manouverablity but firepower, and the fuel injection, gave it a very slight edge all the rest being equal. IMO it' a lot safer to dive away when disadvantaged than to attempt to outturn your opponent, but if your mission is bomber escort ......

 

I think Holland was talking bollocks, and he knew it. What he should have done was show how many .303 bullets got wanged off compared to one 20mm cannon shell.
I've read of a Spitfire pilot recalling a 109 disintegrating after catching a good squirt from his eight Brownings.

 

It was interesting that Holland didn't even mention the turning radius of the Spitfire.

I was just reading Stephen Bungay's book this morning and found this in chapter 5: " The wing also featured 'wash-out'. It had a slight twist along it, which meant that during tight turns the wing root would stall before the tip, giving the pilot a safe warning. Many blessed Mitchell for that."

 

The Spit get's my vote. Bless the lads who flew that pretty bird.

 

I don't know. But what is great about the battle of britain is that it puts head to head those that believed that the future is based on freedom against those that believed it was based on oppression. Thank god for that.

 

Unfortunately for the .303 Browning and the brick wall - all that a rifle-calibre bullet did was puncture relatively small holes in aircraft. In WWI and the interwar period rifle-calibre defensive fire was enough for bombers to equally see off fighters it took a awful amount of rwork to get bullets from a pair of rifle-calibre MGS to hit anything vital...

Hence the MG multibanks were a way of simply putting MORE lead on a target....but all THAT meant was perhaps three or four SETS of bullets from the bullet-stream might intersect the path of the target!

Cannon rounds blew holes in things and chunks out = more chance of damaging something vital

EXCEPT - remember that BoB-era 109 only had TWO! So back to the same issue of exactly how many useful rounds could hit a moving/twisting/evading target in your few seconds'-long bullet stream!:p Yes those TWO could do more damage....but they had a smaller chance of hitting than EIGHT streams of converging lead...