Messerschmitt Bf109 - The Story
Few aircraft are as controversial as the Messerschmitt fighter, the
main weapon of the German Luftwaffe's fighter arm throughout the second world war. During
the war, allied propaganda portrayed the 109 as a mass-produced monster, which outnumbered
allied pilots defeated with more manoeuvrable aircraft. This view continued after the war
until the sixties, when a series of aviation historians reappraised the 109, and it was
hailed as the greatest fighter design of all time. Today a more balanced view is emerging
that recognises the brilliance of its design as a flying machine, but does not overlook
its shortcomings as a weapons system.
The 109 was designed by Willy Messerschmitt, owner of the Bavarian Aircraft Works. It drew
heavily on his earlier design, the Bf 108 Taifun, a four seated touring monoplane. The
prototype was produced in response to a Luftwaffe specification for a new fighter to
replace its Arado biplanes. The engine to be used was a Jumo 210, but none were yet
available, so Messerschmitt fitted a Rolls-Royce Kestrel engine instead. At the time
aircraft design was in a transitional period with many new technologies available.
Messerschmitt gave his new creation all of the new ideas on aircraft design. It was a
monoplane with an enclosed cockpit, it had a retracting undercarriage and Handley-Page
slats for low speed handling. These innovations gave the design the edge on those put
forward by other German firms competing for the order.
The Luftwaffe organised competitive trials for its new fighter and selected the 109,
together with its rival the Heinkel 112, to have another 10 prototypes built for extended
testing. The Heinkel design was more traditional than the Messerschmitt, having an open
cockpit, although Heinkel did develop it, and later designs, to be remarkable aircraft
with great potential; a Heinkel gained the world speed record for Germany on 30th March
1939, only to have it broken again the following month by Messerschmitt's Me209. The
Messerschmitt 109 itself had secured the speed record for a landplane two years earlier in
1937.
After extended testing the Messerschmitt Bf 109 was selected for production. Messerschmitt
had done a fantastic job with the 109 design and it is churlish to try and criticise his
masterpiece, however, with hindsight it is possible to see that a few elements of the 109
design made for problems later in its service life.
Messerschmitt had given the 109 exactly the armament the Luftwaffe had asked for, two
machine guns. Indeed he had designed in the option of adding a third weapon to fire
through the airscrew. When the Germans found out that the RAF was to have eight machine
guns in its new Hurricane and Spitfire fighters there was a huge effort to match this in
the 109. However the 109's wing was just too thin to successfully accommodate more than
one machine gun in each wing, and only then by using a cumbersome ammunition feed
mechanism. Cut down cannon were eventually installed that gave the 109 a weight of fire
more than that of the British fighters, but all the later 109s only carried wing armament
slung underneath the wing rather than inside it.
The Bf 109 was a small machine compared with the British Spitfire. Although only 4% longer
than the Messerschmitt, the Spitfire had 13% more wingspan and 39% more wing area. This
was because the 109 was designed around an engine of only some 700 horsepower, whereas the
Spitfire was always meant to have an engine of 1000 horsepower or more. It is testament to
Messerschmitt's design that the early 109s delivered had much the same performance as the
later Spitfire, on much lower engine power. However, when more powerful German engines
became available, their extra weight and the need to shoehorn them into the small 109
airframe while increasing the already high wing loading, led to problems. While Allied
designs went on to be powered by engines of 2,000 horsepower or more the Messerschmitt
only achieved such power in short bursts through the use of such devices as methanol
injection. The increase in weight made the later 109s difficult to handle at low speeds,
even with Handley Page slats.
The 109 was always criticised for having a very narrow track undercarriage, which made for
tricky landing and taxiing. It must be remembered that Messerschmitt was designing one of
the very first retracting undercarriages on a fighter type anywhere in the world and his
thin wing, so essential to the performance of the aircraft, precluded any other
arrangement. One advantage of the design, which was never really used by the Germans, was
the ability to remove the wings while the undercarriage still supported the fuselage. The
nature of the German territorial gains meant that 109s could be flown direct to any
battlefront. The Allies, on the other hand, often had to assemble aircraft after long sea
journeys to destinations such as North Africa, Russia and the Far East. The men tasked
with this work would have appreciated a design like that of the 109, which could be taken
out of a packing crate in three large pieces and be reassembled without the need of jigs
or hoists.
The cockpit of the Messerschmitt hinged to the side for entry and exit, this meant that it
could not be left open for taxiing or slid back in flight for better vision. It also had
heavy framing that obstructed the pilot's view. This latter shortcoming was overcome late
in the war with the introduction of the "Erla hood" (often called the
"Galland" hood) with less metalwork in the canopy and a slab of armoured glass
to replace the armour plate that protected the pilot's head but also obscured vision (Erla
Maschinenwerk of Leipzig built Bf109s under license and designed the improved canopy,
Adolf Galland, Luftwaffe General of Fighters was the most ardent advocate of improved
field of view for the 109).
No sooner were the first production Messerschmitts available than they were rushed to
Spain to support the Fascist Nationalist forces of Franco as part of Germany's
"Kondor Legion". Here they helped secure air supremacy for the Nationalists and
evolved the tactics that would bring them success in later conflicts. The air war in Spain
is often portrayed as very one-sided, but the Republican forces often gave the Germans a
rough time with their Russian built I-16 fighters. The Ilyushin fighter was reported to be
more manoeuvrable than the 109 and carried more guns and ammunition, but the German had
the advantage of speed and could break off combat if he found himself in a dangerous
position.
The Messerschmitts used in Spain were initially of the B series, followed by the C series.
These used the Jumo 210 engine, which delivered less than 700 horsepower and had a maximum
of five machine guns. The availability of the Daimler-Benz DB600 engine of 960 horsepower
promised to improve performance and this led to the D series, which in turn was issued to
the Kondor Legion in Spain. Production of the DB600 never really got underway and most of
the D series were in fact fitted with the old Jumo 210 engine.
The reason the DB600 was not produced was the promise shown by the new DB601 engine that
gave 1,150 horsepower and had the advantage of petrol injection. Together with the
mounting of a cannon in each wing, this gave the Luftwaffe a truly formidable fighter (the
Bf109E) and it was this aircraft that swept all opposition away in 1939, 1940 and 1941.
The big exception to this is of course the Battle of Britain, prompting the big question
of which was the best fighter, the Messerschmitt or Spitfire? The answer is complex and
one must remember that the Spitfire first flew six months after the Messerschmitt and its
early development was not so accelerated. Thus in the Summer of 1940 the Messerschmitt was
already into its fourth major mark and was on its third engine, whereas the Spitfire was
in its Mark I form with the Merlin engine it was always designed to be powered by. The
Messerschmitt was in the middle of its development life, its aerodynamic form already
disfigured by bulges for ammunition drums, and with a wing loading greater than what it
was designed for. The Spitfire was at just the beginning of its development, and its
larger airframe could be pushed to take larger engines than the 109 ever could, while its
larger wing area kept the wing loading within safe limits. The killing power of the 109's
two cannon and two machine guns was equal to the eight machine guns of the Spitfire for
fighter-v-fighter combat. The 109 was capable of turning with a Spitfire, but it could
only do this at low speeds where its leading edge slats gave it the advantage. At normal
dogfight speeds the Spitfire had the advantage. The Bf109's controls became
"heavier" than those of the Spitfire at higher speeds, taking much more effort
on the stick and rudder bar to hold a turn. The cramped cockpit of the 109 did not allow a
pilot to bring his full strength to bear on the control column, further frustrating the
German fighter pilots. The 109's engine had the advantage of fuel-injection, meaning the
109 could pull negative "G" manoeuvres to distance himself from a pursuing
Spitfire.
Had the Summer of 1940 been fought along the lines of the First World War, with opposing
air arms fighting each other over no-mans land and the trenches, then the 109 would
probably be remembered as the ultimate fighter, fully the master of the opposing
Spitfires. As it was, in the summer of 1940, the Luftwaffe, and the Bf109 along with it,
found itself being flung into the mincing machine of the strongest and most well
thought-out metropolitan fighter defence system in the world. Designed from the beginning
for the defence of London this system took an increasing toll of the German attackers when
they switched from assaulting the RAF directly to trying to destroy the British capital.
It was as part of a larger system of radar, radio, command and control, and with the more
numerous Hurricane, that the Spitfire was such a success in the Battle of Britain.
In 1941 the development of the Messerschmitt and Spitfire paralleled each other with the
Bf109F having a similar performance to the Spitfire V, but from 1942 onward the Spitfire,
and the other allied fighters, drew ahead in terms of performance. The 109F is regarded by
many as the best looking of the 109s. Messerschmitt had cleaned up the airframe and got
rid of the anachronistic bracing for the tailplane, although there were some losses due to
structural failure of the tail following the Fs introduction. This was found to be due to
vibration at certain engine induced frequencies. The fault was cured by strengthening the
tail. The F was criticized by many Luftwaffe pilots for its light armament, a single
cannon and two machine guns.
In North Africa, the Balkans and Russia the 109E and F again secured German air
superiority. The early, spectacular successes against the Russians gave way to a war of
attrition. The Germans flying the 109, with its good performance at altitude, continued to
amass victories. The Russians were playing a different game however, and they went for
ascendancy through sheer strength of numbers, concentrating their resources and aircraft
development on designs that excelled in the low and medium altitude bands where they
operated in support of the Soviet Army. The high flying Messerschmitts found themselves
superfluous, and at lower level they found themselves fighting a numerous and aggressive
enemy.
On all sides the Luftwaffe found itself first outnumbered and then outperformed by Allied
fighters. There was no alternative but to try to squeeze more powerful engines and greater
armament into the 109. The result was the G series, at first sharing the same lines as the
F, the G later had large bulges over the nose to accommodate bigger machine-guns. All
sorts of armament combinations sprouted under the wings. The G-6 was produced in huge
numbers, with various armament fits it proved a potent anti-bomber aircraft. The G-10 was
a fast climbing interceptor, the fastest of the G series.
Attempts were made to produce a high altitude 109 version, the H series. These had
extended wings, produced by inserting an extra wing section at each wing root, giving a
span increase of 6ft 6 inches. The tailplane was also increased in span and had to be
braced. With a boosted engine the 109H could reach 47,000 feet. Only a few were produced
and used by a Luftwaffe reconnaissance unit in France, the rival Ta 152 design from
Focke-Wulf was favoured by the Luftwaffe for high altitude work.
The Bf109 found use as a night fighter from 1943
onwards using the "Wilde Sau" tactics of Major Hajo Herrmann. Single engined
fighters were vectored towards the bomber's target where they tried for visual
interceptions aided by the light from the burning target and the target marking flares
dropped by the bombers. Other Luftwaffe aircraft would add to the light by dropping
flares. Searchlights would be shone onto the base of clouds to silhouette bombers flying
above. Late in the war Bf109's used the "Naxos" receiver to home in on the
ground mapping H2S Radar of British night bombers.
The 109T was a version destined for Germany's abortive Aircraft Carrier the "Graf
Zeppelin". Modified from the E series the T featured arrester hook, catapult gear and
folding wings. When the Carrier was cancelled the T aircraft were completed as fighter
bombers. Later in the war the Graf Zeppelin project was again picked up, this time
Messerschmitt designed an all-new fighter aircraft for it, the Me 155. The new design
showed a great deal of family resemblance to the Bf109. Again the Carrier was cancelled
and the Me 155 was never completed in its original form. The design was modified for
extreme high altitude performance and handed over to the firm of Blohm and Voss for
further development and production. One prototype had been completed, but crashed, and
another was being built, when the war ended.
The last production 109 was the K series. These were the fastest of the 109's, and mounted
some of the heaviest armament ( the fearsome Mk103M 30mm cannon was planned for use).
However by the time the K series became available the Luftwaffe was so short of fuel that
its operations were very limited, and the K saw only limited action.
During the later part of the war many unusual projects were planned using the 109. The
Mistel combination was a 109 mounted on top of a Ju 88 flying bomb. The 109 pilot would
point the Ju 88 at its target and then release his own aircraft to make his escape.
Mistels were used against the allied fleet off Normandy following D-day (although the
allies seem not to have noticed!). It was also planned to use them against the British
fleet at Scapa Flow, but when the RAF sank the Tirpitz the British fleet was freed to sail
to the far-east for the war against Japan, and the Germans lost there target.
The Zwilling project was an attempt to combine two fuselages with a new wing centre
section to form a twin-boom fighter. This system was used with success by the Americans
with their F-82 Twin Mustang. The Zwilling would have been a formidable aircraft with five
30mm cannon or a bombload of some 2,200 lb. Lastly there were attempts to use as many of
the components of the 109 as possible to simplify the production of a new jet fighter. By
the time the design was complete it was found that almost none of the 109 parts remained
in the design, so it was abandoned.
During the War, all of Germany's allies received and operated examples of the 109. The
Bulgarians and Hungarians used them, as did those parts of Yugoslavia that supported
Hitler. Yugoslavia had actually purchased 109s from Germany before the war and used them
against the German forces that invaded in 1941. The Italians also received Messerschmitts.
Finland, assaulted by the Soviet Union in the Winter War of 1940, had found itself an ally
of Germany and received many 109s for its Air Force, the last of which it retired in 1954.
The Swiss had purchased 109s before the start of the war and interned many more that
landed on its territory. During 1940 there were a series of air battles between
Switzerland and Germany, during which the Swiss Bf109s performed very well, particularly
in engagements with the 109's stable-mate the Bf110. The Swiss stopped using the 109 in
1949.
After the war production of the 109, under various guises, continued. The Czechoslovaks
found themselves with a German factory for producing the 109 left on their soil, they also
had another for the production of Junkers engines. To get their aircraft industry going
they continued 109 production with the Jumo 211 engine. The annular radiator of the Jumo
gives it the appearance of a radial engine. In this form, called the Avia S199, the
aircraft equipped units of the Czech Air Force. The newly independent state of Israel
needed aircraft to defend itself against the Arabs. At this time the Soviet Union and its
satellite states looked favourably on Israel, thinking it could extend its interests in
the middle east it allowed numbers of the Avia S199s to be smuggled into Israel, despite
an arms embargo.
Spain was where the Bf109 had first seen combat and Spain continued to take delivery of
109s during the War. After Germany's defeat the Spanish continued to assemble 109s bought
from Germany. They fitted their own Hispano Suiza engines to these aircraft, but
performance was unsatisfactory, and British Merlin engines were fitted instead. Known as
the Hispano HA 1112, these aircraft were in service until as late as 1967. It was the
retirement of these fighters and Spanish examples of the Heinkel 111 bomber, that gave the
opportunity for the filming of the lavish dogfight scenes for the feature film "The
Battle of Britain".
Apart from these Spanish built aircraft a "proper" 109 did not fly for
many years until 1991, when a restored 109G took to the air at the RAF station of Benson.