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Aviation History
1940
1940 - 1108.PDF
APRIL 18, 1940 THE LUFTWAFFE (CONTINUED) A fine machine aerodynamically, the mass-produced He 111 has several shortcomings as a military weapon. vice in the world. But at the time there was no reliable engine giving 1,000 horsepower and so the 109 was de- signed for a unit of less power. Afterwards it was modi- fied to take the more powerful engine, with the result that the machine became over-engined and its manoeuvr- ability suffered. For its day, the armament of the Me 109 was formidable. It can use either four machine- guns or shell-guns. The choice of its armament seems to be made by the commandant of the station from which the staff el operates. A battery of eight machine guns was not then contemplated. The Best Bomber of its Day The He 111 was also the best bomber of its time when "it was designed. It was designed before our Blenheim, and it was faster than our then fastest fighter, the Fury. No wonder Goring thought he had chosen wisely when he put this type into production. The He 111, and also its replacement, the Ju88, exemplified the deliberate German policy about bombers. Load and speed were thought the main desiderata ; armament was considered of very minor importance. The soundness of this policy seemed to be confirmed by the lessons of the Spanish civil war. Unfortunately for the Germans, designers like Mr. Camm and the late Mr. Mitchell can upset the best- laid scheme of mice and Nazis. The appearance of the ultra-fast Hurricane and Spitfire with their eight machine-guns put the He HI into the category of has- beens. Against our fighters the Heinkel could not hold its own in combat, nor could it escape from their pur- suit in a clear sky. It was reduced to hanging about near the protection of clouds, and hurrying into them as soon as British fighters were sighted. Its period of active service was limited to the first winter of the war, when the sky was mostly cloudy; and when the spring came the German pilots must have been very glad that a replacement bomber was ready to make its appearance. Though committed to the mass production of one fighter type and one bomber type, both of which proved failures in the first months of the war, Goring had been prudent enough to make arrangements for replacements. These new types have lately been taking a fairly promi- nent part in air operations. As the readers of Flight know, they are the Messerschmitt no fighters and the Junkers 88 bomber. Our readers also know that the Me no is a two-seater twin-engined fighter armed with two shell-guns and two machine-guns firing forward and two other machine-guns firing to the rear, one on top and the other below the fuselage. Its top speed is 350 m.p.h. The prototype was produced four years ago, and the type was first seen in public in August, 1938. In German the class is termed "destroyer," as the Germans hold that the primary duty of fighters is to destroy bombers. Combats with other fighters are regarded as quite a secondary function. The fighting points of the Me iro are that, with its great speed, its good endurance and its shell-guns, it can keep on renew- ing attacks on other aircraft, keeping out of range of The nose of the Me 109 showing the hole in the spinner for an engine-mounted shell-gun.
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