Messerschmitt Me 210
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| Messerschmitt Me 210 | |
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| Type | Heavy fighter |
| Manufacturer | Messerschmitt, Dunai Repülőgépgyár Rt. |
| Maiden flight | September 1939 |
| Introduced | 1943 |
| Retired | 1945 |
| Primary users | Luftwaffe Hungary |
| Number built | 90 finished and 320 partially completed in Germany, 267 in Hungary |
| Developed from | Bf 110 |
| Variants | Me 410 |
The Me 210 was a German heavy fighter and attack aircraft of World War II developed by Messerschmitt. The Me 210 was designed to replace the Bf 110 in heavy fighter role, design started before the opening of World War II. The first examples of the Me 210 were ready in 1939, but they proved to have poor flight characteristics. A large-scale operational testing programme throughout 1941 and early 1942 did not cure the aircraft's problems. The design eventually entered limited service in 1943, but was almost immediately replaced by its successor, the Messerschmitt Me 410. The Me 410 was a further development of the Me 210, renamed so as to avoid the 210's notoriety. The failure of the Me 210's development programme meant that the Luftwaffe was forced to continue fielding the outdated Bf 110, to mounting losses.
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[edit] Design and development
Messerschmitt designers had started working on an upgrade of the Bf 110 in 1937, before the production version of the 110 had even flown. In late 1938 the 110 was just entering service, and the RLM started looking ahead for its eventual replacement. Messerschmitt sent in their modified 110 design as the Me 210, and Arado responded with their all-new Arado Ar 240.
The Me 210 was a straightforward cleanup of the 110, and used many of the same parts. The main differences were a modified nose area that was much shorter and located over the center of gravity, and an all-new wing designed for higher cruise speeds. On paper the 210's performance was impressive. It could reach 620 km/h (385 mph) on two 1,350 PS (1,332 hp, 993 kW) DB 601F engines, making it about 80 km/h (50 mph) faster than the Bf 110, and nearly as fast as single-engine fighters of the era.
The Me 210's main landing gear followed some of the design philosophies that had resulted from the main change in the earlier Ju 88's main gear design, where each main gear had a single gear strut that twisted through 90º during retraction, to bring the main gear wheel resting atop the lower end of the main strut when retracted rearwards into the wing. Unlike the Ju 88, however, the Me 210's main gear wheels were "inside" the main gear struts when fully extended, while the Ju 88's were "outside" the struts.
The Bf 110 carried its ordnance externally, on the wings and fuselage, but this created drag; the Me 210 avoided this problem by housing the bombs in an enclosed bomb bay, in the nose of the aircraft. The Me 210 could carry up to two 500 kg (2,200 lb) bombs. The Me 210 had dive brakes fitted on the tops of the wings, and a Stuvi 5B bomb sight in the nose, for shallow-angle dive bombing. In the fighter role the bomb bay was fitted with four 20 mm cannon.
For defense the Me 210's rear gunner was armed with two heavy-calibre 13mm MG 131 machine guns. These were fitted into half-teardrop-shaped turrets mounted on each side of the aeroplane, and were remote-controlled from the gunner's position with a unique aiming setup, that had a rotating crossbar with a handgun-style grip and trigger at its center, directly underneath the crossbar. This unique aiming and control scheme rotated the crossbar axially, when the handgrip was elevated or depressed, to aim the guns vertically, and a sideways movement of the handgrip would pivot either one of the guns outwards from the fuselage for diagonal firing. The rear of the cockpit canopy's side glazing panels were bulged out to allow the gunner to aim down and to the rear. The guns were electrically fired, and electrical contact breaker prevented the gunner from shooting off the Me 210's tailplane.
An order for 1,000 Me 210s was placed even before the prototype had flown. In time this would prove to be a mistake. The first prototype flew with DB 601B engines in September 1939, and was considered unsafe by test pilots. Stability was bad in turns, and it tended to "snake" even while flying level. At first the designers concentrated on the twin-rudder arrangement that had been taken from the 110, and replaced it with a new and much larger single vertical stabilizer. However this had almost no effect, and the plane continued to oscillate. The Me 210 also suffered from terrible stalls. With the nose up, or in a turn the stalls whipped into spins when the automatic leading-edge slats opened. The second prototype, Me 210 V2, was lost this way in September 1940, when the pilot could not get out of the resulting spin and had to jump. The chief test pilot commented that the Me 210 had "all the least desirable attributes an aeroplane could possess." It took 16 prototypes and 94 pre-production examples to try and resolve the many problems. Nevertheless, the RLM was desperate to replace the Bf 110's currently in service, and ordered full production in the spring of 1941.
The Hungarian authorities were however satisfied with the Me 210 in its current state, and purchased a production license for the type, as well as for its DB 605 engines. Several airframes were also purchased, to be completed in Hungarian factories for practice while the assembly lines were set up. Production started in the Dunai Repülőgépgyár Rt. (Danubian Aricraft Plant) as the Me 210C with the DB 605B engine, under an agreement where the Luftwaffe got two of every three produced.
In practice, the Hungarian Me 210C was so superior to the German Me 210A that it was planned to fold its design features into a new Me 210D model. However, this was eventually developed into the Messerschmitt Me 410.
[edit] Operational history
Deliveries to front-line units started in April 1942 and the plane proved to be even less popular with pilots. Production was stopped at the end of the month, by which time only 90 had been delivered. Another 320 partially-completed models were placed in storage. In its place the Bf 110 was put back into production. Although the Bf 110 was now equipped with the newer DB 605B engines and greater firepower, it was still an outdated design.
The Luftwaffe started receiving their Hungarian-built planes in April 1943, but the Hungarians didn't get their own until 1944; however, when they did enter service they were more than happy with them. Production ended in March 1944, when the factory switched over to produce the Messerschmitt Bf 109 G version. By that time, a total of 267 Me 210C had been built, 108 of them had been given to the Luftwaffe. They operated mostly in Tunisia and Sardinia, but were quickly replaced by the Me 410.
[edit] Variants
- Me 210A-0
- Pre-production aircraft.
- Me 210A-1
- Single-seat twin-engined fighter-bomber, bomber-destroyer aircraft.
- Me 210A-2
- Single-seat twin-engined dive-bomber, bomber-destroyer aircraft.
- Me 210C
- Hungarian production version.
[edit] Operators
- Luftwaffe: Received 90 German-built Me 210A and 108 Hungarian-built Me 210 Ca-1.
- Royal Hungarian Air Force: Received 159 Hungarian-built Me 210C
- Imperial Japanese Army Air Service: One aircraft was bought in Germany for tests, delivered aboard of U-Boat.
[edit] Specifications (Me 210)
General characteristics
- Crew: 2 (pilot and gunner)
- Length: 11.20 m (36 ft 8 in)
- Wingspan: 16.40 m (53 ft 7 in)
- Height: 4.30 m (14 ft)
- Wing area: 36.2 m² (390 ft²)
- Empty weight: 5,440 kg (12,000 lb)
- Max takeoff weight: 8,100 kg (18,000 lb)
- Powerplant: 2× Daimler-Benz DB 601F liquid-cooled inverted V12 engine, 1,350 PS (1,332 hp, 993 kW) each
Performance
- Maximum speed: 620 km/h (335 knots, 385 mph)
- Combat radius: 2,400 km (1,300 nm, 1,500 mi)
- Service ceiling: 7,000 m (23,000 ft)
Armament
- Guns:
- 2× 20 mm (0.787 in) MG 151/20
- 2× 7.92 mm (0.31 in) MG 17 machine gun
- 2× 13 mm (0.512 in) MG 131 machine gun (rear armament)
- Bombs: 1,000 kg (2,200 lb)
[edit] See also
Related development
Comparable aircraft
Related lists
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