Talk:Messerschmitt Bf 110 operational history

Article creation
The Messerschmitt Bf 110 article is to be expanded and the operational history is so large that it now requires its own article. As the author of the copied data from the Messerschmitt Bf 110 article, I believe there is no copyright issue. Dapi89 (talk) 12:36, 8 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I would agree that If the re-user is the sole contributor of the text at the other page, attribution is not necessary (from Copying within Wikipedia) but find it unlikely that the text has not been changes or altered by others or that some of the text existed before your additions. So rather than trawl through the history it is easier just to leave the attribution at the top of the page. MilborneOne (talk) 12:46, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * There is was no content contribution re: information or citations other than me. Dapi89 (talk) 12:48, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Hamburg
The article says this, apparently relating to a supposed RAF raid on Hamburg in August or September 1943: 'The night fighter arm claimed the destruction of 123 out of some 1,179 bombers over Hamburg on one night; a 7.2% loss rate.' Regardless of what the cited US source says, this never happened. At no time, let alone in August-September 1943, did the RAF send anything like 1,179 bombers to Hamburg in a single attack. The infamous 'firestorm' of 27-28 July 1943, which killed over 25,000 people, was caused by 787 RAF bombers, which suffered a loss rate of 2.2% to flak and fighters combined. Nor did RAF bomber losses to fighters alone on any single raid ever approach 123. The RAF's worst night over Germany was the Nuremberg raid of 30-31 March 1944 when 95 failed to return, a missing rate of 11.9%, plus 11 more written off after crash-landing, for a total 13.6% loss. Of those that failed to return, 79 were shot down by fighters, 13 by flak, 1 by a friendly bomber and 2 destroyed by collision. (See Martin Middlebrook, The Nuremberg Raid, Allen Lane 1973, pbk Cassell, London, 2000, ISBN 0-304-35342-6, p.275.) Unfortunately for fanbois of the Nazi cause, there is no evidence that more than 50 German fighters ever made contact with the bomber stream that night, and about two-thirds of the RAF's losses to fighters on the night were accounted for by just 15 German pilots. Why's that unfortunate? Well, the British bombers certainly shot down at least nine of the intercepting German fighters. (These losses are confirmed, but the war diary for one of the German fighter corps is missing, so there may have been at least one further loss to the bombers' return fire.) Since there were never more than 50 German fighters in the battle, that's a loss rate to the Nazis of 18%, higher than the RAF's bomber losses.

And this is normal. If you analyse RAF night raids, you find that the British bombers consistently inflicted higher proportional losses on the Nazi night fighters than they themselves sustained. At Peenemunde, for instance, in moonlight conditions that favoured the defence (but also favoured RAF gunners, because night fighters were clumsy beasts and would always present themselves at close range), the Germans lost 17-20% of the intercepting force -- depending if you think 30 or 35 fighters engaged -- while the bombers lost 6.7%.

There's an extremely stupid book called Bf110 vs Lancaster, by, I'm afraid, an American ex-army officer called Robert Forczyk (and Americans have a bizarre inferiority complex in relation to the British), Osprey, Oxford, 2013, ISBN 9781780963167, in which the author claims to be appalled that about half of all Lancasters were lost on operations, usually about half of each month's production. First, you wonder what the hell he thinks wartime bombers were actually built for. Second, you wonder why he doesn't realise what 'production was double the loss rate' means in terms of Bomber Command's force build-up. In fact, as his own graphs and data show, there was only one month, January 1944 at the height of the Battle of Berlin, when Lancaster losses from all combat and accidental causes exceeded production, and then only by five units. As a rule, monthly Lancaster production was double the loss rate. Whereas, and again Forczyk's own graphs and data show this, Bf110 monthly losses regularly exceeded production, in fact more often than not. This was partly because of accidents due to the exigencies of night operations and the poor quality of Luftwaffe night-flying training, but mainly because of 'unknown causes' -- the term used by the Luftwaffe for RAF bombers shooting night fighters down. Which they did. A lot. In percentage terms the Lancaster was a better night fighter than the Bf110, which is why Goebbels' diary several times refers to the 'night air superiority' enjoyed by the RAF over Germany.

On the whole, it would be better if the article did not contain Nazi fanboi stuff. Although, as it's Wikipedia, that may be too much to ask. Khamba Tendal (talk) 19:32, 27 January 2020 (UTC)