As I know (based on Csaba B Stenge's works) the fuselage of the C version was lengthened by Hungarian engineers and this was used later on the 410 version. They made some improvements on the cooling system too. One of the reasons the leading edge was moved forward on the 410 was the larger and heavier DB 603 engine which moved the centre of gravity a bit forward too. My grandfather was gunner on Me 210 Ca-1in the Royal Hungarian Air Force and the crew really liked that bird and was much more afraid of air defenses than of enemy fighters. On a mission (dive bombing the train station in Orosháza) on 1944. October 23. the single plane of my grandfather Tibor Vörös and his pilot valiant József Orbán was attacked by 9 Yak-9 fighters (they were usually last of the flight because Orbán had 8 years flight experience, the most in the squadron). They shot down two of the Yaks in 2 minutes (confirmed victories 13:20 Gádoros, 13:22 Nagyszénás) the other seven leaved. I'm working now on a comic book about this mission actually drawing my grandfather's Me 210 Ca-1 (registration number Z-094) pulling up from dive bombing so I enjoyed this video a lot in my luch break :) Thank You!
If the Germans had produced more 210 and 410s earlier in the war, I suspect that they would have performed well on the Eastern Front, where ground attack capability and the ability to outpace Soviet fighters would have been significant improvements over the Stukas and Henschell 126 tank busters. Sadly, many Hungarian Me 210s were quickly lost once they came up against American fighter-escorts later in the war.
i have the original User Manual for the 410 and for all the other famous german planes, including the manuals of the MG's, Canons, Gunsights and even the Control Sticks. All as PDF files.
Thank you so much, I was searching the entire internet for videos on how the gunner position worked in the ME410 and your video helped me tremendously! Thank you so much!
the Me-410 with 1750hp per engine suffered from the same root issue as all German propeller aircraft, it was lucky to get 87 octane fuel going against 2800hp engined fighters running 150 octane. No amount of ingenuity can overcome such a huge detriment in horsepower made possible by large amounts of insanely high quality fuel, hence Germany rushing to jet aircraft instead
Well researched and beautifully made video full of interesting content that I had not heard before. Thanks for the effort you put into this to tell a story. Subscribed!
The Me 210 was a failure not only because of the stability issues, but also the fact the plane was a bit underpowered. The newer Me 410 did correct most of the stability issues and used the more powerful DB 605 engine.
I discovered and excavated a crashed Me. 410 which had been shot down over Surrey after an attack on London. It had gone down almost vertically. I sent the parts to IWM and they confirmed it. After four weekends, I apparently reached the cockpit. The two kids were only eighteen and nineteen years old, according to their war graves. I was sixteen. I suddenly grew up. I said a prayer for them. I replaced the soil over them and walked away.
Actually the Me410 was pretty devastating early in the air war against unescorted B17 and B24 formations. Using rockets and heavy firepower, including a 50mm cannon version, they were responsible for many of the bomber kills during the early catastrophic 8th AF missions like Schweinfurt-Regensburg. Once escorts could follow the bombers all the way to the target, the Me410 became easy pickings and was too costly to maintain compared to single seat fighters like the FW190 and bf109. Me410 wasn’t really a bad aircraft. Just the wrong aircraft for what Germany needed at that stage of the war.
I think the real difference is not twin vs single engine necessarily (P38K could have been the best fighter of ww2), it's single seat vs multicrew. Climb rate as well was very important and the 410 suffered there. While the Tigercat didn't see combat in WW2 (just barely), that type of thought process is what would have been a design victory in midwar for interception. High rate of climb, fast and heavy guns. FW190s, also, could carry very heavy armaments and took over those duties by the time the 410 was being pulled back to other roles. They had their own struggles at bomber altitudes...
I remember reading John Cunningham saying '' Its one of those they will never catch me at this speed'' has he injected nitrous-oxide into the merlins, then prepared to fire a burst of 4 x303 and 4x20mm into the hapless Me210..
ja, wie war das eigendlich mit der Bristol Blenheim und ihrer eingedellten Kanzeil, oder der Havoc, oder der Morauder, oder die sog. Moskito, alles Kampfflugzeuge ?!
The 56th Fighter Group retained their P-47's for bomber escort as the range issue was rectified with additional fuel tankage but the P-47 was superior to the P-51 in ground attack so groups escorting B-17's were equipped with the P-51 while P-47's were concentrated generally for ground attack and airfield interdiction. As compared to the P-47, the P-51 was an overall equal, not a superlative. After the invasion, and airfields were established in France any range issue became moot. By the time the P-51 came into battle in any numbers the P-47 had already defeated the cream of the Luftwaffe. As for Japan, while P-51D's were initially used as bomber escort, the new extra-long range P-47N's, a derivation of the powerful P-47M used by the 56th, were being organized to be committed to the Invasion of Japan. For too long this suggestion of P-51 superiority over the P-47 has been allowed to be continued. It is a testament to US tech and industrial capacity that the US was able to produce the two best fighter aircraft produced in large numbers in WWII.
With hindsight it's easy to see this was a dead-end /cul de sac concept. They should have noted that the writing was on the wall for the ME110 type anyway so an upgrade was really not essential to persevere with. In fact the 110 and the JU88 were progressively upgraded/modified as time went on, and the FW190 became a good fighter-bomber in its own right.
Good point. I do feel, however, that this type had the potential to be a great DEDICATED long-range, anti shipping platform….but I don’t think the B-5 variant was ever really seriously perused, as far as I can tell. There is just so little information on the type and basically zero information of its operational history (if any)
Good video but one glaring mistake. The Me410 couldn't participate in the Battle of Britain as that ended officially on the 31st of October 1940, long before it was even first flown....
Yes, the Battle of Britain did end in 1940, but the Me 410 did participate in the Operation Steinbock raids. I guess I confused the Baby Blitz (aka Steinbock) with the Blitz in the Battle of Britain, and didn't realise my error. Apologies for the confusion, and glad you enjoyed the rest of the video!
In fact the 410 was a perfectly good aircraft, and the plane the 210 should've been. It was just too late for the 410 to be built in great numbers and be effective.
Consider an aerodynamically unstable plane as the me 210 using a fly by wire flight control.......maybe the design was a little bit ahead of its time!!!!
all these planes gobbled huge amounts of fuel and when the germans failed to capture the oil fields in baku in 1943 it was game over.............and imagine what the tigers gobbled
The master race got pretty big headed and ignored planning the big picture. With invading the Soviet Union with a single knock-out blow in mind why did they first get involved with Italy’s shambles in Greece? It led to their abject paralysis in the first Russian winter with their very limited fuel reserves consumed and their horses dying.
The reason that American bombers were not escorted all the way into Germany was a failure of doctrine, not the limited range of American fighters. At the time, P-47's were plumbed to carry enough fuel in drop tanks that could extend their range more than adequately to escort the bombers. The introduction of the P-51 allowed USAAF generals to cover up their bad decisions. Much WW2 propaganda is repeated, and much of it is pretty heavily shaded, if not complete BS.
Interesting information, Paul. Pretty much all the sources I used when researching escort fighters still say that range was the primary reason for fighters being forced to turn back, so it is surprising to hear that poor strategy can also be blamed for the lack of bomber protection. Definitely something I'll have to take a deeper look into...
@@partsofhistory595 Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles did a pretty in depth analysis of this subject a few months back. I was very receptive, because I think the old P-40 would have remained America's premier fighter aircraft, if resources had been thrown at it, like the Germans did the Bf-109.
Greg’s theory, ignores the weight and huge fuel consumption of the P-38 and P-47s. In 1943 many tankers were being sunk in the Atlantic, fuel was precious. The fuel to get one of those over Germany could power two _cheaper_ P-51s.
@@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935 The P-47 was definitely a gas guzzler. Still, the 8th Air Force was experimenting with adding bombers with extra machine guns to make formations more defensible. If you have the fuel to throw extra bombers at the problem, you have the fuel for gas hogs, like the P-47. This wasn't a problem of material, but the commanders of the 8th firmly believed the bombers could defend themselves. During Vietnam, we were conducting interdiction bombing with aircraft, like the F-105. The fighters we had in the 1960's were pretty much super-sonic bombers, because LaMay held so firmly to the idea that "the bomber will always get through."
The Luftwaffe entered the war with mostly outdated and obsolete aircraft and the German aircraft industry was never able to keep pace with the American development and deployment of superior aircraft. They were always in a mode of playing "catch up", with the notable exception of the excellent Me-262 jet fighter, unfortunately for them it was too little too late.
The me 410 failed as it was under poweredand when the american escort fightersapearedthey were swept from theskies😮the bk 50 mm canonwaspeone ro ne too jammingandit was not likedby its pilots😮
As I know (based on Csaba B Stenge's works) the fuselage of the C version was lengthened by Hungarian engineers and this was used later on the 410 version. They made some improvements on the cooling system too. One of the reasons the leading edge was moved forward on the 410 was the larger and heavier DB 603 engine which moved the centre of gravity a bit forward too.
My grandfather was gunner on Me 210 Ca-1in the Royal Hungarian Air Force and the crew really liked that bird and was much more afraid of air defenses than of enemy fighters.
On a mission (dive bombing the train station in Orosháza) on 1944. October 23. the single plane of my grandfather Tibor Vörös and his pilot valiant József Orbán was attacked by 9 Yak-9 fighters (they were usually last of the flight because Orbán had 8 years flight experience, the most in the squadron). They shot down two of the Yaks in 2 minutes (confirmed victories 13:20 Gádoros, 13:22 Nagyszénás) the other seven leaved.
I'm working now on a comic book about this mission actually drawing my grandfather's Me 210 Ca-1 (registration number Z-094) pulling up from dive bombing so I enjoyed this video a lot in my luch break :) Thank You!
If the Germans had produced more 210 and 410s earlier in the war, I suspect that they would have performed well on the Eastern Front, where ground attack capability and the ability to outpace Soviet fighters would have been significant improvements over the Stukas and Henschell 126 tank busters. Sadly, many Hungarian Me 210s were quickly lost once they came up against American fighter-escorts later in the war.
i have the original User Manual for the 410 and for all the other famous german planes, including the manuals of the MG's, Canons, Gunsights and even the Control Sticks. All as PDF files.
Excellent presentation and the speed of narration was spot on. Thank you.
Thank you so much, I was searching the entire internet for videos on how the gunner position worked in the ME410 and your video helped me tremendously! Thank you so much!
the Me-410 with 1750hp per engine suffered from the same root issue as all German propeller aircraft, it was lucky to get 87 octane fuel going against 2800hp engined fighters running 150 octane. No amount of ingenuity can overcome such a huge detriment in horsepower made possible by large amounts of insanely high quality fuel, hence Germany rushing to jet aircraft instead
10:48 that bloke really knew what he was doing!
Well researched and beautifully made video full of interesting content that I had not heard before. Thanks for the effort you put into this to tell a story. Subscribed!
The Me 210 was a failure not only because of the stability issues, but also the fact the plane was a bit underpowered. The newer Me 410 did correct most of the stability issues and used the more powerful DB 605 engine.
603, the 601/5 were the Bf109 engines.
... your editing makes me chuckle, but the good way. reminds me of 80s or 90s documentaries and i like it !
Thanks Markus! As it happens, those old aviation documentaries were part of the inspiration behind these videos!
I discovered and excavated a crashed Me. 410 which had been shot down over Surrey after an attack on London. It had gone down almost vertically. I sent the parts to IWM and they confirmed it. After four weekends, I apparently reached the cockpit. The two kids were only eighteen and nineteen years old, according to their war graves. I was sixteen. I suddenly grew up. I said a prayer for them. I replaced the soil over them and walked away.
Outstanding video and presentation.
Wow, I am impressed! You really did a nice job with this channel. I pray the UA-cam algorithm gods get this in front of more people. Nicely done 👏
Thanks Chris, glad you enjoyed the video!
Underrated channel
Nope, overrated rebirth? Lol as a model yes, as an original : no.
Thank you. I really enjoyed this video, for the subject and the well presented details which explain so much. :3
Glad you enjoyed the video Karl!
Great video.
Btw, the conversion kit is called Umrüst-Bausatz.
Nice job. Thank You
Excellent video
A veeeerry good video! Nice jobb!
1000 subs! Whoot!
Well Made, I'm reading "Big Week" by James Holland atm.
@19:18 FWIW Conversion Kit = Umrüstbausatz (singular) or Umrüstbausätze (Plural), not Umrust-Bauzatse.
Actually the Me410 was pretty devastating early in the air war against unescorted B17 and B24 formations. Using rockets and heavy firepower, including a 50mm cannon version, they were responsible for many of the bomber kills during the early catastrophic 8th AF missions like Schweinfurt-Regensburg. Once escorts could follow the bombers all the way to the target, the Me410 became easy pickings and was too costly to maintain compared to single seat fighters like the FW190 and bf109. Me410 wasn’t really a bad aircraft. Just the wrong aircraft for what Germany needed at that stage of the war.
I think the real difference is not twin vs single engine necessarily (P38K could have been the best fighter of ww2), it's single seat vs multicrew. Climb rate as well was very important and the 410 suffered there. While the Tigercat didn't see combat in WW2 (just barely), that type of thought process is what would have been a design victory in midwar for interception. High rate of climb, fast and heavy guns. FW190s, also, could carry very heavy armaments and took over those duties by the time the 410 was being pulled back to other roles. They had their own struggles at bomber altitudes...
Good point
@@CaseyBartley I agree great rate of climb with heavy guns its where its at
Ta154 best attempt never realized?
@@skittlesbutwithchocolatein2274 German probably, US I would say the Tigercat.
I remember reading John Cunningham saying '' Its one of those they will never catch me at this speed'' has he injected nitrous-oxide into the merlins, then prepared to fire a burst of 4 x303 and 4x20mm into the hapless Me210..
Good work.
This might be a good video, if it were recorded with a volume level high enough for me to be able to hear it on my phone.
ja, wie war das eigendlich mit der Bristol Blenheim und ihrer eingedellten Kanzeil, oder der Havoc, oder der Morauder, oder die sog. Moskito, alles Kampfflugzeuge ?!
Similar to much earlier Westland Whirlwind, which was good to fly, but failed due to lack of Merlins to improve the performance.
Not really, a DB603 was 44 litres, the dead-end Whirlwind’s useless Rolls Royce Peregrine was just 21 litres and incapable of significant development.
@@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935 That is why I said because of lack of Merlins. Things were prioritized.
The ME-210 is a great example of fly before you buy. Glad no air force ever made that mistake again.
The 410 was actually pretty good but it's mission was no longer needed. The 110 could do what was needed now.
The 56th Fighter Group retained their P-47's for bomber escort as the range issue was rectified with additional fuel tankage but the P-47 was superior to the P-51 in ground attack so groups escorting B-17's were equipped with the P-51 while P-47's were concentrated generally for ground attack and airfield interdiction. As compared to the P-47, the P-51 was an overall equal, not a superlative. After the invasion, and airfields were established in France any range issue became moot. By the time the P-51 came into battle in any numbers the P-47 had already defeated the cream of the Luftwaffe. As for Japan, while P-51D's were initially used as bomber escort, the new extra-long range P-47N's, a derivation of the powerful P-47M used by the 56th, were being organized to be committed to the Invasion of Japan. For too long this suggestion of P-51 superiority over the P-47 has been allowed to be continued. It is a testament to US tech and industrial capacity that the US was able to produce the two best fighter aircraft produced in large numbers in WWII.
Good job
Just a short notice: it is spelled "Bausätze", or "Bausaetzte" in German.
You got the 50mm weapon load out wrong it only had the 50mm gun with the 20mm nose guns
Me 210 / Me 410 Maravillosas Aves de Presa. 👍👍
The Me410 was a good aircraft but not at the right time and in too few numbers. Aircraft success relies as much on circumstances as good design.
With hindsight it's easy to see this was a dead-end /cul de sac concept. They should have noted that the writing was on the wall for the ME110 type anyway so an upgrade was really not essential to persevere with. In fact the 110 and the JU88 were progressively upgraded/modified as time went on, and the FW190 became a good fighter-bomber in its own right.
Good point. I do feel, however, that this type had the potential to be a great DEDICATED long-range, anti shipping platform….but I don’t think the B-5 variant was ever really seriously perused, as far as I can tell. There is just so little information on the type and basically zero information of its operational history (if any)
I agree. Germans did not predict bombing campaigns as they turned out to be. Fast climb and heavy guns aircraft what should have been done after 110 ?
How many 109s and 262s did Messerschmitt NOT build due to pursuing this design dead end?
I’m sure the pilot shortage was the greater shortcoming.
Me 110 was the Y Wing of the Luftqaffe, the Me 410 the B-Wing.
Good video but one glaring mistake. The Me410 couldn't participate in the Battle of Britain as that ended officially on the 31st of October 1940, long before it was even first flown....
Yes, the Battle of Britain did end in 1940, but the Me 410 did participate in the Operation Steinbock raids. I guess I confused the Baby Blitz (aka Steinbock) with the Blitz in the Battle of Britain, and didn't realise my error. Apologies for the confusion, and glad you enjoyed the rest of the video!
In fact the 410 was a perfectly good aircraft, and the plane the 210 should've been. It was just too late for the 410 to be built in great numbers and be effective.
Consider an aerodynamically unstable plane as the me 210 using a fly by wire flight control.......maybe the design was a little bit ahead of its time!!!!
The thing that failed the German air forces was the ability to provide engine's for the aircraft
I assumed from the title that a 210 or a 410 had been restored to flying condition.
I'm disappointed.
all these planes gobbled huge amounts of fuel and when the germans failed to capture the oil fields in baku in 1943 it was game over.............and imagine what the tigers gobbled
The loss of Ploesti in the summer of '44 sealed the deal.
Plus the western allies started bombing German synthetic oil plants in 1944 or earlier in preparation for D-Day.
The master race got pretty big headed and ignored planning the big picture. With invading the Soviet Union with a single knock-out blow in mind why did they first get involved with Italy’s shambles in Greece? It led to their abject paralysis in the first Russian winter with their very limited fuel reserves consumed and their horses dying.
We can forgive Messerschmitt the 210….when the ME-262 arrived.
Thank Messerschmitt for wasting Nazi resources, he used slaves and worked for contemptible murderers.
Was it a case of asking for too much? The Ju-88 was great, the Beaufighter was great...
[Smart butt warning]
Obviously fitting the 210 with MCAS would have solved all its problems.
the A10 Warthog of the 40's^^
The reason that American bombers were not escorted all the way into Germany was a failure of doctrine, not the limited range of American fighters. At the time, P-47's were plumbed to carry enough fuel in drop tanks that could extend their range more than adequately to escort the bombers. The introduction of the P-51 allowed USAAF generals to cover up their bad decisions. Much WW2 propaganda is repeated, and much of it is pretty heavily shaded, if not complete BS.
Interesting information, Paul. Pretty much all the sources I used when researching escort fighters still say that range was the primary reason for fighters being forced to turn back, so it is surprising to hear that poor strategy can also be blamed for the lack of bomber protection. Definitely something I'll have to take a deeper look into...
@@partsofhistory595 Check it out!!!..It's a scandal amongst many covered up!!.
@@partsofhistory595 Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles did a pretty in depth analysis of this subject a few months back. I was very receptive, because I think the old P-40 would have remained America's premier fighter aircraft, if resources had been thrown at it, like the Germans did the Bf-109.
Greg’s theory, ignores the weight and huge fuel consumption of the P-38 and P-47s. In 1943 many tankers were being sunk in the Atlantic, fuel was precious. The fuel to get one of those over Germany could power two _cheaper_ P-51s.
@@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935 The P-47 was definitely a gas guzzler. Still, the 8th Air Force was experimenting with adding bombers with extra machine guns to make formations more defensible. If you have the fuel to throw extra bombers at the problem, you have the fuel for gas hogs, like the P-47. This wasn't a problem of material, but the commanders of the 8th firmly believed the bombers could defend themselves.
During Vietnam, we were conducting interdiction bombing with aircraft, like the F-105. The fighters we had in the 1960's were pretty much super-sonic bombers, because LaMay held so firmly to the idea that "the bomber will always get through."
Good content but did you need to repeat yourself 3 times
The Luftwaffe entered the war with mostly outdated and obsolete aircraft and the German aircraft industry was never able to keep pace with the American development and deployment of superior aircraft. They were always in a mode of playing "catch up", with the notable exception of the excellent Me-262 jet fighter, unfortunately for them it was too little too late.
The me 410 failed as it was under poweredand when the american escort fightersapearedthey were swept from theskies😮the bk 50 mm canonwaspeone ro ne too jammingandit was not likedby its pilots😮