The Messerschmitt Bf 110 is one of Germany’s highly touted heavy fighters, famous in Nazi Germany’s Luftwaffe.
Delivered with hopes of great speed and firepower during early Blitzkrieg campaigns, the Bf 110 appeared almost invincible to the brute German onslaughts.
The Battle of Britain would lay naked some serious vulnerabilities of this machine against the agile, single-engine fighters such as the Hawker Hurricane and the Supermarine Spitfire.
The Bf 110 is a mid-1930s product of a development series that belonged to Germany’s rearmament program.
Its prototype took to the skies under the wings of Rudolf Opitz in 1936.
Problems arose with the unreliability of the engine, but finally did find its way into the service account when the more reliable Daimler-Benz DB 601 engines were installed; this was done in 1937.
At the end of the war, 6,170 had been produced.
Hermann Göring, an ardent proponent of the Bf 110, felt its sheer armament and range would make it the Luftwaffe’s lead offensive fighter.
It was only this impression he gained by viewing air-to-air combat with his parity fleet over Poland, Holland, and France, where the Bf 110 performed alright in attacking enemy airfields with minimal resistance.
But it didn’t take long for weaknesses in the Bf 110 to be perceived in Britain’s air over the Reich where other planes zipped past it while the Bf 110 plodded through the skies. The Bf 110 found new roles as the war progressed.
It proved effective as a night interceptor, radar-assisted, shooting at bombers. In such areas of its uses, though adaptable, it was overtaken by further developments.
This way, the Bf 110 can be regarded as versatile and even more so, the changing tactics that characterized this war.
It was operated by the Luftwaffe of Germany but also by the air forces of Italy, Hungary, and Romania.
Today, only two fully preserved Bf 110s exist – one is located in London and another in Berlin.
The story of the Bf 110 testifies to the rapid development of military aviation of the World War II period, speaking of its aspirations and limitations.