Was it the Messerschmit bf-109?
Of course! In front line service from Day1 until VE Day. Different versions of, but the same basic aircraft.
Yes…
Some 30,000 produced. The FW-190 (my fave) was next at about 20,000. For the record, many have stated that the 190 was superior in almost every respect to the 109, which makes me wonder why they didn’t go all out on it instead of the 109.
Gentlemen, start your thoughts. LOL
If my memory serves me correctly, there was an attempt late in the war to go srictly to the 190, but since there was so much 109 capacity it never happened…there was also an attempt to standardize the 109 with the “K” model…
…many pilots, some who admit the 190 was a better a/c, still preferred the 109 since they “grew up” in it (Rall, Hartmann and Barkhorn are examples…)…It is a fact that the 190 was more versatile in many ways and was easier to maintain on the front, and since it was an air-cooled engine it was less vulnerable to being shot down…another amazing fact about the 190 was that it was designed and produced during the war so it came as a shock to the Allies when it appeared…it took a year for the British to overcome the 190’s superiority on the Channel front over the existing marks of Spits ciurrently available at the time…
Not to hijack the thread, but along the same lines…
Were the camoflauge schemes on the German aircraft (upper wings and fuselage) hard or soft edged? Also, was it the same for both the 109 and 190’s?
Germany had two.
One advantage the 109 had over the 190, at least until the 190D came along was high altitude performance. During the daylight bomber campaign over Western Europe the 109 was more responsive in handling above 25,000 IIRC.
German upper surface camo patterns on their fighters were usually soft edged after about 1940 or so. The tightness of the color demarcation lines varied quite a bit though.
Second most produced aircraft in history, yielding only to the Russian Stormovik, of which about 60,000 models were made…
Thanks for putting up with all theses newbie questions.
You folks are being so helpful and all this advise will go a long way for a beginner like me.
Those numbers are staggering when compared to about 15,000 B-24’s or was it the P-47 that was our most produced aircraft.
So would a 109 E4 model be around in 1940, or was it later than that? I guess my question should be - would the E4 have hard or soft camo edges? Thanks!
The E3 and E4 were the staple 109 during the Battle of Britain and right up to the invasion of Russia, when the F model began to appear…the E model had more of a sharp demarcation line between the camo colors and mottling than did the later models, although used sometimes, was not the norm…colors were also different than the later war “day fighter scheme” of RLM 74, 75 and 76…
Early scheme:
Have a look at this article, look at the pics and decide for yourself.
Thanks to Manny and Stik for the pics and links. Manny - what scale are those 109’s? THey look great!
One more thing.
Can I use the regular cheap white primer from Wal Mart to help bring out the deatails before painting?
…yes…
Thank you!
You’re welcome…and the 109 is 48th scale…
According to this website, the Sturmovik number was just over 31,000.
The B-24 numbered 18,188, the P-47 15,686, the P-51 15,586 & the AT-6 Texan 15494.
The Bf-109 33,000+, FW-190 20,000+, the Spitfire was a big number at 33,198. Most of those aircraft ended up in the English Channel!
The US looks like they didn’t build a lot of aircraft compared to the others, until you compare the TOTAL number of aircraft built:
US 297,199, Germany 119,871, Britain 131,549, Russia 158,218 & Italy 11,508, Japan 76,320. France, of course, built no planes between 1939-1945, but if they had, the numbers would be included in Germany’s total! [6]
The US out produced the combined total of Germany, Italy and Japan, and did so in three years, instead of five. Pretty impressive manufacturing capability. Sure wish the US could pull that off today.