Messerschmitt Me 210
| Me 210 | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| A Luftwaffe Me 210 A-1 of the Versuchsstaffel 210 test squadron, over France in 1942 | |
| Role | Heavy fighter, ground-attack aircraft, fighter-bomber, dive bomber |
| Manufacturer | Messerschmitt, Dunai Repülőgépgyár Rt. |
| First flight | 2 September 1939 |
| Introduction | 1943 |
| Retired | 1945 |
| Primary users |
Luftwaffe Hungary |
| Number built | 90 finished and 320 partially completed in Germany, 272 in Hungary |
| Developed from | Bf 110 |
| Variants | Me 410 |
The Messerschmitt Me 210 was a German heavy fighter and ground-attack aircraft of World War II. The Me 210 was designed to replace the Bf 110; 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 unacceptably poor flight characteristics from serious wing planform and fuselage design flaws. A large-scale operational testing program throughout 1941 and early 1942 did not cure the aircraft's problems. The design entered limited service in 1943, but was almost immediately replaced by the Messerschmitt Me 410 Hornisse ("Hornet"). 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 The failure of the Me 210's development program meant that the Luftwaffe was forced to continue fielding the outdated Bf 110, despite mounting losses.
Messerschmitt designers had started working on an upgrade of the Bf 110 in 1937, before the production version of the Bf 110 had even flown. In late 1938, the Bf 110 was just entering service, and the RLM started looking ahead for its eventual replacement. Messerschmitt sent in their modified Bf 110 design as the Me 210, and Arado responded with their all-new Ar 240.
The Me 210 was a considerable departure from the 110, but 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, an internal bomb-bay, an all-new wing designed for higher cruise speeds and a highly advanced remote-control defensive armament system that gave the gunner a far wider field of fire. On paper, the Me 210's performance was impressive. It could reach 620 km/h (390 mph) on two 1,350 PS (1,330 hp, 990 kW) Daimler-Benz 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 landing gear design, where each main gear had a single gear strut that twisted through 90° 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 inboard of the main gear struts when fully extended, while the Ju 88's were outboard of the struts.
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