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Did the Messerschmitt Me109 Have the Edge over the Spitfire in The Battle of Britain?

WW2 Headquarters

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PART 3 | James Holland and Al Murray put the Luftwaffe’s Battle of Britain fighters—the Messerschmitt Me109 and twin-engine Me110—under the microscope in Part 3 of our ground-up exploration of the people, places, and machines that decided the fate of Britain in 1940. 👉ALL EPISODES The Battle of Britain: A Walking the Groun.... 🔔SUBSCRIBE @ww2headquarters 🌐 MORE films, podcasts and archives at https://www.ww2headquarters.com

Design. Firepower. Range. Cockpit reality. Jim and Al dig into the real Luftwaffe pilot experience of the Battle of Britain—and Al straps into a Me109 once flown by legendary ace Hans-Joachim Marseille to show exactly what pilots loved, and what they didn’t about flying the Messer. Learn how these fighters went head-to-head with the RAF, why the Me109 was both feared and admired, and why the Me110 proved a controversial choice over Britain.

With special thanks to:
The Heritage Hangar, Biggin Hill – https://www.bigginhillheritagehangar....
RAF Museum, Hendon – https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk
Imperial War Museums (IWM) – https://www.iwm.org.uk

Archival footage credited to Imperial War Museums. © Crown copyright IWM.
https://film.iwmcollections.org.uk/co...

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0:00 Introduction: The Luftwaffe Fighters
1:54 The Messerschmitt Me109e Intro
4:35 Messerschmitt Me109e Development
10:36 Messerschmitt Me109e Design Features
20:46 Inside the Me109e Cockpit
23:36 Messerschmitt Me109e Conclusion
24:39 Messerschmitt Me110 Development
27:10 Messerschmitt Me110 Role & Effectiveness in the Battle of Britain
30:50 Conclusion

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#ww2headquarters #Me109 #Spitfire #JamesHolland #AlMurray #WW2 #MesserschmittBf109 #MesserschmittMe109 #Me109 #Me110 #warbirds #fighterplane #Luftwaffe

20 Comments

@philipharvey6720 1 year ago Pinned

A good informative and balanced video. Every plane has its strong points and weak points, knowing how to get the best out of your plane as a pilot is the key issue. Good banter with the top trump cards, those were the days!

@richardwebb9045 1 year ago

A 109 never shot down a Spitfire or Hurricane hanging from my bedroom ceiling! The Airfix generation knows.

@andrewmacdonald4833 1 year ago

Just remember guys...you can knock the Defiant...but you have to acknowledge the courage of the crews that flew them...they were outstanding men...all of them..

@MattyMcDoodle 6 months ago (edited)

0:44 - I live next to Biggin Hill Airport and was lucky enough to see this fighter fly alongside a Spit and a P51 late last year while doing practice flights for Battle of Britain Day. What a sight!

@Paul-un5ke 3 months ago

Fantastic, to see the 109/110 up close and such concise facts discussed between two passionate aficionados was simply brilliant viewing. Thanks very much.

@Paul-yh8km 1 year ago

my grandfather shot down a ME 110 near Dunkirk with a Bren Gun.
He had the id/name plate from it.
He also narrowly missed getting blown up by a low flying ME 109 dropping a bomb.
Instead of detonating, it hadn't had time to arm, it landed in front of him and bounced over him and his mates.

@fredbrillo1849 6 months ago (edited)

Gents, The Daimler Benz motor on the BF 109 turns clockwise as seen from the cockpit, causing the airplane to turn to the left when power is applied. Some Spitfires rotated similarly and others rotated counter clockwise as seen from the cockpit. The turn to the left was caused by several factors. P Factor, Gyroscopic precession, and engine torque.

@drstrangelove4998 1 year ago

Climbing out of a 109 in an emergency is much easier than you say. You don’t need to hinge the cockpit hood open like you think, it jettisoned completely. The trouble with the Spit and Hurries sliding hood, is it can jam shut. The sliding rails can get damaged in combat and trap the pilot, so much so that pilots sometimes kept the canopy open in combat. Given the possibility of being trapped with 50 gallon header tank directly over the pilots knees on fire, it was a big worry for pilots.

@user-wf2lm3vi7o 6 months ago

When your Commander in Chief has a morphine addiction…

@throwback19841 1 year ago

I have childhood memories of meeting Russ Sneddon and the team maintaining black 6 in the 90s at Duxford. they had so many problems keeping the old Daimler Benz engine running. sounds like latter day experts are having more success

@chrissmith2114 8 months ago

Messerschmitt vs heinkel was a clear case of politics interfering with engineeering - this happens a lot in UK as well

@dokken1212 1 year ago

First Comment - been waiting on this :-). Well done gentleman on a great series so far. Looking forward to the subsequent parts :-)

@richie6921 5 months ago

Litsening to these guys talk about the Scmitt and the Spitfire is awesome. And the way they talking about it like its happening now. Not like history , but now. Their enthusiasm is so infectious

@dazako 1 year ago (edited)

That Bf 109 is White 14. It used to part of a collection in the Niagara region here in Canada and I'm fortunate enough to have seen her flying several times in the early 2000's along with a Hurricane XII and Spit Mk 9 (which is also now based at Biggin Hill ). I highly reccomend the Biggin Hill Hangar tour for those who can.

@ghj290 7 months ago

There are some corrections needed to this video and to the next one, Spitfire & Hurricane;
1. The majority of the BF109e's used in the Battle of Britain were not fitted with the cannon firing through the propeller shaft as they couldn't get it working reliably at that time and it wasn't until the BF109f that it became standard.
2. The cockpit canopy could be ejected if the pilot needed to bail out, unlike the Spitfire & Hurricane, so the pilot didn't have to bail out through the lift up section of the canopy
3. The "dive" advantage wasn't as great as is suggested here as Spitfire & Hurricane pilots countered the "flooding" issue by going inverted at the start of a dive, thus keeping positive G on the aircraft.
4. This is really for the next video but the subject is mentioned here; the Merlin engines fitted to the Spitfire and Hurricanes used during the Battle of Britain very definitely were fitted with superchargers. They would not have been able to operate at heights above 16,000 feet without them. This is why the Curtis P40 lost so much performance above 16,000 feet as it's Allinson engine did not have a two stage supercharger.

@timjones6255 1 year ago

Forget manoeuvres, just go straight at 'em. Tom Neil had the same approach as one Horatio Nelson. Had the privilege to see Tom Neil at the Goodwood Bar when he was well into his '90s. He still moved like a fighter pilot.

@onenote6619 5 days ago

The RAF had one major edge during the Battle of Britain - that being that they were fighting over friendly territory. If an RAF pilot bailed out and survived, they would be back in a cockpit within a few days. If a Luftwaffe aircrew bailed out and survived, he'd be shipped straight off to a POW camp for the rest of the war.

@luddite6239 1 year ago

What a cracking series! Will we have a (short!) episode on the Italian involvement in the Battle of Britain, I wonder?

@duggiebader1798 11 months ago (edited)

The first of the 109 cockpit critiques aired on TV was the recently late S/Ldr Paul 'Major' Day of the BBMF flight who, in 1990 - the 50th Anniversary of the BoB, climbed into the famous 'Black 6' as it was being restored for an ITV programme. He did a superb job and I can tell subsequent critiques have stood on the Major's shoulders. RIP Major.

@paulcopsey6573 11 months ago

That Me109 was restored in the late 1990s & 1st flown after restoration by my former CEO, David Gwyn Price. At the time it was the only flying example. David Price was the owner of American Golf Corporation. We had many conversations about this plane, it was his baby, despite him owning & flying his personal collection of other WWll fighters. It was restored in Southern California. David was not what you may consider a typical American millionaire. He was from humble beginnings, his parents were Welsh & emigrated just before he was born. We rarely spoke shop about golf. It was very noticable when I was in the US he seemed more comfortable hanging out with "the Brits" & cracking jokes about our abilities to consume large amounts of beer without becoming inebriated. He passed away a couple of years ago, I believe well into his 80s, & knew that he parted ways with many of his planes many years before, although he did continue to fly into his senior years. I wondered for many years what happened to his Me109. I could not believe when in this hanger a year or so ago I saw this plane. It is only a few miles from where I live. I was dumb struck as to how it ended up just down the road & got there from Southern California. Bought a little tear to my eye to see it again & remember David.