Re: Range of Me 109

On 7/13/2010 10:27 PM, manitobian wrote:
On Jul 11, 11:52 pm, Stephen Graham<grah...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 6/26/2010 7:26 AM, manitobian wrote:

If you look a bit further down that page, _The Narrow Margin_ does
mention the E-7 variant and the availability of drop tanks.

Wood and Dempster state that the ME-109 suffered from
a short range as there were no auxiliary drop tanks available.
The Narrow Margin page 295.

....."no auxiliary drop tanks available"

What Wood and Dempster stated was "the non-availability of suitable drop tanks." As Bungay points out

The Germans had a few drop-tanks. Some were made of wood and
leaked, so were not very popular. There were others of light
aluminium, but the racks needed to fit them were in short
supply, with the fighter-bomber units having priority.[181]


It would seem that since these variants in the list
were the ones used as fighter-bombers.
That would be the statement that one of the variants
E-7 was similar to the E-4 but DB601N
and drop tank, *551 lb bomb fitting*.
It could not carry both!

Wood and Dempster list all of the variants used in the Battle of Britain. You could look at other sources and determine when those variants were fielded. As far as I know, the E-7 was in combat service in August 1940.

That does state that the *fittings* existed for either
a bomb or a tank on E-7s.

Did Galland have these E-7s out fitted with
the fittings for a bomb or a tank?
If yes...did he have a bomb or a tank?

To the best of my knowledge, the Bf109E7s were primarily assigned to I/LG2; Galland served with JG26 in the Battle of Britain.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Range of Me 109
    ... a short range as there were no auxiliary drop tanks available. ... The *fittings* for a bomb or a tank were ... That would be the statement that one of the variants ... a bomb or a tank on E-7s. ...
    (soc.history.war.world-war-ii)
  • Re: Range of Me 109
    ... Mostly bombers, not fighters, though, and at night, not in daylight. ... clearly stated that the drop tanks could only be fitted on the E-7 variant. ... they were of no use to the ME-109 pilots while the Battle of Britain ...
    (soc.history.war.world-war-ii)
  • Re: letter slit
    ... [tanks a lot] ... expression for one of the most well-known phenomena in the experience of ... mankind. ... I would have expected there to be millions of variants of "drops ...
    (alt.usage.english)