Your favorite WWII Aircraft

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

No. According to Warplanes of the Third Reich, by William Green (a Brit), any plane designed before the name change to Messerschmitt AG is properly Bf, and any after, starting with the Me-163 Komet, is of course Me. What any Allied pilots called them is irrelevant.

It is relevant when during the war allied intelligence incorrectly IDed them as Me109s and I said in the above post (that was too long a of sentence for you sorry.... for the error it was not intended) even 109s on their factory ID plates could be found with both the Bf prefix or the Me prefix.Therefore even the Germans themselves used both prefixes even though "officially" RLM said it was "Bf" not every factory got the message.

Allied intelligence never got the message and assumed that the Me prefix applied to all Messerschmidt designs even those originally produced by
Bayerische Flugzeugwerke(Bf).In fact RLM wanted the BF prefix to stay with the 109 allied intel had no way of knowing this until the war ended.So Me109 was used as the ID by the men that actually fought against them in WWII therefore as i said it is for the sake of historical accuracy relevant.That is why I used the term Me109 in my post under Jimbunas photo it is what would have been said in any RAF fighter wing or any allied fighter unit during the war.

Yes I fully agree that the correct name is Bf109.What I am saying is that giving the historical facts and terms used by all sides during the war it is 1005 correct to say that allied pilots IDed and knew the plane as Me109.If a film about WWII allied fighter pilots where to show the men refer to the BF109 as BF 109 and not Me109 the terminology used would be incorrect based on the actual terminology used by Allied air crews during the war. Maybe i did not come across that way before but that was what I was trying to say.

Agree to disagree I suppose.

Unless you feel like settling it with a dog fight?

By the way part of my typo errors are to blame on the new keyboard I have.It is washable and the keys are raised in a funny way and my clumsy fingers are not used to it.As a result i might miss some "." here and there.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Stealhead

even 109s on their factory ID plates could be found with both the Bf prefix or the Me prefix.Therefore even the Germans themselves used both prefixes even though "officially" RLM said it was "Bf" not every factory got the message.

I've never seen that. On the other hand I've been told that since the 109 was so modular that older version got new wings, new engines and that in some parts of the world there were Bf-109Gs with 'E' factory plates on the fuselage.

Agree to disagree I suppose.

Fair enough, though I would like to know more about the 'Me' plates.

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

I've never seen that. On the other hand I've been told that since the 109 was so modular that older version got new wings, new engines and that in some parts of the world there were Bf-109Gs with 'E' factory plates on the fuselage.


Fair enough, though I would like to know more about the 'Me' plates.

A Bf109G with E parts seems kind of odd I wonder if they meant "F" parts.I read that supposedly RLM would refuse paperwork orders for Bf109s if they used Me109 in the paper work this is interesting as it implies that it was referred to Me109 by many in Luftwaffe even at a level high enough to approve work orders to be sent out.


I happen to have picture as a matter of fact notice anything missing?
Clearly these are two 109s produced after Messerschmidt became the company owner.Based On what I can find
it seems that on official paperwork they where to be referred to as Bf109s I don't know if any of that documentation still
is in existence.

[Cybermat47]

Originally Posted by Stealhead

Where does it say 'Me' or 'Bf'?

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by Cybermat47

Where does it say 'Me' or 'Bf'?

Nowhere that is why I posted them it disproves what many on either side of the BF vs. ME claim as thier prrof of being correct.It does not use either prefix.

Bauart translates directly into English as desgin though I think it means design bureau in German.

The second word scah is an abbreviation as it translates directly as "properly" it most likely means ID/serial number.

The last word is werk or works that is the factory number assigned to the location the plane was assembled and most likely a Julian date or some other form of coding showing the day of completion.



The top one has 227 that date is August 14th 227 only occurs on leap years so august 14 1944.

You will notice that they do not use the same exact coding system either.

the last number in the werk line might also be the number produced the top being the 227th and the bottom one being the 1917th of that given version.Who knows though every manufacturer uses different coding systems and these are each from a different maker.One is "NKF" and the other is "Erla Machinewerk".

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Stealhead

A Bf109G with E parts seems kind of odd I wonder if they meant "F" parts.

I don't know for sure. As I said, I was told that by a friend whom many considered something of an expert on the 109. As I said the aircraft was completely modular. Everything bolted onto the central fuselage section, and any part could be replaced by any other part. Apparently this led to outlying gruppen in need of spares being told those parts couldn't be authorized for older planes, so the local commanders just lied and filled in requesitions for 'G' parts. Again, I haven't seen the actual information, so I can't verify it, but it came to me from a source I trust, and I trust he knew what he was talking about.

I read that supposedly RLM would refuse paperwork orders for Bf109s if they used Me109 in the paper work this is interesting as it implies that it was referred to Me109 by many in Luftwaffe even at a level high enough to approve work orders to be sent out.

I've not heard that either, but it sounds like typical beaurocracy. It also implies that thogh many referred to it by that name official (or just some beaurocrat) policy was to insist on the Bf designation. Probably the latter. General George Kenney of the US Fifth Air Force allegedly threatened to shoot a supply commander for refusing to send parts to front-line units because they didn't fill out forms properly.

I happen to have picture as a matter of fact notice anything missing?

Yep, any reference to factory designation.

Clearly these are two 109s produced after Messerschmidt became the company owner.

Not sure what you mean. Most of them, from the D through the K, were built after the name change.

Based On what I can find it seems that on official paperwork they where to be referred to as Bf109s I don't know if any of that documentation still is in existence.

That was why I insisted. Not that it really matters. I was just because of what I had read. I can definitely be pedantic at times.

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

That was why I insisted. Not that it really matters. I was just because of what I had read. I can definitely be pedantic at times.

Now that is something I am never guilty of...right and pigs fly.
No harm done really I enjoy a good discussion myself.

I was thinking of the change when the design of the 109 was owned by Bayerische Flugzeugwerke originally and then being the property of Messerschmidt after he bought out Bayerische Flugzeugwerke. I assume that a plate on an early 109 would have had "Bayerische FlugzeugwerkenA.G." on the plate in place of Messerschmidt and aircraft designed by ****e-Wulf would have "****e-Wulf A.G." inscribed.

Damn this over sensitive naughty word censor..... F O C K E - Wulf is not a foul word. Unless you are in a B-24 over Europe circa 1943.

[Red October1984]

Originally Posted by Stealhead

Damn this over sensitive naughty word censor..... F O C K E - Wulf is not a foul word. Unless you are in a B-24 over Europe circa 1943.

I hate when you are talking about WW2 Aviation and you bring up the ****e-Wulf.

All the people who can't tell the difference between ****e and (the other word that shall not be mentioned) all gasp until you spell it and explain that it's a fighter plane...

It happened so many times (even in history class when the teacher thought I cussed him out) so I just say Fw-190 Fighter Plane.

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by Red October1984

I hate when you are talking about WW2 Aviation and you bring up the ****e-Wulf.

All the people who can't tell the difference between ****e and (the other word that shall not be mentioned) all gasp until you spell it and explain that it's a fighter plane...

It happened so many times (even in history class when the teacher thought I cussed him out) so I just say Fw-190 Fighter Plane.

In 12th grade we had to write a research paper in English 4 I was assigned to write a comparison/contrast paper so I chose WWII fighter aircraft vs. modern aircraft.The subject aircraft where the Fw190 and the F-16.I had to also present a presentation for the entire class.

This was back in 1994 and the "internets" had a lot less information on it back then so finding something interesting to display was hard to do.I managed to find this VHS tape(I bet you do not even know what that is) that had hours of gun camera footage on it from WWII.I tried my best to explain how they used the technology then and now how pilots used the different systems to shoot an aircraft down.At the end I showed the VHS gun camera footage and another film of a MiG-17 getting hit by a sidewinder the Mig kill was last.When I was done this kid said "that missile kill was boring" he then asked the teacher if we could watch the WWII gun camera tape again.It was much more interesting to my class mates WWII air combat because they realized that only a very small number of pilots had the skill to be truly deadly that and it is cool to watch a plane get torn apart by cannon and machine gun fire.

Did you say fok-a or fok like Fokker?If you said fok with out the er you have it wrong and it does sound close to the word of ill repute.With German names no letters are silent just like Porshe it is not pronounced "Porsh" the E at the end sounds like an a it is the same with F o c k e.If you where pronouncing it correctly then your teacher is probably a pinko commie tree huger and should be ignored. you must make the "e" an "a" like Shaka Zulu.