NIGHT TERROR

DURING THE 1930S, THE CONCEPT OF A “HEAVY FIGHTER” CAME INTO VOGUE. AIR COMBAT WAS STILL IN ITS FORMATIVE YEARS, AND AIRCRAFT DESIGNERS BELIEVED THAT FOUR-ENGINE BOMBERS WITH ENOUGH GUNS TO MAKE THEM “FLYING FORTRESSES” WOULD BE UNSTOPPABLE.

Gloster Gladiator biplanes had yet to give way to Supermarine Spitfires and Hawker Hurricanes, so the idea of a large, twin-engine fighter with overwhelming firepower that could both protect bombers and blast a path for them seemed to make sense.

Many pursued the idea: the Dutch with the Fokker G-1, the Soviets with the Petlyakov Pe-2 and -3 and the British with the Bristol Beaufighter. The Americans came up with both the uniquely successful Lockheed P-38 and the useless Bell YFM-1 Airacuda. The P-38 Lightning was a success because from the outset it was intended to be a fighter, though it later undertook other roles, such as reconnaissance. Most heavies were designed as multirole aircraft, which inevitably compromised fighter performance.

Two late-war heavy fighter designs, Germany’s Dornier Do-335 Pfeil centerline-thrust twin and the North American F-82 Twin Mustang, were particularly sophisticated responses to the concept, especially the Do-335. Had the Dornier ever been produced in quantity, it would have been a fearsome weapon.

Initially, Germany’s heavy fighter was to be a fighter/destroyer—Kampfzerstörer, a generic Luftwaffe term (soon shortened to Zerstörer) for an airplane that could be launched to beat back hordes of attacking bombers. The unproductive bomber-escort function of the heavy fighter came later, after the surprisingly shortsighted Germans realized they were going to have to go to war with Britain but didn’t have bomber escorts with the range to cross the Channel.

The hammer in the Germans’ heavy fighter toolbox was the Messerschmitt Me-110, a frequently maligned design that in fact was an