Me 210: Luftwaffe’s Issue Leader

Messerschmitt’s Bf 110 was one of the Luftwaffe’s principal heavy fighters on the eve of the Second World War. When it first appeared, the twin-engine aircraft was seen as a powerful, modern weapon, but within just a few years, progress began to leave it behind. The high command hurried to find a worthy successor in the same class, and in the autumn of 1938, the Air Ministry launched a program to develop a new aircraft. By that time, Messerschmitt had already been working on a replacement for more than a year. The designers began with the proven Bf 110 layout, but the scale of the changes was so great that the result was essentially a new machine. Thus the Me 210 was born.