Few categories of aircraft have been so controversial as the propeller-driven, twin-engined fighter aircraft of the 1930s and 1940s. Some designs in this category, such as the Lockheed P-38 Lightning, still have many enthusiastic admirers, as well as a few convinced detractors. Other types, such as the Messerschmitt Bf 110, are almost routinely dismissed as near-failures, despite their historically very important role. On the whole, the judgement of most aviation enthusiasts about the heavy twin-engined fighters has been markedly negative. Historians tend to be more moderate, but most of them still tend to regard the category as relatively unimportant, compared to the more performant single-seat fighters, or the heavy bombers that were core to the strategy of the USAAF and RAF.

The controversy has never died because the facts allow everyone to have a little bit of truth. The aircraft in this category all shared a basic similarity in concept, but the practical implementations of it were very diverse, with a wide range in capabilities corresponding to surprisingly different intended roles. Still, most people tend to judge the twin-engined fighter on its ability to match the more glamorous single-engined fighter in the very roles in which the latter excelled: Daylight air superiority, interception and escort. This, inevitably, puts the heavier and less manoeuvrable twin-engined types in an unfavourable light. A few could indeed compete with single-engined fighters in these roles, but even in these cases arguments of economy and efficiency usually favoured the single-engined fighter. By these standards, the “twin” appears to have been a pointless aberration, but is that a fair judgment?

Many thousands of these aircraft were built, to a substantial number of different designs. And while a few were of course clear failures, others served with great distinction, as long-range fighters, ground attack aircraft, nightfighters, bomber interceptors, anti-shipping aircraft and reconnaissance aircraft. When given missions that corresponded to the strengths of the twin-engined designs, rather than their weaknesses, they proved highly useful and successful. Flexibility was often their most important characteristic.

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Chapter I: Ancestry: The Great War

Chapter II: The Interbellum and the Battleplane

Chapter III: Preparing for War

Chapter IV: The Bf 110 in the Battle of Britain

Chapter V: The RAF

Chapter VI: Italy

Chapter VII: The Imperial Japanese Army and Navy

Chapter VIII: Soviet Luxuries

Chapter IX: American Efforts

Chapter X: Nachtjagd

Chapter XI: The Last Twins

Chapter XII: Epilogue and Bibliography

Next: Chapter I