*Thanks all for contributing your answers on the respective comments. I will start counting them. I won't be taking new responses into account but feel free to post them nonetheless. o7*

Your name will always be Bismarck in my heart :(

Second post (first one is full - please upvote so people can see) : Is it Me 109 or Bf 109 ?

Is it Me 109 or Bf 109 ?

It's both! The plane is a Messerschmitt Bf-109

I bet you his first attempt at recording went like this: "The German Bf109 is... Eghem. The German 109 is one of the best known warbirds from World War 2"

I'm a 64-year-old American whose uncle served in Patton's 3rd Army. I am no expert, but rather something of a WW2 enthusiast. I have always understood the plane in question to be the ME 109. I was not even aware it was also referred to as the BF 109 until recently. My favorite fighters of the war are the British Spitfire and the American Corsair (manufactured in my home state of Connecticut by Chance-Vought).

Probably the only topic where the Luftwaffe (and RLM) was flexible. :P

Since the last two are full, answer here: Is it Me 109 or Bf 109?

I always thought it was the Me 109 until my masters program WWII Studies at Arizona State. There I discovered it was the Bf 109 until 1938 when Willy Messerschmitt, who designed the 109, took the lead when Bayerische Flugzeugwerke (Bf) became Messerschmitt-Aktien-Gasellschaft. The Bf 109 became the Me 109, the Me stands for (Me)-sserschmitt. Your video mini-lecture is excellent sir.

And since the previous three threads are full, answer here: Is it Me 109 or Bf 109?

I'm from Australia - born in 1966 - my family are typical anglo Aussies of Brit / Scots / Irish ancestry. My Paternal Grandfather fought in Papua New Guinea against the Japanese and my Maternal Grandfather was a fitter in Beaufighter squadrons in the RAAF. I grew up knowing of the 109 as ME 109 and only started hearing about the Bf designation more or less when the internet became a thing. My wife was born in Germany (also in 1966 - she's about a month older than me) - with her family emigrating to Australia in 1970. Her parents were of course still children at the end of the war but I asked her father what he understood the designation to be. He answered as if i was somewhat of a fool - saying "it's ME-109! - Willie Messerschmitt's plane - what else!!". When I explained about the Bf designation debate based on Bf manufacturing them, he said that might be so but he always knew it as ME-109 only. He was also emphatic about Porsche being pronounced "porsh-a" btw... And to his dying day he hated Americans - because as a child he was on a red cross evacuation train that was attacked by Mustangs - his car luckily stopped next to a culvert so the people from that car managed to find cover there - but he watched women and children being strafed in the wheat field next to the track - trying to burrow into haystacks for safety but being ripped apart by the 50 cal guns. War is an evil business. His father was not in the military - he was a civilian policeman specialising in telecommunications and actually worked for the London Metropolitan Police after the war setting up their radio network. My Wife's maternal grandfather was in the normal German Army (not SS etc.) and was captured in Stalingrad. He survived the Gulags and got home in 1957...

Thanks - great analysis that cleared it up for me.

It's the Messerschmitt BF-109 I tried to reply to your comment, but the button doesn't show.

I'm in the US and I always called them ME - 109s. Thank you for making this video. This has always been my favorite war bird, I just think she is beautiful.

Good discourse on shedding 'final' light on this issue - thank you. Well done!

Thank you. I love it when smart and diligent people pin down the details of history.

Growing up in the USA, it was to me known as the the ME109 in my youth, the “bf” came later as my knowledge in in WW2 grew.

When I was growing up in the 60s , it was always referred to as an ME109. Didn't see BF until much later.

Thank You so much for taking the time to do this in English, I appreciate it very much. I lived in Schwetzingen, Heidelberg, and Worms for 2 1/2 years and left in 1975.

Thought about this for a looong time, subbed

It's S-99 _nobody expects the wild Czech_

Excellent video, thank you for this good explanation !

Great discussion. Thank you.

●●● *several people are typing*

Bf 109, "Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe" :)

I just subscribed. Your videos are like military classes that fill many of the small spaces that military history as a whole can not. The devil is in the details that is sometimes so important to those looking for the details, thank you.

Great summary! Thanks!

ME 109. Im glad you explained this, I always thought the Bf 109 were the early models and Me 109's were built 1941 onward.

I've always thought it was officially Bf 109, as in Bf 110, its heavyweight contemporary. As a child of the 60's, I remember it as being called Me 109, and my father, who was in European service during the war, also referred to it as Me 109. My take was that the Me designation was a popular reference to its designer, Willi Messerschmidt, and his aircraft firm of that name. But that Bf 109 was its official designation per the Luftwaffe. I could be all wet on this, and I admit I never bothered to look it up because my take seemed logical to me and I hate ticky-tack arguments over minutia when everyone understands one another either way.

Thank's I've been dwelling on this for a bit

Love your videos man, got the sub and bell from me

I believe it was/is Bf 109 on the Airfix kits :)

"Me109" is the only word speaked by normies This comment was made by Bayerische Flugzeugwerke Gang

Thanks this was very helpful

Wow that cleared alot up thanks Bismarck

Yet how many people scratch their head at dihydrogen monoxide. :)

Although I call it the Bf 109, I have heard that in the aircraft designer’s final speech, he called it Me 109.

I'm 66 years old and when I was about 9 or 10 years old, I received one of those "control line" planes for Christmas. I remember 3 of those type of planes were powered by a Cox .049 engine. I remember particularly that the identification of the Messerschmitt was "ME 109". The other two that were available were the Corsair, and the Mustang. I don't think that either of those two even had the numeric nomenclature listed on the box, ie: F4U Corsair, or P51 Mustang, but the Messerschmitt did say ME 109 on the box. So the answer to your inquiry would be in 1965 in the USA, (Hawaii to be precise), i thought they were called ME 109's. I did a quick google search for the plane in the box and found a photo of one listed on eBay, as an ME 109

This is the kind of cool minutia I love to get into with history.

I think they're interchangeable & Canada

In my late uncles WW2 diary he used Me 109. He was a B 17 pilot 🇺🇸

When I was young, early 1970's, I had a string controlled model bought from the Sears catalog in the US under the designation, "Me-109".

I read something about this in Wikipedia, but I was confused. Thanks for this.

So just call em Messerschmitt BF 109s, and noone gets triggered

Bf109 austria Because the RLM usually used the developing company and not the producing one So in the case of bayrische Flugzeugwerke it hast to be bf

In addition to geography, time might be an interesting factor. Growing up in the USA, I first saw the airplane called the Bf 109 around 1990 in the PC game Their Finest Hour (curiously the artwork on the game's box still referred to Me 109). At the time I didn't even remember hearing of BFW before (although one of my favorite books from my childhood, Townsend's Duel of Eagles, does mention BFW regarding the mergers and acquisitions in the late 20s). For 20+ years before that I knew the airplane only as the Me 109.

I use both but I mainly and usually use BF-109 and I'm from Canada PS love your videos please keep up the amazing work and content and thank you! :)

The correct answere is Messerschmitt Bf-109 - greetings from Germany :)

Messerschmid Bf109 netherlands

I always referred to it as a Me-109, guess you learn something new every day! KS, USA

I never thought much of this. I always viewed both designations as interchangeable.

You'll also see Me 109 almost exclusively in RAF offical and British memoirs

In Dunkirk, the man on the boat(can't remember his name) says Me 109. Was this because knowledge of the Bf designation had not spread to Britain(or at least the public)?

I always thought ME 109 b4 researching it a bit, Bf 109 confused me for the longest time until I researched it, USA, I look fwd to hearing and viewing the rest of your video!

I'm probably a little late to the party, just found your channel, but I always thought of it as the ME 109. USA.

Bf 109 - USA

From what I heard that bf name was from the earlier stages of the war and the me was used later

So, did the allies also use both names or did they mostly use one? In most documentaries/movies/whatever they are designated as Me 109

I am from the US. I first learned it as ME 109, though I believe this is the informal designation with the ME related to its desire Messerschmitt rather than the office designation, which I believe is the Bf-109. This is similar to the TA designation in the TA 152 as a designation for the its designer Kurt Tank. Official Bf 109... informal common usage ME 109.

Actually and historicaly it's called the bf 109 not me 109.. Me stands for mescheschmit whereas bf109 is the model of the aircraft. so in full it would be the mescheschmit bf109 but to shorten it some people called it the bf109 or the me 109 is the model of the plane. But in ww2 some people called the me109. I'm from Australia

It's Bf. Take from a guy who once worked for Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm on the Nesshalbinsel in Hamburg-Finkenwerder, where many of these planes were built. And I say this though it hurts like hell for a "Hamburger" -- even an adoptive one -- to credit the Bavarians with ANYTHING!! (Bf --> Bayerische Flugzeugwerke --> Bavarian Aircraft Works.)

For science, when I was kid (here in the US), I had a rubber-band driven plane that looked like an ME-109. That's what it said on the box: ME-109.

I say bf 109 more often but I like both. From The Netherlands.

make a video about australian planes in ww2

The pinned comment only lets 500 people comment. Messerschmitt produced them but didn't design them so the correct answer is Bf-109 (United States)

Great explanation! I learned stuffs. :) Danke! I was wondering what video game are those views from? I guess there won't ever be a Combat Flight Simulator 4 ever? Or soon? I looked for some good fighter plane simulator on iOS and found none, 0. Is there any hope? Tchüss

In my opinion it’s both. I’ve always known it with the BF designation. When I was younger I worked with a fighter ace from WW2 at Busch gardens in Williamsburg. He used to tell me stories from the war and one day he was telling me about shooting one down over Belgium if memory serves. He kept calling it the ME 109 and I asked him why since I’d always heard BF. He told me that’s how they were labeled in the aircraft identification books every air core member got with the silhouettes to train them how to spot and identify different planes.

Bf 109 USA

ME 109 USA

I mostly knew it as Me 109 , my grand father also called it like that. He was a Romanian soldier, he fought at the Battle of Kursk. He also changed teams and went back as far as Vienna at the end of the war. He was a scout. Also some collection of planes that I bought in the 2010-12 mentioned the plane as Me 109.

Thanks!

Thank You

where did you get the background footage of the Bf-109/Me-109/109

As a child I was taught, Me-109. As an adult I learned about Bf-109. I am in the U.S.A. Thank you for this video!

I can tell you more than my country (Australia), I can tell you exactly which literature it was. I was collecting the World Aircraft Information File series as a kid when I first encountered the 109, and had it standardised in my mind as the Bf 109. So there you go.

As the video says, it is an ME 109 BUILT in BAVARIA. However, that was the initial production run. It was also built in other factories during the war. The BF prefix makes as much sense as calling a P-51, a K-51 because it was built in Kansas city.

i always thought that BF stands for 'BegleitFlugzeug' - the more you know, thanks BM

My all-time favorite Military History-style channel. Bismarck is the best.

What game are the visuals from? They look really nice!

eine großartige Maschine !

what program do you use for showing and flying the planer.

I'm from the north-west UK I've always thought it was made by a merger of two company's so when it's Me or Bf was down to which who's factory it was built in ?

I actually had 2 arfix kits of the emil...one to make...and ruin....and one just to admire unbuilt.. The British pilots during the battle of britain reffered to them as ME's...likley because of the Emile model used at that time.

I have literally GB's of modelling reference material that seems to support a reference for the BF but what I always assumed is that the earlier models of the 109 were designated BF but later models (F-Z) were designated ME, this idea seems to come from the notion that ME was a designation given to subsequent aircraft as you mentioned - somehow I always tend towards using ME out of habit

Why did the canopy open sideways instead of sliding to the rear? Seems like it would be much harder to get out in a hurry.

5:38 From what I've seen, books, media etc tends to use "Bf-109", as it is the original designation, which certainly makes sense if you're discussing the 109 from it's original conception.

The first production model of the 109 (BF 109B) rolled off the assembly line in 1936. Bayerische Flugzeugwerke AG was renamed Messerschmitt AG in 1938, prompting many to call it the Me 109. However, the Luftwaffe's official designation is BF 109 and remained so throughout the war. :)

How do you use war thunder graphics? That is, recording?

I'm really, REALLY late but I always remember seeing Me-109 growing up in Detroit, Michigan, USA in the 1980s. Und ich habe deutsch an der uni studiert.

I was originally introduced to it as ME-109, but I have seen Bf-109. Never could understand the difference, thank you for clearing that up. I always thought it was a translation error, since most plastic models are made in Japan, going from German to Japanese then to English.

What simulator are you using on vídeo clip? Thanks

maybe I can help a little with some personal expertise. As an Engineer for Aviation, I wrote my final Bachelor thesis on the DB605 on that very type of airplane (Me-109 G6, “Rote-7”) and worked for the last inheritor of the Me AG and Type Certificate Holder of 5 airplanedesigns of Messerschmitt, the Flugmuseum Messerschmitt (Part of Airbus Defence and Space) located in Manching, Germany. So I consider myself an little experienced and would love to share my thoughts on that topic. As u have shown, back in the Time of WW2 there was a lot of confusion about how the models contructed by the Bayrische Flugzeugwerke Ag and designed by Messerschmitt should be titled. Many Documents after 1938’s fusion to Me AG titled the 109 as BF because of consistency reasons in the Docs. Mostly therefore the title BF-still sticks to the 109. But normally all of the constructions/designes of Messerschmitt were formally titled Me after the fusion, especially the newer Models. (Me193/Me262) So in terms of historic reference and especially when you’re playing a game located in the time of WW2 it is ok to use the BF title, BUT! …. it's formally wrong. The official title and the title with which the aircraft is certified til today is Me 109 XXX. On my next visit, I may get some examples. So for me its Me 109, Germany.

I had a college professor who flew one. He was shot down and spent the rest of the war as a POW in the U.S. He called it a ME 109.

Bayerische Flugzeugwerke was primary manufacturer so Bf-109. Willi Messerschmidt designed it.

My father flew in a B-24 Liberator during the war. He always referred to it as the Me 109. He should know since he was shot at by them often!

I always here it referred to as the Me-109 as a kid in the '60 -80's, the first time I remember seeing it referred to as Bf-109 was in the 1990's.

This has to be the video with the most spoken word "109" per minute in the world

Bismarck, can you do us the favour to share the geographical poll results here? I for instance don't use social media apart from youtube. Thanks!

What would make the most sense would be the model and variations that were designed and produced before the merge are designated as Bf and the variations afterwards designated as Me