Échemines
Échemines is a commune in the Aube department in north-central France. Communes of the Aube department INSEE
Wellington
Wellington is the capital city and second most populous urban area of New Zealand, with 418,500 residents. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the major population centre of the southern North Island, is the administrative centre of the Wellington Region, which includes the Kapiti Coast and Wairarapa, its latitude is 41°17′S, making it the world's southernmost capital of a sovereign state. Wellington features a temperate maritime climate, is the world's windiest city by average wind speed; the Wellington urban area comprises four local authorities: Wellington City, on the peninsula between Cook Strait and Wellington Harbour, contains the central business district and about half the population. As the nation's capital since 1865, the New Zealand Government and Parliament, Supreme Court and most of the public service are based in the city. Architectural sights include the Government Building—one of the largest wooden buildings in the world—as well as the iconic Beehive.
Wellington is home to several of the largest and oldest cultural institutions in the nation such the National Archives, the National Library, the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, numerous theatres. It plays host to many artistic and cultural organisations, including the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and Royal New Zealand Ballet. One of the world's most liveable cities, the 2016 Mercer Quality of Living Survey ranked Wellington 12th in the world. Wellington's economy is service-based, with an emphasis on finance, business services, government, it is the centre of New Zealand's film and special effects industries, a hub for information technology and innovation, with two public research universities. Wellington is one of New Zealand's chief seaports and serves both domestic and international shipping; the city is served by the third busiest airport in the country. Wellington's transport network includes train and bus lines which reach as far as the Kapiti Coast and Wairarapa, ferries connect the city to the South Island.
Wellington takes its name from Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington and victor of the Battle of Waterloo: his title comes from the town of Wellington in the English county of Somerset. It was named in November 1840 by the original settlers of the New Zealand Company on the suggestion of the directors of the same, in recognition of the Duke's strong support for the company's principles of colonisation and his "strenuous and successful defence against its enemies of the measure for colonising South Australia". One of the founders of the settlement, Edward Jerningham Wakefield, reported that the settlers "took up the views of the directors with great cordiality and the new name was at once adopted". In the Māori language, Wellington has three names. Te Whanga-nui-a-Tara refers to Wellington Harbour and means "the great harbour of Tara". In New Zealand Sign Language, the name is signed by raising the index and ring fingers of one hand, palm forward, to form a "W", shaking it from side to side twice.
The city's location close to the mouth of the narrow Cook Strait leads to its vulnerability to strong gales, leading to the city's nickname of "Windy Wellington". Legends recount that Kupe explored the district in about the 10th century; the earliest date with hard evidence for Maori living in New Zealand is about 1280. Situated near the geographic centre of the country, Wellington was well placed for trade. In 1839 it was chosen as the first major planned settlement for British immigrants coming to New Zealand; the settlement was named in honour of Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington and victor of the Battle of Waterloo. European settlement began with the arrival of an advance party of the New Zealand Company on the ship Tory on 20 September 1839, followed by 150 settlers on the Aurora on 22 January 1840. Food processing plants, engineering industries, vehicle assembly and oil refineries were located in the NE which caused the main industrial growth in Hutt valley; the settlers constructed their first homes at Petone on the flat area at the mouth of the Hutt River.
When that proved swampy and flood-prone they transplanted the plans, drawn without regard for the hilly terrain. In 1865, Wellington became the capital city in place of Auckland, which William Hobson had made the capital in 1841; the New Zealand Parliament had first met in Wellington on 7 July 1862, on a temporary basis. There had been some concerns that the more populous South Island would choose to form a separate colony in the British Empire. Several Commissioners invited from Australia, chosen for their neutral status, declared that Wellington was a suitable location because of
Flying ace
A flying ace, fighter ace or air ace is a military aviator credited with shooting down several enemy aircraft during aerial combat. The actual number of aerial victories required to qualify as an ace has varied, but is considered to be five or more; the concept of the "ace" emerged in 1915 at the same time as aerial dogfighting. It was a propaganda term intended to provide the home front with a cult of the hero in what was otherwise a war of attrition; the individual actions of aces were reported and the image was disseminated of the ace as a chivalrous knight reminiscent of a bygone era. For a brief early period when air-to-air combat was just being invented, the exceptionally skilled pilot could shape the battle in the skies. For most of the war, the image of the ace had little to do with the reality of air warfare, in which fighters fought in formation and air superiority depended on the relative availability of resources. Use of the term ace to describe these pilots began in World War I, when French newspapers described Adolphe Pégoud, as l'As after he became the first pilot to down five German aircraft.
The British used the term "star-turns", while the Germans described their elite fighter pilots as Überkanonen. The successes of such German ace pilots as Max Immelmann and Oswald Boelcke were much publicized, for the benefit of civilian morale, the Pour le Mérite, Prussia's highest award for gallantry, became part of the uniform of a leading German ace. In the Luftstreitkräfte, the Pour le Mérite was nicknamed Der blaue Max/The Blue Max, after Max Immelmann, the first pilot to receive this award. German aviators had to destroy eight Allied aircraft to receive this medal; as the war progressed, the qualifications for Pour le Mérite were raised, but successful German fighter pilots continued to be hailed as national heroes for the remainder of the war. The few aces among combat aviators have accounted for the majority of air-to-air victories in military history. World War I introduced the systematic use of true single-seat fighter aircraft, with enough speed and agility to catch and maintain contact with targets in the air, coupled with armament sufficiently powerful to destroy the targets.
Aerial combat became a prominent feature with the Fokker Scourge, in the last half of 1915. This was the beginning of a long-standing trend in warfare, showing statistically that five percent of combat pilots account for the majority of air-to-air victories; as the German fighter squadrons fought well within German lines, it was practicable to establish and maintain strict guidelines for the official recognition of victory claims by German pilots. Shared victories were either credited to one of the pilots concerned or to the unit as a whole – the destruction of the aircraft had to be physically confirmed by locating its wreckage, or an independent witness to the destruction had to be found. Victories were counted for aircraft forced down within German lines, as this resulted in the death or capture of the enemy aircrew. Allied fighter pilots fought in German-held airspace and were not in a position to confirm that an destroyed enemy aircraft had in fact crashed, so these victories were claimed as "driven down", "forced to land", or "out of control".
These victories were included in a pilot's totals and in citations for decorations. The British high command considered praise of fighter pilots to be detrimental to brave bomber and reconnaissance aircrew – so that the British air services did not publish official statistics on the successes of individuals. Nonetheless some pilots did become famous through press coverage, making the British system for the recognition of successful fighter pilots much more informal and somewhat inconsistent. One pilot, Arthur Gould Lee, described his own score in a letter to his wife as "Eleven, five by me solo — the rest shared", adding that he was "miles from being an ace"; this shows that his No. 46 Squadron RAF counted shared kills, but separately from "solo" ones—one of a number of factors that seems to have varied from unit to unit. Evident is that Lee considered a higher figure than five kills to be necessary for "ace" status. Aviation historians credit him as an ace with two enemy aircraft destroyed and five driven down out of control, for a total of seven victories.
Other Allied countries, such as France and Italy, fell somewhere in between the strict German approach and the casual British one. They demanded independent witnessing of the destruction of an aircraft, making confirmation of victories scored in enemy territory difficult; the Belgian crediting system sometimes included "out of control" to be counted as a victory. The United States Army Air Service adopted French standards for evaluating victories, with two exceptions – during the summer of 1918, while flying under operational control of the British, the 17th Aero Squadron and the 148th Aero Squadron used British standards. American newsmen, in their correspondence to their papers, decided that five victories were the minimum needed to become an ace. While "ace" status was won only by fighter pilots and reconnaissance crews on both sides destroyed some enemy aircraft in defending themselves from attack; the most notable example of a non-pilot ace in World War I is Charles George Gass with 39 accredited aerial victories.
There were two theaters of war. They were the Second Sino-Japanese War; the Spanish ace Joaquín García Morato scored 40 victories f
Low Countries
The Low Countries, the Low Lands, or also the Netherlands, is a coastal lowland region in northwestern Europe, forming the lower basin of the Rhine and Scheldt rivers, divided in the Middle Ages into numerous semi-independent principalities that consolidated in the countries of Belgium and the Netherlands, as well as today's French Flanders. The regions without access to the sea have linked themselves politically and economically to those with access to form various unions of ports and hinterland, stretching inland as far as parts of the German Rhineland; that is why nowadays some parts of the Low Countries are hilly, like Luxembourg and the south of Belgium. Within the European Union the region's political grouping is still referred to as the Benelux. During the Roman empire the region contained a militarised frontier and contact point between Rome and Germanic tribes. With the collapse of the empire, the Low Countries were the scene of the early independent trading centres that marked the reawakening of Europe in the 12th century.
In that period, they rivalled northern Italy as one of the most densely populated regions of Western Europe. Most of the cities were governed by councils along with a figurehead ruler. All of the regions depended on trade and the encouragement of the free flow of goods and craftsmen. Dutch and French dialects were the main languages used in secular city life; the term Low Countries arose at the Court of the Dukes of Burgundy, who used the term les pays de par deçà for the Low Countries as opposed to les pays de par delà for the Duchy of Burgundy and the Free County of Burgundy, which were part of their realm but geographically disconnected from the Low Countries. Governor Mary of Hungary used both the expressions les pays de par deça and Pays d'Embas, which evolved to Pays-Bas or Low Countries. Today the term is fitted to modern political boundaries and used in the same way as the term Benelux; the name of the country of the Netherlands has the same etymology and origin as the name for the region Low Countries, due to "nether" meaning "low".
In the Dutch language itself De Lage Landen is the modern term for Low Countries, De Nederlanden is in use for the 16th century domains of Charles V, the historic Low Countries, while Nederland is in use for the country of the Netherlands. However, in official use, the name of the Dutch kingdom is still Kingdom of the Netherlands, Koninkrijk der Nederlanden; this name derives from the 19th-century origins of the kingdom which included present-day Belgium. In Dutch, to a lesser extent in English, the Low Countries colloquially means the Netherlands and Belgium, sometimes the Netherlands and Flanders—the Dutch-speaking north of Belgium. For example, a Low Countries derby, is a sports event between Belgium and the Netherlands. Belgium separated in 1830 from the Netherlands; the new country took its name from Belgica, the Latinised name for the Low Countries, as it was known during the Eighty Years' War. The Low Countries were in that war divided in two parts. On one hand, the northern Federated Netherlands or Belgica Foederata rebelled against the Spanish king.
This divide laid the early foundation for the modern states of Belgium and the Netherlands. The region politically had its origins in the Carolingian empire. After the disintegration of Lower Lotharingia, the Low Countries were brought under the rule of various lordships until they came to be in the hands of the Valois Dukes of Burgundy. Hence, a large part of the Low Countries came to be referred to as the Burgundian Netherlands. After the reign of the Valois Dukes ended, much of the Low Countries were controlled by the House of Habsburg; this area was referred to as the Habsburg Netherlands, called the Seventeen Provinces up to 1581. After the political secession of the autonomous Dutch Republic in the north, the term "Low Countries" continued to be used to refer collectively to the region; the region was temporarily united politically between 1815 and 1839, as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, before this split into the three modern countries of the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The Low Countries were part of the Roman provinces of Germania Inferior.
They were inhabited by Germanic tribes. In the 4th and 5th century, Frankish tribes had entered this Roman region and came to run it independently, they came to be ruled by the Merovingian dynasty, under which dynasty the southern part was re-Christianised. By the end of the 8th century, the Low Countries formed a core part of a much expanded Francia and the Merovingians were replaced by the Carolingian dynasty. In 800, the Pope appointed Charlemagne Emperor of the re-established Roman Empire. After the death of Charlemagne, Francia was divided in three parts among his three grandsons; the middle slice, Middle Francia, was ruled by Lothair I, thereby came to be referred to as "Lotharingia" or "Lorraine". Apart from the original coastal County of Flanders, within West Francia, the rest of the Low Countries were within the lowland part of this, "Lower Lorrain
Kampfgeschwader 3
Kampfgeschwader 3 "Blitz" was a Luftwaffe bomber wing during World War II. KG 3 was created in 1939 as the Luftwaffe reorganised and expanded to meet Adolf Hitler's rearmament demands, it was founded in May 1939 and by December 1939, had three active Gruppen. KG 3 operated the Dornier Do Junkers Ju 88 medium bombers. KG 3 served in the Invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, it spent dropping propaganda leaflets over France. In May and June 1940 it fought in the Battle of Battle of France. In July 1940, the force took part in the Battle of The Blitz. In June 1941 it supported the invasion of the Soviet Union. KG 3 remained on the Eastern Front for the duration of the wing's existence as a bomber unit. III./KG 3 became the last Gruppe in the Luftwaffe to operate the Dornier Do 17. The Gruppe was converted to the Heinkel He 111 and used as a delivery platform to launch V-1 flying bombs against the United Kingdom from the spring to late summer, 1944. KG 3 was ordered to disband on 18 August 1944 but by the 10 September the dissolution of the wing was still ongoing.
All Gruppen ceased to exist by October 1944 and were merged with other Luftwaffe units before the German capitulation in May 1945. Kampfgeschwader 3 was formed on 1 May 1939 at Fürstenwalde in eastern Germany with Stab./KG 3 on 1 May 1939. The Stab unit was transferred to East Prussia before the end of May. Oberst Wolfgang von Chamier-Glisczinski became the first Geschwaderkommodore. KG 3 was equipped with the Dornier Do 17Z. II and III Gruppen were formed near Magdeburg and Altenburg–Thuringia on the same day. All Gruppen were allocated the Do 17. III Gruppe was formed from III./KG 153. From May–August 1939 the three units underwent intensive training in the Do 17. II./KG 3 was placed under the command of Hauptmann Ernst Exss from 1 May 1939, but he was replaced by Oberst Viktor Seebauer until the 1 July. Oberstleutnant Erich Munske was the Gruppenkommandeur upon the outbreak of war. III./KG 3 was commanded by Oberstleutnant Hans Grund, but he was replaced by Oberstleutnant Karl Neuhüttler on 1 July.
Oberst Albrecht Jahn was the group's first wartime commanding officer. I Gruppe was not formed until 19 September 1939 near Burg, made up of personnel from II. and III. Gruppe; the group was placed under the command of Oberstleutnant Rudolf Gabelmann. It became operational on 1 March 1940, after over five weeks of training during the winter, during which it "worked up" on the Dornier Do 17Z. In August 1939, the operational Gruppen were transferred to Luftflotte 1; the mechanics of the Elbing airfield were able to ensure seven of the nine Do 17s belonging to Stab./KG 3 were operational. At Heiligenbeil II./KG 3 could commit 36 operational bombers from 38 to action. III./KG 3 were quipped with 39 bombers, with 30 combat ready at Heiligenbeil. KG 3 were in a position to offer support Fall the attack on Poland, with 86 bombers. Luftflotte 1 was to support the German 3rd Army, attacking from Prussia, the main elements of Army Group North attacking Polish Corridor. By 1 September KG 3 was based at Heiligenbeil under the Luftwaffenkommando Ostpreussen under the command of Wilhelm Wimmer.
The command was independent from Luftflotte 1, was to support the 3rd Army's drive Toruń, Płock and Polish Corridor. On the 1 September 1939 German forces invaded Poland. III./KG 3 attacked Polish positions defending the Tczew bridge. Despite the attack, another from StG 1, the Poles repaired the wires and blew up the bridge two hours later. Both Gruppen were involved in the Battle of Grudziądz, they were involved in operations over the Praha. KG 3, paired with KG 27 under Wimmer, pushed southward from 6 September to isolate Warsaw from the east, they supported the advance on the subsequent siege. Both groups bombed targets in the Battle of Modlin. KG 3 losses are unknown, but II./KG 3 lost a bomber in mid-air explosion owing to a faulty fuze. KG 3 bombed targets around Płock and Biała Podlaska. Both groups participated in the Battle of the Bzura and the destruction Army Poznań and Army Pomorze; the Geschwader ceased operations on 21 September 1939 and were ordered to western Germany to face a possible Allied attack, which petered out.
III./KG 3 was ordered to Fritzlar, southwest of Kassel and moved to Würzburg for five months until 5 April 1940. Karl Neuhuttler handed over command to Albrecht Jahn on 1 July and Jahn was replaced as group commander on 2 March, by Major Wilhelm-Georg von Kunowski, with Jahn moving to II./KG 3. II./KG 3 was based at Schweinfurt until May 1940. The group command was change to Oberstleutnant Albrecht Jahn in April, but only to the 16 May, when he was replaced mid-campaign, but Hauptmann Otto Pilger. I./KG 3 was based at Kitzingen from 16 April 1940 in preparation for the offensive. The unit did not participate in Operation Weserübung but instead spent the spring training and resting in preparation for the western offensive in 1940. Stab./KG 3 was placed under the command of II. Fliegerkorps Generaloberst Bruno Loerzer at Würzburg. Von Chamier-Gliczinski's command unit had all six Do 17s operational on the opening day of Fall Gelb, the attack on France and the Low Countries. Gableman and I./KG 3 mustered 35 Dornier Do 17s, with 31 combat ready at Aschaffenburg.
Jahn's II./KG 3 fielded a lower number of serviceable aircraft, 27, from 36 available. Kunowski's III Gruppe had 28 serviceable from the 35 Dorniers allotted to them. All Gruppen were placed under Loerzer's command. KG 3 was to support the operations of Army Group A, as it sought a break through in the Ardennes region—the critical objective of the Mans
Rugby football
Rugby refers to the team sports rugby league and rugby union. Legend claims that rugby football was started about 1845 in Rugby School, Warwickshire, although forms of football in which the ball was carried and tossed date to medieval times. Rugby split into two sports in 1895 when twenty-one clubs split from the original Rugby Football Union, to form the Northern Union in the George Hotel, Northern England over the issue of payment to players, thus making rugby league the first code to turn professional and pay its players, rugby union turned professional in 1995. Both sports are run by their respective world governing bodies World Rugby and the Rugby League International Federation. Rugby football was one of many versions of football played at English public schools in the 19th century. Although rugby league used rugby union rules, they are now wholly separate sports. In addition to these two codes, both American and Canadian football evolved from rugby football. Following the 1895 split in rugby football, the two forms rugby league and rugby union differed in administration only.
Soon the rules of rugby league were modified. After 100 years, in 1995 rugby union joined rugby league and most other forms of football as an professional sport; the Olympic form of rugby is known as Rugby 7s. In this form of the game, each team has 7 players on the field at one time playing 7 minute halves; the rules and pitch size are the same as rugby union. The Greeks and Romans are known to have played many ball games, some of which involved the use of the feet; the Roman game harpastum is believed to have been adapted from a Greek team game known as "ἐπίσκυρος" or "φαινίνδα", mentioned by a Greek playwright and referred to by the Christian theologian Clement of Alexandria. These games appear to have resembled rugby football; the Roman politician Cicero describes the case of a man, killed whilst having a shave when a ball was kicked into a barber's shop. Roman ball games knew the air-filled ball, the follis. Episkyros is recognised as an early form of football by FIFA. In 1871, English clubs met to form the Rugby Football Union.
In 1892, after charges of professionalism were made against some clubs for paying players for missing work, the Northern Rugby Football Union called the Northern Union, was formed. The existing rugby union authorities responded by issuing sanctions against the clubs and officials involved in the new organization. After the schism, the separate clubs were named "rugby league" and "rugby union". Rugby union is both a professional and amateur game, is dominated by the first tier unions: New Zealand, Wales, South Africa, Argentina, Scotland and France. Second and third tier unions include Belgium, Canada, Fiji, Germany, Hong Kong, Kenya, the Netherlands, Romania, Samoa, Tonga, the United States and Uruguay. Rugby Union is administered by World Rugby, whose headquarters are located in Ireland, it is the national sport in New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga and Madagascar, is the most popular form of rugby globally. The Olympic Games have admitted the seven-a-side version of the game, known as Rugby sevens, into the programme from Rio de Janeiro in 2016 onwards.
There was a possibility sevens would be a demonstration sport at the 2012 London Olympics but many sports including sevens were dropped. In Canada and the United States, rugby union evolved into gridiron football. During the late 1800s, the two forms of the game were similar, but numerous rule changes have differentiated the gridiron-based game from its rugby counterpart, introduced by Walter Camp in the United States and John Thrift Meldrum Burnside in Canada. Among unique features of the North American game are the separation of play into downs instead of releasing the ball upon tackling, the requirement that the team with the ball set into a set formation for at least one second before resuming play after a tackle, the allowance for one forward pass from behind the site of the last tackle on each down, the evolution of hard plastic equipment, a smaller and pointier ball, favorable to being passed but makes drop kicks impractical, a smaller and narrower field measured in customary units instead of metric, a distinctive field with lines marked in five-yard intervals.
Rugby league is both a professional and amateur game, administered on a global level by the Rugby League International Federation. In addition to amateur and semi-professional competitions in the United States, Lebanon, Serbia and Australasia, there are two major professional competitions—the Australasian National Rugby League and the Super League. International Rugby League is dominated by Australia and New Zealand. In Papua New Guinea it is the national sport. Other nations from the South Pacific and Europe play in the Pacific Cup and European Cup respectively. Distinctive features common to both rugby codes include the oval ball and throwing the ball forward is not allowed so that players can gain ground only
Messerschmitt Bf 110
The Messerschmitt Bf 110 known unofficially as the Me 110, is a twin-engine heavy fighter and fighter-bomber developed in Nazi Germany in the 1930s and used by the Luftwaffe during World War II. Hermann Göring was a proponent of the Bf 110, it was armed with two MG FF 20 mm cannon, four 7.92 mm MG 17 machine guns, one 7.92 mm MG 15 machine gun or twin-barrel MG 81Z for defence. Development work on an improved type to replace the Bf 110, the Messerschmitt Me 210 began before the war started, but its teething troubles from its aerodynamics resulted in the Bf 110 soldiering on until the end of the war in various roles, alongside its replacements, the Me 210 and the improved Me 410 Hornisse; the Bf 110 served with considerable initial success in the early campaigns in Poland and France. The primary weakness of the Bf 110 was its lack of agility in the air, although this could be mitigated with the correct tactics; this weakness was exploited when flying as close escort to German bombers during the Battle of Britain.
When British bombers began targeting German territory with nightly raids, some Bf 110-equipped units were withdrawn and redeployed as night fighters, a role to which the aircraft was well suited. After the Battle of Britain the Bf 110 enjoyed a successful period as an air superiority fighter and strike aircraft in other theatres, defended Germany from strategic air attack by day against the USAAF's 8th Air Force, until a major change in American fighter tactics rendered them vulnerable to developing American air supremacy over the Reich as 1944 began. During the Balkans Campaign, North African Campaign and on the Eastern Front, it rendered valuable ground support to the German Army as a potent fighter-bomber. In the war, it was developed into a formidable radar-equipped night fighter, becoming the major night-fighting aircraft of the Luftwaffe. Most of the German night fighter aces flew the Bf 110 at some point during their combat careers, the top night fighter ace of all time, Major Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer, flew it and claimed 121 victories in 164 combat missions.
Throughout the 1930s, the air forces of the major military powers were engaged in a transition from biplane to monoplane designs. Most concentrated on the single-engine fighter aircraft; the Reichsluftfahrtministerium, pushed by Hermann Göring, issued a request for a new multipurpose fighter called the Kampfzerstörer with long range and an internal bomb bay. The request called for a twin-engine, three-seat, all-metal monoplane, armed with cannon as well as a bomb bay. Of the original seven companies, only Bayerische Flugzeugwerke, Focke-Wulf and Henschel responded to the request. Messerschmitt defeated Focke-Wulf and Arado, was given the funds to build several prototype aircraft; the Focke-Wulf design, the Focke-Wulf Fw 57, had a wing span of 25.6 m and was powered by two DB 600 engines. It was armed with two 20 mm MG FF cannons in the nose and a third was positioned in a dorsal turret; the Fw 57 V1 flew in 1936 but its performance was poor and the machine crashed. The Henschel Hs 124 was similar in construction layout to the Fw 57, equipped with two Jumo 210C for the V1.
The V2 used the BMW 132Dc radial engines generating 870 PS compared with the 640 PS Jumo. The armament consisted of a single rearward-firing 7.92 mm MG 15 machine gun and a single forward-firing 20 mm MG FF cannon. Messerschmitt omitted the internal bomb load requirement from the RLM directive to increase the armament element of the RLM specification; the Bf 110 was far superior to its rivals in providing the speed and firepower to meet its role requirements. By the end of 1935, the Bf 110 had evolved into an all-metal, low-wing cantilever monoplane of semi-monocoque design featuring twin vertical stabilizers and powered by two DB 600A engines; the design was fitted with Handley-Page wing slots. By luck, RLM began focusing on the Zerstörer. Due to these changes, the Bayerische Flugzeugwerke design better fitted RLM's requests. On 12 May 1936, Rudolf Opitz flew the first Bf 110 out of Augsburg. But, as many pre-war designs found, the engine technologies promised were not up to acceptable reliability standards.
With the temperamental DB 600 engines, the RLM found the Bf 110, while not as maneuverable as desired, was rather faster than its original request specified, as well as faster than the then-current front line fighter, the Bf 109 B-1. Thus the order for four pre-production A-0 units was placed; the first of these were delivered on January 1937. During this testing, both the Focke-Wulf Fw 187 and Henschel Hs 124 competitors were rejected and the Bf 110 was ordered into full production; the initial deliveries of the Bf 110 encountered several delays with delivery of the DB 600 motors, which forced Bayerische Flugzeugwerke to install Junkers Jumo 210B engines, leaving the Bf 110 underpowered and able to reach a top speed of only 431 km/h. The armament of the A-0 units was limited to four nose-mounted 7.92 mm MG 17 machine guns. Without delivery of the DB 600 engines, Bayerische Flugzeugwerke began assembly of the Bf 110 in mid-1937; as the DB 600 engines continued to have problems, Bayerische Flugzeugwerke was forced to keep on using Jumo motors, the 210G, which supplied 515 kW each.
Three distinct versions of the Bf 110B were built, the B-1, which featured four 7.92 mm MG 17 machine guns and two 20 mm MG FF cannons. The B-2 reconnaissance version, which had a camera
