# Spitfire cost vs Hurricane



## Maxrobot1 (May 30, 2010)

I have read several brief mentions that the Hurricane was less expensive than the Spitfire. 
Was it just that Supermarine charged more or was the airframe really that much more complicated to produce? The Hurricane seems more complicated with the cloth covered parts as compared to the all-metal fuselage of the Spitfire.
The cost of the engines could not be a factor nor could initial armament (8 .303 Brownings) but yet it appears that Hurricane were more plentiful in the early years because the cost of the Spit was a factor.
Was Supermarine just making more of a profit?


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## Markus (May 30, 2010)

Maxrobot1 said:


> Was it just that Supermarine charged more or was the airframe really that much more complicated to produce? The Hurricane seems more complicated with the cloth covered parts as compared to the all-metal fuselage of the Spitfire.



The Hurricane´s frame+canvas(later metal) cover was the traditional way to build planes. It was also so simple many companies outside the aviation industry could easily do it. And damage to this could be repaired not just quickly but in most cases on the spot. 

The Spitfire´s wing and to a lesser degree hull were monocoque -meaning there was no internal skeleton, the metal skin carried the load. That cost money but saved weight. Damage could only often be fixed by specialist repair units. IIRC it was in P. Fleming´s book "Operation S....n" where I read that Hurricane untis had a higher readyness rate during the BoB than those flying Spits. 

Last but not least, the Hurricane was heavily based on the Fury, while the Spitfire was a completely new design.


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## Maxrobot1 (May 30, 2010)

So you think that the lower cost was due to Hawker using existing tooling and not having to train skilled workers?


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## parsifal (May 30, 2010)

The Hurricane was a half generation older than the Spit, and this translated into lower cost. Even today, if you can build something with off-the-shelf technology, it will cost a fraction of that which is developed from new.

A good example of this are the tour de france racing cycles. The new technology put into the years racing bikes, means that the bicycles when first developed cost about $250K each. Usually at least some of these technologies are transferred to the commercial market, where cheaper but almost as good a product can be bought for $5-10000.

Wven though the airframe of the spit was revolutionary in 1938-9, by 1940, its technology had been master, and many of its components,, including large parts of the frame, were being built in shadow factories, similar to the hurri. If it had remained difficult to build or maintain, it would not have had its productiion rates ramped up as it did.


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## Markus (May 30, 2010)

Maxrobot1 said:


> So you think that the lower cost was due to Hawker using existing tooling and not having to train skilled workers?



Unlike the Spitfire the Hurricane was never "high-tech", not even when it was introduced. It was clearly made of much lower tech than the Spitfire and it was an evolutionary design. All that reduces the cost.


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## stona (May 31, 2010)

The Spitfire was a thoroughbred of the racing line of Supermarine. It's design and construction were not particularly sympathetic to mass production. I read somewhere,but can't find the reference now, that it took three times as many man hours to build a SpitfireI as it did to build a contemporary Bf109E. The fact that Spitfire production out stripped Messerschmitt production early in the war says more about the organisation of the opposing aircraft industries than the aircraft themselves.
The Hurricane was an altogether simpler and more familiar aircraft to build. As someone said it was at the end of a long line of doped fabric and frame constructed aircraft whereas the Spitfire was at the beginning of another generation of stressed skin,monocoque machines. This is reflected in the development of the Spitfire through to those late/ post war marques that look like they've been abusing the steroids,something not possible for the Hurricane.
Steve


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## parsifal (May 31, 2010)

Stona, ive heard that as well, but it does not stand up to closer srutiny. In a related thread there is a similar discussion going on at this minute. 

These are the facts....in 1940, with about 2/3 the workforce dedicated to spitfire production as was dedicated to 109 production, the british managed to produce roughly twice as many of their type as the germans did of theirs. Admittedly the brits devoted about three times the factory space as the germans, and were working about 50% longer hours per worker, but this still does not justify the notion that the 109 was an easier plane to produce. even allowing for nazi innefficiency simply cannot explain thjis.

In the pre-war period ther is some truth to your argument. With a new and revolutiuonary type of construction, getting the skilled workers up to steam and the production lines organized properly took rather a long time to work out


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## riacrato (May 31, 2010)

Again with the number games. The only way to get an even half solid estimation of production costs is by looking at the BOM and materials, number of subassemblies, number of all manufacturing and assembly steps, and numbers of work hours required for each step. Assuming the work force requirements are equal enough (which is likely the case, except for the spitfires wing). Your oversimplifying calculations mean squat. How do you even name the number of workers dedicated to Bf 109 production?


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## davebender (May 31, 2010)

> in 1940, with about 2/3 the workforce dedicated to spitfire production as was dedicated to 109 production, the british managed to produce roughly twice as many of their type as the germans did of theirs.


As the U.S.A.F. bombing survey states, the German aviation and engine industry started practically from nothing during 1933. The first DB601 engine factory was built from scratch during 1936. It takes several years for a major industry to start from nothing and work up to efficient production. The German aircraft industry was just starting to produce results during 1940. Britain, France, Russia and the USA did not have this problem as their aircraft industries were not destroyed during 1919.

1943 would be a better year for price / manhour comparison. By then German aircraft and engine industries were more or less worked up and Allied bombing was not yet a major factor.


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## stona (May 31, 2010)

Surely the only reason that the British aircraft industry could out perform its German counterpart must be the organisation and supply of the two organisations. I don't believe a British worker was any better than his German counterpart though he (or she, at least in Britain,a whole other subject) may well have worked longer hours.Does anyone have a figure for the man hours required for the construction of the two types? I don't get home until August and I'm not sure I'll find them then lol.
Steve


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## Colin1 (May 31, 2010)

stona said:


> I don't believe a British worker was any better than his German counterpart though he (or she, at least in Britain, a whole other subject)



A (female) German worker rivetting unflanged sheets in a jig for Bf109 assembly


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## FLYBOYJ (May 31, 2010)

Great Pic!

Riveting is riveting once learned, especially in an assembly environment. It's like tying your shoes. What is a skill learned is the pace at which the driver and bucker work together behind a skin as shown. A good team can rivet huge surfaces in the matter of minutes. The other side of the coin is the preparation of the surface to be riveted, especially if you're installing flush rivets. That requires a bit more skill but still can be a quickly learned.


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## vinnye (May 31, 2010)

davebender said:


> As the U.S.A.F. bombing survey states, the German aviation and engine industry started practically from nothing during 1933. The first DB601 engine factory was built from scratch during 1936. It takes several years for a major industry to start from nothing and work up to efficient production. The German aircraft industry was just starting to produce results during 1940. Britain, France, Russia and the USA did not have this problem as their aircraft industries were not destroyed during 1919.
> 
> 1943 would be a better year for price / manhour comparison. By then German aircraft and engine industries were more or less worked up and Allied bombing was not yet a major factor.



Dave, would the fact that the German aviation industry started from scratch in 1933 not give them an advantage over the British industry?
If a new factory is built - you can design it to be efficient - whereas if you have inherited an old building - it may well not be fit for purpose.
The Hurricane was - as mentioned in previous posts - a hybrid. It was a development of existing tried and tested manufacturing techniques and materials (same as a bi-plane but one wing).
The Spitfire was a new design using new procedures and materials. It was also a relatively complex design - the elliptical wing was very difficult to mass produce quickly. IIRC the wings were different as they joined through the fuselage. Again making manufacturing more time consuming and expensive.


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## Waynos (May 31, 2010)

The British wartime industry started virtually from scratch too, from 1936 onwards. From 1919 to that date the industry survived merely on scraps and was almost a cottage industry. Indeed Supermarine were never anything else and almost had Spitfire production taken away from them for that reason. To imagine that the industry that churned out Spits, Lanc's Mossies etc during 1939-45 was the same one that was building Furies and Overstrands a decade earlier would be a misrepresentation IMO.

The major production centres such as Castle Bromwich were entirely new, and not merely an extension or ramp up of an existing factory.


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## FLYBOYJ (May 31, 2010)

vinnye said:


> The Spitfire was a new design using new procedures and materials. It was also a relatively complex design - the elliptical wing was very difficult to mass produce quickly. IIRC the wings were different as they joined through the fuselage. Again making manufacturing more time consuming and expensive.



As stated, the elliptical wing construction was probably made a non factor when production tooling was developed to mass produce the wing. I believe all models of the Spitfire had their wings joined at the fuselage. Here's one under restoration. I see no major issue that would make a Spitfire wing more difficult to assemble than any other wing, especially if production tooling is used.

PV270 Previous Restoration History


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## davebender (May 31, 2010)

That doesn't help if you must train practically the entire aviation work force (including supervisors) from scratch. Let's look at historical results for the Ju-88 program.

http://www.econ.yale.edu/growth_pdf/cdp905.pdf


> The available data allow us to construct a curve depicted in figure 6 that shows the
> development of working hours the three firms ATG, Junkers and Siebel needed on
> average to produce one unit of the Ju 88 bomber in the period from August 1939 to
> August 1941. Notice that the vertical axis presents the logarithm of working hours.
> ...



Britain may not have been producing aircraft on a massive scale throughout the 1920s and 1930s but they still had a significant head start on German aircraft production. Consequently a price comparison made too early won't be all that meaningful.


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## Milosh (May 31, 2010)

davebender said:


> That doesn't help if you must train practically the entire aviation work force (including supervisors) from scratch.



And the British, Americans and Canadians didn't have to train their huge expanding aviation workforce?


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## vikingBerserker (May 31, 2010)

davebender said:


> That doesn't help if you must train practically the entire aviation work force (including supervisors) from scratch. Let's look at historical results for the Ju-88 program.
> 
> http://www.econ.yale.edu/growth_pdf/cdp905.pdf



I have to admit, that was a pretty interesting read. Nice post.


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## FLYBOYJ (May 31, 2010)

Milosh said:


> And the British, Americans and Canadians didn't have to train their huge expanding aviation workforce?



Actually they did...

In the US all manufacturers had huge training programs when they brought in people off the street. Aviation maintenance schools were booming and there were dozens of aircraft assembler apprentice programs that paid new-bees during training. I had a uncle that worked for Brewster for about 3 or 4 months and then he got drafted.


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## gumbyk (May 31, 2010)

FLYBOYJ said:


> As stated, the elliptical wing construction was probably made a non factor when production tooling was developed to mass produce the wing. I believe all models of the Spitfire had their wings joined at the fuselage. Here's one under restoration. I see no major issue that would make a Spitfire wing more difficult to assemble than any other wing, especially if production tooling is used.
> 
> PV270 Previous Restoration History



That shop is next door to where I used to work.
The guys said that it was difficult to get anything to fit, especially on the wing, as there isn't one straight line on it. Also, the girder-style ribs take a lot more labour to produce than a simple stamped aluminium rib. The main spars are also a fairly significant piece of engineering, with having a number of box-sections sleeved on inside the other, and then all bent together to form the dihedral angle.

there's three issues that would have made the spitfire wing more labour-intensive to produce.


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## FLYBOYJ (May 31, 2010)

gumbyk said:


> That shop is next door to where I used to work.
> The guys said that it was difficult to get anything to fit, especially on the wing, as there isn't one straight line on it. Also, the girder-style ribs take a lot more labour to produce than a simple stamped aluminium rib. The main spars are also a fairly significant piece of engineering, with having a number of box-sections sleeved on inside the other, and then all bent together to form the dihedral angle.
> 
> there's three issues that would have made the spitfire wing more labour-intensive to produce.



The guys in the photos built jigs for the restoration, that's the key. Its a lot harder to restore a warbird than it was to build one on an already developed assembly line with jigs and fixtures that made assembly a lot more simple. During production you also had manufacturing engineers who continually looked at ways to improve the production process, so there was a lot of "local tricks" that won't be made available to the maintainer or restorer. I would bet dollars to donuts more complicated tooling existed (especially later in the war) that made it possible to quickly mass produce Spitfire wings just as quickly as any other fighter of the day.


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## Kurfürst (Jun 1, 2010)

parsifal said:


> Stona, ive heard that as well, but it does not stand up to closer srutiny. In a related thread there is a similar discussion going on at this minute.
> 
> These are the facts....in 1940, with about 2/3 the workforce dedicated to spitfire production as was dedicated to 109 production, the british managed to produce roughly twice as many of their type as the germans did of theirs.



I very much doubt that. First of all, how are these workforce numbers arrived at? Secondly it seems just plain wrong - Spitfire production started some time before the Bf 109E production, yet at the start it was so slow it took IIRC about half a year just to get a single Spitfire Sqn operational with a full compliment of planes... and when you look at the number of planes in service, you find that by the start of the war, the Germans had about 1200 Bf 109Es in service already, the British just a hundred or two Spitfires. During the BoB all German single engined fighters available (roughly 1100) were Bf 109Es, yet on the British side there were just about 2-300 Spitfires available. In fact well until the middle of the war there simply weren't enough Spitfires to re-equip Hurricane Squadrons.



> Admittedly the brits devoted about three times the factory space as the germans, and were working about 50% longer hours per worker, but this still does not justify the notion that the 109 was an easier plane to produce. even allowing for nazi innefficiency simply cannot explain thjis.



Its not a notion, its a simple fact, repeated by wartime reports, people who worked on these airplanes. See from 5:00 
_View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgvfklVzYZo_

Its also striking to the eye if you look them up close - the Spit is almost like a random collection of panels riveted to each other (and much of it still using domed? rivets as opposed to the all-flush riveted 109). Look at the 109 in contrast - its basically made up by a much lower number of large dural panels, and its quite obvious that someone gave it serious thought to simplify construction.

In early 1940, it took 15 000 hours to produce a Spitfire, 10 000 to produce a Hurricane, and somewhere around 6000 hours to build a 109E. These figures are from British and German Air Ministry.


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## Glider (Jun 1, 2010)

Kurfürst said:


> I very much doubt that. First of all, how are these workforce numbers arrived at? Secondly it seems just plain wrong - Spitfire production started some time before the Bf 109E production, yet at the start it was so slow it took IIRC about half a year just to get a single Spitfire Sqn operational with a full compliment of planes...


An accurate but very misleading statement. What you say is true, in that production of the 109E started after production of the Spitfire however you ignore the fact that the 109 had been in production for years before this producing the 109B/C/D with factories in place and a trained workforce. Plus a lot of care went into the design of the 109 to make it easier to produce and all credit to the design teams for that, something that has never been said of the Spitfire.



> and when you look at the number of planes in service, you find that by the start of the war, the Germans had about 1200 Bf 109Es in service already, the British just a hundred or two Spitfires.


Production of the Spitfire didn't begin until mid 1938 so at the start of the war it had been going for about 12 months. It would be interesting to know how many 109B's were produced in the first 12 months.



> During the BoB all German single engined fighters available (roughly 1100) were Bf 109Es, yet on the British side there were just about 2-300 Spitfires available. In fact well until the middle of the war there simply weren't enough Spitfires to re-equip Hurricane Squadrons.


A couple of observations
a) I think you will find that it the 2-300 number for Spitfires isn't for those that were available it was for those that were in the front line and servicable. A very different number.
My understanding is that the Luftwaffe Quartermaster General's returns for Aug 3rd - 1,065 Me 109's of which 850 combat ready and 760 in the right place. The RAF figures for Aug 3rd are 244 servicable Spitfires in the front line.
B) It was never the intention to replace all the Hurricane Squadrons with Spitfires. Hurricane Squadrons tended to be nominated as GA squadrons and were replaced with Typhoons/Mustang I.


> Its also striking to the eye if you look them up close - the Spit is almost like a random collection of panels riveted to each other (and much of it still using domed? rivets as opposed to the all-flush riveted 109). Look at the 109 in contrast - its basically made up by a much lower number of large dural panels, and its quite obvious that someone gave it serious thought to simplify construction.


On that I totally agree with you.


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## fastmongrel (Jun 1, 2010)

Kurfürst said:


> Its also striking to the eye if you look them up close - the Spit is almost like a random collection of panels riveted to each other (and much of it still using domed? rivets as opposed to the all-flush riveted 109). Look at the 109 in contrast - its basically made up by a much lower number of large dural panels, and its quite obvious that someone gave it serious thought to simplify construction.



The Spitfire was tried with complete flush rivetting and this was intended to be the way that the unproduced MKIII was constructed. Tests were carried out and it was found that flush rivetting gave a noticeable improvement on the wings but made little difference on the fuselage. As flush rivetting is much more time consuming in the interests of production it was limited to the wings.

Part of the reason that Spitfire construction was so slow to ramp up was the Castle Bromwich shadow plant was meant to be the main production plant. With Supermarines factory at Eastleigh supposed to be more of a prototype, pre production, modifications and special purposes factory. 

As is usually the case all these fine plans were thrown into disarray by the well known problems at Castle Bromwich where the Nuffield organisation tried to build an aircraft factory on the lines of a car factory. Something that only the Americans cracked.


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## stona (Jun 1, 2010)

Colin1 said:


> A (female) German worker rivetting unflanged sheets in a jig for Bf109 assembly



I'll bet that picture wasn't taken in 1940. It may very well not be a german woman either. "Imported" labour being a feature of german war production. Again ,a whole other subject.
Steve


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## parsifal (Jun 1, 2010)

hi Kurfurst

There are any number of ways the data you presented might be misrepresented or misinterpreted. I dont think there is any serious disagreement that in the prewar build up to war, the british lagged in aircraft production. But it was not just the Spitfire production lines that lagged, in all categories the British seemed to lag behind the German expansion program. But there are good reasons to explain that. In that prewar period the Germans tended to concentrate on the hardware production, whereas, under the the Plan "L" expansion program the british concentrated on the support echelons...getting the rolled aluminium sheet industry organized, doing the prepratory work to set up the "shadow factory" systems, that kind of issue. That explains why, in the fiscal year 1938-9, the British on a budget nearly 1/3 that spent in 1939-40, only managed to put out 1/6 the numbers of aircraft in the earlier year. 

Which raises another point. You mentioned that it takes 6000 hours to build a 109, whereas it took nearly three times that time to build a spitfire. Might be true, but are we comparing apples to apples here. In what time frame are we talking about this massive time diference. Are we comparing prewar spitfire construction times with say 1944 109 construction times. You might be right as I do know that factory space allocated to spitfire production was roughly three times that for the 109 production. However it seems unlikely in my opinion. The Germans with a budget roughly 1/3 larger than the RAF, and a workforce in germany about double that employed by the british in the production system, only produced slightly more than 1/2 as many fighters in 1940 and about 2/3 as many aircraft overall. Either the germans were super efficient in producing 109s as you say, and therfore absolutely hopeless in efficiency for all other types, or the cost per unit in 1940, including 109s went up (or at least was not reduced as it was for the RAF). I think the latter scenario is the more likley. Whereas prewar the british had invested heavily in preparing the infrastructure to facilitate production once the war broke out, the germans did not. The Germans concentrated on getting the finished product out the door from the very beginning. this gave them impressive short term benefits but in the long run meant their aero industry could not, in the early war period expand as easily or rapidly as the British could. This means, inevitably the unit costs for the british dropped markedly, whereas those for the germans were not so spectacular. After 1942, with Speer in charge of production the germans did turn this around, and demonstrated that they could churn out aircraft efficiently (which means their unit costs had to go down.

So this is what I suspect. I suspect you are quoting production times (and hence costs) for the later war period, which would be entirely plausible. You are also probably quoting prewar production costs for the Allied types, when the unit costs were being skwed by the behind the scenes secondary preprations. 

To give you some idea of perspective, in 1942 when it first was produced, it took on average 57000 man hours to build a lancaster bomber. By 1943, with the production lines well organized and the glitches ironed ou, this figure had dropped to just over 21000 hours. Daves example for Ju88s is another good example, he says in 1939, the man hours spent for the then prototype ju88 was about 100000 hours, but by 1941 this had reduced to 15000 hours. I believe his figures


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## FLYBOYJ (Jun 1, 2010)

Kurfürst said:


> Its not a notion, its a simple fact, repeated by wartime reports, people who worked on these airplanes. See from 5:00
> _View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgvfklVzYZo_
> 
> Its also striking to the eye if you look them up close - the Spit is almost like a random collection of panels riveted to each other (and much of it still using domed? rivets as opposed to the all-flush riveted 109). Look at the 109 in contrast - its basically made up by a much lower number of large dural panels, and its quite obvious that someone gave it serious thought to simplify construction.
> ...


In viewing the clip I doubt by this person's age that he actually BUILT Spitfires but rather restored them and it seems he's more of a pilot than a mechanic. Compound curves in a structure is a design feature and has nothing to do with the guy assembling the structure - he just puts the rivets in and pounds away. Additionally the appearance of the way skin panels are placed in construction does not necessarily dictate the complexity of the structure. Now with that said I will agree that the -109 is more maintainer friendly. The British seemed to be reluctant to use cam locks in many places making removal of cowls and panels difficult. 

As parsifal stated there are a good many reasons why construction manhours on the spit were so much higher than the -109 during the shown period. Training, tooling construction, part shortages all play into the matrix of coming up with these hours as well as developing the most efficient way to assemble the aircraft.


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## Milosh (Jun 1, 2010)

FLYBOYJ said:


> Actually they did...
> 
> In the US all manufacturers had huge training programs when they brought in people off the street. Aviation maintenance schools were booming and there were dozens of aircraft assembler apprentice programs that paid new-bees during training. I had a uncle that worked for Brewster for about 3 or 4 months and then he got drafted.



It was a question, not a statement.


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## davebender (Jun 1, 2010)

> tried to build an aircraft factory on the lines of a car factory. Something that only the Americans cracked.



U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey Aircraft Division Industry Report
Mass production of the V1 cruise missile began during March 1944. 21,450 were produced at the VW automobile plant over the next 12 months dispite being repeatedly bombed. If ordered to do so I think VW could have mass produced fighter aircraft like the Me-109 and Fw-190 instead.


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## FLYBOYJ (Jun 1, 2010)

Milosh said:


> It was a question, not a statement.


Ok - did this answer your question?


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## fastmongrel (Jun 1, 2010)

davebender said:


> U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey Aircraft Division Industry Report
> Mass production of the V1 cruise missile began during March 1944. 21,450 were produced at the VW automobile plant over the next 12 months dispite being repeatedly bombed. If ordered to do so I think VW could have mass produced fighter aircraft like the Me-109 and Fw-190 instead.



That is an impressive statistic for V1 production and shoots down my statement in flames

I cant help thinking it would have been better to have Volkswagen producing vehicles for the army rather than the relatively ineffective V1.


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## davebender (Jun 2, 2010)

Since you raised the issue of V1 effectiveness.....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-1_(flying_bomb)
The U.S. Army concluded that V1 cruise missiles compared favorably to conventional bombers for area bombardment of urban areas. V1s were dirt cheap mass production marvels costing only about 5,090 marks (about 2,000 American dollars) each. That's about 1/100th the price for a B-17 bomber during 1944.


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## Njaco (Jun 2, 2010)

Concerning the V1 and V2: 2,745 civilians have been killed by the bombs, and 2,900 aircrewmen have died in the campaign against them. Wouldn't call that ineffective.


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## fastmongrel (Jun 2, 2010)

I believe the V1 was relatively ineffective because it had no bearing on the war. For all the effort that Germany put into the V weapon programme they got very little back in terms of damage to the Allied war effort. The loss of 2,745 civillians was terrible but as the Luftwaffe had found and the RAF and the USAAC would later realise killing civilians doesnt win wars. 

I must admit I was surprised at the loss of 2,900 aircrew in the campaign against the V1. I know a lot of ground attack aircraft and medium bomber aircraft were lost looking for V1 sites and casualties on the Peenemunde raid were quite high but I didnt reallise so many casualties were taken. Do you have any links to information on the aircrew casualties I would like to read further.

I have read somewhere that Germany spent an equivalent amount of money in percentage of GDP on V weapons as The USA did on the Manhattan project.


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## timshatz (Jun 2, 2010)

V1 might have been a more effective weapon if it was used on a better target. Something like the ports of southern England or even the Normandy beaches would've probably done a lot more damage than bombarding London. 

Probably wouldn't have changed the outcome of the campaing, but it would've made it more costly.


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## Shortround6 (Jun 2, 2010)

timshatz said:


> V1 might have been a more effective weapon if it was used on a better target. Something like the ports of southern England or even the Normandy beaches would've probably done a lot more damage than bombarding London.
> 
> Probably wouldn't have changed the outcome of the campaing, but it would've made it more costly.



Not by much, They had enough trouble hitting greater London. an area of around 600 sq miles(?)

aimed at a coastal city would mean a fair number hitting open water and if the city was 1/4 the size of London another fair percentage hitting surrounding country side rather anything important. There is always the chance of a lucky hit but the V-1s didn't do a whole lot to the London docks did they?


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## Colin1 (Jun 2, 2010)

timshatz said:


> V1 might have been a more effective weapon if it was used on a better target. Something like the ports of southern England or even the Normandy beaches would've probably done a lot more damage than bombarding London


Tim
That's a degree of accuracy that wasn't available in WWII.
They might be able to drop it somewhere behind the ports in the hope that it fell short but being able to pinpoint beach landings with WWII autonomous-targetting technology would have just been showing off.

London was both convenient in that it was the capital and that it was big enough to aim at and probably hit.

Anecdotally
On December 24th 1944, modified He111s launched 45 V1s on Manchester from the Lincolnshire coast - the first one landing at Chorley at 5.30 in the morning, obliterating a hen coop with thirty birds in it; if the Luftwaffe had a declared strategy to undermine our powdered egg ration, that would have been a powerful testimonial to intent and capability. 

More seriously, fishermen who witnessed the launch said that several failed to ignite and fell harmlessly into the sea, most of them however, did ignite. 31 bombs touched down, 15 on the city and the remainder 'over a wide area of the north-west and north of England'. 

So something of a reliability problem and definitely issues with accuracy.


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## timshatz (Jun 2, 2010)

I'm thinking the ability to hit something as small as a city block would be beyond the ability of a buzz bomb but hitting a city would be in the range. The ability to hit was based on the distance measuring device (small prop in the front of the bomb) turning a given number of times (basic speed/distance equation) and then shutting off. 

While I agree it was not a great weapon for disrupting the invasion, it didn't have to be. Most of Southern England had US/British/Commonwealth troops as well as dumps, communications, logistics, ect. In short, it was not an accurate weapon but it really didn't have to be. Get it somewhere close to the embarcation spot and you're going to do some damage. Also keep in mind there were 6,000 ships in the invasion.

A decent idea of how effective (or ineffective) it might've been would be the bombardment of Antwerpt in 1945. By then, the defenses had been figured out but it still did a good bit of damage.

Lastly, my point was not that it was a good way to bombard the ports but more that it was better than bombarding London which was pretty much irrelevent to the war effort (although the people of London might think otherwise) and more of a terror target than a viable target. The return on hitting invasion ports (or the Normandy beaches) would've been much better.


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## davebender (Jun 2, 2010)

I can think of lots of weapons and military campaigns which contributed little to the war yet cost a lot more then V1s.
- Most battleships.
- RAF Bomber Command prior to 1944.
- U.S. 8th Air Force prior to 1944.
- The huge sums of money poured into Alaska.
- The conquest of Italy north of Naples and the Fogia airfield complex.
- The conquest of Italian East Africa.
- The conquest of Mozambique.
- The conquest of the Philippines south of Luzon.
- The conquest of New Guinea.
- The re-conquest of Burma by Britain.
- Developing the Jumo 222 engine.
- The Type XXI submarine program.

V1s were a military bargain.


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## Glider (Jun 2, 2010)

I admit that the V1 was probably worth the cost, it was cheap, easy to produce and tied down a lot of resources, but the effort spent on the V2 was a waste of money.


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## Njaco (Jun 2, 2010)

fastmongrel, I have to search through my stuff for resources. I grabbed that from the ETO thread which I compiled several months ago. And that was for both the V1 and V2.


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## davebender (Jun 3, 2010)

I agree. The V2 cost far too much to develop and build for the relatively small amount of explosives it dumped on the enemy.


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