1930s British modern fighters.

Back on thread...
The Hurricane was not as 'modern' as the Spitfire or some of the others already mentioned.
But, it was a steady gun platform,strong easy to repair, undemanding to fly, performed well enough, was well armed for the time and with its wide undercarriage easier to land on grass airfields.
I think that counted for a great deal in the real world.
Cheers
John

Readie said:

All my family are southern English
Which means that we are French if you go back far enough...
Cheers
John

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We are all African if you go back far enough

fastmongrel said:

We are all African if you go back far enough

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Umm...I can prove the Northern French / Dane link in my family, the rest is subjective.

The history of Britain is fascinating, whether you of Celt or Anglo Saxon origin its worth the effort to track ancestry.

My Australian friends love to pull my leg about 'poms' but, they have English grandparents parents. Its only taken 40 years for them to admit this....

Anyway...back to the aircraft...

Cheers
John

All aircraft are a balance, the smaller the aircraft the finer the balance. The Venom may have cut things a bit too fine. The Aquila engine, while offering good power for it's size, was a hot rodded sleeve valve WASP JR in size. Starting several hundred horsepower behind the Mercury it was never going to catch up. The Venom may have been too small to easily re-engine with larger, heavier engines.
In 1938 2000hp engines were on drawing boards and parts were in pattern rooms or experimental shops. 1300-1500hp engines were running in test cells. Putting a lot of time/effort into 800-900 engines and fighters to get small improvements wasn't worthwhile.

Readie said:

Umm...I can prove the Northern French / Dane link in my family, the rest is subjective.


Cheers
John

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No the African bit is science Mitochondrial DNA which is passed down the female side shows we are all linked in some way to 1 woman (or more likely a group of closely related women) in East Africa approx 200,000 years ago known as Mitochondrial Eve. When any rascist idiot starts banging on about racial groupings its a good riposte to point out that we all come from the same root. Usually stops the morons for a bit while they get there tiny brains round the big words

I can't believe I actually logged onto this thread and had to read the above tripe....Hey, can you come to my neighborhood and explain to your better half what the purpose of a garbage pail lid is?

Please contain to the topic.

Its important to remember in examining the performance of the Venom, F.5 and similar aircraft that the results were generally achieved in private testing and were done largely without military equipment.

With the fitting of items such as armour, self-sealing fuel tanks, armament and necessary ancillaries, IFF equipment, military radio transcievers and the like, performance will suffer.

In the Hurricane and Spitfire, this added between 600 and 800 lbs to total weight, which degraded performance. The Spitfire lost something like 12-15 mph thanks to all the extra equipment.

:When any rascist idiot starts banging on about racial groupings its a good riposte to point out that we all come from the same root. Usually stops the morons for a bit while they get there tiny brains round the big words [/QUOTE]

Well said

Jabberwocky said:

In the Hurricane and Spitfire, this added between 600 and 800 lbs to total weight, which degraded performance. The Spitfire lost something like 12-15 mph thanks to all the extra equipment.

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And the smaller/lighter the plane the more it will suffer. With pilots being, for the most part, un-shrinkable the armor and bullet proof windscreen can't be shrunk. While the smaller fuel tanks for the smaller engines maybe able to be provided with protection for less weight you still have a short radius/endurance plane. The Spitfire had a fair amount of 'stretch' in it. A smaller plane may not have had the same amount.

There is no doubt that the Merlin powered fighters were the top pick, though I have some thoughts as to how production limitations, both in the late 30's and early war period to the end of 1942, were viewed by Lord Beaverbrook's minions when planning an air arm that depended on this liquid cooled device not only for fighters but four-engined bombers as well. What would be the definitive source of Merlin production data?

I'd like to expand on my post 9 of this thread. I'd stated that I would have liked to have seen some of Blackburn Aviations radial engined single engined aircraft maintained in production, even if only on a limited basis. That Blackburn and its major subcontractor, Boulton-Paul, were not afforded consideration for design production may be due to the failure of the BEF missions early on. It isn't the successes that stuck in the minds of the British leadership, like some of the Norway events, it was the failures such as the Aachen raid. I mention that the Royal Navy pulled aviation sections from cruisers and capital vessels, supposing that all support could be provided by land-based aviation. This occured in December of 1941, all of the aviation sections removed from the ships in a day. I consider this one of the errors of World War II.

In early 1942 the Japanese wished to consolidate their holdings in Malaysia. A task force was assembled to carry out Operation C, the consolidation of the Western flank of Japanese expansion. Admiral Nogumo's job was to attack allied shipping and challenge naval force in those waters adjoining Malaysia to the Indian Ocean. No further invasion was ordered,no more land to be taken. The fact that RN ships, sent to the area hastily apon the Malaysian invasion, were stripped of their aviation capability led to the sinking of several by Vals and the unchallenged sinking of 30 merchant vessels. I can cite several other events where the products of Blackburn or one of the other smaller production facilities would have been a welcome sight in the sky to a sailor.

You mention the 'stretch' of the Spitfire. I've noticed this in several other aircraft of the period, called on to soldier-on with an increased payload. This seems to have put the spur to increased engine power output, the number of hours one could expect from a powerplant's useful life decreasing rapidly. I believe the Blackburn effort could have been 'stretched' for the mission at hand, though with the constraits of a radial engine. Regards

I am not sure which Blackburn products you are referring to. The Roc was a lost cause from day one. Sticking floats on it just made things worse. Watching your own aircraft come down in flames would only be a welcome sight to a sailor as he thought "thank god that wasn't me!"
Catapult aircraft from Battleships and Cruisers were for reconnaissance and/or spotting for long range fire. They were never intended for fleet defense nor were they capable of fleet defense against all but the most feeble of enemies.
British Catapult planes in 1939-42 were little more than targets against land based aircraft and their installation aboard ship took up room and top weight that was better spent on other things (like increased AA armament), not to mention the increase vulnerability due to fuel and oil stores.
Perhaps a dedicated float fighter or even a few catapult launched Hurricanes might have helped but the first option has a lot of problems and the second, while effective against lone FW 200s, wasn't really going to work against multi squadron strength attacks.

The British radials (Mercury, Pegasus, Perseus) while good engines in their day were simply too small (83% of a Cyclone for the Mercury and Perseus) to give the needed performance. The Taurus was too small, too late in timing and didn't work well when it did show up. That leaves the Hercules, and at about 1/2 ton heavier than a Perseus (installed weight, not dry), sticking it an existing single engine airframe is not going to be a quick or easy task.

I am not sure the Float Rocs were even stressed for catapult launch. It could have been done but it would have reduced the pitiful performance even more without a major engine upgrade.

I understand the compromise of using the existing production might not have been a pretty one as far as results go, but having anything in the air that could train a weapon over a friendly Allied naval force was noticable by its absence on many occasions.

The Fuel danger aboard ship was one of the reasons cited by the Admiralty for the rapid deletion of the aviation divisions.

Some of the same vessels who were shorn of aviation became casualties to Vals, not an aircraft known for stellar performance.
I appreciate your arguments, Shortround, but I'd have upgraded from the Supermarine Walrus to some of the lesser known and loved monoplane designs and took the fuel and performance debits in order to have some coverage on the spot. The losses in naval crewmen were horrendous, a situation that, in hindsight, could have been ameliorated by the presence of dedicated airborne defense.

The first naval air victory of WWII for the Royal Navy was to a Blackburn aircraft, albeit a clunky reconaissance biplane. The lesser known planes did sink shipping during the Norwegian campaign, though at loss that set the leadership back a step. Certainly some developement of the single engined monoplanes could have been achieved before the early spring of 1942 when they really became a requirement.

You mention the engines available with clarity. Where would one find production records of the Rolls-Royce Merlin? What's the definitive source? Regards

There are interesting hypothetical arguments above but given the situation of Britain in 1940/1 there are a clear practical and economic advantages to manufacturing one type of engine and fitting it to as many aircraft as possible.The proviso is that the engine is good enough and the Merlin was. Disparate and competing weapons programmes were a problem that bedevilled the German war economy throughout the war. They makes "luft '46" fun though!
Steve

Would you care to provide a source for the first kill by"clunky reconaissance biplane"?

Most histories say

"Just over a week later, on 26 September 1939 a Skua of 803 squadron of HMS Ark Royal piloted by Lt BS McEwen and PO BM Seymour, along with another piloted by Lt CLG Evans and Lt WA Robertson, shot down the first enemy aircraft of the war, a German Do18 which fell in the sea, its crew subsequently being picked up by HMS Somali."

The Skua being a monoplane with 4 fixed forward firing guns and a speed of 225mph. The Do 18 being a twin engined (diesel) flying boat with a top speed closer to 160mph. The early Vals were good for close to 240mph at 3,000meters and twin fixed guns of their own. Hanging floats on the Skua would knock a good 20mph off the speed and slow the climb by a fair amount. The Skua, being a dive bomber, was responsible for sinking the German cruiser Koenigsberg.
But this like claiming you can put floats under an early Dauntless dive bomber and use it to defend against land based fighters/bombers. Even a dozen float equipped Hurricanes would have been hard pressed to defend the Prince of Wales and Repulse and considering that the ships had to slow down or even stop to hoist the planes back aboard meant that float planes were not looked on with favor with submarines about.

William Green mentions the Skua/Dornier engagement. It is also fare on Wikipedia's overview of Blackburn Aviation, as well as the page specific to the Roc/Skua development. There was an operational report website containing all the reports of the RAF/RNAS that was pulled form the internet in the interest of making money from the information. Yes, I consider Dornier's DO-18 a clunker, less than desirable.

I can't agree with your statements regarding the Prince of Wales/Repulse attack. Given the type of aircraft comprising the attacking force the major operational problem would be gaining altitude in time to challenge the attack.

Shortround, you have mentioned several obvious debits to floatplane operations that were mentioned by the UK Admiralty in orders for removal. The fact remains that what occured due to the removal of the aviation divisions from the vessels of the fleet removed the possibility of disaster and made it a certainty.

Regards

Rivet said:

I can't agree with your statements regarding the Prince of Wales/Repulse attack. Given the type of aircraft comprising the attacking force the major operational problem would be gaining altitude in time to challenge the attack.

Shortround, you have mentioned several obvious debits to floatplane operations that were mentioned by the UK Admiralty in orders for removal. The fact remains that what occured due to the removal of the aviation divisions from the vessels of the fleet removed the possibility of disaster and made it a certainty.

Regards

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What planes were removed historically? Walruses and Seafoxes? I have no idea how they could have prevented Nells from attacking let alone Vals and Betty's. The fact is that aside from going down heroically a few minutes before their parent ships such planes could do nothing to stop or even hinder planes that were 100-130mph faster than they were. It is not a question of any aircraft being better than no aircraft unless you also believe that a baseball cap can offer partial head protection in a motorcycle crash compared to a real helmet.
The Do 18 was at least as well armed as either British plane and 30-40mph faster.
The Japanese used over 70 twin engined bombers in the attacks on the Prince of Wales and Repulse and were reading another strike when the report came in that they were sunk. While a handful of float equipped Hurricanes might have made the Japanese pay a higher price than they did (four aircraft lost?) I doubt it would have changed the outcome.

Rivet said:

I can't agree with your statements regarding the Prince of Wales/Repulse attack. Given the type of aircraft comprising the attacking force the major operational problem would be gaining altitude in time to challenge the attack.

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Wouldn't having a seviceable vessel with the capability to carry and maintain enough aircraft to make the slightest difference to the Japanese attack have been more of a problem? It certainly was in December 1941. Force Z comprised the two capital ships and four destroyers.Where were these hypothetical aircraft going to come from?
I know the thread is about the aircraft but there is a far bigger picture. Britain was still fighting for her life and I don't think naval aviation was high on the agenda. When your towns and cities are being bombed and thousands of your civilians being killed and wounded,the emphasis is going to be on producing and developing the land based interceptors needed to try to prevent that.
My father was a FAA officer and was really angry at the loss of ships during the Falklands conflict. He served at a time when the Royal Navy was still able to provide air cover for its task forces. The best efforts of the handful of aircraft we had in the South Atlantic could not prevent those losses. The lessons learnt the hard way during WWII had,he thought,been forgotten. I shudder to think what he would think of a Royal Navy with no carriers at all,had he lived to see such a sorry state of affairs.
Steve

Whilst I agree with earlier posts re: the Merlin (well I would with my username) i.e. any combination of radial engined fighters from the 30s instead of the Hurricane Spitfire would have been disastrous in the BoB; I do think that an aircraft such as the Gloster F.5/34 woulld still have made a useful contribution - 'Empire fighter'. Think of it instead of the Gladiator in North-Africa, and surely better than the Buffalo!

stona said:

Wouldn't having a seviceable vessel with the capability to carry and maintain enough aircraft to make the slightest difference to the Japanese attack have been more of a problem? It certainly was in December 1941. Force Z comprised the two capital ships and four destroyers.Where were these hypothetical aircraft going to come from?

Steve

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I believe a carrier was supposed to have been included but it ran aground while working up (training) of Bermuda and was delayed for repairs?

merlin said:

Whilst I agree with earlier posts re: the Merlin (well I would with my username) i.e. any combination of radial engined fighters from the 30s instead of the Hurricane Spitfire would have been disastrous in the BoB; I do think that an aircraft such as the Gloster F.5/34 woulld still have made a useful contribution - 'Empire fighter'. Think of it instead of the Gladiator in North-Africa, and surely better than the Buffalo!

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The Gloster F.5/34 was 3-4 years later in timing than the Gladiator. Gladiator was going into squadron use in Jan 1937 while the F.5/34 didn't even fly for the first time until Dec of 1937. Perhaps more effort could have been put into getting it going a bit sooner but about the best you could hope for was first squadron going into service in the summer/fall of 1939.
As far as being better than the Buffalo,???

Prototype F.5/34 used an engine with 100 less HP than an early Buffalo, could do 316mph at 16,000ft compared to the Buffalo's 311mph at 18,000ft. The planes had similar ceilings and weighed within a few hundred pounds of each other. Neither plane had armor or self sealing tanks. Later Buffalo's gained a considerable amount of weight but had engines of 1100-1200hp instead of the original 940-950hp engines. If the F.5/34 had entered service there is little doubt it would have gained weight although likely not as much as the Buffalo (US Navy spec'd a ridiculous amount of ammo) but the British 9 cylinder engines didn't have the growth potential of the Cyclone without major redesign/rework. A 950-1000hp engine in a 6,000lb plane is not going to cut it.