Glider
Captain
I read somewhere a line that described the Seafire as Just About Good Enough as a naval fighter which is a pretty fair statement. Its true that the FAA were keener on the Hellcat and Corsiar.
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Timmy, if one checks the record, the F4F Wildcat had much more success in the Pacific in 1942 than did the Spitfire. There may have been reasons for that other than the performance of the Spitfire but the fact remains that, based on results, the Spitfire was not as good a fighter as the F4F in 1942, early 1943, in the Pacific.
The USN and IMO correctly, was prejudiced against liquid cooled engines for reliability reasons. In Shores' books, time and time again British fighters were U/S because of glycol leaks and were brought down by minor damage. In fact the Japanese were said to, being aware of the cooling system vulnerability of the liquid cooled engines, have specifically aimed at the areas where cooling system damage would disable the British fighters.
The Seafire offered no substantial performance advantage over the A6M and, in several areas, was significantly inferior to the Zeke. This was not true in comparison to the Hellcat and Corsair. In fact in many respects, the Seafire was inferior to the Wildcat (Martlet.) If the Allies had to depend on a prewar design for it's carrier fighter, the Pacific War would have been lengthened if that design was the Spitfire. Every modification to the Spitfire to make it more suitable as a shipboard fighter robbed it of some of the characteristics which made it a great design. The last model of the Wildcat, the F2M, was a pretty good airplane and soldiered on through the whole war both in the PTO and ETO.
Whether or not the Spitfire did poorly against the Zeke in 42 or 43 is beside the point as it did not do as well as the F4F did in 1942 and early 43.
According to Eric Brown who was well acquainted with the Spitfire and Seafire, the Seafire was not a good carrier plane because it was not robust enough, did not have good slow speed handling characteristics and acted like a submarine in a ditching. It was quite often U/S because of it's fragility and poor deck landing abilities. If it can't fly it is of no use.
Whether or not the Spitfire did poorly against the Zeke in 42 or 43 is beside the point as it did not do as well as the F4F did in 1942 and early 43.
According to Eric Brown who was well acquainted with the Spitfire and Seafire, the Seafire was not a good carrier plane because it was not robust enough, did not have good slow speed handling characteristics and acted like a submarine in a ditching. It was quite often U/S because of it's fragility and poor deck landing abilities. If it can't fly it is of no use.
The Seafires weaknesses are the narrow track undercarriage...range...not robust enough...ditching qualities...
Just what you need at sea.
The HurricaneI am surprised that the Hurricane wasn't developed more for carrier operations addressing performance and range issues, it had a wide track and robust construction. Maybe they had enough on their plate as it was
The Hurricane
went through its development life cycle being equipped with successively more powerful versions of the Merlin. Unfortunately, with structural changes it kept getting heavier too so never really ended up being meaningfully any faster than the original Mk I and I'm not talking solely about performance at altitude.
How would the range issue be resolved unless we're talking about drop tanks and if we are, what capacity drop tanks before the Hurricane stops being able to depart the flight deck? Even if it still can, it's going to fly further than it normally does and - not drop anything on anyone. Alot of risk and distance just to beat someone's airstrip up with your machine guns...
Hurricanes and Spitfires were designed as interceptors, nobody envisaged traversing large expanses of ocean.
By 1942-43 the Hurricane was a museum piece that got work doing North African ground attack. It also got work on CAM ships because it was just the disposable fighter they needed.
Did Britain consider a more comprehensive CV conversion of the Spitfire like Germany did with the Me-109? I'm referring to a completely new wing with wide track landing gear and lower stall speed.
That would be the Seafang, the naval version of the Spiteful.
The Hurricane
went through its development life cycle being equipped with successively more powerful versions of the Merlin. Unfortunately, with structural changes it kept getting heavier too so never really ended up being meaningfully any faster than the original Mk I and I'm not talking solely about performance at altitude.
How would the range issue be resolved unless we're talking about drop tanks and if we are, what capacity drop tanks before the Hurricane stops being able to depart the flight deck? Even if it still can, it's going to fly further than it normally does and - not drop anything on anyone. Alot of risk and distance just to beat someone's airstrip up with your machine guns...
Hurricanes and Spitfires were designed as interceptors, nobody envisaged traversing large expanses of ocean.
By 1942-43 the Hurricane was a museum piece that got work doing North African ground, attack. It also got work on CAM ships because it was just the disposable fighter they needed.
Making the Spitfire into a naval fighter was a case of best effort. The FAA was a very poor relation and made do. I am not saying it was rubbish...but it wasnt good either...just best of a bad situation.
Hurricane was already obsolete by 1940.... .
The statement was in one of Timmy's posts that the Allies had only one good fighter, the Spitfire, until 1943. My post in reply to that was that the F4F pretty much fought the A6M to a draw in 1942 and early 1943, before the Corsair and Hellcat got to the Pacific to give the Allies a clear advantage over the Zeke. Based on that record and the later experiece that the Spitfires had in the Pacific and the CBI with the A6M, the statement about the Allies having only one good fighter until 1943 was in error, IMO.
I never mentioned anything about the Seafire and Zekes. From "Duels in the Sky" by Eric Brown, page 114. "It was in the critical area of deck landing that the Sea Fire had significant shortcomings. The view on approach was poor. Speed control was difficult because the airplane was underflapped and too clean aerodynamically. Furthermore, landing gear had too high a rebound ratio and was not robust enough to withstand the high vertical velocities of deck landing." " The Seafire's performance fell below that of the land based Spitfire because navalisation incurred the penalties of weight and drag. Never designed for shipboard use the Seafire was difficult to deck land and it acted like a submarine when ditched."
Page 211, " The Seafire, the shipboard version of the Spitfire, was extensively used in the Med and in the later stages of the war on a limited scale in the Far East, but it's short range limited it to the CAP role. Unfortunately, it's deck landing disadvantages probably resulted in more operational losses than combat successes."
My summing up- The Seafire was too fragile, too short ranged, did not have much or any performance advantage over first class opposition and had many deck landing problems which decreased the number of fighters available for operations. It could not remain on CAP very long because it ran out of fuel and it could not escort Vbs or Vts. It was obviously better than nothing but the F4F(Martlet) was more effective as a shipboard fighter.
If USN pilots were achieving 6.9:1 in an aircraft outclassed by the Zeke in every performance category bar armour and dive, their excellence is, for me, implied...the F4F Wildcat
Was it a great carrier fighter? In the end its combat record stood at 6.9:1 for the entire war
The Allies only carrier-friendly aircraft was said to be outclassed by the Zeke in every performance
category, climb, speed and range.The only advantages it had were armour and in a dive.
To back that argument the F6F Hellcat while a good naval fighter, I don't think it was that much better
to warrant a 13:1 combat record against the Zeke
U.S pilot training should get some credit
DaveWhat about all the U.S. Army Air Corps aircraft that supported Gen MacArthur's offensive to re-take New Guinea and the Philippines? Probably quite a few Australian aircraft also. I suspect Gen MacArthur's air force flew a lot more sorties against Japan then CV based USN aircraft.