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Agree...All other things being equal, aircraft-for-aircraft, I entirely agree. How you'd get Wildcats to Britain and sustain them operationally in sufficient numbers to replace the Hurricane remain knotty problems that are far more difficult to resolve.
Why not choose the P-36 instead?
Remember...some people in the Air ministry were thinking the Spitfire was obsolete so buying in bulk a lesser machine would be nutty.
Just wait until the Whirlwind comes...20mm cannon and lots of speed.
My source is a landmark new book ("The Battle of France Then and Now") that has details of almost every loss in every AF involved in the BoF period, including also Britain based Fighter Command units in the same period, with details, so it only includes air combat losses of Hurricanes to 109's and vice versa, counted up in the book. That said I realize I mistyped my own notes then calced wrong ratio in the last post, its' 151 Hurricane and 74 Bf109's not 171 and 54, sorry about that. Hurricanes downed 37 Bf110's v 63 Hurricanes lost to 110's. And again ratio's later on as at Malta and Western Desert were less favorable for Hurricane, sometimes worse than the Hurricane did in the Far East. So it's not clear to me the Far East situation was so completely special, and I think the F4F' far better record there should probably factor in somewhat in estimating its possible outcome v Bf109E's, as should the Hawk's relatively good record v 109 in BoF 23:38 in BoF. The Spitfire's record v 109 in BoF period was 24:32, D520's 14:30, for further comparative reference.The vast majority of Hurricanes were lost on the ground when their bases were overrun. Aerial combat losses were not 171 and of the Hurricanes lost on air operations many were lost to bomber gunners, ground fire and some to Me-110s.
Why not choose the P-36 instead? Remember...some people in the Air ministry were thinking the Spitfire was obsolete so buying in bulk a lesser machine would be nutty. Just wait until the Whirlwind comes...20mm cannon and lots of speed.
Even throw a radial into play and as long as you're not trying to rebuild engines at the squadron level, the process to remove, replace and rig a radial could be no more or less complicated than doing it on an inline engine, in fact with an inline you have another system (coolant) to worry about in the day to day maintenance.
Shame also our US cousins sent over Castrated P38s [no superchargers] - Decent P38s with handed-engines, and decenc cockpit heaters, would have been a major contribution during the BoB I think.
There was a bit more to the Whirlwind story than the powerplant, a little procrastination from Westland and a lot of unreasonable requirements and behaviour from the Air Ministry.The Whirlwind was another "could-a should-a" IMHO, just failed for want of a decent engine (or rather the availability of a decent engine i.e. the Merlin).
Shame also our US cousins sent over castrated P38s [no superchargers] - Decent P38s with handed-engines, and decenc cockpit heaters, would have been a major contribution during the BoB I think.
Actually I think if a reliable 20mm had been around during the BoB for the Hurricane then LW bombers would have just blown up mostly, as they did later on when attacked by Beaufighters.
Note : If the Hurricane was so dismal as we seem to be saying in this thread, then why was it produced until 44/45 ? Ground-attack?
Of course the RAF had Radial engines too - Lots of them
So most Erks would have potentially been exposed to maintaining radials on planes like Blenheims, Gladiators, Wimpeys
Also US vs Imperial Gallons - 1 US gallon = 0.833 Imperial gallons (rounded to 3 figs)
So, even there, not such a biggy maybe ? If you put in 2 Imp Galls instead of 2 US Galls, it would actually be slightly over-filled not under filled. Oil up a few plugs maybe ? maybe not, just burn off the excess.
We can only speculate at what was going on at Burbank with the Lightning I. The best rumour seems to be along the lines of Gen Arnold looking for a way to get the Lightning into serial production with a big order for the RAF, whom he 'let off the hook' further down the line if the RAF didn't want them. On paper at least, the RAF order accelerated the P-38 program by 5 months, the USAAF ordering 673 machines in August 1940.
Hap was a creative boy when it came to forming his air force, heard he turned a few tricks to get the B-17 program up and running too.Heard the same as well....
That comment was made with regards to the RAF operating US Equipment
Not really - depending on the engine you would have to drain the excess oil if you over service the engine. If not you could blow out the excess oil through breather tubes or even build up pressures within the engine that could rupture seals.
Read the original post - there was never anything said about the British operating radials in general, it had to do with operating "US" equipment...OK to answer your 2 points :-
1. My comment was made in response to yours regarding radial engines, in other words the RAF had experience of air-cooled radials already albeit mostly British ones (not all though - Wright engines did make their way over the Atlantic in the 30s and not just courtesy of Mr Lindbergh esquire).
Flyboy,
I probably over-stated the impact of that particular point. I wasn't stating that the RAF couldn't and didn't operate US-built aircraft with success, merely that differences in measurement systems could have introduced additional logistic factors that are not present if all aircraft are from the same country of origin. The Battle of Britain was perhaps unique in that a nation's entire defence rested upon an individual Command within single Armed Service. Under these conditions, where aircraft availability and speed of turnaround were of paramount importance, any major difference between fighter aircraft could have impacted operational efficiency, particularly where different types had to operate side-by-side on an airfield. As the RAF expanded rapidly in the late 1930s, they were able to raise a new generation of groundcrew for fighters on the understanding that virtually all of them would support aircraft powered by Merlin engines (Hurricanes, Spitfires and Defiants). This drastically reduced training time and increased efficiency. This would not have been the case had the majority of Fighter Command been equipped with a radial-engined type.
Sorry for overstating but I think it still had an impact.
Cheers
Mark
Mark - I understand your point, however comparing most of the fighters of the period, you'll find that most of them had very similar features with regards to line operations and maintenance. IMO if you had a maintainer with some experience working Spits, the transition to say a P-40 would not be too great. Even throw a radial into play and as long as you're not trying to rebuild engines at the squadron level, the process to remove, replace and rig a radial could be no more or less complicated than doing it on an inline engine, in fact with an inline you have another system (coolant) to worry about in the day to day maintenance. Now to introduce a "switch" in the middle of a major campaign can bring some problems, especially in troubleshooting systems problems.
OK point made. The issue here is there were reported maintenance errors based on the difference between the US and UK system.2. There was a point made earlier that could be read to say that US Gals were half Imperial Gallons - but actually it was not 50% - actually nearer to 83%
There was a bit more to the Whirlwind story than the powerplant, a little procrastination from Westland and a lot of unreasonable requirements and behaviour from the Air Ministry.
We can only speculate at what was going on at Burbank with the Lightning I. The best rumour seems to be along the lines of Gen Arnold looking for a way to get the Lightning into serial production with a big order for the RAF, whom he 'let off the hook' further down the line if the RAF didn't want them. On paper at least, the RAF order accelerated the P-38 program by 5 months, the USAAF ordering 673 machines in August 1940.
The Hispano 20mm wasn't inherently unreliable, it simply hadn't been created with life in the wing of an aeroplane in mind, it was normally engine-mounted. The flexure of the wing during high-g combat manoeuvres frequently jammed the weapon.
I don't believe anyone is calling the Hurricane dismal, it is a reasonably informed debate over which would have proven the better machine during the Battle of Britain. It was still in production during the dates you specify but another way of looking at it is that it was relegated to ground-attack duties during those dates; its days as a front-line fighter were over at the close of the Battle.
3. The figures quoted on this thread for the Hurricane do not make great reading do they ? It could not even achieve parity against the 109E could it - if the Stats are to be believed, and I do not see any reason to doubt their veracity with certain limits of error.
Read the original post - there was never anything said about the British operating radials in general, it had to do with operating "US" equipment... .
I also think one must explore how many bombers the Hurricane brought down, to me that was its real mission during the BoB and if we hypothetically inserted the Wildcat into the Hurricane's mission during the BoB, that would have been its mission as well.
Well when I read the exchanges they seemed to suggest that the ground crew were schooled to work with a glycol cooled inline engines - the Merlin particular. This was not your suggestion by the way. See below for quote from Mark :-
" As the RAF expanded rapidly in the late 1930s, they were able to raise a new generation of groundcrew for fighters on the understanding that virtually all of them would support aircraft powered by Merlin engines (Hurricanes, Spitfires and Defiants). This drastically reduced training time and increased efficiency. This would not have been the case had the majority of Fighter Command been equipped with a radial-engined type. Sorry for overstating but I think it still had an impact. Cheers Mark "
Radials would have caused confusion, was the suggestion in part - I was merely pointing out that the RAF had air-cooled radials in service too, at that time. Quite a lot of them, including Fighter Command not just Bomber or Transport types.
I agree with you that US or not US was not really such a deal.
I know my Dad had a set of US Standard pre-war tools for many years - My mother GAVE them away when he died[shame]
Radials would have caused confusion, was the suggestion in part