Colin1
Senior Master Sergeant
Nobody's keeping you here...
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Nobody's keeping you here...Now can we stop flogging this well-dead horse (it's starting to hurt!)?
1.
What do you mean by 'due to deployment' ?
FBJ, I think you have been misreading Cromwells points about the radial, he has been agreeing with you all the way buddy
I think it was Buffnut who said that having all Merlins in fighter command was easier and it would have complicated things having radials too, Cromwell is saying 'no it wouldn't, they already had them anyway'. Hope that helps.
Pinsog made some great points, especially about competency of mechanics, except for one thing. Range was never an issue for the RAF during the BoB, the existing fighters could have been brought into the battle from anywhere in England if required. The fact that they were not was out of choice and a great source of frustration for the commanders of those other fighter groups.
From what I have read the 50 cal was jamming quite a lot in 1940. Given that the Spitfire pilots who had cannon armed Spitfires begged for their 303's back due to frequent jamming, why should we assume that the Wildcats point 50's would be any different? Jammed guns are no good at all and definitely inferior to a working 303.
In any case I think that argument is a bit of a red herring anyway regarding the Wildcat as the RAF's chose to go from the 303 straight to the 20mm cannon, so Wildcats orderd for the RAF would have been fitted with 303's anyway imo and therefore been no different to the Hurri in firepower.
Notwithstanding my earlier post regarding the point that they would not have been operational anyway.
*though one German mistake was not to realize that sooner. Aiming to protect bombers per se with close escort only is unsound strategy, unless the bombers can achieve their goal in very few missions (like say against a few irreplaceable ships). Otherwise the escorts can almost always accomplish more by acting offensively v the interceptors seking to destroy them and/or disrupt their operations. Everybody realized that eventually, but some escorts were less capable of it because of range restrictions, especially.
Joe
Lundstrom says the USN was the only one to be abe to use full deflection shooting(90°angle), the IJN pilots struggled with a 45° degree angle and smaller angle must have been possible with fighters like the P-40 and Me109 but the smaller the angle the bigger the chance of being hit by counterfire is.
Regarding the jamming of cal.50 machine guns; it happened ... very briefly. Before the war the magazines were never fully loaded, when they were for the first time the -now much heavier- ammo belt shifted and the guns jammed. The defect was identified and fixed in no time.
Umm, well, thanksDeployment was (from www.Freedictionary.com)
If you watch the 1969 (please check) film 'Battle of Britain' it shows a scene wherein Goering castigates his Fighter pilots for not sticking closer to the Bombers and orders them to do so.
Its a film, but I think it matches what Len Deighton also says in his book about the BoB quite closely.
So, it might have been the fault of Goering who restricted the freedom of the fighters. God Bless him.
BTW cracking film, Caine, Howard, McShane and Olivier all in one cast
2. May have been? It was.
The Hispano suffered no show-stopper problems that I can trace whilst in operational service mounted on the engine. 19 Sqn (Spitfires) had half a dozen cannon-armed Spitfires during the Battle; these were returned in short order as they were plagued with jamming issues. By the time belt-feed cannons were being installed, the jamming issues had been resolved.
You don't need a vote of confidenceNo they aren't, but if people actually read posts others place we'd spend much less time going over things that have already been resolved.
Thanks for your sympathetic vote of confidence (and, yes, I do know where sympathy comes in the dictionary)
You can teach MONKEYS to fly better than that!
Spring-chicken to Shitehawk in one easy lesson.
Sticky undercarriage lever was it, Sir?
Yes, actually, it was.
Well I wouldn't tell the CO that, Sir. Not if I were you.
Takka, takka, takka, takka, takka!
Umm, well, thanks
I know what deployment means, I was wondering what you meant wrt Fighter Command; so what do you think was wrong with their deployment and what would you have seen done differently?
"Shitehawk" ! - I am sitting here sniggering to myself, and it takes a lot I can tell you ! There was also a bit about don't do victory rolls or you will end up spread over the fleld like strawberry jam.
Wasn't one of the CO / squadron leaders called Colin ? (the chap with the rather decourous blond wife who got upset when she found out he had a bit of a burn-up)
... is this just a coincidence or is there something going on here ?
Markus, can you please say WHY fighters like the P-40 and Me109 could only shoot at smaller angles of deflection? The USN was NOT "the only one able to use full deflection shooting". Anyone can do it - the USN may have expended more training than other air forces in that particular tactic but they certainly were not the only ones who could do it. You make it sound like it's something "extra special" when, in reality, it was used by all air forces.
O'Hare's wingman at Midway suffered a complete gun failure because of this problem. That was 6 months after America's entry into the war. Hardly "fixed in no time".
Yes, we're both thinking about Susannah York in the bedroom scene!!!!
Now can we stop flogging this well-dead horse (it's starting to hurt!)?
Humbly.....
Everyone's got to have a hobby...luckily, mine is making model aircraft!